Each of the companions stood guard through the night, J.B. being an exception due to his poor eyesight, watching the darkness for any indication of suspicious movement. But the world was hushed and still, as if for a brief time, it had forgotten about them completely.
Or more likely, it was merely the calm before the storm, Ryan thought in somber contemplation before fading into sleep.
An hour after huddling in conversation with Ryan, J.B. strode to where Mildred had hunkered down, only to discover that Mildred had moved both of their bedrolls off to the side, partially obscured from the rest of the companions by some flowering bushes.
“Evening, John,” Mildred said with an inviting smile, as the man stepped out of the night.
“I thought you might be too tired tonight after everything we did today,” J.B. said. As he approached, he saw that Mildred had one leg tantalizingly exposed to the hip, her full breasts only slightly covered by an arm supporting the rough horse blanket. Millie looked like a goddess, and the man struggled to find the right words to say so.
“Never that tired.” She smiled, blushing from his frank appraisal. “How about you?”
“Millie, you are always just like a bullet,” J.B. stated with conviction.
Puzzled, the woman arched a questioning eyebrow.
“You always get under my skin,” he explained with a grin.
She laughed and, pretending to stretch, allowed the
blanket to slip from her arm. Her nipples instantly hardened at the touch of the cool night air, and J.B. inhaled at the glorious sight, then began to quickly remove his clothing, hanging it over the bushes to afford the couple the tiniest bit more of privacy.
As the man undressed, Mildred watched him with growing interest. The wiry man was covered with scars: the puckered circles of a bullet wound, the slash of a knife, acid burns and the freckling tones of shrapnel. She knew that he had lived a hard life before they met, and that history was burned into his flesh. Born a century apart, they were exact opposites, the healer and the killer, yet Mildred loved J.B. in a way she found difficult to express, or even to fully understand. But that was the mystery of life. Sometimes lightning hit, and a person was changed forever. There was no rhyme or reason, just the unalterable fact that when you found that special somebody the knowledge filled your mind and body until it seeped into your very soul.
“Dark night, I feel so damn naked,” J.B. said, slipping under the blanket.
“Bullshit, you just miss that damn fedora.” Mildred chuckled softly, running her hand across the top of his head.
“That, too,” he admitted honestly, then leaned in to kiss the woman full on the lips, gently at first, savoring the delicious contact.
The couple parted and smiled, then kissed again, this time their mouths open to allow their tongues free range as their passion began to grow. Eager hands began to explore familiar flesh. Mildred raised her head to breathe in deeply, and J.B. kissed her along the throat,
savoring the salty tang of her sweaty skin. Softly, he whispered her name, and she looked at him with an eager smile, her eyes full of promise. Mouths and hands roamed freely, tasting, touching, stroking in a banquet of intimacy.
The two lovers began a dance as old as man, and for a brief time peace was granted to the weary travelers, who had somehow found a kind of heaven deep in the heart of the savage Deathlands.
The next day, small patches of sand appeared in the grass lands, reminding Doc of Scotland, and Mildred of a golf course. The companions were glad they had smoked the rabbits as they found a lot less gameâonly a couple of scrawny prairie chickens and a gopher. The reason for the lack of wildlife was soon abundantly clear when wispy streaks of salty sand extended into the greenery like the bony fingers of a corpse. By afternoon, the temperature had risen considerably, and the companions were riding over a mixture of grass and hard-packed sand, both areas twinkling with chunks of rock salt.
“The edge of the Great Salt,” Doc muttered, slowing his mount to an easy canter. “Behold, my friends, this is quite literally hell on Earth.”
“Just a desert,” Ryan muttered, adjusting the new leather patch covering his left eye again. The replacement patch was made from rabbit skin and was starting to curl along the edges. It kept making the man think there was an insect crawling on his face.
Reining her horse to a stop, Krysty slid out of the saddle and scooped up some of the smaller salt crystals. Taking her flintlock pistol, the woman pounded the salt in her hand, crunching it into much smaller particles, and offered it to Ryan.
“This'll help cure that leather,” she said.
“Better than pissing on it,” Ryan agreed, taking off the patch and rubbing the salt into the leather as hard as possible. Hopefully, the salt would finish the curing process.
The rabbit skin had been thoroughly scraped and cleaned, then treated with its own brains. It was odd that there seemed to be just enough brains in most animals to cure their own hides, including man. Doc thought that was the work of the Lord; Mildred thought it was merely ironic.
“Not more tracks,” Jak said, leaning forward in the saddle. His horse snorted in pleasure as the teenager patted it on the neck.
“Don't need them anymore,” J.B. said, shielding his face with a hand to study the cloudy sky. “Look there!” Just a few miles ahead of the companions were some vultures circling about in tight formation.
“Probably more folks asleep,” Ryan said in agreement, leaning forward in the saddle. “Those birds are carrion eaters, just waiting for the meat to tenderize.”
“You mean die,” Doc corrected with a dour expression.
“Same thing to a vulture,” Ryan said, kicking his horse into an easy gallop and pulling the longblaster out of the gun boot to cock back the hammer.
