by James Axler
"They hadn't paid the tolls, had they, Ferryman? Was that it?"
"Yes, Baron."
The Trader cleared his throat. "Folks paid a mighty high price for walking from some tolls, Baron. Plenty of them fell into the dark. Burned wags. High price, Baron."
"Come within a hundred miles of Towse ville, and cross me or cross any of the boys that work for me, and you can find yourself paying a high kind of price, too."
The Trader stood, the palms of his hands flat on the tabletop. "Conversation like this could lead to some real serious misunderstandings, Baron," he said quietly. "Best keep to the business. When can you let us have the gas we want?"
Carson remained seated. "Take a few days. When's the next delivery of gas-wags coming in, Ferryman? Four, five days?"
Once again, Ryan felt that the sec-boss was simply acting as a mouthpiece for the baron, nodding his agreement to the suggestions, which tended to point toward some kind of trickery on the part of Alias Carson.
Then again, it was a common enough saying throughout the Deathlands that if you wanted to talk about something that was rotten or untrustworthy or potentially dangerous, you'd say that it was "Good as a baron's promise."
Now everyone was standing except for Sharona Carson, who was wiping her mouth with one of the embroidered damask table napkins.
"Four or five days, then," the Trader said. "I'll get our quartermaster to do some buying of food and supplies while we're here. How about water?"
"You can drink from the river that flows through the middle of the ville," Ferryman suggested. "If you want to get a bloody flux."
The Trader nodded. "So we'll buy water off you, as well."
Baron Carson shook his head. "No, Trader. While you're here, the water comes free. Man should be ready to step aside a little for a friend."
"Thanks." The Trader looked at J.B. and Ryan. "Time t'move back. We thank you for the meal. Not like nothing I ever seen before. Start doing the trading in the morning."
The gray monotonous voice drawled, "Good to have company. Heard a lot of words about the Trader."
Ferryman nodded to them all. "You want anything or you got a problem… you come to me. Anyone knows where to find me."
Finally Sharona got to her feet, smiling at the three men. "It's been an evening of greater pleasure than I had thought. It more than came up to my expectations."
The word "up" had the faintest, most subtle emphasis, and she looked directly at Ryan as she spoke.
As they walked away from the heavily guarded main building of Towse ville, the Trader turned to Ryan and slapped him on the shoulder. He grinned broadly, his teeth white in the sliver of moonlight.
"That lady can be banged," he said.
The two war wags always needed some kind of attention. Since they were closing in on a hundred years old, it wasn't that surprising that they were constantly malfunctioning. The bearing would go in an axle, or the gears would begin to disintegrate. Whenever the Trader ordered a stop in a ville that had some sort of workshops, the engineers would pester him for requisitions for parts and labor.
Dexter wanted time on a big steam-powered lathe to repair the main doors to War Wag Two. War Wag One had been having difficulties with its radio, so Cohn wandered around Towse until he found a store offering all manner of com-parts.
As war captain, Ryan never had too much to do when they were located in a ville, even one that was as potentially hostile as Towse.
Once a rotation of guards had been established, the shifts ran themselves like clockwork. All members of the crews took their parts, two hours on and then ten hours off. That was the way that the Trader ordered it.
Ryan decided that he might as well explore the ville.
The sky was overcast, with the sun veiled behind endless banks of dark clouds. There were no shadows, just a gloom that settled over the adobe buildings of the ville.
On an impulse, Ryan wandered into the ruins of the old church. The splintered remnants of what had once been rows of wooden pews were scattered about. All the windows were shattered, and where the altar had once stood was the bent shell of an old television set. The roof had been partly destroyed by fire, and the charred beams sank into the clay walls. Someone had scrawled something on the one wall, using a burned length of wood, but it was completely illegible.
He walked to the far end, picking his way carefully among the rubbish. As he kicked a length of a smashed bench to one side his eye was caught by something that had been hidden beneath it—a glint of vivid green.
Ryan stooped and picked it up. The light was poor in the ruined building, and he had to hold the object up to make out what it was.
