Hell Road Warriors

by James Axler

  Jak looked at the target. It was a barrel-thick round of soft wood on a pair of sawhorses. The target was painted in three concentric circles. The outer circle was painted red with a pair of “2s” painted in black like three and nine o’clock on a chron. The next ring was painted white with similar black fives. The center was the size of a small plate, painted red with a black 10 dead center.

  “Double?” Jak suggested.

  Tommy True-flight’s hands creaked into fists. “Double what?”

  “Distance?”

  The tent erupted. The distance had just gone from four yards to eight. Whatever bet they might have made, everyone in the crowd liked Jak’s style. Tommy spread his arms and the crowd behind them parted like the sea. “Fine, Whitey. You go for it.”

  Jak shook his head. “No.”

  Tommy scowled again. “Challenger goes first.”

  Jak kept his ruby-red appraisal on Maddie and her best assets. “No. You.”

  “Well, fine! You just watch and weep, kid!” Tommy took three blades from the back of his breechclout and stalked to the line. His blades were short and wasp-waisted, and unlike Jak’s they had no edge to be used like a real knife or any heft for penetration. Ryan recognized the soft steel construction so they would bend and be bent back into shape rather than snap on a bad impact. The blades had no practical purpose except to mark a target. They were sporting devices, and ones Tommy was obviously long practiced with. Tommy measured off four more yards with a professional stride and drew a line in the dirt floor of the tent with his toe. He stuck out his chin at Jak.

  Jak nodded.

  Tommy suddenly threw. “Lah!”

  His lazy overhand throw was perfect, and his knife sank into the red of the 10-ring, three o’clock right of center.

  “Lah!” His second knife stuck just below the one and the zero.

  “Lah!” His third throw thunked in right next to his first.

  The crowd roared in appreciation as Tommy stepped forward confident of his prowess and yanked his knives free of the target. Even Ryan was impressed. The crowd shouted in a cacophony of conflicting encouragement and jeers.

  “Shut up!” Tommy boomed. “Let him throw!”

  Ryan knew Jak didn’t care. He was in his zone. The albino teen stepped to the line. One of his leaf-bladed throwing knives slid out of his sleeve into his palm. The silence in the tent was deafening as he raised his knife. Jak drew back his hand to throw and—

  “Loser loses his blades,” Tommy chided. “That’s the rules.”

  Krysty was outraged. “Hey!”

  Tommy shrugged innocently. “Just makin’ sure the kid here knows the rules.”

  Jak ignored them both. “Two.”

  “Two ring?” Tommie shook his head. “We said the bull’s-eye was—”

  Jak threw. He didn’t hit the two ring. He put his point into the curlicue of the numeral two. Jak made another knife appear in his left hand.

  “Five.” Jak sank his second blade into the curlicue on the bottom of the numeral five. The crowd gasped. Jak ignored them.

  “Two!” Jak nailed the two on the opposite side. “Five!” Jak repeated his performance. Jak finally deigned to turn his bloodred gaze on Tommy.

  “Ten, one-zero split,” he declared.

  Tommy True-flight’s eyes rolled up toward the top of the tent. “Fuck me.”

  Maddie bounced up and down on her heels in anticipation.

  The tent was absolutely silent.

  Jak took a slow breath and threw.

  His blade stuck right between the two painted numerals in the center.

  Five knives bisected the target, piercing the scoring numbers on a nearly straight line.

  The tent erupted into cheers.

  Jak shrugged. Fatty shoved a sleeve of spruce beer into Jak’s hands, and Jak let him. “The man! The man! The man!” he shouted. The tent took up the chorus. Tommy strode up and dropped his blades on the blanket. “You win.”

  “Call me kid, ever?” Jak stared at him frankly. “Kill you.”

  Tommy watched Fatty as the losers queued up to cross his palms with wooden jack. “The man!” he chortled as the jack sifted between his fingers. “The man!”

  Tommy looked long and hard at Jak. “Guess I’ll have to call you the man, then. And today—” Tommy smiled ruefully and shoved out a long-fingered hand “—the better man.”

  Jak shook Tommy’s hand.

