Warlord's Revenge (10 page)

“Here, pooch, here,” she said, clapping her hands.

“You’re making a mistake,” Stone began. “That animal’s the biggest con artist alive. He can get food from a starving orphan.”
But it was too late, the bullterrier was already upon them with happy, slurping kisses all over the place.

By the time they got everything sorted out and emerged from the blanket shelter with shit-eating grins that only those who
have been fucking all night can have, the rest of the fighting unit were already gathered around the cooking fire, which had
been built up again so that it stood several feet high with crisscrossed, burning dead branches. The warming flames felt good
in the cool, dark morning air as Stone made his way, rubbing his eyes, half stumbling toward the flames and the beckoning
scent of coffee cooking up in several pots over the fire.

He and Meyra sat down without a word and poured themselves cups. They took a few sips and then looked up simultaneously. The
eyes of the entire group were upon them.

“We were talking,” one of the braves, Singing Crow, said to be so named, if Stone remembered correctly, for his soulful renditions
of tribal songs performed for the Cheyenne as they traveled through the badlands together.

“And?” Stone grunted as he took a deep gulp of the bum-ing black liquid, nearly scalding the back of his throat as he did
so. He was still bone-tired. He wondered why.

“And,” Singing Crow went on, “we worked a few things out. After you two—eh—retired,” the young Cheyenne said diplomatically,
for the sounds of the two in passion had occasionally drifted across the camp during the course of the night, “we started
trying to sort things out.”

“This didn’t hurt.” Bull grinned from the other side of the fire, holding up an empty bottle of gin that had miraculously
appeared from out of the woodwork.

“Yeah,” the Cheyenne went on. “We partook of the peace pipe, liquid-style. And we talked like men. Not as Indian or white
men but just men. And we found out that basically we’re coming from the same place. Don’t know where the hell we’re going
exactly. But know that at least in many ways we see things through the same shit-colored glasses.”

“And we sure kick ass good when we work together,” Bull spoke up from his side of the fire. “Your general strategy really
seems to work, Stone,” he said admiringly as the addressee tried to pry his eyelids apart. They felt like they were shut with
glue. He took another huge swig of the thick but vaguely coffeelike substance and peered toward the pot to see if there was
more.

“With the tank as the main core of protective firepower,” Bull went on, his big farmer’s face growing alive with enthusiasm,
his eyes dancing, “and the all-terrains as a fast-strike mobile force, we’ve been knocking all comers down like they was pickup
sticks looking to take a fall.”

“You sound like a military man”—Stone laughed—”with your ‘protective firepower,’ and ‘fast-strike mobile force.’”

“Well, being a tank commander, it kind of gets you thinking, you know.” Bull waxed poetic with a wistful look in his brown
eyes. “It’s a lot of power—you got men under your command and you’re responsible for their lives. So I done a little reading,
on my own. Some manuals on tank warfare I found inside the tank.”

“Very commendable,” Stone said with only a hint of sarcasm in his voice. He finished off his cup of now cold brew and reached
for the pot, again filling his cup to the top. He needed two cups just to get the guts to look up at the sky that morning,
which he knew by the gray light that filtered down between the men, by the dark peculiar mist in the air, by the fire, almost
soggy as it snapped hard to keep burning, was bad. All he wanted to do was grab Meyra and head back to the tent. Tell them
to wake them in the spring, at the end of hibernation.

“So we all talked, and we talked some more,” Singing Crow went on as the others looked on a little bleary-eyed but nonetheless
in good moods. “And we decided that maybe we
should
stick together—for the moment, you know—”

“Yeah, for the moment,” Bull spoke up, as did the others. As if it had to be known by all that it was just a momentary alliance
that had been cemented largely by booze, and that even in their half-drunk states they knew it could ail unravel like rotting
twine at any moment.

