The Protector's War (38 page)

Only governments stole on that scale, and Crusher Bailey hadn't quite gotten up to the robber-baron level.

Two lighter carts came by, each drawn by a pair of mules; Signe called a question, which was in character, and the driver told them what they carried: shelled filberts, nut oil and smoked salmon—the runs were improving on the Columbia since the dams at Bonneville and The Dalles broke, but not very far up the Willamette as yet. The rest of the cargo was salvaged goods from the dead cities, fine fabric and cutlery and edge tools, plus aspirin, antiseptic ointment and Tums, things you rarely saw anymore. Not surprisingly, that wagon had more guards, mounted ones. They looked more alert than the spearmen guarding the load of pipe, and also looked like they were Protectorate men-at-arms; gleaming oiled chain or scale hauberks covering them neck to knees, big kite-shaped shields slung over their backs, conical nose-guarded helmets over mail coifs on their heads and long double-edged swords at their belts, lances in their hands with the butts resting in rings riveted to their right stirrups. The morning sun shone liquidly on the metal of their armor, and their eyes were hard and wary, constantly moving.

Back right after the Change, Arminger had mistaken dressing men up in military gear for the much more difficult process of turning them into real fighters, but experience had taught him and his new-made lords better since.

Maybe they're moonlighting,
Havel thought, eyeing the men-at-arms narrowly.
Or possibly someone, Baron Emiliano for instance, has an interest in the shipment and lent them to whoever organized it.

Northbound traffic was mostly beef cattle and some sheep, together with oxcarts loaded with sacks of grain or potatoes, butter and cheese in tubs. Their horse-herd swung wide around the slow-moving obstructions, and once nearly came to grief with a herd of yearling shoats that used the distraction to evade their minders and make a break for the river swamps; from childhood experience, he suspected pigs were smart enough to know why people kept them around and act accordingly. A horse-drawn wagon passed them northbound; the dozen guards walking beside it looked like university people—the pikes half bore were the more complex sixteen-foot takedown model the Corvallis militia favored, and the other six carried longbows or crossbows. That many guards meant a valuable cargo; from a quick look he thought it was beeswax in blocks, expensive and valuable for half a dozen purposes, starting with candles that didn't stink and drip as much as tallow dips, and small kegs of honey.

He and Signe took their horses around the ox wagons, and well off the road for a while when the horse-drawn wagon came up behind them; perfectly sensible, if you didn't want animals inconveniently bolting. He dismounted and faced away from the road, taking up one of Charger's hooves and holding it between his knees as if he was getting a stone out.

If anyone can recognize my ass, I deserve to get caught,
he thought, smiling down at the perfectly sound hoof; luckily, Charger was a good-natured horse.

When they got moving again, Signe unslung a small guitar and began strumming and singing:

Havel joined in, his bass more tuneful than it had been before the Change; if you wanted music these days, it had to be live, and practice helped even if you had little natural talent. He liked country, but his tastes ran more to Kevin Welch or Bob Schneider tunes, and he'd developed a taste for the Cajun sound, zydeco, while he was in the Corps. On the other hand, he could take Johnny Cash. The Huttons' tastes had been influential, and they tended to really
old-fashioned
country—some of their stuff was so old that it sounded a lot like Juney Mackenzie's songs.

At least it beats that sixties boomer crap Ken loves. I shouldn't have let him build those wind-up phonographs; if I have to listen to a scratchy
Sympathy for the Devil
or
We Are Star-dust
one more time…oh, well, the records will wear out eventually and he hasn't figured out how to make more.

Singing on the road was perfectly normal these days, too; it wasn't as if you could plug a Walkman into your ear anymore. It had been surprisingly difficult for townie types to realize that life didn't come with a soundtrack.

Up ahead to the right was a fair-sized vineyard along Palmer Creek; some of it had died off near the water, but the rest of it had been painstakingly restored, pruned and cultivated, leaves bright against the old gnarled brown-black trunks. Then there was a patch of woodlot, green shade flickering above them; the Crossing Tavern had a sign there, nailed to an old telephone pole. It claimed, fairly implausibly, that the owner had certificates of protection from the Brigitine monks, from Mt. Angel twenty miles away across the Valley, from the Protector, from the Bearkillers, and from the independent town of Whiteson all together—he knew the one about the Outfit was a bare-faced lie. Below that were the services offered, and the terms of barter. The series of boards ended with one that read:
Mastercard and Visa accepted. No, just kidding.

Havel barked laughter. “I do hope the owner's not in on it,” he said. “I'd hate to hang a man with a sense of humor like that, bandit or not.”

“I wouldn't,” Signe said grimly.

Deadlier than the male,
Havel thought silently.

He pulled his recurve bow out of the case and set an arrow on the string before he entered the woodlot, his eyes wary amid the firs and cottonwoods and big-leaf maples. Havel had been a crack shot with a rifle—particularly a scope-sighted Remington 700—but it had taken years of dogged practice to make him more than passable with a horn-and-sinew composite bow shot from horseback. Signe was better than he was, Luanne could beat her, and Astrid Larsson could beat anyone in the family; she'd been an archery enthusiast before the Change. Some of the Outfit's younger generation looked to be downright uncanny.

Just beyond was what had once been a large building of some sort, probably a gas-station-cum-convenience store; there was no way to tell for sure, with signs down and the way it had been modified. The building had originally been shaped like a long T lying on its side with the narrow end pointing at the road. New construction had turned it into a narrow E with the three arms facing westward towards him, using the former parking lot as a floor. Some parts one-story and some two; the walls were a double layer of cinder block with rubble and concrete between, and the windows had heavy steel shutters pierced by arrow slits. It looked untidy, but immensely strong; there was a small greenhouse of plastic sheeting on metal arches, and a mature orchard—cherries, by the froth of pink blossoms, and apples in the next field just showing white—off behind it were paddocks and a big truck garden covering several acres, with more orchard on the other side of Holdfast Creek.

