Ever Onward (55 page)

Scar, his mind suddenly filled with
long buried fears, was once again the hunted scarecrow; jumping at
shadows; too tired to run and too terrified to stop. George, seeing
Scar pale, warmed to his tale.

“Followed you for half a year and you
never even saw his face. Christ, you never even knew his name! But
he knows yours. Knows your ways, your habits and the scum you run
with. Thanks to me, he also knows your some big shit with Jocco’s
Tax Guards.” George sat back, a smug smile on his weathered
features. “So carve away, One-Eye. My wife’s waiting and I’m long
overdue, but remember this --- if Nate or Des don’t get you, Josh
Williams sure as Hell will!”

Lions looked from Scar to Cozens, then
back to Scar. A vein pulsed in the one-eyed man’s forehead. Sweat
coursed down his mutilated face, his good eye wild and bright.
Suddenly, screaming out of fear as much as from rage, Scar plunged
the long knife into George’s chest. As the old man sagged back in
the chair, a smile spread across his lined face. The features
relaxed, free of pain for he first time in years. Scar, seeing the
smile, yanked out the knife and began hacking at the body. Blood
spattered the table and the men standing slack-jawed about it. As
the heavy blade rose and fell, the pool of blood on the cabin floor
began to spread. Over the meaty sound of the blows, Cozens hissed
at Lions.

“Get Heller! Now!”

Lions, unaware that a damp
stain of another kind was spreading over his crotch, fled out the
door.

Rick, his black hair falling over his
eyes, stuck his head down from the forward gunner’s hatch into the
main compartment. “Trouble up ahead, Josh. Road’s blocked. One of
our trucks is burning.”

From her place in the corner, Faith
paled. Jenny, her eyes flashing, clenched her jaw. Gretta flipped a
switch and the radar screen showed a magnified forward view. The
LAV’s sophisticated sensors picked up not only moving objects, but
heat as well. The screen looked red-hot.

Josh punched the intercom button.
“Bobby! What’s up?”

Bobby Stewart’s voice came back tiny
and high. “”Roadblock! Some of them must have got ahead of us! One
of our truck’s been hit dead on! The other one’s off the
trail!”

Josh frowned. “Get us in close, Bobby.
Rick, Enrico, give us cover.”

Gretta focused the screen. Orange
lines flashed across its surface. A glowing blob indicated the
burning truck. A darker square showed the second truck. Smaller
blips were clustered about it. Further down the trail, single blips
showed, orange lines streaking towards the second truck. As the LAV
picked up speed, the chatter of the forward machinegun and the
lower booming of the 50. caliber filled the compartment. Thicker
lines flashed across the screen, the night-scopes on the LAV’s
heavier guns giving Rick and Enrico an advantage.

Then the LAV was beside the last
remaining truck. Overhead Rick and Enrico kept up their coverfire.
Eddy swung the rear hatch open. Cobb knelt in the opening, his
laser-sighted H & K sweeping both sides of the trail. Sporadic
fire still came in, yet it was wild and not sustained. Cobb fired a
burst as the three survivors turned towards the LAV. Suddenly a
rocket streaked out of the trees, hitting the last truck directly
in the gastank. The vehicle lifted into the air and flopped down,
jarring the LAV and crushing the three men. Des was one of them.
Cobb, his face lit by the ruddy flames, mouthed a silent curse.
Eddy pulled him back inside, beating out the flames from the spilt
gas.

Jessie sprayed them both with a fire
extinguisher, then slammed the hatch shut. Flame, seeing Cobb
wasn’t seriously hurt, turned to Josh. “Let’s get the hell out of
here!”

Josh glanced at his son and nodded.
Jessie hit the intercom button. “Move it, Bobby!”

The LAV raced down the trail, leaving
the dead and the dying to the stillness of the forest.

Chapter
43
:
‘VENGANCE’

Sequoia
National Forest

Sierra
Nevada Mts.

