Earthbound

by Adam Lewinson

  “I figured we’d rob all the banks in the nearby settlements. Why not. We’re wanted anyway and we’re good at it. Stash as much gold as we can in the Old City for safe keeping. And then… then I’m not sure really. Then we’d have to get out of the Great Plains for good, that’s for sure. Everyone’d be looking for us at that point.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “I dunno,” he admitted. “I just know there’s got to be somewhere else to go. You know I’d love to go starbound where our ancestors went. Of course that’s not practical. So maybe Asia or something. I don’t know but someplace great is out there. We’ll find it. I swear, Ash, we’ll find it.”

  “And before we go for good, what about Becca.”

  Pace nodded. He’d been thinking what I’d been thinking. “We’d see if she wants to come with us, wherever that is.”

  I nodded with agreement. It wasn’t likely she’d come with us, and if she did there was no doubt which one of us she’d want to be with. But still it was worth a shot.

  “She likes you, you know,” Pace said.

  “Who?”

  “Rebecca.”

  “Aw shut up.”

  “She does. She thinks you’re cute.”

  “Shut the eff up!”

  “She thinks you’re cute. What can I say.”

  Pace needed to shut the eff up. He was just fillin’ my head with talk. Nobody thinks I’m effing cute. Certainly not Becca.

  “I think I liked you better when you weren’t tellin’ me stuff,” I scowled.

  Pace laughed. We rode in silence for a blissful minute. “How about you and Cheyenne?” he asked.

  I exhaled deeply. Didn’t want to talk about any of that. “Nothin’ to say.”

  “I know you guys were getting a little close. So I’m just wondering… did you make your move on her or did you just act all gentlemanly?”

  “Shut the eff up, Pace.”

  “Come on. We’re fifty fifty partners. We share everything!”

  “Shut the eff up, Pace.”

  Another two hours into our ride, we heard some hoofbeats in the distance. Pace and I stopped in our tracks and exchanged a look. Sounded like a dozen horses, give or take. Riding slowly.

  “Posse?” I asked.

  Pace nodded in agreement. It was likely the posse from Augusta returning home from their wild goose chase with nothing to show for it. Until now, that is. We looked around and there wasn’t much ground cover unfortunately. No forest nearby. Just a lot of tall weeds. Not nearly enough to conceal ourselves in.

  “Run or fight?” I asked.

  Pace thought for a moment. “Hopefully neither.” He started to continue riding forward.

  “What’s the plan, Pace?”

  “Oh yeah.” He forgot he promised to clue me in on everything from then on. “Maybe they never stopped in Great Falls. Maybe they have no idea who we are. In which case, we’re just riding home. All friendly. Right?”

  It was a gamble, but a good one as far as I could tell. So I let Pace worry about the deception. I thought through how many men had left in that posse. Ten or so I thought. Mostly with shotguns. So if they didn’t pick anyone up along the way, the odds were ten to two. I could take out eight, so long as Pace could handle two.

  Sure enough we saw the posse coming closer in the distance. I could soon see the lawman from Augusta. He held up his hand and his whole posse halted. They were jabbering but it was too far away for us to hear them. Was he instructing them on how to take us down? Meantime we just kept riding toward then, slowly making our way toward our fate.

  “Keep your cool,” Pace instructed. “Don’t make them think they need to pull out their firearms.”

  By the time we could see the lawman’s eyes, they didn’t look too friendly. Or maybe he was just tired.

  “Gentlemen,” Pace said with a smile. We stopped our horses a yard away from the posse.

  “Lewis, right?” said the lawman.

  “Yes sir,” Pace replied. “And my good friend James Monroe.”

  “Your wounds healed up fast,” the lawman said. Was there some skepticism in his voice?

  “Thanks to the hospitality of your lovely settlement,” Pace replied, killing him with kindness.

  “Shame to leave empty-handed,” the lawman remarked.

  “It’s hard when you’ve got nothing to trade for.” Then Pace changed the subject, getting to the heart of the matter. “Did you ever find those bank robbers who ambushed us?”

