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said. "The tornado? The blasters?
The chilling?"
All of it, from the beginning,'' Gore said, refilling the cup.
Grub retold the entire tale once more. His new audience was less intrigued by
the flourishes of purely fictitious heroism than by descriptions of the
roachmen's gear:
their body armor, blasters, cube on wheels and flesh-dissolving foam. Gore
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asked him pointed questions about the operation of each of these devices, from
time to time shooting meaningful looks at his friends.
By the time the story was finished, so was the bottle. After Gore sent
Spadecrawler to the bar to fetch another, he said, ' 'I got a real sweet
proposition
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for you, Grub."
"I'm listening.
"If what you're telling us is true and for your sake it damn well better
be sounds like there's some fine pickings waiting over at Moonboy."
"You could look at it that way, I suppose."
"What if I told you that the four of us are just the advance scouting party
for our band? What if I told you we've got a bunch more pals camped just
outside the ville? All with good, center-fire blasters like this one. All of
them seasoned bush-
fighters. Some of us used to be sec men over in the eastern baronies."
"And what are you now?" Grub said.
"Opportunity seekers," Gore replied. "If you lead us to these armored muties,
we'll chill them all, then divvy up the spoils, fair and square. Should be
plenty to go around. Interested?"
Before he could respond, Giggly Jane's hot fingers crawled into the middle of
his lap and, once there, began to rummage around most skillfully. Awash in
pleasure, Grub gazed helplessly into the whirlpools of her eyes.
"I've got an idea," Gore said, scraping back his chair. "Why don't we go
someplace where we can talk more freely about the details of the job?
Someplace where you and Giggly Jane can get much better acquainted."
At this, the skinhead dug her nails into him and, leaning her face close to
his, pushed the wet, squirming tip of her tongue deep into his ear. It was all
the convincing he needed.
"I love women," Grub confessed as he staggered to his feet.
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Chapter Six
The midafternoon sun was still blisteringly hot when Ryan and the companions
escorted Uda and the girls into the outskirts of Perdition. Built on a high,
treeless knoll, the ville had an unobstructed view of incoming trouble, from
across the riverbed or across the plain from the range of peaks to the west.
Uda knew right where she wanted to go. She selected one of the nearly
identical, narrow dirt lanes that ran through the jumble of lean-tos at the
base of the hill, and, with her children in tow, started on up. Similar
shanties, roofed with car hoods and doors, spilled down the flanks of the
knoll, along with drifting piles of the inhabitants' refuse.
The entourage drew curious looks from rag-clad, low Perdition dwellers, but no
one said anything to them, and no one stared at them for long.
At the top of the knoll, double-wide trailers sat in a circle. According to a
huge, electric-powered sign that had been dark for more than a century, they
were part of a pre-Apocalypse commercial enterprise called O-Ke Bonanza
Manufactured
Home and RV Center. The trailers at the hill's summit and the lean-tos at the
bottom were separated by a ring of junked and decaying motor homes, all of
which had been turned into multifamily apartments. Uda had no trouble finding
the one she was looking for, a Winnebago Brave sitting on its rusted brake
drums.
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She knocked on the door and a woman who looked like her twin, only older,
appeared at the cracked window.
After a tearful reunion with her sister, Uda said goodbye to each of the
companions. "We won't ever forget any of you," she promised.
"Stay safe," Ryan told her as Krysty and Mildred took turns hugging the two
little girls.
After Mildred released the older one from the embrace, the girl walked over to
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Ryan, her back straight, her head held high, eyes shining. She reached up and
placed a tiny, perfect Deathlands daisy onto his open palm. Staring up at him,
she carefully closed his powerful fingers over it. Ryan basked in the
intensity of her gaze, as hard and bright as a diamond. He felt a passing
curiosity about who had fathered this child. What coldheart had crept into
Uda's bed while poor Benjy toiled in his rock garden? he wanted to ask, but
didn't. Better by far to savor such a mystery than to unravel it.
The one-eyed man knelt and lightly touched the girl's cheek. Putting his mouth
close to her ear, he whispered softly so no one else could hear, "Consider the
bastards chilled."
Straightening, Ryan signaled for his friends to follow him, then continued the
short climb to the top of the hill, heading for the circled trailers and the
ville's most well-appointed gaudy. The double-wide gaudy in question was
painted bright pink, as were the rocks that lined the dirt walk leading up to
its doorway.
It wasn't much cooler inside the trailer. A handful of sluts sprawled on a
long, broken-down sofa in the foyer, which reeked of once-cheap, now-expensive
perfume. The working girls didn't bother to get up as the potential clients
filed past, they just flopped open their gauzy robes to show all.
"Hot pipe!" Dean chirped.
"By the three Kennedys!" Doc Tanner swore, averting Dean's gaze by spinning
the boy by the shoulder. "In all my years, I have never seen such a row of
tangle-
matted medusas. If they are the blooming roses of this ville, then I know why
the diabolical dung heap is called Perdition."
"Gee, they didn't look half-bad to J.B.," Mildred teased.
The Armorer muttered something under his breath, then spit on the floor.
The gaudy's bartender took one look at the people walking toward him and
quickly dipped his hands under the makeshift bar.
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