Tainted Cascade

“Only one way to be sure,” Krysty growled, glancing upward. The clouds overhead were mostly orange and purple, which meant a storm was on the way. But there was no telltale reek of sulfur announcing an acid rain.

Crawling under the front seat, J.B. unearthed a pair of heavy crossbows and a quiver of arrows, the crude iron tips slightly rusty, but still lethally sharp. Without his glasses these were useless to him, so the man gave one to Krysty and the other to Doc. The arrows were shared equally. There were a lot more supplies tucked away in the shadows, including a rolled-up tent, blankets, pot and pans, bags of grain for the horses and what looked like a cardboard box of .22 cartridges coated in a thick layer of wax, but there were no predark blasters in sight.

“We must be a long way from their home to storage this sort of stuff,” Ryan noted, resting the heavy longblaster on his shoulder. The Steyr weighed only seven pounds, while the flintlock monster was about twenty pounds, if not more.

“At least it means there’ll be no more of the bastards,” Krysty replied, testing the balance on her new weapon. The wooden stock was expertly carved and well balanced, the bow made from the steel leaf-springs of a predark car. She had seen something similar many times before and knew the limitations of the homemade weapon. If blasters weren’t available, this was the standard weapon of the Deathlands.

“Better let the horses rest for a moment, then we’ll go over and do a recce,” Ryan stated gruffly. Common sense dictated that the companions grab some water and clothes if possible. Cutting a deal with the slaves over the horses and wags would be a lot easier to negotiate if the companions were armed and dressed.

Locating a couple of leather sacks slung underneath the wag, stashed there to keep them out of the sun, J.B. deduced one was a water skin and popped the top to take a long swig before passing it around to the others. It was gratefully accepted, especially by Krysty and Mildred, who wasted some by washing off their sticky gun hands.

The other bag was securely tied, and J.B. broke a fingernail in the process. Hoping for his glasses, the man was sorely disappointed to find only hard rolls of bread, a lot of smoked fish and a couple of plastic bottles of shine. But there was no sign of their blasters, med bag, grens or any other of their missing possessions.

Stripping the two corpses of their clothing, Doc found most of it too befouled to be of any use. So taking a knife from the belt of one of the fat men, he cut the man’s shirt and pants into ribbons. After tying one around his chest as a crude bandage, Doc handed another to Jak so that he could do the same. Krysty and Mildred declined the proffered strips.

Feeling ridiculous, Doc layered several strips around his loins as a crude kilt. Born and raised in a time where a man or a woman showing an inch of bare skin was considered the height of vulgarity, almost wanton, the scholar was horribly embarrassed to be nearly naked among his friends. He knew it was ridiculous, but the wisdom of childhood often formed the templates of adulthood.

Ryan and J.B. took the shoes of the dead men, but left behind the reeking socks. Personally, neither of them gave a nuking damn about being half-naked, as long as they had a blaster in their hand.

From the second buckboard, the wind began to carry over the shouts from the prisoners in the cage. Ryan couldn’t clearly hear any of the words, but guessed it was merely them begging to be set free. He would do that soon enough—after the companions had first searched the other wags for their missing belongings.

Slinging a bag of ammunition over a shoulder, Krysty jumped off the wag and did a little dance, allowing her bare feet to get used to the hot dirt under the grass. “Wish there was more cloth to make moccasins,” she growled.

“Lots of aced slavers over there,” J.B. said, jerking a thumb toward the toppled wreckage. “Should be enough to get all of us shoes and blasters.”

“Some pants would be nice, too,” Mildred said, tugging her bra to a more comfortable position. Then she frowned, catching a tiny piece of what the imprisoned slaves had been shouting for the past ten minutes.

“Outriders!” Krysty cursed, spinning fast to bring the crossbow up to her shoulder.

Just then, a group of large men on horseback galloped over the horizon, each of them carrying a longblaster, with a brace of blasters tucked into their belts.