  The lawman was silent for a moment – wasn’t sure what he was gonna do next. But then he opened up his mouth, either with great reluctance or great calculation I wasn’t sure. “We rode up north to Conrad. Didn’t find a trace of ‘em.”

  “Sorry to hear. I guess they must be pretty smart to outrun a celebrated lawman such as yourself.” The lawman didn’t seem too receptive to the compliment, so Pace just kept talking. With purpose, of course. “Tell me, did you stop in our fair settlement on your journey?”

  One of the older members of the posse started to say yes, but the lawman quickly interrupted him.

  “Nope. Wanted to get back to Augusta as soon as we could.”

  The conversation died off in that moment. I think we all knew he was lying. But why and what he actually knew, those were unknown things. The blowing wind filled up the space between us. Then Pace rode forward a few steps and extended his hand.

  “I appreciate your hospitality,” he said. The lawman shook his hand. “When we collect more supplies to trade, we look forward to seeing you again.”

  The lawman nodded. There was nothing else to do but ride past them to the east. As we got a few feet away, I could feel all their eyes burning holes in our backs. Had the feeling we were gonna get gunned down at any moment. Surely if they went to Great Falls, they knew who we were. Surely it would be worth shooting us in the back, as cowardly as that was.

  “You think they bought it?” I whispered.

  Pace nodded. I allowed myself to relax. Maybe we were in the clear.

  Then we heard the lawman’s voice again. This time fully throated, with authority.

  “Pace!”

  We stopped dead in our tracks. Not literally of course. Pace and I glanced at each other.

  “Draw your weapon,” Pace suggested quietly. And with our weapons cocked, we turned to face the posse. They were spread out across the road, ten in all, with shotguns aimed right at us. The lawman was in the middle, and he looked like the one who would get off the first shot.

  “And you’re Ash, I suppose,” the lawman shouted. I nodded, but I was really trying to figure out how many shots I could get off before we’d get gunned down. “You had us fooled pretty good.”

  “How’d you figure us out?” Pace asked.

  “When we reached the route 15 junction, most of us headed north chasing ghosts, but I sent two men in to Great Falls to check up on your story. Call it a hunch.”

  “You’re a smart man,” Pace replied.

  “Tell me,” the lawman continued, “what condition is the bank back in Augusta?”

  “Depleted of funds,” Pace admitted. “But what say we call that payment for ridding you of your robot problem? Surely your men heard about those robots when they went to Great Falls.” A few of the men looked at one another with kinda scared expressions on their faces. Yeah, they’d heard the stories. Probably saw the damage firsthand. “Bet you didn’t know those robots had been stashed out there your whole lives. If you want to check them out, they’re in the bottom of your reservoir out past the cemetery.”

  I was trying to keep tabs on all ten of their trigger fingers at the same time. The moment I saw one squeezing it would be time to fire. Maybe even too late. But I was distracted by a buzzard circling overhead. No doubt interested in watching the mortal show down below.

  There was another long silence, and Pace felt the need to fill it with his babbling. I saw him open his mouth but I interrupted him. “Hold it,” I whispered. “Just wait.”

&
nbsp; Time for talking was over. It was time for shooting. I just waited for that moment when there was no other choice to make. And for the first time in my life, I realized something. I was ready to take a human life. Not that I wanted to. I just knew I could. And I was all right with it.

  The lawman’s finger seemed to inch against his trigger. I would take him out first. Not that he deserved it, but he was the most likely to kill me first. But still, nothing happened. They weren’t firing. That meant something. Either our legend was already so strong that they thought we’d beat ‘em, or more likely they had something else in mind.

  “This is the only road in an out of Augusta,” the lawman called out finally. “If you agree to stay off it and never head our way again, we’ll pretend we never saw you.”

  “Hmm…” Pace muttered.

  “What do you say?” the lawman asked.

  “Why would you do this?” Pace asked.

  “Shooting you won’t do any good. We’re not killers. And bringing you in… well, never was much interested in rewards. We just want to go back to the way things were. No bank robbing. No robots. Just peace and quiet. Can we get your word on that?”

