Dawn was approaching quietly, except for the bikers’ various bodily noises and the sobbing from the prisoners chained to the supply carts.
I can’t take this anymore, Doc thought.
She resisted the urge to check the old watch ticking in the front pocket of her heavily worn jeans. It was a big old silver-cased twenty-one jeweled marvel of an earlier age. Her railroad man grandfather had given it to her dad, who’d passed it down to her when she’d gone off to college. It was a minor miracle that one of the shit-heads hadn’t taken it from her, but she kept it out of sight and therefore out of mind. Besides, now watches were mostly useless. No one needed them. Except her. Somehow that remnant of the old technology reassured her that some laws of nature still held. Anyway, it was too dark to read the face.
Dawn must be approaching, Doc thought, and she wanted to mask her break under the cover of darkness.
She opened her eyes a crack and furtively glanced around. Everyone was dead asleep, thanks no doubt to the exertions of the day and the following celebration where many bottles of tequila had been consumed. She’d built the still that produced the rotgut and she purposefully made the liquor raw and harsh. It was the best she was willing to do for the jerks who held her captive. Especially Manuelito.
She raised herself up on one elbow and looked at him lying asleep an arm’s length or two away, blubbering like a beached whale. He kept her close these days and he wanted to get closer. Doc knew what he wanted and she was nauseated by the idea.
Manuelito had inherited his father’s size, more than his share of meanness, and a low degree of animal cunning. That was about it. He was about six three and packed three-sixty on his admittedly large-boned, big-muscled frame. He wasn’t built for bicycles, which the Change had forced on the Guerreros as their major means of transport. Doc had whipped up an extra-large three-wheeled sidecar pulled by two bikes attached by a universal joint.
This chariot, as he liked to call it, was pedaled by a rotating cadre of gang members. No one thought it was an honor to pedal Manuelito except for Manuelito, but also no one ever said no to Manuelito. Chito had stomped down many hard men when he’d led the gang to the top of the heap in what was left of south Florida, but he’d been smart enough to rule with a judicious hand. That word had about three too many syllables in it for Manuelito to know what it meant.
She could see his bloated, unlovely face in the moonlight, his mouth gaping open, drool running into his scraggly beard. Doc sighed softly. No sense prolonging this shit, she thought.
As a child Manuelito had watched Star Wars too many times and had a special favorite part. He certainly resembled Jabba the Hutt and during the looting spree had made Doc play the Princess Leia role, chaining her at night to the rear of his chariot by an iron neck collar that she herself had made. He especially liked that. It appealed to his sense of humor. The collar fit tightly around her neck and had rubbed her skin raw, but that just added to Manuelito’s fun.
Doc looked around carefully, then reached into the front pocket of her worn jeans and removed a crudely wrought-iron key. Dumbass, she thought, as she slipped the key quietly into the lock and turned it slowly. She carefully opened the collar and set it and the chain silently on the ground. She got to her feet and gathered up her bedroll.
She slipped through the campsite like a ghost. Everyone was sleeping after a grueling day of travel and fighting and an equally grueling night of drinking and raping. Even the guards Manuelito had posted.
Thank God, Doc thought, for their sense of duty. Or lack thereof.
She plucked a crossbow from the side of a snoring gangbanger to arm herself, and then extricated her bike from among the others. Silent in her worn red low-top Keds, Doc jogged along the grassy verge of the asphalted county road. After a couple of hundred yards she shifted to the road itself, mounted her bike, and pedaled off silently into the night and, she hoped, another life.
* * *
The sun’s rays slanted through his bedroom window and smacked Bernardo Diaz right in the face and woke him up. He’d always been an early riser, so he was fine with nature’s wake-up call. He threw back the rumpled sheet and swung his feet over the side of the bed. The polished wooden floor was warm against his soles. It was midspring in central Florida and a quick glance out the open window told Bernie that it was already shaping up to be yet another beautiful day.
He yawned hugely and rubbed his face. He didn’t know the exact time, though he kept an old alarm clock on the nightstand by his bed for nostalgia’s sake. He hadn’t wound it in two years. It didn’t matter anymore if it was six oh nine or six nineteen. The world now ran on a less specific schedule. Nature was Bernie’s timepiece, and he was happier for it.
He stretched to get the night-kinks out of his muscles. When he’d come to Jungleland ten years before he’d been a tall, scrawny kid. Now he was even taller and not scrawny at all. Ten years of hard work and good food had filled him out. It was yet another thing he owed to Don Carlos, another debt he could never repay. He missed the old man every day. His death was Bernie’s biggest regret.
Bernie strapped on the loincloth that was on the bedside nightstand and stepped into his handmade moccasins, padded over to the small but comfortably appointed bathroom and washed up. He decided to skip breakfast, figuring there’d be plenty of chow at the business meeting later in the morning. He whistled for the chimp, who was probably in the kitchen stuffing his face, and in a few moments the ape waddled into the bathroom with Bernie’s morning glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice.
“Morning, Cheetah.”
