The Loner

All I can say is that writing this seems mind-bending...

I will have to read the final version in one reading once it's finished. I admit to now reading the chapters as cut-offs, completely forgetting a lot of the details you have mentioned earlier in the book. I'm missing a lot, which is logical because of the length of time between the chapters. And this is not a complaint.

Objective self-editing of your own work is a hard thing, but I've gotten better at it. I 've written a mistake into this story that is too big to ignore. A lesson I learned from this is when writing fantasy, don't create the map and write from it. Write the story and fill in the map as it progresses. The map is solely for my use - it won't be printed in the book - but I created most of the map before I began writing. I put New Texas and the Woven Shadows Enclave on the map based on early ideas I had that were abandoned. Still, I wrote to the map.

What I've done is create two semi-autonomous regions within the Midland Kingdom. There are several problems with this. The first issue is with the "why" of it. Why would the Gyro King who is determined to rule the entire continent allow two self-governing zones in his own realm? Two factions he could destroy easily, no less? He wouldn't is the only answer, even though I did impress myself with the gymnastics I put Quigley through explaining it all away to Huck.

New Texas is a region that will not figure at all in the story. It's mentioned, explained, and that's it. So New Texas has to be stricken from the manuscript. Any half-assed editor would say the same if they had as much insight as I do into the complete story.

The Woven Shadows Enclave is a religious sect that I had big plans for before I started writing. It's an idea that worked well in my early thinking, but doesn't pan-out in the story. There's still a role in the book for the Enclave, but I believe it has to be a much smaller sect, not some Vatican-like city state with its own militia. So all references to it have to be edited out or revised.

Most of what I've written about both Texas and the Enclave is in the same passages. One thing, though, is they set up a vignette about Ramon and Mexico, a memory Huck has, that I really like. That will have to find another place in the story or go away.

Now, I could make the whole five faction thing work, but it would turn this story into a dense, boring political drama and that's not what it is. It's an adventure.

Does any of this interest you? I doubt it, but this is as good a way as any to avoid doing the edits just now.

I've taken about five days thinking through part two. I had all the "what" in line, but was stuck on some of the "why." Whatever happens to a character, there must be a reason for it. If something happens to character A, why does character C care? What is character B's reasoning that allows them to be lured in to a situation? I let the chapter rest at about 8 pages, mulled over the "why" of everything, added a little info to a previous chapter, decided to move some of part two's plot points to part three, because the second part needs to breath. I'm pretty sure I've got a clear path ahead now since I was able to write more on the chapter last night and can't wait to get back to it this evening.

I like what part two is promising. So far, the story has been a series of gunfights and attacks, which suits the road race across the wastelands, but can't sustain a book. There's a lot of road ahead of the heroes, but the focus will be removed from the road for most of part two. Huck and Fawn will face new perils in locations where we'll linger a bit.

I've added a bit to chapter ten, in the conversation between Reeva and Huck and in Huck's thoughts beside the pond, both scenes in 10:1. Added a reference to Market Town, because it makes sense that there should be a rendezvous point set.

Chapter Ten

Another Country

1

On the eastern edge of the Shifting Sands, just across the border of the Midland Kingdom, Huck and Fawn parted ways with Reeva Talbot. Huck thought the guide might travel on with them, since there was no one to return to at Truck Stop Station, but she told him she had one last mission in the west and hinted that their paths might cross again.

“Quigley is coming east,” she said, “To tinker on some secret project in the Republic. I’ve got to be at the station when he arrives.”

Huck grinned. “When? When is he coming?”

Reeva shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, “Soon. He may already be on his way. He said in his last message he had a bit of sabotage to tend to at The Listening Post.”

Huck recalled his first night on the East-West Road, thought of the fireball he had seen erupting on the western horizon.

“I think he’s already tended to that,” he said, “I think he blew up the Post.”

Reeva nodded. “All the more reason for me to get back,” she said, “It’s a two-day walk from here to the checkpoint. There will be at least a squad of troopers posted up there. She’ll have to sing to get you past them.”

Reeva glanced at Fawn, and Huck did, too. She had been fatigued since singing their way across the Shifting Sands. Her nose bled for some time after and her face was drawn, pallid. She had been the same way after killing the troopers at Truck Stop Station, only now Huck thought she appeared much more exhausted, maybe even ill.

“I don’t know that she’ll be able to sing,” he said, “What she did back at the sands took an awful lot out of her.”

