Monster of the Apocalypse (10 page)

“Here, these are yours.”

Eleon looked up and met her eyes. Lecti’s shotgun was the same gauge as his, and similar, other than that he had used a hacksaw to shorten the stock and barrel of his own weapon.

Knowing the shells would fit, he asked, “Will they fit yours? I’ve got extras here if you’re short.”

This simple offer gave Lecti more assurance of Eleon than anything that had happened so far. The offer of ammunition from someone she had yet to completely trust was comforting.

She still held her arm extended. “I’ve got plenty. These are yours.”

Eleon took them from her hand. An electricity passed between them as their skin touched. It was something he had managed to avoid since his wife had died. He jerked back with the shells.

Each round was placed in the breach, pushed down into the magazine, and then the last shell was chambered.

Eleon had been thinking about something as soon as he learned of Deo’s intentions with Zip and Cotton. He surprised himself again.

“Deo, I’ve got a proposition for you.”

Watching the exchange between Lecti and Eleon over the shells had reassured Deo as well. He was in a hurry, but he recognized that Eleon could be a valuable ally.

He did not expect what Eleon proposed.

“Have you ever killed anyone, Deo?”

Eleon sheathed his gun.

“No.” Deo spoke softly.

“Well, I have,” said Eleon intensely. “I have enough notches on my belt that two more won’t matter. Why don’t you let me take care of this? You and Lecti can turn around and find something better to do.”

Deo might have flared a few days ago. He had matured.

Still speaking softly, he met Eleon’s gaze, and without wavering, he answered simply, “No.”

E
leon’s motorcycle moved well. It rode the surface of the drifts, and on the open highway where the pavement was good, it was almost as fast as the three-wheeled vehicle. When they found spots where the asphalt was broken into chunks, the bike was much slower and unstable. The roadside ditch became a better bike path than the road.

They were making good time, and Deo was happy.

Yearning for some mental distraction, Lecti brought up her desire to name the three-wheeler once more. They discussed options, some which were inspired by the star gazing of the previous night. Deo liked the name Mars, because it was the God of War. The anger he felt put him in a warlike mood. The name made him feel powerful. Lecti brought up the constellation of Orion. The three stars in Orion’s belt reminded her of the three wheels and the constellation was also known as The Hunter. Deo liked the name too, but they were just not ready to commit yet.

They discussed Eleon’s offer, made before they left the flats.

Lecti was surprised that a relative stranger would make an offer like that. She didn’t understand why the gesture was made, but she appreciated it anyway. She would love to accept, but when Deo refused, she wasn’t surprised. She understood.

The dam at Lahontan reservoir had failed long ago, having eroded over a short time until a large rain provided enough pressure to push the remaining earth out of the way. Now the depression, once filled with water, was mostly barren just as the surrounding country was. At the bottom some water accumulated and formed several ponds. This was the only place for miles that grew any significant forage.

Horses breed and survive far too well. For decades before the plagues horses were allowed to roam freely in Nevada, as well as several other states. They bred and starved and became road kill. People trapped them, mostly for various financial reasons. At first most of them were used in the ranch and livestock industries. They had a use in agriculture as draft animals. Eventually their usefulness in ranching and farming became negligible. Their next best use was in rodeo and less so, for pleasure riding. Most people that owned horses for pleasure did not really use them. The animals stood around in pastures and fields, eating pricey feed and requiring expensive veterinary care until they were old and useless or until the owner became disillusioned. When they were eventually sold to a slaughterhouse, they were used for glue, leather and dog food. Strangely, human consumption of horsemeat was viewed as more distasteful than corralling them on dirt and neglecting them.

Wild horses were tolerated because a few vocal people romanticized them and created a loud and successful lobby to maintain them. The animals started to become a liability when they
became so destructive that they had to be gathered, housed, and fed in vast numbers in feedlots at federal expense. The horse lobby kept them from being slaughtered. Taxpayers tolerated the massive amounts of money that the horses cost, even though the money could have been used to educate their own children or buy armor for the troops they sent to war. No one wanted to be the bad guy and get rid of the pretty little horses. Besides, the issue became useful as another political distraction.

