Winter's Edge: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (Outzone Drifter Series Book 1) (17 page)

Standing over the body of Ironclaw, Bose raised his bloodied knife and, breathing heavily, addressed the group of braves. “Tonight, I have proved myself worthy to be chief of this tribe. From this day on, I will be known as Stalking Bear, and will wear the colors of a Blood Chief so that no one forgets that this was a title won in honor, by the death of a brave warrior.”

Holding the bandage the doctor had placed over his wound to stem the bleeding, and supported on either side by Clement and Chico, Bose turned and headed back up to the camp. Around the circle, the men and women of the Black Eagles warrior chapter raised their arms and toasted the name of their new chief.

Barrio T, Winter’s Edge, Outzone

On a clear, early fall morning, a bright sun rising high above the Barrio de Los Triguenos’ eastern wall, Brogan and Staunton stepped out of the Hotel Valiente. The day was deceptively cold, and the two breathed ice-cool air into their lungs as they wove their way through a maze of back streets.

In a few minutes they reached 4
^th
Street, where they cut onto the tiny, Calle Perro Bravo
,
passing Rosalinda’s Eatery where they had lunched the previous day, then turned again onto an even narrower lane. At the end was a low stone archway where they had to duck their heads as they emerged onto Guerrero Avenue before heading west, toward
La Decima—
10
^th
Street. After a few days in the city, the two had gotten to know their way around the place.

Standing outside the Barrio T’s west wall, at the corner of 10
^th
and Chilton, they waited a few minutes before flagging down a passing
colectivo
, with “Valle Oeste” scrawled in thick black marker on a card placed inside the windscreen. The
colectivos
were customized vans with a long metal bench fitted lengthways along either side of the vehicle, and passengers entered and alighted via an open rear door.

The van was only half full, and after clambering inside the two sat opposite each other. Brogan fished out some coins from his pocket, leaned forward, and tapped the driver on the shoulder. “
Dos, amigo,
” he said, raising two fingers in the driver’s mirror as he handed him the money. He checked his watch. It was nine forty-five a.m. That gave them well over an hour to get to their destination. The two men were on their way to Sunbright Farm, a permaculture farming community in the West Valley that their new friend, a man known as Carter, had arranged for them to visit.

A couple of days before, Brogan had his talk with the Hallecks where the three had gone through the women’s options. Back in the State, Karen Halleck’s husband had been a mechanic, and his plan had been to set up a transport business in the city. Winter’s Edge was still growing, and there was room to develop new routes.

Now that option was off the table, Brogan went through several other possibilities with them. The women had enough money to set up a good business, perhaps a restaurant or a boarding house. The idea of running a boarding house got some consideration. The two felt this was something that would suit them.

After running through a few further options, Brogan brought up the notion of perhaps buying a farm somewhere outside the city. The idea immediately appealed to them. The mother and daughter looked at each other, their eyes widening with excitement as they discussed it further. For the first time since arriving in the city, Brogan saw something in them resembling hope. It was a good sign, and he promised he’d look into it right away.

Things moved fast. In Che’s, a coffee shop on 3
^rd
, Staunton got talking to a man named Carter who had connections with the farming communities of the West Valley. The following evening, Staunton brought Brogan down to the cafe to discuss it further.

When they arrived, Che’s was humming with activity. Cuban salsa played over the sound system as a lively crowd sat hunched over tables in animated conversations, smoking and drinking coffee.

The scene reminded Brogan of a strange version of one of those pre-century movies he’d seen years ago, in which idealists, anarchists, and revolutionaries feverishly hatched up their plans for a new society. There were long-haired Latinos, gringos with beards and berets, Afro-Outzoners wearing bandanas and Raiders caps, punks with dyed hair and ripped up jeans, and in one corner a group of heavily-tattooed bikers decked out in leather waistcoats and motorcycle jackets stared across the room, a combination of scars and scowls on their faces.

Back in the State, people like that wouldn’t make it ten yards without being picked up by a police cruiser. Back in the State, people like that no longer existed.

