Last Ranger (10 page)

He rushed over to the Harley and saw that it was undisturbed. Anxiously, Stone threw open the cover of the box he’d been keeping
the dog in. It was still there, as frozen as a still life painting. He reached down and felt it. It wasn’t cold. As long as
it wasn’t cold. He pushed the bike forward, using his feet as the uproar hundreds of feet away was reaching Civil War proportions.
At least Raspberry was going into battle well-fucked. Stone couldn’t hope for any more himself.

“W
ELCOME TO AMARILLO, A TOWN OF LAW AND ORDER. TROUBLEMAKERS SHOT,” the sign read as Stone slowed the Harley at the outskirts
of town. It was hardly what it had once been in its glory days, Stone could see as he stopped the bike at the outermost block
of houses and looked around. The bombs that had landed nearby had clearly taken out a lot of the town as well. But they had
rebuilt here. In fact, unlike just about every place Stone had been to thus far since he had left the safety of the bunker,
they seemed to have actually gotten it a little bit together around here. The buildings, though crude, were in one piece,
some even with doors and shutters if not glass over the windows. By modern American standards the town was a veritable
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

He headed down the main strip, dousing his light as he realized the dawn was bright enough to see by now. Already, Amarillo’s
citizens were up and about, rushing off in various directions. Though they didn’t look all that happy about things, faces
tight and grim, they did seem much more industrious than those Stone was used to encountering. People these days were so lethargic
and ready to crawl into the grave that they were already halfway there. These were a better dressed bunch than the average
mountain man. Not that they were wearing Pierre Cardins, but the simple work clothes and boots they had on seemed whole, even
fairly new. Something was going on.

The only thing he didn’t like about the place was the smell. It permeated everything. A thick chemical smell like there was
a plastic factory nearby. Stone drove slowly down the main street as stores opened on every side of him. He pulled the bike
up to what looked like a fairly well-stocked used hardware store, parked, and headed in. The storekeeper, a portly fellow
with a thick top of hair like a dirty mop looked over at Stone with not the most welcoming expression.

“What you want mister? Ain’t got time to fart around right now. The night shift boys will be coming in from the oil fields.
This is my biggest part of the day. Now what you want—or be out of here.” The man bustled around trying to look important
as he fiddled with his junk, which lined various buckling shelves around his fifteen by fifteen foot store. Stone had seen
backwoods stores that had only two things. This guy must have had a hundred—knives, hammers, axes, saws, machetes, even a
few guns. A lot of the stuff looked in decent shape.

Stone knew that money talked a thousand times louder than the greatest orator. “How much for that knife there?” he asked,
looking over at one on a shelf with twenty different blades. One of them was a very thin, nicely constructed switchblade.
Stone had always wanted one. He pulled out a silver dollar from his inner pocket, having found that the shine of the coins
seemed to open doors. It worked again. The storekeeper stopped in his tracks, his hands putting down some cast-iron pots he
was moving, and he stared at the coin as if it was his salvation.

“Well, why didn’t you say so,” the fellow said with a big salesman’s smile as he wiped his hands on his dirty jacket and held
out one toward Stone. “Thought you were just another of the riffraff who float through town. Like to look—but not buy. Like
to take—and not pay.” He looked down at the silver piece as if pretending not to but trying to check if it was real silver.
“Men around these parts been known to take down the underside of pans or even old car doors and hammer them into silver dollars.
Not that most of them look much like the real thing.” This one did.

“Now jes’ what knife was you talking about?” the man asked, as he stepped back from Stone and smiled beatifi-cally.

“This one here,” Stone said, lifting it from the pile.

“Oh that one, that’s one of the best in the place,” the man said, rubbing his hands a little too nervously together. “At least—at
least that dollar you’re holding in your hand.” He looked up at Stone to see what the reaction was to the outrageous request.
For a silver dollar in most parts could buy a man a whole cow or a horse.

“Ridiculous,” Stone smirked. “It’s not worth a tenth of that.” He looked around some more as the storeman coughed and mumbled
something about value going up as things were used up, how there would be no more of anything soon. How everything was a collector’s
item. Everything was the last of its kind. Stone tuned the guy out with his ears. He knew the noble truths as well as this
bastard. He looked around and spotted an odd pen with a leather thong attached around it.

“What’s that?” he asked, lifting the thing.

“Oh careful, careful,” the storekeep said, taking it gingerly out of his customer’s hands, smiling all the time. There was
something about the scent of money that made store types’ lips pull back to their ears, and their teeth loom and glisten like
piranha. “This is a firearm, believe it or not. A .22-caliber single shot gun. See, you just hold the base of the thing here,
and twist the little lever on the bottom. Fires a shell straight ahead. A gimmick thing. Not a real weapon but—”

Stone reached out and held it in the same hand as the stiletto. His eyes were caught by some medical looking bottles on the
end of one shelf. Stone walked over with the proprietor walking closely behind, his eyes growing bigger by the moment as he
saw his bank account swelling like a radioactive sore. He lifted one of the bottles. “Tetracycline, Megadose,” it read on
the side.

“Stuff work?” Stone asked.

“Just came in,” the storeman said. “Two days ago. Some old prospector brought them in from a box he found in some ruins. Can’t
promise you they’re good,” the man said. “Don’t want you to take ‘em and then start vomiting up your guts and come looking
for me to snuff out. I run an honest shop here, just want you to know that.”

“Well, I appreciate the warnings,” Stone said, smiling warmly at the guy for the first time. “There aren’t too many honest
around, that’s for damned sure. How much for the whole lot—knife, little gun here—hope you got some shells that fit—and the
bottle. Just one will be enough.”

“Well now, that’s worth more than one of them there silver dollars, mister,” the man said, trying to get a hint out of Stone
what he had in mind.

