Читать книгу Vengeance Trail - James Axler - Страница 10

The screen door of the derelict diner banged open. Two men were suddenly among the cracked-vinyl booths and the peeling Formica tables, longblasters in their hands.

Both aimed square at Krysty Wroth.

“Freeze, bitch!” the younger, taller intruder shouted. Blond bangs hung in his sunburned face from beneath a turned-around ball cap. His partner, who was darker and whose dark-brown hair was beating a hasty retreat from his own forehead, just grinned a nasty grin.

After only the briefest hitch in her motions, and her breathing, Krysty calmly went back to doing what she was doing—cooking corned-beef hash made from the supplies she’d brought from the massacre site over a fire built of brush and driftwood in what had been the little kitchen’s deep-fat fryer, once upon a time. The pot was one she’d found hanging behind the counter. A handful of the fine sand that had drifted against the diner’s east wall served to scrub out the accreted dust and gunk of the past century.

“Hey,” the blond intruder shouted. “Din’t I tell you to freeze, bitch?”

“Easy, Matt, easy,” his pal soothed. “They’re so much more fun when they’re warm.”

He sidled around the periphery of booths, holding his remade M-16 with one hand. In the light of the kerosene lanterns she was working by, she could tell that both men wore retread U.S. Army blouses, both OD green, both with unfamiliar round patches on the breast. Just like the men who had killed Ryan and hijacked the caravan.

The man came right up beside her. She smelled his stinking breath, felt it defile her cheek. His dirty-nailed fingertip followed it, unwinding a scarlet lock down to the line of her set jaw.

“Well, well, well,” he murmured, “what have we here?”

She didn’t shy away from the touch, just kept stirring and tossing.

“Bitch-slap the skag, Ben,” Matt said, shifting weight from left boot to right with poorly checked eagerness. “Show her who’s boss.”

“Naw, naw, gently now. She’s a cool one, aren’t you, honey? I like that. I bet a girl like you could show us a good time. Big nasty redhead like you.”

He grabbed her, lowered his face to nuzzle her neck. She fended him with the back of his hands. He yanked his head back, anger flaring in his dark eyes.

“Now, now, don’t be in too much of a hurry, boys,” she said in her throatiest voice. It was a voice guaranteed to raise wood on a week-old stiff. “Why don’t you’ll just relax and make yourselves comfortable while I fix you a nice big dinner?”

The rage drained from Ben’s eyes. He smiled. Nodded. Laughed a little laugh.

“You know, hon, you’re right. Been a long, hard day, getting shut of that asshole General and his merry men. I’ll feel a lot stronger once I get around a good old home-cooked meal.”

He let her go and went back around the counter. Matt was almost vibrating with outraged horniness. “What are you doing? What? Why are we waiting?”

“Relax, kid,” Ben said, hoisting a cheek onto one of the round pedestal stools at the counter. There had been three; one was missing entirely, the other had been uprooted and lay against the foot of the counter.

“And quit waving that damned blaster around. You make me nervous. Our little redheaded bedwarmer is a smart one. You can tell just by looking at her. She knows better than to try to run on us. Don’t you?” He propped his own blaster next to his stool.

Krysty gave him a zipper-busting smile. “Now, why would I want to run anywhere, sugar?”

“But, but—” Matt sputtered.

“Sit your ass down,” Ben commanded.

Matt complied. He sat at a table in the middle of the little room. He didn’t put his longblaster down, although he did aim it at the ceiling. “What are we waiting for?” he asked peevishly.

Ben chuckled indulgently. “Didn’t you ever hear the story of the old bull and the young bull, boy?”

“No.”

“This old bull and this young bull came upon a fence. And on th’ other side of that fence, what should they see but a whole herd of fine young heifers swishing their tails over their nice firm fannies.”

“This one’s got a nice ass,” Matt said, staring at Krysty and almost drooling. “I can tell.”

