“Yes, I swear it,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “Oh man, you hang in there until Chico gets back. I need time to sort this all out.”
“Well, just don’t mention my name until I’m gone…” Sureshot chuckled, the laughter soon turning into a fit of coughing. “…I want to die of natural causes,” he said between breaths, the tears streaming down his face. Bose wasn’t sure whether it was from the laughter or from his condition.
When he stopped, the chief looked tired again, his face pale, the gleam fading from his eyes. “I’ll sleep now,” he said. “Tomorrow morning. Don’t forget.”
By the morning he was gone. When Jamila woke at dawn, she reached a hand over to her husband’s forehead as she had done each morning to check his fever. It had been like touching a cold slate. She looked across to see his mouth in a twisted grimace, the jaw crooked and stiff.
Bose mourned the loss of his friend more than the fact that there would be no deathbed allegiances sworn by the council. He was confident that he would be elected at the next sitting, regardless. Though not one given much to talking, standing at six foot seven, authoritative, and powerfully built, with scars earned in many battles, everyone in the tribe, not only the council, knew Bose was Sureshot’s favored successor.
Clement agreed. “I think you’ll win it,” he said confidently. The two sat on a grassy bank down by the river that afternoon, a couple of hundred yards downstream from the camp. He looked over at Bose carefully. “With Daniella as your chosen wife, it will remove any remaining doubts the braves might have.”
Clement was in his early thirties. He had a slight build with receding wispy blond hair and a sharp mouth that often got him into trouble. Thankfully the mouth came accompanied by a sharp mind that was tactically astute as well as quick-witted, and Bose often relied on his friend for advice. The two had met during the war, survived it together and joined the Black Eagles on the same day, seven years ago.
“I’ll win enough votes for the succession,” Bose replied. “But will the runner-up win enough to demand the blood challenge? That’s the question.”
Clement looked at him in surprise. “Amigo, the blood challenge is a thing of the past. Who would want such a thing now?”
“A certain person comes to mind. Someone who loves the sight of blood, even if it’s his own. Seems to me circumstances are similar to the last time it was invoked.”
Clement looked thoughtful a moment. “Did you know Ironclaw declared this morning he no longer wants to take the tribe out of the confederation?”
Bose raised an eyebrow. That was news to him.
“It means he is serious about putting his name forward for the succession,” Clement continued. “We need to make sure he doesn’t win enough votes to demand the challenge. There’re people here who still remember how the last one ended. That will be in our favor.”
The blood challenge was one of the rules of tribal succession where, under certain conditions, a brave could challenge the newly-voted chief-elect by means of a duel—a knife fight to the death.
The rule belonged to an earlier time in the tribe’s history when the Great Global War still raged. A hotly contested leadership contest had taken place between two strong warriors after the tribe’s first chief had been killed in battle. Rather than risk a civil war, the rule was introduced and stated that any brave from the council of seven who garnered forty percent of the tribal vote could make the challenge. It had been the one and only time the rule had been invoked. For good reason too—during the challenge, both contestants had been killed, leaving the tribe severely weakened.
Clement moved onto another issue. “You talk to Roja yet…about your intentions?”
Bose grimaced. “Not yet. I’m going to do it tonight.”
A serious look came over Clement’s face. “You know you must do it. Ironclaw is a real threat.” Then he looked over at Bose and grinned. “Better you than me though. Best you sleep with one eye open after you give her the news. Daniella too. You never know what Roja might do. Sometimes a man doesn’t really know a woman until he leaves her.”
Bose scowled. “I think in this case, I do,” he said. “Only too well.”
The two continued to talk about matters a while longer, then finished up their conversation. Clement stood up and brushed the grass from off his jeans.
“I’ll talk to the braves tonight,” he said. “See which way they’re thinking.”
“Sure, but if it comes to a fight with Ironclaw, I’m ready for it. This is a warrior chapter, after all.”
