Frontier Justice - 01 (6 page)

“In this world, people suffer,” he said, reciting the first of the Buddhist Four Noble Truths. “This doesn’t mean that I have to like it, only that I have to accept it.”

After staring at the door most of the day, he began to doze off. Just as he was about to resign himself to being one day closer to his inevitable doom, he heard footsteps in the hallway. They were hurried and uneven, coming in quick shuffles followed by short pauses. He quickly got to his feet and moved to the door to look out. The man coming down the hall was wearing a blue guard’s uniform, but his shirt was pulled out and unbuttoned, as if he had just stumbled out of a pub. As he got closer, Tanner recognized him as Ray Foster.

For a couple of years, Tanner had been teaching Kenpo Karate to Ray and three other guards. Not only did it lead to his receiving a few special perks from the guards, it also helped to keep his proficiency up, something that came in handy while in prison. Standing six-foot-four and weighing just over 250 pounds didn’t hurt either. Even at fifty-four years old, Tanner was a tremendously powerful man by anyone’s measure. Time, however, was every man’s enemy, and serving a fifteen-year sentence all but ensured that his art would be lost if he didn’t pass it on while in prison. The guards were quite receptive to being the student of a man who had proven the lethality of his style of self-defense on more than one occasion.

At this point, however, Ray did not look well. His face was swollen, his eyes were laced with bloody cobwebs, and his clothing was soaked in sweat. Even though Ray was as close to a friend as he had, Tanner stepped back from the jail cell door.

“What happened to you?”

“I’m no good,” Ray mumbled, moving up to the bars and fumbling with a large ring of keys. “No good,” he repeated.

When he found the right key, he held it up for Tanner to see.

“Only you,” he said. “For what you did for me. No one else. Promise me.”

Tanner said nothing.

“I cleared the entire lower ward yesterday. Only non-violents there. But here …,” he shook his head. “We can’t let them out. Promise me.”

“Okay, but they’ll die. And not in a good way. Long and slow from dehydration.”

“The lives they chose,” he said, shrugging, before breaking into a long uncontrolled coughing fit.

When he finally recovered, he inserted a key into the door lock and turned it hard until a loud
clunk
sounded. The door moved inward a few inches with the weight of his body resting against it.

“Don’t touch anything I touch,” he said. “And don’t get too close either.”

Tanner nodded. No chance of that.

Ray turned and motioned for him to follow.

They made it as far as the prison courtyard before running into trouble. Ray was shuffling across the courtyard toward the prison’s main gate, which was already propped open, when two men approached from the minimum security ward. One man carried a screwdriver and the other a three-foot length of pipe. From the twisted looks on their faces, they weren’t out to offer thanks to the innkeeper for a comfortable stay.

“Hold up!” the man with the screwdriver shouted as he and his partner hurried to intercept them.

When Ray saw them, he started to run, but, after only a few steps, he fell. He struggled to stand back up but quickly lost his resolve and collapsed on the asphalt.

Tanner was deliberately ten or fifteen steps behind Ray, but it wasn’t difficult to hustle into the path of the two oncoming men. Both were wearing orange jumpsuits identical to his, but he didn’t recognize either man. When they came to within a few steps of Tanner, they stopped.

The convict with the screwdriver took a step forward, pointing it at Ray.

“He’s got it coming. We got no beef with you, big man, but if you don’t want some of the same, you’ll step aside.”

Tanner moved his right foot slightly behind his left, a position he had taken many times when confronting angry men.

“Let him be.”

“They left us to rot in those cells, and for that, he’s going to bleed.”

“You look free enough.”

“After two days of nothing to drink but my own piss.”

“And here I thought that was just a milk mustache.”

Screwdriver’s cheeks turned a bright red, and he bit down hard on his lip.

“You think you’re a funny man?”

“Don Knotts was a funny man. I’m something else.”

“Two of us and one of you. That gives us the advantage,” said Screwdriver. “Plus, we got weapons and you don’t.”

The man with the pipe tapped it against his palm to emphasize the point.

“Wrong on both counts,” Tanner said, tightening his hands into fists the size of sledge hammers.

Ray moaned loudly, and all three men looked his way. Taking it as an opportunity to get the jump on Tanner, the first convict lunged forward with the screwdriver extended in front of him like a fencer might with an epee.

