Desolation Crossing (8 page)

That would be a no, then. J.B. knew that Trader was no gambling man.

Easing into his theme, Trader continued. “So, like Abe
said, we were all pissed—not just me.” He glanced to his number two, who returned it with a grin. “Anyway, as we came back I saw this road, and thought ‘fuck it, nothing’s going to be alive in this bastard region.’ But then it occurred to me that every fucker must think like that. So, for the sake of a few gallons of fuel, why not have a look-see? We had enough spare with us.

“And there, at the end of the line, was Hollowstar. A poor little place, but managing to get by because of where it was.”

“I must be triple stupe, ’cause I don’t get that,” J.B. murmured.

Trader’s face split into a broad grin. “Course you don’t. No one does till they’ve been there. I sure as shit didn’t—”

“And you won’t hear him say that often,” Abe interrupted.

“Fuck you,” Trader said lightly. “See, there were a few survivors in this region, but the villes they made could only exist if they put them on a road that survived. Well, the big fucker didn’t, but this smaller one did. They used to call it the New Jersey Turnpike, or so they say around here. There are a few villes, some places too small to call that, and they ribbon out along the road until it just kinda ends. Hollowstar is the richest, Baron Emmerton the smartest. And lucky.”

“Why lucky?” J.B. asked, knowing that Trader was warming to his theme, and enjoying the rare chance to kick back and chew the fat while they rode a road that presented little in the way of danger.

Trader’s grin widened to the point where it looked like
it might split his face. “Whoever built Hollowstar used buildings around the old toll booths for the road, and they still work. To pass through on either side you have to pay the baron. The smart thing is that whoever started the ville wasn’t greedy, so in the long run they’ve had a steady stream of jack coming in both ways. There aren’t many who pass through, but they have to pay in and out, so that’s two for one. It isn’t much compared to villes out there where there are more folks, but that’s the word, isn’t it? Compared. Makes Emmerton and all those who came before him richer and more powerful than any other baron in the region. Smart boy…”

Hunn, who had so far been ignoring the conversation, chipped in. “You do realize that every poor fucker who joins us and lasts this long gets exactly the same speech when we come here, almost word for word? I know the fuckin’ thing by heart. I swear, I could say it in my fuckin’ sleep. Probably do, for all I know.”

“Fuck you, bitch,” Trader said with good humor, “next time I’ll make you say it, just to see.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that. Meantime, you should all stop yakking, as we’re there.”

J.B. looked out of an ob port. The foliage that had covered the side of the old highway had now thinned out and changed. The vines and creepers had vanished, replaced by sparse grass under trees that were still twisted and stunted in places, but had a healthier look than the looming green giants that lined the highway. The remains of some old buildings could be seen—low-level blocks that had once been shops and warehouses, but were now split by trees that had grown through and broken the line of the
structure. There were no houses in this section. If there had been, they had long since been swallowed by nature, reclaiming its damaged stock. The road they were now on had narrowed, and was two-lane gray asphalt shot through with weeds, the sidewalk a similar hue, the weeds now more prevalent in places than the original stone.

J.B. had seen places like this before, even though he had never ventured this far east as of yet. There were old industrial and residential areas around cities like this all over what was left of the old United States. They differed in detail, but in essence they were the same. J.B. came from a ville that was the remains of an old small town. Most of the places he’d drifted into before hooking up with Trader had been based around old small towns, or had been built up from scratch. He’d never really been on any of the convoy trade routes. Now he knew what the Deathlands looked like, knew how the old cities had mutated like the flora and fauna that had begun to reclaim them since skydark, the people reduced to living on the fringes, trying to regain a foothold.

All those footholds were the same. The edges of dead cities reclaimed and recycled. And beyond this one? A real wasteland, one that was so rad-blasted that it seemed as though it were the beginning of never.

If the way in which Hollowstar sat in the middle of this semiwilderness was common to many villes he had seen, then so would be the people. They didn’t change in essence, no matter where you went. They had different customs and ways that you had to get used to, lest they chill you for insulting them in some manner of which you weren’t even aware. But that was just surface shit, J.B.
knew. Deep down they were as brave, scared, greedy, lustful, sharing, good or evil in one place as they were in another. You just had to take them as they come, size them up, and then treat them accordingly.

It was a simple way, and one that had kept him alive so far. That put him ahead of the game as far as many were concerned. There were too many who didn’t live this way, and had long since bought the farm as a result.

These were the thoughts that went through his head every time that he entered somewhere new. It was as if he was preparing himself for whatever he was about to face, reminding himself to keep a close watch until he’d understood the ways of the ville.

