Ashen Winter

by Mike Mullin

  They shook hands. Then the sentry reached toward Alyssa’s still-exposed breast. Dad slapped his hand away. They exchanged a few more words I couldn’t make out as Dad pulled Alyssa’s bra and shirts back into place and zipped her coat. I slid down the front side of the roof, trying to hold my rifle ready and keep one eye on the guard.

  By the time I got down, Mom and Ben had pulled up in the UPS truck. The sentry was telling a string of crude jokes to Dad, who laughed and replied with a few of his own.

  Dad introduced the sentry as Chad, talking like he was an old friend. Chad told us to follow him and started his motorcycle. Dad pushed Alyssa into the back of the truck with me, then walked around the front to the driver’s side. Mom scooted over into the passenger seat.

  I mouthed, “You okay?” at Alyssa.

  She responded with the barest hint of a nod.

  Chad led us through Iowa City on a winding series of plowed roads. We reached a rundown section of town full of auto repair shops and industrial sites. Suddenly the road ahead narrowed to one lane, partially blocked by snow and ash that had been bulldozed to form a huge wall. Two guys warmed themselves at a small fire just inside the wall. Chad pulled up next to them, his bike blocking the lane. He held out his palm, motioning for us to stop.

  The two guys got up from the fire and turned toward our truck. They each wore an assault rifle slung over one shoulder. Dad cranked the truck through the fastest three-point turn I’d ever experienced, leaving it facing back the way we’d come.

  One of the DWB guards left, jogging toward a nearby building. The other one was talking to Chad near the fire.

  Dad turned around in his seat to offer Alyssa a hand climbing out of the truck. The gentlemanly gesture was completely spoiled when he grabbed the end of her noose with his other hand. He took a couple of steps from the truck and then stopped, one hand holding Alyssa’s leash, the other jammed into his coat pocket.

  I slid out of the passenger side and took a position alongside the truck. If things turned bad, I could take cover behind it. Or jump in the back if we had to make a quick getaway. I unslung the rifle from my back, making sure not to aim it at the DWBs. I snicked off the safety and held the rifle casually, pointed at the ground at my side.

  Everything was still for a moment. Like that moment right before breaking a board, when you’re totally focused and the world is calm around you. Preparing. Waiting for the violence of the break.

  Four guys emerged from the building. The guy in the center had a huge chrome revolver on each hip. The others were armed with assault rifles. But the power resided in the guy with the revolvers; it was clear in the way everyone else circled around him, like planets turning in the warmth of their sun.

  Six guys. Against me and my rifle. If this ended in a spray of bullets, none of us would survive. I wiped my damp trigger hand on my coveralls and swallowed my fear.

  Chad yelled, “Heeeere’s Wolfey!” in a demented, Jack Nicholson voice.

  Someone else said, “That’s Mr. Wolfe to you,” and they all laughed.

  Wolfe, the guy with the revolvers, strutted up to Alyssa. His gaze oozed down her body, lingering here and there. “Looks fresh.” He grabbed a lock of her hair and yanked on it, pulling her close. He sniffed. “Smells fresh, too.”

  “There’s another one in the truck,” Chad said.

  “Fresh?” Wolfe replied.

  “No. But hey, if it was dark . . .”

  They laughed. Dad’s face had taken on a stony countenance. I adjusted my grip on the rifle. This didn’t look good, but we were prepared for it. I hoped.

  “You brought me two new back warmers? You’re too kind.”

  Dad said, “I’m only trading—”

  “And a truck? You shouldn’t have.”

  “The truck’s not—”

  “Bring the chicks up to the club,” Wolfe said. “Flense the rest.” He turned his back to Dad as the other five DWBs raised their guns.

  “You’d best not,” Dad said quietly, withdrawing his hand from his pocket. I didn’t think anyone else noticed that his voice wasn’t as steady as usual. He held the red button from the propane distributor. His thumb was under the plastic cover. The two wires ran from the back of the button into his coat pocket. “I press this button, and the propane tank blows. Just like a bomb. Probably level three city blocks.”

  Wolfe turned around and stepped toward Dad. “Yeah?”

  “That’s right.” Dad’s hands were shaking.

  “Bullshit!” Wolfe’s hand whipped out, grabbing the two wires and pulling them free.