Seeing Fawn kill the soldiers had given Huck a brief, false sense of security about the journey east. He had imagined Fawn’s voice as a secret weapon, protecting them from enemies with her untranslatable songs, but seeing her weakened state after she parted the storm, he understood that her magic had limitations – and came at a high price. He supposed it were possible she could sing herself to death. The thought spawned a chill up his spine and he stared at Fawn.

“The singing makes you sick,” he said, “If you do it too much. Is that right?”

Fawn nodded. Huck turned to Reeva.

“We have to avoid the checkpoint,” he said.

Reeva stared eastward, pointed at a thin strip of green on the horizon.

“Where the desert ends, there’s a forest, but it’s not without its risk. You can lose your direction in the thick of the woods, be attacked by wild animals.”

Huck frowned. “I’d rather take my chances in the forest than against a squad of troopers.”

Reeva didn’t argue against the boy’s plan to depart from the highway, but she urged Huck to get back on the East-West Road as soon as he could. ““Make for Market Town. That’s where Quigley and I will be looking to catch up with you. We could search the forest for weeks and not find you.”

“Market Town,” Huck said, “It’s not on my map.”

Reeva shook her head. “Most of the villages won’t be on your map. You won’t miss Market Town – it’s a small city, and it’s right on the road.

She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, though no one was around to overhear. It was a habit when speaking of the resistance.

“We have friends there,” she said, “Find the livery, ask for Samuel Hogan, the blacksmith. You’ll find us or wait for us there.”

Huck committed the name to memory, turned to Fawn and spoke it aloud, so she would remember it, too.

Reeva walked away west. Huck and Fawn went on their way into the Midland Kingdom, Cyclops bounding out in front, leading them down the road. They did not travel quickly, for Fawn remained ill throughout the day, but they kept a steady pace, stopping frequently so the girl could rest on the roadside, replenish her strength. As they progressed east, the landscape on either side of the road transformed, became less brown, more green. In the late morning, they noticed scattered patches of weeds and wildflowers, which spread into wide swatches of grass and young trees in the early afternoon. The road rose steadily out of the lowlands, curved over lush hills and cooler air, and by the time the evening descended, wound through a thick, dark forest. Birds called from the trees, insects sang in the foliage, frogs croaked and chirped in unseen pools of water. Huck could not recall having ever been in a land which smelled, felt and sounded so alive.

“It’s incredible,” he said softly, “I never imagined anything like it.” He turned to Fawn, eager to see her reaction to the forest, but her head hung low, her shoulders slumped, her hooves fell unsteadily upon the surface of the road. In the moonlight, Huck saw that she had been silently crying. Her condition had not improved, only worsened, and Huck supposed it would continue to do so until the girl had taken some rest – a night off the road, a meal, a sound sleep. He gazed into the forest on the north side of the roadway, saw no glowing eyes staring out of the darkness, heard no fierce grunts or growls from the shadows.

“We can stop for the night,” he said, “We’ll go into the woods and make a camp. We’ll find a nice spot, with water and shady trees, and we won’t move on until you’ve got your strength back.”

Fawn nodded, her mouth turned up in the slightest of smiles followed Huck and his dog into the dim woods. Moonlight fell like silver cobwebs through the trees, alighting the forest floor. They hiked far enough into the woods that they would not be noticed by anyone passing on the road. Following the voices of hundreds of frogs, they came to a grassy knoll, secluded among a stand of thick trees, on the bank of a wide green pond.

“Here will do just fine,” Huck said, tossing his weapons and gear on the ground. They had lost their bedrolls and saddlebags with the horses in the Shifting Sands, but Huck had his satchel and the food he brought with him from Orbit Falls. He had his father’s long coat, as well, and spread it on the crest of the hill, beneath the boughs of a giant oak. Fawn lay down upon it, curled her hands beneath her cheek, fell almost immediately into a deep sleep.

Huck sat on the bank of the pond, shared jerky and dried squirrel with Cyclops, listened to the croaking chorus of glow-frogs. Luminous glands in the creatures’ throats sparkled and shined in the darkness – flashes of yellow, red and blue like colored bulbs floating on the water. He absentmindedly stroked Cyclops’ coat, breathed deeply of the cool night air, wished Fawn were awake to share those welcome moments of blissful peace.

I’d stay right here forever if I could. I’d build a house and farm the land and leave the fate of the world to the people who want to control it.

