Men of Truth (The Wasteland Soldier #4)

“Aye,” said Robert Reardon. “This’ll do just grand.”

It was the shell of an old vehicle, once a school bus. Its bright paint and lettering had faded. The windows were broken, the side door missing, the rear door mangled, the seating ripped out.

It was half-sunk into the ground. They had to crawl to get inside. It was impossible to stand.

Declan was to take care of the horses whilst a fire was lit. But first he had to deal with Bobby and Chuck. He raised his neck scarf over his mouth and nose and untied them, laying them on the ground, one at a time. The bodies stank and were crawling with black flies.

With that out of the way, he could tend to the horses. They were exhausted, filthy. He fed them, and cleaned them, and brushed them down before tethering them for the night. He spent hours with them, brutish hands working patiently. He talked to them, and gave each one a name. He was fond of the horses, respecting and admiring their strength and beauty and power, but he wasn’t that keen on other animals, especially chickens. It was the strange jerky walk, that hideous clucking noise and those weird feet. The Devil had made chickens. His skin crawled at the thought of them.

Exhausted, he crawled into the bus.

Michelle handed him a mess tin of meat and soggy vegetables and a cup of strong coffee.

“It must be true,” said Sullivan.

He kept his rifle across his lap, whiskey in his hand. “Triple Death wouldn’t come this far south for nothing.”

“Aye, I reckon not,” said Reardon. “Means not only can we hang the big bastard we can get rich.”

“What if that colour bitch was lying?” said Michelle. “Those are born to lie.”

Declan finished his meal, refilled his coffee cup.

“That’s true,” he said, wanting to impress and become part of the grown-up conversation.

“That whore wasn’t lying,” said Reardon. “She pissed herself. I was surprised she didn’t shit herself as well.”

They all laughed.

“Still, it doesn’t matter, coins or not, we take out Stone.”

“What about the girl he’s with?” asked Sullivan.

Reardon shrugged.

“Give her to the wee man.” He nodded at Declan. “For looking after the horses.”

“Thank you.”

“My boy,” said Michelle, and curled an arm around him. He shrugged her off, his cheeks blossoming red. “The Lord gave me such good children, so He did.”

Sullivan rolled his eyes. It would soon be time for evening prayer.

“Can you not, for one fucking moment, leave out the religious shite?”

“Danny,” said Reardon. “Remember what I said.”

“What did you say?” said Michelle.

Reardon glared across the fire at Sullivan.

“I told him to let you have your cross.”

“Oh, aye,” said Michelle. She pointed at Sullivan. “You like the cross when it suits you, don’t you, Daniel?”

His face darkened. “Shut up, Michelle.”

“No, no. You give it, big man, time for you to take it.”

She turned toward Reardon.

“Do you know what he gets me to do, Robert?”

“Quiet, Michelle.”

“I’m talking to Robert now, Daniel, not you. So you just mind your manners.”

Reardon grinned. “What does Daniel like?” He enjoyed them fighting. It eased the pain.

“Well,” said Michelle. “You know he hates religion, so he does.”

“Aye,” said Reardon.

“I don’t hate it,” said Sullivan.

“You do,” said Michelle.

“Aye, you fucking do, Daniel.”

“I just don’t like it rammed down my throat,” said Sullivan. “That’s all.”

“When he does me,” said Michelle. “He likes me starkers, likes all my bits and pieces wobbling all over the place. But he makes me put the cross on. Naked except for the cross.”

She rocked back, laughing.

“That’s how he likes me. Wearing it when he’s putting his seed in. The cross he has no respect for.”

Reardon laughed. Declan blushed. The jokes went on for nearly thirty minutes and Sullivan took it well. But then the tormenting ran out of steam; they had ridden all day, and were cold, and tired, and half-drunk. It was time to plan for Silver Road, to work out how to snare a dangerous killer and put his head in a noose. Reardon lit a cigarette, dragged hard, and blew out a column of smoke.

“I want Stone alive. He gets fucking hung. Like what he did to Bobby Junior.”

“Going to be hard taking a bastard like that still breathing,” said Sullivan, leaning forward with his cup as Michelle poured whiskey.

“Aye,” she said. “You heard Donal. Stone was the one who killed the governor of the League.”

“I don’t care about a fucking governor. Did you vote for him?” said Reardon. “I didn’t vote for him, so I didn’t.”

“Ma means he’ll be tough to catch,” said Declan, whiskey flowing through him, loosening his tongue.

The two men looked at him. Reardon dragged on his cigarette. Sullivan nodded.

“The boy’s right, Bobby. This isn’t a man of colour, easy to pin down. He’s gonna be tough to get hold of.”

