by James Axler
Turning to the old farmer, Doc listened intently to the man’s words.
Chapter Four
J.B. peered over Ryan’s shoulder at the pair of wide tables across the other side of the room, where Doc was held in discussion with the people from the convoy. “What the heck is Doc up to?” he muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.
Mildred was just walking across the room to join Ryan and the others, her brow wrinkled with concern. Ryan peered up as her shadow fell across their table. “What’s happening, Mildred?” he asked.
Still standing, Mildred leaned close, keeping her voice low so as not to be overheard, even in spite of the clashing chords emanating from the piano. “Those travelers we helped out invited us all over to offer a few words of gratitude,” she explained.
“Tell them thanks,” J.B. growled.
“The spokesman,” Mildred continued, “that old boy you see there, he says he has a proposition that may interest Doc. Perhaps the rest of us, too.”
Ryan looked nonplussed. “Which is?”
“Search me,” Mildred said lightly. “Seems he wanted to run it by Doc first.”
“What’s your impression?” Ryan asked.
“They seem normal enough,” Mildred stated. “Mostly old folks. Couple of young ones, too, nothing out of the ordinary.”
Krysty was scanning the strangers from her position against the wall. “They’re only lightly armed,” she observed. “Real lightly for traveling folks. Kind of stupe.”
Sitting beside Ryan, Jak nodded. “Not travelers,” he said. “Farmers. Smell it.”
J.B. nodded once in agreement. “Jak’s right, those folks don’t look much used to hard road trekkin’. Probably why they got caught short against those mutie hounds outside.”
Shortly after Mildred had taken her seat, Doc strode to the table, followed by the thin serving girl with the burn scars along her arms. The girl was balancing four steaming bowls on a tray, and she smiled and shook her head as Doc kindly offered her a hand.
The old man took his seat as the girl set the bowls in front of the companions and began placing mismatched cutlery before them. “I’ll be back in a second with the others,” she drawled, curtsying briefly before she went back to her cooking alcove.
As the serving girl walked away, Doc related his conversation with Jeremiah Croxton to the companions. “They were all tremendously impressed with—and grateful for—our assistance outside,” Doc explained, “and Mr. Croxton has asked if we might avail our services for the duration of their journey.”
“As sec men, you mean?” Ryan asked.
Doc nodded, idly brushing a hand through his white hair as the serving girl returned with two more bowls of the aromatic stew. “Thank you, my dear,” Doc said to the girl. The bowls steamed as she set them down on the table before Doc and Ryan.
“If ya’s need anything else,” the girl said, “j’st holler an’ I’ll come right over.”
Jak was already working a spoon through the thick gravy in his bowl, and he looked up at the girl with his unearthly smile. “Good,” he said. “Meat’s good.”
Disconcerted, the girl thanked Jak and the others before scurrying back to her nook at the side of the bar. She stood there, her eyes on the strange young albino, watching him warily.
“What sort of meat is it, Jak?” Krysty asked as she pushed the contents of the bowl before her around with a fork.
Jak chewed for a moment, working the spiced meat around his palate. “Goat,” he decided, grinning contentedly.
Once the companions had started on their own bowls of stew, Doc continued relating Croxton’s request. “They have got a two-day journey ahead of them,” he said, “or so Croxton thinks. They have been on the road over a day, hard going, too, I should think.”
Ryan peered up from the contents of his bowl. “Where are they heading, Doc? Did he say?”
“A little ville called Baby,” Doc said.
Ryan’s eye flicked across the table to J.B. the custodian of the group’s maps and navigation equipment. “Heard of it, J.B.?”
After a few seconds thought, the Armorer shook his head. “Name like that would surely stick in my craw tighter than dynamite in a pesthole,” he said. “New villes are popping up and falling down all the time, Ryan. Just ’cause I haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
Ryan nodded. “I didn’t say it wasn’t,” he agreed, before turning his attention back to Doc as the old man picked his way carefully through his stew with a bent-handled spoon. “So what’s your angle on this, Doc? They putting up a lot of jack?”
