“Who did all this?” Miles asked.
“Don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing it’s the same folks that took the guard rails, the doors and every other piece of wood in this place,” Kyle replied.
Coal knelt down and scooping up a handful of broken pieces he spread them out on the floor just inside of both doorways.
“If we have any unexpected visitors tonight, this may be all the warning we get,” he said,” So, I hope nobody here is a heavy sleeper.”
Coal guided them upstairs and into the master bedroom. Just as the bounty-hunter had promised, a large window there gave them a clear view of the buggy and the backyard. Miles leaned against the wall and kept a lookout, as Coal and Kyle went through the upstairs room and returned a few minutes later with a dusty mattress and some mildewed blankets. They laid the mattresses out on the floor and Kyle helped Miles to lay down. The old man refused the help at first, but it was apparent to all of them that he was in pain from the day’s ride and he finally relented. Coal handed out pieces of dried meat while Kyle found three intact cups in the kitchen and passed around the day’s ration of water.
“I’ll take watch until midnight,” Coal offered as the men ate.
“I guess that leaves me with midnight to dawn,” Kyle said with a nod.
“What about me?” Miles asked defensively.
“Don’t worry about it Miles just...” Kyle began.
“Nonsense! I’m old, but my eyes and ears work fine. Besides I’m spending the day just sitting, if anything I’m going to need less sleep than either of you,” he said curtly.
The scavenger looked at Coal, and the half-breed just shrugged in reply.
“Okay then Miles, you take the third watch. I’ll wake you when it’s time,” Kyle said.
The three men settled in for the night, Coal moved into the next room where a corner window provided him a view of the front of the house as well as the back. Miles passed out almost immediately, his injured leg forcing him to sleep on his back and take up nearly all of the twin mattress. Kyle didn’t mind, he simply leaned up against a wall and wrapped a mildewed blankets around him. As the scavenger teetered on the edge of sleep, for some reason his final thoughts were of the abandoned vehicles on the road and people who had been forced to leave them behind.
The Devils of Phoenix
The dream came to Kyle like it often did when he slept out alone in the wastes. He was young again, just a boy really and like the rest of the world he was staring up in awe and in fear at the blue lights in the night sky. Cynthia was there with him, his memories of her that night were always bittersweet. She was the first girl he had ever fallen in love with. Unfortunately, he already knew how her story would end, though she was young and innocent now she would die withered and pale, choking as she spat up dark blood.
Kyle went through the motions of the dream as he always did, the drive up old mine road, the brilliant blue lights and the darkness that followed after it. As always, in the dream, he was walking back down the long road, with his arm wrapped around Cynthia, just as he had that night. But this time the dream changed, and as they walked the darkness of the night suddenly shifted into bright daylight, and the mountain road became a barren stretch of highway covered in windblown sand. On both sides of the road, cars sat freshly abandoned, their bright paint still shimmering in the heat. Then ahead of him in the glare of the piercing sun, Kyle saw a man moving along the road, staggering away from him. Kyle quickened his pace trying to catch up to the man, and Cynthia fell away from him suddenly vanishing.
“Hey you, you there,” he shouted.
The man paused as if he heard Kyle’s shouts, but he didn’t turn to look back. Instead, he started walking again staggering on. The man wore a dark uniform stained with sweat and dirt and a gun belt around his waist. Kyle began to follow after the stranger, but with each step, he took his feet sank deeply into the loose sand slowing him in the way that dreams often do.
“Stop, please stop!”
Finally, Kyle’s feet began to find purchase, and he fought his way clear of the sand. He started to catch up with the stranger but just before he reached him the man looked back over his shoulder at him. Kyle froze in his track as he looked upon the drawn and withered face of his father, his lips cracked and his skin blistered by the sun.
“Da…Dad?”
Kyle’s father didn’t respond instead the man turned away from him and for a moment Kyle thought that he would continue walking again. Instead, Kyle watched as his father’s body suddenly went rigid before dropping to his knees. Kyle took a few cautious steps forward, and the sand’s grasp on him seemed to fade as if allowing him to move closer. With tears now flowing down his cheeks, Kyle reached a hand out towards his wayward father.
“Dad,” he called out again.
“I’m sorry son, I failed you.”
With that Kyle’s father raised the magnum to his head and shot himself.
“Tonto, Tonto wake up,” Coal whispered.
Kyle startled awake and grabbing hold of the bounty-hunter’s hand he reached for his Magnum with the other.
“Kyle no!” Coal hissed.
The half-breed just managed to hold Kyle’s hand down keeping the heavy revolver pinned in his shoulder holster, then with a quick backhand, he slapped Kyle across the face. The scavenger blinked twice looking from his friend and then down to the Magnum and then back again.
“Coal?” he asked in confusion.
“Yeah, it’s fucking Coal! I’m your friend and your my faithful pale-faced sidekick, now don’t fucking shoot me!”
Kyle blinked twice, “Yeah, I’m sorry.”
“Now say it back to me,” Coal insisted, still holding on to Kyle’s hand.
“You’re my friend and…wait, I’m your sidekick?”
