Behind the Ruins (Stories of the Fall) (19 page)

Harris
stretched, twisting his neck and hearing it pop, and looked over Jones’ shoulder
at his little knot of men. They shifted and stared around, eyes never resting
anywhere for long.

“You
know what, Cory,” Harris said when Jones paused. “Even if you don’t have the
stuff, you need to be shot for running such a shithole. Your guards didn’t stop
us riding in and taking their goddamn guns, so what good are they? What good
are you?”

“Fuck,
Harris, half of them know you. They’re not going to shoot our own men,” Jones
shouted. His face was pale and his hair hung in lank sweaty threads. “What the
hell are you looking for? You ride in and start tearing the place up for no
reason. What’s going on?”

“That’s
what I should be asking you. What’s going on, Cory? You feeling a little left
out? Trying to bankroll a nice retirement when the new boys get here?” Harris
asked. His mouth thinned in a sneer as a pair of his men exited the fire hall,
dragging a rusty green steel box between them.

“Not
a good plan, if that’s what it was,” Harris said, watching his men open the
box. Jones turned to see where he was looking.

“Harris,
that stuff I took in trade, if there’s a problem with it, you got to believe
me, I had no idea.”

“The
problem is you stole from the Castle. You stole from Mister Creedy, and you go
caught,” Harris said, pulling his pistol

“I
didn’t steal anything! A guy - his name’s Simmons - he brought that in, he
wanted someone to help him move it,” Jones babbled. Harris cut him off by
working the slide of the automatic he held. The men behind Jones shifted to the
sides.

“Oh,
so it didn’t come in trade? Now some guy brought it?” Harris raised the pistol
and shot Jones in the throat. The gunshot brought a cessation of all other
noise. Jones took a step or two back in the sudden silence and sat down, hands
raised to his wound as his lap filled with blood.

“Why
do you bother lying to me, Boyfuck?” Harris asked.

He
watched as Jones struggled to rise. After a while he rolled onto his left side
and ceased moving. Harris raised his eyes to the men of Jones’ garrison. One
tried to run, and a member of Harris’s squad tripped him and then kicked him in
the head until he stopped moving.

Harris
turned his horse and looked at the circle of locals that had turned out to
watch.

“I’ll
be back in a week or so, and we’ll be putting in a new garrison,” Harris
yelled. “Anyone decides this would be the time to run off with anything better
think again. Jones thought he could, so you remember that.”

There,
now that’s the way you do that
, Harris thought. He
smiled and holstered his gun.

The
fire hall had a balcony of sorts on the second floor that ran for ten or twelve
yards along the west side of the building. By sunset the local garrison hung
from it, the bodies turning slowly in the May breeze.

The
men ignored Teddy. He tried to go back to the brewery once they left, but the
owner drove him off with kicks and curses. He tried other places, but no one
wanted to shelter anyone who had been associated with Jones, not with Harris
coming back. He left town a few days later with a small backpack and his
Spider-Man comics.

Ronald
and Harmon rode back into camp the night after Jones died. The pair had been
among the townies watching Harris that day, both dressed in ragged picker’s
clothing. Ronald jumped off his horse, laughing.

“Damn,
Grey, it worked! They killed off the whole mess of them,” he said, grinning.
Harmon nodded and said nothing, but raised ten fingers. He turned away and
began to untack the horses and unpack the items Grey had asked him to trade
for.

“Good,”
Grey said. He was sitting between Georgia and Clay, cleaning his rifle with a
swab and a pull cord. “I’d wanted to sow some distrust, but we got lucky.
Someone didn’t have the brains to ask the right questions.”

Ronald
laughed, rubbing at his neck with his left hand. “If they’re all this dumb,
this’ll be easy.”

Sowter
was bent over the fire, stirring a pot of beans and corn. He withdrew a
spoonful and blew on it before tasting it.

“You’re
real happy about it,” he said, setting the spoon aside and staring at Ronald.

