David Robbins - Twin Cities Run

“I’ll think of something,” Hickok assured him.

“You sure you ain’t a Wack?” Bear demanded.

“If I am,” Hickok said, grinning, “what’s that make you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re following me, aren’t you?” Hickok eased out the door into the hall.

“Damn!” Bear exclaimed. He hesitated, considering the risks. “Oh, hell!” Smiling, he followed Hickok.

“Where is Maggot right now?” Hickok asked when Bear joined him.

“About three stories up.” Bear pointed at the ceiling.

“You know this place,” Hickok said. “What’s the best way to get to him without anyone seeing us?”

Bear pondered the question. “We’re lucky that no one uses this lower level too much. We can take the stairs up to the third floor. There might not be too many using the stairwell.”

“Is there any other way?”

“Just the shafts,” Bear casually mentioned.

“The shafts?”

“Wait a minute, Hickok,” Bear immediately objected. “We can’t use the shafts.”

“Why not?”

“Why, the only way up them is the cables!”

“The cables?”

“Yeah. They hang down the middle of the shafts. We’d have to climb them. Three stories!”

“Let’s go.” Hickok beckoned for Bear to lead the way.

“You don’t understand,” Bear complained.

“Then show me.”

Bear shrugged and led Hickok to the right. The corridor was lit by torches attached to the walls at twenty-foot intervals. The door to the pit was at one end of the hallway. In the center were two open doors, revealing two confined chambers, measuring five feet by five feet.

“What the blazes are these?” Hickok asked. They reminded him of two immense closets.

“Beats me,” Bear replied. “No one knows what they were used for. Look at those.” He pointed at two square openings, one in the roof of each closet. “You can climb up and get on top of these things. That’s where the cables are. They’re fastened to the middle of the roofs, and they go straight up to the top of this building, which is eight stories high.”

“Which reminds me,” Hickok said. “Where is this building?”

“Oh. It’s on our turf, of course, in pretty safe territory. Think it was called the Riker Manufacturing Complex before the war. Off of Olsen Memorial Highway.”

“How far from no-man’s-land?” Hickok needed to know.

“From where they found you?”

Hickok nodded.

“About five or six miles.”

Hickok sighed. “Let’s get this over with.” He entered the left cubicle and glanced at the opening above his head.

“Now just a minute…” Bear began.

“Now what’s the matter?” Hickok snapped, impatient with Bear’s constant carping.

“This ain’t such a bright idea,” Bear informed him.

“You say it leads to the floor Maggot is on?”

“Sure enough.”

“And we won’t encounter other Porns using this way?”

Bear grinned. “None of ’em would be loony enough to try it!”

“Good.” Hickok leaped, catching the edges of the opening, pulling his body up and through, bracing his feet on either side of the square after attaining the roof.

Bear stepped into the compartment and looked up. “You’re goin’ to do it?”

“You need to ask?”

“What if the cable breaks?”

“Try and put me back together before you bury me.”

“Damn! You sure are one contrary honky!” Bear muttered. He walked around to the other cubicle and followed Hickok’s example, pushing his Winchester onto the roof before he clambered on top.

“This is a great idea,” Hickok complimented him.

“You think so, huh?” Bear nervously peered into the darkness, uncomfortable, assailed by the oppressive silence and a sensation of being watched. Something rattled to his left. “What was that?” he asked, scooping up his Winchester.

“Just me.” Hickok stood and tested the cable, yanking as hard as he could, wondering what it was secured to on high.

“Don’t do that!” Bear cried out. “You like to scared me half to death!”

Hickok had already replaced the C.O.P. in the holster strapped to his left leg. The Mitchell’s Derringer was firmly attached to his right wrist.

Not much, considering the arsenal Maggot had at his disposal and the number of men on his side, but it would have to do. “Are you all set?” he asked Bear.

Bear was bothered by the lack of light, just enough filtering in through the openings to enable him to detect Hickok’s form on top of the other cubicle. He gazed up the shaft, noting that black stretches alternated with patches of light at each story. All of the doors to the shaft had been pried open long ago, and the light from the respective hallways provided minimal illumination.

“Are you ready?” Hickok demanded.

“As ready as I’m gonna be.”

Hickok gripped the cable and jumped, wrapping his ankles around the cable for added support as he slowly climbed, hand over hand, toward the next story.

Bear tucked his Winchester under his belt, angling the rifle along his right hip. He tightened the belt to insure he wouldn’t lose the gun as he scaled the cable.

“Will you come on!” Hickok’s voice carried from the darkness above.

Bear took a deep breath, grabbed the cable, and started his ascent, mounting the cable in the same fashion as Hickok. He found himself speculating whether the rats could climb the cable.

Hickok reached the open doors at the first-floor level. He paused, hanging onto the cable, waiting for Bear to catch up.

“Is somethin’ wrong?” Bear asked when he reached a position on his cable directly aligned with Hickok. The two cables were eight feet apart.

“I thought maybe you were taking a nap,” Hickok cracked.

“You ain’t funny, man,” Bear responded.

“I remembered what these things were called,” Hickok informed him.

“You do?” Bear spoke softly, his eyes on the portion of the first-floor hall visible through the open doors.

“Yep. They were tagged elevators, I believe.”

“Remind me to tell you how impressed I am,” Bear said, “after I get off this cable!”

Hickok grinned and resumed ascending his cable, his wrists, already injured in the pit incident, smarting painfully. They had to hold out until he reached the third floor! If he lost his grip now, he’d bust his skull in the fall.

Bear paced his exertions, keeping level with Hickok. He wondered how Hickok and Bertha had met, and he hoped Bertha was still alive because he wanted to see her again, to tell her all the things, express all his feelings, the emotions, he’d never been able to display before she deserted the Porns for the Nomads. Why hadn’t he gone with her? She had wanted him to go with her, even pleaded with him, tears in her beautiful eyes. And he’d refused. In all his years, Bear castigated himself, he’d never met a bigger asshole than the person he saw when he stood in front of a mirror.

They reached the second-floor doors and paused, resting.

“Only one more to go,” Bear whispered to Hickok.

Hickok nodded and grinned.

The voices and the two women were on them before they could scurry for cover.

“I don’t like it one bit,” the first woman stated as they walked into view, engaged in conversation, slowly passing the open elevator doors.

Hickok and Bear hung in plain view, scarcely daring to breathe, waiting to see if the women would spot them.

“I don’t like it none either,” the second young woman said, “but I don’t see what I can do about it.”

“I know what you can do,” the first woman, a brunette in a faded green dress, commented.

“Like what?”

“Stick a knife in the bastard,” suggested the brunette.