“She surely does. Now, pay attention to my story. This young bull sees them heifers, and he says, ‘I got an idea! Let’s jump the fence and fuck us one a’ them heifers.’ And this old bull just shakes his head and says, ‘No. What we gonna do, we’re gonna walk down to that gate, walk through it nice and peaceful, and fuck all them heifers.’”

He laughed, grandly amused at his own joke. His gales of laughter died slowly away as he realized his younger companion wasn’t laughing with him.

“Go ahead,” Matt demanded. “Git to the punchline.”

“That was the punchline, you triple-stupe nuke head!”

“Weren’t funny.”

“Well, did you at least get the point of the story?”

“There’s a point?”

Ben dropped an elbow to the bar and sank his face in his hand.

“Well, now, don’t go being unreasonable, Ben,” Matt whined. “You said it was a joke. You told me so. And a joke got no point. It’s supposed to be funny.” A light dawned dimly. “Except that joke weren’t funny.”

He looked questioningly at Ben. The older man just waved a world-weary hand.

“Lookit, the bitch is all done cooking. Can we do her now? Can we?” He licked his lips. “I wonder if she got red fur on her pussy. Do redheads have that? Red hair on their pussies?”

“We ain’t et yet, you damn fool.”

“I was going to make up a batch of nice biscuits,” Krysty said, “if you big, strong men can just hold on to your appetites a little longer. And wouldn’t you like something to drink while you’re waiting?” She nodded her head back toward a canteen sitting on the counter.

Ben nodded, picked it up, began to unscrew the top. Then he stopped. A cagey look came into his eye.

“You wouldn’t be trying to pull one on us, now would you, honey? Here. You take a drink first. Then we’ll know it’s safe.”

He tossed the canteen at her. Holding his eye, smiling seductively the while, she undid the lid and took a long draft. Then she put the lid back on and tossed the canteen back. He drank greedily and pitched it to Matt in turn.

“So what are two such handsome men doing way out here in the middle of nowhere?”

Water ran down the side of Matt’s chin. He lowered the canteen and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “We’re. Uh, that is—”

“We’re deserters,” Ben said cheerfully.

“Deserters?” Krysty said. In her mouth the word sounded like a marvelous thing. Like a baron combined with an old-time movie star. But better. “Does that mean, like from an army?”

“Sure does,” Matt said proudly. “The Provisional United States Army!”

“Well, that’s what they call themselves,” Ben said. “They’re really just a bunch of coldhearts under command of the General. But they like to play like they’re an army.”

“That’s why we run,” Matt said. “Got tired of all the bullshit. Get out of bed when somebody else says. Haul our asses all over this sorry-ass desert rounding up limp-dick civilians to work on the line.”

“The line?” Krysty asked.

“Railroad line. Same one runs out back of this shithole.”

“See,” Ben said, “the General ain’t just any old asshole like one of your bug-heap barons. He’s got himself a train.”

“A train?” Krysty asked.

“A train. But not just any old rail wag. It’s an armored train.”

“MAGOG,” Matt said. “That’s what he calls it.”

“What’s that mean?” Krysty asked.

Ben shook his head. “Don’t mean nothin’. It’s just what the General calls it.”

“He found it,” Matt said, with something like pride. “Scavvied it out of some big ol’ underground bunker somewhere. All fulla weps and food and everything. It’s only the biggest, most powerful rail wag ever built. The General, he says it was built for something called the War on Drugs. Gonna be sent down to someplace called Columbus—”

“Colombia, nuke breath!”

“Colombia. Except the world blew up. Everybody knew about it got iced. But it was all protected and everything. In perfect shape when the General found it. And it runs off fusion batteries so it don’t never need to refuel. Got all the power a body’d ever want.”

“Sounds…impressive,” Krysty purred. “What’s this General doing with this train of his?”

“Says he’s trying to put America back together,” Ben said. “Don’t put much stock in that myself. I think he wants to be just another baron, but mebbe carve himself out a bigger empire.”

“Sounds like a pretty big job.”

Ben shrugged. “That’s another reason we run,” Matt said. “He been at it years, conquered himself a mess of little villes along the line, keep him supplied and shit. Still just like taking a piss in the ocean.” He had another drink. “I saw a ocean once.”

