The Traveler 01-03 Home, Canyon, Wall

by Tom Abrahams

  The others around the table were a mixture of grunts, urban farmers, and shopkeepers. They offered a variety of skills and insight the revolutionaries would need if they had any chance of succeeding when the time came. The time was coming fast, too fast for Ana Montes.

  Ana looked at the map of Texas. It was marked with intersecting blue and red lines. Arrows marked the direction of movements. Large and small circles indicated the revolutionaries’ strength in numbers at various locations. Close to Ana, in an area near Amarillo, Palo Duro Canyon was highlighted in fluorescent yellow.

  It all seemed to be too much. She’d signed on with the belief that the revolt against the Cartel was a nebulous pipe dream unlikely to ever come to fruition. She’d agreed to do things she never thought she’d actually have to do. Now she stared at the reality of the impending action and her pulse quickened. Her knees weakened. Beads of sweat bloomed on her forehead and above her upper lip.

  “Are you okay, Ana?” Nancy Wake asked, interrupting Sid. “You don’t look good.”

  Ana leaned on the table, locking her elbows for support, and she nodded. She felt the return of everyone’s glare. “I’m okay,” she said. “I…”

  Nancy’s eyes narrowed. “You what?”

  Ana inhaled deeply and wiped her upper lip with the back of her hand. “I just…this is suicide, isn’t it? I don’t see how we can beat them. Their numbers are too great. They have too many weapons.”

  “What are you saying?” Sid asked, his head tilted to the side. Others mumbled their concerns about Ana’s doubts. Sid raised his hand to quiet them.

  “I think they’ll slaughter us,” she admitted. “I don’t want to die or end up a slave.”

  Sid laughed condescendingly. “We’re already slaves, Ana. They already control most aspects of our lives. We didn’t choose them as masters.”

  “They robbed us of our liberty,” said Nancy. “They duped us into believing they’d provide security and structure. And then they squeezed us of our rights. They lord over us like we’re their minions. I can’t live like that anymore. I’d rather be slaughtered.”

  Others voiced their agreement. A couple questioned Ana’s loyalty, asking aloud if she could be trusted. Sid silenced them.

  “You knew the stakes when I recruited you,” he said. “You knew the end game. You agreed to your role, your vital role. None of this can be a surprise to you.”

  “No. Not really.” She looked down at the map, her eyes blankly tracing the colored lines on the map. “I’m not surprised. I’m afraid.” She looked up, tears stinging the corners of her eyes.

  When Ana signed on, she didn’t have a reason to fear death. She wasn’t a mother yet. Now she had a nine-month-old daughter. What would happen to her child if she died? Who would raise her? What kind of woman would she grow to be if she lived to grow up at all?

  Nancy spoke softly. “We’re all afraid, Ana. I’m more fearful of what will happen to us if we do nothing. Our future is sketchy if we act, it’s bleak if we don’t.”

  Ana swallowed against the thick knot in her throat. Nancy was right. Sid was right. They had to act. They had to fight. They had to end the Cartel.

  CHAPTER 4

  OCTOBER 25, 2037, 8:02 AM

  SCOURGE +5 YEARS

  LUBBOCK, TEXAS

  General Roof sat on the edge of his bed, staring out the large picture window of his temporary home. It faced east, and each morning as the sun rose, the bright orange light that filled his room forced him awake.

  This morning, however, he’d been awaiting the sun. He couldn’t sleep after his phone call with Pierce. The mole had given him valuable information, which he rolled over in his mind like sheep jumping a fence. It should have helped him relax and gain the needed hours of rest.

  Instead, he found himself thinking about the man Pierce had killed. That was a lamentable mistake Roof knew would be Pierce’s undoing. The general concluded that satellite call from Pierce was likely his last. The Dwellers were smart. They’d put two and two together and they’d end Pierce’s usefulness one way or the other.

