Outrider

by Steven John

  The large man wailed in pain and staggered, firing two more rounds into Greg’s back. With single-minded determination, Greg reached out and latched onto the drainer’s belt, wrenching him to the ground. The pistol went flying as the drainer landed on the handle of the knife, twisting it in his wound. Again he howled, flopping onto his chest spasmodically.

  Greg grabbed the hilt of the blade and pulled it free of the man’s leg, pushing himself forward with his right leg and sinking the knife between the drainer’s shoulders. The body heaved and convulsed and White held on, held the blade down, wrenched it from side to side, and soon the drainer lay still, bleeding out through the severed arteries in his thigh and chest.

  White let go of the knife and fell onto his side, sucking in a few last breaths.

  “You . . . alive Joe?” he managed to whisper.

  “Not for long, bud. The—” Bay was wracked by coughs that brought blood and bile to his lips. After a moment he continued, his voice strangely calm. “The hour is here.”

  “I’ll . . . see you . . . on the flip side . . .” White’s eyes were closing.

  “Off to hell with us. See you there.” Bay coughed again. “Greg . . . hold on a second longer . . . I want to . . . share one more . . . .” He trailed off but was moving.

  White tried to keep the darkness from closing in; to keep his eyes open. He heard Bay hacking and sucking in ragged breaths, and then Greg heard the flick of a lighter. Rich, sweet tobacco smoke drifted into his nose and then there was a hand before him, pressing a cigarette into his lips. White drew in a long, deep breath of smoke. He would never exhale it.

  Joseph Bay sat propped up on one elbow, watching the life leave his comrade. He nodded and took the cigarette from Gregory White’s mouth, sucking back a few drags himself. Joe Bay had seven bullets in him.

  As he sank back down to the earth, the cigarette fell from his lips. Bay coughed once more, and raised his right hand before his face. It was covered in other men’s blood. He smiled and then promptly died.

  Boss Hutton pulled up outside Matteson’s Place and threw the clutch into neutral. His hand was shaking so badly he could hardly get it closed around the keys. He paused, his left hand still gripping the wheel tightly, and looked around at the his old jeep. There were countless holes ripped into the doors and sidewalls. The windshield was a shattered wreck, half of it hanging out over the hood. Both rear tires were flat.

  Still the ancient engine rumbled beneath the hood. Hutton listened to it for a good long while, knowing it was the last time he would hear it. ”You done me real good, baby,” he said aloud. “You done me good all these years. Saved my old ass today. I . . . thanks for that. For all that.”

  He turned the key and the jeep fell silent with a gentle shudder. Hutton sighed and found himself wiping a tear from the corner of one eye. Not so much for the loss of his beloved jeep—it was an object, after all, and though a cherished one, he was too old and had seen too much for maudlin whimpering over a lost vehicle—but rather because this was the first time The Boss had had a second of true quiet all day, and the enormity of the day now spread out before his mind’s eye.

  The pillars he had spent so many years protecting had been hard to see toppled and ruined. Harder still was the knowledge that those still standing were defunct, lifeless. The falling aircraft and the later bombardment had been terrifying, and it was with horror that Hutton thought of the many men dead in or under those crashing planes and choppers, or killed by exploding shells. But actually seeing the bodies was the worst. He had driven past scores of deceased Feds and Civil Defense soldiers, dozens of drainers, and he had seen at least ten of his boys lying dead on the sand. Some were missing limbs, hands, feet. Two were headless. Still others looked to have casually laid down to rest.

  Hutton stepped down from the jeep with a loud groan. His aged body ached all over, not to mention the myriad cuts and scratches he had gotten from flying bits of shrapnel and debris. Again he marveled that the jeep had kept going as he surveyed the damage all over the vehicle. Goddamn good piece of junk you were.

  He was not surprised to find Matteson’s Place dark and empty. Enough sunlight drifted in through the smoke stained windows to cast a pale glow about the room, but against the far wall the bar was all but lost in darkness. Hutton shuffled across the floor, his boot heels dragging along the creaking floorboards. His limp was worse.