  The crowd applauded the show of sportsmanship. J.B., Mildred and Doc pushed their way into the tent. “What’s up?” Mildred asked.

  Ryan nodded as Jak folded the four corners of his blanket of winnings together to make a sack. He handed Ryan back the spare SIG. “Friendly contest. Jak cleaned up.”

  A voice spoke over the hubbub of slowly dispersing sports enthusiasts and gamblers discussing the contest. “Is the bettin’ over?”

  All eyes turned to a redheaded, bearded man in buckskin riding leathers. He was even shorter than Jak.

  Jak flipped his sack of winnings open. “No.”

  The crowd recoalesced in avid interest.

  Vincent Six’s laugh was never pleasant. Now it dripped with scorn as it boomed. “Mon Dieu!” Six threw back his head and laughed. “A petit Henning!”

  The man smiled and took no umbrage. “Call me Red.”

  “You must be one of Mace’s bastards,” Six declared. “Though I thought they drowned runts here in Ontario.” He gave Red a scathing look. “I would have.”

  A tall man in a hooded robe stepped into formation with Red. The crowd went quiet as he pushed back his hood to reveal a head studded with skin-tags the size of pencil erasers. They sucked in a breath as he opened the neck of his robe slightly to reveal a silver coin gleaming beneath his collarbone.

  Everyone in the province knew what it meant.

  Six’s face became deadly serious. “Tag.”

  Tag ignored Six and regarded Jak with interest. “You are very skilled.”

  Jak nodded at the wisdom of the statement. “Thanks.”

  “A wager?” Tag suggested.

  Jak toed the blaster on the blanket. “P-226 SIG, loaded.”

  “I admit form follows function,” Tag remarked. “Yet, I find it crude-looking.”

  Jak just waited. “And?”

  Tag extended a flesh-studded finger at the satin-finished .357 Colt Python Jak wore on his belt. “That’s pretty.”

  Mildred was appalled. “Jak! No!”

  Jak drew his blaster.

  Ryan put a hand on Jak’s shoulder. “Jak, I’m not going to tell you what to do. But he saw you throw, and still wants a piece of you. That blaster is—”

  Jak dropped his cherished weapon onto the blanket.

  Ryan removed his hand. “Fireblast…”

  “Bet against me,” Jak reiterated.

  Tag’s gleaming smile rivaled Doc’s, and it was all the more disturbing coming out of the fleshy foliage covering his face. Tag’s hands went to the engraved Browning blaster with the attached wooden holster stock that hung from the baldric over his shoulder. Jak shook his head. “No.”

  Tag cocked his studded head. “No?”

  “Semiautos. Not trust. Jam.”

  “This blaster has never jammed.” Tag tossed a careless hand. “Nevertheless, tell me, my friend from the south, what wager would please you?”

  Jak pointed at the silver voyageur coin on Tag’s chest. “Sure shiny.”

  Red gripped Tag’s arm. “Tag! No!”

  Jak’s red eyes locked with Tag’s startlingly pale gray gaze. Some kind of understanding bordering on respect passed between them. Tag nodded very slowly. “A gentleman’s bet, then?”

  “Fo
r blades?” Jak countered.

  “Done.”

  Jak jerked his head at the line. “Two more yards.”

  The crowd gasped once more.

  “Done.” Tag nodded.

  A thunderstorm of wagers broke across the tent. Ryan shoved all his tokens into Krysty’s hands, and she just dropped the pile between her feet. “Ten to one on Jak!”

  “The man!” Fatty howled. “Ten to one on the man!”

  Tag paced off two more yards and drew a new throwing line. “Red?”

  Red went to the target. He took a deck of pasteboard cards out of the purse on his belt and shuffled out the king of hearts. Red took out a horseshoe nail and hammered the card into the middle of the bull’s-eye with the back of his tomahawk. “Tag?”

  Tag nodded. “Jak?”

  Jak nodded. “Three throws.”

  “Of course. But I am something of a stickler for the rules. As challenger, shall I go first?”

  Jak spit on his hands and rubbed them together. “Sure.”

