“I hope it won’t come to that. But what is with her? How did she get power over all these people?”
“I don’t know that I can really explain that. She came here just after the war. She showed up driving a camper with New York license plates. By then, there were only a few people left living here. Most took off after the Salt Lake City bombs went off. There were four of them, bombs, I mean, and we’re close enough that most everyone thought the fallout would kill us if we stayed. I would have gone too, but—”
“You are from here, then?”
“Oh, yes. One of the few. The town isn’t really called Paradise. That’s just what she named it. It’s really Tifton.”
“Tifton…what?”
“That’s all. Just Tifton.”
He smiled. “No, I meant, like, in what state?”
“You don’t know what state you’re in?”
“Not that it really matters, but no, I don’t.” It was the first time he saw her smile.
She laughed a little and said, “We’re in Wyoming. Just barely, but this is Wyoming. If you go down that way,” she pointed, “you’re in Utah. Over there a little and you’re in Colorado. But, right here, we’re in good old Wyoming.”
“Tifton. I don’t remember seeing it on the map.”
“That’s the story of my life. Too unimportant to make me noticed, including now.”
“You were telling me about this leader thing, and how Paradise got started.”
“Yeah, right. Well, we were little old Tifton, Wyoming, then, and there was the war and nearly everybody took off. Some said they were going to Canada, some to Cheyenne, which I thought was kind of silly, because surely there were missiles targeted at the Air Force Base outside Cheyenne. But, anyway, people wanted to get out of here. They filled up with gasoline while they could and left.”
“Why did you stay?”
“I would have gone with them except for my father. He was dying and somebody had to stay with him, so I did.” She shrugged.
“I see.”
“Then, the next thing I knew, she was here. And there were some people who came through. People who were running away from Salt Lake and what was left around there. I guess it’s pretty bad on the other side of the mountains over there. There isn’t much left. So everybody there ran in this direction. And some of them, mostly young men, Alethia roped in and put under her spell. Now she controls them. She controls all of us in Paradise. She wants to control everything and everybody for miles around, and she does, except for the Regulators.”
“Regulators?” he repeated. “That’s the second time I’ve heard that term. What does it mean?”
“The Regulators are what they call themselves. They’re a bunch of people—old folks, a lot of them, like you—who refuse to be dominated by Alethia. They live…I don’t know where they live! If I did, I think I’d go there and see if they’d take me in. Mostly, they’re folks who used to live around here. They resent her, you see, when she was setting things up, Alethia confiscated all the gasoline that was still available. She had her tame worker ants dig up the storage tanks at the gas stations, and go around to the farms and ranches in the area, emptying all the gasoline storage tanks they kept for their machinery. She grabbed up all the gasoline, the horses, whatever other livestock she wanted, and for sure all the windmills. That’s the thing, you see. With no electric power and no way to refill the propane tanks like on some of the pumps, she controls the water because of the windmills. She uses some of the windmills to pump water for here, and the rest of them to power generators she took off cars and trucks. Lord knows there’s enough abandoned cars and trucks to cannibalize. So, while there was still gas she could use for making raids far off from Tifton, she stole every windmill and every horse and everything she wanted. The Regulators, I think, are mostly folks that she stole this stuff from, and she was afraid that you might be a spy for the Regulators, Jim, you being an old guy—no offense intended.”
He smiled a little but did not bother to correct her. He tended to forget that his hair was snowy white, but it obviously made everyone else think of him as an old man. “No offense taken,” he assured her.
“These Regulators,” he asked, “Is that why everyone around here carries guns?”
“Mostly, yes. It used to be that there would be scavengers and wilders coming through, and they might be a danger. Not now, though. The scavengers she recruited so they’d bring her the things they take from the red zones and trade with her. She set up almost a clearing house sort of thing for stuff moving in and out of the clear area. As for the wilders, they’re her kind of people. She took a lot of them in and made them part of her little Paradise empire. The ones that wouldn’t knuckle under to her, she had disposed of.”
“Disposed of?”
“Shot,” Becca explained. “She had them executed out at the town dump. There must be, I don’t know, a couple dozen bodies out there. She just tossed them on a trash heap and let the birds and coyotes have them.”
“Nice lady,” Wolfe said.
“A real princess,” Becca agreed.
“You could end up on that trash heap, too, if you decide to go with me,” Wolfe cautioned.
She nodded. “I know. But, do you know what? I’d rather do that than spend the rest of my days here, like this. You’ve given me hope, Jim. I haven’t had any of that for a very long time.”
“What about your father? Will he be coming along too?”
She sighed. “My dad died six months ago. He loved this place. To him, Tifton really was a sort of paradise, I think. It was so quiet, and everyone was decent and cared about each other. We weren’t family, and we had our quarrels and little feuds and things, but it was a good town, and there were good people here. I suppose it’s something of a blessing that he didn’t live to see what Alethia turned it into.”
Wolfe patted her hand and gave her a moment of silence with her memories, then said, “If you’re sure you want to come with me, Becca, I think we need to put our heads together and make some plans for getting out of here.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “No matter what happens, I want to come.”