Staunton spotted his contact at the far side of the room, and took Brogan over to a table where a young man wearing a dark wool sweater with holes in the elbows sat alone, sipping a cup of tea, a cigarette smoldering in the ashtray in front of him. He sat next to a table where two men played a game of chess, their heads down, elbows up, both studying the board in earnest concentration.

Brogan studied Carter as Staunton greeted him. Long-legged and skinny, he was in his late twenties with short, sandy hair that hadn’t been washed in a while. His face was boyish and angular, which at that moment was friendly, yet appeared somewhat mischievous.

While Staunton introduced the two, Brogan noticed Carter had a snake’s head tattooed on the back of his hand, its fangs bared, and he wondered idly how far up his forearm the snake’s body ran.

Staunton put a hand on Brogan’s shoulder. “Frank, how about you two get up to speed while I go get us some coffees?” He headed up toward the counter and Brogan sat down at the table.

“That’s a solid dude,” Carter said, watching Staunton stride across the crowded room. “Were you two friends back in the State?”

Carter spoke in a lazy drawl. Brogan guessed he might originally have come from the West Coast, perhaps San Francisco or Portland. He had that slacker thing going that the old state never quite managed to stamp out over there.

“No. We met at the terminal,” Brogan replied. “And yeah, Dan’s as solid as they come.”

“Cool. He tells me you’re interested in buying farmland?” Carter looked over at Brogan questioningly.

“Yes, not for us personally. We’re helping out a friend. Somebody new here to the city.”

“So he said. But you’re new here too, right?”

Brogan smiled. “That’s right.”

“Dan says if he finds a good deal, maybe he’ll buy a plot too,” Carter continued. “How about you…that interest you at all?”

Brogan knew that his new acquaintance was hustling for business. Staunton had told him Carter had been open about the fact that he would get a commission from the vendor if he found them a buyer. That was fine with Brogan. Everyone had to make a living.

He shook his head. “Not right now. Maybe sometime in the future.”

Carter nodded, reflecting on this.

Brogan looked around the room, and stared at the bikers in the corner. There was something he was curious to know.

“Carter, let me ask you something. You carry a piece, right?”

“Sure. An old service pistol I bought here. I keep it in a rig inside my jacket,” Carter said, gesturing to a worn brown leather jacket hanging at the back of his chair. He tapped behind his shoulder with a finger. “I keep something back here too, just in case.”

“What you got there?”

“Just a knife, but I throw it pretty good.” With his hand, Carter sliced the air in front of him, imitating the arc of a knife throw. “You got to be careful around these parts. There’s plenty of hold-up artists ready to get you when you’re not paying attention.”

Brogan thought about telling him about his recent experience on Quebra Calle, but thought better of it. It wasn’t so much how he’d run into trouble he had a problem with talking about, but rather the skills he’d used in getting out of it. Since then, he’d been a lot more wary moving around the city, especially when alone.

“No kidding,” he said. “No such thing as too careful around here.”

Carter nodded. “Most of them know me by now, so they don’t fuck with me. They know it’ll bring some heavy shit down on them if they do. I got people that’ll see to that.”

“How does that work. You’re not affiliated, are you?”

“No,
hombre
, nothing like that. Just if you live here, it’s a good idea to band together with others for protection. If somebody fucks with you, you got ten others to fuck right back at them, that’s all. I’m talking real simple shit.”

“I see. Makes sense.”

Carter chuckled. “’Course it helps once they’ve figured out you don’t have much in the way of money either. Not much point in robbing a poor man.”

“But you make enough to get by, right?”

“Sure. Most days,” Carter said with a shrug.

Brogan leaned forward in his chair. “Here’s what I’m wondering.” He nodded discreetly toward the group of bikers. “The guys in the corner. They’re affiliated, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the Devil’s Preachers. They got turf up in Kill City. Only a small piece, even if they pretend like they’re big shots when they come down here.”

“They don’t ever fuck with you?”

Carter shook his head. “I don’t live on their turf, so no. If they were to do something like that, the Los Santos
oficina
would have something to say about it, ‘cause that’s my district. It’s where I pay my dues.”

