Chapter Nine

 

 

 

It was a relief to climb out into the cool dawn air, leaving the smoky atmosphere of the cellar with its lingering stench of blood, charred meat and roasted fish.

 

Ryan woke first, easing himself from Krysty's embrace, pulling on his jacket and winding the white silk scarf around his neck, tucking the weighted ends inside his shirt.

 

There was a mist over the limitless ruins of what many had thought had once been the greatest city in the world. Ryan shaded his eye and peered southward, trying to make out if anything remained of the golden towers that had scraped at the sky.

 

But that whole section was hidden in fog.

 

There was a breeze from the northwest, bringing the faint flavor of early-morning cooking fires. The mist slithered away, and Ryan had a clear view of the gleaming waterway. What had Mildred called it?

 

"Harlem River," he said to himself.

 

By the piles of one of the ruined bridges, he caught a glimpse of something moving. It was immensely long, with a body that was coiled like a snake or an unimaginably huge eel. It rolled lazily across his vision, and there was a snapshot of a blunt head, rising several feet from the water.

 

Then the fog returned, and he could no longer see the river.

 

There was a noise behind him on the steps, and he turned to see Dred walking toward him, holding the smooth gray shape of the G-12 caseless automatic rifle.

 

"The blaster's mine, Dred," Ryan said, resisting the immediate impulse to drop his hand to the butt of the SIG-Sauer.

 

"It's double-lethal, Ryan."

 

"Go put it back."

 

Dred's face fell. "I'm pres of the Hawks, outie. Not nobody talks like that."

 

"Put it back or you get hurt."

 

The muzzle of the Heckler amp; Koch G-12 swung up to center on Ryan's belt.

 

The one-eyed man looked into the boy's face. "You got three seconds to go and do like I told you. You made a bad mistake, and you just made it triple-worse. Put it back."

 

"Or?"

 

"Crows get to eat your eyes."

 

"Big talk for a one-eyed wrinklie, Ryan Cawdor."

 

"Oh, fuck this." Ryan drew the heavy panga from his belt and started to move toward the boy.

 

"Okay, okay. I'm going. Fuck a mutie duck, Ryan. No call to get so" He turned and vanished down the staircase.

 

Ryan carried on admiring the morning. Dred eventually reappeared, dragging Retha behind him. "Fucked her head, the stupe slut, with all that joltsky."

 

"Now what?" Krysry asked. "Could go back to the gateway. Jump on out of here." Ryan looked at the others. "Anyone got any strong feelings?"

 

Mildred raised a hand. "Please, sir. I'd like to look around what's left of New York. For old times' sake." Doc also raised a hand. "I agree with everything the last speaker said."

 

Krysty looked at J.B. and Ryan, knowing the final weight of the vote would be carried by them. "I'd like to look around, lover."

 

"Give it a day," J.B. agreed. "We can hit it as it moves."

 

"Yeah. Move south and keep away from the sewers and the river." Ryan looked at Dred, who was engaged in slapping the semiconscious girl to try to bring her around. "How about you?"

 

"Chance to stick with the best blasters in the whole ville? Got to joke me, Ryan. Course we'll go with you."

 

 

 

"USED TO BE WAGS RUN on steel lines, right through to Mattan," Dred told them.

 

"Used to run clear across Deathlands," Doc replied. "Plenty of lines. Topeka and Santa Fe. Climb aboard your coach in San Francisco, have your ham and eggs way down in Carolina. Pardon me, boy, is that the cat that shined the new shoes?" He doubled over, cackling with laughter at what he clearly regarded as some kind of joke. The others looked on blankly.

 

The early mist was burning off, being replaced by a cold, bright morning. The overnight dew was disappearing, but there was still enoug left to catch the dawning sun and hold it in countless diamond clusters.

 

"Cooking fires are dangerous," Retha said, now recovered from the alcohol and the jolt. "Brings muties like flies to shit."

 

"Where does the Hawks' territoryturfstop?" J.B. asked.

 

"We walk where we want, and where we step, then the earth fucking dies," Dred said confidently, tossing his hair back from his face.

 

"Yeah, sure. But how many blocks of the ville do you control?"

 

"Well, around ten north and south, and four, sometimes five, from east to west."