Quickly, the companions moved behind the wag for some cover.

“By the Three Kennedys!” Doc cursed, hefting his own crossbow. “The dastards weren’t running for their ville, but to their compatriots! We should have known there would be more guards than these pitiful, plump patrons!”

“Let come,” Jak snarled, ramming a fresh load of powder down the hot barrel of a longblaster.

Wordlessly, J.B. scrambled up the side of the buckboard and took the reins in hand, ready to run or charge, whatever needed to be done. The other companions would have to do the chilling, but even blind he could plow the wag through the newcomers to break their charge. A disorganized enemy already had one boot in hell, as Trader always liked to say.

Lifting his flintlock, Ryan aimed between the wooden bar, sweeping the longblaster through the group of outriders for a target. A big man with a beard seemed to be shouting orders to the others, which marked him as the leader. Good enough.

Bracing against the numbing recoil, Ryan fired, and the discharge of gun smoke masked the results for a few seconds. When the breeze cleared the air, Ryan cursed to see he had missed. The damn flintlock was about as accurate as throwing dry leaves! Just for a microsecond, the one-eyed man wished the bolt-action Steyr was at his side. Then he shook off those kinds of thoughts and concentrated on the here and now. Six against six, with the newcomers mobile and the companions armed only with two longblasters, a handblaster and a couple of crossbows. He’d been in worse situations, but not by much.

Whooping like lunatics, the outriders charged over the lush grassland toward the companions, their weapons throwing smoke and flame.

“No way they can hit us at this range,” Mildred said, a hand blocking the sun from her eyes. “They must be trying to scare us into submission.” The flintlock pistol was in her other hand, the hammer cocked and ready.

“No nuking chance of that happening,” Krysty stated, lifting her crossbow high and releasing an arrow. It soared high to arch back down and slam into a juniper tree just behind the outriders.

Contemptuously, the outriders opened fire again, scoring more furrows along the side of the wags, smacking out a chunk of wood from the bars of the cage.

“What in the…the bastards aren’t going for us, they’re trying to ace the horses!” Mildred shouted in comprehension.

Using the nimrod to ram down a fresh load of powder, ball and wadding, Ryan cocked back the hammer and took aim. “Then we’ll just use theirs, instead,” he growled, and squeezed the trigger. The longblaster loudly discharged, a dark cloud of smoke gushing from the wide muzzle with a bright stiletto of flame extending through the center like a lightning strike in the night.

The hat flew off the head of the leader, and the other outriders openly laughed. Then red blood began to trickle from his hair, and the man limply toppled over sideways from the saddle to disappear in a clump of thorny bushes.

Shouting curses, the remaining riders bent low behind the heads of their mounts for protection and started wildly shooting their blasters. Then Jak fired, scoring one man along the leg and tearing off the blaster from his gun belt.

“Well done, lad!” Doc proclaimed, releasing an arrow. It flew straight, then a gust of wind made it veer off wildly and impale a tall cactus. Under his breath, the scholar muttered a word that normally he pretended didn’t exist.

Pressing the handblaster against the bars of the cage, Mildred triggered the weapon, the recoil almost knocking the flintlock out of her grip. Oddly, the blaster sounded louder than the rifles, and as expected, she hit nothing. The range was simply too great for the short-barreled weapon. But she dutifully tried again anyway, determined to go down fighting. If nothing else, she forced the outriders to divide their attention.

“Dark night, if only I had my bag,” J.B. muttered, rubbing his bare shoulder. Then the man grinned wide and dived under the buckboard seat to come out with the wax-covered box of .22 cartridges.

“What do?” Jak asked, quickly reloading.

“Watch and see.” J.B. laughed, emptying out the leather sack of smoked fish, then reaching through the bars to start packing it full of clean straw.

Meanwhile, Ryan and Jack alternated firing and reloading their weapons to maintain a steady barrage. However, they were going through the small reserves of black powder at a prodigious rate and would soon be unarmed.

