Chapter Thirty-Three

 

 

 

The first light of the false dawn jerked Abe awake. He moaned at the sudden sharp pain that racked his shoulders, elbows, wrists and thighs. The tying had been done well enough to cramp every muscle and tendon in his body. It was like liquid fire coursing through every vein, scorching his heart and lungs when he tried to find a less agonizing position.

 

One of the gang had come out some time in the previous hour and spit on him, gloating over the helpless prisoner, warning him of the pleasures to come once they got him back to their home ville in the hills.

 

"Luke got kin that sent us after you and the old bastard. We'll get him an' all. Blood for blood's what we swear by."

 

If Abe could've gone back a ways and altered time, he might have decided not to bother setting out after Trader at all. It seemed there'd been not much more than hardship, chilling, blood and running.

 

Now it was going to be an endless time of pain where the final curtain would be dropped on him by the old guy in the hood with the long scythe.

 

Despite the biting cold and the swirling pain, Abe slithered back into a kind of sleep.

 

 

 

"COME ON, Ryan."

 

The voice in his ear, breath hot, tickled him, making Abe wince away from the speaker. "Fuck off."

 

"Quiet, or we both buy the farm. They beat you bad, Ryan, have they?"

 

Now he was back again in the land of the living. "Trader. That you?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"I'm not Ryan."

 

"What?"

 

"Not Ryan."

 

"Who is?"

 

"Me." Abe was becoming more and more confused, not knowing what was happening.

 

"Who are you?" Trader shifted, the butt of his beloved Armalite scraping on the rocks that Abe had been leaning against. "Fuck that!"

 

Abe was sliding inexorably toward the ragged edge of panic. Since meeting up again with Trader, he'd noticed several times that the old man was not quite so sharp as he'd once been, subject to the occasional lapse of concentration or memory. Normally it didn't matter that much.

 

Right now it could easily get both of them butchered by the sleeping gang, only a few paces away near the glowing ashes of their small fire.

 

"Listen to me, Trader, and keep your fucking voice down, will you?"

 

"How's that? You don't talk to me like that, Abe."

 

At least he had the name right this time. "There's the posse chased us, over yonder, Trader. Dawn's close and they'll soon be waking."

 

"Right."

 

"So, cut me loose."

 

Abe had been concentrating on his whispered conversation and hadn't heard the sound of movement behind him. The first warning was the gruff voice.

 

"You talkin' in your sleep, asshole?"

 

"Guess I was." He turned his head to where Trader had been crouched, seeing only gray boulders, slick with frost. "Yeah, guess I was."

 

"I got somethin' to shove in your mouth, you shit-for-brains little bastard. Somethin' good and big and hot and sweet. Mebbe should knock out all your teeth first, so's you don't get it into your head to Hey, that's good, that. Get it in your head . Give some head. Have to"

 

"Shut the fuck up, Zach, so's we can all get some sleep. Time for funnin' when we get us all home. Let it lie till then."

 

"Oh, all right." Zach leaned close to Abe so he could smell the bitter home brew, sour on his breath. "Be back for you tomorrow, sweet thing. Now don't you go 'way, will you?"

 

 

 

ABE DREAMED, a classic dream of anxiety, walking along endless corridors, dripping with rank moisture. The only light came from a pallid green fungus that coated the arched ceiling, reflected in the shallow stream that soaked his bare feet.

 

He was pursuing a minotaur.

 

Even in his dream, Abe was puzzled by that. He didn't know what such a mutie creature was, yet in his nightmare there was a clear image of ittall, with the legs and trunk and arms of a powerful man, but with the head and horns of a great shaggy bull buffalo, bloodred eyes glinting in the gloom.

 

He could hear it snuffling and grunting, somewhere in the vast maze ahead of him, could almost taste its rank, feral scent. The trail led forever downward, with crossings and turnings every fifty paces or so.

 

Abe was armed with a long knife, though the point and the edge were hopelessly blunt.

 

The heavy breathing of the minotaur had faded away into stillness, and Abe was able to relax for a few moments. There was some pressing reason for his pursuit of the mutie beast, but he couldn't quite turn his brain around what that reason was.

 

Now the noise had started again.

 

Behind him and not before.

 

 

 

HIS EYES REFUSED to function properly. One of the kicks from the mens' work boots had opened a shallow gash across his forehead. While he'd wriggled and shaken in his dream, Abe had managed to open the cut again, and blood had trickled down and flooded both eye sockets.

 

But he could hear.

 

Hear but not understand.

 

Abe was sure that he was awake, but the functioning part of his brain was feeding him information that made no possible sense at all to him.