“I suppose,” said Reardon. “But we have a bigger problem. How the fuck do we get into Silver Road?”

They were silent for a time, nibbling on leftovers and listening to the wind. Slowly, they tossed out ideas, one after the other, but nothing sat right, nothing fitted, nothing covered every angle.

“Are we sure he’ll be there?” said Michelle.

“Bastard’s probably there already,” said Sullivan. “He took a car from Batesville.”

“He’s miles ahead of us,” said Reardon, peering out at Bobby and Chuck on the ground.

Declan listened, saying nothing, eager to chip in once more, but afraid. Reardon and Sullivan were legends, hard men and war veterans, wanted for murder, rape, and robbery. He did not want to step out of line with them. Ma could only protect him so far.

He drained his cup. Picked up the bottle. Poured, spilling a little. His hands were shaking.

Reardon flicked his spent cigarette onto the fire.

“What’s on your mind, Declan? I can see the wheels turning.”

Declan swallowed hard, looked at the two men, and then his Ma. She nodded and the young man took a deep breath.

“Well, I was thinking of a story Donal told me about a place called Starkville. See, they have this truck …”

Stone lit a lamp and sat in the rocking chair. Cali was cross-legged on his bed, back against the wall.

It was dark outside.

“What’d you think?” he asked.

“Ain’t no thing. Triple Death HQ was more of a challenge than that place.”

“How will you get in?”

“Ah, don’t you sweat it, man. I’ll be in and out before anyone takes a breath.”

She unfolded her legs, stretched and crossed her ankles. She ran a hand through her hair.

“You got me here, Stone.”

He nodded, gently rocked.

“Took care of me.”

He said nothing.

“Thank you.”

“We never did find the Pathfinder, did we?”

She creased her mouth, looked away.

“No, we didn’t.”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“No?”

“No.”

He drank, stared.

“What are you going to do once we get this weapon?” she asked. “Will you be done with me?”

“I’m done with you once I get you and the weapon to New Washington.”

Cali moistened her lips.

“What about Nuria?”

“She isn’t here.”

“I know that, man. I meant, what are you going to do about her? You care for her. I know that much.”

He rested a hand against his revolver.

“What can I do?”

She left it a time before asking him anything else.

“When do you want to hit the bank?”

He lifted the blue armband from his pocket – S.R.E.O.

“Let me wear this first and work out the right time. We don’t want a trail following us from here. Not like with Kiven.”

The rocking chair creaked. Cali picked at the adhesive covering her slashed cheek, looked at the burns on her hands.

Stone glanced at the cross on the wall.

His chair stopped.

“What is it?” she asked.

Jodie was in the back room when he came through the office door. She heard it slam, heard his boots.

She took her time and stood with her arms folded.

He looked at her.

She looked back at him.

“I cleaned the rug as well,” she said. “You left mud on it.”

He watched her eyes.

“I don’t like crosses,” he said.

“I’m not trying to convert you. It’s there if you wish to pray.”

“I don’t.”

“OK, I’ll let you decide where it goes.”

“Why don’t you have it back?”

“I’m past praying. They belonged to the family who ran the place before me.”

He nodded, scrutinised her face.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Ennpithia? Gallen?”

She didn’t answer. He had no more words for her. She had none for him. She watched him march away through the darkness. She went into the back room and drew her cardigan tight. The fire was lit. There were candles on a table beside the window.

She sat, picked up her coffee cup, drank, and unrolled the poster she had stolen from his cabin.

Cali Lopez.

Wanted for robbery and murder.

Pavla leaned forward on her elbows, night-vision binoculars sweeping the trees.

She was on the outskirts of town, in a covered foxhole, observing the towers since nightfall. She suddenly thought of Mizon, her six-year old boy, at home with his father. Mizon could not see anything. He never had. There was no medicine or magic in this world to give him vision. He had been born blind. He would die blind. He would never know her face. But he would know of her deeds.

There was a manual security system protecting the town from infiltration and she had been analysing it for several hours. A code was sent from tower to tower. They used marked boards, illuminated by lamps. She could not cover the entire town and would have to rely on the assumption that the code was passed to the towers she could not see.

She marked time in her head. The code came back. There was a pause and then the sequence began again, moving from tower to tower. It returned for a second time and once more there was the pause. And then it began again. The method unchanged. The symbols unchanged. The elapsed time unchanged.

She poured coffee, ate bread, and thought about the towers. If she took out a single tower then the cycle would break and the town would be alerted to her within a matter of minutes. It was clever.

But she would continue to observe. And continue to think.

And then she would penetrate Silver Road, locate the weapon, and end it once and for all.

She was better than them. She was better than Stone.