But this time it was stronger than he’d ever known it. As if there was something nagging at him. J.B. didn’t believe in that doomie shit; not unless you were some kind of mutie, which he knew damn sure he wasn’t. Nonetheless, as Hunn slowed War Wag One, signaling their approach to the old toll gates, he knew that something was going to happen here that would change things for him. Good or bad? That was the bastard thing—he couldn’t tell.

Chapter Six

“Welcome back to Hollowstar, Trader. How long has it been?”

Trader eyed the sweating, grossly fat man in front of him and figured that it had been too long. Baron Emmerton was not his favorite ville leader by a long way, but he was basically harmless. It was just that there was something about him that made Trader’s skin crawl. Maybe it was because his wife was so young, and there always seemed to be a new one every time he passed this way. Sure, a lot of barons had a taste for young flesh, but it seemed as though Emmerton made an art form of it. And there was something in the way that his eyes shifted uneasily across your gaze, unwilling to meet it….

But all things considered, he was a man to keep sweet. Trader was a thorough man in all ways. That was why his haul was so big, why he was the best. No one else on the trail could be bothered to check out these far-flung villes, and because of its location on the old turnpike, Hollowstar was a key ville. There was no other way to access the villes that lay beyond, so Emmerton had power. So far, his relationship with Trader had been cordial, and that was just the way that Trader intended it to stay.

So, instead of his first thought, he said, “It’s been too long, friend.” He took the outstretched, sweaty paw and
tried not to grimace as Emmerton pumped it in his slimy grasp.

“Things haven’t changed much around here,” Emmerton said slyly, “except that mebbe we’re running low on some things. We weren’t expecting you to be so long, and so we didn’t mebbe plan so well.”

Trader knew only too well what that meant—the cost of going through to the villes beyond would be higher than last time, with each part of the increase carefully explained and accounted for. Shit, it was an occupational hazard to be lied to and cheated. It was just that he didn’t want to have to sit around listening to the bullshit explanation.

So he said, “I’m sure we can come to some agreement. Have to say, for my part I would have been back this way sooner, but we’ve had a few firefights along the way with parties who wanted to make trouble. You know me, Baron, I don’t like trouble. But when it happens, you have to deal with it. Anyway, we lost a few people along the way, picked up some newbies. Things go on, no matter how tough it gets.”

He studied the baron’s face to see if the message had hit its intended target. The way in which Emmerton licked his lips, his eyes flickering more than before, suggested that it had. Good.

“I’m sure our ville will give you ample time to rest before moving on,” Emmerton said hesitantly, “and I hope that you’ll take advantage of our hospitality both before and after your trip down the road.”

Emmerton was referring to the one highway that linked the rad-blasted east with the lands west of his ville. It was the convoy’s custom to rest a few days on either side of their trip into these lands. It gave the crew a chance to enjoy
themselves before they hit the road once more, and—more importantly from Trader’s point of view—it meant that his crew spent some jack in Hollowstar, making Emmerton and his sec men that bit sweeter when it was time to come around again.

Trader left Emmerton in his baronial house. The baron had been flanked by his personal sec men, Laker and Farmer. Trader had taken Abe and Poet with him, as they had traveled this way the longest and so were the most familiar with the sweating baron. As they left, Abe murmured, “Nice to see the baron’s fitness plan is working so well.”

Trader almost kept the smirk from his face, but figured what the hell, seeing as they were out in the open. He took the chance to look around the ville, and reflected once more on how, even by the whacko standards of some of the places they’d done business, Hollowstar was a weird one.

For a start, despite operating as a toll gate on the road that split the ville, it had been built some distance from the old toll booths. A brick construction fulfilled their function, built just beyond the last of the houses in the ville, a scaffolding gantry across the top of the road mounting armed guard. This was completely at odds with the way that the rest of the ville appeared.

If Trader had to take a guess, he would have said that whoever founded the ville had a definite idea of what they wanted—a show ville that idealized the way they wanted the country to develop again. The problem being that they had to use what they had, so it turned out kind of wrong. Trader had seen some old vids of what used to be called “smalltown Merica,” as he understood it, and Hollowstar was modeled very much on those lines.

He figured that they had chosen here, away from the old toll booths, as those were surrounded by the remains of old industrial and retail areas. This was an empty space of land, and it looked to him as though they had painstakingly taken some of the low-level houses in the area and transported them to rebuild here. Others had been built from using salvaged materials, shaped to fit the overall plan with some odd results. Storefronts lined a main square that had a bandstand, although in all the times he had visited here he had never seen a band in there; and the square was grassed over, if it could be dignified with that term. Trader had seen pictures of how green-lawned squares like this had looked before the nukecaust. The square achieved that look only if one applied a high degree of imagination. In truth, it was a square of dry dirt, with creeping weeds choking the brown stunted grass that struggled with the toxins in the soil.