  I allowed my eyes to avert away from my potential targets in order to get a quick consensus. It was shame I’d never see Cheyenne again, but the deal was sound. Pace seemed to be in agreement. We’d done what we needed to do in Augusta, I suppose.

  “You have our word,” Pace committed.

  “Sorry this didn’t go down a different way,” I added. “Augusta’s the kinda town a man can settle in.”

  “We mean to keep it that way,” the lawman stated.

  Pace and I slowly put our weapons away as the posse did the same. Then Pace tipped his hat, we turned and rode off.

  “I think they were scared of us,” I said.

  “I think they were scared of what comes with us,” Pace suggested.

  Then another hour or so down the road we heard something else coming. The slow grind of wheels scraping along the ground. We both knew what this one was and felt no need to get riled up about it. In fact, we kept our weapons stowed. Soon enough, up rolled a horse-drawn cart ridden by two able-bodied men. It was the trade contingent from Great Falls. The real one.

  We both knew those guys. Not well – they were a few years older but we’d seen them in the saloon now and again. And they knew who we were. Oh yeah.

  They stared at us wide-eyed as we passed.

  “Just keep going,” Pace said to them. “Don’t ask.”

  I felt kind of excited when we reached the railway bridge leading back to the Old City. Robbing a bank and fighting off robots is pretty good and all, but I dunno. Those were fleeting thrills. The Old City was mine. Sorta.

  Anyway, I was sorta glad we had some better supplies this time around. It wouldn’t be so effing cold. And we had better food. Even though we still had no salt.

  We reached our hideout and found it in the exact same condition as when we left it. No signs of trespass, human or otherwise. We dropped off our new supplies and sprinkled some rat powder around just to make sure rodents would stay away. Then we dropped off most of our gold in our hiding place. We both placed a few coins in our pockets, and I stashed a few extra in my socks. Next time I wanted to buy salt, I’d buy my own damned salt. Then back at the hideout, we built a fire. We were definitely warmer and so were the horses. That livened up the mood considerably in there. We cracked open a bottle of good whiskey and all in all had a pretty good night.

  “You know,” I said, “I think we could actually live here a long time. This place is better now, right?”

  “A little, sure…” Pace seemed kinda lost in thought. He wasn’t one to be brooding. That was my thing. Something was on his mind, and eventually he told me. “It’s just that… this isn’t my idea of home. Yours maybe. Don’t get me wrong, Ash. Hiding out here was a brilliant idea. Not one that I would ever come up with. It just needs to be temporary. Not forever. I can’t grow old here.”

  “What? What’s wrong with this place?” I know. I was getting defensive.

  “It’s going to be hard to keep transporting water here, with all the horses need to drink. We can survive maybe a week before we’ll need to go get fresh water.”

  “So we’ll go get fresh water somewhere.”

  “And what happens when we run out of food?”

  “We go hunting.”

  “And what about the smell of shit?”

  “I dunno. We’ll build an outhouse!”

  “That’ll attract animals.”

  “Then we’ll go hunting and they’ll be right here! What the eff, Pace!”

  Pace laughed. I had an answer for everything.

  “Then what happens when you want to meet a girl?” he asked, trying to stump me.

  I had an answer for that too.

  “I met Cheyenne,” I replied. “We’ll have other opportunities when we visit other settlements, depending on how long we can stay unnoticed.”

  “All right,” Pace conceded. “Great, we’ll stay here for now.”

  I nodded my appreciation. Course now he had me thinkin’ about Cheyenne and how it felt feeling her up and the missed opportunity I had.

  “So back in Augusta,” I asked, “how was it.”

  “Meaning Grace?” I nodded. “Nice girl. But there’s only one girl for me, I think you know that.” Pace extended his arm and we clinked whiskey glasses and we drank to that.

  Couldn’t sleep well again that night. Wondering if I was ever gonna find a girl to replace Becca and a place to call home.

