James Axler – Deathlands 27 – Ground Zero
James Axler – Deathlands 27 – Ground Zero
Prologue
Ryan Cawdor looked back one last time. The gusting wind suddenly tugged back the white fog, like a curtain across a huge window, revealing the shore.
There were the jumbled rocks.
Trader and Abe, standing side by side, faced away from the ocean. Surrounding them was a menacing circle of men, looking, as far as Ryan could make out, like a mix of brushwood survivors and some capering scabbies.
And at the front, leading them, was the unmistakable figure of Straub.
There wasn’t a thing that could be done.
As the raft bobbed on the current, Ryan whispered, “No, Trader, nothing’s forever.”
Chapter One
The fog was growing ever thicker, swirling around the waterlogged raft. The currents were so fast and treacherous that Ryan’s big worry was trying to steer a course out to the island that hid the redoubt.
The crossing wasn’t far off three-quarters of a mile. If they missed the island, then they could easily find themselves plowing remorselessly out into the Cific Ocean. With the offshore drift and a vicious undertow, it could mean the end for all of them.
“More left!” called J. B. Dix, working hard at the broken piece of wood that was his paddle.
The clumsy craft lurched from side to side, sometimes seeming as though it might have gone through a complete circle. Ryan had a highly developed sense of direction, but even he was becoming confused.
He was also finding it difficult to concentrate on reaching safety, part of his mind retaining that last, solitary image of Trader and Abe, together, surrounded by what had looked in the mist-veiled glimpse like fifteen or twenty enemies, including the dangerous and murderous stranger called Straub.
Ryan had been reminded of a place that he’d visited with Trader and the war wags about fifteen years earlier, up in Montana, not far from a ville called Billings.
It had been the site of an old battlefield, on slopes of sun-browned grass, above a winding river that the locals called the Little Bighorn. There had been a ruined building with a tumbled sign proclaiming that it had once been a Visitor’s Center.
Inside there’d been a damp-stained diorama of the climax of the fight, a blond man with long hair and beard, standing alone in a field of dead blue-coat soldiers, firing his revolver at circling hostile Native Americans.
That was the image that kept returning to Ryan, burning into his brain with every stroke of his paddle.
His eleven-year-old son, Dean, was at his side, constantly turning to look behind them. “Think they’ll be all right, Dad? Trader and Abe?”
” ‘Course. Trader could fall into a live volcano and come out complaining he was cold.”
“But I thought I saw-”
Ryan turned his one good eye toward his son, warning him with an angry glance. “Shut it, son. Just work on getting safely to that island.”
The boy bit his lip and did what his father had told him.
J.B. paused for a moment, fighting for breath. “Dark night! The stink from those sulfur springs makes it hard going.” He looked at Ryan. “Thought I heard an Armalite three or four minutes ago, and a big hand blaster. Sounded to me like Abe’s.357 Colt Python. But the noise was flattened and distorted by the mist.”
Ryan stopped paddling. “Tell you about it when we reach the island,” he panted.
Krysty Wroth was kneeling waist-deep in the cold gray water on his other side. Her bright red hair was dulled, coiled tight around her nape. She rubbed at her hands, peering down at incipient blisters, managing a smile at Ryan, her deep emerald eyes the brightest thing to be seen.
“Felt trouble. Soon as Trader pushed off and wouldn’t join us on the raft. Figures, good old Abe going with him.”
“Feel anything now? Living or dying?”
“No. You saw them?”
“Yeah. And some brushwooders and scabbies.” She whistled. “Bad news.”
“Worse to come. Straub was there. Spotted his shaved head. Think they might’ve bought the farm back there.”
“Nothing we could’ve done, lover.”
“I know that. My head tells me that. My heart tells me about the debt I owed Trader.” He wiped salt spray from his face. “Those years me and J.B. rode with him.”