Men of Truth (The Wasteland Soldier #4)

The world was white, forlorn.

Naked forests dotted the expansive flatlands, snow-capped mountains fringed the horizon.

They saw no one.

In the back of the buggy was a canister of lightly-coloured bio-fuel. It stank. Stone covered his mouth and nose with his scarf. He’d encountered all manner of fuels that powered vehicles but this was the foulest of them. He’d once laboured inside a prison that had produced fuel and sold it to the predatory gangs of his homeland. Nuria had been with him. They still bore the scars, she more than him. He wondered if Tamnica was still standing.

As the fuel slopped from the canister, topping up the depleted tank, he stared at the leaden sky, deeply gouged with red slashes, and then allowed his gaze to wander over the frozen land.

Cali, shoulders hunched against the biting wind, had said nothing since they’d left. That suited him.

Late in the afternoon, following the highway south, he slowed at a remote filling station. The fuel would have expired centuries before. He was not here for that. But the day was shortening and it would be an ideal spot to make camp.

Weeds grew through cracked asphalt, curling around the snow-covered gas pumps. The frame of a canopy roof, stripped of metal panels, had collapsed into a brick built mini-market. He listened. There was only the wind. He studied the ground. The snow was unbroken. No tracks. Neat and smooth in places, ridged in others.

Stone placed a hand on his revolver, lines appearing around his eyes, and slowly backed away.

He pushed against the gas pedal and the buggy snarled along the empty highway. A moment later, he stamped on the brake. He turned in his seat. It was a shame. It would have been a suitable place to take shelter. But it had been compromised. The ground had been too perfect. He had no idea how many were in there or who they were.

Cali watched him, with a sour look on her face, wondering why he’d stopped for a second time, though she had no intention of asking him and he had no intention of telling her.

That night, and every night that followed, they parked away from the highway and he built a large fire. He put on a pot of coffee, measured out rations, cooked the food, and tipped it into two mess tins, handing one to her. The meat was chewy. The pulses soft. He offered her a spoon but she dug in with her hands and smacked her lips as she ate. She poured the last of it into her mouth, ran her tongue around the tin. She tossed it on the ground and sucked the grease and mush from her fingertips. She slurped her coffee, took a nip of whiskey and thanked him for nothing.

Hunkered down against the cold, he watched her take a battered notebook from the pack and saw a pencil in her gloved hand. She began to scratch at the pages and then stopped and glared at him. He didn’t turn his head, not at first, but grew tired of her disdainful look and chose to scan the surrounding darkness. Sometimes, Stone heard her whispering, often accompanied by a tilt of the head, or a nod, or a grin, and then the pencil would work feverishly across the page. He shrugged and said nothing and did what was required. He fed her. He protected her. He took her from one place to the next. Not that she was helpless. She was far from helpless. He’d watched her kill one of the four men who’d attacked Jeremiah in the refuge and that hadn’t been her first kill. He’d seen it in her eyes. No shock. No elation. Nothing. The man had been an obstacle and had been removed without fear, question or remorse. She wasn’t weak. But she accepted his assistance and he was obliged to give it.

On the morning of the fourth day, the fuel tank ran empty. Stone took a pair of bolt cutters from his pack and snipped away at the mesh panels covering the lower body of the vehicle. Cali stamped her feet and idled with growing impatience. Stone lashed the mesh panels together, creating a makeshift sled. There was no jack so he took the spare tyre and sliced it into smaller pieces with his machete, creating runners which he tied beneath the sled.

He tested it across the snow. It wasn’t perfect but it would hold up. He began to make a harness.

“You can put your pack on it.”

They were the first words in four days. But Cali shook her head and kept the pack on her back. He shrugged, and loaded the sled with blankets and bedding from the buggy. He unscrewed the heavy machine gun. It was a fearsome looking weapon with a single belt of bullets. They started off in a southerly direction. The rubber supports allowed the sled to glide smoothly across the deep snow. The temperature was sub zero, and the sky was stark blue with gnarled red streaks. Stone raised his scarf over his mouth and nose but kept his hood lowered because it blocked his peripheral vision.

