David Robbins: Armageddon Run

It was time to kill again.

The big man cautiously raised his head, his penetrating gray eyes scanning the scene directly ahead, counting the soldiers once more. He had to be sure. Too many lives depended on his judgment. Cautiously, insuring his dark, curly hair wouldn’t be visible above the lip of the ditch he was lying in, he verified his earlier count: 12 guards and 48 prisoners.

So far, so good.

The soldiers obviously weren’t expecting trouble. They ringed the prisoners at regular intervals, idly watching the captives work at repairing the road. Three of the troopers, an officer and two others, stood near a pair of parked troop transports and a jeep, engaged in conversation. Every soldier carried an M-16 and had an automatic pistol strapped to his waist.

It wasn’t going to be easy.

The man in the ditch flexed his huge muscles, alleviating a sharp cramp in his left arm. His bulging biceps and triceps, as well as his black leather vest and green fatigue pants, were caked with dirt from his prolonged crawling along the ditch. A pair of Bowie knives dangled from a brown belt, one on each hip. In his right arm he cradled a Commando Arms Carbine, a 45-caliber machine gun. Suspended under each arm in a shoulder holster was a Vega 45 automatic pistol.

Just a few more feet!

The soldiers and their prisoners were south of his position, coming toward him at a slow pace as the captives, each one of them shackled at the ankles, labored at repairing this stretch of U.S. Highway 85. The prisoners were filling in the potholes, using ready-mixed asphalt taken from a stack of sacks piled on the eastern side of the road.

Startled, the man with the Bowies suddenly noted an interesting fact about the 48 prisoners: they all seemed to be Indians.

Could it be?

A slight movement to his left arrested his attention. He caught sight of a lean, blond man dressed in buckskins crawling up behind the stack of asphalt sacks. Hickok. The gunman’s pearl-handled Colt Python revolvers were strapped around his narrow waist. He clutched a Navy Arms Henry Carbine in his hands.

The big man glanced to his right, searching for another of his companions, but there was no sign of the stocky Geronimo. If figured.

With his green shirt and pants, both constructed from the remains of an old canvas tent, Geronimo would blend into the scenery.

“Move your butts!” one of the soldiers abruptly barked, goading on the workers.

The afternoon sun was high in the sky, the early November weather mild with the temperature hovering in the 60s, typical of northeastern Wyoming for this time of the year.

The man with the muscles tensed, hoping the others in his party were set in their assigned spots. Except for Hickok, Geronimo, and Bertha, the rest of his group were strangers, and he felt uncomfortable about working with the newcomers. Still, orders were orders. If it was necessary to join forces with Lynx, Rudabaugh, and Orson, so be it. He had heard about Lynx, about how deadly the genetic deviate could be, but Rudabaugh and Orson were unknown quantities, and he disliked relying on them in matters of life and death.

The nearest soldier was now only ten feet away.

The big man looked at the officer and the other two troopers standing near the vehicles at the far end of the work detail. It would be up to the diminutive Lynx to insure none of the soldiers escaped in those vehicles.

Lynx had better be as good as his reputation, or all of their plans would be for naught.

Six feet separated him from the closest trooper. The soldier was facing in the other direction, watching the laborers.

The man in the ditch placed his right index finger on the trigger of the Commando.

Four feet. The soldier, backing toward him, took another step.

Now!

“Get down!” the big man shouted as he rose to his knees, not bothering to wait and see if any of the prisoners complied with his command. He angled the Commando upward and pulled the trigger, the stock bucking against his shoulder as a burst ripped into the nearest soldier, the heavy slugs catching the man at the neck and nearly decapitating him, showering blood and flesh everywhere.

The trooper never knew what hit him.

“Get down!” the man with the Bowies repeated, rising, sweeping the Commando to the right.

Another soldier was attempting to bring his M-16 into play.

The big man let him have it in the chest, the impact flinging the trooper to the ground, his chest exploding in a crimson spray.

Bedlam ensued.

The prisoners dropped to the asphalt, removing themselves from the line of fire as quickly as possible.

Hickok popped up from behind the pile of asphalt sacks, the Henry leveling as he sighted on a nearby guard. The 44-40 boomed, and the soldier was propelled backward, collapsing in a disjointed heap. Hickok swiveled and fired again, downing a second foe.

The man in the black vest started toward the prisoners, spotting Geronimo as the black-haired Warrior rose from concealment in a cluster of sagebrush and let loose with an FNC Auto Rifle, ripping one of the hapless soldiers from his crotch to his forehead. Geronimo was also armed with an Arminius .357 Magnum in a shoulder holster under his right arm and a genuine tomahawk tucked under the front of his leather belt.

Beyond the stack of asphalt bags, a tall man with a bristly black beard and bushy eyebrows, dressed in tattered, patched jeans and a faded brown-flannel shirt, jumped up from the ditch and pulled the trigger on a Winchester 1300 XTR Pump Shotgun. A soldier in front of him was struck in the stomach and almost cut in two by the buckshot. The bearded man, the one called Orson, pivoted and blasted a youthful trooper vainly turning to flee.

The man in the vest saw two soldiers at the far end of the work detail running in the direction of the vehicles.

Where the hell was Rudabaugh?

Even as he mentally asked the question, Rudabaugh came into view near a small bush, his black Western-style clothes a sharp contrast to the surrounding vegetation, his hawkish features grim and determined, a Heckler and Koch Double Action Automatic held in each hand. The 45s cracked, and the pair of fleeing troopers dropped in their tracks.

The big man glanced toward the vehicles in time to see a furry figure pounce from the top of one of the troop transports. The figure landed on the officer, knocking him to the ground. There was a flash of lightning claws, punctuated by a hideous shriek, and in an instant the officer and his two companions were dead, their throats torn open, gaping at the blue sky with lifeless eyes.

And that made it 12.

Geronimo approached the man in the black vest. “Any orders, Blade?”

The big man nodded. “Check the bodies,” he instructed. “If any are still alive, then put them out of their misery.”

“Will do.” Geronimo ran off to comply.

Hickok strolled over to Blade, a grin on his handsome face, his long blond mustache drooping over the corners of his mouth, his blue eyes twinkling. “I knew these wimps wouldn’t be a problem,” he stated. “It was a piece of cake.”

“It’s just the beginning,” Blade reminded him. He stared at the Indians.

All 48 were prone on the highway. Miraculously, none of them had been hit.

Orson, Rudabaugh, and Lynx walked up to the muscular giant.

“Orson,” Blade directed, “see if you can find the keys to these shackles on one of the soldiers. Your best bet would be the officer.”

Orson’s pudgy features twisted in a frown. “Why should I do it? I’m not your errand boy. Have somebody else do it.”

Hickok took a step toward Orson, his right hand lowering near the pearl handle of his right Python. “You keep flappin’ your gums like that, pard, and I’m just liable to put a hole between those beady eyes of yours.”