“Weren’t no ocean, stupe,” Ben said. “It was the Gu’f of Mex.”

“That’s a ocean. I couln’t see acrost it, anyway.”

“You mean this General can travel anywhere he wants in this armored rail wag?”

“Not exactly,” Ben said. “Lotta breaks in the line.”

“That’s why we was stuck out here in nowhere,” his partner said. “’Nother washout in the fucking line. Had to go round up a mess of dead-ass civilian stupes to fix it. Buncha bullshit.”

“Our scout wag busted an axle a few miles down the road from here,” Ben said. “We was basically out on our own at that point. So we decided what the hey, threw away our talkies and took off. Heard us a rumor from some of the workers there was a big old buncha coldhearts gathered out in the scrub somewheres ’round here. Fixin’ to hook up with ’em, give that a roll.”

“Man got to start to think about settlin’ down, puttin’ down some roots, build him a future,” Matt said. “Can’t spend your whole danged life rollin’ aimlessly along a old steel rail to nowhere.”

Ben nodded sagely. “General says he’s looking for something called the Great Redoubt. Supposed to be where the old guys stored up everything needed to put the whole country back together after the war. Even before the war, this was. Communications, supplies, weps—the works.”

“Crazy old nukesucker.”

“No shit. Like the boy says, man gets tired chasing after phantoms. Needs somethin’ more substantial. Something with meat on the bones.”

He cocked his head and looked at Krysty. “Speaking of meat on the bones, why’n’t you hurry up there, little mama? I’m getting a real appetite worked up myself now, and not just for that chow that’s smelling so good.”

“Well,” Krysty said slowly, “since you’ve been such good boys, and told me what I needed to know, it’s time you got what’s coming to you.”

She turned quickly, her right hand filled with her .38-caliber Smith & Wesson blaster. She was already squeezing the double-action trigger, timing the lengthy pull so that the hammer released just as the short barrel came to bear on Matt’s bangs. The gun roared, making a shocking racket for such a small weapon.

Automatically, Krysty stepped sideways left, away from Ben, in case he made a grab for her. He didn’t. But he was sharp and fairly quick; he was leaning forward and trying to reel up his longblaster by the strap.

She swung her right hand around, arm still straight, bringing her left hand up to wrap the fingers and brace her grip on the piece. She fired two shots, blinding fast, into his torso at a downward angle. His leaning motion carried him off the stool and hard onto the ancient cracked linoleum.

Krysty swung her blaster back toward Matt, in case he needed another dose of what he had coming. Then she noticed the old sign by the door, a square frame on a skinny metal post, its message Please Wait to Be Seated barely visible for the years of fading—and also Matt’s blood and brains, the color of the half-baked biscuits rising unattended in the pan, dripping down the front of it.

Almost at her feet, Ben groaned and stirred. She aimed her blaster down at him.

But he was no threat. One of her bullets had smashed through his lower jaw on its way down into his chest. It was still about half-attached, his breath bubbling like a well of gore from somewhere within the mess.

Ben’s lower jaw seemed to be working with a purpose, and his half-moored tongue moving as if trying to shape a word.

“Mercy.” That’s what she thought he was trying to say.

“Of course,” she said, and shot him between the eyes.

Krysty reloaded her blaster. It would’ve been more frugal to cut the coldheart’s throat, but she had scavvied plenty of .38 Special ammo from the luggage left behind by Ben and Matt’s former comrades. No point in making things harder on herself than they already were.

She walked to where Matt lay. He was spread-eagled on the filthy, cracked, sand-gritty linoleum with his longblaster fallen across his thighs. Instead of the sky, he was staring at the diner’s cracked, discolored plaster ceiling. His cap had been flipped clean off his head, possibly by the impact of the bullet that had evacuated his skull. She knelt and picked it up. It looked new, crisp and scarcely faded by sun or sweat, meaning it had to have been salvaged from storage fairly recently. It was black. The front bore a picture of the face of a man wearing an odd cap or hood with a black stripe down the center. Curvy-blade machetes or short swords with nonstudded knucklebow guards were crossed behind his head. Above it was the word “Raiders.” Around the whole was a sort of shield.

