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It’s time to do something really stupid.
I work my way around behind Horned Toad, with just a few feet between him and the skeleton. From what I figure, I was able to get away from most of his attacks, so I have a little speed left. And I was able to hurt the fucker, so I’m still strong. I hope that’s not all that’s left of the old me. But I’ve got to be careful and not give too much away until I figure out all I can do and who this Wild Bunch really is.
While he’s firing in the opposite direction, I run for the skeleton and grab one of the ribs. Like the first one, it doesn’t budge. This time, though, I use the noise of the gunfire to cover me as I whisper some Hellion hoodoo.
For a second, nothing happens and I’m sure that I’ve reached a new level of fucked. Then the hardpack around the rib shatters and I haul it out of the ground like a deranged Fred Flintstone.
Horned Toad stops firing.
“Where are you, mortal? Come and fight me like a man.”
From behind him, I say, “No.”
And swing the rib over my head, crushing Horned Toad’s skull like an anvil landing on a soft-boiled egg. It’s messy, and bloody, and I get toad juice all over my boots, but he’s sure as shit not firing his gun at me anymore. I grab it and his knife as his body blips out of existence and starts the long, nasty fall into Tartarus.
I stand there, breathing hard, but with a dumb smile on my bloody face. I can still throw some hoodoo. That’s the best news since I arrived here. Now I just have to keep all these creeps from finding out until I know how much I can do.
My little ego fest is cut short by bullets tearing up the ground around my feet.
Horned Toad’s pal, the baby face in the jeep, is running at me, firing the rifle. I guess he’s upset because he hasn’t grasped the fact that it’s really hard to hit anything when you’re running and your gun is bouncing around like a rubber duck in a typhoon.
This time, I don’t stand my ground. I run toward the fucker. The way he’s shooting, he couldn’t hit the sky from a weather balloon. When I’m close enough to see his pearly whites, I throw Horned Toad’s knife, and nail Dobie Gillis right through the throat. He falls on his face, gurgling into the sand. It’s an unpleasant sound, so I steal his rifle and drop to one knee.
More than Dobie, what I’ve had my eye on is another Hellion, this one a bit more human looking, in the flatbed of a small pickup truck, swinging a sixty-caliber machine gun in my direction. He has a good position and stable footing and I have a bad feeling that he knows what he’s doing. I can’t take a chance on missing him when I shoot. So I don’t shoot him.
I shoot a jerrican of fuel strapped to the side of the truck.
It explodes with an extremely satisfying whoomp. Satisfying to me, at least. It would be nice to think that the screams from the burning Hellion are him cheering me on for making such a great shot, but that’s probably too much to hope for.
I get a bead on the human torch while a group of Hellions and souls rushes to him with blankets and water to put out the flames. They’re not going to make it in time. I squeeze the trigger.
“Excuse me,” says a very human voice nearby. “Before you shoot.”
I glance over and there’s a small man in a white duster standing on the roof of what looks like an armored ’69 Charger with tank treads instead of wheels. He’s out in front of the pack, like maybe he’s the one leading them through the desert.
“Excuse me,” he says again through a megaphone.
I keep the rifle trained on Johnny Storm and yell, “What?”
“We would all appreciate it if you didn’t kill Megs.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’m not aiming a gun at you. And I’m asking you politely.”
I take quick stock of my situation. There are maybe a hundred idiots out there in those vehicles. My guess is that every one of them is heavily armed and eager to kill. There are more high-caliber guns mounted on other vehicles and other Hellion weapons that I don’t recognize. If everybody opens up on me at once, hoodoo or not, I’m going to look like a flank steak shooting out of a wood chipper. Plus, I don’t know where I am. I still don’t know if I’m going to stop bleeding. I’m not sure that I can do hoodoo more complicated than yanking dead things out of dirt. I’ve swallowed enough sand that I’m going to shit cinder blocks. And I stubbed my toe on Horned Toad. It really hurts.
I lower the rifle and let the burning fucker’s friends put him out.
“Thank you,” says the man on the Charger.
I point at the pickup truck.
“I want that prick’s water. And his ammo.”
After a slight hesitation, he says, “That’s fair.”
“No, it’s not,” someone shouts. I look around and spot a leather-clad woman on a tricked-out Hellion Harley. I can’t see her face, but she has her goggles pushed up to her hairline. “That’s not how things work. He’s not one of us. He obviously doesn’t know anything. Just kill him.”
Doesn’t know anything? Doesn’t know what?
She kicks her Harley to life and revs the engine. I raise the rifle again as she gets ready to charge me.
