“Well?” Denver Joe asked impatiently. “Somebody going to give a man a hand out of the fucking mud?”
“Do it yourself,” Cranston ordered brusquely, releasing his grip on the handcannon at his belt. “The Devils don’t ask for help from nobody. Remember that.”
So he would live. Forcing his trembling legs to work, Denver Joe clambered through the weeds and back onto solid ground.
“Which one is mine now?” he said, trying not to weave while standing. He felt ill, but any sign of weakness could send him back to the chains.
Spreading his cracked lips in a grin, a bald man covered with crude tattoos jerked a thumb at the empty motorcycle parked amid the dozen bikes. “The bike with the knucklehead engine is yours now,” he said. “Own her fair and square.”
Stiffly walking to the bike, Denver Joe checked the saddlebags and found some clothing that wasn’t too dirty to bandage the small wounds. He was pleased to see some supplies tucked away in the bag, including a plastic jar of honey. Smearing the cuts with honey, he then tied them off with the cloth, grunting as the crude bandages cinched tight.
“What the fuck you doing?” Ballard demanded, puzzled.
“Honey is a natural—” Denver bit back the pre-dark word. “The wounds won’t fester and rot.”
“By using honey?” The biker chortled. “Nuke me, never heard that shit before. Sure it works?”
“Like a bullet in a blaster,” the oldster said confidently.
“How do ya know that?” Krury demanded.
Larry’s gun belt was draped over the handlebars, with a big bore blaster tucked into the oiled leather. Near the skull a badly nicked hatchet was jammed into a spring-clamp on the handlebars for fast action, and a double-barrel shotgun jutted from a leather boot alongside the flat-top engine. Drawing the scattergun, Denver Joe checked the load inside and closed the breech with a solid satisfying snap. “I used to know a healer,” he said, pulling the blaster to check its ammo. Then he tossed the blaster to Krury who made the catch.
“For the loan of the knife,” Denver Joe said gruffly.
Snorting a laugh, Krury slipped the blaster into his belt. “Worth it,” he said.
“So what we do about that?” a woman biker asked, indicating the muddy corpse with a motion of her chin. Angelina was fat with a roll of belly resting on her wide belt. Her leather vest laced together showing a wealth of acne-scarred cleavage. She was the chief bitch of the gang, but also the best butcher they had. Meat spoiled fast in the summer, and unless the bodies were cleaned and smoked properly, there was nothing to deliver to the cannies in exchange for the slick.
“Put him with the rest,” Cranston said, climbing onto his bike and kicking the engine alive. “Then we leave this place right now. Anybody says different and I ace them. Move!”
Having done this many times before, the bikers got busy tying a corpse across the rear fender of each bike, and lashing the prisoners together. The slaves could either run to keep up with the Devils, or fall and get dragged to their deaths and be added to the meat supply. It really made no difference.
Drinking deeply from a canteen of warm beer, Denver Joe wasn’t surprised when Larry was put on his bike, and the small palm blaster given over as part of the loot. It was a .22 derringer with four barrels, and he’d never seen one like it before. Interesting.
Twisting the throttle, Denver Joe gunned the big engine, blue and gray smoke blowing out the twin exhaust pipes. Studying the reactions of the engine, he eased back on the choke until the single-stroke engine was purring with controlled power.
So far, so good. He had specifically joined the caravan traveling in this direction hoping they would be attacked by the Devils so that he might have a chance of joining the gang.
However, leaving the flatlands before dark wasn’t to his liking, yet there was nothing he could do without drawing unwanted attention to himself. This wasn’t working out exactly as expected, but he would stay the course. Denver Joe had great faith in the plans of the Trader.
Chapter Two
Slowly, the wisps of electronic fog filling the mattrans unit faded to nothingness and the seven people sprawled on the gateway floor began to stir.
Stomachs heaving from their passage through the predark transporter machine, the companions writhed in agony. It had been a bad jump, but unfortunately there was nothing to do but suffer through the nausea and pain until the aftereffects of the instantaneous journey eventually subsided.
“Anybody hurt?” Ryan Cawdor asked, coughing as he held his sides against the racking pain in his belly. It felt as if fire ants were eating his guts, and his skin seemed to be moving about, shifting positions as if draped loosely over his aching bones.
“I’m a-alive,” J. B. Dix whispered, kneeling on the floor. An Uzi machine pistol hung at his side, and a pump-action S&W M-4000 scattergun was strapped across his backpack. A canvas bag lay on the floor alongside him.
Fighting a tremor, J.B. wiped a string of drool from his mouth with the cuff of his leather jacket. “J-just not sure why after that slice of hell.”
“I hear ya,” Ryan agreed, bracing a scarred hand against the cool armaglass wall and forcing himself to stand. A Steyr SSG-70 rifle was sticking out of his backpack, while a 9 mm SIG-Sauer pistol rode at his hip alongside an eighteen-inch-long panga.
Blinking hard to clear his vision, the one-eyed man could see that outside the mat-trans unit was a hexagonal chamber with cream-colored walls laced with a gold lattice pattern. That scheme was unfamiliar, which meant they had never been to this redoubt before. The walls of each gateway in the network of underground installations was a different color, the purpose of which was, the friends concluded, to let a jumper know immediately where he or she landed.
Leaning against a wall, Dr. Mildred Wyeth pulled a canvas satchel into her lap.
“H-here, t-try this,” she muttered, fumbling to open the bag. Inside was an assortment of precious surgical tools. The physician was slowly building a collection of medical supplies—sterile water, plastic baggies filled with sterilized cloth, a jar of sulfur dust for wounds, and such. Hardly little more than supermarket curatives back in her day, but enough to save a life in the shockscape known as the Deathlands.
Extracting a canteen, Mildred screwed off the cap and took a healthy swig before passing it to a boy almost in his teenage years. Physician heal thyself, she thought, waiting for the throbbing headache to ease.
Sitting on his butt, an arm propped against the floor to keep himself upright, Dean Cawdor accepted the container and took a long drink, sloshing the fluid about in his mouth to try to cut the taste of bile before finally swallowing.
“Tastes awful,” Dean said, making a face and handing the canteen away to a nearby woman with impossibly red hair.
Sitting with her legs folded, the woman was almost completely hidden by the shaggy bearskin coat. She threw back her head, revealing a face of inordinate beauty and eyes as green as the troubled sea. Her slim hand shook slightly as she raised the container and took several very small sips from the battered canteen.
“It’s not supposed to be delicious,” Mildred retorted, brushing away the beaded plaits from her own face. “Just calm your stomach enough so we don’t puke out our guts from jump sickness.”
“Need it for this one, that’s for damn sure,” Krysty Wroth said, passing the canteen to a pale teenager, crouched on his hands and knees.
Snow-white hair cascading past his pale face, Jak Lauren shook his head, ruby red eyes narrowed to mere slits in his pale face as if the stubborn youth were fighting the jump sickness by sheer willpower.