Last Ranger (4 page)

He hit the ground on his uninjured leg and pulled the box a safe distance away from the tree. He undid the dog’s bindings
within the box just in case he didn’t come out alive from what he was about to attempt. And if he did get crushed by the huge
Harley he didn’t want to leave the dog tied up, unable to defend itself, not that it was moving too swiftly. Just in case
something came looking for food.

“I’m such a fucking optimist, that’s what I like about myself,” Stone commented dryly as he stood up from the dog, motionless
as a stuffed animal, lips pulled back to reveal the long sharp canines, which protruded down as if wishing they could sink
into something thick and meaty.

“Take it easy pal, in case we don’t get to talk again,” Stone said and then walked back to the tree like he was walking down
the final corridor to the execution chamber. He didn’t have a good feeling about it at all. The dog was one thing but the
bike—it weighed—he couldn’t even imagine. Perhaps a ton with all the excess gear he had stashed around the thing. Stone realized
this was going to be a longer operation than he had envisioned. He’d have to strip the entire bike if he had the slightest
chance of getting it down from its lofty heights. Cursing under his breath at the incredible hassle that lay ahead, Stone
took out his pliers and wrenches and undid every single box and weapon on the bike, including the Luchaire 89mm missile system
that he had put on only a week before. He hooked them up to the pulley, then lowered each one slowly down. He then lowered
himself, moved the excess baggage away from the tree so the next load could be sent down, and climbed back up again.

It took five hours to get the bike completely stripped but at last Stone was looking at the last and the only trip that mattered—the
Harley itself. He clipped the six hooks in what seemed like a symmetrical arrangement around the bike. It was hard to tell
just how the weight should be distributed, but he did his best. His main concern was not so much whether the cables held—according
to his calculations they should, but whether he could handle the weight of it, even with the six-to-one weight ratio of the
pulley system, and even with a rope wrapped around a branch that he could release bit by careful bit.

Looking up and seeing the slight color of the late afternoon darkening behind far forests that had survived the tornado’s
onslaught, Stone knew he had to move fast. In the darkness it would be a joke.

He set his legs as firmly as he could between two branches so he was wedged in and pulled up with everything he had. Slowly,
inch by agonizing inch, he got the Harley to lift up from its resting place between the two branches. He knew instantly that
he’d taken on much more than he’d bargained for. Every fraction of an inch was almost impossible. There was no way in hell
he’d make it all the way to the ground. When the bike had lifted above the branch edge so it appeared to have clearance, Stone
let out a yell and turned his body to the side so the entire pulley swiveled above him. The branch it was attached to wasn’t
about to give, it was three feet thick at the base where the cable was attached. But the cable itself was stretching and making
sharp sounds like something under incredibly high tension, giving off high harmonic overtones.

Stone started to lower the bike, feeling his hands turning red and ripped from holding the rope. It started its descent inch
by inch dangling around in the air as it twisted back and forth. And it was the turning motion that caused the problem, for
suddenly as it reached its outer swing one of the clips ripped free, unable to take the extra weight. As the bike swung back
to the other side, another clip went. And that was that. Suddenly they all ripped free and the weight on the rope Stone was
holding went to zero like a fishing line that a fish had just bid adieu. He watched with horror as the bike dropped straight
down.

I
T was too late to see if the Harley was still functional, and Stone was too tired to try. He set up the machine gun from the
bike on the dirt, built a small fire a few yards from it and sat there on his bedding morosely eating a can of Spam, with
the dog lying in the metal box alongside him. He sat for hours staring into the flame-licked darkness and swore he kept seeing
things, shadows of things darting everywhere. And sounds. But at last he fell asleep in spite of himself, both hands fastened
tightly around the machine gun like he was holding a baby.

When Stone awoke it was with a start. Something was in front of him—and it had teeth. And when his hands pulled back instinctively
on the twin triggers the sound of the machine gun letting loose with a twenty-shot volley made his eyes open wide and fast.
It took him a few seconds to even realize it was he who had fired the burst and he looked around frantically searching for
the enemy upon him. But all he could see was the backside of a groundhog which he had scared the living shit out of and was
hightailing its way back under some fallen trees, its fur bristling everywhere.

Once he realized just what had transpired Stone’s mouth grew into a smile, then a laugh, then a whole gale of laughter that
burst from him in an avalanche of pain and anxiety suddenly released. So he was reduced to taking out groundhogs with a .50-caliber.
He pulled his hands away from the smoking gun and stood up. He hadn’t slept well at all and already was getting a throbbing
headache from the noise. He dropped down on one knee and stirred around the embers of the fire. The thing was still going;
with a few branches thrown on, the flames quickly sprang back up to life. Stone took out a small pot from one of the boxes
he had taken off the Harley’s back mounted rack and walked about fifty yards before he came to a small stream that trickled
slowly by. The water smelled good. He leaned down and took a lick from a palmful. Tasted good too.

Stone filled the pot and his canteen and headed back. He threw some instant coffee into the scratched-up pot and placed it
down on top of the now crackling fire. The brew was bitter, for the instant coffee was years old, from the bunker’s supply
stores. But still it was coffee and had that jolt he needed to click his body and brain into gear. He started a second cup
and was at last able to look over at the bike, completely disassembled with its component parts lying around it.