“No,” Doc said between mouthfuls, shaking his head. “Something far more interesting than money. They’re promising youth.”
“Youth?” The word came from three people at once, as Mildred, Krysty and Ryan all uttered it with incredulity.
“The pretty little blonde girl over on the left-hand side of the table there…?” Doc said, looking up but not pointing. “Says she’s seventy-six years old. Came out of Babyville to spread the word. Seems they have the secret of eternal youth there.”
J.B. barked a short laugh at Doc’s words. “And you believe this horseshit they’re feeding you?”
Doc looked at the glistening sheen of grease on top his half-full bowl before slowly replying in a considered, deliberate voice. “I neither believe nor disbelieve, my dear John Barrymore. My natural inclination is to disbelieve, of course, for such a thing would seem fanciful, not to say impossible. But the old fables are full of youth-giving potions, immortals and the rejuvenating effects of such-and-such mixture of herbs. The fountain of eternal youth may very well be a story, but might we suppose that it could have been rooted in fact?”
J.B. shook his head in disbelief, while Ryan and the others sat considering the white-haired man’s words.
Krysty was the one who finally broke the silence. “We have seen some mighty strange things in our travels,” she said, “most of them not a blamed bit of use to anyone. Who’s to say that Doc’s youth fountain doesn’t actually exist somewhere?”
“It’s impossible,” J.B. observed. “Doc just said so himself.”
“Implausible, perhaps,” Mildred said, “but not impossible. Back in the days before skydark there were drugs, antiaging creams, hormonal injections, numerous ways to make people look and feel younger. In my day there was a lot of emphasis on appearance and youth.”
“But a girl,” Ryan said in a low voice, “of, what, sixteen saying she’s really seventy-something?”
“There are chemicals in the atmosphere,” Mildred considered, warming to her subject, “that can strip a man to his bones in a shower of rain. You don’t realize how upside down the world is right now, because it’s all you’ve ever known, Ryan. And Krysty’s right. We have seen an awful lot that is more unbelievable than what Doc’s friends have described to him.”
A moment passed in silence as the companions considered Mildred’s words. She was talking about a world they had never known, a world they could scarcely imagine. But they knew that she was also an educated woman, a trained doctor with a mind that was attuned to scientific inquiry, not flights of fantasy.
Pushing thick gravy around her bowl, Krysty spoke thoughtfully, her words slow and deliberate. “There are plants, too, that make people healthier,” she said. Krysty’s knowledge concerning the properties of plant life was almost encyclopedic, although she rarely had cause to call upon it. “Isn’t being healthier really just another type of being young?” she asked.
Several of the group around the table muttered their agreement, but to Ryan’s ears Krysty sounded like she was trying to convince herself; he knew her so well.
Doc looked earnestly around the table at his companions. “The usual fee for entering Baby is much of an individual’s worldly possessions, I am told. If we were to go there in the capacity of bodyguards, Mr. Croxton and his people would vouch for us, perhaps allowing us indulgence in the operation for free.”
“Which
would still be too damn high a price,” J.B. grumbled.
Doc turned to the Armorer, rising anger turning his face a darker shade. “Might I enquire, John Barrymore, how old you are? Might I ask how long you have lived in that body?”
J.B. looked at Doc, taken aback by his question.
“Is it perhaps forty years, mayhap forty-five?” Doc continued. “Forty years of bones forming and hair and nails growing, of skin tautening and cracking and repairing? Of eyes growing slowly dim behind your spectacle frames?”
J.B. looked emotionless as he replied, “Hurry up and pull the trigger, Doc.”
“What you see before you, my friend,” Doc said, “is a thirty-year-old man, give or take a few summers. Yet, I am stuck in this creaking set of limbs because some morally repugnant scientific scrutinizer decided it would be beneficial to shunt a man through time, to shunt me through time. I lost my dear wife and my two sweet children, and everything that meant anything to me, and those wounds, I assure you, will never heal. But this body, this old fool I see every time I look in the mirror to shave his white whiskers from his wrinkled chin—this is something I was cursed with to make that cruel joke all the more bitter.”
