“And what if people start to complain? About the Rite of Passage or other things?” she demanded.
“Oh, I doubt that’s going to happen.”
Little Bird opened her mouth to speak, but the Chief turned his head then, looking back over the bleachers for a moment as if looking for something he had misplaced.
“My Chief?”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing, I’m just used to seeing Daniel Strongbow sitting here this time of day.”
His words were spoken casually, but they carried a weight to them, a weight that Little Bird found suddenly resting upon her chest. She felt dizzy and sat down quickly. The Chief didn’t say another word, he just turned and walked away.
Sometime later, after Little Bird had regained her nerve, she stood and walked back towards the village. She didn’t know exactly where Daniel Strongbow lived, but after asking some children playing in the street, she found hi home easily enough. He wasn’t in the yard or in the teepee out front, so she moved into the house. She found him in the living room of his long-abandoned home. He was hanging two feet off of the ground with a rawhide bridle wrapped around his neck, tied into a makeshift noose. His face was purple, and his faded jeans were stained with urine. Little Bird stared up at him for a time, and then the old woman sat down on the floor of the empty house and for the first time in many years, she cried. But the tears weren’t for Daniel or even herself, her tears were for her people.
The buggy raced down I-17, Kyle slowing only to avoid the occasional wrecked vehicle or sand drift before accelerating again. He was taking a huge risk, if they ran headlong into an ambush, they would have little to no time to react. He was trusting in the speed of the buggy and the firepower of their guns to see them through. If Coal had any objections, the bounty-hunter kept them to himself. He sat in the passenger seat awkwardly holding the unconscious Miles upright in his lap. The arrow turned chest tube still protruded from Mile’s wound, but while trying to load him into the buggy, Kyle realized how difficult and potentially dangerous it was to leave the 12 inches of black fiberglass sticking from Mile’s chest. So at Kyle’s insistence Coal had cut the shaft down to a mere three inches. As they loaded Miles, they also discovered that the old man seemed to have left the shotgun in the vehicle the night before, in truth it had been a mistake, but at least this one had worked out in their favor. Coal now cradled the weapon in one arm while holding Miles upright with the other.
“How is he?” Kyle shouted over the whine of the electric motors.
“Breathing still, I can see little bubbles of blood coming from the arrow every now and then,” Coal shouted back.
“Ok, good.”
“I ain’t no doctor, but even I know he can’t go on bleeding like this forever. It’s just a bit, but it all adds up.”
Kyle didn’t reply, and the men drove on in silence racing north as Kyle tried to push away the idea that every mile closer to Salt Lake, was mile farther away from Anna, maybe the only one that could save his friend now.
Pushing on at breakneck speed, however, did have its advantages, they cleared the towns of Cortes Lakes, Camp Verde, and Rimrock by midday. The land had been steadily changing around them all morning, the open desert broken by jagged hills and rocky outcroppings had gradually given way to what had once been greener country. The hills were just as rocky, but now instead of clumps of dusty sage, Kyle could see small trees, mostly Mesquite and the occasional Palo Verde. Normally Kyle would have assumed that seeing more trees would have been a good sign and that water must be close at hand, but none of the trees they passed were green, they were either a sad shade of yellow or a sickly brown. At midday, they crested a rise near a place the map called Stoneman Lake. Though there was no lake to be found, but for the first time they caught a glimpse of the Coconino National Forest.
Kyle let off the accelerator and let the buggy role to a stop as he stared out over the hell-scape that layout before them. He remembered driving through the park with his dad, perhaps two years before the fall. They had crested a ridge, perhaps this very one that he and Coal sat on now and he could remember being stunned by the abundance of color. The ponderosa pines were thick, coating the landscape in shades of dark green as far as the eye could see, a shock in comparison to the browns of the open desert they had left behind. The scavenger just stared in disbelief, the forest in front of them wasn’t green anymore, it was charred black as far as the eye could see. What remained was an eerie sea of dead timber, every bit of it dark and twisted as if perpetual caught in the throes of death. The black of the wood was offset by the layer of grey ash that now coated the forest floor. In some places, Kyle could see small tendrils of smoke that were still lingering through the dead trees.
