Chapter Twenty-Two
An hour into a muggy, humid morning, they picked up on the ribboned remains of what rusting green signs told them had once been old I-64. Now it was a faded patchwork of broken slabs and undulating sections of concrete, overgrown with full trees a hundred feet high in places. But there were weaving tracks along it, showing that motorized transport still used the highway.
And it showed them the way west to Memphis.
In several places there was stark evidence that this region of Deathlands had been badly hit by the earthquakes and major geographical changes that had altered the face of the United States of America and turned it into the new world of Deathlands. The road disappeared under rolling hillsides and lakes spread across its original route. Twice the highway vanished completely in a clean, savage cut and suddenly reappeared up to half a mile away in either direction.
In each case a rutted trail showed that the wags had carried on around all of the skydark obstacles.
“GUESS OLD-TIMERS wouldn’t be able to recognize very much of this,” Ryan said as they paused by a stream to refresh themselves.
They’d been walking steadily for about three hours and covered, at Ryan’s guestimate, close to thirteen miles, and they hadn’t seen a living soul.
Doc lay back and fanned himself with his swallow’s-eye kerchief, wafting away a cloud of tiny midges that seemed attracted to the rivulets of sweat that settled in the crevices of his cheeks. “I don’t believe that there’s much in this tired land that ‘old-timers’ would recognize, young fellow,” he agreed. “Mighty little.”
“Where’s this lift that you said we were going to pick up, Mildred?” Krysty asked. “I’m kind of interested in Elvis’s home, but to walk two hundred miles through this heat and damp I’m getting less keen.”
Mildred stood and stretched, looking around at the yellow fields around them and the strip of tarmac that wobbled away to east and west. “Well, now, like my pa said, you have to pray before you can get your prayers answered. Maybe he was right.”
She was pointing to the east, behind them, where they could all now see a faint smudge of dust on the horizon.
Ryan uncoiled with the grace of a sidewinder, unslinging the Steyr. “Anyone make it out?”
Krysty had about the best day sight, and she stood frozen for several seconds. “Five or six wags. Trucks. Some kind of convoy, coming slow and easy this way.”
“Could be what we want. Or it could be some serious firefight material. Everyone take cover, condition triple-red, and we’ll see what we see. Move it.”
Everyone hustled away from the center of the highway, looking for concealment among the ridges and rises.
Ryan was last to move, staring at the cloud of dust, the rifle cradled at his hip, finger through the guard, wondering what the next half hour would bring.
Good or bad?
THE WAG JOLTED AND ROLLED as though the suspension had last been checked a couple of weeks into the long winters. The engine labored, often missing and choking.
Mike Sullivan was a jovial, sweating, red-faced man, head of the convoy of five trucks that was shipping grain from a large farm in eastern Kentucky, heading southwest all the way to what remained of the metropolis of Memphis.
He’d been more than happy to pick up the six heavily armed strangers, spreading them in pairs among his vehicles.
“Nobody robs grain wags,” he said in a high-pitched giggle. “We got us blasters, as well, and I reckon there’d be more blood spilled than profit made.”
“You going all the way into town?” Ryan asked.
“Nope. Do business with the countess, little way this side of the big ville.”
“Countess?” Krysty clung to the edge of the seat, balancing against the reeling movement of the wag.
“Sure. Countess Katya. Runs her own ville tight as a tick’s ass. Mighty powerful, handsome woman. Got herself through at least three husbands and the Lord knows how many ‘friends.’ Each time she walks away stronger than ever, and they mostly end up buying themselves a six-foot plot.”
“Never heard of her.” Ryan glanced behind, making sure the others were still following in line. He could see Mildred and J.B. perched on the high front of a nameless rebuilt wag just a dozen yards back, its rear brimming with golden grain. And there was the shock of Jak’s white hair, with Doc alongside him on the third vehicle in line.