It was a severed finger. Desiccated and mummified in the heat, it felt dry and leathery to the touch. The green was a small ring of molded turquoise chips, held in a crude silver setting. From the size of the finger, it had belonged to a woman, almost certainly one of the original dwellers in the old pueblo.
With an expression of disgust, Ryan dropped the finger back among the rubbish, but first he slipped the ring off and put it in his pocket. The original owner wasn't likely to ever ask for it back, and he could easily trade it with one of the crew of War Wag One.
As he moved toward the rectangle of brighter light in the doorway, Ryan spotted two of the baron's sec-men, waiting outside the devastated church. Each man had a hand casually resting on the butt of his blaster.
"Spying around, outlander?" one of them asked in a sneering voice.
"Go fuck a dead pig," Ryan replied.
"Oh, that's real friendly. That's the way the Trader's ass-lickers talk!"
"Better'n being ass-licker to the baron of some border pest-hole."
The two men had badges, plas-covered, pinned to the lapels of their shirts.
The one on the right, who toled a Charter Explorer 3, chambered to take a .357 round, was called Long Dog Hodgson. His colleague, Remmy Stedman, had a Renato Gamba Trident Fast Action .38. Both blasters looked to be in good, clean, working order.
Ryan kept his right hand well clear of his own Smith & Wesson. If these two sec-men were simply trying to talk tough, then he wouldn't need the blaster. But if it went that one short step further, then any sudden movement could prove terminal.
Across the far side of the main square Ryan thought he caught a glimpse of the distinctive figure of Ferryman, behind a half-shuttered window. But the person moved back and he couldn't be certain.
"Think we should take this fat-lip in for a coupla hours' interrogation?" said Long Dog Hodgson. "Sorta teach some manners."
His companion giggled. "Best kind o' teaching's spread over the table with his cheeks greased. Learn him good."
Rape was a common, everyday occurrence for anyone who was unfortunate enough to fall afoul of sec-men.
It didn't much matter either way if you were male or female. Sec-men weren't picky when it came to abusing any of the bodily orifices.
"Yeah," Hodgson agreed. "Hand over the blaster, outlander, and come talk to us about looting one of Baron Carson's buildings."
"And a fucking church, too," added his giggling companion.
"No."
"No? Did I hear that boy right, Long Dog? Did he say what I think he said?"
"Yeah, Remmy. I believe he did. Turning down a bit of interrogation with us. That's not the right kind of attitude."
"Calls for a spanking, does that," Long Dog said.
"Easy or hard, outlander?"
"That answer's still the same."
Ryan's original anger had cooled as he fought successfully for self-control over himself. The Trader often said that a man who stayed calm was a man who stayed alive.
"All right. Talk's over. You want it hard.... Blast-blindness! You'll fucking get it!"
The two sec-men both went for their blasters together.
Ryan didn't hesitate. All his reflexes had been straining for this moment, his fighting experience telling him it was inevitable. He didn't try to draw, knowing that he was
framed in the doorway as a perfect target. Movement came a hot first.
He dived to his left, breaking his fall with his arm, gasping at a sudden shock of pain as his elbow hit one of the jagged chunks of torn wood that littered the floor of the church. His right hand was already beginning to draw the long revolver from its holster while he was still in midair.
As Ryan rolled over into a crouch, steadying his right wrist with his left hand, he heard a calm, familiar voice from outside on the plaza.
"Some sort of trouble?"
"In here, Trader!" Ryan yelled.
"I know that. Come on out."
Rubbing his bruised elbow, Ryan emerged cautiously into the dismal morning.
Long Dog Hodgson and Remmy Stedman were standing sheepishly on either side of the doorway. Each still held his handgun, but the barrels were pointing toward the dry earth.
The Trader was behind them, cradling his beloved Armalite. Half a dozen members of the crews were with him, including Ray, a walking stick in his left hand, one of his .32s in his right. Ben was casually holding his Uzi, grinning at Ryan.
"Trouble, Ryan?" the Trader asked.
"These guys wanted to start playing double rough," he replied.
