Jason Frost - Warlord 04 - Prisonland (7 page)

“I’m serious.”

“I can tell. Really, I’m very sensitive that way. You’d be surprised.”

Eric shook his head, but couldn’t keep himself from smiling. “Which way did Dodd go?”

D.B. put on her dark sunglasses and began walking around the campsite, peering through them at different directions, squinting over them. “My regular glasses were busted,” she explained. “These prescription sunglasses are all I’ve got left. Had them made extra dark because that looked so cool at the beach, you know, with all the guys wearing them that way and all. Only now I’m stuck with the miserable things. Like looking through the bottom of a frying pan.” She stopped, pointed. “He headed that way, but I saw him cut back and go north after a while.”

North, Eric thought. Asgard. Damn.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” D.B. asked, rolling up her sleeping bag.

Eric stood up, his wet pants and shirt plastered coldly to his skin. “We’ll camp here until daylight. Start a fire and dry our clothes. Won’t help us any to catch pneumonia.” He wasn’t worried about himself, having marched through plenty of jungle swamps, but despite her tough talk and hardy fighting, she seemed a bit thin and pale.

“Dry our clothes, huh?” she said skeptically. “You mean take ’em off, right?”

“They dry faster that way, yeah.”

She nodded. “Hey, a deal’s a deal, Professor. No need to go through this bullshit about drying our clothes. Unless it turns you on.” She pulled her T-shirt off and started unfastening her bra.

“Thanks for the offer,” Eric said, walking away, “but I promised that bulldog I’d be true.” He ignored her and started gathering firewood.

She shrugged, pulled her T-shirt back on, and began collecting dried branches. “I ought to warn you,” she said.

“About what? You snore?”

“Worse,” she said. “I sing.”

Eric looked at her. “When you sleep?”

“Oh, no, when I’m awake. It’s just that I do it a lot. Not just sing, but like I’ll even start talking in lyrics. I hope that won’t scare you or anything.”

“I’ll try to keep my wits.”

“Good, ’cause it used to freak my parents out a bit. See, I’m gonna be a singer. A professional. Way I figure, see, sooner or later this place is going to settle down some and people are going to want to hear some music again. We can’t get anything on the radio because of that stupid Long Beach Halo, and we don’t have enough electricity to play records, so that leaves it wide open for singers. I could wander from place to place and sing for people and they’d pay me. Like old time, uh, troopdoors.”

“Troubadours,” Eric corrected.

“Right. Those guys. Only thing is, it’s not easy to remember all those lyrics to all those songs, so I have to keep singing them or reciting them, you know, so I don’t forget. Like in that movie with Julie Christie where they kept burning books, but there was this secret society that memorized their favorite books so they wouldn’t be forgotten.”

“Yeah.
Fahreheit 451
by Ray Bradbury.”

“It was a book too, huh?”

Eric nodded.

“Well, then you know what I mean. So when you hear me singing and reciting lyrics and stuff, don’t freak out, okay?”

“I’ll hide my panic.”

“Thanks.” She looked at him. “Only thing is, what if Linda Rondstadt’s still around here and she wants to do the same thing? And Joni Mitchell and Phoebe Snow and Laura Brannigan?”

“Don’t worry,” Eric said with a grin. “They’re getting too old to travel.”

“Yeah. That’s true.”

Eric started the fire and arranged their clothing on poles. He sat with a blanket from the bedroll wrapped around him, she sat in the sleeping bag, pretending to be casual, but keeping a wary eye on him, certain he’d make a move for her.

“You gonna give me one of those guns,” she asked. “To protect myself.”

“You know how to shoot?”

“Point and pull the trigger, right?”

“Something like that. Only it takes a little practice, and we don’t have the ammunition to spare for that. I’ve got something else in mind for you, a different weapon.”

“Yeah? What?”

“I’ll show you tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow.”

“Daylight then.”

“It’s not a bow, is it? I was always terrible with those things. They made us shoot them in gym class and I swear, I nearly stuck Mrs. Gibson in the butt. It better not be a bow.”

“It’s not a bow.”

“Then what?”

“Get some sleep.”

She sighed angrily and laid her head back.

Eric touched their clothing. Still damp. He stared into the fire, the flames cresting like a stormy surf. He thought of Tim, felt the hot pangs of agony in his heart for his lost son. Now he had someone else’s child to take care of, someone dragged out of childhood into the terrifying world of adulthood at its worst. And what bothered Eric most was knowing that Tim was going through the same metamorphosis himself. Only the man guiding Tim’s change was Fallows, the most ruthless, evil man Eric had ever known. To catch Fallows, Eric had to become like Fallows. Become just as ruthless, just as cruel. Sure, he was taking D.B. with him, but would he have if she hadn’t threatened to withhold Dodd’s whereabouts? He could have found the trail himself eventually, but losing how much time? He told himself this was a temporary condition, this Fallows-like attitude, a disguise he wore only until he freed Tim. But was it? Or was this who he really was? Had the kind and sympathetic professor, Dr. Ravensmith, been the disguise. Had the disaster in California only torn away that false disguise and revealed him as he really was? The same as Fallows.

