Outrider

by Steven John

  “These bastards don’t know who they messed with! Play that video back for me again!” Dreg was giddy. He had chewed the unlit cigar hanging from his mouth into a sloppy pulp. His suit jacket was draped over a folding chair against the wall of the Meeting Hall and his sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, the fabric of the cuffs straining against his ample arms. Beads of sweat rolled down The Mayor’s neck and forehead, dampening his collar and pooling in his thick eyebrows, but he noticed none of it.

  Major Engel stifled a sigh and typed away at his console. The monitor was a blur of rushing frames as he located the footage Dreg wanted to watch for the third time. Engel found the proper starting point and pressed one more button, leaning back as Franklin stepped closer to the screen. Initially the image was a hazy patchwork of blues and grays, then the camera zoomed in and refocused. On the left of the screen there was a single dot pulsating orange-yellow; to the far right were a dozen larger splotches of the same color.

  “So that’s our boy . . .” Dreg muttered to himself.

  “Yes, that’s an outrider there,” Engel pointed to the smaller blotch of color, “and these larger areas of heat signatures are each four or five men. There were thirty to forty of them.”

  Occasional blooms of bright white popped up from the larger clusters of color. Gunfire. The scene was rotating in a slow counterclockwise pattern as the remote vehicle circled above the men.

  “OK . . . here it comes . . .” Engel whispered as he watched the numbers roll on the bottom left of the monitor.

  Suddenly the entire screen was white.

  “Bam!” The Mayor shouted so loudly that a handful of the Civil Defense soldiers near him jumped in their seats. Slowly, the blue and gray hues slipped back onto the monitor, but now there were three bright orange circles undulating in the middle of the scene, and the larger patches of color were broken up and strewn about.

  “Those are the bodies of the drainers,” Engel said after a long pause. “They’ll be showing up as cold blue outlines soon enough.”

  “And there’s our man,” Franklin nodded proudly as the orange dot on the left of the screen slowly began to move.

  “That’s me.”

  Mayor Dreg wheeled about in surprise. He came face to face with a young man wearing a soiled gray shirt and dusty blue jeans. He held a white Stetson in his hand and a pistol hung from a bandolier around his waist.

  “What’s that you say?”

  “That was me you were pointing to.” C. J. looked away from The Mayor and shook his head incredulously, eyes on the monitor.

  “Are you Mr. Haskell?” Major Engel asked, rising from his chair.

  “Yeah. Call me C. J.”

  “A pleasure, young man!” Dreg rumbled, reaching out and taking the tired outrider’s hand in both of his fleshy palms. “Glad you got out of that one, hm?”

  “Yeah. I uh . . .” Haskell withdrew his hand from The Mayor’s persistent grasp and let his eyes drift around the room. “I didn’t . . . know if . . .” his mind flashed back to the moments before the air strike, to his thoughts as he readied his mind for death. He closed his mouth, letting the sentence hang unfinished.

  “It’s a goddamn lucky thing your friend Smith told us where you’d be riding,” Engel said gravely.

  “Moses?”

  “Yeah. He was helping me chart you and your boys’ patrol paths. Until he went out to grab you with that big piece of work. Greg White, if I recall. How’d the rest of the night wind up? I heard White came back in alone.”

  Haskell nodded, closing his eyes and pressing a thumb and forefinger against their lids.

  “Sorry to hear that.” Engel placed a hand on C. J.’s shoulder, then turned and sat back down.

  Dreg assumed a solemn look as Haskell opened his eyes again. “Never easy to lose a comrade.”

  The fuck would you know about it? C. J. raised his face and met The Mayor’s gaze, his eyes saying what his mouth had not.

  “So listen, my man,” The Mayor persisted, disregarding the anguish and bitterness etched across the outrider’s face. “We need to talk to that Boss of yours. So far he hasn’t reported in—as long as I’ve been here overseeing things, anyway—and I’ve been waiting for a rider to show up and help me find him. Any idea where he would be?”

