The Amtrak Wars: Blood River

by Patrick Tilley

  Steve and Jodi watched with bated breath as Clearwater raised her right hand and made the traditional sign of greeting. As she did so, Cadillac produced the fat-barrelled pistol he’d taken from the Skyrider’s rescue kit and fired a white signal flare vertically into the air.

  ‘Sheee-ehhh!’ The sibilant Mute cry that signified amazement, awe and admiration burst from the throats of the warriors as they watched the dazzling fireball rise some two hundred feet before curving over their heads and falling to earth behind them, leaving a drifting trail of smoke to mark its passage through the air.

  It was the equivalent of the ‘white arrow’, the crossbow bolt that carried a smouldering sheaf of dried grass aloft as a signal that the hunter or the hunted wished to parley.

  After a suspense-filled moment when nobody in the Mute line reacted, the four warriors in the centre went into a huddle then raised their right arms and returned Clearwater’s greeting. There was then a second, longer confab between the leader of the Mute posse and Cadillac. From the amount of head-nodding, some sort of agreement seemed to have been reached. Steve eyed Jodi and let out a husky sigh of relief.

  A rapid tap-tap-tap drew their attention down to Kelso whose hatch-sledge lay between them. He was knocking on the inside of the perspex canopy that covered him from head to hip with the knuckles of his good left hand. Jodi hunkered down beside him.

  ‘What is it, Dave?’

  ‘Get this cover offa me and give me a gun!’ The words came out as a hoarse, muffled whisper.

  ‘Are you crazy? What for?’

  ‘What a dumb question! If we’re goin’ down under this heap of shit-balls, I wanna take one with me!’

  Jodi reacted with an angry gasp then slapped the canopy alongside his face. ‘Dave! Do everyone a favour will you!? Just go back to sleep!’

  Jodi stood up in time to see Cadillac trudging towards them through the snow carrying both backpacks. Clearwater was still engrossed in conversation with the four leaders of the Mute posse.

  Cadillac handed Clearwater’s pack to Jodi and gave his own to Steve. ‘I don’t want to sound too optimistic but we may have struck lucky. I was worried we’d run into one of the D’Troit clans but these guys are M’Waukee Mutes – braves from the Clan Kojak.’

  ‘Aren’t the M’Waukee supposed to be friends of the She-Kargo?’

  Cadillac responded to Steve’s question with a faintly patronizing smile. ‘That’s an over-simplification. Even clans from the same blood-line will kill each other to protect their turf. Let’s just say they dislike the She-Kargo slightly less than they dislike the D’Troit.’

  ‘Terrific …’ Steve eyed Jodi. ‘So where does that leave us?’

  ‘Alive – for the moment.’

  Jodi surveyed the impassive line of Mutes. The fact that they weren’t psyching themselves up with warlike noises somehow made the situation seem more threatening. She nudged Steve. ‘I don’t get it. By rights these guys should be leaping all over us. Are they frightened by signal flares?’

  ‘No. Must have been something he said.’ Steve turned to Cadillac. ‘What did you do – hit ’em with some fancy fire-speech?’

  ‘On the contrary. It was what they had to say that floored me.’ Cadillac glanced over his shoulder at Clearwater then ran his eyes slowly along the line of Mutes before coming back to Steve and Jodi. ‘The reason we’re not dead is because they regard us as something special.’

  ‘Special …?’

  ‘Yes. They’ve been expecting us.’ Cadillac saw them exchange puzzled looks and explained. ‘The Kojak’s have got a wordsmith like Mr Snow. He is the guardian of the Talisman Prophecy but he has also kept alive another centuries-old prediction which – on the face of it – appears to concern us. It’s very strange …’

  Steve blew his top. ‘Caddy, for chrissakes spare us the suspense! We appreciate the build-up but this isn’t the time or place! Just give us the bottom line!’

  ‘Okay. Hang on to this. Besides teaching them about Talisman, their wordsmith has been telling them for years that one day “… a small group of Plainfolk – The Chosen – would fly out of the east in the bellies of iron birds” –’

  ‘I don’t believe it –’

  ‘Hold on, I haven’t finished! “… and that their arrival would herald the birth of Talisman and the return of The Lost Ones” – the Mutes held in Ne-Issan.’

  ‘I see …’ mused Steve. ‘And this is why they haven’t killed us.’ He looked across at Jodi. ‘What d’you think?’

