Canyon: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (The Traveler Book 2) (3 page)

A pair of shots whizzed past his head, and he dove behind the corner of a building for cover. He was maybe fifty yards from Buck.

“Buck! I’ve got incoming. Are you good?”

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

“I’m good!”

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

Battle adjusted his grip on his rifle. His butt was resting on his heels, his weight on the balls of his feet as he leaned against the building in a narrow alleyway leading onto the main street. He couldn’t pinpoint the location of the rifle fire. Another volley zipped past him, a pair of bullets crumbling the clay brick a foot above his head.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

Battle backed further into the alley. He knew somebody was spotting him and relaying location information to the shooter. The shots were too accurate for the random sniper fire they encountered.

Battle stayed low, moving back to Buck’s position. Once he’d disappeared from the alley, the gunfire stopped.

“We’re pinned?” Buck asked, the color gone from his face. His skin looked almost translucent.

Battle nodded. “Yeah. And we’re about to lose daylight. I’ve got to find another way out of here.”

CHAPTER 4

OCTOBER 15, 2037, 5:09 AM

SCOURGE + 5 YEARS

ABILENE, TEXAS

Cyrus Skinner blinked his eyes open. His leg was dangling off the edge of his bed and his toes were cold. A nightlight he kept plugged into the outlet closest to the bed was dark. The power was out again.

Skinner slid his leg back under the sheet and rolled onto his back. He stared into the dark at the ceiling and sighed, rolling back onto his stomach. It was more than twenty-four hours since he’d sent Queho southeast to take care of the rancher he knew as Mad Max.

The reclusive rancher had already killed at least three of his men. He knew that for sure. There was a good chance the posse boss Rudabaugh and his posse were buzzard food. And now, Queho hadn’t come back.

Skinner grunted and reached over to a nightstand, dragging his lighter and cigarettes into bed with him. He turned onto his back and scooted up on his elbows. With a half-empty feather pillow propped between his back and the headboard, he shook a cigarette free of its package and lit it with a couple of puffs. He drew in a deep breath and held it. The familiar buzz filtered into his bloodstream and he exhaled through his nose. Smoke plumed around him. He sucked in another drag; the bright orange glow hanging from his lips intensified. It was the only light in the room.

Skinner rubbed his jaw, scratching the three-day-old growth. He had a decision to make.

Clearly Mad Max, and the woman he was keeping from them, was far more of a problem than he’d anticipated.

Skinner was an area captain, a job which came with certain privileges and responsibilities. Being a captain meant all of the bosses in his area, which stretched from east of Abilene, west to Midland, and then north to Lubbock and Amarillo, reported to him. It was a triangular territory that had as many roadrunners as people, strategically important to the Cartel’s hold on power.

In the months after the Scourge, a coalition of previously warring criminal organizations had seen the mutual benefit of joining forces. They’d inflicted heavy casualties on a less-than-inspired US military.

Rather than engage in a bloody war with its own people during a time when there was no appetite for more death, what was left of the United States military and border patrol had retreated. It had given up control to the coalition of gangs, drug traffickers, and ex-cons, abdicating its claim to roughly two hundred and seventy thousand miles between Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. The Cartel had been quick to establish a wide area of influence, forming a paramilitary hierarchy to control and oppress those who lived within their staked claim.

The Cartel’s highest levels of leadership, who called themselves generals, chose the nastiest of the nasty to lead four key areas. They were called captains. Those captains then chose their bosses. Bosses recruited grunts. Grunts harassed, robbed, beat, tortured, raped, or killed whoever didn’t submit to their will. Sometimes they did those things regardless.

Among a mean lot of captains, Skinner was the meanest. He was the least likely to suffer fools. He was the perfect man to tame what his superiors called the Wild West. As long as he kept his bosses in line, his people under his thumb, and made sure the spoils made it to the generals in Dallas and Houston, the leadership left him alone.

With a rogue killer on land he didn’t control, Skinner was restless. He slid out of bed, his feet slapping on the cold wood floors of his bedroom as the nightlight flickered to life. He crushed the cigarette into a full ashtray and tapped out a replacement from the box.

