James Axler – Trader Redux

Ryan yawned. “Been the longest journey, Trader. Trouble is we can’t just get us into a gateway and jump back to the others in New Mexico. Going to have to make it on foot, or with what we can find and steal.”

“There’s the horses out back,” Abe said. “Don’t like riding much, but they could set us well on the way. And we won’t need any gas for them.”

Ryan had already decided, within minutes of their arrival at the isolated ranch, that the animals in the barn and corral would be their passport onto the highway again. But he was still a country mile off understanding Trader. He knew what his former leader really wanted.

“Sooner we get moving, the better,” J.B. said. “Could be the family we chilled have friends or kin around here. Don’t want a posse after us.”

“Amen to that!” Abe exclaimed with great intensity.

There was no argument about whether they needed to place a watch during the night, not even any discussion.

“I find sleep comes hard these times,” Trader said. “I’ll take now up to the mid of night.”

“I’ll go until two,” Abe offered, looking at the others, who both nodded.

“Two through four?” J.B. glanced at Ryan. “Okay with you?”

“Sure. I’ll go until dawn.”

RYAN SLEPT FITFULLY.

Usually, the first night after some tough times, such as a prolonged firefight, he dropped off without any trouble. Now, at the end of an odyssey that had taken them most of the way across Deathlands, the feeling that had swept over him was of bone weariness.

Despite that, he’d awakened five or six times, once going to the outhouse outside the back door to relieve himself. Abe had been sitting in a deep brocade armchair, cradling his blaster. The little man had been more than half asleep, jumping into startled life when he became aware of the shadowy figure of Ryan looming over him.

“Holy shit!”

“Not asleep on guard are you, Abe?”

“Course not. Just sitting and thinking a spell with my eyes closed.”

“Good job it was me and not Trader who caught you. He might’ve snapped a finger or two to remind you about duty, Abe. Remember?”

“Course I do. Could be a bastard when he wants to.” He was aware of the odd mix of tenses in what he’d just said. “I mean he sometimes was and sometimes is.”

Ryan perched on the arm of the sofa, sticking his own SIG-Sauer into his belt. “He’s changed.”

“Older.”

“Yeah. I should have guessed that. But somehow he never seemed to change, year in and year out. Always the same. Hacked from living granite.”

Abe stood and walked to peer out from behind the curtains. “Bit of moon,” he said. “I guess that when we all lived together, it wasn’t easy to spot changes in each other. Then you go away for a year or more and you see the way time’s been treating him. Yeah, he’s changed.”

“But, from your story, he’s still tough as ever.”

“Right, Ryan, right. Wouldn’t want to give you any other impression about that. Harder than ever.”

“Harder?” Ryan repeated disbelievingly.

“Yeah.” Abe sniffed, fumbling for a kerchief to blow his nose. “Got a bastard cold. I sort of find a couple of changes. One is that his memory kind of comes and goes a bit. Keeps forgetting my name. And gets confused about what’s past and what’s present. What’s been real and what’s not.”

“What’s the second change, Abe?”

Both men were talking quietly to avoid disturbing the other two.

“I think I don’t know.”

“Go on.”

“Trader was always cold and hard. That was the way we loved him, I guess. But he was never mean. Never unfair. Since I met up with him I’ve seen, once or twice, the way he seems sometimes to like violence and chilling for its own sake.”

Abe quickly told the story of the young woman that Trader had butchered, during their escape from the posse.

Ryan listened in silence. “I suppose that his time alone might have changed him some, Abe. Now we all have to try and sort of shuffle down together. But it isn’t the same as it was. Never be the same as it was.”