“But the fact is,” Singing Crow continued, “we all know what it’s like out there. In small numbers anyone is a target. Even
the tank—by itself—could be brought down with petrol bombs.” The Cheyenne spoke with great animation, sweeping his arms around
at his tribe, pointing. As he talked excitedly, his black hair cascaded down from beneath the baseball cap he had been wearing.
The thick black mane fell down both sides of his head and onto his shoulders. And suddenly he looked, for all his well-made
leather clothes and boots—like an Indian of centuries before, primitive, fierce, with a face forged from a life of steel-hard
survival.

“We,”
the Cheyenne continued, “can be vulnerable to heavy firepower—that the tank can take out. It only makes sense. If together
we can be ten times stronger, then for survival’s sake alone we must unite our forces. Again—for the moment.”

“Yes, of course.” Stone smirked. “For the moment.”

“And you’re the elected chief, kemo sabe,” the Cheyenne went on with a little twisted smile. You’re the only one we could
all even come near agreeing on to run the show. But you’ve gotten us through some pretty heavy shit already, and—”

“Look, fellahs, I appreciate the gesture and all that,” Stone said, spitting out a huge twig from his coffee. “But I had been
pretty much going to call it quits today and—” Even as he spoke. Stone suddenly saw that the unity was important to these
men. That for the first time since the entire country had fallen into barbarism, things weren’t still breaking down continuously
into smaller and more primitive units as civilization itself headed backward in time like a roller coaster going the wrong
way on the express track to hell.

Now two groups of men had joined together. Two un-fathomably different cultures, ways of life. Years, centuries, of hate.
Yet they were all Americans. Americans on the side of survival, life. Against those who carried the disease of death. The
crime lords and the bikers, the cannibal kings, the rapists and mutilators. All of the slime out there that was trying to
drag mankind into a pit it would never rise from again. At least those seated around the fire knew that whatever else, they
were against that. And in a world of existential blood and nothingness that common bond was worth a lot.

“Look” Stone said, suddenly sitting up straight as he realized that their little drunken encounter group of participatory
democracy had been an important moment. Suddenly he almost dared feel in a good mood. A much better mood than he had had the
glimmerings of in a long, long time. Maybe there was hope for the fucking country, after all.

“Maybe there is something you could do. The people downwind of here are all going to die unless they take… these.” He pulled
out a canister of the pills from inside his jacket. “Here,” he said, passing it around. “Take one red, one blue, and one green.
You’ll get your own batches to take.”

“What the hell is that shit?” Singing Crow asked as hé took the vial from Stone’s outstretched hand.

“Potassium iodide is one, and the others… shit, I don’t know what their names are, but they’ve been found to be able to almost
completely fill the body’s needs for a large number of minerals and trace elements, so the lungs, blood, and digestive system
don’t absorb any radiation from atomic particles or by-products of the bomb containing those elements.”

“You really believe all that stuff?” Singing Crow asked, looking intensely at Stone.

“Yeah, I do,” Stone replied. “Maybe I’m an asshole, and that’s certainly a possibility, but I’m taking them myself. I’m going
to keep taking them for at least a month—and I’m feeding them to my damn dog as well.” As if offering a dramatic effect, the
pitbull suddenly appeared from around a log and beelined toward an unattended cup of coffee, which he proceeded to slop up
gustily. The entire fighting unit burst into laughter and seemed to relax appreciably. Stone knew why he had the mutt on salary.

Singing Crow looked defiantly around at his own people, then took out the three pills and downed them with a swig of coffee.
He handed the vial to the next man and the next. Everyone took them except one—Fat Possum, the brave who had been Leaping
Elk’s lackey. Though his master was dead now, the basically stupid Indian somehow felt he had to keep the tradition of stupidity
inspired by the late Elk going, even after he was gone. Thus, though he had been triply exposed to radiation as he had breathed
in the radioactive particles, drank water right after the bomb, and eaten of the high-rad snakedogs, all in imitation of the
dear departed, he didn’t take the lifesaving pills.

His choice, Stone thought, reminding himself to keep an eye on the man. There were going to be a lot more cases of radiation
madness. Of that he was sure.

But the rest of the Cheyenne—and all of the NAA recruits, who, having recently been in the ranks of General Patton Ill’s army,
were used to taking whatever medicines were doled out—took their doses.

