Prodigal's Return (2 page)
Instantly, the gesture put Dean on the alert. It seemed casual, but effectively hid the newcomer’s gun hand from observation. These folks like tricks too damn much to be anything but coldhearts, he reasoned, and swiftly changed his tactics.
“Looking for you,” he lied, trying to sound like his father. “The name’s Cawdor, Dean Cawdor, and I want to join the gang.” That statement caused an expected ripple of smirks and snorts.
“Looking for us, way out here, on foot?” the leader asked skeptically, shifting slightly in the saddle.
Sheathing the knife and blaster, Dean shrugged. “Lost my woman, both horses and my best dog, trying to cross that rad-blasted river.” Then he patted the checkered grip of the Browning. “Still got my blaster, though. Held on to that like a cross-legged virgin in a gaudy house.”
Now the group of coldhearts guffawed, and Dean felt some of the tension ease. It was just like his father had always said—make the other fellow laugh and you’re halfway done making a deal.
“Mighty bad luck,” the leader drawled, removing his arm from the pommel.
“Sounds more like mutie shit to me,” snarled a fat man with a cloth tied around his head in lieu of a hat. He was wearing one ragged shirt over another, clearly too stupe, or lazy, to sew on a patch, and around his throat was a necklace of dried ears, some from norms, a few from muties.
“Wasn’t talking to you, tubby,” Dean said, not even glancing at the corpulent rider. “So, you them, or not?”
“Them?” the skinny man asked, feigning innocence.
“The coldhearts that have been hounding Donner,” Dean continued, struggling to recall the name of the ville they had just mentioned. “I’ve had enough of the baron, and wanna join.” Then he tilted his head as if challenging them to give the correct answer.
Studying the distant foothills and weedy fields as if expecting an ambush of ville sec men, the skinny man said nothing for a few moments. “Yeah, we’re them,” he said at last. “I’m Wu-Chen Camarillo, and this is my gang, the Stone Angels.”
“The Stone Angels,” Dean repeated without inflection
“Nuking A! And we rule this fragging valley from Glass Lake to the Iron Mountains!” a bucktoothed man added fiercely, a scarred hand resting on a throwing hatchet sheathed on his thigh.
An old friend named Jak had taught Dean about that
particular weapon, and he now marked the short man as one of the most dangerous in the group. It took a long time to learn how to control the unwieldy weapon, which meant the coldheart had a lot of patience and determination. That was a powerful combination.
As the rest of the coldhearts muttered their agreement to the declaration, Dean nodded along, as if it were a well-known fact, even though he had never heard of the gang before. One blaster against fifty made for triple-bad odds. His only real weapon here was intelligence. He hoped that would be enough to survive.
“Yeah, so I heard,” he said. “Wasn’t interested in joining up with a bunch of gleebs.”
That caused more smiles from the riders. Clearly, they had nothing to fear from one youth, and if he did want to join, well, they always needed fresh boots in the saddles.
“What was your name again?” Camarillo asked, a touch of humor slightly warming the demand.
“Look at them clothes and hair!” The fat man chortled. “Mud Puppy, his name be Mud Puppy!”
“Shut up, Bert,” Camarillo snapped. The youth was barely old enough to grow fuzz on his face, yet he stood facing the Angels without the slightest sign of fear. If nothing else, the kid had iron, and that was always in short supply in this line of work. Too many gleebs thought a blaster made a person brave. But a blaster was just a tool, nothing more. Just a tool, like a hammer or a shovel. It was a cold heart that made you truly dangerous.
“Mud Puppy. Funny, that’s exactly what your mother called me,” Dean said in a smooth, even tone, “just be
fore I parked my tool in her drawer and we fucked in the gaudy house that employed her.”
The crowd of coldhearts laughed uproariously at the joke, and even Camarillo smirked, but Bert looked as if he were going to explode.
Reaching into a pocket, Dean withdrew an empty brass shell. “Here. I forgot to pay for her services,” he said, flipping the valueless shell toward the red-faced man. “Keep the change.”
“Mutie-loving freak! Gonna chill you twice for that!” Bert roared, sliding out of the saddle while drawing a monstrous remade Colt .45 revolver.
