Ill Wind (57 page)

Todd’s head hurt. He wasn’t used to thinking like this. Things happened or they didn’t, and bumbling with psychological explanations, trying to second-guess what had occurred or what might have been—all that kind of garbage was for people who didn’t have anything else to do with their lives . . . people who wanted a ready excuse for anything.

He recalled the last thing Iris had said to him before he left. She had called him stupid and laughed at his personal quest to deliver the satellites.
Despite all the time he had spent missing Iris
,
her callousness rekindled his anger
. She could stay there in the Altamont and play her rock music for all he cared.

“Sure,” Todd said to Heather. “I’ve got two fishing poles.”

The tough blond guy looked at them with a barely concealed sneer as Todd and Heather took the fishing gear and headed off.

The stream had cut itself a deep channel through the loose soil. Water ran shallow but fast over boulders covered with streamers of algae. Todd scrambled down to the bank, slipping with his cowboy boots but trying not to look too clumsy. He helped Heather down, but she seemed perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Her jeans were worn and dirty, but her legs were long and slim. He watched the way she moved down the hillside. Squatting on a rock by the water, she flicked her reddish hair over her shoulder and smiled at him before she dipped her hands in the stream and splashed water on her face.

In the colorful light of sunset, the glittering droplets of water on her skin as she rubbed her cheeks made her look more beautiful than any amount of makeup ever could. Todd caught
himself
looking at her and turned away.

He tied a small spinner on one of the fish lines. He had spent plenty of times out in Wyoming, catching trout and fixing his own dinner before sleeping under the stars, with only a blanket and his horse for company. Todd handed Heather the first pole, then tied another lure for himself.

“Watch you don’t get it snagged in the rocks,” he said. “If there’s trout in here, they’ll be hiding down under the shadows.”

Heather sat on a rock beside him, dangling her lure in the water and flicking it back and forth. Todd showed her how to improve her technique, but Heather seemed distracted, as if she needed to talk about something but was afraid to broach the subject. Todd felt his stomach knotting. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what was on her mind.

“We need to get away,” she finally said. Her voice was husky, but frightened. “I’ve been with Connor for over a month. We’ve been wandering eastward, going nowhere—but he’s getting more and more unstable.”

“Connor?”

“That’s his real name. He said ‘Clyde’ because he thinks the two of us are Bonnie and Clyde. He’s sick, and he’s dangerous. I watched him shoot somebody’s dog just so he could frighten them.”

“So . . . what do you want to do?”

“I want to leave. We can keep walking
now.
Follow this stream up into the mountains. Keep moving! I’ve been living off the land for a month now. It’s not so difficult.”

“But—” Todd said, then his mind blanked on him. “I came all this way with the solar satellites. I can’t just stop now. Casey Jones and Dr. Soo are counting on me to go with them. Do you think they’re in danger just being with this guy? Maybe we should tell him to be on his way.”

“Of course they’re in danger!” Heather said, “but not unless we go back and spill his story. What’s more important?” Her eyes were big and pleading. “We could make a go of it, couldn’t we?”

“I—” he said,
then
his fish hook snagged on a rock. Thankful for the distraction, Todd turned back to the stream and began yanking on the pole to dislodge the lure. He could feel himself sweating with anxiety. His head was in
a turmoil
. He had left Iris in the Altamont because he needed to accomplish this journey. He couldn’t just run off now.

He finally got the fishhook free and yanked it out of the water. Turning to face Heather again, he froze
stock still
.

She had unbuttoned her plaid flannel shirt and yanked it open, untucking it from the waistband of her pants and exposing her large breasts. Her nipples stood out like strawberries on her pale skin. Todd stared dumbstruck.

#

Silvery reflective blankets and wadded padding covered the solar satellites in the back of the wagon. Connor Brooks poked around, catching a glimpse of the metal-clad smallsats. They didn’t look like much, but the lady doctor had been babbling all day about how fucking valuable they were, how they would bring back high-tech civilization.

When he thought no one else was looking, he snooped around, wondering what he could do with the sats. Maybe he could hold them for ransom or sell them off to somebody. The cowboy and that slut Heather had gone off fishing together, and they were probably banging away in the bushes at this very moment. Connor didn’t give a damn. She had grown boring enough in the last week.

He could smell the food the old lady doctor was heating at a small campfire, and it made his mouth water. The dark Quasimodo guy who drove the horses had been skulking around the campsite, but Connor couldn’t see him now. The man had some real problems, didn’t speak a word to anybody. He looked like a chocolate cue ball when he took off the turban on his head. Weird shit.

Ten satellites lay in the wagon bed. The horses were unhitched, and he figured it would take him maybe five minutes to hook them up again. After everyone bedded down, he could sneak back here and do it quietly, then ride off before anybody woke up fast enough to stop him.

He heard a soft footstep behind him and turned just in time to see the stocky black man lunge toward him, smashing his ribs against the side of the wagon. Connor let out a startled cry and gasped as the breath was halfway knocked out of him. The big creep grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back.

“Good to see you again, Brooks! Asshole.” The man’s voice sounded like a nail file dragged over a jagged edge of glass.

“Hey!” Connor gasped, struggling. “What the hell are you doing?” The man tried to twist him around, but Connor squirmed out of his grip. Dancing back and on his guard, Connor whirled. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

The dark bald man glared at him. His skin had a strange mottled coloration, and his face was wide and flattened in some sort of weird halfbreed mixup. “Come on, Brooks!” the man taunted. “You’ve been in my nightmares for months. You don’t recognize your captain?”