Cali was slow. Much slower than he’d anticipated or expected. The snow was deep and challenging but he was more than twice her age and dragging the heavy sled and still she trailed behind him.

“We can cover more ground if you put the pack on the sled.”

“No.”

“Then get rid of the shit you’re carrying.”

She flashed him the finger.

“You don’t keep up,” said Stone. “I’ll leave you behind.”

But he didn’t. There was no effort from her. She was headstrong, stubborn and annoying and he doubted he was any different so he reduced his speed and the gap grew less and less.

Dusk plunged the land into greyness, night tilted it into blackness. Stars glittered, the first ones they’d seen since leaving the refuge. The temperature dwindled even further and the landscape mocked them.

They made camp beside the shell of a half-buried construction vehicle, discoloured with rust, stripped of useful parts. It was an immense machine. Maybe it had built the first-world. Maybe it had helped tear it down. Stone had no idea. It was too long ago to know or even care. Men claimed knowledge of history but Stone found there was always doubt, always room for conjecture. No records existed. No papers. It was all speculation and bar stories. The Before was gone. Maybe one or two centuries ago, maybe ten, as his own father had believed, but it was gone, that was the only certain fact and that was all that really mattered.

He built a fire in the crook of a metal arm and put the coffee on. He placed skinny strips of meat in a pan and measured out a handful of pulses. The food sizzled. It was the last of the meat. He’d seen nothing to hunt and nowhere to scavenge. He turned to discuss it with Cali but she’d dozed off. He poured whiskey into his cup, swallowed it down and thought of Nuria. He wished for her warmth beside him, her friendly voice in his ear.

Cali was wrapped in blankets, head tilted to one side. He couldn’t make her out. He couldn’t read her at all. He had a good instinct with people but she was a blank wall. He nudged her with his boot, handed her a mess tin with a spoon. She took the spoon out, as she did every night, and wolfed it down. She put the spoon in the empty tin and handed it back to him, without a word. Stone chalked that up as an improvement.

“There’s no more meat,” he said.

She nodded, but didn’t comment. She drank a single coffee and drifted into a light sleep, roused only by the wind whistling through the construction vehicle. She stared at him during one of her half-awake moments. He was hunched beside the fire, face glowing in the flames. He cradled the carbine, nursed a cup of whiskey. She opened her mouth to say something but then changed her mind and closed it.

Stone put away a few more swigs of whiskey and held the wooden heart piece for a long time before pocketing it.

There was only the wind and the sound of Cali snoring.

His hooded eyes focused on the pack beside her.

* * *

“Cali.”

A half-moon shone bright across the drifts of snow. She looked around, frantic, and then quickly realised there was no danger.

Stone tossed a wrapped coin roll in his gloved hand. Her pack was beside him, the flap open.

“You and Jeremiah robbed the biggest drug gang in all of Kiven city.”

He shook his head, unwrapped one of the rolls.

“And these are no ordinary coins. Not like the ones I saw in Ennpithia. These have a much higher value. This amount of money could last you a hundred lifetimes.”

She rubbed her tired eyes. “I only need it to last one, man, just one.”

“But it should’ve been two, right? Was it really worth Jeremiah’s life?”

He threw it into the pack. It struck a dozen more rolls with a loud clink.

“Ditch it. All of it.”

He prepared himself for a volley of abuse but it didn’t come.

“No,” she said.

“It’s only money.”

She got to her feet, took down the coffee pot, poured. “It’s a fortune.”

“Not if you’re dead.”

“But I’m alive.”

“You know they won’t stop.”

“I need it.”

The fire crackled.

“We were lucky at the refuge,” said Stone. “There were only four of them. Next time it could be more.”

“The man who stopped the missiles,” she said, toasting him with her coffee cup. “Scared of a few pussy gang bangers.”