Clement patted his friend on the shoulder. “I know, but it won’t come to that. Just watch out for Roja,” he added with a chuckle. “That’s what I’d be worrying about.”
***
Bose had hiked up to a narrow gully overlooking the next valley. Little in the way of trees or vegetation grew here, just scattered rocks and boulders that jutted out of the snow. A hard wind blew, and for the moment he put the succession out of his mind.
Making his way over to the ledge, he placed his rifle carefully on the ground and sat down, dangling his feet over the edge. Even though his back was damp from his exertions, his face and neck were cold and he pulled his deerskin cap down tight over his ears.
Below in the distance, Bose spotted a mule deer. Moments later, it disappeared behind the forest tree line. He smiled ruefully. So that’s where dinner had gone.
He looked up at the skies above. It would be dusk soon, and it appeared he would return to camp empty handed. This would be his last hunt before the tribal vote. If it was an omen for what was to come, it didn’t seem like a good one.
Chapter 12
Barrio T, Winter’s Edge, Outzone
Standing by the third floor window of the Hotel El Valiente, Brogan watched the evening gloom gradually descend across the Barrio T. To the north, a sliver of golden light streaked across the snowcapped peaks of Wolf Mountain.
It was a familiar sight to him from his life in Metro, and he wondered if at this moment any of the other newly-arrived expatriates might be staring out at it too. After their violent encounter on the bus that morning, he guessed some must be questioning what on Earth they’d let themselves in for. Brogan himself had no such qualms. Then again, his reasons for coming to the Outzone were very different from the rest. He was sure of that.
He checked his watch. It was a little after five. He had just finished showering in the tiny bathroom of the twin room he shared with Dan Staunton, and changed into fresh clothes. The water had been ice-cold. Either the kid had lied about the hot water, or it only came on in the mornings. But it was one of the hotels marked on John Cole’s list as being reasonably safe. Reasonably being the operative word.
He leaned out the window and stared down at the unfamiliar scene below. The Valiente was located a block west of the Plaza de Mentirosas, on a tiny street so narrow not even a single car could pass down it, not that he had seen too many of them. Here in the barrio, motorbikes and tricycles appeared to be the main form of transport. He’d even seen a push-tricycle go by earlier, the rider up off his saddle, laboring to carry a plump woman laden with bags of groceries on the cabin seat next to her.
Brogan had bargained a good rate for the group. It included breakfast too. A few doors down from them, within yelling distance, Karen Halleck and her daughter Megan had taken a room. The two women had eventually introduced themselves as the group negotiated their way through the narrow streets, en route to the hotel. Though subdued, Brogan was pleased to see that Megan had dropped most of her anger. He was grateful to Jake Fletcher for having helped out. It saved a lot of unnecessary unpleasantness.
The Fletcher brothers got to bed down in an unused utility room in the basement of the hotel. It had been arranged by the desk clerk, a small nervous man with badly receding hair he fruitlessly combed across his pate in a ridiculous fashion.
“Not exactly high living,” Brogan commented when he had seen the bare room, simply two old mattresses chucked on the flo
or with a bundle of blankets thrown on top of them. “But better than a kick in the teeth or a cold, rainy night on the street.”
Brogan reflected on how curious it was to be fraternizing with two convicted criminals like this, something he would never have dreamed of doing in New Haven. Even more curious was the fact that he had remained quiet about his past as a police officer, while the two brothers had talked openly about theirs as criminals. Back in the State, it would have been the other way around.
Staring down at the street life, Brogan cast his mind back to the brief history lesson John Cole had given him on the founding of the city.
Winter’s Edge, the Outzone’s unofficial capital, came into existence during the Great Global War when refugees fleeing the carpet bombing of America’s coastal cities flocked in droves to the interior states such as Idaho, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas.
Many chose to settle in New Haven when the state went by another name. Prevented from entering the tightly-controlled city of Metro New Haven where America’s wealthy had established themselves during the war, the various ethnic groupings had settled along its western border in a series of adjoining districts.