  Haskell glanced about the meeting hall again. The scores of men, the computers and antennas, the blinking lights and cables and all of it were gut-wrenching to take in. This was nothing like the Hall he knew. The life he knew. And while C. J. understood that the Civil Defense men and the outriders and even this goddamn blowhard Mayor were all in it together, he just couldn’t bring himself to cooperate until he’d been given the go-ahead right from Hutton’s mouth.

  “He’s probably at his shack. If not there, out patrolling in that old jeep of his. My place ain’t but a few houses from his and I need to head there now anyway and get some fresh clothes and chow. I’ll send him straight your way if he’s home.”

  “Do that, OK Haskell? Immediately,” Engel said over his shoulder, looking back a second after he spoke to make sure the outrider had heard him.

  “Sure. Yeah. Be back real soon.”

  C. J. took a step backward, then turned to walk away. “How about we send some men to escort you? For safety?” Engel asked.

  “This is my home. I don’t need a fuckin’ escort.” Haskell strode away from the two men quickly, not looking back as he stepped over piles of cable and dodged tables, gear, and soldiers.

  He stepped out into the cool air of the early morning. It was only a couple hours from dawn now. A few hours from the full scale assault. C. J. paused about fifty yards from the meeting hall, lingering in darkness until he was sure no one was following him. Then he turned away from his hut and began hurrying west across the Outpost. The lights were still on at Matteson’s Place.

  21

  If the clock on the wall could be trusted, it was shortly after 7 a.m. The windows seemed to be a paler shade of gray, suggesting morning, but Scofield could scarcely trust the clock in a room with window panes painted over from the outside. Nor could he trust the people who had painted them. He sat upright on a queen sized bed, his bare feet flat on the thin carpet. The outrider had hung his long jacket and vest in the closet, removed his boots, washed and hung his socks and undershirt, and sorted through the provisions he’d found piled by the door. They were his foodstuffs—the same canned tuna, jerky, freeze-dried fruit, and wheat cakes he had loaded into Reese’s saddlebags a few short days ago. The same packs of cigarettes and pouch of shake leaf and papers. His canteen was there too. He had filled it from one of the half dozen liter-seized water bottles he’d found resting atop a sink that didn’t work.

  Where the fuck and what the fuck? Scofield wondered to himself for the hundredth time in two hours. Somehow he had dozed off after the train got back underway during the small hours of the night. He awoke to a tightening blindfold and someone locking cuffs on his wrists as Sebastian’s voice told him to stay calm. Hands had guided him down from the locomotive to where his boots hit sand. A few steps later he was led onto a wooden platform and then a carpet and then Sebastian had said he should clean up, eat up, and sleep. The cuffs were removed and a door slammed and when Scofield peeled off his blindfold he found himself in this goddamn motel room.

  There was a floral print comforter over white linen sheets. The sink was in a little hall that led to the bathroom. The carpet was a wretched shade of rose and the drapes were olive. The lights and fan worked but the tap and shower were dry. Shocked, numb, and exhausted, the outrider had dumped a few bottles of water over himself and scrubbed at his aching body with a little bar of soap, then slept naked on top of the sheets. He had no idea how long he’d been out.

  Scofield had awoken with a start and gotten his bearings as best he could. Now that he was dressed and alert and the few possessions the drainers had left him were corralled neatly, there was nothing to do but wait. Twice in the course of an hour he had stood, meaning to g
rab a cigarette and put his boots on, but both times he found himself standing stock still, then slowly easing back down onto the bed.

  His eyes drifted around the room yet again, searching for some ceiling vent or grate in the wall. The door was bolted shut and he could see the outline of bars against the windows. Scofield had considered shattering the glass anyway using the little fridge tucked under the sink or one of the chairs or end tables, but figured there had to be a drainer closer by than any honest citizen. And where the hell was he, anyway, that still had little clapboard motels like this? Barstow? How far did these fuckers take me?

  Finally he rose again, determined this time to have a smoke. But without any conscious change in intent, Scofield found himself instead pulling on his socks and removing his button-down shirt to work the slightly damp cotton T back over his torso. He put his shirt on again, then his vest.

  Next Scofield pulled one of the pillow cases off its lumpy polyester charge and filled it with his food and two liters of water. He took a piss, then removed his duster from the closet, draping the jacket over the bed. When he eased himself into one of the wooden chairs set beside the window, the clock read 7:23. Scofield rolled himself a cigarette with surgical care.