She stuck the cap on her head. She had miles of open desert to walk. It would be good to have something to keep the sun out of her eyes.

Her biscuits had burned on the bottom. Indifferently, she flipped them over. She finished cooking the biscuits and put them and the hash on the counter, still in their respective pans. What she was making looked as if it would have been enough for all three, in fact, but she had planned to eat it all herself and still did. She was a tall, muscular, extremely active woman who generally had a hearty appetite. And even if she didn’t have much appetite this night—and doubted she ever would again, beyond sheer pangs of hunger—it had been a calculated decision to fix herself a large and proper meal. Her vengeance trail stretched long and hard before her. She would need every ounce of strength she could muster to see it through to the end.

She seated herself gingerly on the stool. The red-ant bites no longer throbbed with that weird, expansive intensity such acid-laden bites left in their wake, but the wounds still felt raw, and the muscles of her groin and thigh ached from the venom’s aftereffects. Ben’s cooling corpse was softer than the floor, so Krysty rested her boots on him while she ate.

As she ate, she thought about what she had learned and what it meant to her quest.

A train! she thought wonderingly. She’d seen the tracks her whole life without thinking much of them—just another artifact from the strange lost days before skydark. A track even ran right behind the abandoned diner and gas station and she had never even taken note of it, except as a terrain feature, and the fact that the endless miniature ridge on which it was laid offered potential cover and concealment. It was just part of the landscape. She had never really thought somebody might be able to use the rails to travel any particular distance. Sure, she’d heard the legends of wild tribes of folk who actually traveled the lines on marvelous wags, paying no mind to the world to either side of the narrow right of way, and of course discounted them as legend.

And here was this General with his giant train, armored and fusion-powered, trying to reconquer America—and killing her man and kidnapping her friends to do it.

She shook her head. Her locks writhed sympathetically around her shoulders. Matt and Ben were right about one thing: he was a crazy old nukesucker.

That datum was of limited use: pretty much all barons were crazy, and she also concurred he was no different from most. Just more mobile.

The real problem from her viewpoint was that mobility. She had been correct in her surmise that the wags of the raiders who had hit them—was it only that day?—were returning to a nearby base. But that base wouldn’t stay put. And she couldn’t hope to pace a train on foot.

But the train called MAGOG was stopped now, the deserters said. That was why they had scooped up the hapless travelers, and carefully picked only the ones who looked fit for physical labor. They couldn’t go anywhere until they fixed a break in the line.

She wished she’d been able to string them along longer, pump even more information out of them. Oh, well. If wishes were wings, she’d be circling over the train right this instant, scoping things out like a falcon looking to stoop down and score.

There’d been no way. Young Matt had been just about to lose it and go for the cheese right then and there. And Krysty wouldn’t submit to that, vengeance or no vengeance.

An owl hooted somewhere out in the night, beyond the busted-out front window. The wind had come up again, temporarily scouring out the stale death smell and replacing it, temporarily, with the astringent odors of dust and dry vegetation. She finished her meal without having tasted a scrap of it, and set down her fork.

She would find the train and do what she had to do. If the train was gone, mebbe the marauders would have left some wags behind. If not…

She shrugged. She could come up with possible bad outcomes from now until dawn, from now until she died of old age, for that matter. Not one of them would make her road any shorter or easier to walk.

She sighed, stood, wiped the soles of her boots carefully on an unbloodied area of Ben’s blouse to make sure the soles weren’t wet and slick from blood. She was going to have to drag the corpses outside. They were going to draw scavengers from miles around. She couldn’t lock the diner, with the windows gone and all, but there was no point inviting hungry predators inside.

If the chase went on long, she’d need all the barter goods she could find. Krysty knelt and began to rifle through Ben’s effects for items of value.