California, May
12
^th
, 1 AC

After picking up the vans left behind
in Sandberg, they fled northward. They drove in shifts, wanting to
put as much distance between themselves and Scar’s troops as
possible. Heart-sick and dispirited, they pressed on for two days.
At Mojave they found the Interstate 395 hopelessly blocked with
rusting cars. In a daring move, they decided to take the Los
Angeles Aqueduct north to where it cut #178. From there they headed
west into the Sequoia National Forest. With the giant trees
towering above them, they came at last to Lake Isabella, where
tired, stiff and road-weary, they finally stopped to bathe in the
soothing waters of the Miracle Hot Springs. While the women soaked
in the pools, Jessie and most of the men went off to see what could
be found in the deserted resort town. Cobb, ever mindful of
security, took up sentry duty on a nearby rise. At the Westfalia,
Josh and Nate poured over a map.

“And you say this Jim Carrol and his
bunch often use this place?”

Nate, his usual twinkling eyes now
cloudy with fatigue, nodded, tracing a weathered finger over the
map. “They were here three months ago when I passed through.
Though, since they blew up that temple a few weeks ago, I guess Jim
figured they were a little too close to Bakersfield.” The light
sparkled for an instant in his blue eyes. “They say the Mighty King
Jocco was real pissed about loosing another one of his precious
temples.”

Josh set the teakettle on the camper’s
stove, then dug out his pipe. “Where do you think Carrol is
now?”

Nate snorted, waving a hand at the
mountains all around them. “Christ, Josh, he could be
anywhere.

Josh leaned closer. “If you were him,
where would you go?”

Nate removed his battered Stetson and
scratched his thinning hair. “Further north. Tule River maybe. If
not there, then King’s Canyon.”

Josh studied the map, finding an area
marked ‘Tule River Indian Reservation’. “Carrol doesn’t sound like
an Indian name?”

“It aint. His wife’s Indian. Least,
she was. Now she’s just dead.”

Josh ignored the note of despair in
the older man’s voice. “What’s this ‘King’s Canyon’
place?”

Nate replaced his hat. His former
cockiness returning. “Just the biggest goddamned piece of
wilderness in the whole state. If Jim took his boys in there, you
could look for a year and never find him.”

The kettle began to boil. Josh made
the tea, then lit his pipe. “We’ll try the reservation
first.”

Nate shook his head. “Suppose you do
link up with Jim Carrol? Then what? You still planning to go after
that one-eyed psycho?”

Josh nodded, pouring the
tea.

Nate sighed. “What if Big Jim doesn’t
see it that way?”

“Then,” Josh smiled, clinking his mug
to Nate’s; “we’ll just have to do it alone.”

“’
We’?”, Nate repeated.
“You that sure of me, youngster?”

Josh smiled, yet there was more than a
hint of ice in his voice. “That ‘one-eyed psycho’ as you called him
has killed more of your friends than he has mine. I figure you’ll
come along, if only to spit in his good eye before I kill
him.”

Nate eyed the younger man for some
time. “You’re a hard headed bastard, I’ll give you
that.”

Josh grinned. “Same to you,
fella.”

Jim Carrol, leader of the Bakersfield
Rebels, was cut from a very different cloth than the late Desmond
Pardoes. Where Des had been quiet and soft-spoken, Jim was brusque
and frequently crude. Where Des had guided men by his gentle
manner, James Carrol led by example and by the force of his
character. Few people said ‘no’ to Big Jim.

In size the two men differed as well.
Des would have blended in easily in a crowd; Jim, due to his size,
bushy beard and booming voice, stood out like a sore thumb. And a
‘sore thumb’ was just what he was to Jocco. Ever since the Army of
the Dark Stranger had began its ruthless takeover of southern
California, Jim Carrol had been resisting the tyrant in every way
he could. A former truck driver and union leader, Big Jim had
organized scattered, disheartened survivors into a well-armed group
that, in his own words, ‘Don’t take no shit from
nobody!’.

Now, peering through a portable
high-powered telescope, Jim Carrol turned to John TwoRivers,
jutting his bearded jaw towards the LAV and the two vans parked
down below.

“Who the Christ has that old fart Nate
dragged up here this time?”