“Would they do something about it themselves, or go talk to the Regulators?” Brogan asked, his natural curiosity making him keen to understand how things worked between the district gangs and the Regulators.

Carter considered this. “Most likely they’d make a complaint directly, seeing as they’re a whole lot bigger than the Preachers. If things got out of hand, then the Regulators would step in. They’re good at that. They’d look at what went down, and make their ruling. If you didn’t like it and you wanted to stay affiliated, you’d just have to suck it up. A Regulators’ ruling is final.”

“The Regulators are made up from representatives from all districts, right?”

Carter nodded. “Right. Everyone gets to vote on a ruling except the gangs involved in the dispute. Sure, there’s politics. It’s not a perfect system. But it works.”

“I think I get it now.”

“Now that the territories have been agreed, there’s less to fight about. That was the hardest part. See it’s like this…” Carter leaned forward in his chair now too, closer to Brogan, “most of the time, it’s like the gangs in the city ride on different trains, each one running on its own track. They pass each other by, sometimes it gets real close, but they don’t crash into one another.” He straightened up in his seat again. “Most of the time, that is. Every now and then, some fool does something stupid and it gets ugly for a while. You dig?”

Brogan dug. “Sure, I get it. Everything’s cool, most of the time. When it’s not cool, it’s a bloodbath.”

Carter laughed. He waggled a finger at Brogan. “Now, see, you’re getting it.”

Staunton was on his way back with a tray with two coffees and a fresh pot of tea for Carter. The two stopped talking, and waited until he sat down beside them.

Brogan took a sip from his coffee, then gazed over at their new friend. “Alright,
amigo
. Why don’t you tell us about what it takes to be a farmer in the Outzone?”

“Sure,” Carter replied. “There’s a lot to talk about. Where do you want me to start?”

“How about we start at the beginning, with the land. Good land. Where is it, and how do we go about buying it?”

Carter smiled. “If we’re going to start at the very beginning, then we need to define exactly what
good
land is.” He looked across at the two men. “Either of you two ever hear of permaculture farming?”

Brogan gazed out the window of the
colectivo
as it crossed 20
^th
Street and into the Reclamation Area. Right away, he noticed how much lower the housing density was here. Scattered groups of houses stood clustered together in open fields, many still in the process of construction. He could see the area was rapidly growing. This was unclaimed land, and a house only cost the price of its materials and the sore backs of its owners.

Soon they came upon a canal, a long, shallow channel built through what had previously been marshland, in order to facilitate the drainage process. The canal divided the area into North and South Reclamation, and the passenger van passed along its northern bank where, every few hundred yards, rickety wooden bridges straddled the murky waterway.

According to Carter, the canal was stocked with fish. Sure enough, Brogan soon spotted a fisherman sitting on its banks, a burly figure in a gray duffel coat with a black wool cap pulled down low over his head. As they passed by, Brogan saw that he sat on a tiny fold-up stool, fishing rod in one hand, a flask and tackle box by his feet. It seemed like the perfect thing to do on such a pleasant day.

Brogan cast his mind to what Carter had told him in Che’s two evenings ago, explaining the two ways in which land could be bought in the West Valley: outright purchase, or “rent-to-own”, the second option being a type of short-term mortgage, usually paid over three years, where the purchaser owned the land on the last down payment. There was also a form of leasing known as
prenda
, popular throughout the Outzone, where money was exchanged for the use of land over a five-year period and paid back at the end of the term.

“We’ll be taking the first option,” Brogan had said. “How will our plots be registered, seeing as there’s no central land registry in the Outzone? How does a new owner get title?”

“The lands of the West Valley are registered by the trustees of each community, in this case, Sunbright,” Carter explained. “If an owner wishes to sell their plot, the transaction takes place through the trustees, who make sure everything is above board. A ‘Deed of Absolute Sale’ is drawn up, signed, and witnessed by both parties, and the new owner is entered into the Sunbright property register.”

“Who’d have thought so much could be done without the involvement of the State,” Brogan said, shaking his head. “I would never have believed something like this could work.”