  He lit the cigarette and watched the blue-gray smoke rise through the still air in an unbroken column. The smoke reached the ceiling and curled about the mottled plaster. Scofield felt trapped enough spending nights in his own little shack, usually opting to sleep outside next to his horse. If he didn’t stay calm right now, he could potentially put himself in a very dangerous place; he needed his wits about him. Scofield had fled from his east coast roots not so much to escape the broken home, but to escape the omnipresent walls: the houses and buildings and hedges and winding streets and figure-eight highways and strip malls and millions of goddamn people packed into every square foot from Maine to Miami.

  A few seconds before the minute hand clicked onto half past, there came from outside a rumble like distant thunder. The ground trembled. Quake? Scofield grabbed his boots and pulled them on quickly as he realized what the rumbling was. Suddenly there were footsteps on the wooden planks by the door and then the lock clicked open.

  The train was drawing nearer. Now the outrider could hear its stack bellowing great plumes of steam. He could hear the clatter of gears and the grating of iron treads. Then slowly the mechanical din wound down. There were fewer and fewer creaks and whines and clicks. Within a minute, the only sound from the street was the smokestack, huffing rhythmically like some giant’s breath.

  Scofield waited for what felt like a lifetime, then, convinced that they were waiting for his move, he gathered up the sack of provisions, donned his Stetson, and wrapped a fist around the doorknob.

  Crisp morning sunlight streamed into the dimly lit motel room, blinding the outrider. He squinted and held up a hand to block the brilliant sun, working its way up into a cerulean sky. He could see the hulking black locomotive out in the street and could discern the outlines of buildings lining the dusty lane, but it took more than a minute for Scofield’s eyes to adjust enough to perceive that there was a man standing just to his right.

  With a slight gasp, Scofield spun to face the man. He was squat, barely over five-foot-three, with a round belly pressing out the buttons of a dusty tweed jacket. His brown eyes were smiling above ruddy cheeks covered with a two-day beard.

  “All aboard!” the man said with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Where are—wait a second . . .” Scofield leaned in to look more closely at the man’s face. The drainer held his gaze. “Holy shit . . . Flint? David Flint?”

  “Hey, Scofield. Howya been?”

  “Well not too good as of late, Dave. What the fuck are you doing here? I thought you moved back east six years ago.”

  Flint nodded slowly, looking away. He ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. “Yeah . . . I didn’t end up moving all that far east, though. Hey, how’s Hutton doing? He OK? And what about ol’ Ryan . . . what’s it . . . Cannell! How’s ol’ Ry?”

  Scofield’s jaw clenched. He whispered through his teeth. “We were all doin’ just great until your kind came along. So what happened, huh? Money? Some kind of . . . prestige?”

  “Don’t disparage, Scofield—you don’t know—”

  “I’m not takin’ any words from a fucking turncoat!” Scofield shouted, advancing a step toward his former comrade, rage clouding his thoughts.

  “Probably a good idea to stop there!” a new voice called out. Scofield looked over to find its source. A towering man with impossibly wide shoulders and a face cut from granite was walking toward him, a large revolver held down by his right thigh.

  The large man stopped a few feet away and cast his beige robe back over his shoulders, revealing a gray jumpsuit covered with pockets and crisscrossed by a bandolier.

  “That’s Russ,” David Flint said. “He’s a great guy to know unless he doesn’t like you. Listen, Scof, I get where you’re coming from right now. Keep an open mind and by lunchtime today maybe you’ll see where I’m coming from.”

  “We all calm? We all relaxed?” Russell Ascher looked from man to man, then nodded and turned away. “OK, bring him on down!” he shouted back toward the locomotive.

  The engine room door swung open with a clang and a robed drainer made his way down the little ladder. He was followed a second later by a man wearing scuffed black loafers, blue jeans, and a ribbed sweater. His sandy hair was close cropped. As the drainer escorted the man toward the motel, his head hung before him, bobbing about limply in either exhaustion or utter dejection. Or both.