Just then, the team of horses started kicking and bucking, becoming frightened by the approaching outriders. “Millie, keep them under control!” J.B. yelled, adding a handful of loose black powder to the straw.

Triggering the blaster one last time, Mildred then sprinted to the front of the wag and seized the reins to try to calm the frightened team. “Easy, boys! Easy, now.” The physician chucked gently, her heart hammering inside her chest. Out in the open, she was a sitting target for the outriders and was gambling they wouldn’t want to chill a woman unless absolutely necessary.

Using both hands to draw back the steel cable for her crossbow, Krysty nocked another arrow. This one was tipped with a wicked piece of black volcanic glass, the razor-sharp edge of the basalt glinting like polished death.

Ignoring the people, this time the woman aimed for the much larger horses. She fired again, and a black stallion reared high to paw the air, the tuft of fletching sticking out of its heaving chest. Somehow, the rider managed to stay in the saddle. However, as the other outriders charged past, his animal slowed to a halt and simply stood there, gasping for breath, reddish foam dripping from its slack mouth.

Whipping the animal, the rider dug in his spurs to try to get it moving again, to no effect. Slowly, the beast lay down and went still. Crawling off the horse, the outrider kicked the dying animal in the head with a boot, and it lashed out with a hoof, cracking open his skull like a rotten egg. His head stove in, the faceless rider staggered about for a moment, blood squirting from the pulped mess of teeth and eyes, then he toppled over alongside the horse and they died in unison.

Stuffing in the box of cartridges, J.B. lashed the bag closed with a knotted length of rope. Yanking out the cork with his teeth, he opened a plastic bottle of shine and liberally soaked the entire bag. “Who’s empty?” the man demanded urgently.

Quickly, Mildred tossed over her exhausted blaster, and J.B. awkwardly held the firing mechanism of the weapon close to the bag and pulled the trigger. The flint threw off a spray of sparks and the leather sack burst into flames.

The heavy miniballs of the outriders hummed past the wag. One lucky shot, or perhaps a superior marks-man, scored a furrow in the wood alongside Mildred, splinters flying out to pepper her face. Cursing, she knelt to try to clear her eyes.

With a snarl, J.B. swung the crude bomb around his head, building speed while estimating the range, then he let go. The flaming sack sailed away to land in a bush near the outriders. Immediately, they separated to ride around the smoldering greenery, when the box full of .22 cartridges started cooking off. Banging away, the tiny rounds went in every direction, kicking up loose leaves and knocking a bird’s nest out of a tree. Then a horse whinnied in pain, rearing high to dump its surprised rider, and another man clutched his face, blood gushing between his spasming fingers.

“Three down, three to go,” Mildred stated, hunkering down low in the front seat. Her lips were dry, and the leather reins were tight in her sweaty hands.

As if suddenly realizing that they were the last living members of the group, the remaining riders reined in their horses and forced them to lie down. Taking refuge behind the living barricade, the slavers hidden inside some bushes began steadily firing at the companions, the miniballs now slamming into the grass underneath the wag with noticeably better accuracy.

“Okay, this is our chance,” Ryan stated, yanking out the worn flint and shoving in his only spare piece. “Mildred, set the horses loose! Jak, set the straw on fire!”

That caught Mildred by surprise, but she reached down to yank out the kingpin holding the yoke to the crossbar. As it fell loose, she lashed the horses with a whip. “Yee-haw! Yee-haw!” Already fidgety, the nervous animals needed no further prompting to take off at a hard gallop, leaving the companions and wag behind.

Once the horses were safely away, Jak thrust his flint lock inside the cage and dry-fired the empty blaster, the spray of sparks from the flint setting the rest of the straw and hay ablaze. Soon, thick plumes of smoke rose from the conflagration, the breeze wafting the fumes directly toward the crouching outriders. No longer able to see the companions, the slavers slowed in their assault.