A second wave of refugees soon followed. When the war ended, surviving sign-ups from the US military’s American Foreign Recruitment program had been shocked to see the utter devastation that awaited them on their arrival in the US. They had come from all over the world. Places such as Mexico, Colombia, the Philippines, and many Russians too—disaffected citizens from the wrong side of their earlier civil war who had made it across the Ukrainian border to join the program.
Things were to get worse. Almost as soon as they arrived, the Secessionist Wars commenced as the states of Texas, Minnesota, and Iowa rose against the Union, seeking their independence, along with those in what was still the unofficial Outzone, in prime position to attack New Haven’s western boundary.
With the federal government in such disarray, adequate provisions couldn’t be made for the AFRs and their families, and they had been placed in FEMA camps in Colorado and Wyoming where, instead of war they now had to fight malnourishment and boredom on a daily basis. La nueva pesadilla, the Latinos called it—the new nightmare.
When, in 2041, President Joseph Lynehart shocked the nation with the announcement of the Outzone Territory Act, many idealists, religious and subculture groupings headed there, attracted by its unregulated apolitical landscape where they could choose to live in societies of their own making. It also became a beacon for the AFRs, most choosing to leave the camps and make the trek northward to Winter's Edge, now the Outzone’s unofficial capital. No one had any idea what awaited them there; they just knew nothing could be worse than remaining in the camps. All they wanted was a fighting chance to start their new lives.
And fight they did. Inevitably, the various ethnic and political factions clashed as they sought to make the city their own. After ten months of fierce fighting, the conflict finally ended when The Regulators formed and the larger, expanded city was divided into six major districts: Pueblo Libre, South Park, Little Russia, New Harlem, Kill City, and the Barrio T, each in turn further divided into sub-districts and governed by its own gang, oficina, clan, or tribe.
But it was the Barrio T, a predominantly Latino neighborhood and the city’s original district, with its defensive high walls, inner cuadras, and bustling narrow streets that remained the city’s beating heart.
The sound of Staunton’s voice calling him broke Brogan’s reverie.
“Hey, Frank, can you come in here? We need to talk.”
Brogan stepped back from the window, then closed it. The evening had brought with it a sharp chill in the air. Winter would be here soon.
Staunton lay on his bed, his head propped up against a pillow. He had been watching TV on an old pre-war flat-screen fixed to the far wall. He stared over at Brogan intently. There was a look on his face that Brogan hadn’t observed before.
“What’s up, Dan? You look like a roach just crawled up your ass.”
Staunton swung his legs off the bed and stood up, the tension on his face becoming more pronounced. “There’s something bugging me. Something me and you need to sort out right now.”
“Really?”
“Yeah really. I’m going to ask you a couple of questions and you’re going to give me some honest answers.”
Staunton had walked around his bed and stood a couple of feet away from Brogan. In only his socks and underclothes, Brogan saw how powerfully built he was; the stocky torso, his sinewy forearms, the thick veins bulging in his neck. His demeanor had lost all its previous friendliness.
“Depends on what the question is, buddy.” There was an edge to Brogan’s voice now. He had an idea what this was all about. “It’s not like I owe you anything.”
Staunton’s breath quickened. “You were pretty quick to quiz Steve and Jake before taking them along with us. Not saying you were wrong, ‘cause you weren’t. No such thing as too careful in this town. But now it’s my turn to ask the hard questions. Can you handle that, or not?”
Brogan checked his emotions before this turned into a brawl. Staunton had a tough no-nonsense personality he appreciated. He didn’t want their newfound friendship to sour so soon.
“Alright, Dan. What is it? What do you want to know?”
“Same no bullshit rule applies, okay?”
“I hear you. No bullshit. Shoot.”
Staunton took a deep breath. “For a guy who’s never been here before, you sure know how to handle yourself around these parts. You sure you haven’t been…trained for this?”
Back at the terminal, Brogan had told Staunton he was a carpenter. Apparently his friend wasn’t buying it. If Brogan got accused of being an undercover NIA agent, it would be dangerous for anyone too closely associated with him, say someone he shared a room with. It had Staunton rattled.