Even though there was plenty of graft in the government-funded feedlots, the big money powers finally had enough. They devised a plan using the same lobby that wanted to protect the horses. They let them have their own way until the horse lobby hung themselves with their own rope.

By protecting the horses from slaughter, the price of a horse declined to the point that most horses became a drain on the very people that wanted to protect them. Suddenly horses became very unpopular, especially to those that owned them. Horses were found starving in remote fields, turned loose on public lands, and shot in ditches.

The slaughterhouses finally reopened, but that wasn’t enough for the government. They stepped in and created another bureaucracy. The Horse Owner Registry made people responsible for breeding and caring for horses. Other registries followed for dogs and cats. Of course there
were government fees involved. Domestic animal populations declined, and finally the animal shelters stopped euthanizing hundreds of thousands of unwanted pets. Between the ever worsening economy and the fees for keeping fertile animals, pets became more valuable and those ending up in shelters found ready homes.

The wild horses that remained were put on a birth control program. A road kill horse became unusual, even in Nevada.

The birth control system failed when the human population failed in their own survival effort. With no one to administer it, the population of the horses mushroomed.

The reproduction rate of natural predators could not keep up. The brutal reality was that until the population of predators caught up, horses were going to starve. Even after that happened, the balance of predator to prey would have wild fluctuations for perhaps a century or more until a natural cycle was established. In the meantime, the vegetation that could have fed a controlled population was being devastated, impacting all the natural wildlife.

Lecti stopped counting the bands of horses. At first they were a novelty, but as they dodged the carcasses, she lost interest. Even the live horses looked like they were starving.

The winter had been unusually harsh. Horses naturally gravitate toward feed and water and the old highway paralleled the river where there were both. As winter progressed, and the feed disappeared, the road became a gathering spot. The crumbling asphalt gathered heat, and weak horses with nothing to eat gathered to soak it up. Many died where they lay.

The large, green area where the reservoir had been was home territory to more horses than Lecti had seen so far. They even looked pretty good for the most part. The strongest studs and the easy keeping mares claimed the better food source for themselves and their foals, driving the weaker animals away. The rate of population turnover was extraordinary. Few horses maintained peak condition for long. Most studs lasted less than two years before the constant battles drove them into the desert with the weak and dying. Mares lasted marginally longer, mostly by luck.

Lecti urged Deo to catch up to Eleon. She waved Eleon over.

They got out and stretched their legs. Unused to traveling in a vehicle, both Lecti and Deo already felt stiff.

The visible horses, being prey animals and not used to the strangeness of people and vehicles, started to disappear into the willows surrounding the ponds.

A random comment from Deo, as the fleeing animals were discussed, made Lecti’s face light up.

“Stupid mules!” he yelled, waving his fist at them, “come back and we’ll have you over for a barbecue!”

A light bulb lit for Lecti and she beamed. “That’s it, we can call it Jenny. You know, the three-wheeler. We’re using it like a mule. And a female mule, a jenny, makes the best riding animal. It’s perfect. I didn’t like those other names anyway.”

Deo liked the name too. Secretly, he was glad it was Lecti that picked it. It was good to see her smile.

“Okay, Sis,” he said, “your turn to drive. Let’s see if Jenny likes her new name.”

Eleon liked the name as well. He grinned as he mounted his bike.

Jenny did indeed act as though she liked her name. After the full solar charge the day before and the downhill run from American Flats using the energy-producing brakes, she would not create any further delays.

Lecti pressed on the accelerator and leapt ahead of Eleon. The warm wind in her hair felt wonderful. Deo had to remind her to slow down so that they did not lose the bike. Grudgingly, Lecti let Eleon take the lead once more. Driving was proving to be good therapy.

At one time Fallon, Nevada, was adjacent to a military base specializing in training jet pilots. An unusual number of leukemia cancers clustered in the area. Some suggested that the cause was jet fuel being dumped over the town before planes were landed. Nothing was ever proven, or at least officially accepted as proof. The cancers dwindled in number over the years but never disappeared until every person in Fallon died. There were no survivors of the plagues in Fallon.

It was an exceedingly dirty town. The winds blew alkali and sand into every street and deposited them in multi-colored layers. Pavement was visible, but drifts covered most of the roads.