TwoRivers, laconic to the point of
lock-jaw, shrugged poetically. He had known Carrol for over ten
years, ever since his sister had married the boisterous truck
driver. Like most of his family, John TwoRivers had been against
the marriage from the start, thinking his younger sister foolish to
give her heart to a fork-tongued white man. Over the years however,
he had been proven wrong. Not only were the couple sublimely happy,
but Jim, when not on the road, actually lived on the reservation.
So adapt did the lumbering white become at hunting and tracking and
so keen and wise seemed his council, the elders of the tribe
invited him into their inner circle, giving him the name Black
Bear. In time, Jim became not only TwoRivers’ brother-in-law, but
his blood-brother as well. This sharing of blood had ironically
been the reason that they had both survived the China Lake
Plague.

Jim put his eye to the telescope.
“Over a dozen of them down there. And look at the hardware on that
truck! Looks more like a fucking tank!”

TwoRivers nodded, knowing full well
what was coming. Ever since his hot-headed friend had seen
first-hand what Jocco’s people were doing to any and all survivors,
he had become obsessed with stopping Jocco any way he could; armed
resistance; ambushes; quick, deadly raids on Jocco’s outposts. The
burning of the Bakersfield temple had been his most daring move ---
and most costly. Seven dead. Two captured. They’d been running ever
since. The armored truck down below might just give them the edge
they needed.

“Have your group move in slowly, but
keep the rest here. I’m going down and talk with Nate.”

TwoRivers nodded towards the lone
sentry sitting in the shade of a two-hundred year old
Sequoia.

“Ya, I see him. The bugger’s wearing
Kevlar and his piece is fixed with a laser sight.”

As Carrol started down the hill,
TwoRivers’ hand gripped his large friend.

“For Christ sake, John, I told you I
saw him!”

Again the laconic shrug.
Big Jim growled and moved off down the
slope.

At the same time that Jim Carrol was
striding towards the LAV, over a hundred miles to the south Roy
Heller was having a one-sided conversation with his boss. Jocco, it
seemed, was clearly pissed off. He’d been upset to hear the number
of his men that had been wiped out by the rebels, but the part that
had really burned his ass was finding out that most of the rebel
leaders had escaped.

Roy Heller winced and held the mike at
arm’s length. Static and swear words crackled over the airways. “
--- and if you and that --- sucking bastard can’t --- their fucking
heads I’ll --- yours! Is --- that --- ing clear?!”

“Sure, Jocco, sure. We’ll get them. We
know most of their names.”

More swearing poured out of the radio.
Heller winced again and glanced at Scar. The one-eyed man however,
seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts. Suddenly he grabbed the
mike.

“It was him, Jocco!”, the man once
known as Rambo growled. “The same goddamn farmer that followed me
from back east!”

Back in his ivy-league palace, Jocco’s
eyebrow rose. Here was an interesting bit of news. The wheels and
cogs of his sinister mind began working overtime. How could he make
the most out of this bit of news; how best to turn it to his
advantage? Then another thought began to form, rising like a bubble
from deep beneath the surface; teasing, tantalizing, even taunting.
Could it be that he had at last found a truly worthy opponent?
Someone to finally challenge his own abilities?

His shrewd eyes flicked over his
officers as they circled him like a pack of wolves; sleek, nervous,
waiting. Just the way he liked them. His announcement the day
before to send a strike force to the East Coast had caused quite a
stir. Tension now hung in the air like the calm before a storm. Off
to one side Walter Pinkton, wrapped in his stately black robes,
watched like a hungry vulture. Of them all, only Pussbag remained
calm, a loyal dog confidant that his Master could do no wrong.
Jocco smiled, then turned his attention back to the radio. His
voice was deceptively low.

“Captain Scar, are you quite sure this
is the same man you wanted to go back east to kill?”

“Of course I’m fucking
sure!”

“Well then,” Jocco chuckled. “It would
seem the mountain has come to Mohamed.”

“What?”

Jocco’s smile widened. “Never mind,
captain. The point is that it now seems you shall get your chance
at revenge much sooner than you thought.”

Scar sounded both eager as well as
impatient. “Just send me the rest of my Tax Guards, some bloody
armored support and I’ll ---”