He reached for his mother’s medicine pouch, clasped it in his hand.

I could throw the power cell into this pond, and no one would ever find it. I don’t have to go east at all if I don’t want to.

Behind him, Fawn breathed deeply, and Huck reminded himself that he owed her his life, that he had promised Maggie Hancock he would see her daughter safely into the Republic.

It’s not about me anymore, if it ever was. It’s more than just the satellite core I’ve got to smuggle east - it’s Fawn. I don’t know what purpose she serves in the war, but it’s her that matters most. I feel that in my heart. At least we won’t be on our own once we get to this Market Town.

The night grew cold, and Huck grew sleepy. He stretched out along Fawn’s back, Cyclops curled up against her belly, and the three of them snored through the night, a chorus to rival the frogs.

2

Kiljoy’s life had been saved by the alien alloy which lined her augmented eye-socket. It was a bullet to her head that claimed her eye - and nearly her life - four years earlier in a skirmish on the northern front, landing her in a Gearhead City hospital, where top military surgeons fitted her with an electronic optical sensor, developed from leftover alien technology. The four-armed bitch’s bullet had shattered the red optic lens, blown apart the circuitry of the robotic eye, but lacked the force to pierce its smooth, shining casing. Kiljoy had suffered a trauma – the right half of her face was a puffy, swollen bruise and her head ached with the telltale thud of a mild concussion – but she had survived yet another battle that should have put her underground.

She had regained consciousness during the sandstorm but remained face-down in the street throughout the night, for she could hear voices from within the Truck Stop structure. One of those voices belonged to the radio operator, Quigley; the others she did not recognize, but there were at least four resistance fighters waiting out the wind. She lay in the road throughout the duration of the storm, drifting sands covering her arms and legs, clogging her nostrils, until the men finally left for the east. Only then did she rise and take stock of her own condition.

She was in a hurry to get on the trail, track down the boy from Orbit Falls and the singing girl – the mutie gunslinger, too – but she was in no condition to travel. She found her horse down a narrow street, found a shock rifle the enemy had overlooked on one of the dead troopers, and a sidearm on another. Inside the great brick structure, she stoked the stove, scraped the last of some grey stew from the pot, then slept for hours in a darkened corner.

When she awoke, the sun had settled behind the western hills, the throbbing in her head reduced itself to an insistent pulsing ache. It was a pain she could suffer on the road. She rummaged through the station, found a store of jerky she stuffed into her saddlebags and a long hooded cloak she threw on over her fatigues.

She would not attempt to cross the Shifting Sands. She had never taken that route across the border, and she was unwilling to risk her life to the unruly, unpredictable valley. She would take the long way round, through the low hills to the north, lose two days but make up time once she reached the Kingdom.

Hers was a race against Nevison, who she assumed must be nearly over the mountains by now. The Ranger Captain would report first to the capital, affording her the chance to catch up to the fugitives while he took his scolding from the high command. She knew two things Nevison did not – what the boy looked like and that he was traveling in the company of the singing girl. She was confident she would find them before Nevison did. She, not he, would be the hero of the Kingdom, rewarded highly with the Gyro King’s favor.

Outside the structure, Kiljoy pulled the cloak’s hood up to cover her head, shrouding her face in shadow, climbed into the saddle, spurred her horse toward the rolling hills north of Truck Stop Station.

3

Descending the eastern slope of the Highlands Pass, the twinkling lights of villages spread across the darkening valley below, Nevison thought it a marvel that he had made it over the mountains at all. He had lost two more troopers on the last leg of the crossing, not to marauders, but wolves. The mountain nomads had not shown themselves again after their retreat, but Nevison understood that the Highlands Pass was now under control of the wild clans.

The squad encountered no patrols on the trail, only the scattered bones of soldiers, the carved-up carcasses of horses. There were signs of fierce battles, but few intact human corpses. The mountain clans were confirmed cannibals, known to butcher their fallen enemies, roast the flesh over roasting pits at their secluded encampments. They ate their prisoners, too, often one limb at a time, keeping them alive for the sake of freshness.

The waypoint stations were abandoned, too, littered with the butchered remains of the soldiers who died defending them. Nevison marched his men past the first waypoint, unwilling to camp only a few short miles outside the valley in which they had been ambushed. They arrived at the second empty station well into the night and made a rough camp within its walls, set a fire burning in the hearth. A rotating pair of guards stood a vigil on the lookout tower, but none of the men slept well and the squad was on the march come the clear, cold break of day.