The companions heard the waterfall long before they saw it and spread out in a skirmish line to converge on the poisoned lake from different directions.
There were some bodies splayed on the ground, a man and a woman, his limp hand still touching the cool water. Both of the people were aced and covered
with flies. Partially consumed, they both had most of their clothing torn away and long strips of skin removed from their still forms.
Hunching over the corpses was a feasting stickie. The humanoid mutie was using its sucker-covered hands to rip fresh pieces off the bodies and gobble them down, the grotesque face covered with blood and entrails.
Snarling a curse, Jak raised his longblaster, then stopped. Stickies often hunted in packs, and the red-blasted things were actually attracted to the sound of gunfire.
Holstering the blaster, the albino teen went for his throwing ax, when Mildred and Doc both sent arrows into the stickie. The bolts slammed into the mutie, driving it off the corpse to splash into the lake. Hooting in fright, the stickie tried to remove the arrows from its chest, when the hatchet arrived. With a meaty thwack, it split the forehead of the creature, pinkish brains splashing into the lake. Shuddering, the stickie knelt, went terribly still, then fell forward, the water becoming cloudy with spilled blood.
High overhead, the flock of vultures called out their annoyance at being denied a meal, and winged away in search of other carrion. For eaters of the dead, the Deathlands was always a bonanza of corpses.
Preparing for a rush by more stickies, the companions sat on their horses for a long time, weapons in hand, watching the shifting sands for any sign of more muties. But the dying hoots had either not been heard by others of its kind, or this stickie was a rogue and traveled by itself.
“Okay, we're alone,” Ryan stated, easing down the
hammer on the flintlock so there wouldn't be unnecessary strain on the firing spring. “But from now on, we stand guard in pairs. Jak and me, J.B. and Mildred, Doc and Krysty.”
“So that there is always a crossbow and a blaster,” Doc said with a nod. “Most wise, my dear Ryan. Silence is golden, eh?”
“But a brass will save your ass,” J.B. countered, resting the enormous pepperbox across his saddle.
“Well,” Krysty said, “I don't see any signs of a horse or a wag. Looks like these folks walked out of the Great Salt the same as we did.”
Scowling, Jak seemed as if he wanted to say something, but kept his peace. The albino teen thought the two people had to be feebs for both drinking at the same time from a strange waterhole. However, he recalled his own burning thirst when the companions stumbled out of the desert, and felt a little embarrassed at the outrage. Hunger made a person weak, but thirst drove you mad.
“And there, but for the grace of God, are us,” Mildred muttered, lowering her crossbow to make the sign of the cross.
Closing her eyes, Krysty said a brief prayer to Gaia for the strangers.
“Mildred, how long have these folks been aced?” Ryan asked, thoughtfully cracking the knuckles on a hand.
“Hard to tell in this heat,” she replied, studying the bodies. “Sayâ¦a couple of days. Certainly no more than five.”
“More like four,” Jak stated confidently.
“Then it's just about time for Big Joe to come gather
his new supplies,” Krysty growled in understanding. “Okay, Doc and I can bury the stickie behind a sand dune. Jak, do your best to erase our tracks, but be sure to leave the footprints of those two.”
“J.B. and Mildred, make the chilled look like they're still alive and just asleep,” Ryan continued, hefting the longblaster. “I'll stand guard.”
Wrapping the stickie in the waterproof canvas of the tent, Krysty and Doc got the mutie out of the lake, holding their breaths for no sane reason against the poisoned water. It just seemed like a wise precaution. Dragging the body off behind a dune, they found a small gully and rolled the stickie into the open ground. Recovering the arrows and hatchet, they used their bare hands to pile on rocks and loose sand.
“This foul abomination now becomes manna from heaven for the beetles and scorpions,” Doc muttered, steadily hoisting stones. “But then, the conqueror worms make feasts of us all, eh, dear lady?”
“I just hope the bugs like their meat well salted,” Krysty agreed, throwing handfuls of salty sand onto the bedraggled form.
“Mother Nature would be cruel indeed, if she granted the lowly dung beetle any kind of a taste bud.”
“Amen to that!”
Splashing some shine on a rag, Mildred made crude masks for herself and J.B. to keep back the smell of the decomposing bodies, along with any possible infections. They packed the gaping wounds with handfuls of salt from the desert, then did the same to mouths and noses of the corpses before rearranging the clothing to
hide the gaps. Denied their juicy meal, the flies soon left, buzzing loudly in annoyance.
Cutting a blanket into pieces, Jak wrapped two sections around his moccasins to disguise his tracks, then used the rest to sweep the desert clean of any trace of the stickie or the horses for a hundred paces. The teenager couldn't remove every print, but that should be enough for any cursory inspection.
Finished with the grisly task, J.B. got an empty water skin from his horse and filled it near the base of the waterfall. “Never can tell when this could come in handy,” the man said, corking the sloshing leather sack tight before returning it to a saddlebag.
