The Scourge of God c-2

by S. M. Stirling

  They were just far enough away that the Easterners would have to come to her if they wanted to talk without shouting, which was what she'd wanted. Silence replaced the clop of shod hooves on the freeway's broken asphalt, silence and the long hiss of the wind through the rolling fields on either side. You couldn't see Pendleton proper from here-it was down in the river valley about six miles farther east-but you could just make out the rounded heights of the Blue Mountains on the horizon.

  "And this used to be a tourist spot," she muttered to herself.

  BD looked around casually, wiping her forehead on the tail of her turban and checking for more armed men. Northward was a reaped wheat field with some of the shocks of grain still standing in yellow tripods, but elsewhere the rolling swales around had long since gone back to arid wilderness. Pale bleached-brown bunchgrass studded with the olive green of sagebrush rippled in waves; a flock with a mounted shepherd and his dogs and guard llamas drifted south of the road, moving slowly through the middle distance. Farther off some pronghorns danced, and a pair of buzzards swept in and perched on the tilted shape of an old telephone pole not far away. It moved slightly under their weight.

  I hope that's not an omen, she thought. And of course, this was the Oregon Trail before it was Interstate 84. Not all that different from the way it looked when some of my ancestors came through in ox-carts.

  Footmen and mounted archers alike scowled at her party, and there were two flags flying from a post by the road. One was the expected blazon of the local Rancher-the Circle D in black on light green. The other was the white-on-red cowboy and bucking bronco of the Associated Communities of the Pendleton Emergency Area.

  What everyone else calls the Pendleton Round-Up, BD thought. Or, alternatively, "those Pendleton sheep rapers." But they usually don't bother with the flag. Pythian Apollo witness I am getting too old for this.

  She was just short of sixty now, and getting a bit gnarled. People said she was tough as an old root, but…

  Yeah, tough as an old root, and stiffer. People age faster these days, she thought. I spent the past generation heaving loads and hauling on reins, not behind a keyboard. It's time to sit by the fire and tell the grandchildren stories.

  Then, smiling to herself: Who am I kidding? The Powers gave me my marching orders back at DUN Juniper last Lughnasadh, and Apollon confirmed it.

  Her guards closed up around the lead wagon; they and the wranglers were her own people from the Kyklos, mostly unofficial nephews-or in one case, a niece-by-courtesy. They favored Japanese-style armor, another legacy of hobbyists-turned-deadly-serious right after the Change. The outfit included flared helmets and armor of metal lozenges laced together, and they carried naginatas, five-foot shafts topped with curved swordblades. Quivers and asymmetric longbows rode across their backs, and katana and wazikashi at their belts.

  They were also bristling a little at the show of force. Young men

  …

  "Whoa, everybody," BD said loudly, carefully not touching the naginata that rode in a scabbard behind her, or an assortment of concealed weapons on her own person. "Let's be sensible here; it's good for business."

  She climbed down from the seat and rubbed at the small of her back, looking deliberately as nonthreatening as possible; she was in shapeless linsey-woolsey pants, belted tunic and boots, practical traveling garb. An expert could probably catch the mail-vest beneath, but that was just a reasonable precaution traveling in lands without much law. Peering at the cowboys, she saw a face she knew, and got out her glasses to confirm it.

  "Hey, Rancher Jenson!" she called; Sandy Jenson was an old customer. "What is this? Another shakedown? If you people don't stop this shit, nobody will come this way at all, and then where'll you be?"

  The Rancher walked his horse over, followed by some of his retainers. They were certainly loaded for bear; Jenson's long reddish beard splayed down on a mail-shirt of the short type that cow-country fighters wore if they could afford it, and the men behind him fairly bristled with weapons and bits and pieces of armor. One had an arrow on the string of his recurve and they were all scowling.

  Twenty cowboys, she thought. Hmmm. That's a quarter of the riders Jenson can bring to a fight. Enough to cut into the Circle D's usual routine. It must be fairly serious. Plus those other guys look like Pendleton City militia.

  "This isn't a transit fee, BD," Jenson said, using the local terminology for shakedow n. "The Bossman says he's heard you Westerners may be getting ready to invade. We've been called up to guard against spies and infiltrators."