“How about we don’t waste time,” Stone replied, reaching back into his jacket and extracting two more of the shining coins.
“Let’s just say three of these and call it even.” He threw them down onto the shelf and they rolled around the other bottle.

“Yes, yes, that will be just fine,” the keep said, reaching out and grabbing the things for fear they would try to get away.
“And I do got four more slugs what fits that little gun. I’ll throw them in for free,” the keeper said, holding the silver
in his hand and looking down at it with a most happy expression on his usually dour face.

“And one more thing,” Stone said as he looked closely at the mini-gun. “I want a little information.”

“As long as it ain’t about what I do with my wife after the lights goes out,” the man chuckled, “I’ll do my best.”

“What’s that smell? It seems to get stronger by the minute,” Stone asked, slipping his newly purchased things into various
pockets. He put the single-shot pen gun around his neck with its leather thong.

“’Course it’s stronger by the minute,” the man said. “That’s the morning wind shifting this way. We’re getting the stench
from the oil fields and refineries. It’s like this almost like clockwork everyday. The winds come in and they back all the
smoke into town.”

“What the hell do you mean—oil fields?” Stone asked, hardly able to believe that large-scale industrial oil drilling was going
on. No one had that kind of technical expertise anymore.

“Where you from, mister?” the keep asked, turning walking across the room to a vault hidden behind a baseboard. He opened
it and quickly stashed the dollars inside. “The oil fields is what powers this whole part of the country. What makes this
town have money for people to buy stuff, what makes the smell. It’s the oil, mister. The oil.”

“I can’t believe there are oil wells—it’s just not possible anymore,” Stone said skeptically.

“Oh, they ain’t got the old kind of big rigs out there— you’re sure as hell right about that mister,” the keep said, closing
the safe, turning the combination lock and rising up again. “It was all fucked up by the bombs. But the oil—it still comes
out. Oh, you have to see it mister, have to see it. It’s hard, dangerous work. That’s why they pays ‘em good money to work
there. They need men with brains, not your regular assholes wandering around who don’t know which end of ‘em the shit comes
out of. They don’t live long out in the fields but they makes good money while they do. That’s why there’s even a town here.
‘Cause of that stinking oil.”

“Who’s they?” Stone asked as he heard a rumbling outside and a bunch of vehicles coming down the street still several blocks
off. “Who runs the whole damned thing?”

“The freaks pal, the freaks. Damn, you must have been living up on Mars for the last ten years or something. They control
everything around here. Run the oil operations, control this town, ship out refined gasoline in every direction. They’re into
so much I couldn’t even begin to tell you. Trucks coming in and out from all over the country to their operation.” Everything
the guy said just brought up more questions in Stone’s addled brain.

“Who are these freaks? Where are they?” Stone asked, knowing he was starting to get close.

“Oh, I don’t know what they all look like, seen only two of ‘em myself. Wish I hadn’t. They’re just—freaks. Twisted faces,
arms missing—whatever. Heard tales of how some of the others look that’d make your blood run cold. Anyway they runs the whole
damn show. You cross them, you’re as good as dead. I just stays invisible in my little shop here, pays my one-third tax to
their strong-arm boys and keeps me mouth shut. Don’t tell anyone you spent that money here, will you mister? They’d tax it
if they learned.”

“I don’t talk about my money matters,” Stone said dryly. “Where is all this oil anyway?”

“About ten miles south of town,” the storeman answered. “The fields anyway. No one knows just where the freaks are located.
They got all kinds of entrances hidden around the area east of the fields, maybe another ten or fifteen miles. All of them
guarded by all kinds of damn electronic stuff. Take my word for it if you don’t want to mess.”

“I’ll believe anything you told me at this point,” Stone said with a quick grin as he heard the cars getting closer, huffing
and knocking like they were on their last wheels. He headed toward the door. “I see you got your morning business coming in.
So you say just head south?” Stone said as the storekeep kept grinning, glad to start out the day on such a prodigious intake.

“Go to the end of town, hit the main road, just keep on it. Can’t miss it. There’ll be trucks traveling down the thing all
the time. I told you the operation never stops. They keep it going twenty-four hours a day.”

“Thanks for the goods—and the information,” Stone said. “And you don’t tell anyone that / was here asking questions—and I
forget the silver.”

“You got it,” the keep said, walking Stone to the door and opening it wide for entry of any oil men. Stone eyed the six old
cars being driven up the street, which sent up thick black funnels of sooty smoke behind them. Clearly the grade of petroleum
being used was of a low order. The cars looked as beat-up as they came, but the men looked even worse. They were covered in
oil, black coatings of what looked almost like tar, from head to foot. Not that they seemed to mind it all that much as they
whooped it up and hung out the glassless windows of their cars. They barely paid Stone a glance, nor the store he stood in
front of, but headed down another fifty yards or so to the bar. They piled out of the cars, not even bothering to close the
doors, and headed on in.

“Damn bar,” the storekeep muttered as Stone mounted his bike and started up. “These oilmen always just want to get soused,
instead of buying the things they need—like what I got for ‘em in here. Ah I don’t give a shit. Today you made my fucking
day, mister. Good luck. Don’t mess with them freaks now, whatever your business be, or you won’t be buying things this way
again. That’s a promise.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Stone said and started the big Harley down the main street. It took only a few minutes to get through
the town as it was only about twenty blocks long. Still, that was a veritable metropolis in this day and age. He followed
the road out of town, and just as the keep had said, there were trucks rumbling by every few minutes. It was a regular superhighway,
with the huge oil trucks filled to the rim as black liquid oozed out of the not-quite-closed containers and pushed even the
thick Mack tires of the trucks down a foot or so.