 

A bellowing, tuneless voice sang loudly, somewhere in the blackness behind the helpless man.

 

 

 

"Oh, goodbye to you moaning gaudy sluts,

 

For we're bound off for high Mexico,

 

To hunt the fair tuna and the wild buckaroo,

 

The snow-white cunny and the raw abalone."

 

 

Abe tried to speak, but his tongue seemed paralyzed and his lips were clammed together.

 

Now the singer stopped his chantey and broke into an equally tuneless whistle.

 

"Trader?" The little ex-gunnner's voice was a tiny, feeble whisper, like the birth mew of a blind kitten.

 

Abe wondered for a moment whether he might, perhaps, have died during the night. If that was what had happened, then it was undeniably a relief as there'd be no more pain and suffering. But it didn't seem altogether likely to him that the celestial clouds of divine paradise would be sullied by Trader with his whistling and singing. Not unless the old man had also inherited his six feet of cold clay.

 

"Harps of gold," Abe said, still struggling to open his eyes. "Oh, Jesus, help me."

 

"What's wrong, Brother Abe? Why're you taking the name of the Lord in vain?"

 

If it wasn't the mercy of eternal death, then it could only be madness. The posse had been less than a dozen yards away. Why was Trader behaving with such crass insanity?

 

And why hadn't they

 

"Why haven't they chilled you, Trader?" he managed.

 

"Chilled me, Abe?"

 

"Yeah." One eye was finally working its way clear, and he blinked, making out Trader's figure, squatting at his right side, silhouetted against the opalescent light of the rising sun.

 

"Who's going to chill me?" Trader asked, laughing heartily. Pink reflected off the blade of a knife that was beginning to slice through the ropes around Abe's ankles. "Soon have you up and about again. Keep still, or you might get cut."

 

"The posse is" Abe's voice rose to a saw-blade scream. "The fucking posse, you triple-stupe old bastard."

 

Trader patted him on the shoulder. "There, there, Abe. Don't lose that cool of yours. Man who loses a little cool can finish up with the big heat."

 

Now the first flickerings of hope and realization dawned. "Trader you haven't?"

 

"Yeah, I have."

 

"All of them?"

 

The last ropes fell away and Abe tried to move, biting his lips so he wouldn't squeal out at the molten agony of blood beginning to circulate again.

 

"Sure. All of the sons of bitches."

 

"Didn't hear a thing."

 

"Razor comes in like a panther in the night."

 

"You mean you"

 

"See for yourself, Abe."

 

 

 

THE SUN WAS RISING clear of the Washington mountains to the east. Abe tottered upright like a weak-kneed old drunk, moaning at the pain, with Trader at his shoulder to steady him over the rough ground. The fire was now completely out, just a pile of soft white ash remaining, with the few unturned stubs of twigs scattered around it.

 

And the bodies lay in a rough circle around the center of the camp.

 

Abe already felt sick from the beating and the privation and the lack of anything to drink. But even at his best the sight of the corpses would have brought him to the brink of dropping to his knees to throw up. He had never in all his brutal life seen so much blood in one place.

 

It was nothing short of a miracle that an old man like the Trader had been able to come creeping in out of the twilight and slit the throat of every member of the posse, without a single one waking to face his death.

 

He fought for control over his heaving guts, counting the scattered dead. "Eight," he said.

 

"Never got around to counting them," Trader replied. "Too busy chilling them."

 

Every single one had a small, deep cut on the right side of his throat, below the ear, opening up the major artery, loosing a torrent of crimson. Death would have come quickly, within a matter of seconds.

 

"How did you keep them quiet and still while you was slicing them, Trader?"

 

The older man shrugged his shoulders as though it were such an obvious question it didn't really need an answer. "Just held them down."

 

"Yeah," Abe said, moving back a few paces as he realized that his feet were dabbling in the edge of the dull lake of blood. There were gallons and gallons, already congealing around the edges, a sticky skin forming on the top. The first blowflies of the morning were beginning to gather for the unbelievable feast.

 

"No more trouble, Abe."

 

"Guess not."

 

"You feeling fit enough to start moving again? There's some bits of rabbit, deer and stuff that they were eating. But I guess it all got kind of covered"

 

"I'll wait awhile." He paused. "Thanks, Trader."

 

"Never should need to thank anyone, you know. Sign of weakness, Abe."

 

"Sorry." He laughed. "I know. Never apologize, either. Can we get away from here? Smell of death's getting to me."

 

"Sure thing. Head up for Seattle and wait for Ryan to come and meet us."

 

"Sounds good."