“Doc—” Ryan began, but the old man held up his hand to halt him.
“Allow an old man time to gather his thoughts, if you would,” Doc said, a bitter edge to his voice. “Oftentimes have I dreamed of returning to my home, to hold my dear Emily, Rachel and Jolyon once more, and every time I have been there in my mind’s eye, it has been in this wretched old man’s frame. It has been something I have resigned myself to, something I believed could never be changed.
“This opportunity,” Doc continued, “however slight it may be, is a fleeting glimpse of something I thought I could never have. Something that was stolen from me most cruelly.”
J.B. leaned close, looking Doc square in the eye. “And if it turns out to be a bust, do I get to say ‘I told you so’?” he asked, the trace of a smile forming at the corners of his mouth.
Doc felt his rage subside and he glanced at his other companions before meeting J.B.’s fierce stare once more. “If it turns out to be a bust, John Barrymore, I will royally insist that you do.”
Ryan turned, casting his single-eyed gaze from one companion to the next, making sure that everyone had said their piece. Finally he turned his blue-eyed gaze on Doc and offered him a single, curt nod. “Then it’s decided,” he said.
For several more minutes, the companions ate the goat stew, joking a little to ease their own tension, reminiscing over old victories and occasional, temporary defeats. Once they had finished their meal, Ryan pushed his chair back from the table and, with the lanky Doc at his side, strode across the wide room to where the caravaners were enjoying drinks and the hospitality of the overweight bartender. Ryan left his lengthy Steyr rifle with Krysty, and she placed it beneath the table, out of sight. The two chained girls were still dancing on stage, swaying to the sound of the piano like somnambulists. Ryan ignored them as he walked past, his one keen eye focused on the group of travelers as they continued their raucous discussions. Doc looked at the dancing girls, feeling a sick sense at the pit of his just-fed stomach at the way their ribs pushed against the skin beneath their nearly naked breasts.
The old man that Doc had pointed out as their leader, Jeremiah Croxton, was talking to a couple who had entered the building with a younger man—they were at least sixty, and he had almost certainly seen his fortieth birthday. The barman, who had been speaking with the group of travelers, looked up at the newcomers’ approach. A moment later, once the other three had left, Ryan leaned down to speak with Jeremiah Croxton.
“I hear you’re in the market for some traveling sec for the next two days,” Ryan began. His glance flicked around the table, taking in the dozen patrons that sat there. The youngish woman who had been attacked had wrapped a tourniquet around her throat, and looked to be numbing any lasting pain with a pathological intake of alcohol. Her baby was snuffling in sleep, doubtless having imbibed a nip of brandy to keep it from waking. The older man who had been attacked by another wolf had a bloody gash across his arm, but, cleaned up, the wound looked superficial and he seemed to be having fun in a lively conversation with a middle-aged gaudy slut wearing a none-too-flattering dress with a low neckline that she seemed to be struggling to artistically flail out of. A couple of the others at the table had rudimentary weapons, a remade revolver here, a single-shot rifle there. They appeared companionable enough, seemed happy to enjoy the delights that the trading post offered with food, drink and, for one bald and wrinkled old man at the far side of the table, the company of the awkward girl who had served Ryan and his companions dinner. The girl looked uncomfortable as she endured the old man’s attention.
Croxton looked at Ryan for a moment before he spoke, assessing the man’s wide-shouldered frame, the wide chest beneath his shirt. “Yes, that we are,” he said finally. “Our little escapade with the wolf pack out there was a surprise, an’ I ain’t so sure we’d have coped without your timely intervention. Showed us that mebbe we could do with a little extra muscle, if you are interested in that line of work.”
Ryan nodded. “Name’s Ryan,” he said as Jeremiah shook his proffered hand, “and you’ve met Doc here already.”
“That I have,” the old farmer acknowledged, looking down at Ryan’s hand as he released his grip. “You have a few old scars showing there, if I may be so bold,” he said.
