Desolation Crossing (26 page)

MILDRED FELT PRETTY MUCH the same. The attitude of LaGuerre sickened her in a wearying way that made her tired. The endless dustbowl plains that spread out in all directions from the ribbon of blacktop were monotonous
and tiring, making her eyes droop, her vision spin. And she was worried about J.B. It was nagging at her all the while. His judgment was usually so sound, something she could place an absolute trust in. Yet this time she felt that it was flawed, that there was something that he was missing. It wasn’t anything that she could articulate. Was it just that she was jealous of the way in which he and the young woman had suddenly gone from wary allies to the seemingly best of friends?

No, surely not. Such petty jealousies were the stuff of her youth. That kind of emotion should have been knocked out of her, both by circumstance and common sense, a long time ago.

She wished she could talk to him about it. That she could talk to Krysty, Doc, maybe even Ryan or Jak. The last was not the most articulate of men, but if ever there was someone who understood instinct…

Instead, she was stuck in the cab of the refrigerated wag with Reese. The big woman was not so hostile, or even plain unfriendly, as she had been at the beginning of the journey. But conversation was not her strength. Whatever thoughts went through her head as the landscape unrolled with an even monotony stayed firmly within her skull. In truth, Mildred couldn’t remember her uttering a word since the convoy had once more taken to the road.

So she was left with her own thoughts, chasing their tails and going nowhere but circles, as unchanging as the plains beyond the blacktop. The sheer repetition was slowly strangling her, as was the silence.

K RYSTY WAS FEELING much the same as Mildred, but for a reason almost certainly the opposite. The Titian-haired woman would have welcomed the chance to be lost in her own thoughts, instead of having them drowned out by the nonstop barrage of sound that was Ray—the voice, the words, and the old music that wheezed from the speakers of the tape machine he used to play those remnants of the past that he had salvaged over the years.

There was one song that played, the sound snaking in and out of his monologue so that it seemed that his words and the sound of the music blended seamlessly into one, and its lyrics seemed to sum up what Krysty wished for.

Hush…hush…and she certainly heard him call her name as she felt herself zone out and drift away from what he was saying.

“I was listening,” she said in a distracted tone.

“Hell, Krysty, I know you’re not listening to me half the time, and don’t think that I care too much about that. I keep on like this, even when there isn’t anyone in the cab with me, but I’m betting I’ve said that to you before now since we’ve been on this road together. I do it half the time just to keep myself from falling asleep when we’re out on roads like this. Hell, it’d be easy enough to do that and run this rig right off the road, and I don’t think that Armand would be too happy about that if I did. But I’ve got something important to tell you, and I think you should listen.”

“I will,” Krysty said, struggling to focus her attention, realizing how the music was hypnotizing her. An insistent rhythm now, with a wailing vocalist yelling about going home before a stream of sound, a ripple of electric notes
that sounded like a waterfall of molten electricity, tumbled over the rhythm at a manic pace.

“I will if you turn that down,” she said loudly. “I can’t hear myself think above it.”

Ray chuckled as he hit the volume. “Guess I forget that I’m getting old, and my ears are even older and deafer. Is that okay?” He waited for her nod before continuing. “By my reckoning, we’re not far from Jenningsville now, and I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure what to expect by way of a welcome.”

Krysty was puzzled, and her expression had to have told him that.

“See, it’s not as simple as you might think,” he said slowly. “We’re delivering this load, but they’re actually expecting someone else to deliver it. We’ve never been there before, and a strange convoy paying off a load that they were expecting from someone else…Well, all I’m saying is that if I was them, I wouldn’t be holding my arms wide in welcome unless I had a blaster at the end of each fist, you know what I’m saying?”

Krysty felt as if someone had punched her back into consciousness. Her hair tingled at the scalp; she could feel it move disturbingly.

“You hijacked this load?” she asked slowly. “You took it from another convoy, and you expect the ville to just pay up?”

“Hell, I don’t,” Ray said in surprise. “Why d’you think I’m telling you this, now? Armand does this from time to time, and each time I think it’s gonna land us in the shit. But where am I gonna go at my age and with my crazy ways? So I just keep quiet—kinda—and hope for the best. But I’m
betting that this time he ain’t told your people about it. ’Cause if he had, then One-eye would have briefed the lot of you. And he hasn’t, right? So he doesn’t know. None of you do. And if you’re supposed to be running sec for us, that’s the kind of thing you should know. Am I right?”