As the man landed on the ground, Dean drew and fired the Browning in a single motion. Startled, Bert flinched as his handblaster went spinning away from his grip to land in the weeds. Immediately, the cicadas went silent, and there was only the soft murmur of the river mixing with the gentle snorting of the impatient horses.
“If you didn’t have that blaster…” Bert muttered, rubbing his stinging hand.
“I would still have taken you,” Dean said, trying to sound bored. “Mr. Camarillo, you want this feeb alive, or not?”
“That’s your choice,” Camarillo replied, swinging around the AK-47 and working the arming bolt. “But if you want to ride with us, then you gotta chill him without blaster or blade.”
Weighing his options, Dean said nothing as the rest of the coldhearts pulled out blasters. He had upped the odds, and now the numbers were falling. Handle this wrong, and the next thing he saw would be an eternity
of dirt. Warily, he gauged the adult as twice his size, and easily a hundred pounds heavier. Some of it was obviously fat, but there had to be a lot of muscle, too, as the bastard still moved with the speed of a jungle cat. Big and fast, he’d be a formidable opponent even to somebody with a blaster. Dean wondered if this was this some sort of a test to join the gang, just to see if he had any iron in his guts. Unfortunately, there was only one way to be sure.
“Fair enough,” he said, clicking on the safety and tossing aside the blaster, then the bowie knife.
The weapons were still in the air when Bert charged, his huge arms spread wide to prevent the youth from escaping.
For the moment, Dean did nothing.
“Don’t get too much blood on his boots!” a laughing coldheart added, cradling a lever-action Winchester. “They look just my size!”
“I want that knife,” the ugly coldheart added, sucking on his oversize teeth.
Roaring in victory, Bert closed on Dean, but at the very last second, the young Cawdor ducked out of the way and savagely drove the toe of his combat boot into the groin of his attacker. Gasping in pain, Bert staggered, then unexpectedly pulled a machete from behind his back.
Startled, Dean threw himself backward. Bert almost gutted him anyway, the blade slicing open his damp shirt and leaving a bloody gouge across his chest. Ignoring the minor pain, Dean tried to rush the man and grab his arm, but Bert fended him off, delivering two more slashes across the youth’s chest.
“Thought this…was supposed…to be a fair fight,” Dean panted, frantically dodging to the left, then the right.
“That wouldn’t tell me anything about how good you are, now, would it?” Camarillo replied, tracking the combatants with the fluted barrel of the deadly Kalasnikov.
Constantly shifting about, Bert was swinging the machete as if swatting flies, wild and unpredictable. Ducking out of the way again, Dean bent low, then grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it at the fat man, but deliberately missing. As Bert easily dodged the clumsy attempt to blind him, Dean dived into the cloud and came out with the bowie knife. Spinning, he thrust the point of the blade forward, and Bert backed off with blood on his dirty cheek.
“That be cheating!” the bucktoothed man cried, hefting the throwing hatchet.
“Cheating would have been going for the blaster,” Camarillo said, resting the AK-47 rapidfire on his shoulder. “Blade against blade is a fair fight.” Then he added, “If that hatchet grows wings, Hannigan, you’ll be the first one chilled.”
Scowling darkly, Hannigan gave no reply, but his hate-filled gaze never left the frantically moving youth.
Thrusting and lounging, Dean tried to slash the fat man in the belly, or the armpit. Steel slammed into steel with an audible clang as the big knife met the predark machete. The two combatants stood locked together for a long moment, then Bert spit into Dean’s face, and the youth brutally swung the knife downward, the razor-sharp blade slicing off several pudgy fingers. Shrieking
in pain, Bert dropped the machete and backed away, trying to staunch the geyser of life with his other hand.
Flipping the bowie into the air, Dean caught the blood-streaked blade and threw it. Turning over once, the knife slammed into the fat man’s chest, going all the way into the guard. Staggering, Bert gasped and wheezed, crimson spurting from his ruined hand.
“End it,” a short coldheart commanded, working the lever action of his Winchester longblaster.
Saying nothing, Dean looked at Camarillo.