  Chapter 79

  “Waste him,” Wolfe ordered.

  “This isn’t some game!” Mom screamed as she slid off the side of the propane tank and stood on the back bumper of the truck. She had an air hose in one hand and a burning torch made of rolled cardboard in the other. She was holding the valve open on the end of the air hose. “If I bring these together, we’re all going to meet our maker. I’m ready to be judged, how about you?”

  Mom let the valve snap shut, moved the hose out of the way, and thrust her torch into the space the hose had just occupied. There was a huge whoosh and a flash that left blue spots on my vision. “I’ll blow us all to hell before I let you flense my family!” she yelled.

  Wolfe was laughing. “Righteous! Do it again!”

  “Screw you!” Mom spat.

  “Maybe later.” Wolfe turned to Dad. “I like that one. You want to sell her, too?”

  “N-no.” Dad’s face was ashen.

  “Woman like that, ’course you want to keep her.” Wolfe stepped up beside Dad and laid a paw like a side of meat across his shoulder. “Y’all have balls. Maybe we can work together.”

  “Good,” Dad said, visibly pulling himself together.

  “Let me show you around.”

  Dad gestured to me with the hand holding Alyssa’s leash. “Give this to your mother and come with me.”

  As I did, Mom yelled, “If my men don’t come back, I’ll level this place.”

  Wolfe smiled up at her. “I believe you would.” Then to Dad he said, “That woman’s worth any three of mine.”

  “Like I said, she’s not for sale.”

  “I know, I know.” Wolfe led us into the walled area. To our left there was a brick building: GEOFF’S BIKE AND SKI. On our right stood a large metal shed marked SOUTH SIDE IMPORT AUTO SERVICES. About a hundred yards ahead there was a large, four-story brick building that appeared to have abandoned shops on the main floor and apartments above.

  Chad and two of the guards returned to the fire. The remaining two guards came with us. One of them was built like a concrete mixer. The other was short and fat—totally different than the rest of the DWBs.

  As we walked, Wolfe said, “So what are you looking to trade for? I got everything. Primo weapons and ammo out of D.C. Drugs out of the strategic reserve in St. Louis. Food out of Texas and Mexico. Got a truckload of flour and watermelon last week. Watermelon! Can you believe that shit? DWBs eat like kings!”

  “I want another 30-30 hunting rifle,” Dad said. “A thousand rounds of ammo. A hundred doses each of antibiotic and acetaminophen. A gallon of hospital-grade antiseptic—”

  “Whoa, whoa, she’s a nice piece, but you’re talking crazy—”

  “And a party for me and my boy. Heard you got the best cathouse in Iowa.”

  “That I can do.” Wolfe gestured at the four-story building ahead of us. “But that other stuff—”

  “It’ll be worth it. This girl is just a first taste. You don’t want me dealing with your competition.”

  “What competition?”

  “The Peckerwoods?” I said. “Black Lake?”

  “Black Lake’s a supplier—they’re your competitor, not mine.”

  “I thought it was the Peckerwoods taking girls out of Maquoketa?” I asked as innocently as I could manage.

  “Maquoketa’s not the only camp Black Lake runs. And we ended the effin’ Peckerwoods. You want to deal
flesh in southeast Iowa, you’re dealing with me.”

  “You ended . . .? Black Lake attacked Anamosa, not you. I was there.”

  “Nothing happens in southeast Iowa that I don’t approve. And that’s all I’m going to say on the subject.”

  “Ask yourself who benefited,” Dad said to me.

  Wolfe grinned and said, “That’s right.”

  We’d passed the bike and ski shop—it was closed up tight. Now we were walking past the auto shop. The big overhead door was wide open. A fire burned inside, throwing flickering orange light around a jumble of vehicles in various states of disassembly.

  A girl was bent over, working on a pickup. She looked like—she couldn’t be—I’d been wrong before . . . Darla.

  Chapter 80

  I had to know for sure. There was a bike just inside the garage doors, parts laid out around it on a tarp. “Is that a Harley?” I said as I peeled off from the group, walking toward the garage doors.