“Aren’t
you?” Ronald asked. “That was the plan.”

Sowter
shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m glad it worked. Never mind me.”

Grey
rubbed his forehead with a palm.

“It’s
normal to feel let down afterward,” he said. He tried to hold Sowter’s gaze,
but the heavyset cowboy wouldn’t meet his eye.

“What
the hell’s the matter?” Ronald demanded, looking around. “I’m confused.”

“I
hate lying,” Sowter said. “I’ll do it if we need to, but don’t expect me to
like it.”

“There’s
not going to be much more lying,” Grey said. Sowter looked up.

“No?”

“Not
any more, no. We’ve shaken them up, but if we pulled another stunt like this
they’ll know there’s a third party involved,” Grey said. “They’ll figure this
one out soon enough. I’m sure a few townsfolk saw you go in to talk to Jones,
even if no one saw the exchange. So we’re going to announce ourselves.”

Clay,
watching Ronald, interrupted.

“Why
would we want to do that?”

“To
keep control,” Grey said. “If Creedy figures it out on his own, he’ll feel like
he’s in control, think that he’s a step ahead of us. I don’t want him to feel
like that. I want him off balance and playing catch-up. We have to keep him
reacting to us, not the other way round, or we’ll get killed.”

“Are
you going to ride up to his door and challenge him to a duel?” Georgia asked.
“Compare dick-size and then play pistols at twenty paces?” Mal snorted and
Harmon, who was carrying his saddle past the fire, paused just long enough to
roll an eye.

“Sort
of,” admitted Grey. “But I’m planning on cheating.”

The
vanguard cavalry company had set up camp in the foothills south of the little
town of Pullman. Sentries walked the perimeter and tents were going up in neat
rows while small knots of locals came and went, watching with hands in their
pockets. The pickets moved them off politely if they came within a few hundred
feet, but otherwise ignored them.

 Colonel
Rastowich and two squads of ten riflemen veered off from the main body of the
battalion just outside the town. Dusk was settling in and the Colonel could see
fires and lights around a cluster of big brick buildings on a hill above the
overgrown remains of the old town, which lay along the curve of a small river.
He rode toward them, watching the locals who either scattered at his approach
or stood, curious and staring. To any who stayed, he offered a nod and a ‘good
evening’. Some returned the greeting, others just stared. One old man pushing a
barrow of manure abandoned his task and tottered into the road. The Colonel had
to pull up to avoid riding him down.

Rastowich
studied the man while his squad eyed the surroundings; one old man in tattered
clothes, eyes red and white hair thinning across a pink scalp. He blinked up at
the mounted man for a minute, studying him in turn, then straightened and
offered a shaky but passable salute. The Colonel returned it by force of habit,
and the old man smiled. Rastowich thought he might be crying.

“Major
Jorgensen, 92nd Air Refueling Wing, Colonel. We’ve waited a long time.” The
man’s voice was a rasping thing, harsh as gravel in a pan.

“Colonel
Rastowich, Major. It’s good to meet a serviceman, no matter the wait.” He
thought for a moment, brow creasing. “The 92nd? Then you’d have been at
Fairchild, servicing the B-52s?”

“That
I was, sir.” The old man tried to say something else but started to shake and
wipe at his eyes with a dirty sleeve. One of the troopers dismounted, led him
to the roadside and helped him sit down. The Colonel left him there and
continued down the slope and across the rumbling stream, then up the hill in
search of whatever passed for local government.

The
lights and activity centered around the surviving buildings of a university.
Locals had moved in decades ago, fortified the structures and then added to
them as the population slowly rebounded. The complex was now a maze of brick
and wood structures surrounded by rusted chain-link, makeshift barricades and
huge heaps of rubble where buildings had collapsed. The Colonel stopped several
hundred yards from the first barricades. Captain Nakamura took two men and rode
up to parley. They returned soon.