Eric tossed another piece of wood on the fire.

He heard her voice softly drifting, barely audible above the crackling fire. It was a strong, clear voice, much better than Eric had thought. He looked over and her eyes were closed and he realized with some shock that she was indeed singing in her sleep. He dropped another log on the fire and listened as Eric—the father, teacher, husband—used to listen.

“I came upon a child of God

He was walking upon the road

And I asked him where are you going

And this he told me ...”

Eric recognized the song. “Woodstock.” Annie had been there during the great festival. Eric had been in Vietnam, following Fallows deep behind the DMZ. He’d rather have been at Woodstock. In the same way ’Nam had shaped much of what Eric was, so had that weekend of music and affection shaped Annie. Eric had learned that his experience wasn’t anymore “real” or valuable than hers. In the end, they had both been changed by each other more than any single experience.

But this wasn’t Woodstock. It wasn’t even California. It was a hunk of land with roaming bands of marauders, with encampments and fortresses and groups of people practicing everything from Satanism to cannibalism. Some groups strove for meaning, a cosmic sense of what had happened to them. Others just wanted clean water and food. The rest wanted whatever they could take, no matter what it was. Their religion was in the act of taking. That’s what gave them meaning.

So much for Woodstock.

Eric took the leather tongue he’d cut from Studebaker’s shoes and the rawhide laces from Teasdale’s boots and began fashioning D.B.’s weapon. Tomorrow he’d teach her how to kill with it. As he fashioned the weapon, he hummed along while she sang in her sleep.

“We are Stardust, we are golden

And we’ve got to get ourselves

Back to the garden...”

“Again,” Eric shouted from behind the tree. “Harder.”

“It doesn’t work,” she complained.

“What’s not to work? It’s a slingshot, not a nuclear reactor. Let me see how you’re holding that thing.” He came out from the protection of the tree and walked up to her.

She held out her hand, the slingshot dangling. A plump round stone nestled in the leather shoe tongue. Either end of the tongue was tied to the rawhide shoelaces, one lace knotted and pinched between her first two fingers, the other end slipped over her thumb.

“Looks right,” he said. “Now all you’ve got to do is cock your arm and thrust your hand past your ear, as if you were chucking a spear.”

“I did that. A hundred times.”

“Do it again.”

“Maybe it would help if I twirled it over my head first, like in those Biblical movies. You know, David and Goliath.”

“Try hitting that tree first. Then we’ll talk about twirling.”

“You’re no fun.”

Eric shook his head and walked back to the tree.

“No fun!” she hollered after him, tilting her sunglasses up to see him.

“Throw.”

D.B. cocked her arm back, her tongue lodged in the corner of her mouth for concentration while she aimed at the tree about fifteen yards in front of her. Eric ducked behind the tree that was twenty yards behind her. She rocked slightly on her feet, then fired the rock with a snap of her arm. The stone flew up over the tree and out of sight.

“I think you may have released too early,” Eric said.

“Big deal.”

“Try again.”

She bent down, loaded another stone into the pouch. Only this time she began twirling it over her head, the slingshot swooshing overhead like a helicopter propellor. She giggled as she twirled. “This is more like it, eh R.R.?”

Ever since she woke up that morning she’d started calling Eric R.R., short for Rock ’n Roll Man. Sometimes she’d just call him Rock or the R & R Man, or any number of combinations. She never said why. Eric didn’t ask.

“Don’t twirl!” Eric warned.

She released one end of the slingshot and the stone whizzed through the air like a runaway buzzsaw, finally colliding into the tree behind her, barely missing Eric’s head. Chips of bark sprayed Eric’s face.

“Jeez, you all right?” D.B. ran to Eric.

Eric brushed the splinters of wood from his shirt. “Fine.”

“God, I didn’t mean it. You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m sure.”

She ran her fingers over the deep gouge the stone had cut into the tree trunk. “Wow. Powerful sucker, huh?”

“Let’s try again.”

“Yeah, right.” She walked back to the clearing. “I’m really sorry though, Doc Rock. Really.”

“Maybe we should try something else,” he suggested. “Something easier.”

“A gun?” she said hopefully.

“This.” He reached into his pocket and removed the other weapon he’d made last night. He’d filled three small squares of hide with wet sand, tied the ends tight, and let the sun dry them until they were hard as rocks. Then he’d tied each to a section of shoelace, knotting the three ends together. The three hard sacks dangled, bumping each other.

“What is it?” D.B. frowned. “It looks obscene.”

“Bolas,” Eric explained. “The Chocktaw and Seminole Indians used them a lot. Throw them around somebody’s legs and it brings them right down. It’s also good for hunting waterfowl or small animals.”

She shrugged. “Okay. Let’s try it. Bring on the waterfowl.”

Eric gave her some instruction, showing her the proper method. “Throw it overhand in confined areas, sidearm when you’re in the open. For sidearm, keep the shoulders square and snap the wrist without following through. Got it?”

“Simple.”

An hour later she threw the bolas against the ground and jumped up and down on them. She begged Eric for the shotgun so she could shoot them.