  Roof rubbed his eyes and slid his feet to the cold concrete floor. He tested his weight on his bad leg and felt the dull familiar ache that forced his awkward limp. He measured the difference between his two legs. One was muscular and whole. It was hairy, as a man’s leg should be, and its skin was an even creamy Caucasian tone. The other was thinner and sicklier in its appearance. Below his knee, large pinkish areas the color of a newborn’s feet were devoid of hair. The patches of transplanted skin looked like a collection of former Soviet states decorating his leg.

  There wasn’t a day that passed where Roof didn’t think about the day his leg was mutilated. It was etched in Technicolor, that singularly defining day of his life. Another man had sacrificed, had put his own survival in jeopardy for his sake. It was the kind of selfless action that should have forced Roof along another path upon his return from Syria. He should have paid it forward, helping others in their daily lives.

  Instead, the guilt he felt at having survived the IED and resulting ambush that killed four others had consumed him. Roof, who’d dabbled with drugs and alcohol for much of his adult life, dove headfirst into addiction. He’d been in and out of VA hospitals and homeless shelters.

  He’d somehow ended up in Houston and had found help at a halfway house for vets. They’d gotten him sober, taught him business skills, and had sent him on his way with a new confidence.

  Unfortunately, a hobbled recovering addict wasn’t atop employers’ “to hire” list. So Roof had taken work where he’d been able to find it and slipped into the criminal underworld of the Bayou City. He’d dealt in drugs and women and had quickly made a name for himself as a ruthless purveyor of illicit goods and underage flesh. He rose to the top of the game in a city known for being the highway for trafficking from Latin America into the United States.

  He’d always worn his dog tags on the outside of his skintight shirts and had earned the street handle General. His penchant for drugging unsuspecting women and his birth name Rufus had led some to call him Roofie. He’d shortened it, combined the two monikers, and adopted General Roof as his name. His life force grew stronger, his cult of personality irresistible.

  The Scourge was his deliverance. He’d emerged from the shadows, joined forces with prior competitors, and after months of work, consolidated disparate gangs into the Cartel. He’d agreed to share power with two other men, but they knew he was stronger. He’d been as fearless as Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria and Jorge Luis Ochoa Vásquez, the men who half a century earlier had founded the Medellín Cartel, and had a reputation for being as ruthless as the Salvadoran Mara Salvatrucha gang that ravaged Central America and spread to the southwestern United States in the early years of the twenty-first century.

  Through brute force and will, General Roof had engaged in a meeting of the minds with the Sureños, Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, La Familia Michoacana, Mexican Mafia, Yakuza, and Los Zetas. It hadn’t hurt his mother was Panamanian and his Spanish was impeccable.

  As powerful as they had become, as much as they had struck fear into the surviving populous and had driven the government from their newly staked territory, Roof had always felt inferior somehow. Maybe it was the daily morning reminder of his external wounds. Maybe it was the internal ones, the truth that his life had been saved by a better man than he and that he’d chosen to waste that gift on the easier, darker path.

  He rubbed his thighs with his palms and pushed to his feet. Roof balanced himself for a moment on his heels before rocking to his toes. He stepped to the window. The sun was lifting above the flat horizon of the southern end of the Llano Estacado. He bit his lower lip, considering whether letting Marcus Battle live was the right thing to do. It was a moment of weakness, he admitted to the imp on his shoulder. It was a payback: a life spared for a life saved. It was also probably a fatal mistake.

  For as heartless as he’d become since earning his sobriety, he’d never been a
s tough, as relentless, as unwilling to quit as Marcus Battle. He knew that. A shiver ran along his neck and he trembled. He took a rubber band from his wrist and worked it into his hair, looping it twice to help shape a wiry, shoulder-length ponytail.

  Roof scratched an itch in his thick beard and turned from the window, his feet scraping along the concrete as he moved to his clothing draped over the back of a desk chair. He’d slipped on his pants and an undershirt when there was a loud knock at his door.

  “Just a minute,” he called and slid one arm into the long-sleeved plaid cotton shirt. He walked to the door and peeked through the peephole. It was Cyrus Skinner.

  Roof snapped the last of the pearl buttons on the shirt and pulled open the door. Skinner took off his white hat and held it against his chest.