“All right, then. I want you to tell me everything you know about the way Paradise is guarded from these Regulators. And is there something to drink in here?”
“There’s stuff in the closet. Whiskey, some wine. There isn’t any beer left, though.”
“I was hoping for something a little softer. Water would be all right.”
“Would a soft drink do? I have some of those. Most of the men who come here want liquor, not sodas.”
“Child, I would kill for a Pepsi at this moment! Well…sort of.”
“I’m out of regular Coke and Pepsi, but I think there’s some diet sodas. Pepsi One, Mountain Dew, and—”
“Oh, my! It could be this is paradise after all.” He laughed and eagerly accepted a plastic bottle of Pepsi One that Becca fetched from the room’s tiny closet. There were beverages and snacks in there, he noticed, but no clothing. Apparently, Becca was not permitted any clothes in her workplace. That, he decided, was about to change.
The only thing remaining was to determine when and how to leave. Although, considering that business about the town dump, and the fate of those passersby who did not see things Alethia’s way, leaving might not be as easy as he’d expected. He opened the soft drink and took a swallow. It had to be the best thing he’d tasted since before the war. “Do me a favor.”
“Sure. What?”
“Pull that sheet a little tighter around you, would you please? It’s starting to gape open there and make me uncomfortable.”
Becca blushed and hurriedly wrapped the sheet close around her.
Chapter Sixteen
“Good morning, Wolfe!” the man in the hotel lobby said. “Did you have a nice time?”
Wolfe smiled. “Very nice! Thank you, Buddy.” And it was the truth, even though neither Buddy nor any of his friends would likely guess what sort of a nice time h
e’d had with Becca during the long night hours. “Very nice, indeed.”
Wolfe went up to his room and immediately brought the dog down so it could go outside and get some relief after being locked up overnight. Then, he and the dog went into breakfast and some more of that real coffee. If there was one thing about Paradise that he would miss, it would be the coffee.
When he emerged from the dining room after breakfast, Buddy was no longer in the lobby, but there was a man lounging in one of the chairs, reading a tattered Reader’s Digest from before the war. The fellow looked up, and, without rising, said, “You’re Wolf, right?”
Wolfe nodded.
“You’re ‘sposed to wait here. The leader will want to see you after a while.”
“Can I wait upstairs?” He smiled. “I’d like to get a little rest after…after last night.”
“Sure. Someone will call you when the leader is ready.”
Wolfe tapped his thigh to get the dog’s attention and returned to his third-floor room. He pulled the blinds to make the room dark so he could remove the goggles, and set about making preparations to leave. The rucksack was already packed and ready to go. The bow and blowgun were still strapped to it. He would have liked to have kept the rifle, but that seemed to have been confiscated, and he did not want to arouse any suspicions by demanding its return.
He did go through the things in the ruck to make sure everything was there, then tightened the straps and bindings to make the bundle as secure as possible. After that, he sat down with his bowie knife and the sheets off the bed. He began slicing the sheets into two-inch wide strips of cloth like bandages, which he tied together to make a thin rope. They were on the third floor, and the old building had high ceilings, so he calculated he would need at least seventy, perhaps eighty feet of the lightweight linen rope to accomplish what he wanted.
Wolfe whistled a little under his breath as he worked, fashioning the rope. He smiled and stopped the whistling though, when he realized he was confusing the poor dog, which sat alertly by his side, tilting its head one way and then the other, trying to determine just what it was that the whistling signified.
Wolfe ruffled the animal’s nape and scratched its ears. “Just hang in there, fella. I’ll take you for a nice, long walk after a while.”
Chapter Seventeen
Wolfe awoke late in the afternoon, feeling edgy after a restless sleep. He was not worried so much about himself as about Becca. It was one thing to put his own life on the line, quite another to be responsible for hers. “What do you think, boy? You don’t look worried.” He scratched the dog just forward of its tail, a spot it seemed to particularly like, then both of them left the bed. Wolfe pulled on his clothing, and led the dog downstairs to the dining room. There were half a dozen diners already there, all of them young men wearing the now-familiar grey sweatshirts, jeans, and sneakers that were almost a uniform in Mistress Alethia’s Paradise.
A rather homely, middle-aged woman was waiting on the tables. “We just got some beef in,” she told him. “Would you like a steak?”
Steaks and roasts and ribs, he was used to, thanks to the deer and other game, including once-domesticated cattle gone feral since the war. But, what he really wanted… “Ma’am? Would it be possible to get a hamburger, do you think?”
The woman smiled. “It’s surprising how many folks feel the same way. How many burgers would you like?”
“I can have more than one?”
“As many as you like.”
“Three,” he said promptly. “No, wait—make that…could I have five?”
“Five?”
He shrugged. “Two for the dog, three for the glutton—it’s been… it has been a very long time.”
“Sit and enjoy your coffee. I’ll bring you five hamburgers as quickly as I can.”