“Do as you’re told, boot,” the chief coldheart ordered.
Dean grunted at the term. Boot as in boot camp. Military slang for a new recruit. He was in. Retrieving the Browning, he inspected the blaster to make sure it was undamaged. Then, from fifty feet, he aimed and fired, putting a single round into the left temple of the floundering Bert. The fat man jerked from the impact of the 9 mm Parabellum round, then dropped onto the churned grass, trembled and went still forever.
Dean was shaken at the coldblooded chilling, but it was survival, plain and simple.
Holstering his blaster, he then retrieved the bowie knife and wisely cleaned it on the grass, instead of using the shirt of the corpse as he usually would have done. A wise man only insulted people he planned on chilling, and he needed the cooperation of these coldhearts for a little while to help him stay alive.
At least until I can get someplace where I can try to build a life, Dean added privately.
“Bert was a friend of mine,” Hannigan said through gritted teeth, his fist clenched on the shaft of the hatchet.
“Get better friends,” Dean growled, sheathing the
bowie. “Anybody want his stuff, help yourself, blaster included. The clothes are too big, and I have a better knife.”
Greedily, a couple of the coldhearts glanced at their chief. Camarillo gave a nod, and they slid off their horses to start eagerly looting the warm corpse.
Going over to the riderless horse, Dean briefly inspected the mare and found her to be in decent shape, just desperately in need of a good curry.
“Easy, girl, easy,” he whispered, patting the muscular neck of the animal to try to calm her. Horses didn’t like the smell of blood, and he needed the goodwill of the animal even more than he did that of the coldhearts. Still recovering from his ordeal in the river, he was exhausted from the short fight, and way too close to falling over. But he had to appear strong in front of the others. Any weakness now would result in an endless series of challenges, and eventually he would tangle with somebody faster. Or get a knife in the back, which he considered to be far more likely.
Finished with their grisly task, the two coldhearts returned to their horses carrying various personal items from the dead Bert, including the horrid necklace of dried ears.
Dean noticed that a lot of the coldhearts wore similar decorations—ears, tongues, fingers.
“I owe ya one, boot,” a scraggly coldheart gushed, tucking away his new possessions. “The name’s Natters.”
“No prob,” Dean replied casually.
The other coldheart said nothing, then gave an open-mouthed grin showing that he lacked a tongue.
“He’s McGinty,” Natters said with a jerk of his thumb. “Lost his tongue in a bar fight. Nobody seems to know why or how.”
“And he ain’t talking,” Dean finished, climbing into the saddle. He tried not to flinch, feeling the residual warmth of the prior owner. Bert may have been a fat bastard, but he had come closer to acing him than anybody else before.
“What are your orders, sir?” Dean asked, checking the longblaster tucked into the gun boot. Incredibly, it proved to be a remade BAR, Browning Automatic Rifle. Suspiciously, he dropped the magazine. As expected, it was empty. No wonder Bert had used a machete.
“Stay close, boot, and follow us back to camp,” Camarillo stated, shaking the reins of his horse. “You fall behind, and I’ll personally put lead in your head!”
“Then I get what’s left.” Hannigan chuckled, patting the edged weapon at his hip.
“Bring a blaster, gleeb,” Dean growled in return, kicking his horse into a gallop. “Better yet, bring a dozen to make it a fair fight.”
Narrowing his eyes, Hannigan frowned at that, then slowly smiled, displaying his oversize, crooked teeth. “Deal,” he whispered, the word barely discernable over the pounding hooves.
As the Stone Angels moved across the wide grassy field, Dean settled into the steady rocking motion of a seasoned rider, and began to wonder exactly how long he might have to stay before he would finally be able to slip away from these people.
Scrambling over the bank of a dried river, six people hastily pelted across the uneven ground, their hands frantically reloading blasters. Their clothing was torn and dirty, their faces gaunt from hunger and exhaustion.
Suddenly, a weird sound came from the riverbed, the noise making them spin fast just as a glowing green mist appeared along the bank.
“Fireblast, here it comes again!” Ryan Cawdor shouted, triggering his longblaster a fast three times.