  The Boss made straight for the gap between bar and wall and flicked his lighter, holding the flame close the jumble of bottles along the mirror. He knew this random assortment of liquor well, and it did not take long before the dancing flame glinted off the bottle he sought. Hutton grabbed his favorite rye from among the many bottles, then found a glass and walked back around into the barroom proper.

  Sidling up to his usual stool, Hutton whispered a greeting under his breath. He paused as if receiving a reply, then lowered himself onto the stool. He poured three fingers of liquor into the glass, then carefully put the cork back into the bottle of rye.

  “To all you boys,” Hut said aloud, glass raised. “Goddamn I hope it’s not all you boys.” He swallowed the liquor down in two gulps then lit a cigarette and pulled the cork back out of the bottle.

  Wilton Kretch rose from the dry wash with his rifle trained. Had he not immediately recognized Scofield and Reese, he would have fired with no regard for who the rider may or may not have been. Kretch lowered the weapon and pulled off his hat to show his face to the approaching horseman. Or horsemen—someone was draped across the saddle of the second horse, a black colt Wilton did not recognize.

  Scofield had raised his rifle but realized it was Kretch even before Wilton removed his Stetson. He slowed Reese to a trot and directed her toward the outrider, who was clambering out of a streambed.

  Once in hailing distance, Scofield called out: “Looks like you’ve had a lovely goddamn day, Wil!” There were at least ten bodies strewn about the area.

  “Ain’t seen much worse,” Wilton replied, forcing a smile in which his eyes did not participate. Kretch recognized Haskell as the wounded man as he walked up to Reese, who Scofield had stopped a few feet away, and laid a hand on the mare’s neck. She bristled and snorted.

  “How about you? Good day for you two?” He inclined his head to the side toward C. J., semi-conscious and moaning, barely holding onto his mount.

  “Not so much for me,” Scofield said quietly. “Him either.”

  “Yeah. Guessed that,” Wilton whispered. Then he raised his voice, addressing the young outrider. “How you doin’ there, Hasky? Banged up a piece, huh?”

  Scofield kicked free of his stirrups and slid off Reese, stepping close to Kretch. “He can’t hear.”

  “Huh?”

  “He can’t hear anything. I think his eardrums got blown.”

  “That a fact? Sad story there. He looks pretty bloodied up overall, Scof. Think he’s on the clock?” Kretch was studying the young man, his eyes moving from patches of dried blood on his jacket to lacerations covering his neck and exposed forearms.

  Scofield waited until Wilton looked back over at him to reply. “No. He ain’t on the clock. But he ain’t in a good way, either.”

  “Yeah, lots of us ain’t.” Kretch glanced over at Haskell again, then craned his neck from side to side. His spine popped audibly. “Hey, you got any smokes on you? And water?”

  “I got some tobacco,” Scofield said, turning to his saddle bags. “But no water left. Sorry chief.”

  This was a lie. He had plenty left in his canteen and in Reese’s water sacks, but the canteen was for him and the sacks for her.

  “Here, take a few,” Scofield said, tossing a pack of cigarettes to Wilton and turning away to adjust some straps on the saddle. Kretch caught the pack and fixed the side of Scofield’s face in an icy glare. The implication of taking more than one cigarette was not lost on him. Kretch pulled five cigarettes from the pack and jammed them into a vest pocket, then drew out one more and lit it with a match.


  “So how was it where you were, Scofy? What’d you see?”

  “Bodies. Fires.” Scofield did not look over.

  “Yeah? Me too. I saw plenty of that too.” Kretch came up behind Scofield and stood still. After a pause, Scofield looked over his shoulder. Wilton was holding the cigarette pack open toward him.

  “You gonna have a smoke?” he asked quietly.

  “Sure.” Scofield turned and reached out, taking hold of the pack and placing a cigarette in his mouth. He left it unlit and again focused on his saddle.

  Wilton walked around the horses. After a few moments, Scofield bent at the waist and looked under Reese. Kretch was standing close to the other horse and whispering something. Then he said aloud: “I don’t know, Scof. I think our young buck here may be done for.”