Krysty felt more alert, more awake than she had all day. Her mouth was dry. There was no way that Ryan knew of this, or else he would have said. Chances were, none except her knew—unless, maybe, others were as loose-lipped and as concerned as Ray. But even then, how could they talk across the comm system without LaGuerre knowing that his secret was out?

They were going into a situation where they were facing a firefight with one hand tied behind their backs, and their blasters empty. It would have given her some scant consolation if she had known these thoughts had been echoed exactly. But not enough. If it blew up on them, they would have to hit the ground running and trust to the reactions of one another. Not an ideal situation on territory they’d had no chance to recce.

“Did I do the right thing in telling you?” Ray asked, a look of concern on his face. “I just thought you should know. Armand wouldn’t like it, but it ain’t his ass on the line. Well, not directly. And you’ve been good, putting up with me on this run. I wouldn’t want you to face buying the farm without some kind of warning.”

Krysty forced a smile, even though she didn’t feel it. The old man had a secure berth here, and had put himself at a risk he usually avoided because of a sense of fairness that was a rarity. She couldn’t let him see how concerned she really was.

“It’s okay,” she answered him. “Being warned was the
right thing. Mebbe you won’t be the only one to think we should know.”

Ray pondered that for a moment. “You may be right. Ramona and Raven have as much trouble keeping their mouths shut, no matter what they say about me. So One-eye and Doc might know. Mildred won’t, ’cause Reese says nothing. The other two? I doubt it. But don’t go by my word,” he added hurriedly.

“I won’t. At least one of us is ready, though. That’s something,” she said, noting the look of relief that spread across Ray’s face. She wished she could feel the same.

Chapter Seventeen

Jenningsville came upon them just as day broke. The sun was a lazy red ball, rising on the distant horizon and making the dark brown dust of the plains look like puddles of congealed blood. An omen, perhaps…

J.B., in the armored wag at the head of the convoy was surprised by the way in which the ville broke on them, but not because it looked any different to his expectations. Indeed, the low-level shanties and cinder-block buildings that were spread in a desultory fashion across an expanse of the plains just to one side of the ruined blacktop reminded him of nothing so much as the ville of Guthrie, where Trader had found him.

No, the thing that caused the Armorer to pause and take stock was that, despite the fact that he had been looking for signs across the wastes, there was no indication of the redoubt from where the ville gained its wealth and trading power. If it was some distance, and if LaGuerre’s plan was to plunder it while the trade was in the process of completion, then it was not going to be as simple as the trader would wish.

But that was a problem for later. At the moment, J.B. was torn between addressing the issue in front of him, and
equally addressing the thoughts that had been bubbling under the surface of his consciousness for some time, and were now breaking for air.

There was a fearful symmetry in his ending up near the spot where Trader had found him, with a woman who claimed to be linked to his past in a way that he could not yet fathom. If he had been a doomie, he was sure he would have had one hell of a darkness descend on him. As it was, he was apprehensive about how these strands of the past would tie together. Would they form a rope to hang him?

The two issues were in balance in his head, until that balance was tipped by the rattle of blasterfire against the armor of the wag.

“Incoming,” Cody said impassively, as if the matter needed emphasis.

J.B. went to the port. At the moment it was just a hail of small-caliber handblaster and rifle fire. It was ricocheting from the armor plating of the wag as harmlessly as if it had been stones flung by children. But he was under no illusion. This was just an initial volley to mark the convoy, to see what kind of armor it had, and to determine if the aggressors needed to use a larger caliber of weapon.

It wouldn’t take them long to figure that out. Meantime, the convoy had to find some way of alerting the Jenningsville sec that they were friendly. Obviously, they knew the convoy they were expecting, but this wasn’t it…

“Return fire?” Cody asked. It was notable that he was asking the questions, and not LaGuerre, who was watching the Armorer with no expression discernible behind his aviator shades.

“No,” J.B. replied firmly. “We don’t want to start a fire
fight with them before they’ve handed over their tally. We’re not who they’re expecting, but was there a signal that the other convoy had?”

LaGuerre laughed. “You worked that one out, eh? Didn’t take you too long, sport, did it? Sure, we haven’t got the same wags they had, although the refrigerated wags are theirs. So they’ve recognized this one is wrong. But the convoy we took this shit from had a standard.”

“A what?” J.B. said, already irked by the trader’s admission.

“He means they had a flag that they used on their lead wag,” Eula explained.

“You got it?” J.B. snapped.

“I don’t believe in trophies—no jack in ’em,” LaGuerre said dismissively.