Instantly, his companions cut loose with a thundering cacophony of weapons. Gray and black smoke billowed from the blazing gun barrels, spent brass flying in every direction.
Rising over the earthen bank, the green mist flowed along the loose sand and rocks, leaving behind a glassy streak of fused ground. Deep within the incandescent fog, something unseen gave voice once more to a high-pitched howl full of rage, pain and unbridled hate.
“What in nuking hell does it take to stop that thing?” J. B. Dix snarled, yanking out the spent magazine from his Uzi machine pistol and shoving in a fresh one. Jerking the arming bolt, he sent another long burst of 9 mm rounds into the cloud. Most of the steel-jacketed lead simply flew out the other side to pepper a low sand dune.
“Hard stop what not see,” Jak Lauren muttered, sending off three booming rounds from a massive .357 Magnum Colt Python.
“Not sure we want to see it!” Dr. Mildred Weyth countered, squeezing off a single .38 round from her Czech ZKR target pistol.
“Stinking howler,” Jak growled, firing again.
Instantly, the howler inside the billowing cloud doubled the volume of its inhuman keen, and the companions painfully winced at the sonic assault.
“Don’t know if that hurt it or just made the mutie angry,” Krysty Worth said, dumping out the spent brass from her hammerless Smith & Wesson Model 640 revolver. Pocketing the casings, she dug into another pocket of her bearskin coat and started thumbing in fresh cartridges.
As the creature inside the green cloud flowed by a stand of cacti, the plants began to visibly wither, and by the time the howler was past, they were only shriveled lumps on the fused sand, thin tendrils of smoke rising from the scorched remains.
“Egad, the accursed abomination is like some Dantean monster from the very depths of inferno!” Dr. Theophilus Algernon Tanner announced in a stentorian bass. Thumbing back the hammer on a massive single-action LeMat revolver, the tall man aimed carefully, then stroked the trigger. The huge Civil War-era weapon boomed louder than field artillery, black smoke vomited from the pitted muzzle and a lance of flame extended for almost a foot.
As the colossal miniball hummed through the air to vanish into the cloud, the howler actually moaned even
louder, but whether in pain from a hit or pleasure from a miss, there was no way of knowing.
“Shoot it again, Doc,” Ryan commanded, shoving another magazine of 7.62 mm rounds into the open breech of the Steyr SSG longblaster. “At the very least, your handblaster slows the bastard thing down!”
“That was my last load, my dear Ryan,” Doc replied, his hands already moving in the complex procedure of purging the chambers of the revolver clean as a prelude to packing in fresh black powder, lead and wadding.
“Then we better start using boot leather!” J.B. shouted, grabbing his fedora and turning tail to start a hasty retreat.
After reloading their own weapons, the companions followed suit, running a hundred feet, only to turn and fire, then run again. For the past day they had been fleeing from the unstoppable mutie. They were low on brass and close to exhaustion, but with their wag destroyed there was no other choice. Run, fight, and run again, to survive for a couple more minutes, another precious few yards. But they could do that for only so long. Soon the companions would fall, and be aced. It was just a matter of time.
Ever since the howler had erupted from a predark iron mine to set their wag on fire with a single touch, the companions had been fighting a losing battle, trying desperately to find some way to trap the thing, block its advance or divert it by sending it after slower prey. There should have been a lot of stickies in this region of the Deathlands, and the humanoid muties were oddly attracted to explosions, especially the sounds of blasters firing. The fight should have summoned an army of
the things. But so far there had been no sign of stickies, only the endless desert sands.
Charging between two large dunes, Ryan saw the wreckage of some ancient machinery partially buried in the loose sand. Car, truck, helicopter, submarine, he didn’t care. It was made of metal, and the location was perfect, which gave them a fighting chance at life.
“Rig it!” he commanded, dropping to a knee to steady his shaking hands.
“Last one!” J.B. countered, pulling a half stick of dynamite from the munitions bag slung at his side.
“No choice!” Ryan yelled, as he looked through the low-power telescopic sights of the Steyr sniper rifle. The howler was tight on their path, never wavering or detouring. That almost made the one-eyed man smile. Stupidity was its own reward.