“I didn’t stop all the missiles.”

He could still see it streaking through the sky across the Place of Bridges. He had no idea what had happened to it.

“Tell me about Jeremiah. Was he your mentor? Business partner? Lover?”

She grimaced. “Gross, man.”

“Did you work for Triple Death? Is that how this played out? Did you rip them off from the inside?”

But he didn’t wait for answers. He rummaged deeper into the pack, picking through her clothing.

“Cocksucker,” she said.

He lifted out a bag of small tubs.

“Is this the shit you use on your face?”

“Put it back.”

“Why did you dance that night?”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m serious.”

“What kind of fucking question is that? Why did I dance? What? That’s like, man, why do I breathe?”

“Didn’t you realise how dangerous that was? In a place like that?”

“What are you, my Dad? The band was sweet, mister. That was it. I enjoy life. I know how to enjoy life. Do you know what I’m saying? I ain’t like one of them losers back there. Do you want me to be like them? That it? Fuck all that. I ain’t going out that way.”

“I don’t care what you do.”

“You say that but it sounds like you do. You think those people are better than me? Is that what you think? I’m going to make something of myself. Better than what they have. Better than what you have. Once this shit is done with.”

“What shit?”

She saw the battered notebook in his hands and threw aside her coffee cup.

“Put that back, it’s private. That’s fuck all to do with you. Don’t you dare look in it, man. I’m warning you.” She gave him a slow hand clap. “Yeah, that’s it, keep going, asshole.”

Stone raised his eyes, as his fingers thumbed the pages. He stripped away the bite and saw the person behind the persona. He thought of Nuria’s gift that he carried, how much it meant to him, how personal it was, and he immediately regretted his brutish intrusion into the girl’s world. He’d glimpsed drawings but he didn’t study them any further and closed the notebook. He pushed it back into the open pack. She reflected on his action but said nothing.

A piece of paper had slipped to the ground.

He leaned forward, picked it up.

It had been folded down the middle but now lay open. It was a primitive sketch of the sky, like a child’s unfinished drawing, a handful of stars and streaks and no moon.

He put it away and spotted a tattered looking map.

“Did this belong to Jeremiah?”

“Yeah.”

He spread the map across his knees. It was held together by strips of grey tape.

“A first-world map. This is from the Before. The Map Maker had one of these.”

“Who?”

“A friend of mine.”

“Did you look through all his stuff?”

“No,” said Stone. “I took it.”

“So you’re more of a thief than me?”

His brow creased.

“I can’t find it.”

“What you chattin’ about?”

“Jeremiah said there was a highway called the fifty-five. He said it led to Silver Road but it’s not on here.”

She came out of the gloom. There was still anger etched in her eyes. “Never touch my shit again.”

“I didn’t look in your notebook.”

“You flicked through it. That’s enough. Not everything in this life is for you to put your hands on.”

“If you and Jeremiah had left out the bullshit things might be different right now.”

She shook her head.

“Silver Road is a second-world town. That’s a first-world map. It ain’t gonna be on there, dummy.”

“I know that. I’m talking about the highway. Not the town.”

His gloved finger traced across the crumpled paper. She chuckled at him. “Can you even read?”

Stone slowly raised his eyes.

“Did you see Jeremiah use this map?”

But she wasn’t interested. Not anymore. He slipped it into his pocket to examine in the morning.

He edged toward the fire and pulled a blanket around his shoulders. He drank and stared into the flames. Now he knew some of the truth. He wasn’t sure if he cared enough for the rest of it. The black sky cloaked him and shoved him into the dirt. He shook the gloom from his thoughts, cleared his mind. He would leave her here in the morning. It was the best thing to do. She was slowing him down with the coins and he had his own share of problems. He didn’t need her shit as well. She knew nothing of the Pathfinder. Jeremiah had known but Jeremiah was dead and Cali was useless. She wasn’t even worth protecting.

