some people I’m looking for in these parts, and I figure you may be them.”
“How come?” Ryan looked along his people. Their faces echoed his own suspicion. They were rarely welcomed, or sought for anything other than retribution.
“I heard tell that a certain group of fighters were in these parts. I know their reputation. I know that they were last heard of in Stripmall, and that no one who isn’t gaudy or paying mark is welcome there for long. And I know that there are six of you using that wag as cover.”
“You’re certain of a lot of things,” Ryan yelled in return. “Means you must have good information and some serious tech.”
“You’re damn right I have,” the man replied, his tone taking on a kind of pride. “I didn’t get to be the best trader in these parts of the land without having a nose for useful shit. I like useful. I like good. And you people have a rep as being the best.”
“How do you hear so much?” In truth, Ryan didn’t care, but he’d ask anything to buy some time—time to figure out how they could cover themselves against the armored wag when they were either pinned down behind the old bus or completely in the open. Either way, it wasn’t good.
“Tell ya something. I got this armorer, and she’s obsessed by stories about you people. She’s also got a nose for the ordnance like you wouldn’t believe. She’s got two big goals in her life, much as she’ll let me know. One is to have the best armory of any trader. The other is to work with you guys. I trust her word on how good you are. But listen, don’t just take my word for it.” Slowly, so as to show that he had no concealed weapon, he lifted his right hand until it touched the side of his face. “Eula, get your ass out here, but slow.” He carefully put his hand down, then continued. “Something she scoped out for me. Some old tech equipment that enables us to communicate without having to carry a lot of shit. See, she’s good. But don’t take my word for it. She’s coming.”
From beyond the heavyset trader, they could see someone exit the armored wag and start to walk slowly toward them with a purposeful stride, and a gait that suggested she was not to be trifled with. She was barely more than five feet tall, and slight in build. She was dressed in black: vest, skirt and leggings, with heavy boots that seemed too large for her. Her hair was also raven-black, tied in a ponytail that whipped behind her with every stride. She was carrying a 7.62 mm assault rifle that seemed too large for her.
When Eula was level with the trader, she stopped. She didn’t bother to look at him, but spoke unbidden.
“Been looking for you people for a long time, if you’re who I think you are. Got a lot to learn from you. We all have. Especially J. B. Dix. Met him once. Remember him well.”
Behind the bus, Mildred looked at the Armorer. “You know who she is, John?”
The Armorer looked puzzled. “She doesn’t look all that old. If it had been recent times, then all of you would know her, too. But, if I do know her, then it must’ve been when she was real small. Don’t recognize the name, either.”
“Well, she knows you,” Mildred replied. “What’s more, that fact looks like it may save our asses for now. So you’d better remember, in case she gets pissed at the fact that you can’t.”
“Well?” the trader yelled, “you gonna come out, or you still figure that we want to chill you?”
“Could have done that a long time back,” Ryan countered. He indicated to his people. “We’re coming out.”
The friends emerged from the cover of the old school bus. As they did, they could see that Eula was scoping them. She turned to the trader and nodded. She was satisfied they were who they were supposed to be, which was some kind of comfort, Ryan figured. At least they were safe…for now.
Eula spent the longest time staring at J.B. Her expression was unfathomable, and it made the Armorer feel uncomfortable.
“You don’t remember me, do you, John Barrymore Dix?” she asked. When he didn’t answer, a smile played across her lips. “Don’t worry. It was a long time ago. And no one noticed me back then. No one.”
Chapter Two
The Past
Guthrie was a nowhere ville, a small pesthole of huts and small hovels constructed from the debris that could be scavenged. The people made some desultory attempts at farming, but the nature of the dustbowl soil meant that the few crops it could produce were stunted and lacking in nutrients. It was off the beaten tracks and ruined blacktops that still crosscrossed the midwest, and those who lived there had a legend that they only landed up there because they got lost on the way to somewhere else. The ville itself was named after the guy who was the first to erect a little hut that fell down many times before others stumbled on him and built a few little huts of their own.
J. B. Dix had ended up in the pesthole ville of Guthrie in much the same way as anyone else who arrived there: by accident, and less than willingly. The skinny youth was quiet, slight, wiry, and wore spectacles that he was almost always polishing. He never said a word if he could help it, although if a person got him talking about blasters, that was another matter. You couldn’t shut him up, and he’d talk about stuff that no one else in Guthrie gave a shit about. So after a while they stopped asking. And he stopped talking.
What they really wanted to know was where he’d come from, why he’d landed in Guthrie and what the hell had happened to cause him to run. But any attempt to broach that subject was met with a greater silence than was usual. And it wasn’t just a matter of his being a quiet kid. There was something else there, a kind of menace that said it would be a real bad idea to mess with him.
So no one did. Except for Jeb Willets, who was big and muscular and therefore so out of place in Guthrie that he was able to bully his way around the ville. He figured the little kid with the bad eyes would be an easy mark. And at first he’d seemed right. He’d taken him by surprise and landed a few blows that seemed to knock the hell out of the kid. But Dix was sly—a feint, a foot, a use of balance that the lumbering Willets wasn’t used to, and the big man was on the ground, unconscious.
Then the thing that really made them leave J.B. alone: while Willets was unconscious, the skinny kid wired his shack to blow with some explosive he’d made. Then, when Willets was recovered, Dix took him at knifepoint and made him watch as the shack blew.
No one stepped in. The truth was, they all wished that they could have done that to the man. Willets was broken, and left the ville soon after.
And no one asked J.B. any questions. They left him alone. He liked it that way.
Of course, a man had to live. And one of the few things that he ever let out about himself was that he came from Colorado way, from a ville called Cripple Creek. He said nothing about family, but only mentioned it by way of saying that since he was young he’d been fascinated by blasters and explosives, and had educated himself in seeing what made them work, taking them apart and putting them back together again in better working condition than he’d found them. He knew the predark histories of the things, and he’d tell you about them while he was taking your beat-up old blaster and making it shiny like new.
The kid had a talent. It was the one time he didn’t shut up, and no one wanted to know, but nonetheless you had to give it to him.
So most of the time you’d just leave the blaster with him, and let him bring it back to you when it was done. That was fine. You paid him jack if you had any,