“Well, god damn would you look at that,” Coal said.
“What do you think could have done it?”
The half-breed just shook his head, “Could have been any damned old thing really, wildfires happen, lightning usually. All it takes is a single spark, ain’t like anybody is around to try and put it out. ” Coal replied.
“Lightening? How longs it been since you saw a fucking raincloud Coal?”
“You know the answer to that, it was three years ago, same as you.”
“That’s right, and it rained for a half hour, and that was it. Half an hour of rain in three years Coal, that’s just not right, not natural,” Kyle replied.
“It’s called a drought, and my people have stories of them lasting for more than a decade.”
“Yeah well, maybe it’s more than just a drought have you ever thought of that Coal?”
“Now hold on, you’re not talking about our steel spider friends are you?”
“Why not? I mean it’s pretty clear they figured out a way to fuck up everything else, why not mess with the weather too?”
“I just don’t know about that one Tonto, mother earth can be a stubborn old bitch. You whites have been trying to kill her for hundreds of years, and she outlasted most of you. If it’s between her and killer robots from outer space, my money is on her.”
“Maybe so,” Kyle replied.
The scavenger put the buggy back into gear, and the trio rolled forward and down into the nightmare that was the Coconino National Forest.
The Seeker pushed steadily North along I-17 and out of the Phoenix valley. His long patched coat and a dark wide-brimmed hat provided him all of the shade he needed as he lay back and peddled the trike along at a steady pace. Though the road began to steadily rise upward ahead of him, the Seeker had ridden this route so many times that he thought very little of it. Just after midday as the temperature reached its peak in the valley behind him, he hoisted up the small triangular sale and watched as it quickly caught the desert breeze. It wasn’t enough to pull the little vehicle along entirely, but it was enough to make the peddling much easier, allowing him to set a pace that would steadily eat away at the miles ahead of him.
He rolled through Black Canyon City about an hour later and pausing just for a moment he read the message that had been scrawled there on the highway.
STOP!
Slavers in Phoenix!
The letters were bold and had been painstakingly scratched across both lanes. The Seeker shook his head slowly, it would have taken them time to do this, maybe as much as an hour. This was a mistake, they had wasted some of their precious lead here, on the off chance they could save the next traveler that happened by.
“Just like the slaves in Apache Junction, they think they can save people,” he muttered to himself.
The Seeker filed that small bit of information away, he never knew what could become useful when he was on a hunt. He pulled the jug of water from the trike and was about to take a drink when he noticed a third line, smaller and scratched in with much haste.
Fuck the Masters!
The Seeker paused for a moment and then smiled. The vulgar little message seemed at such odds with the spirit of the first that he guessed that it was done by another member of the littl
e party, perhaps one with a bit less of a philanthropic view and he filed that information away as well. The Seeker would inform the Masters of the warning, and he had little doubt that they would dispatch a work party out with hammers to smash the words beyond recognition right away, but that was no concern of his at the moment. The Seeker climbed back aboard the trike, hauled up the little sail once more and began moving north again. Two hours later he left the canyons behind and clearing the edge of the plateau, and his eyes fell upon the Sunset Diner.
The tall man pulled down the sail and carefully guided the trike down into the ditch next to the highway. In the haze of the afternoon heat, the diner looked inviting, a small oasis of shade in the midst of all this nothingness, but the Seeker knew better. As long as he could recall one group of desert savages or another had claimed the diner and ambushed any traveler foolish enough to linger there. The raiders usually camped under a rock ledge on the plateau’s western face. The camp was far enough away from the diner as to not be discovered, but close enough to allow them to come up and spring their little trap on anyone foolish enough to have made camp in the diner overnight. If anyone would know about the men he was hunting, the savages would.
