David Robbins - Atlanta Run

“Start what?”

“Never mind.”

“There you go again.”

“Just get on my back,” Hickok instructed her, his eyes raking the forest.

Chastity complied, locking her arms around his neck and clamping her legs on his sides.

“Now hold on tight,” Hickok cautioned. “I’m going to slide down this pole to the bottom of the pit.”

Chastity’s grip tightened. “It’s dark down there. The monster will get us.”

“No,” Hickok said. “We’re going to give the monster a big surprise. Trust me.”

“I trust you.”

“Don’t fret. It’ll be a piece of cake,” Hickok assured her. He surveyed the foliage, hoping the mutant wasn’t watching, and gripped the pole with his left hand, looped his right through the carrying strap of the M-16, and slowly lowered into the pit, descending hand over hand to the dirt floor.

Branches and grass mats littered the hole. He crouched and deposited Chastity.

“I don’t like this,” she mentioned.

“Think of it as hide and seek,” Hickok said. “We’re hiding from the mutant. If it finds us, it wins the prize.”

“What prize?”

“A face full of lead,” Hickok replied. He gripped the M-16 in both hands and settled on his knees. “Sit.”

Chastity obeyed.

“Now we wait,” the Warrior whispered. “We can’t make a peep or the monster will hear us.”

“I’ll be quiet,” Chastity promised.

Hickok stared at the top of the pole, resigned to a lengthy vigil if necessary. He cocked his head as gunfire erupted far off.

“Hickok?” Chastity said quietly.

“I knew it,” the gunman muttered. “What?”

“Would you be my new daddy?”

For one of the few times in his entire life, the gunfighter was speechless.

He glanced at the girl, stunned by the unexpected query.

“Would you? I need one.”

Hickok didn’t know what to say. “I already have a son,” he blurted out.

“Ringo,” Chastity said. “I know. Would you like a girl too?” She gazed at him earnestly, expectantly.

The gunman tore his eyes from her and looked at the pit rim. “You should stay with kinfolk,” he said huskily.

“Who are the Kinfolks? Relatives of yours?”

“No,” Hickok responded. “I meant that you should stay with relatives of yours.”

“I don’t have any.”

“Yes, you do. Your father’s sister, remember? Your aunt. Blade is in Atlanta searching for her right now,” Hickok told her.

Chastity frowned. “Oh.”

“Something wrong?”

“I don’t like her,” Chastity declared. “I don’t want to live with her.”

“You should live with relatives,” Hickok reiterated.

Chastity glumly stared at the floor. “I get it. You don’t want to be my daddy.”

The corners of the gunman’s mouth curled downward. “It’s not that. I have a son—”

“And you only want one child,” Chastity said.

“It’s not that—”

“Your wife would be upset,” Chastity stated.

“Will you stop interruptin’ me!” Hickok snapped. “I never said we only wanted one kid. As for my missus, I’m the head honcho in our marriage.”

“The what?”

“I’m the boss,” Hickok explained.

“You are?”

“Well, sort of. We divide the responsibility and the decisions fifty-fifty,” Hickok elaborated.

“Even-Steven?”

“Well, not quite.” Hickok reflected a moment. “Actually, although I’d never admit it to anyone else, my missus is the brains in our marriage.”

“Would she like to have a little girl?” Chastity asked eagerly.

“She’s always gripin’ about being outnumbered,” Hickok mentioned. He looked into her eyes. “But takin’ on a new mouth to feed is a major decision. Sherry and I would have to talk it out, and Ringo should be prepared.”

“Do you mean you’ll think about it?” Chastity inquired with a hopeful lilt.

“I’ll cogitate on it,” Hickok said.

“You’ll what?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Yippee!” Chastity exclaimed, jumping up and hugging him.

The Warrior felt like he was being choked to death. “Whoa there, princess. Calm down. We’ve got to be quiet.”

But it was too late.

Hickok’s blood chilled as he heard a guttural snarl from overhead, and he craned his neck for a view of the rim. A savage visage glowered at him.

The mutant was at the very edge next to the pole, holding the Uzi in its hairy left hand. As the gunman had contrived, curiosity had prompted the beast to emerge from cover and shuffle to the weapon lying near the pit.

Hickok guessed that the mutant had picked up the automatic a second before Chastity yelled, and now it knew they were there. “Look out!” he shouted, shoving the girl aside and elevating the M-16.

With a bellow of bloodlust, the creature leaped into the pit.

The white plane’s twin-engines whined as the aircraft arced at the band of Freedom Fighters.

“Cover!” Locklin called out.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi knew he would court certain death if he stood; the Storm Police in the stand of trees would mow him down before he covered a yard. On the other hand, lying in the weeds exposed him to the diving plane. He compromised. Clutching the Uzi in his left hand, he quickly scrambled on his hands and knees into the dense brush. Above him the sky was rent by the rattle of a large-caliber machine gun.

Someone screamed in torment.

The Warrior rolled to a squatting posture, finding Locklin and other men and women in green near him. Three of the band had not been as fortunate, and their prone forms were visible sprawled in the weeds.

“Tuck!” Locklin cried.

Rikki peered upward at the aircraft as the plane climbed for a second run.

A squat, bearded man, hunched over at the waist, hastened to Locklin.

He held a crossbow in his muscular right hand. “Yes?”

“You know what to do,” Locklin said.

Tuck nodded and knelt, reaching for a small, brown leather pouch attached to his belt on his left hip. He opened the flap and extracted an unusually large arrowhead.

“That plane is history,” Locklin declared.

A crossbow against an aircraft? Rikki watched as Tuck shifted and revealed a quiver of crossbow bolts suspended from his belt on his right side. “You must be an outstanding archer,” Rikki commented.

Tuck looked at the man in black. “Have you ever seen this done before?”

He placed the black crossbow on the grass.

“I’ve never seen anyone shoot down a plane with an arrow.”

“Watch,” Tuck said. He extracted a bolt from the quiver, a short, green arrow lacking a tip. The end of the shaft was hollow. “These were all the rage before the war,” Tuck commented. “It’s easy to use different arrowheads this way.” He quickly inserted the threaded base of the oversized arrowhead into the hollow end of the bolt and screwed the arrowhead tight.

“We possess such arrows where I come from,” Rikki mentioned. “And I have a friend who is an excellent bowman. His name is Teucer. But I doubt even he could down a plane with a simple shaft.”

“Not so simple,” Tuck said, holding the bolt out for Rikki to examine.

“This is an explosive arrowhead, and it’s designed to detonate on impact.”

“Where did you obtain it?”

“We found an abandoned house in Redan. In the basement was a cache of weapons,” Tuck divulged. “The place must have belonged to a survivalist.”

“The plane is coming in for another run,” Locklin interjected.

Tuck scooped up his crossbow and stood. “Hold this,” he said, handing the bolt to Rikki. He extended a metal stirrup from under the front of the bow, then rested the stirrup on the turf and slid his right boot into it to act as a brace and keep the bow in position while he pulled on the string.