The wolves set upon them in the early afternoon, a hunting pack of four, bursting from the tree line like blurred, grey shadows. The beasts were long and lean, with broad, brawny shoulders and oversized heads, snarling jaws and razor-sharp fangs. They were on the sleepy soldiers in seconds, took two troopers out of their saddles before the squad fell into formation and shot three of the animals dead. The last wolf fled into the forest, but Nevison knew it would return, to feast on the flesh of his fallen troopers.

Doesn’t matter if it’s man or beast that kills you up here. Either one will eat you.

He reined his horse to a stop the curve of a narrow switchback, raised his spyglass, saw the great alien lights of Gearhead City glimmering in the distance. He had been reluctant to deliver his report, but now he was eager to get it over with and get back on the trail of the boy from Orbit Falls. Nevison had little hope that the singing girl would be found, but he meant to track down Huckleberry Fagen if he had to chase the boy clear across the Kingdom.

4

Quigley’s party spent the whole of the day slowly crossing the Shifting Sands. He was no stranger to the volatile expanse, having crossed the border there several times in the past, but he was no qualified guide, either. Each time he had traversed the sands, he had been guided by Clinton Talbot or his daughter Reeva. He hoped one or both of them had led Huck and Fawn safely across the border.

It was a particularly mild day on the Shifting Sands, but still too dangerous for casual or careless travelers. Quigley led the others methodically, cautiously, listening to the ground as Talbot had done, but lacking the practiced ear to detect every groaning change before it took place. There had been any number of close-calls with yawning pools and flowing rivers of sludge, but no one was lost, and the party made steady progress throughout the day.

Quigley judged they were halfway across the expanse when they came upon the dead pony, buried up to its neck in churning pool of fluid sand. Monk stared at the horse, glanced at his companions.

“That’s the pony Fawn was riding,” he said.

Hancock shook his head, shrugged. “All it means is they lost a pony. One dead horse doesn’t mean the both of them didn’t make it across, and their guide, if they had one.”

Quigley agreed. “I’m certain now they had a guide,” he said, “I don’t think they would have made it this far on their own.”

“Let’s move,” Monk said, “I don’t like standing around on these shitting sands.”

Quigley opened his mouth, but Monk shut him up with a wave of his hand.

“I didn’t misspeak, Quigley.”

Hancock chuckled, followed Quigley along the crumbling edge of the pool, down a narrow, solid path through molten chaos. Hours later, as the sky was dimming toward nightfall, Hancock spied a lone figure moving toward them from the east, pulling a geared-up pony. The men ducked behind a rumbling dune, Dalton had a look through his spyglass, passed the telescope to Quigley.

“A woman,” Hancock said, “She’s not wearing a uniform.”

Quigley peered through the glass, recognized Reeva Talbot, hurried up the slope. Dalton grabbed a handful of the radio operator’s coat, held him back.

“It’s Clinton Talbot’s daughter,” Quigley said, “I’ve got to hail her before she catches sight of us in these uniforms. She’s as fast as you with a gun and she wields four pistols at once.”

He climbed to the top of the dune, waved his arms and hollered out. “Reeva Talbot! Don’t shoot! Morton Quigley here, yes, yes.”

Reeva raised a hand in greeting, waited where she was for Quigley and his companions to come and meet her. The men scurried from the dune, three of them, covered the distance cautiously, gathered around her noisily.

“My daughter,” Hancock said, “Is Fawn alive?”

“What about the boy?” Quigley shouted, “Does he still have the power cell?”

Reeva nodded, held up all four hands, palms out. “They’re both alive,” she said, “But we won’t be for long if we don’t get off the sands before full-dark. Fall in behind me.”

They followed her back the way she had come, moving faster now, with a qualified guide walking point.

5

In the chilly hour before dawn, Huck and Fawn were awakened by the sound of horses on the East-West Road. Huck left Fawn and Cyclops at the camp, crept quickly through the trees, ducked behind a clump of bushes, raised his binoculars and watched the road. The riders came from the west, pounding hard along the track, hunched low in their saddles. Huck could not see them clearly in the early-morning darkness, but he saw the black uniforms and red armbands of the King’s Advance. This was no patrol out of the Kingdom, but pursuers from the wastelands. He snuck back to the campsite, unaware that he had witnessed the passing of Morton Quigley’s band of allies.