“That comes with the territory,” Ryan said. “When do you plan on setting off?”
“We’ll bed down here,” Croxton said in his warm, friendly voice, “and look to move out a little after dawn. Will that suit you and your crew?”
“We’ll be ready,” Ryan assured him. “We’ll meet you by your wags at dawn.”
“Might be one extra from what you saw,” Croxton added. “Been spreading the word a little.”
Ryan nodded. “We can protect six if need be. Beyond that, we may need to consider adopting another strategy before we set off.”
The farmer thanked Ryan and Doc, and the two companions made their way back to their table.
“First impression?” J.B. asked as Ryan took his seat.
“Underarmed, naive and frightened as hell,” Ryan said. “As long as we keep them in line they won’t bring any trouble down on us.”
Jak’s ruby eyes flashed eerily in the flickering light of the fire. “Trouble come,” he assured Ryan and the others. “Always do.”
DAWN ARRIVED WITH A whimper, the sun struggling over the easterly horizon as dark, bloated clouds full of rain and chem did their best to stifle its rays.
Ryan and his companions waited in the vicinity of the parked wags, weapons on show as much for effect as protection. They had spent the night sharing three rooms in an old shack that doubled as an inn, just a little way along the road from the so-called trading post. Ryan had relished that brief opportunity to be alone with Krysty in a real bed, reaffirming their devotion to one another. Now, the companions were rested and renewed.
Before leaving the trading post the night before, J.B. had swapped some spare ammunition he had found in the redoubt—of a gauge that didn’t fit any of the companions’ weapons—for a pack of locally made, hand-rolled cigars. The pack itself was constructed of thin balsa wood, glued together with a little hinge mechanism in the top, and the Armorer admired the craftsmanship as he pulled one of the stubby, brown cigars from it, intending to have a quick smoke before Mildred spotted him.
Standing beside him, Doc watched the man light the cigar with a butane lighter, inhaling deeply until the tip glowed orange. J.B. spluttered as he tasted the heavy smoke for the first time, pulling the brown cigar from his teeth and glaring at it. He felt somewhat light-headed, as it had been a while since his last smoke.
“’Tis a bracing morning, John Barrymore,” Doc said as the Armorer took his second drag on the homemade cigar.
J.B. breathed thick smoke from his mouth, wisps coming from
his nostrils. “Nothing a little fire in your lungs won’t stave off,” he assured the old man. J.B. offered Doc a cigar, but he politely declined.
As they continued waiting for the caravan travelers, J.B. began checking the wags, peering at their wheel housings and running his fingers along rust spots he found, making sure that the wags would stand up to the continued abuse of hard travel.
Across from the wags, Mildred leaned against the side of a wooden shack, checking the contents of her olive-colored satchel while Jak crouched on the curb, sharpening the leaf-shaped blade of one of his throwing knives, his Colt Python resting on the sidewalk beside him, just inches from his busy hands.
“Shit, I’m running out of supplies,” Mildred muttered to herself.
Jak looked up at her, a querulous expression on his stark, ghostlike face. “Meds?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Mildred replied. “I don’t know about the secret of eternal youth, but if this Babyville has a stash of ibuprofen and acetaminophen it will be a miracle worth visiting.”
Jak just smiled, choosing to keep his wisdom to himself.
Standing in the lee of one of the tall truck cabs, Krysty was telling Ryan a tale from her days as a child in Harmony. Ryan had heard the story before, but marveled at the way that Krysty related it, the idyllic, carefree existence she had had in her early life in contrast to his own, more formal upbringing, in Front Royal as the son of a baron. Midstory, Krysty inclined her head subtly and, in a low tone, informed Ryan, “They’re here.”
Ryan looked up, and saw Jeremiah Croxton leading his mismatched crew—now grown from twelve to fifteen—into the sunlight from the weather-beaten shack that served as an inn for travelers.
The bearded old farmer looked satisfied as he approached the one-eyed man. “Bright an early as promised, sir,” he bellowed. “I like to see good timekeeping in a man. Shows a determined spirit, sure as hell.”