The Bearkillers' intel said the place had started out in the first full Change Year, someone who'd managed to survive God-knew-where-and-how settling and claiming the area together with his extended family. He'd made a living the first little while off the truck he grew and foraging, but mainly by rigging a hand pump and selling the fuel from the gas station's underground tank, essential for lighting and half a dozen other uses. Then he'd branched out into a rest stop, as people began moving around once more.

A suspicious number of whom don't make it through these parts…

There were horses and cattle in the paddock nearest the building, unhitched wagons, saddles resting on a rack by the door, and a few folk walking about. A makeshift tower three stories tall held a watcher, who began beating on a piece of sheet metal as Havel came out of the trees, louder than the
clang-ting!
of a smithy somewhere in the background.

Several more people came out at that, one of them holding a pre-Change compound hunting bow, immensely valuable while it worked and impossible to repair or replace when it didn't anymore. A woman flanked him, with a polearm—a long curved cutting blade on a four-foot shaft, a
naginata
. The younger man on the other side had a spear and a bowie knife, and a double thong with an egg-shaped lead ball in its soft leather pouch, held deftly in his right hand—a sling, David-and-Goliath type. There was a family resemblance to all three, stocky and big-boned—the sort who'd have been overweight before the Change—with strong black hair and beak noses and bony faces.

Havel carefully returned arrow to quiver, slid his bow into the saddle-scabbard and held up his hands in sign of peace. “I'm traveling in horses,” he said, jerking one thumb towards the herd behind him. “Name's John Brown; got my wife Anne with me, and a boy who works for us.”

The man in his thirties stroked his bushy black beard and nodded, looking them over and considering their gear. Several more people, probably customers or employees, came out of the heavy metal door—it looked as if it had been salvaged from a warehouse—and stood watching.

“Welcome,” the proprietor said. “I'm Arvand Sarian, and I keep the Crossing Tavern.”

There was a slight guttural accent to indicate his fluent English wasn't his native language, but he didn't look Mexican and the accent wasn't Spanish, or anything Havel had met when posted to the Gulf. He also looked past Havel as Signe bunched the horses up; one of them made a halfhearted bolt and she turned her mount in pursuit with a sharp whistle, the lariat whirling over her head. Then the noose shot out and settled neatly about the fleeing mare's head; it submitted meekly as she led it back to the others. Sarian's shaggy eyebrows rose slightly; the eyes beneath were small and so black you couldn't see the line between pupil and iris.

“You're not Bearkillers,” he said. “Not from Mt. Angel, or Corvallis either. And certainly not Mackenzies!”

Havel shook his head. “We're CORA folks,” he said. “Cottonwood Ranch, south of Sisters. Came over 20 as soon as the pass opened, with a horse herd and them carrying packs; hides, tallow, wool. Sold most of it in the Mackenzie country and Corvallis. I had this lot left, and heard the Protector's man north of here was buying, so I sent the rest of my hands back and brought 'em up. The Bearkillers didn't object but they weren't what you'd call friendly.”

“Baron Emiliano is buying horses, yes,” Arvand said, his voice neutral.

“Well, we'd like to stop a spell. See to our horses' shoes, if you've a farrier, rest up, groom 'em, have a meal better than trail rations…maybe stay the night.”

Arvand nodded. “What have you to barter?” he went on briskly. “Or I'll take gold or silver—coined, if you have them. Corvallan or Bearkiller dollars, or Protectorate marks or rose nobles. Or I'll take it by weight, or any of the usual trade goods.” He looked aside to the younger man, probably a son or brother. “Aram, help the lady with her herd—the paddock by the north wall.”

“I've got some precious metals, a little,” Havel said, nodding thanks. “Or I can trade”—he nodded to the cart—” from what I picked swapping up for the horses. I've got wind-up alarm clocks, Swiss army knives, needles and pins, sewing thread, combination padlocks, fishhooks and synthetic fishing line, eggbeaters, sausage grinders and such like. And some Fruit of the Loom underwear and good hiking socks, still in the plastic.”

Arvand beamed at him; those were light high-value goods.

And I wouldn't have told you about it
all,
if this were on the square. Just the thing a bandit would love to steal, to go along with the horses. But go ahead, think I'm stupid.

They began to dicker. That went briskly, and Havel had an obscure sense that he'd been skinned afterward, even though the price wasn't unreasonable. He and Signe turned over their horses to Arvand's workers—half of them had that same family resemblance—and went in through the tavern's front doors, their saddlebags over their shoulders after politely declining an offer to lock them up in a strongbox; he bustled in ahead of them.

Havel blinked as he strode into the main room. Places like this had been springing up at natural stopping points over the past couple of years, as the simple scramble to survive lifted a little and men began to learn or relearn, a little, how to live in the Changed world. A few things were ordinary: a big common room with a fireplace and a bar, tables and booths, stairs to rooms above, a kitchen that served as a barrier between the inn proper and the quarters of the owner and his family and retainers. This one was bigger and tidier than most, although neither people nor clothes nor boots could be as clean now as in the lost days of washing machines and cheap abundant soap and no manure-producing animals close to the house. It didn't stink here, though; it smelled of cooking and woodsmoke, and the food looked to be more than the usual bread with stew from a pot kept eternally bubbling on the hearth. Not that he didn't like a good savory stew, but it wore if you were traveling a lot—especially when “savory” translated as “thick and brown.”

Better lit than most, too. Christ Jesus, they've even gotten a blackboard menu up! The shish kebab look tempting, but…