James Axler – Cold Asylum

As they’d strode together over back trails and quiet green highways, Trader had pumped the former gunner from War Wag One about what had been happening since he’d dropped out of life. What Ryan had been doing. And the rest.

He hadn’t passed many comments.

Until the subject of Ryan’s son came up.

“Sharona was the mother? Well, I’ll be hung, quartered and dried for the crows!”

“She died about three or four years ago. Got the rad sickness real bad, so Dean says. And she” Abe had suddenly realized what he’d said and stammered, looking away from the cold eyes. “Not that rad sick means you all die or Just that”

But Trader hadn’t picked up on the hint to talk about his own gut-gripping illness.

Now, lying together on sheep-cropped turf in the cool of the evening, Trader looked like he was about to open up about his own mystery.

“We get word to them, they’ll want to hear what’s happened to you, Trader. Course they will.”

“Like I said, I’m not a man to chew his meat twice, Abe. When we all meet up, I’ll tell what went down. Not until. Now we should find a camp for the night. Wolves around here. Four-legged and two-legged.”

ABE WASN’T ALL THAT GOOD with words. He knew what he felt, but he was never confident in expressing it.

There’d been the three hundred pound widow woman near Canon City who’d asked him if she thought she was mebbe a little on the large side. Abe had happily told her that he really liked very fat women.

She’d broken both fists in beating up on him, and he’d never understood why.

Now, sitting by the crackling fire, with a skinned rabbit roasting on the willow spit, Abe wanted to tell the hunched figure opposite what he felt. That he felt safe. Secure.

Like he’d found the father he’d never known. He decided to try. “Trader?”

“Yeah, Abe?”

“Just that Fucking nice night.” Trader sounded puzzled. “Yeah. Guess it is.” From near the cliff top, they could hear the pod of whales making its mysterious way through the deep waters. Their unique belling calls to each other echoed around the misty valleys that arrowed down to the coast.

“They reckon they can talk to each other cross hundreds of miles,” Trader commented.

Abe nodded, then realized that he couldn’t be seen in the moonless dark. “Yeah.”

“Next day or so we’ll move on to Seattle. Big center for the travelers passing through. Men and women call themselves the traders.” He laughed shortly. “So soon they forget. We’ll persuade some of them to carry a message for us to the one-eyed man. It’ll likely take a good long time, but they’ll find him in the end. And we got the time to wait.”

Abe stretched, suddenly burrowing under his bedding and scratching furiously at his ankles. “Fucking lice,” he moaned. “Can’t get them out of this old blanket. Might as well burn the son of a bitch.”

He heard Trader sitting up. “Don’t you remember how we coped with lice back in the war wags?”

“No.”

“Think it was O’Mara taught us. Said it was a trick from the Apaches near the Grandee.”

“Oh, yeah. Something to do with ants.”

“Right. When you get up you spread the blanket over the nearest anthill. Red ones was bestest.” The wind rose and ruffled the leaves on the grove of live oaks near where they’d camped. Trader listened for a few moments before carrying on. “The ants think it’s free-lunch time and swarm over the lice. Eat all the little boogers in sixty minutes flat.”

Abe laughed. “Then you get the blanket and give it a real good shake and all the ants fall off and you start clean.”

“That fat kidcook’s assistant on War Wag Two. What was his name?”

“Ray. Always used to ask ‘who?’ when anyone shouted at him. Gotten called ‘Hooray’ after a bit.”

“That was the guy. He tried out the blanket treatment, but he couldn’t find his ass with both hands. Forgot about shaking off the ants after they ate the lice and got bit worser than anyone I ever saw.” Trader’s voice was shaking with laughter. “Funniest thing I ever saw since that breed whore master in Nogales slammed a drawer on his cock and cut it off.”