Tanner brushed it aside and leaned into a powerful ridge hand strike across the man’s throat. The blow hit him with tremendous force, his head whipping back as his feet lifted six inches off the ground. He landed flat on his back with his head smacking the pavement with a wet
squish.

The man with the pipe looked from Tanner, to his partner, and then back to Tanner. His eyes were wide with fear.

“Did …did you just kill him?”

Tanner nudged the fallen man with his shoe. He didn’t move.

“Could be.”

The man took a step back, dropped his pipe, and ran.

CHAPTER

7

E
arly the next morning, Mason repeated his ritual of securing the cabin and loading his truck with supplies. He intended to return by nightfall but packed enough food and water to last a full week, in case things took a turn for the worse. He also secured the M4 assault rifle to a floor-mounted rack in the cab of his pickup. If trouble found him, he could have a long gun in his hands within a few seconds. He continued to carry Marshal Tucker’s Supergrade on his hip, which he hoped one day to have the opportunity to return. Until then, he would use it for what it was intended. He was sure that Marshal Tucker would have wanted it that way.

As he pulled away from the cabin that had been such a big part of his childhood, Mason couldn’t help but wonder if he would ever see it again. Nothing seemed certain anymore. What he did know was that it had saved his life by keeping him away from the virus, and, for that, he was thankful.

A little more than a mile down the road, Mason came upon the old blue pickup that he had discovered the day before. He pulled up beside it and stepped out. The inside of the windows were covered in a thick layer of black blowflies, the adult relatives of the hundreds of thousands of maggots that were busy devouring the bodies within.

Digging in his truck bed, he retrieved a few tools, two five-gallon gas cans, and a large roasting pan that he had brought from the cabin for one specific purpose. He lay down on his back and slid a few inches under the rear of the blue pickup.

The smooth shape of the truck’s fuel tank was directly above him. He felt around until he found the flat drain cock at the base of the tank. Using a large flathead screwdriver, he pried the plug about halfway out. The fuel started to leak around the plug and onto his fingers. He quickly slid the pan under the drain to catch the gasoline.

When the pan was nearly full, he pushed the plug in enough to stop the flow and poured the fuel from the pan into the gas can. He repeated the procedure until the two gas cans were completely full. It worked, although by the time he finished, he had spilled as much gasoline on his clothes and the ground as he had transferred into the cans. He would need to figure out something more efficient later. For now, he had a simple method of keeping his vehicle fueled.

As he climbed back into his truck, Mason took one last look at the blue pickup. Thankfully, the three people within were spared from ever having to see the horror of the insect feast they had become. The world slowly took back all that it gave, and it was humbling to even the hardest of individuals to witness. He took a deep breath and turned his attention to the road.

He saw his first signs of life less than three minutes later, as two men riding off-road motorcycles whipped around a sharp bend in the mountain road. They appeared so suddenly that he had to slam on the brakes and pull to one side to avoid hitting them. They sped past him, laughing and looking over their shoulders as they passed. Neither man was wearing a helmet, gloves, or any other motorcycle gear. Mason watched in the rear- view mirror to see if they would stop or continue on. After a few seconds, they motioned to one another and turned back in his direction.

Not wanting to get caught sitting in his truck, he opened the door and stepped out onto the unpaved mountain road. Mason made sure that his badge and gun were clearly visible on his waist. He had been in enough confrontations to know that running put you at a disadvantage that was hard to overcome. If these two were looking for trouble, he would give it to them head on.

The two men sped toward him, stopping when they got to within about twenty feet. They dismounted from the dirt bikes and walked in his direction slow and easy, like matadors approaching a
toro bravo.
Both wore dirty shirts, worn jeans, and work boots, none of which fit quite right. Neither man looked to have shaved or even taken a sponge bath in a couple of weeks.

The larger of the two looked as if he could have worked as a bouncer at an Irish pub, his plaid shirt filled out with tight muscles and his face covered in a thick red beard. He carried a hunting knife at his side that was canted forward for quick access. His partner was a full head shorter, with distinctly Asian facial features. He had two black teardrops tattooed below his right eye, and, more important, a Glock pistol sticking out from a makeshift holster on his waistband.

Mason nodded to them as they approached.

“Gentlemen,” he said, keeping a watchful eye on their hands.

They nodded and advanced to within a few steps. He saw a sudden nervous look pass between them as they spotted his badge.

“Officer,” Red Beard said in a tone that sounded well practiced.