mixed with sharpish body odor. Azimuth had either slathered himself with great quantities of the flowery scent, or he had been in a prolonged fight with a gaudy slut who had. Leeloo also remembered the way his front teeth were filed to points, top and bottom, and that the inside of his mouth was as red as blood, as was his tongue and the insides of his nostrils.
Azimuth had been greeted by Bullard ville’s most important people, including its headman, the lumbering, overweight, perpetually sweating Wilbur Melchior, who had adopted Leeloo right after her ma died. The black giant’s mission was to determine whether the ville would be willing to pay for the privilege of seeing Gert Wolfram’s World Famous Carny Show. If so, Azimuth said, the troupe would stop there for a night or so en route to another engagement. He quoted them a steep price for this entertainment, in water and fresh food.
When asked by Melchior what the show consisted of, Azimuth threw back his head and let out a howl that so startled the delegation of dirt farmers, they stepped back and grabbed for their blaster butts.
But there was no threat.
It was a howl of sheer exuberance.
When things calmed down, Azimuth assured them that Gert Wolfram’s World Famous Carny offered genuine miracles and wonderments, gathered at great expense and hazard from the farthest corners of the Deathlands and beyond, all for their private amusement and edification. On his long, thick fingers, he listed some of the various, incomparable attractions: singing, dancing stickies; fantastical mutie beasts trained to do amazing tricks; feats of norm superstrength and daring; the most beautiful norm women this side of Hell walking around in next to nothing; unparalleled exhibitions of music, comedy and drama.
Something to tell your grandchildren about, Azimuth said. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
At that point, Melchior and the other leaders of the ville withdrew to the shade of a nearby sheet-metal awning and conferred. Leeloo edged close enough to overhear their conversation. Her adoptive father said it was a matter of pride, that Bullard ville deserved this admitted luxury. Their hosting the World Famous Carny would indicate to anyone with half a brain that the remote agricultural enclave had finally come into its own. Around the circle, heads nodded in agreement.
The only word of caution came from the gaudy master, Skim O’Neil. He said there could be a big risk in letting so many strangers inside the berm at once. The protest fell on deaf ears. Melchior spoke for the rest when he bragged that Bullard ville wasn’t afraid of anything that walked. Mopping his sweat-beaded jowls with a big wad of cotton rag, he reminded O’Neil how they had turned back the attempted takeovers of two different barons and chilled their sec men.
A vote was taken, and it was unanimous.
When they returned to where the scout waited, Melchior put his hand out and told him that he had a deal. They shook on it. Then Melchior and the other leaders took Azimuth on a guided tour of Bullard. Leeloo tagged along behind, unnoticed.
As was common in Deathlands, the isolated ville had sprouted up at the edge of a ruined interstate highway. The overpass that had once connected high-speed travelers with an oasis of fast food and fast gas had collapsed across four lanes of traffic on the day the world changed. The center of Bullard ville was formed around the shambling remnants of those predark fast-food franchises. Their dilapidated plastic signs still beckoned: Mergen’s Family Restaurant, Taco Town, Burger Stravaganza, Fish ’n’ More—now the gaudy house.
The four-lane highway had once paralleled a lush river valley that stretched for many hundreds of miles, bordered by rugged, steep, dark mountains to the east and rolling hills to the west. The flat valley, postnukecaust, was parched, burned yellow, turned to dust by sun and chem rains. Postnukecaust, the slow, meandering river that had watered trees and grass and cultivated fields decided it no longer liked the looks of things and burrowed deep underground.
The river’s disappearance saved Bullard ville from extinction. Of course, there were no more pre-breaded steaks, fish fingers, burger patties or ice-cream novelties to lure tired, hungry travelers to Bullard. Yet the travelers still came and stopped and parted with whatever valuables they had, because there was water. The underground river ran right under the ville. Hand-operated pumps provided water for drinking, for very occasional bathing and for travelers to take away.
Grub could be had, but it was whatever was on hand. Travelers ate whatever bush meat the residents could chase down and kill. Usually mutie jackrabbits, or snakes, or birds of all sizes, from sparrows to turkey vultures. These were either spit-roasted over an open fire or parboiled in caldrons made of salvaged, fifty-five-gallon oil drums.
With the virtually endless supply of clean water, the ville folk grew a variety of edible crops year-round, under the shelter of metal awnings to keep off the chem rain. For fertilizer, they composted and used their own excrement. They cultivated beans, hot peppers, onions and garlic. They grew corn primarily for the sugar, which was used to make joy juice. There wasn’t enough surface area inside the defensive berm to produce food for mass export. And there weren’t enough people in Bullard to defend an expansion of crop growing outside the barrier.
Considering the miserable, hammered-down state of the world, the little hamlet was doing quite well. During the tour, Melchior hinted as much to Azimuth, but as Leeloo noticed, he gave no specifics.
As she well knew, the treasure of Bullard was safely locked away in the basement of Mergen’s Family Restaurant, under twenty-four-hour armed guard. It consisted of miscellaneous objects of value traded for water: weapons, ammunition, canned food, predark medicine, first-aid supplies, wag fuel, oil, grease, batteries, transmission fluid, antifreeze, tires, matches, clothing, boots and shoes, hand tools, auto parts, various bits of repair material, duct tape, bailing wire, nails, screws, rope and electrical wire. There was no jolt, though. The ville leaders drew the line at hard drugs.
The contents of the warehouse were tangible proof of the water’s worth. And anything worth more than a few drops of piss in Deathlands was worth chilling someone over. Two barons had tried and failed to annex Bullard ville, which stood in disputed border zone at the edges of their respective territories. Neither baron could muster and transport a large enough force to defeat the villagers. Every person over the age of twelve carried a loaded blaster all the time, whether working on the crops or sleeping. The youngest ones packed well-cared-for .36-caliber, black-powder, Italian-reproduction Colts. They wore the 5-shot, 1862 Police models in canvas, snap-flap hip holsters. The entire volunteer sec force trained regularly in marksmanship and tactics.
Leeloo Bunny was too young and still too physically frail to control a blaster that weighed more than a pound and a half, unloaded. But she was very much looking forward to the day when finally she got her own blaster. Not because she wanted to shoot anything in particular, but because it was a symbol of her growing up.
After the guided tour, the ville’s leaders fed Azimuth a massive meal, got him stinking drunk and then let him fight three women at once in the gaudy.
All free of charge.
Melchior had called this extraordinary generosity “the famous Bullard ville hospitality.”
As the dust plumes on the plain grew closer, Leeloo could just make out tiny, dark shapes at their bases, and her heart leaped. The shapes became more and more distinct until she could see the gaily painted wags, racing with strings of bright pennants whipping from their radio masts.
A man standing at the berm gate shouted, “The carny’s here! The carny’s here!”
Every man, woman and child dropped whatever they were doing and rushed to the ville’s entrance, forming a dense double line, a gauntlet of well-armed Bullard ville welcome.