  He didn’t look up once until he reached the motel deck. Only then did Scofield recognize the man from Mayor Dreg’s office. Timothy Hale in turn recognized the outrider.

  “You . . . you too, huh?”

  “They ran me down with that sonofabitch,” Scofield pointed to the train.

  “Grabbed me in my bathrobe.”

  David Flint cleared his throat. “Boys, I hate to interrupt, but Mr. Hale, why don’t you head on into the room here and rest up. Scofield, please follow Russell.”

  “Enjoy the next few minutes,” Timothy called from the doorway of the motel room. Scofield looked back, squinting as he made his way across the dusty street. “You can’t un-see things, you know?”

  C. J. Haskell awoke with a start. He wiped sleep from his eyes and drool from his chin and looked about the bar. Matteson was behind the counter, his back turned and the phone pressed to one ear. Wilton Kretch sat in the far corner, shoveling food into his mouth. A few other outriders dozed draped across tables or lolling in chairs. Greg White was snoring away on the floor of the far wall, sounding for all intents and purposes like a slumbering walrus. Haskell was glad to see Greg White safe, at least, but Boss Hutton was gone.

  The Boss had been asleep, head down atop folded arms, when C. J. had arrived a few hours earlier. Matteson had advised the young man to let Hutton sleep; said The Boss was near delirious after more than two days spent awake and on the move. C. J. had agreed and lowered himself into the chair he now rose from, stiffly, his neck and back aching. He made his way across the room slowly, trying to mute the heavy thud of his boot heels to let the sleeping men rest.

  Matteson glanced over his shoulder as Haskell eased himself onto the stool. The bartender hung up the phone without a word of farewell and turned around.

  “What time did he leave?”

  “About a half hour back.” Matteson replied.

  “Dammit,” C. J. swore under his breath.

  “I would’ve woken you, but The Boss said to let any of his men who could sleep stay that way. Sounds like you fellahs are gonna have a hell of a day.”

  “That’s how it’s looking. Fuck, that’s how it’s been. You’ve been around, what’s your gut? What are we really up against?”

  “Not sure why you’d ask me—I’m just a humble bartender, Haskell. I serve drinks in here and you serve . . . you serve out there.”

 
C. J. let out a short laugh. “May be a bad time for a drink, good as it sounds. You got anything to eat?” Haskell asked, tilting his head toward Kretch, who was still slopping away. “Maybe some eggs?”

  “No eggs, sorry. Just got oatmeal and toast. Maybe some oranges, too.”

  “A bowl of oatmeal and some fruit would do me right. Thanks.”

  Matteson nodded and walked into the back room. C. J. heard a lighter flick and spun around on his stool. Wilton blew a thick plume of smoke into the room and looked up at his comrade.

  “What was last night like for you, young buck?”

  “Not much fun. You been over to the Meeting Hall lately?”

  “Sure. Damn thing ain’t our Hall no more. This here’s our place now. That’s official, too, Boss said. You come in from a ride, come to Matteson’s Place.”

  “What else did he say? What’s the news?” Haskell rose and walked over to Wilton’s table, pulling back a chair to sit. Kretch smoked in silence for a moment, thinking back over the past hours and days. C. J. watched him while waiting for a response. Wilton had a few globs of oatmeal stuck in his scruffy beard. They bounced beside his lips as he spoke.

  “I ain’t heard nothing new today yet. Been out of the loop some since yesterday evening. My horse needed some work.” Kretch avoided the young man’s eyes as he said this—Shady had needed medical attention from his violent spurring and from being ridden to absolute exhaustion. “Hut had a message he wanted spread to the boys. I’m not sure what it was but we’re gonna learn soon, I think. I was asleep when he come in.”

  “It was about the horns,” Matteson said as he approached the table with a steaming bowl of oatmeal and two oranges. He set the food down before C. J., who nodded his thanks, and continued. “The Boss wanted me to tell all you boys that he’s going to be sounding the sirens early afternoon. Maybe about one. That’s the sign for the Civil Defense Forces to move in and for you boys to start a fulltime circuit around the perimeter. You boys stay out of the field after the horns, got it?”