Tainted Cascade

The rest of the crew could find no fault with that. Delta ville sat alongside the Whitewater River that flowed out of the Great Salt like a slashed artery of blue life. The muddy banks were lined with reeds, bam boo, flowering bushes and even a couple of stunted trees bearing tiny bitter-tasting apples. But the farther the river got from the desert, the more the greenery expanded until only a day’s ride away the plants spread across the landscape in a true forest of real trees, bushes and green grass. The ville did all of its hunting and farming out there, both groups accompanied by heavily armed squads of sec men as much-needed protection against the muties that lived in the trees and, sometimes, under the ground.

However, never in the history of the ville had a single mutie gotten past the front gate. The defensive wall around Delta was huge, made of rocks hauled out of the river by decades of slave labor, the mortar between the layers said to be liberally mixed with blood, sweat and tears. It was probably true, but old Baron Cranston had died a long time ago, and his wife, who’d succeeded him, hadn’t tolerated such brutality. Nor did her son. If you were caught stealing food, a person got twenty-five lashes at the post, every time, no favors or leniency. Rape a woman or a child and that got you beaten by the women in the ville with clubs, whipped by the men and then sent to the gallows—if you were still sucking air. The only crime that got a person sent to the wall was disobeying the orders of the baron. That put you in chains to work and labor on the ville wall, expanding the barrier, making it higher and thicker until a full moon had passed, then you were set free and tossed outside the ville gates. Alone and weaponless, the person would be easy prey for slavers or muties, but at least still alive.

Most of the old folks considered the baron too damn soft on coldhearts, especially those operating a salve trade out in the Boneyard, but they never said it out loud. Only Petrov Cordalane knew the truth of the matter, and since he lived in Delta, the man said nothing about it to anybody, not even his gang. Secrets held power.

Besides, Petrov had a good thing going here in Delta, and he wouldn’t ruin it. Heaven was the main tavern in the ville, boasting food, drinks, an actual working piano for Sunday, a gaudy house upstairs and a still out back. The local brew was made out of rotting fish guts, an acquired taste, to say the least, and it was also burned in lanterns to make light and to degrease machine parts. But the locals sang its praise, claiming that the river juice would cure all manner of ills, from the black cough to the shakes, along with a dozen other ailments that had once ravaged the world since skydark.

Petrov liked the food in the tavern, so he didn’t do biz in the ville. This was his haven, a safe place to run if trouble came snapping at the heels of his crew, the Pig Iron Gang.

It was cool inside Heaven—the walls were made of stone. The rafters in the ceiling were black with age and the smell of the accumulated fumes of the fish-oil lanterns was reminiscent of a smokehouse.

Over by the window, a young woman was sitting at a battered piano playing remarkably well, a large group of outlanders and travelers listening with rapt attention. Some of them had never heard of such a thing as a piano before. Dozens of other folks were eating fish stew, gambling or drinking shine. A few of the ville oldsters were caging smokes from travelers in exchange for fantastic stories about the muties in the woods, or even better, the hot sluts upstairs. Those were always popular, and the more details, the better.

Positioned near the wooden stairs leading to the second floor, five gaudy sluts were eating bread and smoking cigs. Their assorted dresses were some velvety material cut and stitched together from the safety curtains of a ruined movie theater; the material couldn’t be set on fire. Amazing stuff. The low-cut blouses and short skirts displayed an amazing amount of flesh, and on a regular basis, a man would shuffle over to talk some biz. Then the man and woman would go upstairs for fifteen minutes or so and come back down. Smiling wide, the man would be buckling his belt.

One large gaudy slut named Post seemed to be a particular favorite this night and was constantly chosen by customers to go upstairs.

“How does she know what they want?” Rose asked in idle curiosity. “Isn’t she deaf?”

“Bitch can read lips,” Petrov answered, then added, “She also has the best tits I ever seen.”

Across the tavern, Post smiled at the compliment, then pulled down her blouse for a moment to flash the man a peek at both of her highly prized assets.

“Pretty nuking good,” Charlie agreed, gnawing on a heel of stale bread. But nobody was sure if he meant the slut or the food.

Most of the bottles along the wall behind the counter were made of plastic and filled with water. After one too many bar fights, McGinty had decided not to risk his stock by putting it on display. The real shine was kept safe under the counter, right alongside a working predark scattergun, a pump-action monster called a Neostead that held eight fat cartridges. All of them were homemade these days, the black powder purchased from a traveling trader, and then the base was packed with bits of broken glass, small rocks and bent nails. The combination opened the belly of a person like stomping on a fish.

“Another round!” Petrov bellowed, waving his empty plastic tumbler.

An old woman wearing an apron shuffled out from behind the bar, carrying a clay jug with a cork in the top. The waitress was an oldster, barely able to walk anymore because of the misery called the bends, her back hunching over to make her almost appear to be a mutie. But she was a gene-pure norm and once had sold a night in her bed for a round of live brass. Now, the former beauty ferried dirty dishes and slept in the corner near the fireplace, kept warm by the glowing embers and her lost dreams of youth.