"Looting a church! Ferryman told us special to watch for thieving bastards from the war wags' crews. Warned us."
The Trader looked at Long Dog, staring pointedly at the revolver in his hand. "Well, he ain't looting now. And you'd best put that toy cannon back in your pocket, before someone gets hurt."
"Good advice." Ferryman had appeared silently from nowhere. Ryan noticed that he was wearing a different patch over the blinded eye. It was soft maroon leather with some silver embroidery—an ornate letter F. The affectation diminished the man in Ryan's view.
"But you said they—" Stedman began, shutting up when the sec-boss lifted a hand.
"What we have here, Trader, is simply a failure of communication," Ferryman said, turning to the sheepish couple at his side. "Come see me in a half hour. I'll make it plain."
They bolstered their blasters and shuffled off toward one of the main adobe buildings on the far side of the wooden bridge.
"Thanks," the Trader said.
"Boys get a little eager. Mebbe better if you tell all your boys—" he looked directly at Ryan "—to keep close to the wags. Avoids misunderstandings. You take my meaning?"
"Sure." With a narrow smile, the sec-boss turned on his heel and followed his two men across the fast-flowing river.
The Trader turned to Ryan, who slowly holstered his weapon.
"Look for more care from you, Ryan," he said.
"I told them that—"
"Talk comes cheap. Action costs. Be more careful while we're here."
"Yeah."
Chapter Seventeen
THREE DAYS DRIFTED BY.
On the second day there was the threat of a chem-storm, with towering thundertops clustered around the white-tipped peaks of the Sangre de Cristos. Lightning ripped into the forests that smothered the lower slopes, starting a couple of small fires. But the torrential rainfall that followed quickly extinguished the orange flames.
"Could've been worse," Ferryman said, standing next to Ryan near the fortified outer wall of the ville.
"You get some big winds down here?"
"Sure."
"Acid rain?"
"No. That's farther south, near the sea. And down the acid lakes to the east, around Norleans. But we get the hurricanes."
"Strip paint?"
Ferryman spit tobacco juice in the gray dust by his feet. "You bet. Most animals out wild know when the wind's on the way and get into the canyons. Man gets caught out in it and you don't recognize him. Clothes go. Skin. Eyes. Lips. Hair. Most of the hair. Cock and balls, too."
"Thanks, Ferryman. More than I ever wanted to know about it."
Beyond the gate they could hear the sound of a high-pitched engine, running rough and hot, whining toward the ville.
"Sounds like one of our recce boys coming in off patrol in one fucking son of a hurry," said the sec-boss.
Ryan recognized the noise as being an old two-wheeler wag. It was surprising how many of the ancient Harleys still survived around Deathlands.
The main sec-gate was thrown open on the yell of recognition from the main lookout tower, and a dusty motorbike came into Towse, skidding sideways in a shower of grit and sand. The rider was goggled and helmeted and wore what looked to be a flak jacket over a dark blue T-shirt. He turned off the engine, dismounted and walked toward Ferryman and Ryan.
"Hi, there, McMurtry," the sec-boss greeted. "What put you in such a tire-wrecking way?"
"White lion," the man replied, pulling off the helmet and easing up the goggles, showing twin rings of clean skin amid the caked grime.
"White line?" Ferryman looked puzzled. "What white line?"
"No." The man shook his head so vigorously that it almost disappeared in a cloud of pale dust. "Lion. A white lion. Cougar. Puma. Don't matter what the fuck you call it. A white lion."
Albino animals weren't that unusual throughout the Deathlands, but Ryan knew that some of them were valued for their rare pelts.
"Baron'll be interested in that, McMurtry. Go get cleaned up and the report direct to him. Where'd you see this white lion?"
"Didn't see it myself. But I caught this ole Indian woman and took some of her water. Was going to give her a kicking for being near a highway. And she started talking on about this animal."
Ferryman sucked at his front teeth. "And you believed her, McMurtry?"
"Sure."