“I kept it,” Eula murmured, rummaging at the back of one of the metal cabinets in which she stored armament. “I don’t believe in trophies, either, but I don’t believe in not covering your own back,” she added with disdain, glaring at LaGuerre.

“Time to get it flying,” J.B. said. “It’s what they’ll be expecting, what they know.” He drew his mini-Uzi, switching to single shot, and leveled it at LaGuerre. If the trader was surprised, he managed to conceal it. J.B. continued. “And I’ll tell you for what…If anyone’s gonna put their ass in a sling for this, it ain’t gonna be me, Eula or Cody. This is your problem. You sort it.”

Without a word, LaGuerre rose from his seat and held out his hand to Eula. The woman placed the flag in his palm. He took off the shades, and J.B. could see that amusement twinkled in his eyes.

“Guess you’re right enough,” LaGuerre said. “Don’t let any of you fuckers say I didn’t do my bit.”

The volleys of fire on the outside of the wag had ceased, but to all of them it was merely a respite before heavier fire was brought into play. If LaGuerre was quick, he might escape real danger.

There was only one way he could make the standard seen while the wag was in motion. Opening the ob port, the seal sucking and squealing as air broke the vacuum that had been so long in place, and grasping the standard firmly, the trader squeezed himself into the gap, wriggling his torso into the port with one arm held in front of him.

He grasped one end firmly, and let the wind whipped up by their momentum unfurl the standard into the breeze. It was a black flag, with a bloodred circled A in the center, distorted as the material was whipped by the currents of air around it.

He was risking his life. An open target, he could either have been picked off by a sniper, chilled by a stray shot, or even have overbalanced and plunged to his doom on the blacktop.

The standard had to have been recognized. As it fluttered in the backdraft, a few stray shots of a heavier caliber—perhaps even mortars—overshot the convoy on each side, falling on either side of the blacktop. These ceased, and there was no further fire as the convoy approached the edge of the ville.

Eula and J.B. helped haul the trader back into the wag.

“Which side of the road do we go?” Cody asked.

“How the fuck should I know?” LaGuerre coughed, the
dust from the road still spewing from his lungs and nose with each mucus-ridden hack.

“Take the left,” J.B. told Cody, looking out of the ob port he had just heaved closed. It seemed to him that the shacks on that side were larger. If this ville was anything like Guthrie—and he was sure as hell that it was—then the larger shanties indicated the ville’s leader, if baron was too grand a title for such a place.

As Cody guided their vehicle in that direction, J.B. picked up the comm mic and relayed their intent along the length of the convoy. If anyone had anything to say, their chance was lost as the leading wag hit the center of the settlement and found itself surrounded by men and women holding heavy-duty blasters.

“They’re all over us like a gaudy’s rash,” Eula said mildly, staring out the back of the wag at those in their wake, all of which were now surrounded by men and women of the ville. They had clustered around too close to be easily fired on.

“So who’s gonna explain to them why we’re not who they’re expecting?” Cody asked. “Mean to say, someone’s got to do it.”

J.B. looked at LaGuerre. “Should be you,” he said, “but somehow I don’t trust you to do the job properly. Ah, dark night, I guess it’s shit or bust. Come with me, asshole.”

The Armorer grabbed LaGuerre and opened the side door of the wag, thrusting the trader out first.

The people of the ville had not been expecting such an action, and in surprise they parted to let the trader sprawl at their feet. As the shock passed, and LaGuerre dragged
himself upright, they moved forward as one. J.B. fired a burst from the mini-Uzi into the air.

“What’s the problem here?” he yelled. “You don’t want the trade you ordered?”

A fat, scabby-faced man with a gray-flecked auburn beard stepped up.

“Moe. Baron here. Dunno who the fuck you are, but you ain’t Homer, and that’s who we made agreement with.”

“Homer ain’t here. We are. You want we should take this shit back with us?” J.B. snapped.

“We ain’t gonna let you do that,” Moe said slowly. “Where’s Homer?”

“I dunno.” J.B. spit. “I don’t care, either. This guy—” he gestured to LaGuerre “—is the trader here. I’m just one of his hired hands. Way I hear it, he did a deal with Homer, jack changed hands and he took over the run. ’S’all I know. So you pay the man, you get the goods, we’re all happy.”

“Mebbe,” Moe said, eyeing J.B. carefully. “See, we like Homer. We deal with him a lot. You, we don’t know. What’s to stop us, say, chilling you ratfuck sons of bitches and just taking the goods?”

