At which the companions looked from the blaster ports to get their first view of Salvation, home of Baron Silas Hunter.
From first look, they could tell it was going to be an interesting time.
Chapter Eight
As the wags rolled into Salvation, the companions crowded around the blaster ports, trying to get a better view of their destination. The workers were still at the front end of the wag, barely beginning to regain consciousness, so Ryan and his people felt safe turning their backs on them for a few seconds.
The blacktop had taken them through the remains of an oil-town suburb, with deserted and derelict buildings that reflected the residential nature of their old use. There were low-level apartment blocks, houses and rows of shops dotted with the occasional strip mall. All had been deserted since the days of skydark, and gave no indication of what was to come.
For, as the blacktop gave way to an old concrete road and Tex took them on a winding route past the most damaged parts of the old ville, they began to see signs of fortifications. The buildings had been obviously burned and demolished in more recent times, the rubble used to make rudimentary towers from which observation posts could be established. The outer ones were empty, but there were signs of life from those that began to occur more and more frequently as they approached the heart of the ville.
There were also sounds of manual labor-—the breaking and hammering of construction, and the rattle and hum of generators. A babble of voices occasionally cut through the constant level of noise. And then, finally, they came to the gates of Salvation.
A wall of rubble had been carefully constructed to provide a walkway on the top and recesses for observation posts, and as far as each group could see from either side of the wag’s blaster port slits, the wall traveled on for at least a mile. Ryan guessed that it continued around the whole of the reconstituted ville, hemming it in and protecting it from intruders and, conversely, also keeping the inhabitants safely within view.
“There more than one road in?” Ryan asked Crow, not expecting the taciturn Native American to answer.
“One at each compass point, all like this,” the giant replied. “Before you ask, no other exits.”
“I think mebbe we’d already figured that one,” Ryan murmured. “Baron Silas is a very cautious man.”
“Around these parts you don’t get to stay baron unless you are,” Crow said.
“Same as anywhere,” Ryan observed.
Mildred interrupted Ryan’s train of thought with a low whistle. “Man, he may be cautious, but he likes people to know who’s boss,” she said. “Look at that.”
“I’m looking, but I’m not sure I believe what I’m seeing,” J.B. countered.
For the full grandeur of the gates dividing the wall of Salvation was now fully apparent. The giant structure stood over thirty feet. It was made from pieces of scrap metal that had been smelted and beaten into grotesque and Gothic designs, so that the upward-thrusting poles that had been honed at the top into spikes were joined by wreaths and curlicues of spiked and hollylike wire that kept the gate see-through and yet completely impassable. The two gates were joined in the middle by a simple locking system that was accessible only from the inside due to a protective and decorative plate several feet across that was divided in the center.
But it was at the top that the ego of Baron Silas Hunter became obvious. Over the top of the gates stood an arch that joined one side of the wall to the other, and sat independent of the gates themselves. The arch was composed of two bars, with carefully beaten-out metal lettering between. It said simply Welcome To Salvation. In itself not a particularly egotistical message. However, on top of the arch stood a statue made of bronzed metal, the polishing of which showed that it had not been standing for many years. The statue was of a tall, thin man in a long coat and cowboy boots. He had a drawn, haggard face with an iron-cast jaw that wasn’t softened by the beard that had been cast beneath. Even in the statue, there was something about the hooded eyes that made a person wary, shielded as they were by a Stetson hat.