  Cadillac cut in before she got her mouth open. ‘Christo! What a dumb question! It’s what they think that matters! If they believe we’re “The Chosen”, why disillusion them? Let’s go along with it. I mean, who knows? It might actually be true.’

  ‘It might,’ admitted Steve. ‘If you believe that stuff.’ He eyed the motionless warriors. ‘Did you tell them we flew here from Ne-Issan?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So how did they know about the “iron birds”?’

  ‘The same way as the Plainfolk knew about cloud-warriors and iron snakes centuries before wagon-trains emerged from beneath the deserts of the south. That’s the magic of prophecy.’

  ‘Yeah …’

  Jodi, who had been following their conversation with growing puzzlement said: ‘Would you mind telling me what all this iron bird shit is about? And who or what is Talisman?’

  Steve flagged her down. ‘Some other time, Jodi. So – where do we go from here?’

  Cadillac smiled. ‘Well, for the moment, you three aren’t going anywhere. We can’t risk Kelso shooting his mouth off.’

  ‘Ayy-men to that,’ said Jodi.

  ‘They wanted to take us all back to their settlement so their wordsmith could question us but I told them our “blood-brother” had contracted a malady that lurks in the land of the dead-faces. And until he got better, he should not be brought into the settlement. I explained that we were not infectious. It was only young children in the general vicinity of the invalid who were in danger.’

  ‘Neat. So we stay and you go …’

  Steve looked at Jodi. His eyebrows formed the silent question.

  ‘That’s okay by me, Steve. Clearwater gave us all great paint jobs but even if Dave kept his mouth shut neither of us know the ropes. You may be able to wing it but it’s not gonna take ’em long to cotton on to the fact we aren’t the real thing.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right.’ Steve slapped his fur-clad hands together. ‘Okay – how does it play from here?’

  ‘They’re taking me and Clearwater back with them to meet their wordsmith. That’s why I’m leaving you the backpacks.’

  ‘And what do we do,’ asked Jodi. ‘Camp here?’

  ‘Yes. There shouldn’t be any trouble. We’re on their turf.’ Cadillac made a quick appraisal of their surroundings and pointed to a nearby stand of tall pines whose lower branches dropped under the weight of the accumulated layers of snow. ‘That looks like a pretty good spot. Why don’t you check it out?’

  ‘We will,’ said Steve, feeling distinctly upstaged. ‘Where’re they taking you?’

  ‘They didn’t say exactly. Just somewhere north of here.’

  ‘So you can’t tell us when you’ll be back …’

  ‘No. But these guys are travelling light – which means their settlement can’t be all that far away. My guess is we’ll be back in the next couple of days.’

  ‘Or never,’ said Jodi.

  Cadillac replied with a philosophical shrug. ‘Depends on how we make out with their wordsmith. If we can convince him we’re the real thing we may be offered a warm bed and free meals for the rest of the winter.’

  Steve absorbed the scenario with a thoughtful nod. ‘That takes care of you two, and maybe Jodi and me at a pinch. But that leaves Kelso out in the cold – or is his “malady” going to be suddenly and magically cured?’

  ‘Be realistic, Brickman. We both know there’s only one cure for Kelso and –’

  ‘Now wait
a minute –!’

  Cadillac rounded on Jodi. ‘No! You listen! Because without me and Clearwater your life’s not worth shit! Even if Mr Snow was here right now he couldn’t put Kelso back together. He needs major surgery – and only your people can handle that–’

  ‘But–’

  ‘Look! I’m not going to argue about this. Kelso’s your problem – and you’ve got two days to make up your mind what to do about it.’

  ‘You miserable piece of lumpshit!’ Jodi lunged at Cadillac’s throat.

  Steve saw Clearwater start running towards them as he stepped in between the warring pair, deflecting Jodi’s hands before they could do any damage. ‘Cool it! Christopher Columbus! What d’you wanna do – blow the whole deal?!’

  She rounded on Steve, eyes blazing. ‘I’m not going to let you kill him!’

  ‘Shut your face!’ hissed Cadillac. ‘I’ll give you this one last time.’ He lowered his voice further. ‘The one chance we have of getting out of here alive is by pretending to be who these guys think we are. Which means passing you two off as Plainfolk Mutes. And that means,’ – he jabbed a finger at Jodi – ‘you gotta act like one! For the Plainfolk, death is just part of a continuing cycle of existence. When a warrior is badly injured –’

  ‘Yeah? Well, you’re gonna have to get rid of me too!’