Finally got to sit and read the last update properly... Loving this story. Anyone who enjoyed LOTR or The Stand will love it.

Now we come to the proper end of Part 1 - Oblivion.

Chapter Nine

Crossings

1

Reeva led the party to the crest of a low, rounded bluff overlooking a wide expanse of writhing, undulating sands. On the edge of the expanse, wooden X’s, raised on tall poles, marked the beginnings of the Shifting Sands, warning guideless travelers to turn back. Beyond the markers, the East-West Road dissolved into swirling dust clouds and bubbling, belching pools of quicksand.

The ground was alive, or so it seemed to Huck. He stared out over the seemingly endless valley, frightened and awed by the unpredictable nature of the landscape before him. Streams of liquified earth, thick and stony, ran freely through the valley, changed course unexpectedly, disappeared beneath the desert floor, bubbled to the surface elsewhere. Seemingly solid patches of earth were in reality great pools of hot mud, still and calm one moment, then suddenly churning and yawning, spewing towers of steam and sand high into the air.

Huck lowered his binoculars, turned to Reeva. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, “How far across to solid ground?”

Reeva shrugged. “It varies,” she said, “Some days it’s twenty miles or so to the other side; some days it’s farther. Never more than thirty, though.”

Huck glanced at Fawn. Since departing Truck Stop Station, the girl had seemed subdued, even sickly. Her face was pale, and she slumped slightly in the saddle, her head hung low.

“You alright?”

Fawn nodded, managed a slight smile. Huck turned his attention back to Reeva, and the Shifting Sands. “I guess if there were another route east, you would have taken us that way.”

Reeva nodded. “We’ll lose two, maybe three days skirting the sands at either end,” she said, “And neither of those routes is any safer. The King’s Advance patrols the mountain passes to the north and the southern route is deep in Old Mexico.”

Huck sighed, watched as a river of steaming sludge ploughed across the valley, swallowing boulders and the occasional Joshua tree. There was not much plant life in the valley – Huck was surprised there was any at all.

“What makes the earth so fluid?” he said, “Does anyone know?”

Reeva nudged her horse down the slope, the others followed.

“Who knows?” she said, “On ancient maps, a wide river split this valley, and there were hot springs scattered among the hillsides. The common theory is an atomic blast buried the river, cracked open shallow deposits of magma, activated dormant fault lines. I’m a guide, not a geologist, and all I see out there is nature blown to hell.”

Huck thought of Maggie Hancock, heard her voice in his mind as clearly as if she were riding beside him.

It’s the revival of nature and nature is magical

Where the road crumbled into the desert, in the shadow of twin warning markers, Reeva dismounted, instructed the others to climb down from their saddles.

“From here, we lead the horses,’ she said, “Better to lose a pony than be sucked into the earth along with it.”

Huck removed the satchel, bow and quiver from the gear strapped behind his saddle, slung them over his shoulder with the rifle. He wouldn’t risk losing his mother’s book, or the power cell socket, if his horse were swallowed by a pool of boiling mud. He lifted Cyclops out of the sling, set him on the ground, commanded him to heel as the party moved forward onto the Shifting Sands.

2

Nevison disliked the mountains nearly as much as he did the desert. They rose before the expedition like slumbering giants, great craggy sentinels guarding the paths between the wastelands and the pastures and plains of the Midland Kingdom. The mountains were not as obviously treacherous as the Shifting Sands, but Nevison feared the forested peaks, for they were plagued by unpredictable weather, deadly mutant beasts, and secretive clans of cannibalistic humans.

There would be patrols on the road, though not as many as there had been before the Dragon Cough outbreak. In an effort to lock down the border, prevent the disease from spreading into the Kingdom, the high command had shifted security protocols from mounted patrols to stationary guards, expanding the number of troopers manning the western checkpoints.

The Highlands Passage checkpoint - a small stone fort, several outbuildings and a dozen tents -came into view on the road ahead and Nevison raised his spyglass. The checkpoint was still manned – he could see soldiers taking up positions on either side of the road and on the walls of the fort, and an officer watched the approaching caravan through a spyglass of his own. Nevison could not make out the man’s rank at that distance, but he was likely a lieutenant.

A pair of troopers rode out to meet the expedition, threw quick salutes at Nevison. “Welcome to the Highlands Passage, Sir,” one of them said, “Any infected among your party.”

Nevison shook his head. “Tell me something, Trooper,” he said, “Do I appear to be the kind of fool who would ride in the company of the contagious?”

