Winter's Edge: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (Outzone Drifter Series Book 1) (21 page)

The first of the stragglers, a man in a wine-red leather jacket, stared hard at the three as he passed by. He slowed, turning to talk to his companions. One of them shook his head and pointed ahead.

The man didn’t pay his friend any heed. A moment later, he jammed on his brakes, swept around in a large U-turn, and headed back toward Brogan and his two companions. The other riders looked at each other, shook their heads, then turned around and followed him. Ahead on the road, the rest of the pack continued on their way, oblivious to what was happening.

“Alright, guys,” Brogan said quietly to Earl and Derschel, “you two head back behind those rocks we were just at and cover me.”

“I’m not sure we need to, Frank,” Earl said hesitantly. “They’re probably only coming over to—”

“Just do it.” Brogan snapped. “I’m not taking any chances. Let’s find out what they want first.”

“He’s right, Earl,” Derschel said to his friend. “Best to play this safe.”

“Keep your weapons trained on them, fingers off the trigger,” Brogan said in a more even tone. “Let’s do this nice and easy, okay?”

The two friends grabbed their rifles. Sprinting back, they got into position, one to either side behind the rocks where they had just lunched.

The four motorbikes came down off the highway, nosing their way through the brush, coming to a halt just yards away from where Brogan stood, his rifle cradled in his arms.

The first rider, the one in the red jacket, leaned over the handlebars of his machine and stared at Brogan.

A crooked grin came over his features. “Hey
amigo
, how come your friends run off like that, leaving you here on your own? That’s not cool.” As he spoke, Brogan noticed he was slurring his words badly.

“Sure it’s cool,” Brogan said in a friendly tone. “They’re doing exactly what I told them.”

“Really? How come?”

“Well, guess I’m a cautious kind of a guy, that’s all.”

“Cautious, huh? Is that a fact?”

The man cut his engine and got off his bike. He took off his helmet and hung it over one end of the handlebar.

“Mitch, quit fucking around, you drunk sonofabitch,” one of his companions said, shaking his head in exasperation. “We need to keep going.”

The man called Mitch ignored him and strode over to where Brogan stood, pulling off his leather gloves and stuffing them into his jacket pockets. As he got closer, Brogan saw he was young, about the same height as himself. He looked tough and rangy with a strong muscular body, and had spiky jet-black dyed hair which stuck out in wild tufts.

He stopped right in front of Brogan, a strong smell of liquor coming off his breath. Seemed like Mitch was itching to stir things up. Whiskey would do that to a young man.

“
Amigo
, what is it you want?” Brogan said, holding his stare. “If you stopped by to say hello, well hello. But it’s time we all got going now.”

The expression on the young man’s face soured. He stuck out a finger and jabbed it into Brogan’s chest. “Hey, fuckhead, don’t tell me what to do.” He leaned his head forward so that it nearly touched Brogan’s. “You want to leave, there’s nothing stopping you. Just tell your chickenshit friends to crawl out from behind those rocks and go.”

Brogan stepped back a foot. “We’ll leave as soon as you guys get on out of here,” he said firmly.

“Come on, Mitch, that’s enough,” another one of his companions called out from behind him. “We best get going. Bear will get pissed.”

“Shut up!” Mitch shouted over his shoulder, continuing to glare at Brogan. “I’m not finished here yet.”

“Yes you are, kid,” Brogan said quietly. “Quit fucking around and get going.”

Out on the highway, behind the drunken firebrand, the rest of the pack had turned and were heading back toward them. They were about a kilometer away. Brogan would give Mitch one more chance to leave, otherwise he would have to take action. Who knew how things would turn out once the rest of the pack arrived? If they were as drunk as Mitch, maybe not great.

Mitch’s eyes blazed angrily at Brogan’s words. He bunched his fists and drew back his right arm. Before he could throw his punch, Brogan stepped forward, swinging the butt of his rifle up from his waist fast. It caught the young man flush under the jaw. With a gasp, Mitch staggered back. Without giving him a chance to react, Brogan swung the rifle again, this time toward the side of his head, smashing it across his temple with a heavy crack.