From behind her, a man riding a small hellhound cuts her off. She pulls her gun and sticks it right in his face. The man puts his hands up. Like her, he’s wearing goggles, but he also has a rag around his nose and mouth.
“What the fuck are you doing?” says the woman.
“Don’t kill him,” shouts the man. “I recognize him. He can be useful.”
I get to my feet and squint in the hellhound rider’s direction. I can’t make out a goddamn thing through his bandanna and goggles.
The man with the megaphone says, “You’ll vouch for him as a reasonable man?”
“I will,” says the rider.
I put the rifle back to my shoulder. “Reasonable? Call me that again and you’ll do it without a head.”
The rider turns to me, pushes up his goggles, and pulls down his bandanna.
I almost call out to him, but catch myself in time.
The man riding the hellhound is Father Traven.
I lower the rifle.
“Ah. So, you do know the father,” says Charger Man. “What’s your name, friend?”
I look at him.
“ZaSu Pitts.”
That gets some laughs. Traven doesn’t laugh, but he doesn’t give me away either.
I look back at Charger Man.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“He’s the Magistrate,” says Traven. “He leads the havoc.”
“Havoc? You assholes sound like more fun every minute.”
“Are there others with you?” says the Magistrate. “Back on the mountain from where you came down?”
So they could see me. They knew I was here all along. That makes them more than a pack of Hellion one-percenters. And then there’s Father Traven. He wouldn’t throw in with a useless group no matter how bad things were.
I shake my head.
“No one I know about.”
The Magistrate nods.
“Then that is where we will camp.”
“You can’t be serious,” says the woman on the Harley. “He’s killed two of us and burned another.”
“Yet Father Traven says he’s reasonable and I’m inclined to believe him.” The Magistrate glances off in the directing of the mountain. “A lone traveler out here, confronted and attacked. What would you have done, Daja? Personally, I’d like to talk to Mr. Pitts.”
Daja. Got to remember her. She backs down, but I can see it in her body language and hear it in her voice. No matter what the Magistrate says, she’s not done with me.
“Just talk?” says Daja.
“Of course. And he will be judged just like anybody else,” says the Magistrate.
“And if he’s found guilty?”
“Then his fate will be that of all the ignobles.”
Cheers. Fists pumps. It’s a goddamn pep rally. All we need are cheerleaders.
The group around the burned Hellion steps back as he dies and his body pops out of existence. They all look in my direction. That’s me. Making friends wherever I go.
The Magistrate points.
“We will camp at the base of the mountains. He said no one is there. That will be his first test.”
I raise my hand like I’m in the third grade.
“Excuse me. What if I’m not in the mood to get tested?”
I prop the rifle on my hip, but Traven calls out, “Pitts. Calm down. It’s going to be all right.”
“Is it?” I say to the Magistrate.
He opens his hands.
“I cannot guarantee that. But consider this: Father Traven has vouched for you. That means he, too, will be judged. If you are not a reasonable man, if you are a stupid man, he will die with you.”
Slowly, I let the barrel of the rifle drop so it’s pointing at the ground.
The fucker called my bluff. He points to the half-burned pickup truck.
“Can you drive that vehicle?” says the Magistrate.
“I usually steal better, but yeah.”
“Then ride with us when we make camp tonight. If you try to leave the havoc or attack anyone else, I will personally kill the good father. Understand?”
“Yes.”
Daja looks around at where her dead friends used to be. “And what about the two, now three, dead?”
“We will have a memorial service tonight,” the Magistrate says.
He calls to a patched-together ambulance.
“Mimir, come and ride with me. I will need an oracle tonight.”
A woman in a ratty fur coat, with some kind of plastic mask over the lower part of her face to filter out the dust, steps from the ambulance and goes to the Magistrate’s Charger. Without another word, he points to the mountains and the vehicles rumble to life.
I walk to the charred pickup truck as Traven rides his hellhound up beside me. Dressed in boots and a ragged leather duster, he gives me that sad smile of his and I shake my head at him.
“It’s good to see you, ZaSu,” he says.
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” I tell him.
“So do you.”
I start the truck.
“Do those bastards have anything to drink?”
“Of course.”
“And food?”
He nods.
“Good. At least I’ll get a last meal.”
He takes off the rag that was covering his face and wipes the blood from some of my worst wounds.
“Don’t talk like that,” he says. “It’s going to be fine.”
“Yeah? If Ahab up there has a real oracle, he’s going to find out I’m lying about who I am.”
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes. Have a little faith.”
I look at him.