  “Sorry to bother you so early, General,” he said, stepping into the room. “I wanted to give you a tactical update.”

  “It’s not a problem,” said Roof. “I was awake. I got a call at two o’clock this morning from Pierce.” He looked over at the clock next to the bed. It was flashing. The power had gone out and come back.

  “The mole?”

  Roof limped back to the chair to retrieve his boots. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “He gave us good intel,” said Roof. “He found their communications bunker and provided frequencies.”

  “That’s in addition to their security setup, their weapons, and the position of their men around the canyon rim,” said Skinner. An unlit cigarette was bouncing from his lips as he spoke. “You were genius to set that up. I gotta say, General, I had my doubts. But you were right.”

  Roof plopped into the chair. He winced as he slid on one of the boots. “Maybe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Roof exhaled and then sucked in a deep breath as he pulled on the other boot. “He killed a Dweller.”

  Skinner shrugged. “So?” he asked, standing across from the general with his arms folded. “Since when is killing someone a problem?”

  Roof laughed. “I don’t have a problem with killing,” he said. “I wouldn’t be where I am if I did. For the most part, I’d suggest a violent execution is the best way to maintain order and control, but not this time. Killing that Dweller exposed Pierce. He’s done.”

  “We lose our eyes and ears in the canyon,” said Skinner.

  “It accelerates the timetable,” said Roof, pushing himself to his feet. “That intel he gave us is going to be worthless. How fast can we move?”

  Skinner pinched the cigarette with his fingers and plucked it from his dry lips. He used it as a pointer as he spoke. “That’s why I knocked on your door so early,” he explained. “I wanted to let you know we’re ahead of schedule. I’ve got grunts and bosses heading toward the canyon from all over. San Antonio’s men are already on their way. We could move on the canyon in a day and a half, maybe two days tops. We’ll end the Dwellers once and for all.”

  “Good,” said General Roof, “make it happen.”

  CHAPTER 5

  OCTOBER 25, 2037, 11:45 AM

  SCOURGE +5 YEARS

  PALO DURO CANYON, TEXAS

  Battle stopped short of the garden. He leaned against a cottonwood tree. Lola plucked cucumbers from their vines, dropping them into a basket she had cradled in the crook of her elbow.

  The overnight storm had passed, leaving behind clear skies and an intermittent breeze that curled through the valley. Battle shivered against the chill and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He was impressed with the garden. It was maybe a quarter acre in size and irrigated with PVC pipe and drip hoses that ran from a metal cistern at the edge of the plot. The rain from the night before was a bounty.

  Fall plantings were ready for harvest, and Lola had volunteered to help. She was working with three other Dwellers combing through the vines and stalks. Sawyer trailed behind her, looking for cucumbers she might have missed.

  There was a brightness, a sparkle even, in her eyes Battle had never seen. She seemed happy. Her limp was gone, her red hair soaked up the bright overhead sunlight. Battle’s eyes were magnetically drawn to her.

  “You should tell her what you’re thinking,” Sylvia’s voice whispered. “It would be good for you.”

  Battle closed his eyes and inhaled. “I’m not telling her anything,” he told the voice in his head. He set his jaw; his shoulders tensed.

  Sylvia wouldn’t relent. “I’ve told you,” she said, her voice filling Battle’s head. “You need someone. You’ll lose yourself otherwise.”

  “I’ve already lost myself. I killed an unarmed man for no good reason last night. I’m not praying. My faith…”

  “My faith in you is as strong as it’s ever been,” Sylvia said, and another voice joined the conversation.

  “Mine too.” It was Wesson. “Dad,” he said, “she’s got a son. He needs a man like you to help him. He doesn’t have a dad to show him things.”

  Battle shivered again. It wasn’t the breeze running through him. It was his son’s voice, as clear as if Wes were standing in front of him with his tiny arms wrapped around his legs. Battle could smell the baby shampoo in the wind.