  Tag reached into his robe and pulled out his weapons. Both Ryan and Jak gave them a very hard look. They weren’t so much knives as throwing spikes. There were three of them in a leather sheath. Each was fifteen inches long and an inch thick in the middle. From there the weapons tapered down to wicked needlepoints on both ends. They looked to be about two pounds of pig iron a piece. They would sink through flesh with brutal penetrating power, and even if they failed to stick a living target point-on, they would still impact with bone-breaking, sledgehammer force. Tag stepped to the line. His weapons rang grittily as he rolled them in his hand.

  Tag threw.

  The throw was almost lazy. The lob sent the dark iron revolving through the air in a high arc. The spike hit the target with an impressive thud point-on and sank six inches into the wood through the king of hearts’ crotch. Despite his bet Fatty whistled. “Rad, thunder and fallout!”

  Tag threw again.

  It took deceptive strength to send two pounds of metal twelve yards. Ryan didn’t want to think about what would happen if Tag wound up and threw with all his might. The torpedo of iron hit at a slight angle and clanged like a horseshoe at it hit its brother.

  Tag’s third throw obliterated the bottom right heart on the card.

  Red walked up and yanked the iron torpedoes free with obvious effort. About two-thirds of the card came with them. Tag frowned slightly as Jak approached the line. “We know the dimensions of the card. I will accept any throw within them. Unless you demand a fresh target?”

  “No.” Jak palmed a blade. “I hit paper.” Jak shrugged. “Or you win.”

  Jak’s madness drew another gasp from the crowd.

  Fatty was beside himself. “The man! The man!”

  “Woo-hoo!” Mildred cheered.

  “Get him, Jak!” Krysty cried.

  “Show him what for!” Doc rallied.

  Tommy True-flight agreed. “Show him!”

  Tag’s voice cut through the cheering and jeering. He held one of his spikes as if he were about ready to throw. “I want absolute silence.”

  Silence reigned in the tent. Jak raised his blade. Ryan leaned in. “Jak?”

  “What?”

  “No pressure.”

  Jak’s ruby-red eyes narrowed. “Thanks.”

  “But Seriah’s watching.”

  Jak turned his head. The little wrench was in the crowd. Her hands clasped the front of her coverall. Her eyes were wide and her cheeks flushed as she looked at Jak. She blew Jak a kiss, and he tilted his head so that the invisible affection would hit him on the cheek. Seriah stopped short of bursting into flames.

  Jak threw his blade, and it slammed straight into the side of the king of hearts’ head.

  The crowd nearly went mad.

  His second throw shaved off the king’s ear.

  Jak raised his third blade and took a long breath. The only sound in the tent was the crowd breathing in with him and then holding it.

  Jak threw.

  A single spark shot like a tiny meteor as his blade scraped between the first two. Nothing remained of the king of hearts’ head but Jak’s three-petal blossom of steel.

  The crowd went berserk.

  Jak’s friends thumped him roundly. Krysty and Mildred dropped a kiss on both cheeks. Tag dropped his spikes on the blanket and bowed away gracefully. Jak was pelted with a hail of wooden tokens in tribute from the crowd. Seriah ignored the flying jack and hurled herself into Jak’s arms. Maddie stood in front of him with her fists on her hips. She raised an eyebrow at Seriah. “And me?”

  “Anything?” Jak inquired.

  Maddie lifted her chin. “For one hour, I do anything you say, that was the deal.”

  Jak shrugged. “Make Fatty happy.”

  Maddie’s jaw dropped.

  Fatty waved his arms and shouted to the tent top. “The man! The man!”

  Jak squeezed Seriah tighter. He had what he wanted.

  Krysty slid her arm around Ryan’s waist. “That was fun.”

  “Yeah, fun,” Ryan said.

  Mildred shook her head. “Dude, don’t you ever relax? Jak won the wager, won the contest and got the girl.”

  Jak folded up his blanket of winnings and wandered off toward the docks with Seriah glued to his hip.

  “Yeah,” Ryan agreed.

  “Ryan?” Mildred was starting to get steamed. “We won.”

  “Ryan is right,” Doc said quietly. “We were the strangers in the iron wag. The wild card. Now our numbers have been marked and noted. Jak’s skill has been measured and weighed.”

  “We didn’t win.” Ryan watched Red and Tag disappear into the crowd. “We just got recced.”