The first thing to check out was the Harley itself. It seemed impossible that it hadn’t suffered major damage in the fall.
Stone sat on top of the thing and rocked it around beneath his legs. The bike seemed solid enough. The wheels looked aligned,
the bars, everything. It appeared to have been able to withstand the shock. He tried the ignition and the motorcycle started
up with a lion roar and then settled quickly back into a growl. He kept it in neutral and gave it some gas and the motor seemed
to be all right. He got off, double-checked both tires making sure they were tightened, and then went on with the job of loading
everything back again.

Once he actually got going Stone found it wasn’t that bad. Since he had already put the thing together and taken it apart
now he didn’t waste a lot of time figuring out angles and clasps. Lost in concentration as he reattached every part, he didn’t
even realize he was done until he looked around and there was nothing more to reattach. Stone stood up and looked at his creation.
Not bad. The Luchaire 89mm firing tube looked a trifle lopsided as it sat attached to the left side of the bike. He readjusted
it.

“Not bad, not fucking bad, heh dog?,” Stone commented, glancing over at the pit bull which was lying in its little mobile
casket. Stone was so used to making snide comments to the animal, he had forgotten it was not in a hearing state of mind.
He clamped his lips shut like he wasn’t going to say another word this year and mounted the dirt-covered Harley. He started
her up and headed slowly ahead, keeping both feet flat on the ground, as he wouldn’t have been surprised to find the thing
cracking right in half after the fall it had taken. But other than a few new creaks and groans here and there as the metal
moved around a little readjusting itself, everything seemed like it was going to stay in one place.

Within minutes he was moving at about forty, and for the first time that morning he relaxed a little, realizing as he did
just how uptight he must have been. His stomach let loose with a whole rush of gurgles as the muscles within unclenched. Now,
all he needed was to find the nearest McDonald’s, or the post-nuke version of such anyway, which meant a rabbit on the hoof.

Stone realized that other than the Spam and a few pieces of candy bar he had choked down with coffee, he had hardly eaten
a thing for days now. It was hard to grab a bite sometimes when the whole world was trying to kill you.

Either he hadn’t noticed them before, because he had been so busy in his repair work, or else there hadn’t been as many where
he and the dog had been spat out by the tornado—but suddenly Stone noticed a shitload of birds. He saw vultures as he focused
in on a few of them munching on carcasses around the open prairie he was cruising down. With all the carrion around—and he
could smell it in the air now, the heavy scent of rotting meat—the decay eaters were having a field day.

Vultures were everywhere. The bent ugly heads were ripping into their meals in loud snapping groups on every side. Stone raised
his eyes up and nearly gasped, for the sky above, relatively clear after the squalls of yesterday, was brimming with the creatures.
Stone had never seen so many of the wide-winged birds. They seemed to fill the whole sky, flying in an immense circle that
must have stretched out for a mile. There had to be thousands of them all flapping wildly as they went faster and faster and
dropped lower. Stone had seen vultures eating before. But they were always in much smaller groups, perhaps a few dozen around
a dead buffalo. This was of a vastly different order.

It wasn’t just the numbers that started getting him a little nervous as he rode through the destruction and the countless
feasts of their huge groups—it was their attitude. They were getting frenzied, wild, making screaming sounds constantly and
flapping their wings. In some carrion gluts they were ripping into each other, not out of protecting their food, it appeared,
but out of sheer madness as they began plucking at each other with sharp hooked beaks that could tear through the thickest
of hides. Their frenzy reminded Stone of films he’d seen on the feeding frenzies of sharks when they gathered in large groups
around a kill, a whale or something big. They would start hitting at anything, each other, even themselves.

But he didn’t think birds were supposed to act that way. Yet these were. Swooping in great herds of dark feathers, the vultures
built larger and larger circles in the sky as other carrion eaters gathered from hundreds of miles around to take part in
the smorgasbord of decay. He could see the whole situation was going to explode. There were just too many bumping into each
other until the very heavens seemed filled with nothing but feathers. Stone knew something was going to go. It was like a
supersaturated chemical—with the addition of just another drop, it goes over the edge and crystallizes. Only when these birds
went it wasn’t into crystals but virulent madness.

Suddenly they were diving down like kamikaze bombers slamming into others of their species and any other unfortunate living
things below. Beaks slashed and snapped at everything, even trees and rocks. They bit into one another in the air and on the
ground with vicious snaps. This was no fun and games, but ten thousand six-foot-wingspanned birds who had all gone bananas.
And Stone just happened to be in the same madhouse.

Suddenly there was a loud snapping of wings just above him and he tipped his head up to see about a dozen of the gangly creatures
coming down like misfired missiles. Stone swerved the Harley to the right at the same instant he ripped out his 9mm Beretta.
He sprayed the thing above and around him in the air and saw feathers and blood go flying in all directions as a few of them
plummeted to the ground behind him. But it was as if they knew no fear, they were beyond all that. It was a frenzy of pure
numbers, of losing what little mind a vulture has and letting it all go in a kind of bacchanalian feast to the gods, a blood-drunken
orgy from which many would not emerge alive.

Stone suddenly let the bike rip forward, wanting to just get the hell out of there and fast. He accelerated to fifty miles
per hour, not wanting to go much faster as the long stretch of prairie was marred with holes and ridges. And if he went down
in the midst of all this…. Stone didn’t let his mind dwell on it.

A dead wild bull that had been decapitated by the tornado was lying about forty yards off to the right, and a virtual blanket
of feathers covered the thing, ripping it like there was no tomorrow. Usually vultures were attracted to the motionless, the
still, the dead. But their excitement had altered their behavior patterns—and it was Stone’s bike that suddenly caught their
attention as he tore past.