  "Hey, Sandy, you know me," BD said. "I've done business with you and I did business with your father."

  She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the pony drawn on the canvas tilts of her wagons, scuffing along amid puffs of dust.

  "The Plodding Pony Service is neutral. I carry stuff, I buy, I sell. Everybody benefits. And I'm not exactly hiding or sneaking around here. Also I'm old enough to be your mother. Do I look like Jane Bond?"

  That went past him; he'd been about nine when the Change happened.

  "Do I look like a spy?" she amplified.

  "You're from the Willamette. Your bunch-"

  "-the Kyklos."

  "-yeah, the Kyklos, you're part of the Corvallis Meeting," he said, but his frown relaxed a bit.

  Unexpectedly, one of Jenson's cowboys spoke, a gangling youngster with a scatter of spots.

  "She's an abomination, a woman doing a man's part," he said. "And flaunting herself shamelessly in man's garb. The Ascended Masters say-"

  Jenson turned in the saddle and extended a finger into the skinny youngster's face.

  "George, it's a free country and you can take up that half-baked stuff if you want, but if you feel like preaching, you do it on your own time, understand? And not on my land. I'm the Rancher here on the Circle D, and I happen to be a Presbyterian, which I'll thank you to remember."

  "All right."

  " What did you say, boy?" he barked, raising his quirt. "Let me hear that again."

  "Yes, sir, Rancher Jenson, sir," he added sullenly.

  "That's better. Now apologize to the lady."

  The young man stared at the horizon. After an instant he ground out: "Sorry, ma'am."

  Jenson nodded. "You get on to Pendleton and see about those horseshoes I ordered. Git."

  He turned back to BD, ignoring one of the older hands cuffing the young man on the back of the head and muttering a curse.

  "Sorry, BD. We've had some odd preachers coming through past couple of years. George there never did learn to look in a horse's mouth before he bought it."

  "Hell, Sandy, if he can get excited about my flauntingly shameless old legs, and in these saggy-assed pants at that, either the boy's not getting enough or I'm really flattered."

  The Rancher relaxed with a grin, and several of his men laughed; George flushed under his tan and hunched in the saddle, turning his mount and flicking the end of his long reins to either side. The quarter horse took off in a spurt of gravel.

  "Did you hear anything about an invasion, BD?" his employer said.

  "Not offhand, but I've been on the road for weeks; I'm out of Bend this time. It doesn't sound very sensible to me, though. Nobody's bothered you all this time, why start now? And usually the Meeting can't agree on the right time of day for dinner, much less invading hither and yon. What would be the point? To steal your oh-so-rare and valuable wheat?"

  Actually, I got off the railway in the Dalles only three days ago, she thought. Special express pedalcars. And for once the Meeting did agree on something, and without talking about it forever plus three days, either.

  None of that showed on her face; a trader and a Priestess both had to learn self-control.

  Jenson took off his helmet, which had a llama-hair crest, and scratched at his scalp.

  "Nothing personal, but from what I remember and what Dad said, you people left us to rot back when, with everyone against his neighbor and gangs of refugees from the cities and w
hatnot," he said.

  "Hard times all over, the first year or two," BD said shortly.

  And a hell of a lot harder for me than you, Sandy, she added behind a calm face.

  At 6:15 P.M. Pacific Time, March 17, 1998, BD had been driving southbound on I-5 in Portland, a mile and a half north of the Terwilliger exit, and she'd been pushing forty. Jenson had been a child, and a child on a ranch with more cows than people, far enough from the cities that they had enough food to take others in, rather than fighting over scraps or shivering with cholera as they lay dying in a ditch.

  More than half the human race had died in the year after the Change; in North America it had been closer to nine-tenths. But this area probably had more people now than it had then-certainly it did outside the city of Pendleton proper.

  Jenson went on: "Then that son-of-a-bitch Arminger comes and tells us he's going to pacify the place, which meant handing the ranches out to his cronies here and his gangbanger thugs from Portland. I do remember that. Then you make his troops leave and we had another round of fighting. Thank God that Bossman Carl finally got things under control."