He lit it, the paper sizzling, and took another healthy drag. Skinner stretched and walked across his room to a large monitor on the wall opposite his bed.

He cleared his throat. “Computer on,” he said. The screen blinked to life and the operating system cycled. He squinted against the bright light of the display.

“Computer, open email.”

The computer’s home screen gave way to an email program. Though Internet access in the Cartel’s territory was limited and slow, it worked. For most, the filters prevented most communication beyond what the generals approved. The captains, however, had unfettered access.

“New email message,” said Skinner. “Address to generals. Subject is…” Skinner paused. He didn’t know what to call the message. He didn’t really want to send it.

“Subject is Wild West,” he decided. The computer entered the email addresses for the generals, filled in the subject line, and presented a flashing cursor at the top line of a blank message.

Skinner sucked the cigarette. He pinched it between his fingers and pulled it from his lips. “Generals,” he began, “I’ve got a problem here in the Wild West. Long and short of it is a runaway thief wandered into some land we hadn’t secured. We chased her there but didn’t get her. The owner of that land killed some of our men and helped the thief.”

Skinner looked at what he’d dictated so far. He didn’t like it, and changed course.

“Computer, open live chat,” he said. “Call generals.”

The email program closed on the screen and a new application opened. Four windows appeared on the display. In the lower right, Skinner saw a delayed, choppy mirror image of himself, smoke trailing upward from the cigarette dangling from his lips.

The other boxes flashed the word “connecting” while the computer dialed the extensions for three generals. The first to answer was in Houston. His image appeared in the upper right box.

“Skinner?” he asked, rubbing his hands over his bald head. “What do you want?”

Another general answered the call from Dallas. His digitally distorted face filled the box in the upper left corner. “Skinner? Why are you waking me up?”

“I got a problem I need fixed,” Skinner said to the two of them. The box in the lower right was still dialing. The general on the other end wasn’t answering.

“You can’t fix it yourself?” asked the bald general. “This isn’t about the problems we keep having up near Amarillo, is it? Those people up there give me fits.”

“No,” Skinner said. “No problems in Amarillo. No problems with Palo Duro Canyon.”

“That’s a first,” chimed the second general. The resolution on his call was improving, revealing the general’s leathery face and neck. He was shirtless. “What’s the problem?”

Skinner took another drag and then thumped the ashes into a tray next to the monitor. “I’ll try to make a long story short.”

“You do that,” offered the bald general. “Otherwise I’m likely to hang up and go back to sleep.”

“We had a couple of thieves, a woman and her boy, working for us here in Abilene,” Skinner explained. “They ran away. We caught the boy. The woman found her way to some land we hadn’t cleared.”

“We know about the boy,” said the bald general. “General Roof told us about your plan to send him to Lubbock. We didn’t know about the woman. She’s still missing?”

“Yes,” said Skinner. “She is. I’m calling you because—”

“Stop there.” The leathery general stroked his unshaven chin. “Why was there uncleared land? Didn’t your bosses clear everything months ago? I thought I remembered you telling us that.”

“Yeah,” added the bald general. “He told us that. Skinner, you told us you’d acquired all of the outstanding land in your triangle.”

“I thought we had,” Skinner said. He pushed the cigarette into the ashtray and put it out. “There was this one plot, maybe forty or fifty acres near Rising Star that we ain’t got.”

The leathery general scratched his head. “So what’s the problem? Go get the land and get the woman.”

“That’s the thing.” Skinner looked at his reflection. He pulled his shoulders back and lifted his chin. “We done gone there. We sent a posse to get the woman and kill the man who owns the land. He killed ’em.”

“So send more men,” said the bald general, scratching his scalp.

“We did.”

The leathery general picked his front teeth, digging at the space between the center two. “And?”

“He killed them,” said Skinner. “Well, I think he killed ’em. So I personally sent one of my bosses to clean it up. He took a half dozen or so men. They been gone a day now. I ain’t heard from them. I’m thinking he got them too.”

The bald general leaned in, staring into his camera. “One man?”

Skinner nodded.

“Is that an answer, Skinner?” the bald general asked. “My signal’s choppy. Did you give me an answer?”