Wolfe could scarcely believe his good fortune. But he was not pleased enough about it to consider staying here in Paradise. The price of a hamburger was simply too high around here if it meant accepting the idea of theft and bullying and murder. That would not, however, stop him from enjoying the treat of a real hamburger served with ketchup and a dill pickle. “Hold the condiments for the dog’s portion.”
Chapter Eighteen
Wolfe turned off the light and paused for a moment to marvel at how easily he had readjusted to having electric lights after he arrived in Paradise. He moved to the window and raised the sash. He was just leaning out to look around when he heard a knock on the door.
Grateful the visit had not occurred a few minutes later, he crossed the room and turned the bolt, then pulled the door open.
“Yes?”
Two young men stood there. One of them wearing the usual grey sweatshirt, but the other dressed rather nattily in tanned slacks and a forest green polo shirt. That one looked like his day job could have been as a junior executive in a multi-national company.
“May we come in?”
Wolfe stepped back and allowed them to enter. The seating choices were limited. There was one straight-backed chair, and the edge of the bed. Mr. Junior Exec helped himself to the chair without waiting for an invitation. The other remained standing beside the door with his arms folded.
Wolfe had the impression he might be there as some sort of guard, although that seemed to make no sense. Whatever these two wanted, Wolfe was not going to be put on the defensive about it. He sat down on the bed and waited for them to start the proceedings.
“My name is Calvin,” the junior executive announced. “Your name is Wolfe, with an ‘e’.”
Wolfe could not remember if he’d given his name to the two men who brought him here, perhaps he had. He just didn’t remember.
“The leader’s abilities continue to amaze,” Calvin said. “She named you Wolf without knowing your true name. Somehow, she discerned the truth. The leader is worthy, don’t you think?”
“The leader is quite something,” Wolfe agreed. “Very special,” he said. Silently, to himself, he added, She is also very vicious, cruel, and arrogant. But she was quite something, indeed. It was just that he and Calvin had rather different reasons to think of her as being something special.
“You are a wanted man,” Calvin said. “You should understand that we have no reason to care what the Federal Command wants of you. You are beyond their influence while you remain here with us. I suspect you already gathered as much.”
“Yes, I did,” Wolfe told him.
“On the other hand, the leader could turn a handsome profit by selling you to, erm…” Calvin dug in his shirt pocket for a scrap of paper. “To a certain…Ralph.”
“Alston,” Wolfe provided for him. “Ralph, and his ugly brother, Ed.”
“Alston. How do you spell that?”
Wolfe gave Calvin his best guess. He hadn’t had occasion to see the brothers’ name in writing.
Calvin took a ball point pen out of his pocket and wrote it down. “Thank you. The leader was not sure about that.”
“Funny, I would have thought she would have been able to discern it,” Wolfe said.
“Do not take the leader lightly,” Calvin warned. “This is very serious.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“This Ralph Alston,” Calvin went on, “has offered a substantial amount for you.”
“Really?”
“Substantial.” Calvin affirmed. “He wants you brought to him alive. There is a reward if you are dead, as well, but that would be considerably smaller.”
Wolfe smiled. “The boys want the pleasure of doing things slowly,” he said. “And I should think painfully, as well.”
“That would not be the leader’s concern,” Calvin said.
“No, I suppose not.”
“Do you mind if we turned the light on? It is almost dark.”
“Go ahead,” Wolfe said.
Calvin nodded, and the other man, the one by the door, flipped the switch to turn the overhead light back on. “The leader’s question, Mr. Wolfe, is why should she allow you the
privileges of residence here? Do you have any particular skills that would justify her turning down the payment offered by the Alston brothers, and are you willing to pledge your loyalty to the leader?”
“Well,” Wolfe said, “I would have to admit that I don’t have any special skills, none that I can think of. As for allowing myself to become one of your leader’s goons, no, I’m not at all interested, thank you.”
“Do you realize what you’re saying, Mr. Wolfe?” Calvin asked.
“Oh, I kinda think that I do.”
“In that case, Mr. Wolfe, James and I shall have to take you into custody. We will make you as comfortable as we can until the Alstons arrive to complete the purchase. Reasonably comfortable, in any event.” Calvin smiled. “You may be glad to know that the leader had already determined that you are not one of the Regulators. If you had been, you would have been shot, regardless of any offer of payment the Alstons might make.”
“Gee, I’m glad to know I don’t have to worry about that.”
“You don’t sound as if you’re taking this very seriously, Mr. Wolfe.” Calvin chided him. “James and I will take you into custody now, if you please.”
“And, if I don’t please?”
“James and I are both highly skilled in the martial arts.”
“I don’t know anything about that stuff,” Wolfe said.
“I really hope you will be cooperative about this. We have nothing against you personally, and we will not harm you unless you force us to. Will you come with us willingly, Mr. Wolfe?”
Wolfe stood, and so did Calvin. Wolfe grinned. “I reckon we’ll just have to do this the hard way, sonny boy.”
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