Mitch was out cold on his feet. His eyes rolled back in their sockets, his knees buckled, and he collapsed in a heap in front of Brogan.

Before he hit the ground, Brogan had already run past him, heading for the three riders sitting on their motorbikes, still with their gloves on, their rifles across their backs. They desperately fumbled for their weapons. One began tearing a glove off his hand.

Two shots rang out, one after another.

“Don’t even think about it or we’ll cut you down!” Earl yelled out from behind Brogan.

The three startled riders looked at each other uncertainly. They hadn’t been looking for a fight, and now their headstrong friend had gotten them into one they were totally unprepared for.

Brogan reached the three riders. His rifle at shoulder height, pointing from one to another. “Get your hands up in the air…now!”

The three men raised their arms.

“You!” Brogan said to the man on the left, waving the barrel of his rifle at the man’s waist. “Throw out that pistol.”

With a gloved hand, the man carefully took out the gun from his holster and dropped it to the ground a few feet away from him.

“Now your rifle.” Brogan said, eying the other two men warily as he spoke. From the highway, the sound of engines became increasingly louder.

Keeping his rifle trained on his three captive riders, Brogan glanced up at the road to see several motorcycles come down off the bank and ride parallel to the road till they came to a stop about a hundred yards away. There were only five riders. He glanced around quickly to see where the rest of the pack could have gone. Behind him, he heard the sound of engines farther out in the brush.

“Frank, we got riders coming at us!” Earl yelled out to him. “You want us to start shooting?”

Jerking his head, Brogan saw a group of six motorbikes start to encircle Earl and Derschel. When they got into position, the riders pulled up and sat on their machines, their rifles pointing toward them.

“No!” Brogan shouted back, keeping the tone of his voice calm. “Just keep your sights on them. Nice and easy, like I told you.”

Oh brother,
Brogan thought to himself.
Let’s see, how the hell you get out of this one.

Chief Stalking Bear, or Bear as he was known to his tribe, heard the roar of an engine coming up behind him and glanced back to see Clement speeding down the center of the highway, waving an arm and motioning for him to stop.

“What’s up?” he asked, bringing his machine to a halt by the side of the road.

Clement pulled up alongside him. “I’m not sure,” he said, a puzzled look on his face. “All I can tell you is our four prospects have all gone.”

Bear gazed back down the highway while the rest of the pack caught up with them. There was no sign of the missing men. The last time he’d seen them had been when the group had stopped for lunch at a roadside bar outside the small plains-town of Boland. They had been riding since sunup, and after eating the braves had stayed awhile, drinking beer and shooting pool. Looking back, he remembered that one of the prospects, a man named Mitch, had done more drinking than eating, and had looked pretty heated by the time they’d left.

This past week, Bear and a selection of his warriors had been riding the valleys and plains of the Outzone, seeking to recruit new prospects for the tribe. In Dawson, a town seventy miles north of Winter’s Edge, they’d come across four young men riding together who had jumped at the chance at joining one of the five warrior chapters of the Outzone. After a six month try-out, Bear and the council would decide whether or not to accept them as full members of the tribe.

Since the death of Ironclaw several braves, including Nelsen, had left the Black Eagles. They had slunk out of the camp one moonless night, quietly pushing their machines several hundred yards away before starting them up and riding out of the valley. The sound of their engines had woken Bear and the rest of tribe. After checking nothing had been stolen from the camp, he’d let them go without giving chase. He wasn’t surprised. When a new chief got elected, it wasn’t unusual for disaffected warriors to leave, either to return to the city or perhaps find another tribe to join. It would be up to the new chief to rebuild his tribe.

What had come as a surprise was that Roja had stayed, though Bear suspected she might disappear the moment they hit Two Jacks where he’d sent the rest of the tribe to set up their winter camp a few miles south of the city. As a sign of goodwill, Bear had brought her along in the traveling party, figuring if she was given a chance to get over her anger, she might decide to stay. And, of course, there was the fact that with her looks, Roja made recruiting male warriors just that little bit easier. Perhaps if the right one joined, that might change things.

