“No, Ryan. But he did say there was a letter for you. Said he’d got a scribbler
to write it weeks back when we was on the road to Mocsin.”
Ryan spun on his heel to go and look for the letter. But Abe coughed. “Yeah?”
“There’s one other thing, Ryan. But it’s kind of stupid.”
“Go on.”
Abe glanced away. “No, Mebbe in a while. I got to think on it some. Go read your
note.” It didn’t take long.
It was on the steel table in the corner of the Trader’s cabin. The edges of the
handmade paper were crinkled. The letter was stained with machine oil and what
looked like ketchup smeared over the bottom half. Because of his own illiteracy,
the Trader had been forced to get a writer to produce the note for him. Which
may have led to its brevity and lack of emotion. Or it may just have been the
way the Trader was.
“Hi Ryan,” it began.
If you’re reading this then it means I’m dead. This rad cancer’s been eating my
guts for months and I know there’s no stopping it. So this is me saying goodbye
and the best of luck. If it goes the way I hope, I’ll just walk away one night
so don’t you blasted come after me. Please. That’s the Trader asking and not
ordering, Ryan, old friend. We’ve been some places and done some good and bad
things. Now it’s done. That’s all. I thank you for watching my back for so many
years. You and J.B. watch for each other.
There was no signature.
So he’d done it. Ended his life in the same quietly efficient way he’d run it.
Minutes later, as Ryan walked through the war wag, there were several of the
women, and some of the men, red eyed. Samantha was weeping on the shoulder of
Hennings. Rintoul was clicking his fingers in a nervous, abstracted way, and
Finnegan’s usual good nature had vanished.
“Break this up,” called Ryan, making them jump and turn hostile faces his way.
“Trader went as he wanted. Save your sorrow.”
Outside in the freshness of morning the rising sun was tipping the hills to the
west, turning the snow to blood. Abe was sitting on the ground, nursing his own
M-16 rifle, gazing out across the river toward the forest. Ryan hunkered
alongside him.
“Tell me, Abe.”
“What?”
“You was goin’ to tell me. Somethin’ that Trader said or did. At the last?”
“No. Wasn’t like that, I told you all he said. Then he just walked off, over
there.” He pointed with the muzzle of the gun.
“Then what?”
“I thought I saw somethin’ there. Just by that ridge of light rock, over toward
where that pond lies.”
Ryan followed the man’s stubby finger, seeing that he was pointing in the
general direction of where he and Krysty had made love the previous evening.
“This was before Trader went or after?”
“Like after. I seen him walkin’ away, and there was a good moon up, so he showed
clear. I watched, and then I saw this thing up there, like it was waitin’ for
the Trader. First I figured he…”
“A man?”
“I’m tellin’ ya, Ryan. I figured he might be one of the muties that done the
feathers and skulls and stuff, so I get a bead on him, ready to ice him. Then I
see the Trader lift a hand to him, and this old man lifts a hand back. They meet
up and go under the trees and that’s all I see. No danger, so I don’t raise a
warnin’ for everyone. Then, the Trader… he don’t come back.”
“Tell me about this man. This old man, you said. What was he like?”
“He had silver hair in braids, one on each side. And a long coat with some fancy
patterns on it.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. I saw it through the scope in the moonlight, in his hair, the old man had
a long white feather.”
NOBODY EVER SAW THE OLD MAN with the white feather in his hair. Nor was the
Trader ever seen again.
Chapter Fifteen
THE ROADS HIGH IN THE DARKS were as bad as anything any of them had ever seen.