The Seeds of Man (28 page)

Tre’s hand was throbbing, but he nodded. “I’ll do my best. And if the others follow, I know where to lead them.”

“Where?”

“Straight to Kimble. Once we capture or kill him, the rest of this operation will crumble.”

The next day seemed to crawl by. Tre worked as hard as he could on the theory that the pit boss was watching from above. His hand continued to ache, but not as badly as before, and there were no signs of infection.

Finally, for what Tre hoped would be the last time, he entered the usual trailer. Knife had taken charge of the next phase, and Tre was happy to let him do so. Neither one of them had a watch, so they couldn’t be sure when the attack would come. All they could do was lie in their bunks and wait for the mortar bombardment to begin. But what if it
didn’t
begin? What if something prevented the gang from attacking? What if Crow left them to rot? He wouldn’t do something like that, would he? The waiting was pure torture and seemed to last forever. Then Tre heard it—a muffled explosion. The attack was under way!

“That’s it!” Tre shouted as he rolled out of his bunk. “The Crow is here! He’s going to free us! Follow me.”

Knife uttered a war cry as his boots hit the floor, and Tre opened the door. Cool night air flooded into the trailer as Tre made his way down the wooden stairs to the concrete below. The tower-mounted searchlights were on, and blobs of light began to roam the compound as a much-amplified voice boomed over the speakers. “Stay in your trailers! I repeat, stay in your—” The order was cut off when one of the watchtowers took a direct hit. There was a boom followed by a series of cracking sounds. Then the top half of the tower broke free of the rest and fell. It landed with a crash. Tre grinned. Smoke had been watching the compound for weeks, so whoever had been assigned to the mortars knew what to aim for.

But that thought was washed out of Tre’s mind as he heard a chorus of bloodcurdling howls and a pack of dogs surged out of the shadows. It was a threat he had neglected to think about, to prepare for, and now they were in trouble. Or so it seemed.

But Knife hadn’t forgotten. Slivers of salvaged steel appeared in both hands, flew through the air, and found targets. Two of the animals tumbled head over heels and fell dead as more missiles sought flesh. Tre heard a series of yelps as they hit and more dogs went down. The whole thing took place with such rapidity that only one dog was able to complete the attack. It leapt up into the air and was flying toward Knife when he stepped to one side and made a motion with his right hand. The animal’s forward motion did all the work for him. The resulting laceration was two inches deep and a foot long.

The beast hit the ground, rolled, and came to its feet. Blood ran freely as it crept forward and produced a throaty growl. Lips were pulled back to reveal rows of white teeth, but Knife was ready. “Here, doggy, “ he said, as he brandished a knife. “Come to Poppa.”

But before the dog could obey, Tre brought a three-foot-long section of rebar down on the animal’s head. The plan was to use it on techies, but the dog was a good target too. The impact produced a sickening thud. The animal collapsed. “Nice job,” Knife said as a mortar round blew out a section of fence.

“Crow!” a slave yelled. “The Crow is here!”

Tre heard the cry and knew it was time to act. So he shouted, “Let’s get Kimble!”

A dozen voices took up the cry, and as Tre began to run, others followed. Techies appeared up ahead and fired. Tre felt something nip his left arm and heard someone scream. Then he was there, striking at a guard with the steel rod and hitting the man’s head.

“Their weapons!” Knife shouted. “Take their weapons!”

Someone else had the dead techie’s rifle, so Tre took his pistol. “Gold!” Tre shouted. “Kimble has gold!”

Tre didn’t know how much gold Kimble had beyond the earrings he wore but figured the prospect of looting the tech lord’s headquarters would help motivate his fellow slaves. And he was correct. “Gold!” someone shouted, and the crowd surged forward.

As Tre led them between piles of artifacts, the pit boss appeared. He raised his rifle and fired. Something buzzed past Tre’s right ear. The pistol seemed to fire itself, and the pit boss looked surprised as the bullet struck his forehead. Tre was moving so fast by then that he was forced to step on the dead man’s chest as he kept going.

The building where Tre had been tortured was directly ahead, and guards were on the roof firing down at them. A woman stumbled and fell and a man tripped over the body as a slave fired. A techie fell back out of sight.