The tracks of the two bikes they were following were easy to see. There was no danger of losing them on a bare surface. As long as the wind did not come up and obscure them, the tracks would lead them through town perfectly.

It was likely that the bikers would lie up in any town they passed through. There was no urgency. They could be around the next corner. They may have even backtracked on a different street and created an ambush. It was unlikely, but possible.

Caution dictated that they slow down. Eleon stopped and consulted with Lecti and Deo. At his suggestion to follow at a distance, Lecti waited for him to move on.

One of the reasons Eleon wanted to go on ahead was to keep the kids safe. The other was to get the first opportunity to kill the bikers himself. He was serious about his offer to Deo. He would track them down and more than likely kill them without hesitation. It made little difference to him. What they did made them a waste of good oxygen anyway. If he never found them it was just as well. At least Lecti and Deo would be safe. Now he moved ahead with every intention of providing a violent end in a swift, hot second, before Deo could catch up and do something he could not take back. Not realizing why, Eleon did not want Deo to lose his innocence. Deo would have plenty of opportunity for that, but his chance could come later. He glanced back at Jenny, noting the rifle at the ready in Deo’s hands.

The tracks led on in a straight line. As they progressed over the dunes and drifts, skirting masses of accumulated tumbleweeds, the trio evaluated the town. A large amount of damage was evident. Almost all of the trees were dead, and lawns had been replaced with sagebrush and the weeds that produced tire- and skin-puncturing goathead thorns.

Stud piles, the excrement of stallions piled up to mark their territory, attested to them having occupied the town. Horses had browsed the vegetation down to the dirt and eventually abandoned the area. As the forage gave out, they moved on.

Buildings were worn, windows broken by the strong blasts of the desert winds. Once a breach was made, either through a window or the roof, nature took over, and several homes were tumbled into heaps. The debris collected the ever-present tumbleweeds, which in turn gathered drifting sand, creating dunes. Some were massive.

The business district fared better but not much. A number of automobiles lined up in neat rows lay buried up to their hoods. A farm supply business, abandoned when the ranches in the area were put out of business by over-regulation and foreign competition, had a row of gates half exposed and water tanks filled with sand.

A large store on the left must have offered an invitation to the bikers they trailed. The tracks swerved into the empty parking area, into the store, then out again and back to the road.

Eleon drove his bike through the broken doors of the big store. By the time the Jenny was parked and Lecti and Deo were unbuckled and out, Eleon was already driving back out. Finding bare cement, he put his kickstand down and dismounted.

“They were looking for supplies.” Eleon looked questioningly at Lecti. “We might want to do the same thing?”

Realizing that Eleon might be trying to delay the inevitable confrontation and quite possibly save Deo’s life, Lecti read him perfectly and joined in.

“Yeah, we could sure use more water. I need to check out the map, too.”

Without noticing the intent to delay, Deo volunteered to scavenge.

“Is there anything you need?” he asked. “Water, I know. We still have plenty of camping food. What else?”

“Check out sporting goods!” yelled Eleon, as Deo disappeared into the doorway.

Deo popped back out.

“Sporting goods?”

“Yeah, ammo,” said Eleon. “Anything that will fit the scatter guns or the pistols. You won’t find anything for that old rifle. If there’s any nine mil, I could use a couple boxes. I’ll be in to help in a minute.”

A minute.
It was a phrase without much meaning now. Lecti and Deo kept time by the sun. They only knew what he meant because the older people used the words as if they still wore watches. Even Lecti and Deo used the words, though their concept was somewhat different.

Deo vanished into the store again.

The old atlas lay open on the rear rack of the three-wheeler. Her finger on the page, Lecti traced the route to Las Vegas. Back and forth, back and forth.

“You’ll wear it out.”

Lecti looked up at Eleon. She could not help liking him.

“Thanks for what you’re doing. I know you’re protecting Deo,” she said, questioning him with her eyes.

“Yeah, once you kill a man it changes you. In this kind of world, it’s going to happen sooner or later. It would be nice if it was later.”

Lecti was overcome. She could think of no way to show her appreciation.
No way but one. She stood on her toes, and wrapping her arms around Eleon, she gave him a spontaneous hug.