 

"How many in your gang?" Mildred asked.

 

"Hawks got forty soldiers, the meanest fuckers who walk the valley and fear no evil."

 

"Dred," Retha said hesitantly.

 

"What?"

 

"Forty?"

 

"Shut the fuck up, slut."

 

 

 

KRYSTY LINKED HER ARM through Ryan's as they stood on a broad sweep of hillside, looking over ruined houses and apartments, down toward a huge bowl of tumbled concrete with a suggestion of dusty green at its center. "So that's Yankee Stadium," she said. "Like a shrine, back before the long winters."

 

Mildred was at their side. "My father's younger brother, Uncle Josh, he brought me here once. I'd be about thirteen. Hot afternoon and the old guy showed us to our seats and dusted them for us. I liked that. And folks shouted, 'Beer! Yo, beer!' Cold drinks and popcorn and hot dogs. The best I ever tasted. Kids in the tiers with gloves on waited for a high fly ball. The smell and the crowd and" She paused and swallowed hard. "If I go on like this, I'll end up in tears."

 

It was J.B. who put an arm around Mildred's shoulders to comfort her.

 

Dred was getting antsy, shuffling his feet and constantly looking over his shoulder.

 

Doc nudged him. "You reckon you got a frightful fiend stepping in close behind you, son?"

 

"Don't call me son, you" Dred controlled himself with a visible effort. "Sorry, Doc. Listen, that blaster of yours. Big old gren-launcher. Really got two barrels on it?"

 

"Always keen to impart a little knowledge, Dred, though some say that can be a dangerous thing."

 

"What?" Total bewilderment showed on the boy's pale face.

 

"This single barrel fires a .63-caliber scattergun round. Close action. In fact, this gun was invented as a cavalry side arm in 1856 by Dr. Jean Alexandra Francois Le Mat of New Orleans, whom God preserve. They were eventually manufactured in New Orleans by the good doctor and Pierre Beauregard, later to win honors as a Confederate general at both Manassas and Shiloh."

 

Dred hawked and spit in the cold dirt. "Too much fucking talk, Doc. How many rounds? Gimme a short answer!"

 

"Well, as I was saying before that rather peremptory interruption, it has the one scattergun barrel. You then adjust the hammer here, and it will fire nine rounds of .36 caliber from this revolving chamber."

 

"Kind of clumsy."

 

"Many things are, my dear boy, until you get used to them. I have spent a large part of my adult life struggling to get used to things that were beyond my comprehension."

 

"You got the greatest blasters ever," Dred said, stopping to peer over his shoulder. "You all join the Hawks and"

 

"We aren't big on joining, Dred. Thanks, but no thanks," Ryan replied.

 

"Sure, sure."

 

A large rat scurried in front of them, appearing to come out from a broken drain cover. It was brindled and dragged one rear leg. As it ran over the piles of bricks and shattered glass, strings of sticky intestine leaked from a savage bite on its flank.

 

"Supper!" Retha shrieked, pulling a small knife from her sleeve and going after the creature. But the thigh-length waders slowed her to a lumbering gallop, and the wounded rodent managed to escape among some heaped paving stones. She rejoined the companions, panting and cursing, rubbing at her ankle, which she'd turned in the rubble. "Lost food," she moaned.

 

Mildred glanced at J.B. "Seems I wasn't that hungry, anyway."

 

The Armorer smiled at her. "Yeah, but you have to admit last night's dog was good."

 

Dred, with his uncannily sharp hearing, caught what J.B. had said. "Yeah. With those blasters we could move in on Tuff Norris and his dogs."

 

Doc grinned. "Upon my soul! That sounds uncommonly like a supporting act in vaudeville. Tuff Norris and his performing dogs. A smile, a song and a bark."

 

"Shut it, Doc," Ryan growled. "Who's this Norris person?"

 

"Breeds dogs out of Saint Mary Park. East a few blocks. In Trax turf."

 

"Breeds dogs." Krysty shook her head. "I didn't think many people around here would be into keeping pets."

 

Retha looked at her as though the redhead had become demented. "What's a pet? Breeds them for food. Hundreds. Dogs for eating." She shook her head at Krysty. "What a stupe."