The chimp chittered at him, exposing his strong white teeth in a wide grin. Bernie drained the glass and Cheetah took it back into the kitchen and set it on the counter by the sink. They met at the bungalow’s side door. It was twenty-six feet to the ground from the branch of the baobab tree that cradled Bernie’s tree house. Cheetah clambered down the rope. Bernie followed.
As usual, Bagheera was waiting for them at the base of the tree, stretched out in the early morning sun. The panther chirped as Bernie approached. The big cat stood and leaned against Bernie to have his black-tipped ears scratched, emitting a contented purr. Bagheera was a Florida panther with a tan pelt, a creamy white underbelly, and black tips to his tail and ears. He was oversize for his species, about a hundred and eighty pounds, seven feet long and three feet high at the shoulder. Orphaned as a kitten, Bernie had hand-raised Bagheera. It was the first important task that Don Carlos had given him when he’d run away from home and come to Jungleland, no more than a cub himself.
“We’re going down to the chikit,” Bernie told him. “Want to come?”
The big cat seemed amenable. He fell in next to Cheetah as they padded toward the canal. They stopped by the grave site at the edge of the baobab’s overhanging branches, fifty feet from the rope that gave access to the tree house. The baobab was an ancient tree, having been planted several centuries before by one of Don Carlos’ seafaring ancestors who’d brought a sapling back from Africa. It was only one of the many exotic species of plants and animals that contributed to Jungleland’s fantasy-like atmosphere.
The animals waited patiently in the shade while Bernie fussed about Don Carlos’ grave, cleaning up a bit of litter and trimming and watering the plants. The grave mound was covered by a blanket of flowers. Bernie judiciously applied the watering can. It had been a warm and dry spring so far.
“I’m meeting with Johnny Tiger at the chikit.”
Bernie liked to keep Don Carlos informed of current happenings.
“Things are going well, though I’d like to get a metal shop going.” He sighed. “Not enough people, not near enough knowledge when it comes to technical stuff. I’ve been studying the books hard, but . . . Anyway—we’re keeping it together. The center will hold.”
He put the can down and turned to the animals. “Let’s head out, guys.”
Jungl
eland was awakening all around them. The staff was up and about. Bernie didn’t have to tell them what to do. They knew the schedule, who had to be fed and watered, what needed to be cleaned, what fences had to be checked and mended.
Of course, things had changed since the Change. Most of the predators had been released. The apes, also.
The gorillas were doing well in the nearby forests. The chimps as a whole tended to stay closer to the humans. Various monkeys had spread all over the place and for all Bernie knew were colonizing the ruins as far away as Miami. The rhinos had wandered off, the hippos had taken to the nearby swamp as if it was home. The elephants roamed where they pleased, though some were kept close as working animals.
A couple, in fact, were approaching now, heading down to the canal for a morning washup. They were led by Tantor, the old bull who ran the herd. He’d led them in a charge that’d broken the siege during the Parking Lot War when a horde of starving looters had come up from Miami soon after the Change. But not before Don Carlos had fallen in the hand-to-hand fighting. Fallen saving Bernie’s life, as Bernie could never forget.
Tantor stopped and offered Bernie a leg up. He hoisted himself up on the elephant’s thigh so that he was eye to eye with the old beast. Bernie always felt that Tantor’s eyes contained an ancient wisdom that humanity in general was too dumb to understand. Certainly, Bernie felt he was, though he never stopped trying.
Bernie scratched energetically at the deeply lined wrinkles around Tantor’s eyes.
“Sorry old fellow,” he told the beast as he snuffled at Bernie’s hands with his trunk, “but I left the peanuts in my other loincloth.”
The elephant let Bernie down gently, saluted him with a blatt from his raised trunk, and led the procession on toward the canal at a stately pace.
Accompanied by his accustomed shadows, Bernie followed them to what he liked to think of as the mooring where Jungleland’s navy docked and chose a wooden canoe from among the vessels. The aluminum ones tended to get a tad hot to the touch on a sunny day. Bernie got in first and held it steady as Bagheera leaped in lightly, hardly rocking it. The big cat settled down in the middle as Cheetah climbed in cautiously at the bow—he was leery of the water. Bernie climbed into his place aft, untied the mooring rope, and pushed away from the bank with the paddle. They floated out into the middle of the canal and were caught by the gentle current.
Bernie hummed as he paddled, cleaving the water with deep, powerful strokes. He really missed music you could take with you and listen to as, for example, you paddled your canoe down a peaceful canal on a beautiful spring morning. That, and Dr. Pepper.
They had gotten maybe twenty feet away from the bank when a galloping horseman spotted them, wheeled about frantically, and shouted, “Riders on the road! Armed riders on the road!”
* * *
Doc pushed on for as long as she could. It’d been an almost pleasant ride, but the temperature was rising with the sun and she needed a rest and something to eat and drink. The raiding party had been on the road for several days so they’d consumed almost all their fresh food, but there was also the stock of preserved items that the Guerreros had stolen or bullied from the original owners whenever and wherever they could. Two-year-old Slim Jims weren’t Doc’s favorite, but she’d become less finicky when it came to eats than she’d been before the Change.
