Luis looked at the trader with a downcast expression. “Let’s hope we catch a tailwind, then.”
“You boys ready?”
The men nodded. Duke pulled himself up into the saddle with a groan. “This doesn’t get any easier as you get older.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Grandpa,” Luis said.
They all laughed, and then Duke rode through the gate, guiding one of the packhorses by the reins. The others trailed him, and John paused once they were through and swung down from his steed to close the barrier for the last time. Duke and Luis waited for him, and Luis shook his head.
“No point, is there?” he asked.
“Suppose not. I just hate to leave it with a ‘loot me’ sign on it. Probably crazy, huh?”
Duke grunted. “I’ve seen worse.”
John remounted and Duke guided his horse toward the highway, which they would take for three miles until they reached a tributary road that meandered into the mountains. Sand and dust blew across the pavement, erasing their tracks within minutes of their passage, and they abandoned the trading post in a funereal procession, uprooted yet again by circumstances beyond their control.
A mile and a half away, Dale watched from the edge of a ravine, using his rifle’s scope to track the traders. When they were far enough along the highway so they wouldn’t spot him following, he spurred his horse toward the trading post, determined to stay out of sight. His hunch that there was more to their story than met the eye had just been validated by their sudden departure with everything they owned on their horses’ backs.
Within minutes he’d confirmed that they had indeed deserted the complex, leaving much that would command a fair amount in barter.
He couldn’t think of many reasons they would do so and resolved to follow them, his instinct telling him that if he did, he’d finally fulfill his objective almost six months after riding into the wasteland.
And then, vengeance would be his.
Chapter 27
Astoria, Oregon
The main gate groaned open and a hundred Chinese soldiers marched from the town in tight formation, the bayonets affixed to their rifles gleaming in the sun. An officer barked orders when the troops had fully emerged from the gateway, and the soldiers increased their pace to double time, startling the squatters in the tent city, who scrambled to get out of their way.
Once the perimeter was cleared, the officer raised a megaphone to his lips and spoke in halting English.
“You have five minutes to move your belongings to the far side of the field. This area is now off-limits, and anyone found trespassing will be shot.”
“Where are we supposed to go?” a thin man with a wispy beard demanded.
“That is not our problem. You cannot stay here.” The officer paused. “All men over the age of sixteen are to report to the gate within the hour for registration and to turn in any firearms. Anyone remaining in the camp who isn’t registered by day’s end will be severely punished, and anyone with a weapon will be executed. That is all.”
“Registered for what?” another man called.
“Registered to not be shot,” the officer answered.
The squatters grumbled but didn’t resist the wall of soldiers, whose rifles were pointed at the camp residents, and scrambled to uproot their tents and drag them to the edge of the field before their time ran out. The officer watched with arms crossed in satisfaction as the squatters scuttled to obey his commands, and allowed himself a small smile at how easily manipulated the Americans were.
The generals had instructed him to increase the pressure on the camp in preparation for forming large work details of forced laborers to clear the town of flammable structures to avoid arson fires. There had been no further reports of intruders after the one who’d been spotted by the jail, but they were taking no chances. Anything that made the occupation force appear weak or vulnerable would undermine its authority, and a fire that resulted in the town being destroyed would be a major blow to the Chinese – they had been lucky that the storm had prevented the fires set by the townspeople from sweeping across Astoria, but they couldn’t count on good fortune to prevent the same tactic from being used against them again.
“We need our guns to hunt and to defend ourselves,” a squatter complained. “You can’t take them away.”
“I can do whatever I want,” the officer snapped, tiring of the protests. He had expected some pushback, but he didn’t intend to let it go on much longer. “You can trap or use snares, or fish, or make bows and arrows or slingshots to hunt with. It’s not my problem. But we will allow no firearms. No exceptions.”
“Slingshots aren’t going to protect us from scavengers or marauders.”
The officer searched the sea of angry faces for the speaker. When he couldn’t pick him out, he addressed the collective, his gaze sweeping over the throng. “You have no need of protection. We are your protectors. We will maintain order. This is not subject to debate. You have one hour to register and until nightfall to turn in your guns.”
The squatters grumbled, but nobody dared challenge the officer again, his impatience obvious in his voice. The Chinese hadn’t prevented anyone from leaving, but anyone still there had nowhere else to go, and now had to make the hard decision to either stay and live essentially defenseless against attacks from opportunistic raiders as well as the occupying force, or to leave and face the considerable danger of the road. Most were in no condition to brave weeks or months of travel on foot – the Chinese had swept through two days earlier and confiscated all the serviceable horses, moving them within the town’s walls, leaving the squatters with no option but to stay and submit to the will of the occupiers.
An hour later, a long line of unfortunates had formed, carrying every manner of firearm, most of them junk AKs and shotguns, with revolvers a standout favorite for handguns due to their reliability. The registration took the rest of the afternoon, and by dusk the officer was ready to send a patrol of twenty men through the tent city to verify nobody was hiding any weapons.