  The girl looked up, her face illuminated first by the orange firelight, then by a flash of recognition and burst of emotion quickly suppressed. Darla. I’d found her. I had to fight down an urge to dash into her arms, to fall to my knees, to shout in pure joy.

  “That’s a Triumph,” Wolfe said, trailing behind me. “Your boy don’t know shit about sleds, do he?”

  Dad spat on the ground. “Failed in my education of him, I guess.”

  The five of us were gathered around the motorcycle while I pretended to inspect it. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Darla. She moved over to a big tool cabinet. A chain clinked, dragging from her ankle. She pulled open the bottom drawer.

  I moved around to the other side of the bike. “A Triumph? That’s, like, way more rare than a Harley, right?”

  The three DWBs looked at me like I was an idiot. But it worked—all of them were staring at me. Darla extracted a small, twisted piece of metal and a huge screwdriver from the tool cabinet. The tip of the screwdriver glinted in the firelight—it had been filed to a vicious point.

  Dad glanced nervously from Wolfe to me and back again.

  “He got that downer syndrome?” Wolfe asked.

  “Can we buy it?” I said.

  “No,” Dad snapped. “Jesus, what’s gotten into you, Alex?”

  “Need to knock him around a bit. I could have Bull do it if you want to make a lasting impression.” Wolfe gestured at the big guy and chuckled, a noise that made my skin crawl.

  “He needs knocking around, I’ll do it myself,” Dad said. “But maybe the party will straighten him up. Everything ready for us?”

  “It will be,” Wolfe replied. “Slim, go make sure them whores are awake.”

  The pudgy guy trotted out of the garage, leaving Dad, Darla, and me with Wolfe and the big guy, Bull.

  Darla reached down with the small piece of metal and did something to the cuff around her ankle. Her chain fell away.

  “What’s wrong with the Triumph? Can you fix it?” I asked, hoping to keep their attention away from Darla.

  “No,” Wolfe said, “we took it apart so we could bedazzle all the parts and hang them on the wall.”

  Darla stalked toward his back, her shank raised above her head in a two-handed grip. She was thinner, her face more angular, cut by tortured shadows. She was getting close—I had to keep Wolfe’s attention on me.

  I looked him in the eye and tried to control the trembling in my arms. “Figures that Dirty White Boys would use a Bedazzler. You’re probably all too stupid to operate a needle and thread.”

  Wolfe roared and pulled one of the guns from his belt. He raised it over his shoulder, like he was preparing to pistol-whip me.

  Darla plunged the shank into the back of his neck. The tip emerged from his throat, glistening red. She wrenched out the screwdriver, and blood fountained from Wolfe’s neck as he collapsed.

  Bull pulled up his gun. I kicked with my right foot—an inner crescent that caught his wrist and sent the gun flying against the wall with a clatter. I let the momentum of my kick carry me into a spinning left reverse kick. My foot slammed into Bull’s groin hard enough to lift the huge man off his feet and drop him into a crumpled, moaning heap on the floor.

  Dad grabbed Bull’s assault rifle. Darla scooped up both of Wolfe’s revolvers. “You got a way out of here?” she asked, her voice as sharp as the bloody screwdriver she’d just discarded.

  “Truck. Just outside the wall. Three guards between us and it.”

  “Three? Usually only two.”

  “Yep. Three.” I took the rifle off my back and readied it.

  Bull groaned. I heard a wet crunch behind me and glanced over my shoulder. Dad had kicked him in the face. Blood was pouring from his nose and mouth, mixing with Wolfe’s on the concrete floor. The sweet, coppery stink of it filled my nostrils, flooding me with an insane joy. I wanted more, wanted all the DWBs to bleed to death.

  “There’s more than a hundred of them in the apartments,” Darla said. “We’ve got to go. Fast.”

  The three of us approached the open door of the garage. Chad and the two guards by the fire were on their feet, looking in our direction. Chad yelled, “Everything—” Then his eyes widened, and he reached for his gun. He was staring at me. I glanced down—my boots and coverall legs were soaked with Wolfe’s blood.

  All six of us raised our guns.

  Chapter 81

  The air burst with gunfire—the crazed sewing-machine rattle of the assault rifles and the metronomic boom, boom, boom of Darla’s revolver. My rifle was snug against my shoulder, my eye on the sight, but I hadn’t pulled the trigger. The three DWBs were down. We’d come out expecting a fight; they were only a second or two slower, but in the new world, the postvolcano world, that was all it took. The difference between life and death was measured in seconds and inches.

