James Axler – Road Wars

The Armorer pondered on that for a while, picking up a dry branch of pinon pine, snapping it across his knee and tossing it into the heart of their fire. “Could be, I suppose. Often works to try the unexpected.”

“Not in a Mex standoff.” Both of them had encountered that particularly brutal form of frontier dueling, where each man holds one end of a bandanna, or a short length of cord, between his teeth and fights with a knife at close quarters. The rules say that if either of them should break away, then the onlookers will chill them instantly.

“Different rules for that game, all right,” J.B. said. “Remember what the Trader used to say about close-combat blade skills?”

Ryan nodded, waving his hand to drive a persistent moth away from his bowl of stew. “Sure. You have to be ready to give your left hand. Your left arm. Mebbe even risk a superficial cut at your face. Let him see your blood and he thinks he’s won.”

“And he gets careless.”

“Right. Give up that and you can take his kidney or throat or genitals or eyes. Trade-off’s likely the only thing to save your life.”

J.B. leaned back against the padded chair, feet stretched out in front of him, head on one side as he listened to the ferocious wind howling outside the cabin. “Hard night,” he said. “Talking of Trader, it’ll be damned strange to meet him again.” He paused. “If we ever do.”

“Quiet, he’s coming back. Doesn’t seem the sort of man to like to talk about knife fights.”

“Nor about Trader.”

The shuffling of feet along the passage grew louder. “My sight might have taken wing from my eyes, outlanders, but my ears have become rather better than normal. If you want to talk about violence, then feel free. Whatever turns you on, as they used to say before the long winters. You’re my guests. And about this Trader person you keep mentioning.”

THE LAV-25 WAS sixteen miles back along the side-trail off Highway 410, with its engine burned out through a cracked piston that had sheared and blown the whole casing apart. It wasn’t the kind of damage you thought about repairing.

The snows had been bad, and there were only five days to go before their deadline in Seattle, somewhere around a hundred miles distant.

Ryan had spotted the narrow road off to the right, among tall, white-topped pines, and they’d followed it upward until they reached the isolated cabin, the home of Al Burgoise. In his seventies, close to blind, Al called himself a meditating hermit. “At my age meditation is about all I’m good for.”

He’d been living in the lee of Mount Rainier’s 14,500-foot shadow for most of his life. He got by with the help of a pack of hunting dogs that were all asleep out back, and by the kindliness of the folks who lived in the nearby small ville of Godfrey Falls.

He was one of the kindest and gentlest men that either Ryan or J.B. had ever met.

They’d asked him whether he felt frightened about being attacked by some of the wolf’s-head outlaws who roamed Deathlands. Al had smiled and tugged at his long white beard, shaking his head at the question. His milky eyes turned from man to man.

“To be robbed means you have something worth stealing, friends. Is that not true?”

“Some kill because they have a taste for it,” Ryan replied. “Is that not true?”

“I suppose so. Then you will leave here after the blizzard ends thinking that the foolish old man had been unbearably lucky.” He smiled broadly. “Is that not true?”

During the evening the two friends found themselves opening up to the old man, talking about the rest of their group back in New Mexico, about their early lives and riding in the big war wags for so many years, and, finally, about the sudden news that Trader lived.

Al had nodded, nursing a large balloon glass of some home-brewed brandy that he’d been happy to share with them, occasionally asking a question or making a quiet, wise comment.

Both J.B. and Ryan were drawn into their hopes and plans for the indeterminate future.