While the rest of the companions sagged against the shifting sands for a blessed moment of rest, J.B. wearily got to work planting the explosive charge inside the rusted remains of the machine. Unfortunately, his hands shook with fatigue, and he kept dropping loose items. With a snarl, he slapped himself hard across the face, the smacks almost sounding like blasterfire. The pain banished the fog from his mind, and he quickly went back to work. But even as he did, tendrils of sleep began to creep once more through his brain, leeching away his thoughts and offering the sweet release of slumber.
Holding his breath to help steady his aim, Ryan peered through the telescopic sight, adjusted for the wind, then put three rounds smack through the middle of the cloud. There were no visible results. The howler didn’t move faster or slower.
However, as Ryan forced himself to stand, he was more than satisfied. The expenditure of brass had been expensive, but worthwhile if it kept the bastard thing coming this way. One of the very first lessons he had ever learned from his old teacher, the Trader, was to never be predictable in a fight. That was the path to oblivion.
“Done,” J.B. stated, smoothing out the sand over the trap. He tried to get back up, but stumbled, his strength failing.
Without comment, Mildred grabbed him by an arm, and Krysty took the other to lend some assistance. He nodded in thanks and started shuffling away, searching through the pockets of his battered jacket for anything edible.
Stepping close, Doc offered a piece of smoked fish. J.B. took it with a grunt and shoved the morsel into his mouth. The previous day the delicious smoked salmon had been a very special treat, a gift from the grateful baron who had traded them a functioning wag for the life of his youngest wife, rescued from a band of cannies. Now it was only food, consumed in a swallow and forgotten.
As the companions hurried away from the sand dunes, Jak glanced behind and saw the howler pause before entering the narrow passage. Had it seen J.B. lay the trap? Okay then, time to up the ante. Jerking his hand, the young man caught a leaf-bladed throwing knife as it slipped out of the sleeve of his camou jacket. With an underhand gesture, he sent the blade flying, and heard a solid thump as it hit something inside the swirling cloud.
Instantly, the mutie moved forward once more, and there came the soft snap of breaking string.
“Now!” J.B. yelled, throwing himself to the ground.
A split second later, a bright flash of light washed over the area, and a deafening thunderclap shook the desert. Already in motion, the companions hit the ground half a heartbeat before a hissing barrage of shrapnel passed over their heads. Giving a low grunt of pain, Doc slapped a hand to his shoulder, where the fabric of his coat was soon stained red.
“Please, oh dear God…” Mildred whispered, almost afraid to look backward. Then she cursed bitterly as a greenish light pulsed through the swirling smoke and sand, still moving onward.
“Begone, foul Visigoth!” Doc bellowed, awkwardly firing the LeMat twice with his left hand, his right clenching the wound.
The first miniball hit sand, but the second ricocheted off something metallic, making the howler expand the cloud in a protective gesture.
Startled, Ryan narrowed his eyes in amazement. The cloud could change size? That was a protective gesture, which meant there was something in the world that the nuking thing feared. He had no idea what that might be, but the simple fact that the mutie had any kind of a mortal weakness gave him new hope.
“How far go?” Jak muttered, wiping the sleeve of his jacket across his sweaty forehead. A true albino, the youth was normally pale as new snow, but now he was nearly pink, flushed from the sheer effort of endlessly putting one boot in front of the other.
“Half mile mebbe,” J.B. replied in a throaty growl, rising stiffly from the ground.
“W-we’re n-not gonna make it…?.” Mildred sighed, her shoulders sagging.
Grabbing the physician by the arm, Ryan spun her and slapped her across the face. Mildred jerked back from the stinging blow, and placed a hand on her cheek.
“We’re gonna make it if I gotta kick your ass all the way!” Ryan snarled, his chest heaving. “Now move!”
Common sense overwhelmed her feelings of rage, and Mildred mutely obeyed, shuffling away from the man as if he had began to issue a green cloud himself.
“Tough love,” J.B. said, bumping her with a hip. “Next time, I’ll slap you. Then you can do me.”
“D-deal,” Mildred said with a weak laugh, a touch of hysteria creeping into her raspy voice.