  Cadillac waved dismissively. ‘That’s it. I’ve had enough. You handle it, Brickman.’ He turned away as Clearwater arrived anxious to discover what all the shouting was about. Cadillac put her in the picture.

  Clearwater came over in an attempt to calm things down. ‘Jodi, please, I know how you feel about Kelso but you’re only prolonging his agony. If you’ll just let me explain –’

  ‘I don’t wanna hear any explanations!’ yelled Jodi. ‘You can both go fuck yourself!’

  Steve wrestled with her as she tried to break free. ‘Jodi! For chrissakes! Keep your voice down!’

  Cadillac strode off purposefully to rejoin the leaders of the Mute posse. Halfway there, he looked back and summoned Clearwater with an imperious wave. Clearwater signalled him to be patient. She didn’t want to leave until Steve and Jodi had finished arguing.

  ‘I’m serious, Brickman. I’m not gonna let you do it.’

  ‘Look! No one’s gonna kill Dave. I promise! I’m on your side in this. We’ll sort something out! Okay?’

  ‘If you say so.’ She stopped struggling but her body was still shaking with anger.

  ‘Good. Now back off and simmer down. Hell – I mean – after all we’ve been through … it’d be stupid to blow it now.’

  Jodi eyed them both resentfully. ‘Yeah, it would be, wouldn’t it?’ She knelt down to check on Kelso. He had drifted off to sleep.

  Clearwater took Steve aside. ‘Will she be all right?’

  ‘Yeah. No problem. It’s you I’m concerned about. At times you’ve been barely able to put one foot in front of another. Are you gonna be able to handle this run?’

  She laid a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry about me. “Mutes feel no pain” – isn’t that what they say?’ Her eyes became clouded. ‘I don’t want to leave you but I have to go with Cadillac. You understand why, don’t you?’

  ‘Sure. Take care. Of him and yourself.’

  ‘We’ll be back soon. I promise.’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that.’ Steve stepped back and shooed her away. ‘Better hurry. Your lord and master is getting impatient.’

  Preceded by six Kojak braves and flanked by the remaining twenty-four, Cadillac and Clearwater jogged away through the snow without a backwards glance. Steve watched them until they disappeared behind a fold in the ground then looked down at Jodi.

  ‘Cadillac’s right,’ she said, shouldering one of the backpacks. ‘There’s no point in arguing. One more, one less … what does it matter? That’s the way lump-heads think.’ Her eyes met Steve’s as she straightened up. ‘I guess that’s the difference between them and us. That’s supposed to make us the good guys and them the bad.’

  ‘It’s not that simple, Jodi.’

  She gave a derisive laugh. ‘No. With you it never is. But then, you’re not really one of us any longer are you?’

  They picked up the rope leads of Kelso’s sledge and headed towards the trees. Neither of them spoke for a long time.

  Led by Gus White, the four Skyhawks climbed to five thousand feet and flew due east in parallel lanes, each pilot keeping visual contact with his neighbour. Forty odd minutes after take-off, the patrol crossed the Mississippi, a smudgy grey line that meandered across the snow-covered landscape like the first, haphazard scrawl made by a young child on a pristine white page.

  An hour later, the northernmost wingman caught sight of the lower end of Lake Michigan. It was his first sight of one of the Great Lakes. Neither he nor his companions had ever seen so much water before. In the centre of the curving shoreline, between Izo Wantanabe’s base at Benton Harbour and the legendary rainbow-ice city from which the She-Kargo Mutes had sprung, lay navref Gary, Indiana.

  On the map-table around which all ten wingmen had gathered to be briefed by Baxter, the Flight Ops Exec, navref Gary was positioned halfway along the top edge of a shaded rectangle which, on the ground, was fifty miles square. This was the primary search area. Somewhere within it were two Skyriders – either whole or in pieces. The first task of the air patrols launched by The Lady was to discover where the planes had come down. Having done that, they were then required to establish the fate of the five people known to have been aboard. If they were not lying dead in the wreckage, they must be presumed to be alive and proceeding westwards on foot. If so, the flight-section was required to make a major effort to discover their present whereabouts and assist in their recovery.

