by James Axler
She sat across the paper-piled desk from him. Inside was dusty and dim, and smelled of sweat and tobacco smoke from his cigar. Outside, the Sinclair and Sons Wag Yard creaked and whinnied and clattered and shouted with activity.
He took a last drag on his cigar and stubbed it on a copper tray on his desk.
“Some might call it a mite strange for the hired help to be taking a poll about their boss.”
“I reckon, if we put our butts on the line for a person, it behooves us to know as much as possible about that person,” she said.
Even she had long since started to wonder why she was dragging this out like a murder investigation. It wasn’t as if she’d insisted before that everyone they took a job from had to be a Mother Teresa. She had stayed in plenty of gaudies before and had encountered many gaudy owners. For some reason Dark Lady just rubbed Mildred the wrong way.
Now she wondered why, aside from her innate bulldog perseverance, she insisted on taking things so far. She was starting to wonder if it was a reaction to the frequent sense of powerlessness that gripped her since she awakened from the cryosleep.
Sinclair was frowning at her speculatively. He was a man of early middle age, still mostly lean and lank in a tan vest, matching trousers and a white shirt. He had a red mustache, and receding red hair cut short. His eyes were green in a face lined and weathered like his boots.
He looked just like a character in a cowboy movie from Mildred’s childhood. Except for the matte-silver Beretta M-92 holstered at his left hip.
“All right,” he said. “Reckon that’s fair.”
He swung his boots down, scooted his secretary’s chair closer to the desk, and dropped his elbows on the scarred hardwood surface.
“What is it you care to know about her, Ms. Wyeth?”
“I’ve heard you don’t like her,” she said, feeling even less inclined toward tact than usual. “Pretty unusual stance, given that the rest of the ville seems to think she spends her spare time walking on water.”
By the brief lowering of his brows she wasn’t sure he got the reference.
“Dark Lady doesn’t go far out of her way to be likable,” he said. “She’s not the sort to suffer fools gladly. And she regards those who don’t share her vision of what’s best for Amity Springs as fools.”
He sat back. “Since I and certain of my associates most emphatically do not share the vision—well, you can draw your own conclusions.”
“So you don’t like her.”
He shook his head as if he were trying to clear water from his ears.
“Like, dislike—that’s of no consequence. The important thing is, anybody who doesn’t respect Dark Lady is a stone stupe. I honestly don’t know of a person in this ville who fails to respect her, or to acknowledge the power of good she’s done the community.”
“Okay,” Mildred said. “So, is she the baron, or what?”
“No. We have no baron.” He shook his head. “Better by far if we did. I hope the people of the ville awaken to the fact that it’s long past time for us to grow up and accept that we need proper governance.”
“So, how exactly is Dark Lady preventing you from doing what you want to, then?”
“Moral suasion. People listen to her. Enough, frankly, that if we openly defied her wishes we would face ostracism at best. Business would drop.”
“I thought you said she didn’t go out of her way to be likable.”
“Ah, but being likable and being charismatic turn out to be entirely different things.” He tipped his head briefly to one side. “That and the fact she does have a habit of being right tend to tip the balance of opinion consistently in her favor. For now.”
“What’s your beef with her, then, exactly? What’s she not right about?”
“I and several other substantial members of the community feel Dark Lady’s desire to keep a low profile is not serving our interests in the long run,” he said. “It’s not protecting us. It’s actively dangerous. By spurning the opportunity to grow the ville’s resources as hard and fast as we have the opportunity to, she’s putting us all at greater risk in the future.”
“Harder and faster how?”
“By selling as much scavvy as we can dig up as fast as we can dig it up,” he said as if that were the most self-evident thing there was.
Maybe he doesn’t exactly understand the risks of flooding the market, she thought. But I damn sure didn’t come here to discuss economics with this dude.
“And in the process casting off this pretense of poverty and weakness,” he said. “It’s growing threadbare anyway. Rather we should acknowledge our wealth, and use it to build up our strength. Rather than hunkering down and hoping stonehearts won’t notice we have anything here worth stealing.”
“I take it the whole idea is to fly under the coldhearts’ radar, by making the ville look a lot poorer than it is.”
“Yeah. And that’s already breaking down. This Diego and his Crazy Dogs know well what kind of value Amity Springs has to offer. They’ve started in threatening the drivers of wags coming from the east again. I’ve been hearing about it all day as they roll in.”
That makes our services more valuable to Dark Lady in terms of taking the bastards down, then, Mildred thought. Is that rotten cynical? Well, tough, I guess. I long ago decided to do what it took to survive in this brave new world. If I want to live, I have to live with that.
But she said nothing.
“Even if we manage to deal with this bunch, others will come after,” the wag yard owner said. “What Diego’s figured out, others will, as well. They’ll come against us in a force greater than we can handle, all too soon. Unless we start making the proper preparations now.”
“Such as?”
He leaned forward intently. “Such as establishing proper central authority, for starters, and then letting go of all this silliness about wasting resources to make our ville look shabby. Focus on making it strong. And appear strong, as well.”
