Vengeance Trail

J.B. WAS ROUSED from sleep when the stakebed wag began to slow. Despite scowls from the guards the other captives were scrambling to their feet to peer forward toward whatever awaited them.

A brown hand, strong but altogether feminine, appeared before his eyes. The Armorer grinned at Mildred as she helped him up. She gave him a taut smile back.

He couldn’t see much over the cab, so he leaned his head over the wood side of the bed and peered forward. What seemed like a couple hundred people were laboring away in the middle of the desert. And parked next to them, gleaming like polished silver in the sun’s slanting rays—

“Well, I’ll be dipped in shit and fried for a hush-puppy,” J.B. said in admiring amazement. “It’s a train!”

Chapter Three

The screen door of the derelict diner banged open. Two men were suddenly among the cracked-vinyl booths and the peeling Formica tables, longblasters in their hands.

Both aimed square at Krysty Wroth.

“Freeze, bitch!” the younger, taller intruder shouted. Blond bangs hung in his sunburned face from beneath a turned-around ball cap. His partner, who was darker and whose dark-brown hair was beating a hasty retreat from his own forehead, just grinned a nasty grin.

After only the briefest hitch in her motions, and her breathing, Krysty calmly went back to doing what she was doing—cooking corned-beef hash made from the supplies she’d brought from the massacre site over a fire built of brush and driftwood in what had been the little kitchen’s deep-fat fryer, once upon a time. The pot was one she’d found hanging behind the counter. A handful of the fine sand that had drifted against the diner’s east wall served to scrub out the accreted dust and gunk of the past century.

“Hey,” the blond intruder shouted. “Din’t I tell you to freeze, bitch?”

“Easy, Matt, easy,” his pal soothed. “They’re so much more fun when they’re warm.”

He sidled around the periphery of booths, holding his remade M-16 with one hand. In the light of the kerosene lanterns she was working by, she could tell that both men wore retread U.S. Army blouses, both OD green, both with unfamiliar round patches on the breast. Just like the men who had killed Ryan and hijacked the caravan.

The man came right up beside her. She smelled his stinking breath, felt it defile her cheek. His dirty-nailed fingertip followed it, unwinding a scarlet lock down to the line of her set jaw.

“Well, well, well,” he murmured, “what have we here?”

She didn’t shy away from the touch, just kept stirring and tossing.

“Bitch-slap the skag, Ben,” Matt said, shifting weight from left boot to right with poorly checked eagerness. “Show her who’s boss.”

“Naw, naw, gently now. She’s a cool one, aren’t you, honey? I like that. I bet a girl like you could show us a good time. Big nasty redhead like you.”

He grabbed her, lowered his face to nuzzle her neck. She fended him with the back of his hands. He yanked his head back, anger flaring in his dark eyes.

“Now, now, don’t be in too much of a hurry, boys,” she said in her throatiest voice. It was a voice guaranteed to raise wood on a week-old stiff. “Why don’t you’ll just relax and make yourselves comfortable while I fix you a nice big dinner?”

The rage drained from Ben’s eyes. He smiled. Nodded. Laughed a little laugh.

“You know, hon, you’re right. Been a long, hard day, getting shut of that asshole General and his merry men. I’ll feel a lot stronger once I get around a good old home-cooked meal.”

He let her go and went back around the counter. Matt was almost vibrating with outraged horniness. “What are you doing? What? Why are we waiting?”

“Relax, kid,” Ben said, hoisting a cheek onto one of the round pedestal stools at the counter. There had been three; one was missing entirely, the other had been uprooted and lay against the foot of the counter.

“And quit waving that damned blaster around. You make me nervous. Our little redheaded bedwarmer is a smart one. You can tell just by looking at her. She knows better than to try to run on us. Don’t you?” He propped his own blaster next to his stool.

Krysty gave him a zipper-busting smile. “Now, why would I want to run anywhere, sugar?”

“But, but—” Matt sputtered.

“Sit your ass down,” Ben commanded.

Matt complied. He sat at a table in the middle of the little room. He didn’t put his longblaster down, although he did aim it at the ceiling. “What are we waiting for?” he asked peevishly.

Ben chuckled indulgently. “Didn’t you ever hear the story of the old bull and the young bull, boy?”

“No.”

“This old bull and this young bull came upon a fence. And on th’ other side of that fence, what should they see but a whole herd of fine young heifers swishing their tails over their nice firm fannies.”

“This one’s got a nice ass,” Matt said, staring at Krysty and almost drooling. “I can tell.”

“She surely does. Now, pay attention to my story. This young bull sees them heifers, and he says, ‘I got an idea! Let’s jump the fence and fuck us one a’ them heifers.’ And this old bull just shakes his head and says, ‘No. What we gonna do, we’re gonna walk down to that gate, walk through it nice and peaceful, and fuck all them heifers.’”

He laughed, grandly amused at his own joke. His gales of laughter died slowly away as he realized his younger companion wasn’t laughing with him.

“Go ahead,” Matt demanded. “Git to the punchline.”

“That was the punchline, you triple-stupe nuke head!”

“Weren’t funny.”

“Well, did you at least get the point of the story?”

“There’s a point?”

Ben dropped an elbow to the bar and sank his face in his hand.

“Well, now, don’t go being unreasonable, Ben,” Matt whined. “You said it was a joke. You told me so. And a joke got no point. It’s supposed to be funny.” A light dawned dimly. “Except that joke weren’t funny.”

He looked questioningly at Ben. The older man just waved a world-weary hand.

“Lookit, the bitch is all done cooking. Can we do her now? Can we?” He licked his lips. “I wonder if she got red fur on her pussy. Do redheads have that? Red hair on their pussies?”

“We ain’t et yet, you damn fool.”

“I was going to make up a batch of nice biscuits,” Krysty said, “if you big, strong men can just hold on to your appetites a little longer. And wouldn’t you like something to drink while you’re waiting?” She nodded her head back toward a canteen sitting on the counter.

Ben nodded, picked it up, began to unscrew the top. Then he stopped. A cagey look came into his eye.

“You wouldn’t be trying to pull one on us, now would you, honey? Here. You take a drink first. Then we’ll know it’s safe.”

He tossed the canteen at her. Holding his eye, smiling seductively the while, she undid the lid and took a long draft. Then she put the lid back on and tossed the canteen back. He drank greedily and pitched it to Matt in turn.

“So what are two such handsome men doing way out here in the middle of nowhere?”

Water ran down the side of Matt’s chin. He lowered the canteen and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “We’re. Uh, that is—”