James Axler - Homeward Bound

"Sounds right," Ryan said.

"Man with the biggest blaster has the biggest hunk of the freedom," J.B. commented, as cynical as ever.

Doc Tanner smiled sadly. "I fear your jaded view of life is too often correct. Certainly the Civil War ended that way."

A young deer had appeared unexpectedly out of the brush in front of the wag at a point where the road was so rough that Jak had to crawl along in the lowest gear. The ports and ob-slits were open, and J.B. felled the beast with a single shot from his Steyr AUG handblaster.

By mutual agreement they stopped at the next safe site and built a fire. The deer was skinned, jointed and roasted.

It was a beautiful spot for a camp. A scattering of aspens, their tops shimmering silver, swayed in the northerly breeze. A stream bubbled nearby in a series of little falls and pools. The whole place was rich with a profusion of wildflowers: hedge nettle, sage and fringed phacelia in a mix of delicate colors and shapes. Lori had woven herself a necklet of white and lavender blossoms, letting them dangle between her breasts as she sat and licked smears of blood from the roasted haunch of the fawn.

Krysty had brought up the subject of the Civil War, knowing from her teachings as a child that they were coming into an area where some of the most intense fighting had occurred.

Doc had been delighted to share his reminiscences with her.

"Those names," he said. "Shiloh and First Bull Run. Some called it Manassas. Stones River and Chickamauga. Chancellorsville and Antietam. The Wilderness and Spotsylvania. The sepia prints by Brady of untidy corpses along a picket fence. Even in Vermont, as a child, I saw men still dying of their wounds from those battles. And the generals. Names that tripped off the tongue like a litany of the gods of Olympus."

"Tell us," Krysty said. "Better than using a gateway as a time machine."

Doc leaned back, picking at his strong teeth with a long thorn plucked from a dog brier.

"There was Grant, above all. Ulysses Grant. And Lee and Sherman and Hood and Nathan... I don't recall his other name. But..."

"You ever meet any of 'em, Doc?" J.B. asked. "What kind of blasters they favor?"

"I was only a child. Many died during the conflict and shortly after. But I did meet General Grant. And a sorry meeting it was."

"Why?"

"You ask me why, Ryan, and I shall tell you. Indeed it will give me pleasure to tell you."

Ryan spotted the beginning of the rambling repetition that indicated Doc's memory wasn't yet completely healed. And probably never would be.

"An uncle of mine, whose name escapes me, was one of the physicians attending General Grant during his terminal illness. I visited him on the very day that the great man finally lost his hold on the tenuous thread that bound him to his corporeal self. Once severed, he would be free to roam with the immortals in the fields of Elysium."

"Who chilled him?" Jak asked, picking at the ends of a frayed length of meadow grass.

"A cancer that ravaged his mighty frame. His passing was truly a relief and a mercy after many long days of agony and anguish for all who loved him. It was a dullish sort of day, I recall. I was a lad of seventeen or so. He tried to sit and was staring out at the casement. I kept mouse-quiet in the corner of his chamber. He called out once and then fell back dead."

"What did he say, Doc?" Ryan asked.

"He had a female companion. He said, very clearly to her, 'It is raining, Anita Huffington,' and then he passed away."

Nobody spoke, and Doc stood, stretching his angular frame. Taking Lori by the hand, he said, "Now I think this innocent child and I will walk among the trees and flowers and commune with nature. We shall return within the hour."

"Take care," Ryan said, watching the old, old man go off, still holding the hand of the tall blond teenager.

"J.B. said there was another river and bridge coming?" Jak asked.

"Not far off. Cross it when we come to it, kid," Ryan replied. "That's a joke, Jak. Cross the bridge, when we come to it. It's a joke."

"Very nearly, lover." Krysty smiled.

Krysty stood — balanced against the rocking of the vehicle — and proceeded to climb onto the support platform beneath the main roof vent. Then she lifted head and shoulders into the open air.

"Beautiful up here," she called out. "You can see ahead for miles. Looks like the main highway's been wasted 'bout a mile on. But there's an older, narrow road to the left."

Jak acknowledged her warning, and four or five minutes later the wag swung off down a bumpy, dusty slope, swaying along the ancient track.

Krysty stayed up on top, her long hair streaming out behind her like a great veil of fire. The land was growing more hilly as they moved farther southwest, and swathes of conifers covered the rolling land.

About fifteen minutes later she shouted down to Jak to pull up. "And switch off the engine a while. I need quiet."

Krysty jumped out through the sliding door at the side of the sec wag and stood in the furrowed dirt of the trail. The others, one by one, climbed out after her. Jak was last, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Ryan joined Krysty, who stood staring intently down the road. Behind them the cooling engine clicked metallically in the stillness of the day.

Ryan was proud of his own keen sight and hearing, and he often tried to match Krysty's mutie-enhanced skills. "What is it, lover?"

"Not sure."

"Far off?"

She nodded, face rapt with concentration. "Yeah. Three, mebbe four miles on. Wind's carrying it toward us."

"What is it, Krysty?" J.B. asked.

"Couple of things. Quarter of an hour ago I'm certain I saw someone using binoculars. Caught the flash off glass. Then I saw nothing else, so I figured it could easy have been the sun off a fragment of broken glass in the undergrowth."

It was a reasonable assumption. The whole of Deathlands was riddled with twisted metal, fallen stone and broken glass.

"But?" Ryan prompted.

"But now I smell oil and fire. Hot iron. Thought I heard shots. If you look a little to the left of where the road crosses the next ridge, near in line with that broken water tower leg..."

"Smoke," said Jak, whose sight was nearly as keen as Krysty's — when the light wasn't too bright to affect his sensitive eyes.

Then Ryan could see it as well — a thin column, its top tinted crimson by the brazen ball of the sun. It was two or three hundred feet high, gradually dissipating near its peak as the wind tore it apart. It was difficult to be sure, but it looked to Ryan as if the smoke had that dark, oily quality that spoke of serious trouble.

"Back in the wag," he ordered. "Close up the roof vent and drop the ob-slits. Don't bolt them shut, but keep ready by them. Any of the blaster ports not covered by someone had best be locked."

"That's close enough, Jak. Hold her here, but keep her running."

They were about a hundred paces away, and Ryan squinted through the narrow gap in the wired glass at what looked to be a battered truck. The tires were gone, burned to sticky black tar, and all the windows were broken. The piles of charred wood heaped at the bottom of the vehicle still smoked, sending gray coils skyward.

The metal of the wag was rusted deep orange, even around the wheel hubs, and it had settled into the earth.

"Been ambushed?" J.B. asked as the others crowded forward for a look at the wreck.

"Looks that way. Still a lot of smoke. Best wait a while before we go past it. Anyone could be waiting for us."

They sat and watched, the smoke slowly clearing. There were no bodies visible, which could mean the attackers had taken them prisoner. Or it might mean the wreck held roasted corpses.