For a moment, Brogan regretted not having disengaged his cop persona like John Cole had told him to. Wishing that he’d kept his mouth shut the moment he had walked into the Scangate terminal, turned a deaf ear to the sound of shooting on the bus. But where would the two Halleck women be right now if he had done that? He shuddered to think.
“Because if you’re here on some kind of mission,” Staunton continued, “sorry fellah, you ain’t using me as cover.”
Brogan held Staunton’s gaze. “Dan, I hear what you’re saying, but I’m starting fresh here, just like you. I had a good contact back in the State. A cop. I made sure to find out how everything works over here. That’s all.”
“How about you. Are you a cop?”
Brogan shook his head firmly. “No. I’m no cop. I swear to you.” Not anymore, and never will be again.
Staunton still wasn’t buying it. “It’s not only what you know. It’s how you act. Come on, Frank, I saw how you handled yourself today. How you organized everybody on the bus. Steve told me he saw you shoot three people stone cold dead in less than a minute. Two of them moving targets.” Staunton’s eyes narrowed. “Only cops and soldiers know how to shoot like that.”
“Sure, that’s true. During the war I was in special ops. That’s the shit I used to do. Shit you don’t forget in a hurry.”
Staunton’s gaze softened. Brogan could see he wanted to believe him.
“The Global War has been over seven years now, the civil war five,” Staunton said, still some doubt lingering in his voice. “I know I was rusty as hell when I picked up your rifle. I sure didn’t kill three people, not even in ten minutes. Back in the war I was a damned good shooter too.”
Brogan shrugged. “My friend took me out on the range a couple of times before I left. It doesn’t take long to get your eye back in again. Look, Dan, I’ll be leaving the city soon. In a couple of days, none of this is going to matter. If you like, you never have to see me again.”
Staunton raised an eyebrow. “Leaving so soon…really?”
Brogan nodded.
Staunton sighed, and his shoulders relaxed.
“Okay, Frank, I believe you. I guess what you tell me adds up.” He put out his hand. “Sorry for the grilling, pal. I had to know.”
“That’s alright. I’d have done the same,” Brogan replied, shaking his hand. “Like you say, you can’t be too careful in this town.”
He slapped Staunton on the shoulder. “How about you watch our gear and I’ll go out and get us all a bite to eat. Don’t know about you, but I’m starving. It’s been a long time since any of us have eaten.”
***
It took a while for Brogan to get to sleep that night. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, replaying the day’s events in his mind.
On the whole, things had gone as well as he could have expected, and he felt good about being able to help the two Halleck women. The one thing that rankled him was his conversation with Staunton. Although strictly speaking he hadn’t lied to him, he had certainly misled him. He consoled himself with knowing that in a couple of days he would be gone, as soon as he contacted Cole and got the latest update on the three perps. It would be best for all concerned.
Chapter 13
At eight a.m. the following morning, Brogan and Staunton breakfasted together in the dining room of the Valiente. Situated on the ground floor at the back of the hotel, it was a small, unheated room with bare plastered walls and an assortment of plastic tables and chairs that didn’t match. But the breakfast was good: two eggs, toast, and jam served with brewed coffee, a little muddy, but more than passable.
“Can’t say much for the decor, because there isn’t any,” Brogan said dryly, pouring out more coffee for the two of them from a flask on the table. “But gotta say, the food’s alright.”
“Sure is,” Staunton mumbled through a mouth full of toast. “Though a couple of slices of bacon sure would be nice.”
Brogan smiled at him. “I’m sorry, sir. That comes with the executive suite. You need to upgrade for that.”
After eating, the two returned to their room to get themselves ready, then called in on the Hallecks. The previous evening, Karen Halleck had told Brogan how anxious she was to find someplace safe to store her money. With her husband dead, Brogan understood how vulnerable she felt, and had promised to help her right away.
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