  Scofield re-threaded a strip of leather through its buckle then stepped around the horses, stopping beside the colt to stand face to face with Kretch.

  “He’ll be fine. Lots of scratches and he got his bell rung. That’s all.”

  “I don’t know about that. I don’t think so.” Wilton turned his back on Scofield and leaned in close toward Haskell, whose arms were draped loosely around the colt’s neck, his head lolling to one side. One of the young man’s eyes was bruised and swollen shut; the other was open but staring at the ground, glazed over.

  “I’m taking this horse.”

  “No. You’re not, Wil.”

  “Don’t get in my way, ya sonofabitch!” Kretch whirled about and leveled his pistol at Scofield. But Scofield had already noted Wilton’s empty holster and held his own revolver down by his waist, the barrel trained on Kretch.

  “I see how it is. Gonna shoot me in the back, were you Scofy?”

  “I was gonna shoot you in the face if you tried what I figured you would.”

  Both men were silent for a few painstaking seconds, their eyes locked. Kretch sneered, chewing at the cigarette. His pupils were tiny dots in the bright sun, just now beginning to slide toward its western resting place.

  Beneath the shade of his hat brim, Scofield’s eyes were calm and unblinking. His face was placid; friendly, even.

  “This can go two ways, Wil. Holster that piece, shake my hand, and start walking.”

  “That’s one way.”

  “That’s the right way. Come on, man. Ease down on that iron.”

  “Why don’t you tuck yours away first.”

  Scofield shook his head slowly. “You drew. You holster.”

  Kretch shifted his weight to stand evenly on both feet, drawing himself up as much as he could. It had always bothered him how much taller Scofield was. And that goddamn look of serenity he seemed to meet every little thing with. Wilton took a long drag off the cigarette, then slowly raised his left hand and pulled it from his dry lips. Smoke drifted from his mouth as he spoke.

  “You know why I never liked you, Scofield?”

  “No idea. But I’ll give you a reason.”

  Scofield fired three shots before he was done enunciating the last syllable.

  Kretch crumpled immediately, a sucking gasp torn from his pierced lungs. He pitched forward onto his chest and Scofield put a bullet through the back of his skull. No reason to let him suffer. Or to give him a chance.

  Haskell dropped his head as Scofield turned away from Wilton’s body. He had seen everything and understood, but figured it better to let his friend deal with the moment alone.

  Scofield lit the smoke still dangling from his lips, then walked around the horses and pulled his canteen from a saddle bag. He took a long drink then cupped his hand, trickling water into it for his horse. He came back again and tapped C. J.’s shoulder, offering the canteen to the young man. Haskell wearily shook his head, then closed his eyes, again fading into semi-consciousness.

  A few seconds later, C. J. felt the colt begin to trot.

  Dusk was fast approaching. The eastern sky was melting from blue to purple, darker every minute, and the western horizon was just beginning to swirl with color. A handful of intrepid stars pierced the evening canopy. They had no competition from below on this night.

  Major Engel had been able to find only one other officer among the exhausted soldiers who stumbled back to the Outpost that afternoon. He had ordered a haggard captain to assemble the remaining soldiers as best he could. The captain had listened and nodded and then set to his task, speaking only five words to Engel: “To a man, except me.”

  As the weary entourage—a patch-work assembly of three squads of Civil Defense soldiers, about fifty Federal troops, a handful of outriders, some civilians, and Mayor Dreg—plodded slowly along the pod tracks, it was toward a dark, cold city. A broken city. The beacon of spectacular electric haze shined no more.

  It was just now occurring to Franklin that he would have no way to get into his home or his office—there were no staircases. And why bother thinking of the office? Over what did he govern? No thoughts of rebuilding, of helping those in peril—Dreg silently bemoaned all he had lost. He, Dreg, the fallen king, now panting and wheezing above aching feet as he stumbled the many miles back to his shattered kingdom. Only once did a darker line of thought creep in: What have I done? My god, what have I done? I could have stopped this had I not . . . waited . . . no! No, this was bigger than me, I caused none of it, and we all did our damnedest!