“Close enough, now follow me,” Coal replied releasing Kyle’s hand.
Coal turned and moved out of the bedroom silently. Kyle stood still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he glanced over and found Miles still snoring softly and then turned to follow the half-breed. He found Coal in the bedroom across the hall, kneeling in silence next to a large broken window with a commanding view of the street.
“Did you see something?”
“No, but just sit here for a minute and listen,” Coal replied patting the floor next to him.
Kyle shook his head and sat down next to his friend, “Did you hear something?”
“Sssssshhhhhh…,” came Coal’s reply.
The scavenger sat for a moment and tried to listen, at first he heard nothing and looked over at Coal to see if this was one of the half-breed’s ill-timed jokes. But he found Coal’s eyes closed and his face unreadable, then Kyle heard…something. It was a sound like twisting metal followed a moment later by a faint cracking sound.
“What was that?”
“No idea, don’t make any sense to me,” Coal replied opening his eyes.
“Where is it coming from?”
“I think it’s on the next street over and I’m fairly certain it’s moving.”
“Coming this way?” Kyle asked anxiously.
“Not sure.”
“Should we go have a look?” Kyle asked.
“Well, I didn’t wake you up for the conversation,” Coal smirked.
“Ok, I’m going to wake Miles up.”
“You’re not planning on dragging the old man along with us are you?” Coal asked.
“No, but if we have to move out in a hurry then I want him ready, he isn’t the swiftest on his feet.”
A few minutes later Coal and Kyle stepped out of the front doorway and began moving as quietly as they could across the street. Miles hadn’t been thrilled with Kyle’s plan to “Go have a look” and was even less thrilled with their plan to make him stay behind. Only Kyle’s insistence that they may need to make a hasty retreat and that Miles covering them from the second floor with his shotgun may mean the difference between life and death finally convinced the old man to stay behind.
Coal led the way, guiding the pair across the street and between two abandoned homes. Much like the house that the group had temporarily taken up residence in, the backyard was enclosed by a six-foot-high stucco wall. Coal and Kyle paused for a moment, and sure enough the odd sounds seemed to be coming from the other side of the wall, pointing to both of his eyes Coal gestured over the wall, and each man carefully peered over the top.
It took a moment for Kyle’s mind to process what he was seeing, a vehicle sat in the street perhaps a dozen yards away. It had been a small truck at one time but was now stripped down to just a rolling frame and a pickup bed. A steel bench rested where the cab used to be and on it sat a man wearing a leather vest, he had long gray hair that was tied back in a ponytail. The man sat with his back facing them and next to him on the bench burned a lantern. In the darkness around the makeshift wagon a half a dozen people moved in, and out of the light, it was hard to see them clearly from where Kyle stood but what he could see was chilling. They looked like haggard ghosts, just dead reflections of living people. Kyle could see that most were little more than skin and bones, the lamp light reflecting off of their pale skin. They were barefoot and naked except for strips of cloth that they wore as loincloths and thick leather collars that each wore around their necks.
“The fuck?” Coal whispered next to him.
The nearly naked men came out of the darkness carrying an odd assortment of things, mirrors and bits of clothing, one even carried what looked like a broken lamp. Two men stood apart from the others, and the living skeletons formed a line in front of them. Kyle realized they were presenting what they had scavenged to the men for inspection.
“Light,” one of the men called.
The man with the ponytail handed down the lantern to one of the two men and in the light Kyle could immediately see that these two were different. While these men were also shirtless, they didn’t wear collars and while the others looked to be on the verge of starvation these men looked well fed, even muscular. Kyle noticed that each carried a whip coiled at their waist and a tan strip of leather around each of their biceps. They watched as the muscled man now holding the lantern looked at each item in turn before allowing it to be loaded into the bed of the wagon. Once their cargo was loaded, the pale skeleton would turn and stagger back into the darkness, presumably in search of more salvage. Kyle let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding and lowered himself back down the wall to kneel in the backyard again and Coal did the same next to him.
“What do you think?” Coal whispered.
“I think we just solved the mystery of the missing guardrail posts,” Kyle replied.
“Well, you did say that the effort in digging them out wouldn’t make it worthwhile. Looks like these big city scavengers found a solution to that problem.”
“But Slavery? I just can’t fucking believe it,” Kyle whispered.
“I know right? What the fuck is with you white people and owning slaves?” Coal asked.
“What do we do?” Kyle asked.
“You’re asking the wrong guy. You know I count on you to be my moral compass.”
Kyle cupped his face in his heads and took a deep breath. The slaver’s scavenging wagon, for the moment at least, appeared to be headed away from them, and he doubted that there was any chance that they would be found before dawn. The smart move was to keep their heads down, stay quiet and push on at first light. He could hear Miles voice in his head as well, reminding them of their mission and how important finding the parts for the pump was to the town, and Kyle nodded his head in agreement. Then a shout broke the silence of the night.
“What in the fuck is this shit?”
Coal and Kyle both peeked back over the wall in time to see one of the muscled slavers strike a skinny boy of no more than 15. The boy fell to the ground and immediately curled into a ball to protect his emaciated frame.