J.B. smiled, long and slow. “You could try that, Moe, but it wouldn’t get you far. Soon as your people start shooting, the man in the wag there—” indicating Cody at the front “—hits the switch, and all the wags go up like it’s skydark all over again. See, you don’t trust us, but there’s no reason why we should trust you. You try something stupe, and we blow the whole lot to fuck. Hell, we get chilled either way, but at least it’d be quick. And we’d take some of you with us for trying.”

There was a moment’s silence while J.B.’s eyes met with Moe’s, both men trying to understand each other, size each other up and scope each other out. Except that Moe was for real, and J.B. was bluffing.

“You know Guthrie?” J.B. said softly.

Moe nodded.

“I was there years back,” J.B. said. “Lived there for a while. Name is Dix. Mebbe—”

“Shit, yeah,” Moe said, his attitude changing suddenly. “You were the wonder boy with blasters. That guy Trader took you with him. He was a good trader, man, never cheated you for shit so that he could come back and do more business. Yeah, I know you…The glasses…Shit, J. B. Dix. Why didn’t you say who you were from the git-go?”

Moe’s change of mood spread through the whole crowd, which now began to back off.

“I didn’t know you’d wired the wags to explode,” LaGuerre whispered in J.B.’s ear. “When the hell did you do that, man?”

“Don’t be a stupe,” J.B. murmured back. “When would I have had the time? Moe didn’t know that, though.”

LaGuerre said nothing, though the sly grin that spread across his face spoke volumes.

Moe cleared a space around the armored wag, where necessary beating back those who were too slow with the butt of his rifle.

“Okay, Dix, you get your wags right into the center. Bring trader boy with you, and we’ll sort the payment before your people unload. That okay with you?”

J.B. grinned at LaGuerre. “Sure, that suits me just fine. C’mon, trader boy, time you earned our keep.”

M OE TOOK THEM to the largest shanty in the ville. It was only a few moments from where the convoy had come to rest, and as they made their way through the crowd, J.B. cast a glance over his shoulder. He could see Mildred and Krysty still in the cabs of the refrigerated wags. Jak and Raf had emerged from the second wag, and at the rear of the convoy he could see Ryan and Doc. All four men were seemingly unarmed and at ease, but the Armorer could spot the signs that told him they were poised to spring should the need arise. His friends he could read from experience, and the dreadlocked warrior carried himself like a giant shadow to the small albino by his side. Whatever else he may be, LaGuerre knew how to choose his crew.

The crowd began to disperse a little, some of them drifting off to somewhere he didn’t know. Others still milled around the convoy, while others followed in a loose line behind the ville leader and the convoy party.

Moe led them into the shanty, where a man and a woman were waiting for them.

“Well?” the woman demanded. “Who the fuck are they? Where’s Homer?”

“Don’t know.” Moe shrugged. “These guys brought the stuff, they get the payment.”

“I dunno…” she mused. She was squat and dark, with darting brown eyes that betrayed a sly intelligence as she eyed the trio accompanying Moe.

“Cool it,” the second man said. He was as emaciated as Moe was fat, long and lean with clothes that hung off him.

“Lenny’s right, Selma,” Moe said. “This boy here is the famous J. B. Dix,” he added, clapping the Armorer on the shoulder, “and if we can’t trust in him…”

“Long time since I heard that name,” Selma said, looking at J.B. in a different way. He felt like he was being sized up like a piece of merchandise.

“System works like this,” Moe said, breaking a silence that was becoming uncomfortable. “You check the payment. Larry and Selma carry it out to the convoy, one of yours with them, while I check the goods with you. When I say okay, then we exchange.”

“Sounds fair,” J.B. agreed. “Don’t take it the wrong when I say this, but any moves to fuck with that, and—”

“Same here,” Moe said, looking J.B. squarely in the eye. Both men agreed without a word being exchanged.

Larry pulled back a tarp that had been covering boxes marked with what J.B. knew to be predark military insignia. They’d been opened and then resealed. But that meant nothing. Anyone would do that to check the contents. Question was, what did the boxes contain now?

“You know what the payment was supposed to be?” J.B. asked LaGuerre.

“Sure. You just tell me if it’s working, and I’ll tell you if it’s inventory,” the trader murmured.

For the next half hour, maybe longer, J.B. could feel the tension in the room from the Jenningsville trio as he and Eula checked the condition of the weapons and explosives that had comprised the payment. Frag and gas grens; semiautomatic and SMGs; ammo for these and for the crate of handblasters that also accompanied them.