He had caught up with the Axe Man as he’d been on the move toward the upper floors. Axyl looked at Cord with a slight sneer.
“Shell still isn’t convinced of your loyalty, Cord. Honestly, if he hadn’t been so intent on recruitment for the Sharks, you and your boys might well be already dead and your gear distributed,” he said. “I’ll be blunt, man. You and your boys tend to be absent when there’s hard shit to do to people, and Shell’s starting to wonder if you’re an asset or a future liability.”
“I guess that’s blunt enough.”
“Listen, Cord, you and your boys want a nice long life, free from being crapped on? Simply do whatEVER the hell the old man tells you, as well and as fast as you can fucking do it. Honestly, it’ll be better for you, it’ll be better for me, if you lose that suicidal squeamishness you’ve been showing and get ready to roll in the mud with the rest of us. Call it a survival skill. Those who have too many morals and qualms don’t survive long in these parts.”
“I hear ya. Seems like this Eli character tends to hold an opposite view.”
“Yeah. He does. And one of these days it’s gonna cost him. You think on what I said, Cord. I want to be on your side, honest.”
As Axyl walked towards the stairs, Cord left him, keeping his face blank as he thought,
you’re on our side like a sheepdog’s on the sheep’s side, asshole. Keeping us all in order so we can be sheared later.
****
“How did it go, Axyl?”
“Boss, I gotta tell ya it’s like trying to herd bears. The stupid ones are somewhat obedient, but you can’t hardly get an idea across without hitting ‘em over the head to get their attention. With the smarter ones, you never want to turn your back to ‘em.” Axyl flopped into one of the elderly wing chairs of the office. “Maybe we should’a gone into bootleggin’ instead.”
“I know it’s difficult, but eventually, the bootleggers, other slavers, farmers, indies and vagabonds will all work for us, or they will suffer the consequences.” Shell said, his tone deceptively mild. “Gaining control over the farmers is simply our first step. Once you control the food, you control the area and your forces are a lot more ready to do your bidding when they are getting decent rations every day.”
“It sounds grand, boss. But sometimes I question what we have to work with.”
Shell laughed. “They don’t have to be geniuses. They just have to be willing to do violence to whomever should be stupid enough to oppose us.” He grew serious. “We are building a kingdom here, Axyl, and while I may be the ruler, you are the crown prince. I’m in my early fifties, I’ve got maybe twenty years to get this all built, and then you will take over when I retire to the good life. But now, we have to be utterly ruthless, willing to do anything to anyone to make our goals a reality.”
“Assuming I’m still alive by then.”
“What’s this? Don’t tell me you’re still worried about that Ghost Wind, are you?” Shell asked, surprised. “She’s only a woman. What can one woman do to us? Seriously.”
“You just don’t know what she’s capable of. I’m sleeping with one eye open ’til I know she’s dead or unable to come after me.”
“All of the men have been shown the drawing, and they have orders to capture her, and bring her to me, unharmed. If she’s as good as you say, perhaps I can recruit her. A gifted scout and assassin could be worth her weight in gold.”
“Oh, boss, you don’t want her here. Even if by some miracle she ratted out Eli, and decided to work for us, that still wouldn’t change one unalterable fact.”
“And that is?”
“And that is she wants my balls on a platter. I screwed her over in more ways than one, and the scouts of the Clan of the Hawk don’t forgive.”
“Well, if we do manage to find her, and I get the information I want, it doesn’t mean I have to live up to any promises to her. I’m the boss, remember? I promise you, if we get a hold of her and I have what I want, I may eventually put her head on the block, and you can chop it off.”
Eli was having no luck at all.
He had crisscrossed all of the backroads a person could possibly have reached in a single day and night and he hadn’t found even the slightest sign of Ghost Wind. He had hoped that she would leave some trace of herself that he could find so they could have talked this out. Eli had found the chink in Kita’s armor, and he was sure that Ghost Wind could prove herself if given a chance.