“Wood, its wood Sir!” he whimpered.
“Wood? Do you think there is a scrap of wood left anywhere in this fucking shithole!” one of the men screamed.
“This is fucking plastic,” the second man added as he tossed aside a broken picture frame.
“I think this little fuck just isn’t trying hard enough. How about we give him and the others a little motivation.”
Without another word, the first man pulled the whip from his hip and with a well-practiced motion cracked it across the boy’s back. A split second later the boy’s cries split the night followed by a wave of laughter from the muscled slavers. The other slaves froze in place and watched as the young man received his whipping, only the man sitting in the wagon said anything.
“Careful now, he has to be able to work,” the man in the vest called down from his seat.
“You do your job Keeper, and we’ll do ours,” one of the men shouted in reply.
Kyle lowered himself back down and took a long breath before resting his forehead against the cool stucco wall for a moment. Then Kyle turned to look at Coal, and the scavenger could just make out half-breed’s smile in the darkness.
“We shouldn’t get involved,” Kyle whispered half-heartedly.
“Probably not,” Coal said nodding in agreement.
“We should head back to Miles.”
“We should,” Coal agreed nodding again.
Kyle closed his eyes again and just shook his head as the crack of the whip and the screams of the boy continued just beyond the wall.
“Fuck me,” Kyle muttered.
“Consider yourself fucked,” Coal replied handing Kyle his hunting knife hilt first.
Kyle accepted the blade and then after letting out a breath asked, “I’ll take the one in the wagon?”
“And I got the other two, just wait for my signal,” Coal said drawing his saber.
As the slavers continued to whip the boy in the glow of the lantern Coal and Kyle slipped over the wall and crossed the street in the darkness. Kyle moved down the length of the improvised wagon with the borrowed knife in hand and the pounding of his heart filling his ears. He crouched down just below the man sitting in the wagon and for a moment felt sadly thankful that the boy’s beating was drawing everyone’s attention. The scavenger glanced behind him into the shadows, but Coal was nowhere to be found. The muscled guard brought the whip down again adding yet another line of crimson to the whimpering boy’s back. All around him in the shadows the others slaves stood motionless, watching passively, and knowing that to do otherwise would invite a whipping of their own.
“For fuck’s sake Blinder, he has to be able to work!” the man in the wagon shouted again, “If he can’t work then he’ll be sent to the grinders, and then I’m down a worker!”
“Then he goes to the grinders!” the slaver, presumably Blinder, shouted back.
The slaver raised the whip again, but instead of lifting it to strike he pointed it into the darkness gesturing to the other slaves.
“A good whipping keeps the rest inline and saves us the trouble of chasing down runners or killing upstarts. It’s all just more meat for the table I say!”
Blinder drew back to strike again but the second slaver spoke, “Hold on, you may have already killed this one.”
The two muscled men peered down at the boy who lay on the ground still and bloody.
“Well fucking check,” Blinder hissed.
The second man lifted the lantern and then kneeling next to the boy looked for signs of life. After a moment he stood, “He’s unconscious is all.”
“Wrong, he’s a dead man, now stand back,” Blinder said readying the whip again.
The slaver carrying the lantern stood and quickly stepped back away from the wounded boy, but as he turned Coal stepped out of the darkness. For a second the slaver stood still, stunned at the half-breed's unexpected appearance.
“Who in the fuck are you?” he blurted.
“Who me? I'm the guy with the fucking sword,” Coal said casually.
Then a glint of steel slashed out of the darkness a
s the bounty-hunter's saber connected with the outstretched lantern in a wide arc. The blade shattered the lantern’s fragile glass and then continued through to slash across the slaver’s startled face. The tip of the blade struck the stunned man just below the eyebrows, slashing out both of his eyes and severing the bridge of his nose in the process. The wounded slaver dropped to the ground screaming and clutching desperately at his ruined face, as his forgotten lantern crashed to the ground next to him, spilling out bits of burning oil and casting Coal in an unholy light.
The stunned slaves stepped back in fear at the sight of the vicious stranger, but Blinder only pointed his whip at Coal and laughed.
“You’re going to be sorry you did that stranger! You just killed one of the Master’s chosen, that means you and your family are forfeit!”
“Yeah well, Blinder is it? The thing is, I’m not from around here, but you are right about one thing, I know I’m going to be sorry. The thing is I don’t even know how far I’m going to take this, but it’s probably going to be too far. You see, I’ve been on my best behavior for a while now, and living in a town with all you white people can sure put a strain on a fella. So you see this is the first chance I’ve had in a long while to let loose and blow off some steam, and you want to know the best part?”
Coal paused for a moment as if expecting a reply, but when none came, he raised his hands forming a pair of air quotes and answered, with a grin.
“This is actually considered…doing the right thing!”
As if to emphasize his point Coal pulled back his boot and gave the broken lantern a kick sending it skidding across the ground and splashing the wounded slaver in burning oil. The dying man’s screams reached a fevered pitch and wasting his last breaths he began thrashing about violently on the ground trying in vain to put out the growing flames.
The Road North Page 10