David Robbins - Yellowstone Run

Longat pondered the information. “If the Federation is that powerful, I’ll need to adjust my timetable accordingly. The Breed must become much stronger than I originally anticipated before launching our assault on the Federation.”

“That’d be the smart move,” Hickok agreed wholeheartedly.

“I need to verify your claim.”

The gunfighter decided to change the subject. “My feet are killin’ me.

When are we going to stop for a break?”

“If we can maintain this pace, we’ll halt tomorrow morning.”

“I can hardly wait.”

“Really? I wouldn’t have expected you to be in such a hurry. Tomorrow morning we’ll feast again. Perhaps I’ll draw straws to determine if we should eat the Flathead or you.”

Hickok made a show of scrutinizing the bear-man from head to toe. “If you ask me, you should give serious consideration to going on a diet.”

“What is this place?” Achilles inquired.

“According to the map, this was once a tourist attraction known as Old Faithful,” Blade replied.

“The geyser?”

“Yep.”

They sat astride their horses on the cracked and pitted roadway that wound between several dilapidated wooden structures to their right and a flat expanse of barren earth on the left.

“Isn’t this where Yeddt told us the Breed were heading?”

Blade nodded and turned his horse to the right, surveying the buildings for signs of habitation. From the condition of the partly collapsed roofs, the cracked walls, and the shattered windows, he surmised no one had occupied the facilities for decades. Dust covered everything. One of the buildings had once been a service station; the long-abandoned pumps were rusted out, their casings split. Another structure bore a barely legible sign on which the words FOOD and GIFTS could be distinguished.

“Do you think we beat them here?” Achilles asked.

“We should have. Even though we had to swing to the north to insure they wouldn’t spot us, we pushed our animals hard enough to compensate for the added distance,” Blade said. “All we can do now is take cover and hope they show up.”

“I can’t wait to see Priscilla again.”

Blade rode around to the rear of the food and gift store and reined up.

The asphalt parking lot behind the store was in slightly better shape than the road. Twenty yards from the rear door a crumbling, oxidized jeep rested on its hubs.

“I remember reading about Old Faithful during my schooling years,” Achilles mentioned. “It’s hard to believe millions of Americans traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to reach this very spot.”

“What’s so hard to understand?” Blade replied, dismounting. “Most Americans in the prewar era lived in towns or cities. They knew very little about nature and couldn’t survive for two days in the wilderness on their own. There was no incentive for them to live off the land because all of their food was easily obtained in restaurants and markets. Their clothing could be bought at retail outlets. They had severed their ties to the ways of the natural world. Quite naturally, whenever they had the time, on vacations or whatever, they’d flock to the country to get a taste of the primal life.” He scanned their surroundings. “They came here to escape the artificial world in which they lived.”

Achilles slid to the asphalt. “I’m glad I didn’t live back then.”

Unslinging both the Commando and the Henry, Blade moved to the closed back door. He drew up his right leg, shifted, and delivered a side stomp kick to the peeling panel, fracturing the wood down the center. Half of the door fell inward. “Cover my back,” he directed, and eased into the gloomy interior.

A narrow hallway, the floor caked with trash and dirt and the ceiling a haven for a variety of cobwebs, led past a closet, an office, and a storeroom to the front of the establishment. Debris littered the grimy tile underfoot.

All of the, shelves were empty. The place had clearly been ransacked years and years ago. Faded wrappers and rusty tin cans lined the aisles. The big window being the road and Old Faithful had been broken into tiny shards.

Blade moved down an aisle to the front door, which hung at a slant, attached to the frame by just its top hinge. He kept clear of the doorway.

Footprints in the dust would give them away, and he wanted the Breed to draw welt within the range of his Commando. The closer, the better.

“Do you have a plan?” Achilles inquired.

“We’ll hide out in here until they arrive, then play it by ear. Our first priority is to rescue Hickok, Geronimo, and the others. Once they’re safe, we can concentrate on wiping out the mutations.”

“If the…” Achilles began, and abruptly stopped, astounded by the sight across the road.

Attended by a muted crackling and a loud hissing, Old Faithful erupted, sending a silvery spray of steaming water high, high into the air.

Attaining a height of 170 feet, the water then felt back to the earth in a wide circular area around the geyser, splattering silica in all directions.

“Wow!” Achilles said.

Blade watched the beautiful display in silence, thinking of the irony involved. Once this geyser had drawn spectators by the millions, and he remembered reading that scientists and geologists had been concerned Old Faithful might stop erupting, just like other famous geysers in Yellowstone. Evidently, many geysers simply died out, lost their Oomph, after a while. But here was Old Faithful, continuing to cascade water long after the millions of spectators had ceased to exist.

The eruption lasted for several minutes. Then the hissing abruptly ended and the last of the spray dropped to the soil.

“That was magnificent,” Achilles commented. “Do you mink Yellowstone Park will ever be reopened?”

“Maybe one day the leaders of the Civilized Zone will get around to it, after the scavengers and the mutants and the raiders have all been exterminated.”

Achilles sighed. “Then it will never reopen.”

“Let’s get comfortable,” Blade suggested, and sank to his knees next to the bottom of the busted window, carefully avoiding the strewn glass.

“In case I should forget, I want to thank you again for the opportunity you’ve given me,” Achilles remarked, unslinging the FNC and squatting alongside the giant.

“You can repay me by staying alive.”

“I’ll do my best, I want to live long enough to ask Priscilla to go back to the Home with us.”

Blade glanced at the novice.

“I know I couldn’t leave the Home, couldn’t desert the Family. If she feels the same way about me that I do about her, then she might agree.”

“It’s worth a try,” Blade acknowledged.

“Wouldn’t it be funny? I mean, I came along to acquire combat experience, yet I may be going back with a treasure more valuable than any other. What’s the thrill of combat compared to the genuine affection of a lovely woman?”

“Yep. You definitely should become a poet.”

“I don’t know the first thing about poetry, about putting words on paper.”

“Plato once told me that poetry is the rhythm of the soul, not the rhyming of words.”

Achilles chuckled. “I really must spend more time in Plato’s company from now on.”

They settled down to wait, placing the spare weapons on the tile near their legs. Thirty minutes passed. An hour. Ravens, jays, and an occasional hawk winged through the sky. Squirrels scampered in the trees and chipmunks frolicked among the boulders. Twice mule deer crossed their field of vision, and once four fat elk appeared in the forest on the opposite side of Old Faithful.

Blade savored the peace and quiet, knowing all too well what was coming. He double-checked the Commando, and wished he possessed ammo for the Henry and the Colts lying next to his right knee. His mind strayed, and he thought about his wife and son. Immersed in reflecting on the time he took them on a vacation to a small lake north of the Home and nearly got them all slain, he almost failed to register the movement off to his left, to the east of the store. He casually swung his head around and saw them.