He glanced quickly over at her now. She sat on her machine at the back of the pack, a few yards distance from everyone else. In the past five days, the two hadn’t exchanged so much as a word.

“So where the hell’d they go?” Bear said, after waiting a little longer for the missing riders to show up. “There’s been no turnoff for the past twenty miles. Don’t tell me they just rode off into the brush?”

“Damned if I know,” Clement said. “Only thing I can think of is that group of riders we passed awhile back might have something to do with it. Maybe one of them knew them or something.”

“I gave them no permission to stop,” Bear said irritably. That was the trouble with new prospects: they didn’t understand the rules of the tribe. The Black Eagles had enemies. It was never a good idea for his riders to become separated like this.

He gave the signal for the pack to turn around.

“Come on,” he said to Clement. “Let’s find out what the fuck these guys are playing at.”

With Daniela’s arms around his waist, Bear used his long legs to paddle his motorcycle around on the road. The rest of the braves followed suit. With Bear leading, the pack took off and raced back down the highway again.

It only took a few minutes to get back to where they’d passed the three riders earlier. When the pack came around a long bend in the road, Bear kept his eyes peeled. Ahead in the distance, he could make out a group of figures several hundred yards away. At that moment, two shots rang out in quick succession. Bringing his machine to a stop, he ordered Daniela off the bike, grimacing as he dismounted it himself, the stitches in his side pulling. It had only been a week since the challenge with Ironclaw, and the wound hadn’t fully healed yet. Ushering Clement and Chico to follow him, he headed over to the side of the road in a low crouch to get a better view.

A few hundred yards ahead, about fifty feet away from the roadside, Bear saw a man hunched behind a low-lying outcrop of rocks, a rifle in his hands. Over at the far side of the rocks, he caught some movement. Looking closer, he made out a second man, also armed with a rifle.

A little farther back, between the roadside and where the two men stood crouched, Bear spotted the four missing motorbikes. Sitting astride them were three of his men.

Standing in front of them, his rifle pointed at them, stood the other stranger. He was a big man. Bear took him to be about six three, wearing a black jacket and a pair of dark camo fatigues. Behind him, sprawled on the ground with his face in the dirt, Bear recognized the dark red jacket of the fourth recruit, Mitch.

Clement gave out a low whistle. “Holy shit, am I seeing this right? Did this mofo just take down our men?”

“That’s how it’s looks,” Bear said, a grim look on his face. Turning to Chico, he pointed to the two strangers hunched behind the rocks.

“Take five braves and get over there,” he said. “Skirt around the back so you come up behind their position, then wait for my signal.”

Chico nodded and turned to go. As he left, Bear reached out a hand and clasped him on the shoulder. “Don’t shoot unless you have to,” he said. “I want to find out what the hell these crazy sonofabitches think they’re up to.”

“Got it, Chief,” his lieutenant replied. He ran back toward his motorbike, barking out orders to the waiting braves. Moments later, accompanied by five riders, he drove down off the highway and wove his way through the thick scrub brush.

Keeping his distance, Chico and his men approached the two strangers’ position in a wide circle, sweeping around at the last minute to encircle them from behind. Moments later, he heard one of the strangers shout out from behind the rocks.

“Frank, we got riders coming at us. You want us to start shooting?”

“No,” came the reply, in a strong steady voice. “Just keep your sights on them—nice and easy, like I told you.”

That was the smart thing to do—if the three strangers were to stand any chance of staying alive.

Bear turned to Clement. “Come on,” he said. “Time to find out what this is all about.”

The two got back on their bikes and, with the remainder of the pack following, drove down the bank. At the bottom, they rode alongside the highway until they were about a hundred feet away from where the three recruits sat motionless on their motorcycles.

Bear cut his engine and waited for Daniela to dismount, while his riders got off their machines and unslung their rifles.

The lone stranger stared across at them, his rifle still pointing at the three prospects.

“Hey!” he shouted over. “We’re not looking for trouble. We didn’t start this.”

Clement cupped his hands. “Then drop your rifle and get your ass over here!” he hollered back.

The man shook his head. “Can’t do that. Send someone over here and we’ll talk.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, the stranger’s body language looked surprisingly relaxed.