Suddenly the pieces snapped into place, and Connor’s eyes widened. Impossible! But the eyes, the slash of a lip, the flat nose and high cheekbones were indeed familiar. The last he remembered of the Butthead had been of Uma running from the bridge of the
Oilstar Zoroaster
to answer the false fire alarm Connor himself had set. The man had been a regular ape, full of black bristly hair from his knuckles to his eyebrows. But, the same man was somehow here in the middle of the desert, months after the petroplague—and their paths had collided again.

“You . . . you
fuck!
” Connor shouted.

He ducked his head and launched himself like a bullet to charge into Uma, but the burly captain was prepared. In fact, he seemed eager for the fight.

Uma took the attack in his rock-hard stomach; he pounded down with his fist on the back of Connor’s head. Then he wrapped a huge forearm around Connor’s neck.

Connor hammered upward into Uma’s crotch, making the dark man gasp with pain and release his hold just enough for Connor to struggle free. But Uma didn’t appear weakened. He stood with his fists bunched, ready to come pounding again.

“I am going to beat the living
shit
out of you, Brooks, and then maybe I’ll stake you out on the desert and let the ants finish you off!”

Connor took a step back toward the wagon. He couldn’t run. No way would he get far enough to escape, not that he really wished to. Right now more than anything Connor wanted to put Captain Butthead’s head up on a stake for the vultures to eat.

“What are you two doing?” Henrietta Soo came up from the campfire holding a big wooden spoon in her hand like a mother about to chastise two brawling children.

“This man caused the
Zoroaster
spill,” Uma said in his low, broken-glass voice.

Connor used the distraction to scramble around the back of the wagon, where he snatched up the shotgun he had carried across two states, the gun he had used to shoot the Mormon lady’s dog.

He took one more step toward Uma and raised the barrel. He had shells in both chambers; he cocked back the hammer. “You were the captain of the tanker, Butthead.
You
were responsible. Don’t go dumping that crap on me!”

Henrietta Soo looked from one to the other as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Uma didn’t seem the least bit afraid of Connor’s shotgun, and he stepped toward him.

“We’re not in front of an inquiry board here, Brooks. You can’t get away on technicalities. I may be responsible, since I should have had you confined to your quarters, but you
caused
the wreck. It’s your fault, and you’ll burn in hell for it.”

Connor held the shotgun steady as Uma continued to stride closer. He had no second thoughts about pulling the trigger. He had almost forgotten how much he hated this man. “My fault? None of it’s my fault, Butthead!” He laughed and raised the shotgun.

#

Heather stared back at Todd, trying to be alluring but somehow looking just as frightened as he felt. She unsnapped her jeans and pulled the zipper slowly open. “I don’t
need
you to come along with me, Todd. I can handle this by myself—but I
want
you there. I made a major bad choice with Connor, but I think you’re different. Let’s go make our own lives. Let’s get out of here!”

Todd’s heart hammered in his chest, and his throat became drier than the desert hardpan. “Heather, I . .
. .”

He kept seeing flashes of Iris. There were plenty of other men at the Altamont commune, and Iris was a person with a short temper and quick passions. She had wanted to move much faster in their relationship than Todd ever would have. He doubted that she would ever wait for him, and he had never promised to wait for her . . . just to come back someday.

But he shook his head, knowing that as difficult as it was, that his true feelings lay with Iris. He averted his eyes and started to speak, but before any words could form themselves, the cracking echo of a gunshot split the dusk.

“What the heck?” Todd said.

“The shotgun!” Heather said. “It’s Connor!” She scrambled to button her shirt again and fasten her jeans. The two of them climbed up the embankment and raced desperately toward the camp.

#

Connor squeezed the shotgun’s triggers, firing both barrels. The bang nearly deafened them.

—
but
instead of turning Uma’s chest into a pulp, the shotgun itself blew up in a backfire. Shards of the gun barrel and the stock flew in all directions. Black smoke burst out in a cloud. Connor fell backward, screaming as the hot explosion shredded the left side of his face.

With an animal howl Uma was upon him, ripping the twisted remains of the shotgun out of his hand and bringing it down like a club. Connor managed to roll and took the full force of the blow on his shoulder.

Trying to think clearly through the pain in his head and the rage pulsing though him, Connor yanked out his hunting knife. He couldn’t see anything out of his eye, and blood blazed like fire across his cheeks and temple. He slashed blindly, hoping to slice Uma’s jugular or put out his eye. Instead, the tip of the knife ripped across the dark man’s shirt. Uma stumbled
back just long
enough for Connor to scramble to his knees and grip the knife handle with both hands.

Uma swung again with the ruined shotgun, but Connor ducked low, then came up with all the strength in both of his arms and plunged the knife to the hilt in Uma’s abdomen.

Connor yanked the knife away, and blood came with it. Uma didn’t even seem to notice. The big bald man dropped the shotgun and came in again with his bare hands. He locked his grip around Connor’s throat, and Connor slashed his forearm—but Uma didn’t care. He was a vengeful
machine,
his only thought to kill Connor.

Connor’s larynx crumpled like an aluminum beer can. He stabbed Uma again, feeling the blade slip between his ribs and into his side. Foamy red blood came out of Uma’s mouth, but the Butthead continued to squeeze.

 
Connor’s eyes bulged; he didn’t know how much longer he could hold out. He stabbed again and again. Uma was drenched with his own blood.

Connor began to pass out, when slowly Uma’s eyes froze ahead. He toppled like a great redwood trunk, falling to the dirt at the side of the wagon.

Connor tore himself free, retching and gasping for air. He stepped back, staring down at the wide-eyed corpse of the tanker captain. “You fuck!” He coughed and slammed his hiking boot viciously into Butthead’s kidneys. He kicked Uma again and again, feeling ribs crack and his side cave in. Connor couldn’t release his grip on the big hunting knife, even though the blood made his hands slick.

Suddenly, he remembered Henrietta Soo. She stood by the campfire still holding her flimsy wooden spoon and staring at him in horror.