James Axler – Road Wars

“Thanks.”

“Welcome. That sure is a pretty wag. Cannon work, do it? Blow the shit out of a mutie army, that would.”

“Sure would,” Ryan agreed, careful not to answer the question about the 25 mm Bushmaster for which they had no ammo.

Trader used to say that a man who told his enemy his weaknesses deserved to buy the farm.

“Just two of you’s in there?”

“Right.”

“Go ahead.” He lifted the counterbalanced pole and waved them through.

“WASN’T TROUBLE in this ville, was there, Ryan?” J.B. asked his friend. “Not riding into a blood feud, are we?”

“No,” the one-eyed man replied confidently.

“Sure?”

“Course.” He sounded just a little less confident.

Ryan had a vague memory of Tenbos as a chunky man, broad-shouldered, with the tanned face of an outdoor person, with a free and easy smile. He was in his late thirties, or early forties.

Married? Ryan thought for a while as he steered the wag past the lake and up to the next sec barrier. No, he decided, he wasn’t.

THE VILLE WAS a collection of scattered buildings of the type that had once been called condominiums. There had been a lot of climbing and snow sport in the area before the nuke holocaust, and small settlements had sprung up all across Colorado and the adjoining states, catering to the influx of tourists.

Now the area around Tenbos’s demesne was mainly farming land. Raising horses was a staple, along with hog ranches and some cattle on the open range to the north.

Most of the expensive apartment buildings were built from local wood, dark-stained, but the years had taken their toll. Nearly a hundred years of wind, rain, bitter frosts and scorching summers had rotted many of the buildings, levering out windows and splitting doors, stripping fragile shingles off roofs and flooding basements.

But there were still enough habitable for the occupants of the ville, which one of the sec men estimated at around two hundred and fifty souls.

Baron Hamish Tenbos lived in a strange circular tower that had probably been used as an observation deck and revolving restaurant in the predark days. Now there was a drinker at the bottom of the building, where Ryan and J.B. sat and waited to meet the ruler of the ville.

Half a dozen other men lounged around in the gloom, all of them members of the sec force. Despite their casual approach, the two outlanders had been impressed with their laid-back professionalism.

“Don’t need flash uniforms and pretty blasters and marching around like a gaudy slut in a tantrum to run a tight ville,” J.B. commented.

The wag had been locked and secured in a vehicle park to the flank of the hundred-foot tower. Ryan had made sure all the ob slits were safely sealed.

Just in case.

“Why do so many barons like big, tall towers for their own headquarters?” Ryan said musingly. “Some sort of delusions of power?”

“Could be.”

The man behind the bar was around five feet tall, with a pencil-thin mustache and a pallor that made it look like he didn’t get to meet much sunlight. A tattoo of a butterfly was just visible inside the collar of his pale yellow denim shirt.

“How about another sipper?” he called across to Ryan and the Armorer.

“On the baron,” one of the sec men said. “Tenbos looks after guests. Not like the cock-cutting sons of bitches you get in some of the villes.”

“Have a beer.” Ryan glanced across at J.B. and got the nod. “Make that two beers.”

“Coming right up, Captain.” The foxy eyes watched them closely in the mirror at the rear of the bar. “Sure you wouldn’t both like a spotioti?”

“Dark night!” J.B. pulled a face of revulsion. “Run a hundred miles in the opposite direction rather than drink that vile stuff.”

Ryan looked puzzled. “Spotioti? Name rings a bell, but What is it?”

The barkeep smiled, showing that he’d had his front teeth filed to points. “It’s the nectar of the gods, Colonel. Brings a glimpse of paradise.”

“Glimpse of the bottom of a bucket of cold puke,” J.B. said with a sneer.

“Fine muscat wine, mixed with some good homebrewed whiskey. That’s spotioti. Sure I can’t tempt either of you with a glass? On the house?”