The trooper held Nevison’s gaze. “No, Sir, you don’t look like any kind of fool at all. I’ve got to ask, though, as a precaution. Standard procedure these days.”

The Ranger Captain sighed. “Yes, of course,’ he said, “You’ve asked, and I’ve answered. Now, I’d like to get along to the checkpoint, rest my men and horses, and get started over the mountains before it starts getting dark.”

The soldier glanced at his partner, who stared at Nevison. “Yes, Captain,” he said, “I’m sure you’re aware there’s a mandatory three-day quarantine for all military personnel going east.”

Nevison spurred his horse, glared at the two outriders. “I’ll discuss that with the checkpoint commander,” he said, “What I will not do is sit here in the sun and debate the matter with a pair of enlisted grunts.”

3

Hancock’s party lost an hour rounding up the frightened horses. By the time they rode into Truck Stop Station, powerful winds from the south returned, pushing growing clouds of sand across the desert. On the settlement’s main street, the men climbed down from their horses, stared at the bodies of soldiers strewn throughout the square. The wind howled through the settlement, the sky grew increasingly dark, and drifts of sand began to pile up around the corpses and along the foundations of the buildings.

“We’ve got to move,” Hancock shouted, “If we hope to cross the Shifting Sands before the storm gets any worse.”

Quigley and Monk stared at each other. They understood Hancock’s eagerness to catch up to his daughter, but both men also knew that the storm was already upon them and showed no signs of waning soon. There would be no crossing the border until it passed.

“Don’t be a fool,” Monk hollered, “Even an expert guide wouldn’t lead you across in this storm.”

“Monk’s right, yes, yes” Quigley said, “And in case you haven’t noticed, there doesn’t seem to be any guide on duty at the present time.”

He wondered if Talbot were dead or guiding Huck and the girl into the Kingdom. He took his horse by the reins, led it toward the main structure, shouted for the others to follow him inside. They barred the door behind them, found a room with a trough of slimy water and a bucket of dried grain, left the mutant hunter to look after the horses.

In the main chamber, they huddled around an iron stove, red embers still glowing inside, and a pot of stew uncovered on one round burner. Hancock dipped a finger into the stew, licked it clean.

“The stew’s still warm,” he said, “The stove’s still burning. Huck and Fawn can’t be more than an hour or two ahead of us.”

Quigley nodded. “Then they may be far enough ahead of the storm to make it safely across the sands,” he said, “Assuming they’ve got Talbot along to guide them.”

He rummaged through a wooden chest near the stove, found chipped bowls, filled them with stew, passed them around the group. The hunter emerged from the stable and Quigley filled a fourth bowl.

“We could lose their trail if we remain here very long,” Hancock said, “We’ve no idea how long this storm might last.”

The wind rattled against the windows, blew in through the broken ones.

“We won’t catch up to them at all if we try to cross now,’ Quigley said, “We’ll be lost on the Shifting Sands and swallowed by the earth. You know that, Dalton.”

Hancock sighed, dipped into the stew, listened to the wind screaming through the settlement. He wondered if he would see his daughter again; thought of his wife - who he would certainly never see again - and knew what she would say.

Everything is as it should be, and all will be as it must.

4

The winding Highlands Passage cut a steep zig-zag path up the western face of the slope. Nevison had spent all of two minutes dressing down the checkpoint commander, stripping the lieutenant of his outsized sense of authority, promising the man he would be reassigned to the northwest front if the expedition were quarantined.

“You’ll serve out the rest of your duty in that red rain hell,” Nevison had said, “If the insurgents don’t kill you, radiation sickness will.”

The lieutenant, as much as he despised his station on the western border, was not a complete fool. He deferred to Nevison’s rank, and the obvious urgency of the Ranger Captain’s mission, and ordered his guards to allow the expedition through to the passage.

“At your leisure, of course, Sir. When your men and horses have had their rest.”

That had been hours before. The expedition was well on its way over the first peaks of the range, the checkpoint out of sight far below, the homeland two days to the east. As the expedition traversed the western slope, the desert heat was left far below, replaced by cool mountain air which grew colder as the day wore on. Even in the summer months, the weather was wintery and unpredictable at high altitudes. It had been so since the bombs. A mild sunny morning could give way to afternoon rains which turned into snowfall when darkness shrouded the mountains.