“Uh-huh,” Mildred said.
She agreed with the need for central authority, as far as that went. Though she wasn’t sure Amity Springs really needed anything more formal than what Dark Lady provided.
But Mildred knew that he had no idea of what the Deathlands could bring to them.
She shook her head.
“Do you disagree?” he asked.
“Not really,” she said, which was true enough.
The fact was, she wasn’t sure what the right answer was to the dilemma he’d proposed. She certainly knew it was real.
“Understand,” he said. “Dark Lady cares deeply for the people of Amity Springs. In action as well as thought. That is a given. What we can and do differ over is how best to secure their future.”
“So what’s your solution?”
“To the Dark Lady problem?”
“Yes.”
“Ideally, to buy her out and let her do whatever she chooses, go or stay,” he said.
“She’ll never sell,” Mildred said before she realized that was what she thought.
He sighed and looked pained. If that was fake, Madame Zaroza was missing out on a gifted performer.
“We shall try our best to get her to do so,” he said. “After that, well, I think we’ll shoot that catamount when it comes to us.”
Her eyes narrowed. Just another vivid shit-kicker figure of speech, or was he telling more than he intended?
It could be that lethal threats to Dark Lady didn’t all come from outside Amity Springs.
He stood. “And now, if you’ll excuse me... Yes?”
The last was directed past her, at the door that opened out toward the main yard and the street beyond. Mildred turned in her chair.
A wild-haired figure with shabby work clothes and a scraggly beard stood apologe
tically half in the doorway. Mildred recognized the ville’s loquacious coffin-maker, who chose to go by the named Coffin.
“Sorry to bother you, sir, ma’am.”
He looked at Mildred.
“You’re wanted back at the Library Lounge pronto. Your friends been looking all over for you.”
* * *
THE SUN WAS heading for the far end of Nukem Flats when she followed the Asian-looking carpenter into the yard. It bustled with activity as drivers and stable hands unhitched horses from several wags, to lead toward the barn in the back to pass the night. The drivers themselves would doubtless end up in the Library Lounge, sooner rather than later.
Something brushed up against Mildred’s arm. She turned to see Coffin trying to measure her with a length of cloth tape.
She batted the shabby fabric ribbon away as if it was glowing radioactive. “Hey, now, what the Hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Just taking your measurements, ma’am,” he said. “You know—just in case.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“The end comes to us all. No shame in being prepared.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Baron.”
When Trumbo walked into what Sand called her Grand Salon, the room was full of the reek of pot, wine and glandular secretions. The smoke hung in a greenish haze from waist height to the dark brown rafters.
The Baron of Joker Creek was lounging in her regal chair, with that repellent oily Arcane draped over one side of her and a half-naked redheaded woman named Silky on the other. Trumbo tamped down his disgust hard. He had a mission.
Sand lolled her head over her shoulder to blink myopically at him. Her lips were soft and moist, her cheeks flushed. Her eyes were bloodshot. Disgusting, he thought. If only you knew what you were doing to yourself....
“What?” she demanded. Arcane giggled. Silky peered coyly around her baron’s bulk.
“I just received a report of a possible Crazy Dogs’ patrol sneaking around on the bluffs,” he said.
She blinked at him twice, slowly. Her eyes were huge.
Then she popped to her feet. Silky melted away from her. Arcane was unceremoniously dumped on his skinny butt on the maroon tile floor.
“Then what are we waiting for?” she demanded hoarsely.
She glared around at her hangers-on. They looked at her with a mixture of fear and partly repressed amusement, as if they wished to believe this was a joke, and didn’t want to be seen not to get it, or laugh at the right time.
Arcane whimpered. She tapped him on top of his curly haired head.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she said. “I knew the Dogs would try us again, after our deliciously dark and mysterious friends made their spy disappear. They need to be taught a sharp, hard lesson now. Because if they somehow take over, they’ll really give you something to snivel about.”
Trumbo wrestled to keep his emotions off his face. Feelings were unmanly anyway. Showing them was as bad as dropping your pants and showing a scar where your balls should be.
He loathed this den of repulsive muties—and degenerates who were worse freaks than even muties were. Yet he adored this baron.
How I wish I could take her away from all this, he thought. Make her see this isn’t the right way to live.
She’d lacked a strong man’s hand guiding her life for so long she’d come to imagine she didn’t need it. He knew he was the man to help her see light.
Arcane got to his feet with surprising speed.
“The farmers’ dogs’ve been barking for a while now,” he said, pouting only a little. “Mebbe that’s the Crazy Dogs they’re responding to.”
“Likely,” Sand said, turning and putting her hands on her hips as if to evaluate him. Trumbo wondered why she couldn’t see he was worthless.
“Will you fight them for me?”
“Of course.”
She reached out and pinched his cheek, lightly furred with what it disturbed Trumbo to have to call a beard.
“That’s my good boy,” the baron purred. “I knew I could count on you.”
“Always.”
Sand turned away and bent. From somewhere in the tangle of cushions and wisps of fabric and smoke she produced an ebony cane. She flourished it in the air.