  His lips curled into an unexpected smile as he thought about Sylvia’s insistence that Wes use baby shampoo even after he’d protested that it was for babies. She’d explained it was healthier than other chemical-laden shampoos. Both Wes and Marcus had known it was really because it was the only way she could hold on to the vestiges of their only child’s infancy.

  Battle chuckled and leaned into the cottonwood with his shoulder, his eyes focused on some nebulous distance. “You hated that shampoo,” he said. “It did smell good, though.”

  A third voice entered the internal conversation. “Battle?” It was a woman’s voice. “Battle? Are you okay?”

  Battle shook his head into reality. Lola was standing inches from him, her eyes narrowed with concern.

  He cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah,” he said, blinking Lola into focus. “I’m fine. Why?” He stood up straight and folded his arms across his chest.

  Lola took a half step toward him and switched the basket from one arm to the other. “You were doing that thing again,” she said softly. “You were in another world, talking to yourself.”

  Battle looked at his boots. They were caked with the red mud of the canyon floor. His face flushed. He flinched at Lola’s touch as she put her hand on his arm and squeezed gently.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It doesn’t bother me, but the others were looking at you. I don’t want them looking at you.”

  Battle looked up and over Lola’s shoulder. The others had returned to their harvesting duties. Only Sawyer was staring back at him. Battle offered a weak smile at the boy and then caught Lola’s gaze.

  “I don’t care what they think,” he said. “We won’t be here long.”

  Lola stepped back and shifted the basket, leaning it against her hip. “We won’t? What is it you’re not telling me?” She looked over her shoulder at the Dwellers and back again.

  “A war is about to start,” he said under his breath. “The Dwellers are ready to fight. I’m pretty sure the Cartel is too.”

  Lola’s gaze intensified. “How do you know this?”

  “A couple of ways,” Battle said. “Paagal is hell-bent on getting rid of the Cartel. She’s got spies in every major city who are ready to strike.”

  “And the Cartel?” she pressed, her eyes searching his for the answer. “How would you know what they’re planning?”

  Battle scratched his forehead. “Charlie Pierce was one of them,” he said. “He was feeding information to them. He killed a Dweller last night. I killed him.”

  Lola’s mouth dropped open, her arms fell to her sides, and the basket dropped to the ground. The cucumbers rolled out into the dirt. “Pierce?” Tears pooled in her eyes. Her lips quivered. “We can’t escape. No matter where we go. We can’t escape.”

  Battle wanted to throw his arms around her. He wanted to
comfort her and promise her they would escape, they would find a place beyond the reach of the Cartel and the grip of the evil that had the world in its clutches. He tried to will himself to listen to Sylvia and Wesson and give in to his evaporating need for human contact, for an emotional connection.

  Instead, he adjusted the Sig Sauer tucked into his waistband and offered her a choice. “We have options,” he said and knelt down to help gather the vegetables back into the basket.

  Lola pulled her lower lip behind her teeth and bit down as she joined him on the ground. She slid the basket toward her feet.

  He tossed a trio of cucumbers into the basket and held up his index finger. “We can leave now,” he said. “You, Sawyer, and me. We can find our way to the wall and get to the other side.”

  “Or?”

  He held up a second finger. “We stay and fight. We beat back the Cartel. Paagal helps us get to the other side.”

  They both stood. Lola wiped the corners of her eyes with her knuckle and folded her arms across her chest. She’d closed her mouth and was chewing the inside of her lip.

  “Paagal says there are scavengers out there along the wall,” Battle added. “We could probably use her help.”

  Lola took in a deep breath and pushed it out through puffed cheeks. Her entire body appeared to deflate. “We need to fight,” she said. “These people helped us. We fight; then we leave.”

  Battle imperceptibly tilted his head in surprise and then pulled his shoulders back. Her resolve was empowering. She wasn’t the same defeated woman he’d met thirteen days earlier.

  “I agree,” Battle said. “We fight. Then we find the wall.”

  “What’s on the other side of the wall?” Sawyer had snuck up on them. Battle hadn’t seen the boy approach.

  “That’s a really good question,” said Battle. “I don’t know.”