  Engel walked beside The Mayor, his steps even and breaths coming easy. No staff or personal security force could be summoned, and Engel doubted anyone from the city would head out looking for Dreg on their own recognizance, so out of a sense of duty to the office, not the man, the major had committed to returning Dreg safely to New Las Vegas. Then he was considering turning in his commission and resigning forever.

  “Wait . . . wait stop a second,” Dreg suddenly whispered. They were his first words in almost an hour. “Did you hear that?”

  “What did you hear, sir?” Engel asked.

  “I’m not sure . . . I can hardly believe my ears if . . .” he paused, tilting his head to one side to raise an ear. “It sounded like a train.”

  “No chance, Mayor. All of our pods are—”

  Dreg interrupted him, his voice quiet. “Not one of ours, no . . . it sounded like an old steam engine.”

  Scofield only looked back once to make sure C. J. Haskell wasn’t following him. The young man looked over his shoulder more frequently, but kept the colt headed northwest. He had gotten back some of his strength and could hear a faint ringing, which brought hope that his ears would eventually heal. But it brought him little comfort. It was hard to watch Scofield riding away.

  He pulled the note Scofield had scrawled and handed him a few minutes before. On the outside of the folded paper, the outrider had written:

  Don’t read this until we’ve gone our ways. The city is located exactly where I’ll point first, not thirty minutes ride. If there’s anything there for you, head for it. If you want to see something different, ride the second way I show you. Ride a half hour and some, through the lower of two passes in the high hills. I’ve written some more about that way folded up in here. Get your ears back and keep your ass safe, Haskell. You may be the last of a breed.

  Haskell had looked up from these words and immediately Scofield pointed southeast, his index finger and the sweep of a palm indicating a ride around a series of foothills. Then he pointed northwest, his arm held straight out for an extended moment.

  Still not fully comprehending, Haskell had spoken, his unheard voice coming out too loud: “Where are you going, Scof?”

  The outrider had shrugged, mouthing the words: “I don’t know. Away from here. Alone.” Scofield had pointed to the paper, fixed his young friend in a long, warm gaze, then reached out. After the handshake, the outriders parted ways.

  Now as the sun slid slowly behind the distant mountains, Scofield lost Haskell among the shadows as he looked toward the horizon. Based on his course, C. J. had taken the second route and would soon behold the ruins of Barrisford. Scofield had written as much of w
hat he knew as he could fit on the scrap of paper.

  The last rays of light caught the distant sunfield. From so many miles away, it looked just as he had always known it; how he would remember it. He turned back east to face the coming night and prodded Reese up to a fast trot.

  EPILOGUE

  Scofield had heard the billowing smokestack and the grinding gears long before he finally spotted the black train rolling across the evening sands, framed by the sunset’s lingering afterglow. And evidently those on board had spotted him—it was coming his way. He clucked Reese into a standstill to wait.

  The horse sidestepped and began to toss her mane and whinny, remembering well the last time this hulking beast had come for them.

  “It’s OK, girl. It’s OK, honey,” the outrider patted his mare on the neck. I think it’s OK . . .

  The locomotive drew up alongside the horse and rider, coming to a rumbling, clanking stop about thirty yards off. In the gloaming, Scofield counted four long cars trailing behind it. With an air of resignation, he reined Reese into a slow walk and rode toward the train. The windows of the cars glowed a warm yellow from kerosene lanterns and Scofield saw many passengers—all faceless, backlit silhouettes—pressed against the windows.

  Scofield dismounted and covered the last few paces to the locomotive on foot. He stopped beneath the little side door, looking up, and was not surprised when Sebastian’s head popped out of the open window.

  “You made it through, mate. I’m glad for that.”

  “All luck.”

  “Maybe fate, no?”

  “Never believed in it. Where are you boys headed?”

  Sebastian looked back toward the west, then up at the sky, where more new stars were constantly emerging. “This was just the start for us, Scofield.”

  Scofield took in a breath to ask the logical next question, but before he could speak, another familiar voice called out.