“Just don't get it confused with the good water,” Ryan said with a scowl. The man said nothing more, but his dislike of using poison was readily evident. Ryan would do whatever was necessary to stay alive, but if at all possible he preferred a straight fight to ambushing somebody from behind. It had nothing to do with machismo or chivalry or even some outdated code of knightly honor. The feelings went deeper than that. They were primordial, something that came from his very bones, that made attacking an enemy without a warning seem foul and cowardly. There were just some things a man couldn't do and still consider himself human.
“If we ever find the source, the stuff they put into the water might make an excellent anesthesia for surgery,” Mildred said, removing her mask and stuffing it into a pocket. “But more than likely, the pure version of the compound would kill us faster than a drain-cleaner martini.”
“That useful, too,” Jak said with a grin.
Finished with the tableau around the waterfall and lake, the companions led their horses behind a nearby dune, with Jak wiping out the tracks. Setting up the tent, they covered it with sand as camouflage, then settled in to wait, watch and hope for the best. Unable to risk a campfire, dinner was cold rabbit with dandelion greens and onions. Dessert was half an apple each, primarily to kill the smell of the onions. If they had to do a nightcreep later, it wouldn't be smart for them to have breath detectable a yard away in the dark.
In gradual stages, the heat of the day faded with the setting of the sun, and the familiar cold of the desert closed around the companions, making them huddle closer together, thankful for the sand dune at their back. Slowly, a full moon rose into the velvety sky, a billion stars twinkling like jewels in the firmament. Mildred had lived in a time when city lights blocked the grandeur of the nighttime sky.
The following day, the companions went hunting in the dunes and returned with only a few lizards. Those were skinned and consumed raw. Hardly appetizing, but the meager food quelled the rumbling in their stomachs. However, the horses wanted more than their small ration of grain and apples, and loudly made their wishes known. With no other choice, the companions gave the animals the rest of the grain. If nothing happened this night, somebody would have to ride back to the forest in the morning to forage for fresh supplies.
The day faded into night, and the companions were huddled under the tent, Doc and Jak snoring softly, when a new sound could be dimly heard in the distance.
At first Ryan thought it was a coming rainstorm, then Krysty sat bolt upright and shook everybody awake.
Quickly, the companions grabbed their weapons and scrambled out of the tent to crawl around the dune just in time to see a pair of electric lights bouncing along the ground and coming this way, the mechanical growl slowly increasing in volume. Motorcycles!
Relaying messages with hand signals, Ryan had every body stay low to the ground to reduce their silhouettes against the starry sky. Reaching for the Navy telescope, Ryan frowned and changed the action to scratching his hip. It was difficult to see very clearly, the halogen headlights of the bikes almost blindingly bright in the darkness. However, the moonlight reflected off the waterfall and lake, allowing the one-eyed man to vaguely see a cargo van traveling with them, its headlights turned off to keep it masked in shadows.
A body wag for sleepers, Ryan reasoned, his hands tightening on the flintlock. This had to be Big Joe.
Leaving the bikes running, the riders got off and walked toward the still forms on the shore of the lake. Each was carrying a wooden club and a net for capturing the sleepers alive in case they were starting to come around.
Kneeling, the riders started to turn over the bodies when they cried out in surprise.
“Nuking hell!” a man gasped. “This bitch is cold as snow. These fuckers have been aced for days!”
“Look at these wounds! Now, why would anybody pack the fragging bodies in salt to kill the smell?” the second man asked in a terse whisper, then his voice came back strong. “Nuke me running, this is a trap!”
Instantly, the headlights of the van blazed on, brightly illuminating a swatch of empty desert. “Move!” somebody yelled from inside the wag. “I got your six!”
But at the exact moment the two riders charged for their bikes, there came a couple of soft twangs from the direction of a sand dune and arrows slammed into them. Staggering from the impacts, the men tried to draw blasters, and two more arrows pierced their throats, the shafts fully coming out the other side to dive into the lake.
“Hot damn, it's
them
again!” a man cursed from the van, and the engine of the wag surged into life, the tires briefly spinning in the loose sand before finding traction. In a spray of salty particles, the wag shot away from the lake, knocking over one of the purring motorcycles in the driver's frantic haste to escape.
Standing tall, Jak flipped over the hatchet in his hand and threw it hard. Perfectly aimed, the wooden shaft slammed into the rear of the cargo van, making an enormous bang. Inside the wag, cursing people began firing blasters randomly, lances of flame stabbing into the darkness. Fishtailing the wag to dodge any additional arrows, the driver continued to accelerate until the wag vanished in the distance.
Scrambling out of hiding, the companions converged on the fallen men and the bikes. Going to the first rider, Ryan checked for any sign of life, but the man was still.
“Aced!” Ryan announced.
“Same here!” Krysty replied, kneeling alongside the second figure.
Quickly searching the body for any weapons, Ryan
found a police gun belt carrying a regulation S&W .38 revolver, the loops full of live brass, and incredibly, a large blade tucked into a makeshift sheath. It was the panga!
“These are our thieves!” Ryan announced, checking the warm body for anything else before taking the gun belt and knife.
There was something in a pocket that smelled like beef jerky, but in the poor light Ryan decided not to risk a taste. The man had gone this long in life without eating long pig, and Ryan planned to keep it that way.