Blighted Land: Book two of the Northumbrian Western Series (Northumbrian Westerns 2) (25 page)

Over the next couple of hours we passed a few vehicles: an estate car turned into a cart pulled by two horses. A mutilated hatchback belching smoke. As we carried on north clouds built up into great mountains of grey. The sky darkened. Then there was a flash of lightning and a rumble that shook its way through the tank. Raindrops clattered off the bulkhead. We slowed in the deluge as the road turned into a river and pebbles rolled along in the currents. There was another flash that lit the landscape before it dropped into premature dusk. We crept on through the storm, Becky and Casper intent on their screens and Daniel rocking in his seat. The tanks hull buzzed with the electricity in the air as we made our way through the downpour.

At last the storm passed over.
 

The sky cleared and the sun lit the road behind and before us. The monitors showed overgrown pastures and thickets of trees. Pools of water and overfull streams and derelict buildings. And there was something behind us, a little spec of light that only showed when the sun caught it. As we drove on it stayed with us, never closer or further away. It chased us like our own shadow. I played around with the controls on my monitor and worked out how to zoom in and enlarged the image. It was a red Jaguar XF, same as Nico’s second car. It had to be Will and Gregg.

‘We’ve got company,’ I said.

Casper grunted.

‘Behind us.’

He messed with the sights on the turret. ‘It’s no big deal.’

‘It’s been on us for ages. Pacing us.’

‘What’s that?’ said Becky.

‘Trent’s jumpy,’ said Casper. ‘Thinks we’re being followed.’

She looked at her screen for the best part of a minute. Then she pushed the levers forward. Picked up the pace. The car matched us. Then she slowed right down and so did it. ‘Think you’re right, Trent.’

Casper said nothing.
 

‘Can we hit them?’

Casper checked his sights. Took a deep breath. ‘Possibly. Not clearly from this range. Not while we’re moving. We could stop. Blow them away.’
 

‘Maybe.’ But they were probably armed as well. They’d see us slow and be ready. What we needed to do was catch them out. They wouldn’t know about us being able to zoom in on the monitors so they’d probably assume we hadn’t seen them. ‘We need to pull off somewhere. Get behind them. Hit them when they’re not expecting it.’

Casper raised an eyebrow. ‘Sounds reasonable.’

Becky agreed and Daniel just looked worried. I told him there were more bad men but it would be all right. We’d keep him safe.

We continued on for a little while. The road was straight with nowhere to hide. The car was still on our tail. Still pacing us.

Then we descended a steep curve with patches of trees along the roadside. Becky let the Eblis pick up speed. Once we were over the brow and out of their vision she swung it down onto the verge. Off to the left. The Eblis slid, its weight resisting the turn, as we charged into the foliage. Branches slapped on the hull and we pitched and rocked as she steered it through the undergrowth, stopping us behind some straggly trees. Casper turned the turret to face the road.
 

We waited.
 

Maybe the camouflage would fool them. But how could they not spot our huge bulk behind the trees? Or the track marks on the road?
 

They’d be on us before we had time to aim, time to fire back.

The seconds passed and there was no sign of the car.

Then it came past. It seemed to slow then accelerated up the road. The Jaguar disappeared out of view.

Becky reversed, twisting the Eblis round to face after them. Casper worked on the turret and sights, setting it up on the car as it raced off.

He fired. The sound filled the tank and the Jaguar disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

For a few seconds the vehicle reverberated with the blast. Casper was up close to his monitor. He stared into it and chewed his nails. Daniel rocked in his seat. This wasn’t a great experience for him. All I could see on mine were clouds of dust.

‘Think we’ve got it,’ said Casper.

Becky drove off the verge and back onto the road. The tank’s tracks rattled up the tarmac as we headed to where the smoke was settling. As the air cleared we could see the damage the shell had done: there was a hole punched in the road, debris scattered round it. Chunks of dry clay, gravel and tarmac. The Jaguar was half in the crater, intact but badly smashed up. Slewed to the side from its attempt to steer out of the way.

We stopped next to it and Casper clambered out first, a gun in his hand.
 

‘Are you all right?’ I said to Daniel. Sunlight and dusty air came in through the open hatch.

‘Yep,’ he said. His face was red and there were tears on his cheeks. I helped him out and we were followed by Becky.

The car lay on its left-hand side, the front end pushed back almost a metre and the bonnet buckled up. Will was wedged in the front windscreen, his arms splayed out and head twisted back. The glass was cracked and blood stained his face and the dashboard. His eyes were open but they were as dead as he was.

Gregg was still in his seat, flopped against the driver’s door covered with blood. His eyes were shut but he moaned and moved around.

‘What should we do with him?’ said Becky.

Casper brandished his pistol. ‘We can see him off, like his mates.’

‘Like you did with Nico?’

He squared up to me. ‘That’s right. You got a problem with that?’

Actually, in this case I didn’t. It was one thing shooting someone in the back and something else putting an injured man out of his misery. I reached my hand out towards the gun. ‘No. I’ll do it.’

‘Really?’ Casper’s face slackened but he still held onto his pistol.

‘Yeah.’

Daniel started to whine, a high pitched sound.
 

Becky put a hand on each of our shoulders. ‘Not in front of Daniel. Just leave him.’
 

‘You kidding?’ said Casper.

‘He’ll die.’

Casper still had hold of the gun but it was aimed down.

Daniel squeezed past us and went to the wrecked car. He knelt beside Will and said a prayer. The he came round to Gregg’s side and muttered something as he held his hand.
 