Stone had travelled across rock and sand. He’d seen the weak and the innocent bullied and brutalised by powerful men, through the iron fist of aggression or the written word of law. And he’d put things right, his way, the only way, no matter the cost, no matter the threat. It was a subconscious reaction. Restoring a fragile balance. Setting things back in place. That was what he cared about. But Cali didn’t want his help and probably didn’t need it. She’d survived this long. He wouldn’t stick around to see how much longer she lasted.

“He wasn’t my grandfather.”

She dropped beside him, as if reading his thoughts.

“It was his idea, alright? I’m sorry, OK? He thought we’d be more appealing to you. Heard all those stories in the city, reckoned it was a shame the League got to you. But when we walked into that refuge we couldn’t believe our luck. I spotted you right off. I said that has to be him. He fooled those motherfuckers good. Jeremiah said we had to be careful. He said we should approach you as a small family, on the run, that way you’d be more inclined to help.”

She picked up her discarded cup, refilled it.

“Do you want one?”

He shook his head.

“He did have a daughter called Eileen. Least he told me he did. She was a cleaner. Got sick and died.”

She drank.

“Thank you for not looking in my notebook. Those drawings are personal to me. It’s something I like to do.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just do.” She shrugged. “That’s what I like, man. You understand where I’m coming from? I mean, you know what kind of city Kiven is, right? Those who have and those who don’t have. What the fuck do the factions do? They don’t do shit. You gotta do your own thing. See, I draw stuff that’s real, what’s going on in the street. That’s where it’s at.” She paused. “There’s this club called the Central. The place is hooked up with power. I mean real power, no candles and shit. Proper lights, man. And the League, those fuckers know how to salvage stuff. They got big screens and they run music and movies. You can watch how people were. How it all looked. I used to get in there a lot, see how they danced and sang and everything.”

She let out a whistle.

“Some fucked up shit knocked the Before clean out of the park. Man, it was a paradise.”

“Where was Jeremiah from? I know he wasn’t from your city.”

She was silent for a moment. “He’d been in Kiven since the summer. He knew how to blend. He was old but damn smart.” She cracked out a stuttered laugh. “I thought he was Ennpithian, like a spy or something, but he said he came through the red zone. You know where I mean?”

Stone nodded.

“They put the flags down in northern Kiven because there’s nothing there. The soil is poison. There were tribes that migrated north. You know, looking for something better than Kiven. Maybe even a way around the mountains and into Ennpithia where nature is kicking some serious ass. But who knows what happened to them. Jeremiah claimed he came through it and he had no reason to bullshit me. No reason at all.”

“But did he say where he came from?”

“I’m getting tired.”

She dragged her bedroll toward him, and squatted down.

“I’m going to sleep.”

“It was a death wish taking it from them. Why did you steal it?”

She shrugged. “Maybe I ain’t that smart.”

“No,” said Stone. “You’re very smart.”

“I know you’re thinking of leaving me, I can see it in your eyes. Will you still be here in the morning?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ah, you will, mister.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“Don’t matter none. See I trust you. I reckon nothing can go wrong when you trust a dead dude.”

She grinned.

“You and me, Stone, we all we got out here, you feel me?”

He watched her eyes droop and close. He was frustrated but he knew he wouldn’t leave her despite the smear of lies. He still needed to shake the rest of the truth from her. Sighing, he eased his back against the metal arm of the vehicle, placed his hand against his chest, feeling the shape of the wooden heart piece. He caught his breath and pain arced through his chest.

“What’s her name?”

The girl was propped on one elbow, staring at him, apparently not so sleepy after all.

“You can tell me. Jeremiah reckoned you left someone behind over there, someone keeping it sweet and ...”

He sprang to his feet.

Cali gasped. “Hey, look, I was just messing.”

“Quiet,” he hissed. “Listen.”

She couldn’t hear anything at first. Then it became clearer, like persistent rolls of thunder.

“Kill the fire,” said Stone.