  BD restrained herself from arguing with the spin he put on the past twenty-two years of local affairs; getting into a political dispute was never good business… particularly if you were spying. Though Bossman Carl Peters wasn't as bad as he might have been-for one thing, nobody could exert enough control here to be a real tyrant.

  "Look, Sandy, can I do business here or not? I've got my expenses to meet, you know. If I have to turn around and go home, the sooner I find out the better. And I'd appreciate a letter from you telling me to go home, so I can claim act-of-the-Gods and not have to pay nondelivery penalties to the shipper."

  Jenson looked harassed. "Hell, BD, I know you… but you are from Meeting territory and… well, you've got armed guards with you."

  "Well, by the Gods, I should hope I do!" she said, letting a little temper show. "You know as well as I do how many Rovers and road people and just plain old-fashioned bandit scum are running around between here and the Cascades. I travel with this many guards in CORA territory, too, when I've got valuable cargo-and I don't do bulk freight."

  At his bristle, she went on: "Come round and look at my load and then tell me if I'm hostile to Pendleton, Sandy. Yeah, and those pikemen are from the Bossman's townee militia, aren't they? Have one of them over too."

  He dismounted-a bit of a concession, since interior ranchers and their followers generally saddled up even if they were just going from their front doors to the outhouse. The townsman in the steel-strapped leather breastplate and kettle helmet came over as well; his round dark face was frankly hostile, and his little black mustache twitched.

  Both their faces changed when she pulled out a claw hammer and opened the first of the flat crates that made up half her cargo. The lid came up with a screech of nails, and…

  "Jesus!" the Rancher said, taking up one of the swords and giving a few expert cuts that made the cloven air whine. "Now, that's the real goods!"

  "Yeah, I'm delivering them to Murdoch and Sons, on consignment from Bend," she said. "See the Isherman stamp on the boxes?"

  The WSIS -for Weapons Shop of Isherman and Sons-was branded into the cheap pine boards.

  She waved an envelope. "All the paperwork's in order. Now, if I was a spy for someone trying to attack you, would I bring weapons in that your Bossman can buy?" she said reasonably.

  I might, just to disarm-snork, snork-your suspicions, she thought. And there aren't enough in these wagons to make much difference to an actual war. It's not as if I'm hauling in a battery of field artillery, after all. You guys are short of that stuff.

  "And the barrels have mail-shirts, by the way," she went on. "Good light stainless steel with riveted links, none better, in the usual assortment of sizes. Plus helmets… it's all in the invoices."

  Even the militia officer was impressed; Pendleton had never developed the sort of semi-mechanized arms shops that were common farther west, where water power was easier to come by. Mail-shirts were expensive everywhere, but more so here.

  "The Bossman will be interested," the militiaman said. He extended a hand. "Captain da Costa, Carlos da Costa."

  "Beatriz Dorothea," she said. "But everyone calls me BD."

  BD shook with a firm squeeze and met his eyes squarely-also tricks of the trade. She'd heard of him, if not met him before; his family had a tannery and saddle-and-harness-making workshop. She told him:

  "Tell Bossman Carl to talk to Murdoch; I'm just hauling this stuff for a fee plus commission."

  Then she hesitated, as if making a painful calculation. "If you need some yourself, Sandy, I suppose…"

  The Rancher looked tempted; a landholder out here always had to be ready to skirmish with his neighbors and outfitting his cowboys well was important in keeping them loyal. Under the militia officer's eye he shook his head.

  "No, thanks. I can afford what we need, and we make most of our own gear on the ranch anyhow. But you're doing us all a good turn, BD, and I appreciate it. Want to stay the night at the ranch house and have a steak dinner, and huevos rancheros and a shower before you head in tomorrow?"

  He looked hopeful. Without any prying eyes but his own sworn men he might well "accept" a gift she could write off as a cost of doing business. BD caught his eyes and let hers slide a little towards the militiaman; that would be excuse enough. And…

  Well, Sandy's not exactly a guest-friend, she thought. That was a sacred bond. But I have eaten his bread and salt beneath his roof. I'd rather not do it again when I'm here with… well, sort of hostile intent. It's for their own good, really… but that won't help Sandy or any of his people who get in the way of an Associate's lance or a Mackenzie arrow or a Bearkiller backsword.