She coasted onto the sward on the left-hand side of the road, a strip of grass paralleling the canal and road that ran along the flat and virtually featureless landscape. What had once been the bustling city of Miami lay to the east and sprawling Lake Okeechobee was to the north. Doc, always prepared, had studied maps of this sparsely inhabited region. In fact, she’d stashed some in her saddlebags along with the water and food she’d filched over the last couple of days in preparation for her escape.
“Son of a bitch,” she said quietly as she opened the saddlebags and saw they were empty.
Someone had stolen her stolen food and water. The thought outraged her. She didn’t even want to contemplate the fate of her maps in this toilet-paper-less world. She stared back down the long and unwinding road and shook her fist in the general direction of the biker horde.
“Crap,” she said as she saw two figures traveling in her direction. “The Dalton brothers.”
The only gringos in the gang, they were lean as whippets and twice as fast on their custom-built racing bikes. No doubt Manuelito had sent them after her, either to drag her back or immediately dispense the Guerreros brand of brutal retaliation against those who’d broken the brotherhood’s rules.
They were a couple of miles away and clearly moving fast, though it was hard to judge speed and distance. One of them was waving at her, damn it. She climbed back on her bike and began to pedal as fast as she could, trying to think of something.
As the chase began her sense of time vanished. She forced down an irrational urge to pull out her pocket watch and try to time how quickly they were catching up to her. Her leanly muscled thighs soon began to burn. She doggedly pushed on. It wasn’t too long before her throat, already dry, had turned to parchment and she could feel her precious bodily fluids leaking out of every pore. Damn, she thought, it’s hot. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the gap between her and the Daltons had already narrowed by a disappointingly large margin. She could see where this was heading, and she didn’t like it.
Suddenly it became clear what she had to do.
She slowed down. The last thing she needed now was to cramp up. Another glance over her shoulder showed that her pursuers had put on more speed and were catching up even more quickly, probably thinking they’d broken her.
“Manuelito is real pissed!” she heard one of them yell.
“We’re gonna be real pissed too if you don’t slow down right quick,” the other added.
She admired his lung capacity. He wasn’t even panting.
Doc’s mind was surprisingly calm and clear. Dad loved those old cowboy movies, she thought, and she’d loved sitting on the sofa watching them with him. He’s maybe gone now. Those movies certainly are. What the hell was the name of that one with John Wayne?
“I’m talking to you, bitch,” the cry came from not very far behind her. “Slow the fuck down right now or we’ll take it out on your ass before we hand you back to Manuelito.”
True Grit? Doc thought.
She yanked the bike’s handlebars, scattering gravel over the steaming road, popping the tar bubbles that were rising to meet the afternoon heat. She stood on the pedals for six or seven strokes of her long, lean legs, then plopped down on the seat. She was maybe thirty yards from the brothers and riding straight toward them in the deadliest game of chicken she’d ever played.
One was still laughing at what the other had said. She probably imagined it, but she thought she could see expressions of eager anticipation on their faces quickly turn to looks of shocked surprise.
Anticipate this, assholes, she thought.
She let go of the handlebar and flipped up the crossbow dangling from its cord around her shoulder. She slammed a bolt into place, shifted one hand to the bar as the bike threatened to veer off course and held up the bow with the other. Her arm shook but she was almost at point-blank range. The crossbow was just window dressing anyway, intended to scare the crap out of them. She popped the trigger, dropped the bow, gripped the handlebar with both hands, and pulled with all her strength sending her bike swooping across their path, and unconsciously ducked at the anticipated collision.
Doc felt her heartbeat clang loud as a gong in her chest, almost drowning out the noises of rubber raking asphalt and a surprised scream cut short. Her heart gonged again and there came the sound of metal scraping road and metal clashing with metal, and at the third gong some great, invisible hand grabbed her and yanked her off her bike. She felt herself flying through the air. She tried to relax, but she didn’t have the time and she hit hard,
skimming across the macadam like a stone skipping on water.
Pain shot through her knee and thigh and hip and she bounced a couple of times, shredding denim and skin, then rolled some and finally came to a rest lying faceup, half on the asphalt, half on the road’s pebbly verge.
Ow, she thought, closing her eyes as the rays of sun speared down on her. She lay there thinking, That’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m going home now.
When nothing happened for a long enough time, she sat up dazedly, wincing as she put a scraped palm on the ground to lever herself up. It took her three tries, but she finally made it. She stood shakily, then turned to face the other way as she realized that someone was cursing up a storm behind her.
Her eyes widened as she observed the wreckage. It was worse than anything they’d ever seen in Driver’s Ed in high school. There was, literally, blood on the highway. She dragged herself closer. One of the Daltons, the mouthy one, she thought, was entangled in the combined wreckage of his and her bikes, draped like some insane parody of the Pietà among bent wheels with broken spokes and twisted frames. His left leg was as twisted as their bikes.
“You crazy stupid puta!” He tried to work up enough energy to shout, but couldn’t quite make it. “You broke my leg, you fucking bitch! Eric! Eric, help me! Get this bitch!”
Doc shuffled slowly around the whining Dalton and approached the other. “Son of a . . .”
Tales of Downfall and Rebirth Page 19