As the mob closed in on the building, a machine gun opened fire and cut a bloody swath through the crowd. The slaves answered with a no more than a dozen gunshots, but at least one of them was on target. The automatic weapon fell silent as a group of would-be looters surged past Tre and pushed the doors open. Their reward was a blast of shotgun fire that killed half of them.

Tre shot one of the defenders twice, saw the other fall, and waved the slaves forward. He expected to face at least two guards outside Kimble’s office, but the doors were open and the techies were nowhere to be seen. As Tre stepped into the doorway, he could see why the guards had been withdrawn. They, along with Kimble himself, were busy removing what appeared to be heavy boxes from a previously hidden storage area.

Tre raised the pistol. “Put the boxes down and place your hands on your heads.” One of the techies let go of a box and turned. That was as far as he got before a shotgun blast nearly cut him in two. A loud clacking sound could be heard as Knife prepared to fire again. But there was no need. The others did as they were told.

Kimble wasn’t wearing the pink sunglasses this time, and his eyes widened as Tre stepped forward. “So Crow exists?”

“Yes,” Crow said as he pushed his way through the crowd. “I do. Nice place you have here . . . especially for a dump.”

There was a moment of silence, followed by raucous cheers. An army had been born.

Afton, Wyoming, USA

L
uther Voss was angry, and for good reason. But he was determined to conceal his emotions as he entered the wood-paneled dining room. Sara Silverton was already present. She rose. And as she did, Voss couldn’t help but notice her beautiful heart-shaped face, her large, luminous eyes, and the way the black satin gown hugged her figure. He could feel her magnetism across the room and was determined to resist it. “Good evening, my dear,” Voss said. “You are, as always, a sight to behold.”

A slave was waiting to seat Voss as he took his place at the head of the table. Then it was Sara’s turn to be seated. Voss heard the soft swish of fabric and the rattle of chains as a slave appeared with a bottle of red wine from one of his vineyards. The manservant poured a small amount into the food lord’s glass and took a step back. “It’s average at best,” Voss announced after taking a sip. “But given the weather, that’s to be expected. You may pour.”

Once he was finished, the servant withdrew. “So,” Voss said as he toyed with his glass. “I learned something interesting today.”

Sara’s perfectly shaped eyebrows rose incrementally. “Such as?”

“A spy has been living in my house.” Voss thought he could see a change in Sara’s expression. It was so subtle that only a person who had taken the time to study Sara would have noticed it. But she was a truly gifted actress if nothing else, and there were no obvious signs of dismay.

“Really?” Sara inquired lightly. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. The butler did it.”

“No,” Voss answered as he rang a silver bell. “I trusted this individual the way I would trust a brother.”

A door opened and a pair of mercenaries appeared. They were holding a bedraggled Elmer Trenton between them. His glasses were missing, one eye was swollen shut, and his face was black and blue. Sara looked at him, but Trenton’s eyes were on the floor. “What?” Voss demanded. “No wisecracks?”

“Trenton?” Sara said weakly. “A spy? That’s hard to believe.”

“Yes,” Voss agreed. “It is. But once Mrs. Winters tipped me off, things came together. Remember the eastbound caravan? The one that bandits attacked up in the mountains? I wondered how they knew the wagons were coming—and when they would arrive. But that was before I beat the crap out of Trenton here. He held out for a while . . . maybe three or four minutes. Then he spilled his guts. And guess what he told me? It seems you have a brother! A bandit named Crow. The same man who led the attack on the caravan. Or, put another way, you made use of Trenton to get at me.”

Sara’s face was pale, but there was a look of triumph in her eyes. “And it worked.”

“I should kill you.”

“That’s what you always say. Do it.”

“It’s tempting,” Voss replied. “But there’s a better way. Rather than put you out of your misery, I’m going to extend it. While we have dinner, these men are going to take Trenton outside and shoot him. Now, if you were the coldhearted bitch you pretend to be, that wouldn’t bother you. But you aren’t. So you’re going to remember this moment for the rest of your life. And it’s going to eat at you.”

Voss turned to the mercs. “Take him away. You know what to do.”