“All right, then, you want to do something that will really help the poor bastards who live two hundred miles within this
blast zone?” They looked at him expectantly. Then distribute these pills to them. Tell them to take them for one month. Not
to drink any water that falls in the next week, and after that to only use spring water, not running water, for at least a
month. And finally—not to eat any animal or plant life from this area for at least the next year.”

They looked at him as if he were a little on the crazy side.

“People don’t give up their food, their homes, so easily,” Singing Crow went on. He seemed to have become the unofficial spokesman
for the Cheyenne, and they nodded as he spoke.

“I know,” Stone said, watching as Excaliber finished up the cup of coffee in about two seconds flat. The pitbull’s head rose
up like a periscope and swiveled around, trying to search out any errant cups of coffee or bits of food that had been left
lying around “unguarded.” “That’s why most of the people—at least those downwind of here—are probably going to die,” Stone
continued. “But we can try. It’s their only chance. Those that stay—I guarantee you—are doomed. And their children, if born
alive, will be mutants, clawed things, blind, scaled, who will curdle their mothers’ milk in their breasts. You all saw what
happened to Leaping Elk. He went mad. His brain was melted by the stuff, his guts turned to blood suey. That’s radiation,
man—pure and simple.”

It had been hard for the Cheyenne to really take seriously the idea of radioactivity—after all, it was something you couldn’t
see, taste, smell, touch. How could you even know it was real and not just another of the white man’s illusions? But they
had seen Leaping Elk. And more than that, they trusted Stone. So they took the pills, popped them down, each with a swig of
coffee or water to carry the foul-tasting U.S.-government-issue generic pills into their guts, where the radiation demons
were hiding, their atomic claws glowing in the darkness of tubes and capillaries.

“W
hat do you mean
you’re
not coming?” Singing Crow blurted out after they had all just agreed to carry out Stone’s request to distribute the anti-rad
pills to the south.

“I can’t, man,” Stone said as he finished drawing a list of the nos when it came to avoiding radiation poisoning. “My sister’s
in trouble. Bad trouble. If I don’t get to her, she’s dead. She’s the last of my family. I have no choice.” For the Indians,
family was the strongest tie. They had nothing else. Thus they understood his need to go, to drop all other things.

“But I’ll meet up with you,” he said, handing* them the radiation warning poster that he had written. “As you travel, write
up copies of this and put them up everywhere. Give out the pills to the local town rulers, mayors, chiefs, whatever the fuck
is out there. Tell them the whole truth. Then it’s up to them what they do. A lot will die, but for those who listen to you,
it will save them. You men could save thousands of lives, you understand me? Thousands.”

The importance of their task did start to dawn on the combined strike force, and looks of pride slowly appeared on their faces.
They were actually doing something. A hell of a lot more than anyone else in this whole barbarous country.

“I know that area well,” Singing Crow said. “My father and I used to hunt there. There are about a dozen Indian settlements,
an equal number of white towns. We can hit all of them in a few days. Travel fast.”

“And remember,” Stone added as he stood up, addressing the rest of them, who remained seated. “Listen to the words on those
leaflets you’ll be putting up. ’Cause I don’t want to see any of you suckers die. You’re good men. A lot better than most
out there. This country needs all it can get like you. Use your common sense—and maybe you’ll all actually get through this.”

Stone went back to his Harley and unloaded the boxes of pills, handing them out in equal numbers to each man, so that a total
of a thousand doses for about two weeks were at hand. It would have to do. It was all they had. Whoever got them first out
there and was clever enough to take them would survive. The rest—

The sky began darkening as if turning to night, although it was not yet ten in the morning. Stone reluctantly zipped up his
jacket and whistled for the pitbull to get his ass on board. Meyra walked over to him as the Cheyenne checked the ties on
their threewheelers so their loads would not come apart on the bumpy journey south.

“I think I’ll miss you,” she said, standing just inches from him. She rose up on tiptoes, kissed him softly on the lips, then
pulled back again so that just the lightest of touches was left behind on his mouth, like a flower petal rubbing across his
skin, a piece of velvet flesh.