“As
the scouts reported, sir, not many weapons in evidence and generally friendly,”
Nakamura said. “The mayor is waiting on you, and the defensive points on the
perimeter seem to be vacant.”

“Where
are their men, Captain?”

“Cleared
off, sir. The mayor wants to warn you about them.”

“Excellent,
let’s hear what he has to say.”

Rastowich
had been leading his men west for three years, so what he heard from Pullman’s
Mayor - a tall man named Williams - wasn’t a surprise.

The
townspeople were afraid. They were afraid of the army, of the criminals who had
controlled them, of change. The Colonel did what he always did, answering
questions patiently and assuaging fear. On more than one occasion over the
years he’d been amused by his role as therapist rather than military commander.

Williams
and his fellow townspeople had heard of the CDF and were willing to accept,
tentatively, that the army was here to reunite them with the nation rather than
to loot their farms and rape their women. They would have to discuss the
logistics of basing a permanent garrison of troopers, but were willing to
consider it. All of the discussion was necessary but boring and the Colonel let
Nakamura do most of the explaining, standing at an ancient podium in one of the
school’s lecture halls. The place still had its folding metal seats, and all
were occupied. Rastowich spent his time studying the faces and only
half-listening.

“We
also have someone who would like to speak with you from the Castle,” Williams
said, capturing Rastowich’s attention.

“Oh?
I’d understood they had fled.”

“Most
did, Colonel, but this man, Kevin Moorhouse, he’s from Pullman and stayed on.”
the Mayor gestured at a youngish man with drab brown hair cut to collar length.
He was clad in old denim pants and a crimson and gray hooded sweatshirt that
was unraveling at the cuffs.

“All
right, Mister Moorhouse, what have you to add?”

“Ah,
Colonel, sir.” Moorhouse stopped, took a deep breath, and began again.
“Colonel, my boss, the garrison commander, Toby Kovacs, I mean, he wanted to
know if he could meet with you. Sir.”

“Why
would I want to meet with him?” Rastowich asked.

“Um,
yeah, well, Mister Creedy said he’d been talking to you and that the Castle
would be joining up with you to help guard the towns and such,” Moorhouse said.

“I’ve
never spoken with the man, nor is the CDF interested in his plans to merge his
force of outlaws with its ranks,” the Colonel said. “I understand you are one
of his ‘soldiers’? Were you ordered to act as a go-between?”

“I
was, yeah.”

“I
assume that he’s somewhere nearby awaiting my response?” Rastowich asked.

“Yes
sir, he is.”

The
Colonel shifted his gaze to Williams, who was pale but composed.

“Mister
Mayor, did this Kovacs individual act against the people of this community?
That is to say, is he wanted for criminal acts?”

The
Mayor looked at Moorhouse. Both men looked out of their depth. “Yes, I guess he
is, Colonel.”

“Do
you have a system of jurisprudence in place, Mayor Williams?”

“Jurisprudence?”

“Do
you have a court of law, here?” The Colonel clarified.

“Oh.
No, the Castle was the only law,” Williams said. “If you could call it that.”

“Then
I’ll take this case under consideration in a tribunal. Captain, please take
this man to a secure location, and have him inform you of the whereabouts of
Kovacs. We’ll want him for trial.”

Nakamura
rose and led the paste-pale Moorhouse from the auditorium while the crowd
murmured.

“Until
such time as this area has a circuit court, the CDF will be available,”
Rastowich said. “Once the rail lines are active, you’ll be able to send a
delegation to the western regional command in Colorado.”

“The
rail lines?” Williams asked. “Western regional command? I mean, we’ve heard
rumors, but the trains are running?”

Rastowich
yawned behind a fist before answering.

“Sorry.
Been a long day. They are. To Lewiston so far, but they’re headed this way as
quick as the engineers can certify the track.”

The
questions continued for another hour, and the Colonel finally begged off,
exhausted. He and his men, along with their prisoner, rode back to the camp,
seeing nothing unusual and listening to the little coyotes yip and call in the
grasslands.