Back in her own time period, the physician would have had access to dozens of chemicals that could have kept the companions mentally alert and physically strong for days. But these blighted days, her medical kit consisted of only what she could find in the ruins of decaying hospitals and veterinary clinics, along with whatever she could cobble together: upholstery needles to sew wounds shut, nylon fishing line as sutures, raw alcohol to clean wounds, razor blades instead of scalpels, and leather straps for tourniquets. There were a few precious drugs hidden among her meager supplies, but they were all soporifics, designed to put patients to sleep so that they could stand the terrible pain of meatball surgery, nothing that would keep the companions awake.
Heat lightning crackled across the stormy sky as they
forced themselves to keep moving. The sand was starting to become mixed with dark earth and rocks, clearly indicating that they were coming out of the desert. That was a good sign, and it put some much needed strength into their heavy legs, their shuffle becoming a brisk walk. But the surge quickly faded, and they returned to a slow stagger, pausing only to fire the occasional round at the howler.
“Any more plas-ex?” Ryan asked hopefully, levering a fresh round into the Steyr. Five more rounds, and he would have to start using his 9 mm SIG-Sauer pistol, which had much less range.
“All gone. Used most of it getting us away from this thing in that box canyon,” J.B. answered grimly, his canvas munition bag hanging unnaturally flat at his side. “I’m down to two homie pipe bombs, some firecrackers, a couple of road flares and one, count it, one Molotov that I’m saving for an emergency.”
“And this does not qualify, sir?” Doc demanded, askance.
“Not yet,” Jak snorted, unscrewing the cap on a canteen to take a fast drink. He offered it to the others, but there were no takers.
Pausing at the top of the dune, Ryan saw that it abruptly ended at a rocky cliff that overhung a large pool of water. Lush green bushes grew in abundance along its mossy banks, along with a couple of juniper trees, and schools of rainbow-colored fish were darting about in the clear shallows. Suspiciously, Ryan checked the rad counter on his shirt, but it remained silent. Fireblast! He had hoped it might be a nuke crater and the rads might be enough to fry the howler. Then he
grinned. However, mebbe he still could turn the water to their advantage.
“My dear Ryan, I hope you are not thinking what I think you are thinking,” Doc rumbled, sending two more booming miniballs into the misty howler.
“It’s only fifty feet or so,” Ryan guessed, moving closer to the edge of the cliff.
“That should be enough!” Krysty said unconvincingly, thumbing her last three rounds into the revolver. The cylinder closed with a hollow click.
“Okay, I’ll give us some cover,” J.B. said, pulling out the Molotov and a butane lighter. “Everybody, get ready to move!”
As the howler started up the dune, the companions cut loose with their blasters, the sheer barrage of hot lead holding the indomitable creature at bay for a few precious moments.
Quickly setting fire to the oily rag tied around the neck of the whiskey bottle, J.B. then dashed it on the rocky soil directly in front of the mutie. As the fireball whoofed into existence, the companions turned and jumped.
The fall was short and they hit the water hard, their shoes and boots actually bumping the bottom of the pond. Bitter cold engulfed them, returning a semblance of clarity to their minds even as it stole some of the strength from their bodies.
Kicking hard, Ryan swam back to the surface and stroked for the nearby shore. Dripping wet, he and his companions moved quickly into the bushes and ducked. A few seconds later, a green cloud appeared atop the
cliff. The howler moaned even louder than before, and incredibly, moved away, heading back down the dune.
“Thank Gaia, it worked,” Krysty whispered, allowing herself to relax for the first time in a day.
“And we sure needed the bath.” Mildred chuckled briefly.
“Hey, where blaster?” Jak asked, checking his empty holster, then looking about on the spongy moss.
“Over there in the shallows, near the lily pads,” Ryan said, pointing.
Frowning, the young man dropped to his stomach and began to crawl to the pond, trying to stay as concealed as possible.
“Speaking of which, it seems that I am unarmed once more,” Doc muttered, drawing the LeMat, only to slam it back into the holster at his side. Wet black powder was dribbling out of the weapon like ebony blood. The antique blaster would be completely useless until it was thoroughly dried and painstakingly reloaded.