Taking one of his iron spears from the trike, the Seeker left the vehicle behind and struck out across the plateau towards the west. When the tall man came to the edge, he began to move more cautiously, skirting the rocky cliff while keeping a sharp eye out for the inevitable lookout. About ten minutes later he spotted him, standing not 20 feet from the steep trail that led down to the raider’s rocky shelter. The lookout was a young man, and as the Seeker had anticipated, he was facing the opposite direction, looking out across the plateau and keeping a sharp eye out for the next unwary traveler that passed by.
The tall man quietly lowered himself down to one knee carefully setting down his spear. Then he slowly uncoiled a length of the rubber strap from his left hand and pulled the loop back across his thumb and forefinger. The Seeker then reached into one of the pouches on his belt and pulled out a marble. He set the small glass ball into the strap and then rising he quickly pulled the strap back until it nearly reached his cheek with one smooth motion. A moment later he released the strap launching the glittering glass ball faster than the eye could follow. The missile cut through the air with a faint buzz, but if the lookout heard it, he never had the chance to even turn his head. With a wet snap, the marble struck him just behind the right ear, and he fell forward onto his face.
The Seeker stood still for a moment carefully listening for any sign that he had been discovered. But after a few minutes of silence, he picked up his spear again and moved forward watching the downed raider closely. When he reached the lookout, he nudged the man over with his boot. The man was younger than he had guessed, perhaps 16 and for a moment the Seeker considered dragging the boy away somewhere to ask him the questions that he had. But the Seeker shook his head, “I doubt you have the answers I seek. If you were anyone of importance they wouldn’t have put you out here on guard duty,” he said.
The lookout’s eyes came open suddenly as if summoned by the Seeker’s words, but if he could see the man that stood over him, the boy made no sign. His eyes were open wide and looking around wildly as if unsure of where he was. The Seeker shook his head again and then putting the toe of his boot under the boy he rolled him over once on to his stomach and then again, over the edge of the cliff. The boy fell without ever making a sound before smashing into the rocks below. Then the Seeker adjusted the straps around his wrist again, this time fitting the base of the spear into place and began walking down the rocky trail towards the raider’s camp.
The trail was barely wide enough for one man to navigate and if the raiders had been his target, he would have been content to simply wait at the trailhead and pick them off one by one. But today these savages were just a means to an end, and he didn’t have the time or the patience to wait. He smelled the raider’s camp just before he rounded the last rocky bend, the air was heavy with the smell of blood and bile. The Seeker gripped his spear tightly in his hand and then taking a breath casually rounded the corner and walked into the camp.
The first thing he saw, just outside of the rocky ledge, was three bodies hanging upside down from their feet. They had been gutted and partially butchered while two more lay nearby waiting their turn. The overhang itself was perhaps 50 feet long and cut nearly a dozen feet into the rock’s face. The camp was dominated by a central fire around which three men now sat, for the moment they all had their heads down and were eating greedily, obviously enjoying the fruits of their last kill. Another man rested awkwardly against the back wall, either asleep or injured. While a third sat just inside of the overhang, he appeared to be holding a black arrow in his hands, and a bow rested nearby.
“They call me the Seeker,” the tall man announced. “Today I’ve come looking for answers, answers about three men in a working car. Tell me what I want, and I will go. Deny me, and I’ll take your lives instead, decide now.”
The raiders gathered around the cook fire looked up at him, their expressions ranging from shock to confusion as blood and gristle still dripped from their lips. The man leaning against the back wall of the cave made a small sound, something between a laugh and a sob. But it was the man with the bow that made the first move, just as the seeker somehow knew that it would be.