The leathery general chuckled. “He gave you an answer.”

The bald general tapped on his screen. “Who is this one man?”

Skinner cleared his throat. “We call him Mad Max.”

“Mad Max.”

“From the movie.”

“I know what it’s from.” The bald general raised his voice. “It’s stupid. You’re stupid. You’ve wasted who knows how many men on some woman thief. Then you call us at the butt crack of dawn to ask us how to handle it.”

“I’m not asking for advice.” Skinner stuck out his chin, his eyes unblinking. “I don’t need your advice. I’m giving you a heads-up about what’s going on.”

The bald general grimaced. “Sounds to me like you need advice,” he grunted. “You can’t kill one man? I’m disappointed in you, Skinner.”

“I can’t say I’m too impressed neither,” added the leathery general with a digitized shake of his head. “You best clean up this mess right quick. And you better make an example out of this Mad Max.”

“Understood. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s done.” Skinner glanced at the empty box on the screen. “You’ll fill in General Roof?”

“We’ll tell him what an incompetent you’ve become, if that’s what you’re asking,” replied the bald general before he punched out of the call.

“He’s on his way to Lubbock already,” said the leathery general. “He said you already made the arrangements.”

“Yes,” said Skinner. “He had to go there anyhow, I’m told, to check on inventory. I figured we could send a message by having the boy there and letting everyone know—”

The leathery general frowned and ended his call without saying anything further.

“Computer, off,” Skinner said. He pulled on a pair of jeans, his boots, and a long-sleeved T-shirt. He slid his hat, cigarettes, and lighter from the bedside table and walked toward his kitchen. The pale pink light of predawn hadn’t yet begun to peek through the windows. It was still dark. Skinner knew this was going to be a long day. He needed some coffee and another cigarette.

CHAPTER 5

JANUARY 3, 2020, 4:27 PM

SCOURGE -12 YEARS, 9 MONTHS

ALEPPO, SYRIA

It was dark, which Battle tried to sell to Buck as a mixed blessing. True, it was harder to see their enemies. It also was harder for their enemies to see them.

The intermittent pop and rattle of gunfire was steadier now. Battle could see the flashes in the distance as the percussion bounced off the densely packed buildings.

“We’re screwed,” Buck said. He was slurring his words. His eyes were barely open. “I’m screwed. It’s like I can feel the life oozing from my body.”

“That’s the drugs,” said Battle. “You’ll be fine.”

“If I survive this,” Buck said, “I’m getting out. I’m done fighting other people’s wars. I’ll fight my own.”

Battle checked his GPS, hoping he’d find a new, alternative route he hadn’t discovered the previous fifteen times he’d checked. “Your own war? What does that even mean?”

“I know people. They know people. I’m getting mine when I get back. That’s all I’m saying.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Battle said. “Shut up and let me focus on how to get us out of here.”

The two were tucked in a narrow alley near Ofra Avenue. Despite having the GPS, Battle took them too far north. Now they were faced with having to dart across an exposed train yard to head straight east to the checkpoint.

In the alley, it was dark. They were hidden. Once they left the security of the high-walled alley, they’d be bathed in the orange glow of the train yard lights. They’d be a target for anyone perched on either side of the tracks.

“You know what the markup is for Mexican meth?” Buck asked. “And black tar heroin? It’s ridiculous. So cheap. I’m taking my check from Uncle Sam and I’m buying a bar.” Buck sounded delirious. “I’m buying a bar. Everything’s cash in a bar. So easy to wash money in a bar.”

“Dude.” Battle held his finger up to his mouth. “Be quiet. I don’t want to hear this.”

“I’m gonna be the rich dude, Battle,” he said. “Right now we’re fighting other people’s wars. When we’re the rich dudes, we have people fighting our wars. That’s how the world works. Old rich men send young poor men to fight. It’s always been that way. Now we’re here. They’re in bed with their young, hot wives drinking caviar and eating champagne.”

“All right.” Battle took Buck’s collar and yanked him forward. “Shut up. We can talk about this later. We need to get out of here.”

Buck chuckled and mocked Battle, holding a finger up to his own lips. Battle let go a huff. “Whatever, man.”