The wag came closer, edging to the right side of the highway, one of its front wheels wobbling so much it looked as if it were holding on with only spit and a prayer.
The cab was partly covered with a torn sheet of dark green canvas, which was flapping loose in the rising westerly. An old woman was hunched up in the cab, glaring out through the starred shield at the oncoming procession.
“Howdy!” she screeched, heaving on a welded lever at her side that seemed to be some kind of auxiliary brake. The camper slewed sideways, partly blocking the blacktop. J.B. reined in the team, bringing the hearse to a halt.
It had all the classic makings of a trap, with steep banks on both sides of the road.
Ryan had his blaster out faster than immediately, as did the other three. Trader leveled his Armalite at the crone, who threw up her hands in alarm.
“No! “she shrieked.
Ryan glanced around them, seeing instantly that the lie of the terrain might have indicated an ambush. But the land itself was bare of any bushes or scrub, totally lacking cover.
“Hold it, Trader,” he called. “Looks safe.”
The older man swiveled in his saddle, eyes raking back. “You reckon?” he rasped. “Yeah. I reckon. Look for yourself. Not a blade of grass to hide a flea’s ass.”
“Don’t mean harm, friends. Want me to climb down?”
“Who you got inside?” Trader asked, gesturing with his blaster for her to switch off the rattling engine and get down out of the cab. “Nobody, mister. Just me, these days.”
“You got any kin in these parts?” Abe asked, fighting hard to try to control his own mount, the big Colt Python waving around in the air.
“Used to have.” She clambered down, carefully closing the door on the driver’s side of the cab, which seemed to be held in place by baling twine.
Ryan noticed that her right arm ended in a stump just above the elbow. And her face was hideously scarred, the skin puckered and folded.
“Like what you see, mister?” she said, staring at him. “Looks like you don’t relish star-gazin’ at yourself in the mirror no more than I do.”
“What happened?” he asked.
“You want to know in just one word, outlander? That one word is fucking mutie stickie scalies.”
“Four words,” J.B. said from the high seat of the gleaming hearse.
“Scalies in the ruins,” Ryan prompted. “You mentioned scalies and stickies. Which?”
“Bugs is bugs.”
“Which?” Trader insisted.
“Was going to offer blow jobs all around if you’d let an honest woman get on her way.” She leered at Trader. “But I doubt you got more than a soft little shrimp tucked away inside your breeches, outlander.”
“You want to be dead, slut?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Tell you the truth, couldn’t care less. Lost my husband and three little ones back there.” She jerked her left thumb toward the distant township.
Ryan heeled his horse a little closer to her. “I asked you once. This is the second time. The last time. You talking about stickies?”
“Sure. But muties is muties, mister.” She leered at him through a mouthful of broken teeth. “Sure you wouldn’t care for me to go down on you, mister. Figure you pack a bigger load than your old father there.”
She nodded toward Trader, who turned away, ignoring her cackling laugh.
“He isn’t my isn’t really my father. The stickies, they this side of the ville?”
“All sides. Place is rotting from the inside out. There’s a couple of small, vicious hot spots. Mostly way off to the north. Beyond Lynwood. And the place is riddled with the karpies.” She used her teeth to roll up the ragged sleeve on her left arm, revealing the recognizable purplish patches of what had once been called Kaposi’s sarcoma, the familiar badges of impending death from one of the most deadly diseases in all of Deathlands.
“I reckon we should turn back right now,” J.B. said from the box on the hearse.
“No.” Trader didn’t even glance toward the Armorer. “We agreed to go in. Take a look. Just a couple days is all. That’s what we’ll do.”