  This was the reason, continued Baxter, why four sets of ski attachments – which would allow the Skyhawks to land and take-off from snow – had been fabricated by the engineers during the journey north from designs supplied over the video-link by Houston/GC.

  Gus White asked the question that was on everyone’s mind. ‘Are we working to a time limit on this, sir?’

  ‘Nope. We’re here for as long as it takes,’ replied Baxter.

  It sounded ominous. Since nobody wanted to be out here in the first place, it meant the rest of the crew would be constantly on their backs, pressurizing them to get the job done so that everyone could get home in time for New Year.

  But there was more. Baxter had concluded the briefing by applying another turn of the screw. Whilst in the search area, and on the outward and return legs they were also to record the position and size of any Mute settlements and take note of the level of over-ground activity. But they were not, repeat not, under any circumstances to attack any ground targets – even if they came under fire from the ground – without first obtaining specific authorization to do so from Hartmann himself. The only situation in which the use of weapons might be sanctioned would be to cover a landing to investigate clearly identified wreckage or to evacuate survivors.

  Gee whizz … thanks a bunch, sir …

  Picking the mutinous undercurrent from his ten pilots, Baxter privately questioned the wisdom of ‘non-aggressive’ patrols but got no joy from Hartmann. The wagon-train commander shared his reservations but he had been given clear and precise instructions by CINC-TRAIN who, in turn, were acting on orders emanating from the Oval Office. Karlstrom, the Operational Director of AMEXICO was the prime mover behind the search for Steve and his companions but the signals were prefixed with ‘Eagle One’; the President-General’s code-name. The acronym AMEXICO never appeared on any video-screen or hard copy and this ‘invisibility’ was one reason why, over the centuries, the organization’s existence had been successfully concealed from all but a chosen few.

  From the moment that Kelso had broadcast his covert May-Day signal and alerted the organization to what had taken place at Long Point, AMEXICO’s sophisticated intercept system had been monitoring the range of radio frequencies utilized by the stolen Skyr
iders.

  During the brief exchange with Kelso via the airborne signals unit there had not been time to query the fuel state of the two aircraft. Kelso had been instructed to fake engine trouble, providing him with a valid excuse to change course, flying around Lake Michigan instead of across it. With Cadillac locked in the cargo hold, Brickman would be obliged to follow. A lot depended on how well Kelso stage-managed events but he was to try and land in Iowa, as close to the Mississippi as possible.

  It was only after contact with Long Point had been restored that Karlstrom learned the aircraft had taken off without being refuelled. By then it was impossible to contact Kelso and modify the arrangements without risking blowing his cover.

  The rapidly-emptying fuel tanks had provided him with an even better excuse for changing course but the Skyriders had been forced down, in the middle of a snowstorm, some two hundred miles short of the point Karlstrom had selected. The heated conversations between Steve, Jodi and Kelso about their predicament had been recorded but because they had gone off the air prematurely, AMEXICO’s signals unit had been unable to obtain an exact fix on the point where they had landed. And they had stayed off the air ever since.

  Now, almost two weeks later, Karlstrom was unaware that Kelso – the man he was counting on to keep him posted – was lying with his broken body strapped to a make-shift sledge and that the compact but powerful walkie-talkie he had used to such good effect at Long Point had been crushed when he’d wrapped his Skyrider around the unyielding trunk of a big pine.

  Given Brickman’s action against his fellow operatives at Long Point, Karlstrom had decided against sending in more mexicans. The first three had only been temporarily disabled, but had Brickman’s attempt to steal the aircraft misfired, the consequences might have been a great deal more serious – perhaps fatal.

  In seeking Side-Winder’s help to escape from Ne-Issan with Cadillac and Clearwater, Brickman had spoken of the need to reach Wyoming to capture his ‘third target’: Mr Snow – the most powerful summoner known to the First Family. If this was true, if Brickman was only pretending to have changed sides, Karlstrom could foresee a situation where – in order to reinforce his credibility as a dependable ally of the Clan M’Call – he might be obliged to take more drastic measures against any new attempt by AMEXICO to bring in Cadillac and Clearwater before he was ready to deliver them. His original assignment had been to capture all three. Perhaps the plan he’d worked out needed the presence of Cadillac and Clearwater to bait the trap for Mr Snow …