He pulled the Terror over at a wide spot he knew, and hiked up to a rock formation that loomed over the road to sit and think a bit. He sat on a huge flat boulder and looked over the morning landscape, stretching away to seeming infinity, much of it untouched yet by the rising morning sun.
“Crap,” he sighed, “I am never going to find her in all this unless she wants to be found. I need to let this go, and hope I run across her again someday soon.” The thought made his heart feel heavy.
He took out the note she had found on Lester’s body.
‘MEET AT THE OLD MUSEUM, SOUTH OF BEND, TUES. FEB 27. WAIT.’
“She didn’t know where this was when she handed it to me. Just as well, I wouldn’t want her within fifty miles of the place when this goes down.”
Shit. February 27
th
was tomorrow.
Eli had been to the High Desert Museum in the Beforetime. He’d been a kid, chaperoned by one of the Mav-Tech staff and he’d loved all the animals and the history displays. He’d known even back then it hadn’t been out of any particular sense of kindness towards him and his siblings that the scientists had taken them out into public places. It had simply been part of the
socializing
of the products of the experiment. He didn’t need to be reminded of the old days at Mav-Tech and he had avoided even looking in the museum after the Die-Off.
But tomorrow, it would be time to change that.
****
“Quail eggs would be so nice, this morning, if only I had some.”
The morning found Ghost Wind stirring the embers of her tiny fire, trying to coax them into a flame. She had placed some slow burning hardwood on the fire before she had crawled into her shelter and now, she saw just the slightest glow from under the ashes. She put scraped bark tender on the glow and blew on it softly. A thin tremulous plume of smoke began to rise and a few moments later, a tiny flame appeared in the tinder. She carefully stacked tiny twigs on it.
“Unfortunately, it looks like it’s going to be jerky and pemmican soup, Go-Go. I’ll probably need to do a bit of foraging before I work anymore on my bow, or we’ll be down to eating dry grass here pretty soon.”
She ate silently, looking out at the pinkish morning cloud formations to the east, and quite without meaning to, thought of Eli. No one could pick up a huge motorcycle like that and carry it around. And how had he healed so fast? If she’d had the kind of injuries Lester and Benny had inflicted upon him, it would have taken her three times the length of time he’d healed in, if ever. She would have most likely died instead.
She wished she could talk to him, convince him to tell her about his past.
That wasn’t the only thing troubling her, though. It was his smile. It was those muscles. It was the kindness behind his eyes when he spoke to her. It was very unsettling. Thinking about those big kind brown eyes shifted her right back into a place of sad loneliness.
“Dammit. Enough of that!” She sighed. “Go-Go, soon as I eat I need to go down the hill and check out this stream I’ve been hearing. I just used most of our water to cook this and it’s time for a refill.”
She ate her food, listening to the birds sing, and when she was done, she used the last of her water to rinse her old stainless steel canteen cup. Picking up her two metal water bottles, she put a piece of cloth between each and cord-wrapped them together to keep them quiet.
It took her longer to find the water than she thought, and she was very surprised to find it across a backroad at the bottom of the hill. She crossed the road and carefully threaded her way down through young vine maples.
Definitely going to have to find an easier way down through these thickets if I’m gonna stay here,
she thought, after hanging up for the third time in a row in the thick foliage.
Either that, or I’ll have to manufacture an easier way with knife and hatchet.
When she finally reached the rocky bank of the stream, the climb down was worth it. The stream was closer to being a small river, and a waterfall ran off moss covered rocks less than fifty feet upstream. The noise of the falls had fooled her into thinking the water was closer than she’d imagined, it drowned out the birdsong and other sounds of the forest. She stepped lithely across a line of rocks leading into the river and pulled her water bottles from where they hung on her sash. She had affixed a loop to the bottles so she could dip them in the water, rather than stick her hands into an icy stream that was coming directly off the snowfields in the mountains.
She looked around as they filled.
It was a beautiful place. It made her wish she had someone to share it with and as she gazed down into the clear blue-green water Eli, once again, sprang to mind. She shook her head, capped the now-full bottles and stood.
