James Axler – Trader Redux

Abe had bustled in and out of the house, pausing only to clean his pants. He carried out blankets and loaded them into the gaping space in the rear of the empty hearse. Then came cans of food and canteens of water, boxes of spare ammo and fruit and eggs. All was packed away.

Trader stamped around, getting in everyone’s path and doing precious little of the fetching and carrying himself. Ryan and J.B. weren’t at all surprised at this. It had always been the old man’s way.

It was around noon, with a sun that hadn’t chosen to show its face at all, that they were more or less ready to roll. J.B. had volunteered to drive the loaded hearse, while the other three rode along, leading the pair of placid pack animals and the spare saddle horse. “Best fire the place first,” Trader stated.

“Why?” Ryan was already astride a bay mare, trying to adjust to the discomfort of being in the saddle again. “Not doing any harm.” ?????Keep a posse off our trail.”

“What posse?”

Trader gestured to Abe with his Armalite. “He said the same when that young stupe got hisself chilled. Said there wouldn’t be a posse after us.” Abe opened his mouth as though he were going to protest, then closed it again. “Those boys and their pa could have kin. Less clues we leave behind, the better. Locals’ll likely think it was wolf’s heads or Indians.”

There was a kind of sense in what Trader was saying. Ryan shrugged. “All right. I’ll fire it.”

There were several earthenware pots of lamp oil stored in a closet off the kitchen. Ryan took them and sprinkled it liberally all over the first floor of the house, smashing the last two containers in the front hall.

“Why am I doing this?” he muttered. “Bastard nice place. Why destroy it?”

But he was already finding that the old, ingrained habits died hard.

IT WASN’T QUITE SO COLD, the wind having eased down, meaning that some of the lying snow was just beginning to thaw. The hearse handled easily once they got onto the blacktop toward the dark ruins of Seattle.

Ryan reined in his horse on top of the first ridge and stood in the stirrups, peering back to the column of thick black smoke that was soaring skyward behind them.

He’d only met up with Trader again for a few hours, and already he tasted the familiar flavors of blood and fire.

Chapter Five

A warmer, moist wind blew in across the land from the distant, fog-shrouded side of Puget Sound.

It was very late afternoon as the four friends stood and looked out across old Seattle. Behind them the horses were cropping eagerly on a patch of cleared grass. They’d made remarkably good time along the narrow, twisting highway, not seeing another living soul until about an hour back, when they passed three separate wags of travelers.

“Where’s the fucking funeral?” shouted the driver of the first vehicle, a beat-up truck of dubious parentage and unguessable pedigree. None of the four friends bothered to answer, ignoring the bellowed laughter.

The second wag was horse-drawn, loaded high with rusting scrap iron. Two brothers sat side by side on the driver’s seat, looking like they couldn’t have mustered the intelligence of a fence post between them.

“Hey, White Hair!” one of them yelled at Trader. “Where’s the fucking funeral?”

Their merriment followed the hearse and its outriders for the next quarter mile.

J.B. was still holding the reins to the team as they breasted a rise and saw a converted camper lurching slowly toward them, blue smoke belching from the dangling exhaust.

“If they ask where the funeral is, then I swear to the nuke gods that I’ll blow their fucking heads clear off of their bodies!” Trader had already unslung the Armalite.

“Easy,” Ryan cautioned. “No point in chilling for such a small reason, Trader.”

“I decide what I think is a good reason for chilling, Ryan Cawdor, and you can do the same. Just don’t try to tell me what to do. All right?”

Ryan didn’t answer, but he wondered briefly about the merit of putting a 9 mm round through his old leader’s head.