  Chapter Ten

  The sky was purple, the Northern Lights red. Between them everything was bathed in pink light. Ryan smiled to himself. The camp had guitarists, flautists, bagpipers, drummers and even a hammered bongo player in attendance. The iron law of the First Nations camp was live and let live, or die, and with it came a relaxed sort of freedom. It had been a good night.

  Ryan and Krysty were swaddled in bear and buffalo hides on top of the big rig.

  “Mmm…lover,” Krysty said.

  “Yeah.” Ryan sighed.

  “Jak and Seriah?”

  Ryan turned his head toward the LAV. Jak and Seriah had taken a skin of maple shine, raised the ramp and not been heard from since. “They’re both short,” Ryan stated. “They got that.”

  “They got more than that.”

  “She makes him smile,” Ryan conceded. “Haven’t seen that in a while.”

  “He makes her smile, and she’s handy with a wrench.”

  “If he wants to steal her and carry her off—” Ryan stretched and yawned “—I won’t stop him.”

  Krysty was quiet for long moments. “I didn’t like Red. Six insulted him ugly and he just kept smiling.”

  Ryan grunted. The Henning runt was worrisome. If Red was any indication, then the big Henning was a genuine concern. “Camp law. Six tried goading him into breaking it, Red knew better.”

  “And Tag…” Krysty shivered. “He’s a coldheart. Cold as ice. I could feel it.”

  “Chilling cold, with both hands,” Ryan acknowledged. “Six was right. Mace doesn’t hand out those silver coins for nothing. I don’t like them being in camp. They didn’t come here to trade or throw knives.”

  Krysty shook her head against Ryan’s chest. “Well, they’re under camp law. Just like us. Yoann and Six say no one dares break it.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re doing it.”

  “How?”

  Ryan shook his head as he looked up into the kaleidoscope in the cl
ouds. “They’re foxing us, Krysty. I don’t know how yet, but they are.”

  Krysty buried her face into Ryan’s chest. “Fox them back.”

  “I will. Don’t know how yet, but I will.”

  Krysty sighed. “I want coffee.”

  “I want some loving.”

  “I want pancakes for breakfast.”

  “I want you for breakfast.”

  “Well…” Krysty rolled onto her back with a happy sigh and set the table. “You win.”

  RYAN FOLLOWED THE SMELL of Diefenbunker coffee to the convoy mess wag. A sizable crowd had gathered at the docks. Everyone seemed eager to see what might wash up with the tide. Toulalan was positively smug. Even Six seemed abnormally satisfied with the world. “You seem happy.”

  Ryan accepted a cup of coffee and sniffed the air. “Pancakes?”

  “Last night I spoke long with Jon Hard-knife.” Toulalan raised his mug. “With luck, we hire scouts today.”

  “With pancakes?”

  “It rendered us your services, no?” Toulalan laughed. “I ask you, can a First Nations man resist them?”

  Almost on cue three First Nations men approached the convoy council. Ryan recognized the man in the lead as the one who had stood next to Jon Hard-knife at the gate the day before. He stood in front of Toulalan. “My father tells me you’re looking for scouts. These men are the two best scouts in camp. They were going to go home, but my father told them you’re heading west. They have seen your convoy and are interested.” He gestured at the two men flanking him. “This is Donnie Goosekiller and Boo Blacktree.”

  Donnie Goosekiller looked like a First Nations version of J. B. Dix, except that he was even shorter, even more wiry and had thicker glasses. The main difference between them besides their race was that Donnie wore a maroon tuque over his braids despite the heat and unlike J.B. he seemed to smile constantly. With its 36” barrel the bolt-action, 10-gauge scatter blaster he carried was nearly as tall as he was. He wore a bandolier of home-rolled, waxed-paper shells. Goosekiller leaned on the huge, ancient water-fowling piece like it was a spear. Ryan was pretty sure he knew how Goosekiller had earned his name.

  Boo Blacktree was Donnie Goosekiller’s polar opposite. The First Nations scout was in a race with Ryan and Six for most physically imposing man in camp. Ryan was tall and rangy with cables, ropes and cords of muscle pulled across his long bones like the physique of a gladiator.