The Chinese force worked the area methodically, and as darkness fell, gunfire echoed off the bay as those who had failed to comply with the new order were disciplined. By the time the tent city had been sanitized of firearms, six squatters had been summarily executed for defying the order, and nobody had any doubts that the Chinese intended to enforce the ban with zero tolerance for offenders.
Stars glimmered overhead as the last of the patrol made it to the gate and the barrier closed behind them, leaving the squatters to their fate in the new, smaller area they had been allocated. At least sixty of them in the best health had been segregated from the rest and marched into town to work, effectively eliminating any chance of meaningful resistance; the remainder outside the walls now were unarmed and forced to scrabble for sustenance however they could. As night settled over the area, the mood in the camp was grim, and by morning another ten percent of the denizens had disappeared under cover of darkness, never to be seen again.
Chapter 28
Salem, Oregon
Lucas, Ray, and Sam sat at a bar across the road from a two-story building on the outskirts of Salem, watching as a steady stream of bikers entered and left. Art and Jeb were waiting for them outside the city limits, the trio hopefully presenting a lower profile than a group of five strangers showing up together.
Sam was almost unrecognizable in cheap wraparound sunglasses and a weathered cowboy hat for which he’d traded several rounds at a tent market on the way into town. A week’s gray growth on his face completed what passed for his disguise – not that anyone appeared to care in the dark of the watering hole. They’d ordered home brewed beer delivered in steel steins, the liquor surprisingly cold thanks to the solar array on the roof and a bank of refrigerators humming behind the bar.
“That’s the place they’re using for the prisoners,” Sam murmured, barely audible over the laughter of a group of rowdies by the bar. He’d stopped in at a shop where he sold some of hi
s moonshine and got a reluctant report from the owner, who’d appeared terrified and had told him that the bikers were ruling the city with an iron fist. “They took over city hall downtown, too. That’s where most of them are holed up.”
“Why are they keeping your group locked up? For what?” Ray asked Sam.
“They did the same thing in Portland. Anyone who looked like they could put up a fight, they held in camps and worked to death.”
“But there are way more people in Salem than bikers. Why don’t they just snuff them out?”
Sam shrugged. “People are strange. Nobody wants trouble, and the bikers respond to any resistance with overwhelming force, so most aren’t willing to try to gang up on them – too many would get killed trying is the logic.”
Lucas shook his head. “That’s nuts. So instead they let these bums run the town?”
“I know. Not our proudest moment.”
“But they could overthrow them whenever they wanted.”
“Tell them that. When the bikers arrived, they killed a whole bunch of the local government. Lined them up and shot them in the main square. That set the tone.”
“Sounds like the locals didn’t put up much of a fight,” Ray said.
“The bikers surprised them. Showed up in the middle of the night, and then by morning they’d taken over. They obviously had spies here who told them who to go after. Everyone woke up to gunfire in the square, and by the time anyone could get organized, the fight had gone out of them.” Sam took a pull on his beer. “I’m not standing up for how the people handled it. Just telling you what I heard.”
“How many bikers you figure there are?” Lucas asked.
“No more than a couple hundred. Radiation got a lot of them in Portland.”
“So two hundred thugs were able to ride roughshod over a city of, what, two thousand?”
Sam shrugged. “What’s done is done. They’ve sealed the borders, and they only allow a few places outside to stay open for travelers – this joint, a couple of trading posts, the little tent market.”
“Why keep the prisoners outside town?” Ray asked.
“Not sure, but I guess they think it reduces the chances of an uprising if the troublemakers are kept isolated from the city.”
Lucas frowned at three bikers in leather making for their horses after exiting the building. “We could hit them when they have the prisoners out in the field.”
“I’m not sure they let them leave.”
“I thought you said they were using them as slaves.”
“No, I said that’s the rumor of what they’re planning. Right now, nobody but the bikers are allowed in or out. They’re probably starving them to break their will. That’s how they operate.”
“Nice guys,” Ray said.
“Point is, to break them out, we have to get into the building first, overcome the guards, and escape before reinforcements can arrive.”
They had been sitting, nursing their drinks, for an hour, and had seen at least twenty bikers come and go during that time. Sam had suggested a ruse to get inside, but hadn’t clarified what that might be, and Lucas realized that he hadn’t thought it through.
“We’ll need more than the five of us for anything to work,” Lucas said. “Even if we hit them at night, there are likely to be a decent number in that building, and if we’re going to create a diversion somewhere to draw them out, we don’t have enough people to carry it off.”
“I could blow something up,” Ray suggested.
“Not a bad idea. But we have another problem. Once we get them free, they’re only going to be useful if they have horses and weapons. Doubt the bikers are leaving those lying around,” Lucas said.
“We’ll need to steal some horses, too, I guess. And guns, if we can,” Sam added.
“So now we have to not only free your buddies, but somehow locate the main stable as well as the armory?” Lucas asked, skepticism coloring his inflection. “Even if we could find it, we’d need a lot more fighters to have any chance at all.”
“Once we break my people out, they can fight just fine,” Sam said.