We left Will’s body and Gregg in the car. Daniel walked with me, his shoulders slumped and brow furrowed. Maybe he’d wanted to bury Will. Care for Gregg. But we didn’t have time for all that.
 

Before getting in I checked on my bike at the back of the Eblis. It had some fragments of stone on it but otherwise looked fine.
 

I climbed the turret and looked over at Gregg. He’d stopped moving and was slumped against the steering wheel. I’d have liked to see him finished off but Becky was right. He wasn’t going to last without help. Maybe Daniel brought out the best in all of us. With a last glance at Gregg’s still body, Will laid out, I got into Eblis.
 

None of us said anything as Casper shut the hatch and Becky manoeuvred the tank around the Jaguar.
 

Now that Round Up were gone things were going to be much easier.

W
E
DROVE
ON
FURTHER
into Scotland, up through the Lowlands. Daniel hummed to himself and sometimes he put his hands over his eyes. At least he wasn’t rocking in his seat.
 

Becky’s voice crackled over my headphones. ‘We need to have a chat. About where we are going and stuff.’ She turned and looked at Daniel. Seemed he was the stuff.

I didn’t bother to reply. Before I could jump ship I needed juice so I was fine to coast along. Another couple of miles down the road a weatherworn sign appeared with a derelict building beyond it: a disused petrol station. Perfect.

‘Let’s stop here,’ I said. It was a long-shot that there’d be any fuel but it was worth trying.

‘Already?’ said Becky.

‘Might as well.’

Casper had nothing to add so she slowed the Eblis and pulled in. There were rocks set up to block the entrance but the tank chewed its way over the them.
 

We stopped in the middle of the forecourt near two stripped down vans, their doorless bodies dented and rusty. Leaves lay rotting around them and lichen gave their roofs a green fur. The building at the far side had no windows or fittings and debris lay strewn around the entrance. Only one petrol pump remained and it lay on its side beneath a bare frame that had once been the canopy.

We all got out onto the tarmac, split and punctuated by weeds that grew through decomposing leaf-litter.

Casper and Becky started talking to each other as if me and Daniel weren't within earshot, which we were. So I walked off, over to the wrecked petrol pumps, beside one that lay on its side component-less. Daniel followed me and I lay down on the ground, peered into the pipe from the broken pump that led down into the reservoir. I sniffed. It smelled of hummus and fungi. No whiff of petrol.

I ripped the cover off another pump and turned the mechanism by hand. Tried to draw up trace of fuel. For several minutes I cranked it over, the dry bearings squeaking. When I held the nozzle to my nose there was nothing. Not a hint.

So, I was stuck with them for the time being. I walked back to Becky and Casper, Daniel behind me. They were still on about routes, the best way to skirt Glasgow and get all the way up to the loch they were aiming for. She’d pulled out a map and laid it on the ground to show the inlets and roads. I got in between her and Casper, much to his annoyance. She pointed to where they were going, Loch Fyne on the west coast. From here to there is was hard to see an easy route without going past Glasgow.

‘Crossing the river is the problem,’ said Casper.

‘We could go east and avoid all that,’ said Becky.

‘That will add miles to the distance.’

‘If we aim for Stirling then swing over, we’ll be fine.’

‘There’s no guarantee that will be better.’

Becky looked at me. ‘What do you think, Trent? About Glasgow. About our route north.’

Like most cities Glasgow was a crazy place, the stories of the gangs that worked the area suggesting we’d be mad to go through. But heading east would force us to skirt Loch Lomond at the top end, putting a big loop on the journey. Then again, I knew the rumours about crossing the Clyde and the tolls that were extracted, sometimes human ones. Bridges were pinch points, as we’d found in Galashiels. ‘Head for Stirling,’ I said.

‘Still have to pass Edinburgh,’ said Casper.

‘Safer than Glasgow.’

‘Fine,’ said Becky.
 

Casper shrugged, indifferent.
 

‘What do you think?’ She was looking at Daniel.
 

We all turned to him. He was kicking at the chewed up car park with his hands in his pockets. ‘Yep,’ he said.

So we planned our route on the map. For now I was with them and I wanted some say in where we went. With a couple of pens we marked it out. Daniel muttered things and stood with us but didn’t have much to add. As Becky cross-checked it on bigger scale maps Casper went to scavenge for food in the building and I took Daniel aside. We chatted over by the busted petrol pumps. I wanted to know what his story was. While it was quiet I wanted to sound him out. Why we’d found him where he was and whether he was still happy to come with us: complete strangers who killed people.

I started easy. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m okay.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yep.’

‘Daniel…’

‘Yep?’

‘How did you end up where you were? On that farm?’

‘We moved there. Set up.’

‘Who?’

‘We did.’

I watched Casper dig around in the building as Becky rechecked our route. I decided to take a different approach. ‘Are you still happy to travel with us?’

‘Yep?’

‘You’re not put off?’

‘No.’

‘And where do you want to go?’ This would catch him out. Force him to think a little more.
 

‘Away. Away from here.’

‘Where to, though?’

He gazed around the bust-up service station, hands pushed into his pockets. Then he smiled. ‘Knew you’d come. They told me.’

This was what he’d said before but with a little extra. ‘They?’
 

‘You know who.’ He laughed. ‘They told me. Before they went. Told me about you.’

‘What exactly did they tell you?’

‘That men would come. Bad and good. They’d come. And they did. Seen the bad men lots of times. You’re the good one.’ He grinned at this like he’d really nailed it.

I grunted. I’d never been called a good man before. Still, there was more I needed to know. ‘Who told you this? Who are they?’ Maybe there’d been a group or family or friends. Maybe there were clues to where they’d gone.