The caravan was much smaller than it had been at the beginning of the march, having divided several times on its way across the wasteland, and now – reduced to forty troopers and a pair of wagons – it moved at a steady pace into the highest reaches of the passage. Nevison meant to make the first waystation before full dark, bivouac there for the night, and be back on the trail at dawn.

The company rounded a wide curve, descended into a green valley where snow still covered shady patches of earth, passed through a narrow gap between the trees. From high atop a stony ridge, a band of mountain nomads marked their passage, counting troopers as they filed by.

5

To Huck’s great surprise, the party crossed the first ten miles of the Shifting Sands without being swept away by a river of mud or sucked into the depths of a bubbling pool. Reeva led them slowly, carefully over the expanse, kept the party close, demanded they remain silent so she could hear the murmured warnings rumbling through the ground. She navigated the sands by sound as much as sight, leading her companions out of the path of onrushing sludge, sidestepping pools of quicksand the others mistook for solid ground, avoiding glowing streams of magma no matter which way they flowed.

Crossing a cracked, dry stretch of ground where the earth was still and solid, and Huck thought for a moment they had come to the eastern edge of the Shifting Sands. He called out to Reeva, meaning to ask her how much farther they had to go, and she silenced him with a glance, stared at the parched earth beneath their feet. A crackling thrum rose up from the ground – like the sound of breaking ice on a frozen lake – and Huck’s boot heels broke through crumbled earth, brown sludge oozed up around his ankles. Reeva reached out, grabbed hold of his hand, pulled him across the breach, her own boots sinking in the sand.

“Run! Follow me!”

She lit out for a low hill, Huck and his dog at her heels, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Fawn was following, too. Behind the mutant girl, the earth opened up, trapping Fawn’s pony in a thick, steaming sludge. The girl held tight to the horse’s reins, the ground crumbling at her feet, tried to pull the heavy beast from the quicksand.

“Let it go!” Reeva shouted, “You can’t save the horse!”

Huck turned, saw the earth liquifying where Fawn stood, ran back and grabbed hold of her arm. “Fawn, come on!” he shouted, “You’re gonna get us both killed.”

She released her grip on the reins, turned and followed behind Huck, the ground giving way behind them as they ran. They reached the top of the mound, where Reeva crouched panting and Cyclops barked frantically, as the screaming horse disappeared beneath a widening pond of frothing, sulfurous quicksand. All around the rise, water and magma erupted from the ground, flooded the valley, trapped the companions on the hill, a solid island in a sea of churning sands.

“That was too godblasted close for comfort,” Reeva said, “Way too fucking close.”

Cyclops sat at his master’s feet, Fawn stared at the place where the pony had been swallowed by the earth, Huck glanced at their guide.

“What do we do now?” he said, “We’re stuck out here.”

Reeva pulled a pouch of herbs from an inner pocket, rolled a smoke with two of her hands, rubbed sand from her eyes with the other two.

“We wait for the ground to harden again,” she said, “And it damned sure better harden quickly.”

She looked west, across the Shifting Sands, saw a great dark cloud moving fast on the wind.

“Another storm,” she said, “We don’t want to be out here when it blows through.”

6

The wind howled like a banshee through Truck Stop Station, roared along sand swept streets on its way to the border. Quigley stoked the fire, brewed chicory coffee, and the four men sat around the stove, smoking pipes and slurping from ancient mugs. The storm raged throughout the day, showed no signs of weakening, and Hancock’s expression grew more grim with each passing hour.

“Your daughter,” Quigley said, “Why did your wife send her east? If she meant to keep the girl hidden from the Gyro King, why send her into the heart of his realm?”

Dalton took a long swallow of coffee, a deep pull on his pipe, answered on a cloud of blue smoke.

“Maggie is a seer,” he said, “She dreamed a vision of Fawn in the east, said our daughter would be the savior of the west.”

Quigley had no reason to doubt that Maggie Hancock had the gift of sight. He had traveled much on the continent, crossed the Kingdom twice, and been to the Republic and back. He had met all kinds of mutants, heard of psychics and seers, knew that Fawn Hancock was a singer of powerful magic. Knowing what he did about the nature of mutant genes, Quigley accepted without question that Maggie was a variant, too.

“What did she see in the vision?” he said, “How is your singing girl to save the west?”

Hancock shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, “Maggie said the dream was dim – only clear enough that she knew it was true.”

