David Robbins - Dallas Run

The thin man with the Uzi took a half step forward. “Relocate? You’d help us get out of Dallas?”

“That’s right,” Geronimo assured him.

“What’s the Civilized Zone like?” Cathy asked.

“Compared to Dallas, it’s paradise,” Geronimo told her.

Reeves snorted. “How do you know we can trust these pricks? They could be feeding us a pack of lies.”

“I trust them,” Marlon said.

“Oh, now that’s encouraging! As if we’d believe you,” Reeves responded, and laughed.

Marlon’s features reddened. “Listen, Reeves. You know that I hate you as much as you hate me. I wouldn’t be making this offer if it wasn’t genuine. The last thing in the world I’d ever want to do is ask you for help.

I know what you’re like.”

“Then you know you’re wasting your breath,” Reeves said.

“Maybe we should listen to them,” the thin man ventured.

“No way, Dan,” Reeves stated emphatically.

“But if they’re serious, this is our chance to get out of this hellhole,” Dan commented.

“No.”

“What about those of us who have kids?” Dan asked the hulking leader.

“Your kids will be fine. We’ll look after them like we always have,” Reeves replied.

“But there are fewer and fewer of us every month,” Cathy said, chiming in.

“Now don’t you start!” Reeves said. He glared at Marlon. “You came all this way for nothing, sucker! Don’t get lost on your way back.”

“I think we should agree to help them,” Dan declared stubbornly.

“Tough. You’re not the head of the Stompers. I am,” Reeves stated arrogantly. “As long as I’m the top dog, what I say goes.” He started to turn.

“Hold the fort there, ugly,” Hickok suddenly spoke up.

“What the hell do you want?” Reeves snarled.

Hickok looked at the thin man. “If you were in charge of the Stompers, you’d help us?”

“That’s right,” Dan responded.

What transpired next happened so swiftly that those who witnessed it were shocked speechless by the brutal abruptness of the act. The gunfighter’s right hand blurred as the right Python swung up and out, and with the booming of the Colt a hole materialized between Reeves’s eyes and the rear of his cranium erupted in a spray of blood and brains. He fell straight backwards, like a mighty oak toppling over in the forest, and thudded on the ground.

The gunfighter twirled the Python into its holster and smiled at the Stomper named Dan. “Congratulations. You’re now in charge.”

Dan gawked at the blood oozing from the hole in Reeves’s forehead.

“You shot him!” he blurted out.

Stompers converged on them from the park.

Hickok walked over to the thin man. “You’d best snap out of it. The next move is up to you.” His voice lowered menacingly. “And you’d better make the right move, and pronto, or I’m liable to lose my temper.”

Dan glanced at the gunman, at those hands hovering near the pearl-handled Colts, and gulped.

Blade stood at the west end of the field, near the uprights, his arms at his sides, staring at the 100 or so members of the Chosen gathered in the stands in front of him to witness whatever had been planned. He recalled the uneventful ride from CHEMITEX back to the stadium, and he wished he had made a break then instead of waiting for a better opportunity to arise. None had, and now, with the sun sinking toward the western horizon but still visible above the stadium wall, he braced himself for the worst. From the wicked grins the Chosen were casting in his direction, he knew the Lawgiver had something diabolical in store for him.

For over an hour the elderly maniac had addressed his followers, exhorting them to stand firm in their commitment to remove the impure heathen from the face of the earth. The Lawgiver had extolled the Chosen as God’s special people, a people with a divine mission to perform. He’d quoted from Scripture to justify his statements. The longer he’d talked, the more fanatical he’d become, his arms gesturing animatedly as he inspired them to attain new heights of devotion to the will of the Maker.

Again and again he’d stressed his personal relationship with the Maker, claiming that all he did, his every action and thought, was directed by God. And the Chosen had responded to the Lawgiver’s pronouncements enthusiastically, cheering and applauding after almost every sentence.

They were his puppets, and he was the puppet master.

Standing in the lowest row, the Lawgiver now gazed at the Warrior and smiled. “Well, mercenary, the moment of your meeting with Destiny has arrived.”

Blade said nothing. He refused to give the Lawgiver any satisfaction by reacting.

“You must be curious about the Destiny I refer to,” the Lawgiver said.

“I will explain, but first I must offer my gratitude for your kind gifts.”

The Warrior’s eyes narrowed.

“In all my years I haven’t seen a pair of knives in such outstanding condition,” the Lawgiver remarked, and leaned down to retrieve the Bowies from the floor near his feet. He held the knives aloft. “Your machine gun will be used to protect our tanker trucks when they enter the Civilized Zone. But I have decided to keep these for myself. Thank you.”

Blade’s lips compressed tightly.

The Lawgiver lowered the knives. “And now for our evening’s entertainment. Perhaps you noticed the wild cattle feeding in the vicinity of our chemical plant?”

Blade wasn’t about to admit he had observed the cattle.

“Ranches were once widespread across Texas,” the Lawgiver went on.

“The Texans prided themselves on their hardy stock, particularly their cattle. After the war, probably millions of head reverted to a wild state.

There are many herds in close proximity to Dallas, and they provide us with meat for our table.” He paused. “The herd near the plant included a magnificent specimen of longhorn. Are you familiar with the breed?”

As before, the Warrior maintained his silence.

“I had thoughts of domesticating some of them, so I ordered the longhorn to be taken. I envisioned him as the first in the huge herd we would own, but the brute proved to be too wild and intractable. We managed to rope him, but he killed one of my men in the process. I was about to have the animal slain when a wonderful idea occurred to me, no doubt induced by the Maker.”

Blade heard a muted clattering emanating from a tunnel under the stands to his left.

“Occasionally our attempts to convert the impure are not successful,” the Lawgiver continued. “Originally, we disposed of them as humanely as they deserved, either by hanging or strangling. But when I saw the longhorn kill poor Brother Elisha, I recognized I was beholding a lethal instrument of the Maker, an ideal killing machine, as it were.”

The clattering had grown in volume until the pounding of hooves on cement was audible.

“So now when I deem someone as unworthy of belonging to the Chosen, we need not bother with a messy hanging. We simply position them out there, where you are, and unleash their Destiny,” the Lawgiver said, and smirked. “Destiny, by the way, is the name we’ve given our longhorn.” A moment later the steer burst from the tunnel to the loud cheers of the Chosen.

Blade crouched and tensed, astounded by the beast.

Destiny stood seven feet tall at the shoulders. Rawboned and rangy, the animal had a tough, thick hide brownish red in color. The head was long, the nose blunt and black. Massive muscles rippled and flowed as it moved, and the creature radiated a feral, fierce air, a ferocity accented by the pair of sweeping horns jutting from either side of its head. Monstrous horns they were, with a five-foot spread and curved forward from the center, capable of spearing through a human body with ease.