[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Abe woke up with a start, his hand fumbling for the stainless-steel Colt
Python under his bedroll. "What is it, Trader?"
"I don't know." He blinked up at the moon, guess-ing that they were still an
hour or more from the first light of morning. "Something woke you?"
Trader was sitting up, his blanket crumpled over his knees, cradling his much-
traveled Armalite across his lap. The cooking fire had long died, and only a
wisp of gray smoke rose between the surrounding trees.
"Yeah, something woke me, Abe. Want to know what it was, do you?"
"Sure."
Even in the relatively few weeks since he'd tracked down the Trader, Abe had
learned quickly that his former leader's temper hadn't improved with age. It
was a whole lot better to try not to argue with him.
"I woke up because I was having a real bad dream." He stretched and pressed
his right hand against his stomach, stifling a groan of pain.
"Guts bad?"
Page 15
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%2...Deathlands%2022%20-%20Rider,%20Re
aper.html (30 of 288) [12/29/2004 12:16:19 AM]
Axler, James - Deathlands 22 - Rider, Reaper
"Yeah. Been better for a couple years or more. Used to be like having a pair
of starving rats fighting in my belly. Then it got better, after I walked away
from the war wags. You remember when I did that, Abe?"
"Course I do, Trader."
"Yeah." He nodded. "Went into what a Mescalero shaman called 'remission,'
whatever that means. Think it means it got better for a while. Least, it
didn't get any worse. Last few weeks I been feeling it again."
"Anything help it?"
Trader shifted position, farting noisily. "Help it? Heard that milk and stuff
was good for it. True that liquor burns like fucking napalm. Some fruits seem
to make it worse. Way I see it, I'd rather go out walking tall and piss-drunk
and hurting, rather than ten years on down the line, flat on my back, with a
bowl of warm milk and bread to suck on."
"Yeah. Me, too." There was a long pause. "Trader, you said some dream woke
you."
"Don't remember."
Abe sniffed. "Don't matter."
"No. It don't."
THE BEAVER TAIL was skinned and sliced thin, then cooked in a skillet over the
revived fire. Trader had shot the animal as it emerged from the nearby pool,
dripping after its lumbering swim from a large lodge of tangled branches.
Abe had dug up some potatoes from an ancient cottage garden, nestling off a
side trail, the ruins of the holiday home barely visible through the brush.
There were also some massive, mutated turnips, woody and coarse, but edible
after they'd been parboiled and then fried.
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%2...Deathlands%2022%20-%20Rider,%20Re
aper.html (31 of 288) [12/29/2004 12:16:19 AM]
Axler, James - Deathlands 22 - Rider, Reaper
"This is the life," Trader said expansively, lying back and picking his teeth
with the point of his slim-bladed dagger. "Beats working, don't it?"
"Sure does."
"When are we moving from here, Abe?"
"We can go farther up into the Cascades. But we gotta stay close by the ruins
of
Seattle. Ready for when Ryan comes up here after us."
"He might not get the message."
Abe nodded. "Could be."
From where they sat, it was possible to see miles down a V-shaped valley,
heavily wooded on both sides. A lake lay at the bottom, invisible beneath a
white coiling bank of early-morning fog. The dark place that had been Seattle
itself was invisible, about twelve miles to the west.
Over the past few weeks, Abe had been thinking a lot about the messages that
had been sent. A large num-ber of travelers and packmen had been given a scrap
of paper, the words written by Abe. Trader didn't have the way of letters or
numbers.
Success. Will stay around Seattle for three months. Come quick. Abe.
There was still plenty of time left, and the men and women who carried that
message were spreading all over the wastes of Deathlands. Like a drop of oil
poured onto a bowl of water, they would cover the continent, visiting nearly
every ville and frontier set-tlement. They were urged threateningly to look
for the one-eyed man and his red-haired woman, a small guy with the hat and
glasses, a black woman, a kid, an old man and a teenager who moved faster than
a speeding bullet.
Page 16
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%2...Deathlands%2022%20-%20Rider,%20Re
aper.html (32 of 288) [12/29/2004 12:16:19 AM]
Axler, James - Deathlands 22 - Rider, Reaper
One of the messages should get through.
There'd been a number of times since meeting Trader again that Abe had
experienced doubts about the wis-dom of what he'd done. It didn't seem at all
like he remembered it. Or how he'd expected it would be.
Trader had always been hard. That went without saying. You could walk into a
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]