But still, it had one big asset, and he was going to enjoy that asset meeting the Armorer. Yes indeed, that would be one to watch.

“WHATEVER YOU WANT, the answer is no. I’m too busy. I don’t have what you want. I don’t want to have what you want. I don’t care. Just go away.”

J.B. raised an eyebrow at Trader. “Friendly bastard,” he said mildly.

Trader shook his head. “You know, the seasons come and go, but some things just stay the same.” In a louder voice, he yelled, “Luke. Get your ass out here before I take my custom elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere my ass. No way you’re gonna find any
where else around here that can do what I can. Figure it that you’re not gonna find anywhere else anyone that can…” The owner of the voice wandered into the storefront from a back room as he spoke. Without missing a beat or changing tone, he added, “Still, it’s good to see you back, Trader. Always give me good business, and it’s nice to hear a voice that doesn’t talk about the same small ville shit that everyone else never shuts up about.”

“Yeah, it’s good to see you, Luke,” Trader said with a grin. It hadn’t been as fulsome a greeting as that of the baron, but it was infinitely more sincere. “But I’m figuring that you’ve got some competition that you didn’t count on. Meet John Barrymore Dix, my new armorer, and probably the only man I’ve ever met who could give you a run for your jack.”

Luke eyed the slight figure of J.B. with a mixture of suspicion and disbelief before extending his hand, withdrawing it hastily to wipe the gun oil off and onto the stained apron he wore, then extending it again.

“John,” he said with a curt nod as the Armorer met his firm grip.

“J.B.,” he corrected.

“Whatever.” Luke shrugged. “So you know a bit about blasters, do you? Trader here told you how good you are? Pity if he has, as he doesn’t know enough to cover his own ass, so he may have sorely misled you.”

“I don’t figure,” J.B. replied in a noncommittal tone. “I was doing the same kind of thing as you do here before I met Trader.”

“You were, huh?”

Trader was enjoying every moment. The two men were circling each other like hungry dogs, sizing each
other up before plunging in for the chill, establishing who was best. Except they were too much alike as men to go for the jugular. No, they’d do it the long way around.

J.B. sniffed and looked around at the storefront. Coffee-sub boiled on a stove, there were a couple of tables and chairs in the floor space in front of the counter, and the back room was shielded by a long drape.

“Of course,” he said at length, “I didn’t have to run a coffee stall, as well as work on blasters. I was able to devote the whole of my time to the real work.”

Luke snorted, half derision, half laugh. “This is no coffee stall, my friend.” He gestured at the pot. “This is just for those who wait for me to get my work done.”

J.B. nodded slowly. He knew Trader well enough to know that the man was enjoying the encounter, but also that he wouldn’t do it just for sport. If Trader said Luke was good, then he was. No sense in letting him know that just yet, of course. J.B. looked him up and down. He was a big, powerful man. Around six feet, broad-shouldered, with maybe the very beginnings of a gut where he spent too long sitting working at a bench. He was wearing a plaid shirt and torn denim jeans under the apron, which was of thick, polished hide. His face was dark complected, his eyes in darker hollows framing a sharp nose. He was wearing a tattered ball cap turned backward, and his demeanor spoke of someone who didn’t like to waste time.

And he was thinking that maybe this was wasting his time.

“So?” Luke said, tired of waiting for J.B., maybe even
tired of being sized up. “Do you have any work for me?” he directed to Trader. “Or has wonder boy here seen to it all?”

“I’ve tidied up anything that Trader needs,” J.B. answered, drawing the attention back to himself. “So mebbe he’s brought me here so that I can help you out.”

Luke looked as though he might explode in anger. A simmering, slow burn came over him, and he said softly, “Ever tried to fit a stock on a Sharps that some damn fool has tried to recalibrate?”

“Can’t say I have. You rebored it?”

“Got the lathe, just in the middle of it. Care to, uh, give me your expert opinion on what I’ve done?” he asked with some sarcasm.

J.B. smiled wryly. “I could try.”

Luke lifted the flap of the counter, allowing the Armorer to pass through. He raised a questioning eyebrow at Trader, who shook his head. Without a word, Luke let the flap drop and followed the Armorer into the back room.

“Long time since I saw one of those,” Trader heard J.B. say. He didn’t know what he was talking about, and he didn’t much care. He had the feeling that they’d lose him after a few minutes, anyway.

His mission here was done. Get the boys acquainted. Get them past their own spiky natures, and when they were ready, get them to look over his ordnance and anything they might pick up on the outbound journey.