David Robbins - Thief River Falls Run

She gazed up at him, her eyes soft in the light from a single bulb burning in a socket directly overhead.

“I’m sorry to do this.” Blade sat down next to her. “We need to ask you some questions.”

“I can handle it,” she assured him. “Besides, I owe you. You saved my life.”

“What’s your name?” Blade began his questioning.

“Called Bertha. Most of my friends call me Big Bertha, on account of my boobs.”

Hickok chuckled.

“Where are you from?” Blade asked her.

“From the Twins.”

“The Twin Cities?” Blade inquired, excited.

“Some still call it that. Used to be called some other weird name before the War. Long, long time ago. Don’t remember what it was.”

“How’d you get here?” came from Hickok.

“Dumb luck, I guess.” Bertha pouted, her lips forming a small o. “ Z wanted me to scout west of the Twins…”

“Who is Z?” Blade broke in.

“Zahner. Our leader. We all just call him Z for short. He wanted someone to see if the Watchers cover every exit from the Twins. You see, everyone knows the Watchers are there. No one knows where they come from. They block every road out of the city, and they kill everyone who tries to get out. Don’t know why. No one’s tried to get past them in years.”

“If you want to leave the city,” Hickok said thoughtfully, “Why don’t you just go overland, avoid the highways, and cut across country?”

Bertha snickered. “You crazy, White Meat? The Uglies will get you sure as I’m lying here!”

“Uglies?” Blade reflected a moment. “Could she mean the mutates?”

“Why don’t you just shoot the Uglies?” Hickok asked her.

“Wish to hell I could! But guns in the Twins are scarce, and ammo even rarer. The Horns have a few, the Porns even more, and we got three. We need ’em to preserve our turf. Can’t allow any guns to leave the Twins.

Have you ever tried to stop an Ugly with a club or a knife? Ain’t done, bro.

The Uglies stay out of the city, and we stay out of the country.”

“So this Z sent you to find a road that might be clear?” Blade goaded her.

Bertha sighed. “Yeah. Z thought that maybe, just maybe, the Watchers weren’t covering all the roads. I went out ’bout two weeks ago on one of the small roads. Got twenty miles from the Twins and was caught by a Watcher patrol. They had their fun with me, and then passed me to another group of watchers. They got their jollies, and I was passed to this group in Thief River Falls. They weren’t able to get their rocks off before you guys showed up.” She reached out and placed her hand on Hickok’s.

“Thanks, White Meat. Sooner or later they was going to waste poor Bertha.”

“Piece of cake,” Hickok told her.

“Why did this Z want to find a way out of the city?” Blade inquired.

“Because we’re tired of all the fighting.”

“Fighting?”

“Yeah. The Porns attack the Horns, and the Horns go after the Porns, and they both try and get us whenever they can.”

“Does your group have a name?”

“We’re mainly called the Nomads, ’cause we don’t give our allegiance to the Porns or the Horns. Then, of course, there’s also the Lone Wolves, the ones that keep to themselves and prey on everybody else. That leaves only the Wacks.”

“The Wacks?” Blade was striving to make some sense from all this information Bertha was supplying.

“The crazies, man, the crazies! You never want to get caught by the Wacks! They’d eat you alive.”

“They’re cannibals?” Hickok said, shocked.

“What’s a cannibal?” she asked him.

“A cannibal is a person who eats other people,” Blade answered her.

“Yep. Some of the Wacks have been known to munch on their captives.

Just thinking about ’em gives me the creeps!”

“Do these groups,” Blade inquired, trying to sort the facts, “fight among themselves all over the city?”

Bertha yawned. “No, man, no. The Porns, the Horns, and us all got our own turf we protect. The Wacks and the Lone Wolves attack you anywhere. The Wacks just pop up from the underground.”

“Underground?”

“Yeah, They come up out of the manholes at night, lookin’ for food and such.”

Blade bit his lower lip, reflecting. All of this was completely alien to any of his past experience. What was he to make of it? How should it affect their trip to the Twin Cities?

“What’s turf?” Hickok wanted to know.

Bertha studied him, perplexed. “You don’t know what turf is? Where are you boys from, White Meat? Turf is our territory. The Porns have the western part of the Twins. The Wacks are based in the south. The Horns have the eastern part, and some of the north. Mainly, though, we hold most of the north. It’s the smallest turf, but then they got more soldiers than we do.”

“Soldiers?” Blade repeated, surprised. “You have armies?”

“Not the way I think you mean, man,” Bertha answered. “A soldier is anyone who does fightin’ for their side. Get it? I’m a soldier for the Nomads. One of their topnotch soldiers,” she proudly boasted.

“I knew it.” Hickok grinned.

“What do you fight about?” Blade asked her.

“Just about anything, honey.” Bertha laughed. “We fight to protect our turf, and we fight to attack theirs, and we fight because we don’t much like one another, and because we’re all different. We don’t believe in the same things.”

“That’s a reason for killing one another?” Blade placed his hands behind him and leaned back.

“Can you think of any better?”

“I’m sorry, Bertha,” Blade told her. “I really don’t understand any of this. I’m trying. I really am. But it doesn’t make much sense. Can you comprehend any of this?” he asked Hickok.

“I wish. I see that these people are all trying to be top dog in the Twin Cities, but I don’t know the reason they’re fighting. Does anyone know?”

He turned to Bertha. “Is there anyone who knows when and why all of this started?”

Bertha was thinking. “There might be one man. He’s the oldest Nomad.

Almost forty years old.”

“That’s old?” Hickok glanced at Blade. “Are you dying off early because of advanced senility?”

“What do all of them words mean?”

“Old age?”

“Naw. No one lives to old age anymore. Most of us are killed by the time we’re thirty.”

“None of this makes any sense,” Blade repeated. “I need to do some serious contemplating. We’ll have a conference in the morning and consider our options.”

“Don’t strain your brain.” Hickok grinned.

“Hey! Wait a minute!” Bertha said to Blade as he stood. “I’ve got a heap of questions of my own. Who’s going to answer them?”

“I’ll let Hickok handle the task.” Blade smiled. “Joshua should be up here soon with your soup. You rest. We won’t be leaving until you’re fit to travel.”

“Travel?”

“We need you to take us to the Twin Cities,” Blade informed her.

“I don’t know about that, honky.” Bertha shook her head. “I’m finally free of that mess, and I’m not sure I want to go back. You can’t know how bad it is there.”

Blade walked to the doorway. “If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to. We won’t force you to come with us. But it would make it easier on us if we had someone who knew their way around the Twin Cities.”

“Why do you want to go there anyway?”

“Hickok can fill you in. I’m going to check our perimeter and insure the SEAL is secure. See you in the morning.” Blade walked off.

“I like him,” Bertha said to Hickok. “He’s got a way about him.”

“That he does,” Hickok agreed.