  “Got to go. Now . . .” Darla said. Her voice wavered, and I glanced at her, alarmed, just in time to see her crumple. I caught her as she fell, easing her to the ground while I frantically checked for blood.

  I heard a rattle of gunfire from our right. Slim was standing in the doorway of the apartment building, firing an assault rifle at us. “Go!” Dad screamed. He whirled to return fire. I slung Darla’s limp body over my shoulder and ran for the truck.

  I leaped into the truck, laying Darla out in the space behind the passenger seat. “Come on!” I screamed as I turned back toward Dad. Slim had ducked back into apartment building. Dad’s rifle clicked empty. He turned and ran toward the truck, scooping up Chad’s assault rifle as he passed the corpses. Slim stepped back into view in the doorway, firing his rifle. Dad stumbled, picked himself up, and kept running. I lifted my rifle, firing until the magazine was dry. Slim took cover again.

  Mom was in the driver’s seat. Alyssa and Ben huddled behind the driver’s seat in the scant space beside the propane tank. Dad threw himself into the passenger seat. “Go! Go! Go!”

  Mom floored the accelerator, and the truck leapt forward, racing north toward Warren and safety.

  I checked on Darla. She was breathing and the pulse at her neck throbbed, hot under my fingers. I started stripping off her filthy coat, trying to figure out what was wrong. Had she been hit?

  Dad groaned. My mind replayed the stumble he’d taken over and over, worrying at it.

  “You’re hurt!” Mom glanced at him, her face etched with a strange combination of fear and compassion.

  “Yeah,” Dad replied weakly. “But keep going. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  I looked from Darla to Dad, unsure what to do. “I’ll check on him,” Alyssa said, pushing past me.

  Darla was wearing the same clothing she’d had on when she was shot on the overpass two weeks before. Her shirts were crusted with old blood. I tore her undershirt at the shoulder and pulled it away from the wound.

  It was weeping greenish yellow pus and smelled utterly revolting. Her whole shoulder was swollen—red flames of infection licked out from the wound, reaching down her side and along her
shoulder toward her neck. The reason for her collapse was obvious—what wasn’t obvious was how she’d stayed on her feet, managed to stab Wolfe, and shot a revolver with a wound this badly infected. There was nothing I could do for her but give her Tylenol. We needed to get her to a doctor—and fast.

  As I worked on Darla, Alyssa had stripped off Dad’s coat and shirts. He was already sitting in a puddle of his own blood. It was everywhere, coating her hands in a nauseating crimson glaze. She pulled up his T-shirt, revealing the bloody hole a bullet had punched in the left side of his stomach. “Lean forward,” she said.

  Dad groaned as he bent away from the seat. Alyssa checked his back—low on his left side was a round, puffy entrance wound, welling blood. “I need some bandages!” she yelled.

  “Janice,” Dad began.

  Mom didn’t reply. She was staring at the blood welling from Dad’s stomach. Her cheeks glistened, and she’d bitten her lower lip hard enough to draw blood.

  “Watch the road!” Dad told her.

  Ben had been moaning and rocking, but when Alyssa asked for bandages he stopped and looked directly at her for a second. Then he started rifling through the Abilify bags, tossing stuff everywhere as he searched for bandages. I was out of my mind with worry about Darla and Dad but still fiercely proud of Ben in that moment. He found several rolls of gauze and passed them up to Alyssa. She took the first roll and pressed the whole thing against the hole in Dad’s belly. He moaned but then placed his bloody hand over hers and pushed harder. “Got to stop this bleeding,” he gasped.

  Darla stirred. “Cold,” she moaned.

  “Lieutenant!” Ben yelled. He yelled it again before I figured out he was talking to me. “We have a tactical problem.” He pointed toward the open back of the truck.

  Two pickups were racing on the road behind us, gaining fast.

  Chapter 82

  Both trucks had guns mounted on top of their cabs and a pair of guys standing in their beds. They were distant, but at the rate they were approaching, that wouldn’t last. We were racing down a long, straight road lined with burned-out commercial buildings.