  After a couple of nights when our supplies started to get scarce, we figured we’d scavenge the area to see if we could find anything useful. Pace had spied something interesting coming south when we were coming back from Augusta. On the other side of the Missouri, where the Old City was never built up with skyscrapers, there were a bunch of single-story buildings – some of them pretty large, like warehouses. There was one in particular that looked promising, so we crossed the Missouri again on the railway bridge. We rode up near the path that led to the Great Falls settlement, but stayed far short of it, instead riding off the trail past dilapidated buildings with caved-in walls covered in graffiti. Then we found what we were looking for. The biggest one-story building we’d ever seen, that’s for sure.

  “Hey Pace, what’s that sign above the door say?”

  “Walmart.”

  “What the eff’s a Walmart?”

  We rode up to the entrance. The walls were covered in thick ivy, and as we pulled some of it away saw there were big metal bars over the boarded-up windows and doors.

  “What is this?” I asked. “Some kinda prison?”

  “I think they were locking people out, not in,” Pace replied.

  We rode around the perimeter of the building and found more of the same. No easy way inside.

  “Let’s climb up on the roof?” I suggested.

  We grabbed hold of that thick ivy and hoisted our bodies up. As we reached the roof, we both froze. There was no roof. It had caved in, who knows how many years earlier. Tons of concrete chunks mucked around in moss and watery mud from the elements. Couple a birds flew out past us. Guess it was a nesting ground too.

  “Let’s find a way down,” I said, looking for a way to climb down inside.

  “Why?” Pace asked. “It’s a mess down there.”

  “But it doesn’t look like it was ever picked over. Might be some good stuff in here. Worth a look.”

  There was some kind of metal rack that had collapsed, so the top of it was leaning within reach. I leapt onto it, tested its sturdiness and then climbed downward. Seeing that it wasn’t complete suicide, Pace followed.

  On the ground level it wasn’t quite as bad as it looked from the outside. Portions of the building were protected from the elements by an attic between the roof and the ground, so those areas weren’t as battered by rain, snow and concrete. Instead we saw rows and rows of stuff. I’m not sure what a lot of it wa
s. Packages. Plastic mostly. Dusty and yellowed, and some of the stuff inside had turned to dust. But some things were still somewhat intact. Some toys for kids I imagined. I pulled one out of its box and it crumbled in my hands.”

  “Catch!” Pace yelled.

  I turned just in time to see some kind of ball heading straight for my face. My reflexes kicked in and my arm whipped up to catch it.

  “Hey!” I protested.

  “Take a look! It’s a baseball!” Yeah, big effing deal. We had baseballs when we grew up. This one just had some fancy stitching on it, but other than that it was nothing special. “Remember that movie we watched when we were kids? About that guy who loved playing baseball? But then he got some kind of disease so he couldn’t really play anymore, and he was dying? And then he gave that big speech.” Pace held his hands over his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs, making a fake echo noise. “I consider myself… myself… myself… the luckiest man… man… man… on the face of the earth… earth… earth!”

  Oh yeah, I remembered that. Pace used to run around the playground shouting that all the time. I wanted to deck him then and I nearly wanted to deck him all over again.

  “Look!” Pace shouted. “Baseball gloves!” Pace tossed me something I’d never seen before, except in movies. It was made of nice soft leather, and even though it had been discolored by the sun and kind of stiff, I was still able to fit my hand in it.

  “Nice,” I said.

  We spent an hour or so throwing the baseball back and forth, getting used to our gloves. I overthrew the ball a couple a times and crashed it into some waterlogged boxes. We got a good laugh out of that. I always did have a powerful throwing arm.

  Later we walked past some cases surrounded by shattered glass. We stepped around carefully and saw boxes with some kind of weird equipment pictured on them.

  “What is this stuff?” I asked.

  “Says they’re cameras. Computers. Cell phones.”

  We picked a few out of their boxes and took a look at the small technological marvels in our hands. Then we tossed them to the ground. Whether they still worked or not they were useless to us without electricity. And even then, who would know what the eff to do with them anyway?