Trenton sought to make eye contact with Sara—as if looking for some sign that Voss was wrong, that he hadn’t been used. Sara stared at the plate in front of her. “I’m sorry, Elmer. I really am.”

Trenton’s shoulders sagged even further, and he made no attempt to resist as a merc led him out of the room. The muffled gunshot followed ten minutes later. Sara was staring at her salad. She shuddered, and Voss smiled. For some reason, the food was exceptionally good.

In spite of the satisfaction that Voss felt as a result of having identified and eliminated a traitor, the next couple of days were difficult, because despite his weakness for Sara, Trenton had been a very good business manager—so good that Voss took his services for granted. But not anymore. Now the full weight of the dead man’s responsibilities had been added to Voss’s shoulders, the latest crisis being a shutdown at the canning plant west of Afton, a problem that couldn’t have come at a worse time. The citizens of cities like Lander, Riverton, and Casper were eager to buy food before winter set in. But if Voss couldn’t preserve his produce, he wouldn’t be able to sell it.

So as Voss and a party of mercs rode north, then west, he was thinking about the situation and wishing he had a backup for Trenton.
I will train two people this time,
he thought,
and set them against each other
.
As for Sara, well, time will tell. The problem is that she’s unique. The brother is an interesting development. What if I were to capture him? Sara would sing another tune then.

As Voss rode, the people on the road ahead of him hurried to pull over, merchants touched their hats, and overseers waved, all of which was to be expected. What
wasn’t
to be expected was the large group of slaves sitting around outside the cannery where they should have been hard at work.

A distraught overseer hurried out to meet him. Her name was Carnaby, and as Voss got down off his horse, she was already telling him about her problems. Voss listened as Carnaby led him inside the sprawling one-story structure. In truth it should have been called something other than a cannery, since canneries require cans, and nobody made them anymore. Or, if they did, it was in some other part of the country.

So glass jars were filled with beans, carrots, beets, asparagus, peas, onions, and the other vegetables his farms produced. Once the food was placed in the jars, they had to be immersed in boiling water, for up to ninety minutes in some cases. The problem was that rather than the electric power used in the past, Carnaby had been forced to rely on coal to boil the water. And coal was more difficult to work with.

So even though Voss would have preferred to be elsewhere dealing with matters of equal or even greater importance, he was forced to spend the next three hours working with Carnaby’s staff to get a recalcitrant boiler up and working again. By the time Voss mounted Odin for the ride home, he was tired and frustrated. The loss of electric power from the south was causing a multiplicity of problems, and they would have to be addressed. Soon.

A young man named Jonathan Appleby was waiting for Voss as he arrived home and entered his study. Appleby was tall, skinny, and dressed in what Voss thought of as city clothes. He had met the youth on previous occasions and knew him to be his mother’s administrative assistant. “Mrs. Voss said you might need some help,” Appleby said tactfully. “If so, I am to remain here for as long as you want me.”

Voss was anything but surprised, because even if his mother had surrendered day-to-day control of the family business to him, she had eyes and ears everywhere. Chances were that word of Trenton’s death had arrived at her house within an hour of the execution. So Appleby had been dispatched to fill the gap. Could Voss use him as one of the two assistants he planned to train? Possibly—realizing that Appleby was and would forever be linked to Voss’s mother. And that, come to think of it, could be her way of retaining some control. Regardless, Appleby would be a great help in the short run and Voss was happy to have him. “Excellent. Have a seat . . . I’ll try to bring you up to speed.”

“Thank you, sir,” the young man said politely. “But I took the liberty of moving into Trenton’s office. And thanks to the fact that he kept excellent records, I’m cognizant of what is going on.”

Voss smiled indulgently. Appleby was conceited, pompous, and ambitious. Someone to use but keep on a short chain. “Good. I’m all ears.”

It was a direct challenge and Appleby was ready. “I have three things to report, sir. First there is the matter of the city tax. I’m pleased to say that the mayor of Afton delivered twenty-five thousand rounds of mixed ammo today. It has been sorted, spot checked, and added to your reserves in the basement storage area.”

Voss lit a cigar. “Excellent. Would you like a smoke?”

Appleby wrinkled his nose. “No, thank you.”

“So,” Voss said lazily. “What’s the second item?”