Teague wisely beat it, drifted northwest, landed up in Mocsin. It was ripe for a
takeover by someone, and he figured he fitted the bill.
Just about then he bumped into the Trader, who’d recently fallen across his
first Stockpile, together with his buddy Marsh Folsom, and had a raft of
factory-fresh fowling pieces and mucho ammo to match. Teague had no jack
whatsoever, but he did have an astounding stroke of luck. He came across a guy
who’d been mooching about in the hills to the southwest of Mocsin and discovered
seams of yellow in the rocks. Someone later figured out that the gold had been
uncovered by the last rippling tremors from the West Coast cataclysm, when Sov
“earthshaker” bombs and missiles back in the Nuke had carved out a new
coastline, taking out half of Washington state, Oregon and California, and the
whole of Baja, California. But such geological pedantry was of no interest to
Jordan Teague, who simply deep-sixed the sucker and grabbed his nuggets. With
these he bought a passel of 5.56 mm M-16A1s modified to handle the M-203 grenade
launcher, crates of mags, plus boxes—assorted—of 40 mm rounds for the grenade
launchers, including HE, frag and M-576 buck. Teague being Teague, he would have
liked to have had free what he had to pay for, and pay for highly. But even
then, word had gotten around that you didn’t fuck with the Trader, and in any
case Teague had the location of the strike—unwisely, the panhandler had made a
map—and it was more than likely that there was more where the first haul had
come from.
There was, indeed, as Teague discovered after he and an assorted bunch of
murderous trash had subdued Mocsin and set up there in style. In short order he
began to mine the yellow stuff and ship it out East. Slowly at first, but in the
past decade more and more successfully. Jordan Teague was now an exceedingly
rich man although, as Ryan knew damned well, as anyone knew, none of this wealth
had ever rubbed off on Mocsin.
All in all, a pretty inglorious and unedifying career that, did he but know it,
thought Ryan bleakly, was moving swiftly to its close.
Ryan still found it barely credible that Teague should end up like this. He
recalled what Fishmouth Charlie and said about Teague’s not knowing what the
goddamned time was these days. Damned right. He looked to be brain-blasted on
booze and happyweed, stuffed to the gullet and beyond with food. A gross
mountain of flab, fit for nothing but the boneyard.
Ryan almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
There were others in the room. Two women were whispering together at the foot of
the pyramid structure, sitting on the lowest step. One was naked, wide hipped
with pendulous breasts. Ryan judged her to be well on the other side of thirty.
The other was younger; oddly, she wore a top but no bottom, no skirt or pants.
They looked bored as they chewed the fat, dispirited. It occurred to Ryan that
trying to jolly Teague into raising his flagpole these days must be a full-time
occupation, and wearing on the nerves.
Slumped at Teague’s feet was a man, a strange and wild-looking guy, at this
distance elderly, though Ryan could not be sure. He looked to be medium height
though very thin. Sprawled as he was, it was difficult to tell exactly. He was
clad all in rusty black except for an off-white shirt. His hair was long and
lank and gray. Ryan couldn’t see his face clearly because the guy’s head was in
his hands. He seemed to be crying. Certainly his shoulders were shaking as
though he was in the grip of a fit of the ague, although no sounds came from
him. Could be he was laughing, but Ryan doubted it.
Hunaker whispered impatiently behind him, “C’mon, Ryan. Let’s hit ’em.”
“Wait.”
His ears were only just beginning to adjust to the wheezy rumble of Teague’s
voice. He seemed to be talking to himself, with the odd sentence directed down
at the crazed old guy at his feet, who took no notice.
Suddenly Teague lashed out with his foot, the tip of his boot catching the old