Somewhere on the far side of the quiet plaza there was the sound of breaking glass, and all three men turned in that direction. But a child came running out of a doorway, pursued by its angry, cursing mother.
McMurtry tried again. "Listen. I didn't just take the old slag's word, did I? I'm not a triple-stupe, boss. Took her to her hogan and asked the others. Old man and some women and kids. All told the same story. One of them women had seen it only yesterday. Scared the shit out of her, way she looked."
"Where?"
"Beyond the big sand dunes. I figured out from her words and gestures that she meant the head of Trick Canyon. By Dry Falls Creek there."
The sec-boss rubbed at the side of his nose, looking at Ryan. "You heard anything about a white lion? On the road?"
"No, but we move on through. Don't stop much. The Trader doesn't like the stopping."
"Yeah. He's already been bitching to the baron about the delay in the gas."
"Should I go tell him about this, boss?" McMurtry asked.
"Yeah. He'll want to get a hunting party up soon as possible."
The scout pushed his two-wheel wag away, leaving double tracks in the sand. Ryan and Ferryman watched him go.
"You a hunting man, outlander?"
Ryan didn't answer immediately. When he'd been a boy, in Front Royale ville, hunting had been an everyday activity—partly for food, but mostly for what passed as sport.
"I'm hungry, then I'll kill. I'm cold, then I'll kill."
"No other reason?" Ferryman leaned so close to Ryan that he was enveloped by his sour breath. Their faces were almost touching.
"Yeah. I kill when I have to."
It was more like a military expedition than a hunt for a single animal. Wearing his inevitable three-piece suit and gray hat, Baron Alias Carson rode in an armored jeep at the head of a procession of a dozen vehicles.
The Trader had asked him whether the mythical white lion was worth all this amount of logistical trouble for his ville.
"If a thing is worth seeing, sir, then it is worth killing." was his drawled reply.
There had been a brief discussion between Ryan, the Trader and J.B. about how many from the crews of the two war wags should be allowed to go along on the hunt. In the minds of all three men was the ever-present possibility of treachery from the baron.
"The men and women are getting hot-pissed about hanging around for the gas," J.B. said.
"Baron says he'll lend us two of his smaller wags," the Trader said. "That way they can watch out for backstabbing."
"How about the wags here?" Ryan asked.
They were leaning against the starboard side of War Wag One. The Armorer had managed to get hold of a supply of his favorite thin black cheroots, and he puffed a cloud of aromatic smoke into the cool, damp air.
"Can't all go rushing around the desert after some bleached puma," he said. "Need enough crew to guard them safe."
In the end they agreed that a total of a dozen, split between the two wags and drawn by lot, would go out hunting.
The two borrowed vehicles would be commanded by the Trader and J. B. Ryan hadn't been very keen on going out into the wilderness as part of a mass hunt, and had volunteered to stay in charge of War Wags One and Two.
"Watch out for stray bullets," he warned the Trader. "Ferryman's got a score against us. Go up a blind arroyo and you get a full-metal jacket through the middle of your spine."
The Trader gave his thinnest smile, one that barely touched his lips and never approached his eyes. "Not with you and the war wags right smack in the middle of his ville. Blood price'd be too high for him to risk."
"Guess that's right."
Ryan got a pat on the shoulder from the older man. "Part of learning, Ryan. Young man gets to see a little part of the picture. Grow up some and you can, mebbe, take in the whole picture."
The early rain was absorbed so quickly into the earth that the mud became dust within a few minutes.
The wind had risen again, obscuring the tracks of the Harley across the main open area of the ville. Most of the men and women going on the hunt had goggles slung around their necks in anticipation of the weather to come, and everyone had a scarf of some kind tucked about their throats.
Ryan stood by the war wags and watched the final preparations being made. Ferryman strode across to join him.
"Sure you can't be tempted, outlander?" he asked. "Don't see a white lion every day. Might be something to tell your grandchildren."
"Need children before you get grandkids. And I aim to avoid that for as long as possible."
"Man should leave something behind him. Read something once about footprints in the sands of time. Know what I mean, Ryan?"