  "I think I should head straight in, with this cargo," she said. "But I'd appreciate it if I could send the wagons and teams right out again and keep them on the Circle D for a little while. Prices at Pendleton livery stables inside the wall are atrocious."

  "Fine, and stay as long as you want coming out," Jenson said generously.

  "I'll get a permit!" Captain da Costa said. "You're right, Dona Dorothea, a load this important should go right into town! Just you wait there and I'll fetch the paperwork-"

  The last was said over his shoulder as he walked back towards the barricade.

  "Who's he?" Jenson asked idly, sighing regretfully.

  He jerked his head at the man sitting beside the driver of the second wagon, a great hulking hunched figure with a shock of shiny-black hair.

  "Oh, that's my cousin Hugh," BD said. "He's simple, but there's no harm in him, and he's certainly useful to have around when there's heavy lifting to be done. Those boxes weigh a fair bit."

  At the Hugh the big man gave a vacant grin and wiped his nose on the back of his hand; there was a thread of drool slowly making its way down from the corner of his thick-lipped mouth.

  "Here, Hugh!" BD said in an admonishing voice.

  She handed him a handkerchief and he made a stammering cluck and used it, clumsily.

  Captain da Costa returned with his form; behind him his men pushed in careful grunting unison, and the barricade rumbled aside.

  "Just show this at the gate, Dona."

  "And the Bossman is putting on a 'do' tomorrow night," Jenson said. "All the Ranchers and town bigwigs… Hey, why don't you come? Murdoch will be there, too."

  Da Costa nodded vigorously again. "You're a public benefactor, Dona," he said. "I'm sure Bossman Carl would be delighted to see you."

  "I'll be there," BD said. But he may not be delighted about it at all.

  Seven miles was more than an hour's travel at preserve-the-horses wagon speeds. That gave her enough time to take in the surroundings thoroughly without making it obvious.

  "Oh, my, oh, my," BD murmured, as they passed the ruins of the old State Hospital and swung south. "Ares is on hand."

  There were tented camps outside Pendleton; most of them were
sited so they weren't in view from I-84, but she could catch glimpses of them. Most of them were the casual affairs a Rancher and his retainers would make when they were away from home, remarkable only because there were so many. But it was getting on for sundown. Campfires showed there in the rising ground south of town, adding to the smoke-and-outhouse scent of the town in general; and some of them were suspiciously regular, laid out in neat rows, or in one case a complex system of interlocking triangles.

  Pity I can't Use my binoculars, she thought. But that would be a big I AM A SPY sign.

  She laughed a little sadly as they turned north on an overpass still labeled Exit 209 in faded, peeling paint, where the old John Day highway had approached town. Around them was the usual messy sadness of ruined suburbs that surrounded most still-inhabited towns; burnt-out houses or buildings torn down for their materials, truck gardens and livery stables and smelly tanyards and plain weed-grown wreck with bits of charred wood or rusty rebar poking up through it.

  "Tia Loba?" her nephew-guardsman asked.

  "Chucho, that underpass over there used to dump cars onto Frazier, because Emigrant was one-way."

  His dark young face looked puzzled, and he pushed up the brim of his helmet to scratch with gloved fingers.

  "You could enchant a road so that it only went one way in the old days?" he asked. "You are pulling the leg of me, Tia. Flying I believe, the pictures that moved I believe, but not that."

  "Changelings!" she muttered with a shrug.

  "Oh-ho," the man who was not BD's simple cousin Hugh said.

  Traffic had thickened as they approached the gate, and slowed. Now the reasons were obvious. Chucho dropped back tactfully; he knew that "Hugh" was not as he seemed, and had carefully avoided learning any more.

  Pendleton had been divided by the Umatilla River before the Change. Afterwards it had shrunk, in fighting and chaos and as people dispersed to the surrounding farms and ranches, but there had been no total collapse. Now it had four or five thousand people, in a rectangle on the south side of the river perhaps two-thirds of a mile long and a third wide. The inhabitants had built a wall with towers, out of concrete and rubble and rock around a core of salvaged girders; so much was unremarkable, although the construction was more recent and cruder than many, with rust-pitted iron showing on the surface.