“Gather your troops, Trumbo,” she commanded. “I shall lead you into battle personally. As soon as I find my boots. And some pants.”
He nodded. “Yes, Baron.”
And hoped she didn’t see the secret smile he couldn’t keep off his face.
* * *
“OKAY,” SAID KRYSTY, lowering Ryan’s Navy longeye. “I see Ryan’s signal. They’re ready to move on the house.”
“I hear dogs barking down below,” Ricky said worriedly. “Might they give them away?”
“Then we’d best get to using these toys Dark Lady gave us, shouldn’t we?” Mildred said, picking up a firefight simulator from the dirt beside where she, Krysty, Ricky and Doc crouched or lay on the ridge overlooking Sand’s domain. It was basically a string of firecrackers rolled into a ball and rigged with an initiator that would start them going off in series. It was meant to mimic the noise and flashes of a serious shootout.
They had concealed themselves a bit east of the baron’s big house, not far from where Ryan had shot the Crazy Dogs’ spotter.
There was no moon this night. It was a waving sliver and had set early, which was to their advantage.
“J.B. will be eating himself with jealousy that he doesn’t get to light these puppies,” Mildred said.
“Doubtless he is sufficiently occupied at the moment to overcome that emotion,” said Doc, who was crouched back from the lip of the cliff with his big LeMat clutched in one bony hand.
“Are we ready?” Krysty asked softly.
She wasn’t happy at having to split up like this, but staging a diversion was the best shot at letting Ryan, J.B. and Jak get in and out safely.
“Oh, yeah,” Mildred said.
Doc nodded. “Indeed.”
Ricky was facedown beside Krysty, pointing his DeLisle into the Basin. Though he could be high-strung in some ways, she had learned to trust his steadiness where blasters were concerned. She wasn’t worried he’d loose off a shot out of overeagerness, or worse by accident, and alert the baron and her sec men prematurely. And anyway, the longblaster was so effectively sound suppressed they’d never hear it if he did.
He twisted around and looked at her. His head moved slightly up and down as he swallowed in nervousness. Clearly he was crowding his mind with everything that could go wrong for their three friends below.
It was a lot, but Krysty had practice putting that knowledge out of her head. It was a necessary skill to lead the life she had chosen. She gave him a smile of encouragement.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
She looked at Mildred and grinned.
“Do it,” she said.
Mildred pulled the string initiator hard. The device in her hand began to fizz. She stood and heaved it as far west as she could, aiming it to land as close to the cliff top as she dared.
They all hunkered down then, and waited. In a moment all hell broke loose. Lights flared and danced. Smoke roiled. The noise made Krysty wince.
She grinned at Mildred. The stocky woman was already prepping a second simulator. She was clearly having a lot of fun.
And then from the night, off toward the stream cut that flowed down past the big house, more dancing lights appeared.
Unmistakable muzzle-flashes were pointed their way.
Krysty ducked in alarm as a bullet cracked over her head.
“We’re under attack for real!” she shouted, hoping to be heard above the din.
* * *
&
nbsp; THE TOP OF the bluffs, a good quarter mile away, suddenly lit up with bright flashes, and it sounded as though several blasters were shooting.
“Right,” Ryan said, leaning back around the front of the small shed he crouched behind. “Time to move.”
He signaled to Jak. “We best go with a purpose. People will be starting to rouse and look outside any moment.”
The albino had already slipped around the far side. They had crossed the creek downstream from the settlement and had made their way near the foot of the bluffs before Ryan signaled they were in place. They had avoided detection so far.
Except by the rad-blasted dogs. There was one barking vigorously at them from not forty yards away. Apparently folks around here weren’t suspicious of such—no doubt coyotes, armored or otherwise, visited on a regular basis, and they knew by the sounds of their watch animals just how immediate a threat was. That had led Ryan, J.B. and Jak to take longer than they otherwise might have, steering wide enough of barking dogs that the animals didn’t take it up from general alert to condition red.
“They’re putting on a good show up there,” J.B. murmured, nodding toward the bluffs to the north.
There certainly was a lot of racket going on. It really did sound like blasters.
“Dark Lady gave us enough of those things,” Ryan said. “They must’ve found the old arsenal.”
“Yeah,” J.B. said a bit wistfully, and slipped around the corner of the shed. Ryan knew he wished he could be setting them off, but his real talents were needed down here.
Trotting bent over, Ryan followed him toward the big house. Light was pouring out of every window. He had his Steyr longblaster strapped across his back, where naturally the muzzle banged him on the kidneys with every step. Couldn’t be helped; he didn’t know he’d have call to use a scoped long-range blaster, but then, he couldn’t know he wouldn’t.
Ahead of him J.B. was running along the same way. He had his Uzi strapped over his back and his M-4000 scattergun in his hands. Ryan hoped they wouldn’t be spotted before they reached the main house, or things could get loud down here, too, in a hurry.
The farmers could be another issue. They ran along the bank of an irrigation ditch flanking a field full of rows of low mounds of what had to be some early rising crops. Ryan had no idea what. He wasn’t any dirt farmer.