The archer spun reaching for his weapon but all the seeker had to do was simply point the tip of his spear at the raider and let go. The five-foot-long iron shaft launched from his hand, crossed the dozen or so feet between them, and impaled the bowman through the back. The dying man opened his mouth to scream but barely managed a wet choke as blood erupted from his mouth. The bowman went down thrashing trying in vain to reach the spear buried in his back. The three men around the fire jumped to their feet, spilling their fresh cuts of meat into the flames as they scrambled to pull their own weapons. But the Seeker was already in motion, running forward he leaped over to the wounded archer wrenching the spear free as he passed.
The three remaining raiders rushed forward to meet him, but the combination of short blades and overwhelming numbers that had worked so well that morning quickly turned against them now. The Seeker didn’t hesitate, he simply took the iron spear in both of his hands like a staff and leaped forward to greet them. The raider on his right lashed out quickly with his blade, and the Seeker threw up the butt of his spear to ward off the blow, then just as he had anticipated, the man on his left made a deep thrust for his left thigh. But the Seeker was ready, he pulled his leg back at the last possible moment and then turned the head of his spear enough to thrust it through the raider’s left foot. The man screamed and dropping his knife reached down trying to tear the tip of the spear free from his ruined foot. The man at the center seeing his chance launched a vicious strike over the spear’s shaft aimed at the Seeker’s face. The tall man saw the desperate gamble at the last moment and just managed to lean back far enough to avoid the rusted blade. Then he quickly snapped the spear upward, simultaneously tearing its tip free of the raider’s foot and smashing it into the wrist of the raider at the center. The wrist snapped with an audible crack, and the rusted blade fell from the now useless hand.
With two of his fellow raiders down, the man to the Seeker’s right took one last desperate gamble. Instead of trying to attack around the iron shaft in front of him he grabbed hold of it instead, yanking it towards him. The move threw the Seeker off balance for a moment, and he took an unsteady step forward. Then with his blade still in his free hand, the raider tried to use the spear as leverage to thrust out at his would be killer. But at that moment the Seeker simply let go of the iron shaft, and the raider tumbled backward on to the rocky floor. The Seeker was on him in a heartbeat with his Kukri in hand, he brushed the raider’s last desperate knife thrust away with his forearm and then cleaved the thick blade through the man’s Adam's apple. As blood sprayed from the man’s neck, the Seeker grabbed up his spear and leaped back to h
is feet again. The tall man spun ready to fend off another blow but found that the fight had left the remaining raiders. The man with the injured foot was on his feet again and held his knife up in front of him defensively, but he was awkwardly backing away from him, dragging his ruined foot and it was clear he wanted nothing more than to escape. The raider with the broken wrist had turned and was running away from him, cradling his broken limb, but in his haste and pain, he seemed to have forgotten that the only escape lay behind the Seeker.
“Enough of this,” the tall man said.
The man with the ruined foot nodded quickly, “Yeah man, we’re done, we’ll tell you whatever you want okay?”
It took the Seeker a split second to judge the distance between them, he took half a step forward and then shifted the spear until both of his hands gripped the butt of the iron shaft.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said.
The Seeker swung the spear out in a wide arc like a baseball bat. The iron shaft cut through the air with a whirring sound, before smashing into the raider’s temple and caving in the right side of the man’s head. The dead man collapsed into a heap without making another sound. Across the length of the overhang, the raider cradling his broken wrist reached the rocky ledge and quickly came to a halt. He stopped for a moment as if confused and then realizing his mistake he slowly turned around to face his killer. The Seeker took a moment as if considering something and then pulling back his arm launched the spear into the air between them. A split second later the five-foot shaft impaled the raider through the stomach, and he dropped to his knees screaming, his broken wrist now seemingly forgotten.
From the back of the overhang, another sound mingled with the screams of the dying man, the sound of laughter. The Seeker turned his eyes narrowing and his hand drawing out his Kukri again. The man propped up against the wall at the back of the cave hadn’t seemed to move throughout the short-lived fight. But the raider now propped himself up a bit and was grinning broadly. Despite his best efforts, the Seeker had to admit that he was curious and he cautiously moved forward to stand over the man.
The Road North Page 23