“I hear tell you’re called the Pig Iron Gang,” the waitress said, pouring drinks into the glasses and mugs. “How come?”

“Shut up,” Petrov snarled, not willing to admit that he had no idea what pig iron was, he just liked the sound.

With a shrug, the waitress turned and went away, looking for more empty glasses to fill, her long day only just starting.

“Enjoy the shine, this is the last round,” Petrov said, sipping the acidic brew. “And we’ll be sleeping outside the wall tonight, so try and steal some blankets.”

“We broke already?” Rose said out of the corner of her mouth, dealing a new hand of cards.

“Shitfire, that seems to happen faster every month,” Charlie mumbled, watching the deal as he picked his teeth with a sliver of wood. He found something interesting and chewed the unidentified morsel briefly before swallowing.

“You eat too much,” Thal rumbled in a surprisingly gentle voice. Then the giant scowled and clawed for his Remington.

“Fragging, mutie-loving bastards!” the outlander snarled, staggering back through the doorway. There was blood dripping from the back of his head, chilling in his blurry eyes and a scattergun held in his shaking hands. “Gonna ace ya all!”

Instantly, Petrov and his people cut loose with their assorted weapons, the barrage of arrows and lead blowing the outlander off the floor and sending him sailing back into the street.

“Nuking hell, you boys are fast!” a sec man gasped, his own blaster only halfway out of his holster.

“The way that idjit was waving his blaster around it was him or us,” Petrov said, the smoking Webley still tight in his fist.

“Well, you boys got yourself a free round on me,” the sec man stated, slapping the other man on the back. “And feel free to take anything that outlander owns.”

“That include his blaster?” Rose asked, nocking a fresh arrow into her crossbow.

“Yep, the scattergun is yours now.”

“What about his horse?”

“That too, if he had one.” The sec man nodded. “Now I know that seems kinda hard, so I’ll tell you what. Baron Cranston gets half of any brass recovered from a fight, that’s the law.” Then the man paused. “But I won’t be counting it very closely. Savvy?”

“Yeah, we savvy,” Charlie replied, already cutting a fresh notch into the stock of his own blaster.

Gathering the loose cards, Rose stuffed them into a shirt pocket. Only a feeb left their belongings unguarded in Heaven. Rising from the table, Petrov walked outside and found a crowd gathered around the body, but nobody was closer than a few yards. The accuracy and speed of his gang were well-known in the ville and much respected.

Rifling through the warm, bloody clothing, Petrov unearthed a dozen rounds for the scattergun and passed three of them to the waiting sec man, then one more. Pocketing that extra round, the sec man gave the gang a brief salute and walked off toward the brick house on top of the hill in the center of the ville, a former National Guard armory that was now the castle of the baron and what remained of the Cranston family.

Divvying up the rest of the belongings with his crew, Petrov gave the gun belt and scattergun to Rose. She beamed in delight over finally owning a blaster and tested the action on the weapon several times before loading in two live cartridges. The weight perfectly balanced her crossbow and made the diminutive woman feel more dangerous than a shithouse rat.

“Short barrels mean a big spray,” Thal stated. “And watch for the kick. That scattergun is gonna rise up hard. A lot more than your crossbow.”

“Just cause there wasn’t any iron on my hip doesn’t mean I’m a fragging virgin,” Rose answered curtly, tucking her thumbs into the gun belt. Then she smiled up at the giant. “But thanks for the advice anyway, Bear.”

Unsuccessfully, the colossus tried to hide a grin at the use of his private name. They had been bed partners for years, and it amused the other two men to pretend that they didn’t know about the raucous nightly coupling.

“Pity the outlander didn’t have a horse,” Petrov said, turning away from the body to head back into the tavern. “We could have sold it for a week of hot food and clean beds here at Heaven, or just slaughtered the beast and lived off the jerky for a good month.”

“Fragging son of a bitch cost us a fortune in brass,” Charlie muttered angrily. “The shine and blaster help, but we’re still coming in low on this.”

“Mebbe we could go check the traps,” Rose suggested, pausing at the open doorway. At her appearance, a cheer came from the patrons and staff.

“This soon?” Petrov said with a scowl, scratching the back of his head. “Only been a week or so.”

“Mebbe we’ll get lucky,” Thal rumbled, patting the new cartridges for his blaster. “It feels like a lucky day.”

“More lucky for some than others.” Rose laughed.

Hitching up his gun belt, Charlie frowned. “Think Big Joe will mind us…?” He left the sentence hanging.

“What he doesn’t know won’t kill him,” Petrov said, smirking, and he walked into the cool darkness.

TRODDING UNDER the merciless sun, time seemed to stand still for the companions, the hot day lasting impossibly long. Or so it seemed, anyway. A dozen times over the past few miles, they passed more of the shallow saltwater ponds, the sight of the water a growing ache in their throats and bellies.

Pausing to take a tiny sip of warm water, Ryan sloshed it around in his mouth before swallowing. The urge to take a big gulp was strong, but he knew the foolishness of that. Drink too fast when you’re that hot, and it could come right back up. And that was moisture he couldn’t afford to waste.

“What’s that sound?” Krysty asked, glancing around, a hand going to her blaster.