Stop daydreaming, and be practical, idiot. Hell. You probably should have camped farther away from his village than you did.
She grabbed a vine maple, and pulled herself back up the bank, fighting her way to the road. She blew out a breath, trying to re-hook the two steel bottles to her sash when she heard it. A buzzing whine and the sound of grit being compressed.
To her horror, as she looked up, she saw six Road Sharks coming right at her full speed on their almost-silent fusion cycles.
Couldn’t hear them coming over the waterfall!
Her bottles went flying down the hillside as she tried to run but the lead biker was practically on top of her. His leather braced forearm caught her across the face and her feet went flying into the air while her head smacked hard into the antique pavement.
Ghost Wind struggled to her feet, stars across her vision, only to stagger into the faring of the next rider, sending her flying over the pavement. She made it to all fours when another biker, driving by at full speed kicked her in the ribs, sending her flopping down the road.
Have to get up! Have to get in the brush!
She climbed to her feet once again, hunched over with pain and then made for the path she had just come up. The buzzing of another cycle was coming towards her, and she heard someone say, “Damn! She’s a tough little bitch!” Then she felt an impact on the back of her skull.
There were more stars, then there was blackness.
****
Eli rode south, sticking to backroads as was prudent these days. He was going to keep looking until he had to leave for his ambush at the museum.
“Small chance I’m gonna find Ghost Wind now. Guess it’s time to do my job.” As he road south, he didn’t notice the steel water bottles just off the road, or the few drops of blood he drove over.
The throbbing was like waves on the ocean. One moment, the pain would be manageable, the next it would swell to the point she had to grit her teeth to keep from gasping.
Ghost Wind had found herself tied to the rider bar of a fusion cycle, arms cruelly wrenched back and tied behind her. In front of her was the form of a filthy biker who was trying to keep her sedated with the smell rising from his body and blowing back over her.
Fear lanced through her, and she sought the mind calming techniques that had been so strongly drilled into her by her teacher. Her heart began to slow.
They were coming into a large town, a small city, and driving down the dilapidated main street without a hint of wariness. That could only mean these bastards were in their own territory and had nothing to fear.
Calm your fear, watch as you go. You’ll need to know how to escape from this place.
Jannelle’s voice spoke in her head, as if she had been right at Ghost Wind’s ear.
Teacher? Is that you?
Silence.
They drove near a river, heavily overgrown with trees and brush along the edge and she knew if somehow she could reach that, she’d be able to make her way out of here before they could find her. If she could escape. If she could keep from being gang raped and murdered. Her captors were filthy, hard men and they probably didn’t know what empathy for others even meant, much less sympathy.
Eventually, they pulled up in front of a large building, ivy and brambles growing over the dead cars in the street and up one side of the building. Metal doors creaked upward and they drove into a parking garage filled with fusion cycles in all states of repair, some so ratty and dirty that they probably no longer ran. Many had been stripped and cannibalized for parts to keep other’s running. Even the two mechanics tending them looked badly used.
They pulled up to a large pair of dusty-looking glass doors with the words “City of Bend Administration” on them and the smelly riders got off their cycles and stretched stiff muscles. The one she had been riding behind looked back at her, leering.
“Oh, I do like ‘em when they’s tied up,” he muttered. He started to reach for her breasts when another stepped in front of him.
“No mate, we let you have her tied to your bike, Grogan, but the boss was specific. He said if we found her, we’s supposed to bring her to him, alive, unscrewed, and able to talk. So just back away, or Axe’ll have your balls!”
“Ain’t afraid o’ that pretty boy, Porter,” the brute grumbled.
“He may be a sight better lookin’ than you, Grogan, but if you’re ever on the receivin’ end of those hatchets of his, you’ll be afraid enough to piss yourself. Now we’re all gonna be goin’ back to New Hope tomorrow so we can finally join up with everyone when we hit the place. I’m gonna need you in working order, man, and you WON’T be if you fuck up and really piss Axe Man off.”