“Assuming they aren’t starved half to death and already have weapons to fight with. You can’t rely on them being in any condition to do much besides run for cover, if that,” Lucas said.
“You don’t know them like I do.”
“I know they were taken without a shot fired.”
They threw out ideas until the reality of the situation was apparent – while a jailbreak was possible, if approached correctly in the wee hours, simultaneously stealing sufficient animals and weapons wasn’t an option.
“I have another idea,” Sam said. “What about if I knew a group that had plenty of guns and ammo? Then all we’d need are the horses and my people.”
“If you know anyone like that, why not just have them break your gang out?” Ray asked.
Sam finished his drink with a slurp. “They don’t necessarily love me, but they’d probably help if we asked the right way.”
“Yeah? What’s the right way, that you haven’t approached them so far?”
“Your man Jeb’s a holy roller, isn’t he?” Sam asked.
“What was the giveaway? The beard?” Ray quipped.
“He’s a religious man,” Lucas confirmed. “There are worse things these days than having a little faith. Although it makes for interesting times on the trail, with Art and Ray.”
“We’re sinners,” Ray intoned, his face serious.
“I got that,” Sam said. “The people I’m thinking of are also serious about their beliefs. That could be the connection that gets their help.”
Lucas studied him. “Why don’t you tell me what you have in mind?”
“Only one way to find out if they’ll give us a hand. They’re about an hour ride from here. We can make it in plenty of time.”
“Time for what?”
Sam checked furtively around the bar to ensure they weren’t being overheard, and then leaned over to Lucas with a conspiratorial expression in place. “Time to get organized and plan a prison break.”
Chapter 29
Sam slowed as he neared a collection of buildings ringed by a wall formed from the trunks of felled trees planted upright into the ground, like an old frontier fort, the tops sharpened to points. Two gunmen watched as he approached, with Lucas and the others behind him, their rifles trained on the arriving party. Sam stopped and the rest followed his lead, waiting for Sam to make his move.
He waved to the guards and called out, “Howdy, fellas. It’s Sam and some guests. From over at the Double X compound.”
“Sam? Heard you got run off,” one of the guards replied.
“True. Most of us did. But not all.”
“Good to hear. Who’re your friends?”
“Travelers from Astoria. I want to introduce them to Miles and the gang. Is he around?”
“Sure. Let me go see if he can talk. Mind staying put for a few minutes?”
“Can’t we come in?”
“Miles changed the rules after he heard about your situation. So no can do without his say-so. Sorry. It’ll only be a minute or two.”
“All right, then.”
Sam had explained that Miles Rawlins was a serious prepper who’d created an enclave based on Biblical principles with a host of like-minded souls, which was now one of the larger stand-alone groups in the area. Because they were further from Salem than Sam’s compound, they’d been spared the bikers’ wrath; at least, so far. Sam was hopeful that a plea for help from one of the faithful might sway Miles into allocating enough men to pull off an assault on the prison building, along with a horse-rustling expedition.
They waited expectantly, the gunman’s assault rifle still pointed in their direction, and Jeb murmured to Lucas, “What do we do if they won’t help?”
Lucas shrugged. “Plan B.”
“Which is?”
“We do it ourselves.”
“How can we pull it off with just the fiv
e of us?”
“Not sure. That’s why it’s not plan A.”
Sam shifted in the saddle and fidgeted with his reins, and then a man’s head popped up beyond the guards, a luxuriant brown beard with threads of silver veiling the lower half of his face.
“Sam? That really you? We heard…well, you know by now.”
“That’s right, Miles. Tell your boys to open up. Got some important stuff I want to talk to you about.”
“Who’s that with you, Sam?”
“This here’s Lucas and Jeb. That young fella is Ray, and the guy beside him is Art. They rode all the way from Astoria to give us a report on what’s happening there. You won’t believe it.”
“You vouch for ’em?”
“That I do, Miles. Good people. You’ll like ’em.”
Miles disappeared from view, and then the primitive wooden gate creaked open as two men hauled the heavy timber slabs aside. Miles stepped into the gap and waved at Sam.
“Come on, then. Hope you like rabbit stew. That’s all that’s on the menu for dinner, I’m afraid.”
“Thanks for the hospitality, Miles. Don’t mean to put you out,” Sam replied, and slid from his horse’s back and led the stallion forward. Lucas dismounted as well, and the others followed suit.
Sam shook hands with Miles, who motioned to one of his men to assist Sam with his animal. Lucas was next and found Miles to be a tall man of stern countenance with hazel eyes gleaming with intelligence.
“Pleasure,” Lucas said. “Like Sam said, name’s Lucas.”
Miles glanced at Sam. “Hope this was worth the ride all the way from Salem. Out of the pan and into the fire, isn’t it?”
“Interesting times, I’ll grant you that,” Sam allowed.
When the animals were secured, Miles invited them into a large central building that served as his meeting area. Three other men were already seated around a circular table crafted from roughhewn planks. After making introductions and offering the newcomers water, Miles sat back in his chair with a curious expression, matched by the other men.
The Day After Never - Perdition (Book 6) Page 15