“And you believe it, yes, yes,” Quigley said, “You’ve enough faith in your wife’s gift of sight that you’ll risk your daughter’s life.”

Monk grunted, glanced at his pointy-eared clan brother. Both Gypsies knew enough of Maggie’s sight to know what Dalton’s answer would be.

“Maggie’s visions have never been wrong,” the former Sheriff said, “Sometimes they’re vague, but they always prove true. If she says Fawn will make it east and save the west, that’s what will happen.”

Quigley nodded. “Then I believe it’s so, yes, yes. But if you believe it – and I trust that you do - why are you so distressed about catching up to her?’

“Maggie saw me in the vision, too,” Dalton sighed, “She saw me in the Kingdom, carrying Fawn from a crumbling tower. I don’t think she makes it east if I’m not there to save her.”

Quigley consulted a mental map of the Midland Kingdom. He knew of only two towers in the Gyro King’s realm – The Spire in Gearhead City and The Steeple in the Woven Shadows Enclave.

7

In the mountains, a heavy snow began to fall, blanketing the Highlands Passage with an eerie silence and a carpet of white as the sun dipped away in the west. The expedition trudged on in near darkness, the promise of fire, food and sleep just a few short miles ahead at the westernmost waystation. Nevison chain smoked, lighting each fresh cigarette from the butt of the last, pretended to be listening to the story his Lieutenant was telling.

“And when the Major caught us naked at our post,” the Lieutenant said, grinning, “Going at it with those two barmaids, well, you can just imagine…”

A burst of ballistic gunfire broke the silence, the Lieutenant fell from his horse, blood spurting from a hole in his forehead ran crimson on the snowy ground. Nevison spurred his horse, drew his shock rifle from its scabbard, shouted orders at his troops as the tree line came alive with movement on either side of the trail and the forest erupted with the blasts of many guns.

“Form up!” he hollered, turning his horse in a tight circle, surveying the attacking force, “Defensive field positions! Circle up, god blast it!”

The advance, weary from the day’s long march into the mountains, sluggish from the deepening cold of the storm, was caught completely by surprise. Dozens of men, wearing furs that blended with the environment, emerged from the forest, all of them wielding long guns, three of them riding great bears. A third of Nevison’s men were killed in the initial attack, but the remaining troopers remembered their training and closed ranks around their commander.

Nevison dismounted, threw himself to the ground, rested the barrel of his rifle across the chest of his fallen Lieutenant. He loosed a volley of amber bolts which dropped two of the onrushing attackers, searched through the rifle’s scope for the three enemy riders.

“Kill the bears,” he shouted, “Kill the god blasted bears!”

Bullets whizzed into the snow where he lay, spraying his face with icy mist, and a trooper beside him cried out, fell suddenly silent. His troopers were outnumbered, but they were better trained than the mountain nomads, and killed two attackers for every fallen soldier. Nevison ignored the cries of his fallen troopers, raised himself to one knee, drew a bead on a giant bear lumbering toward him, shot the beast through its heart. The animal stumbled forward, still running as it died, fell on its side, crushed its rider beneath its flank.

The Ranger Captain wheeled around, drawn by the terrified screams of his soldiers, saw a second bear ravaging through their defensive position, swiping at fleeing troopers with its massive paws, crushing them under its weight. Nevison stood, the snow running red all around him, fired a series of bolts, killed the rampaging bear.

“Huddle up!” he shouted, calling the remaining troopers to rally around him, “Circle up on me and kill that last fucking bear.”

Of the forty soldiers who had entered the mountain passage, eleven remained. They closed ranks on the Ranger Captain, shock rifles pointed in every direction, prepared for a final onslaught that did not come. Most of the nomads had been killed, too. The dozen or so who survived, including the third rider, ran for the shelter of the forest and the safety of their encampment.

Nevison lowered his rifle, glanced around at his fallen troopers, reached into his coat for his tobacco.

“We should go after them, Sir,” one of the troopers said, “Take ‘em out while they’re on the run.”

The Ranger Captain shook his head, lit a smoke. “No,” he said, “That’s what they want us to do. They’ll lure us into the forest and kill us all.”

He steadied his frightened horse, pulled himself into the saddle.

“Mount up,” he shouted, “Leave the wagons. We ride for the waystation, before those sonsofbitches return with reinforcements.”

He turned up his collar, squinted against the snowfall, glanced down at the fallen Lieutenant, thought of the story the man had been telling when the fighting broke out.

I wonder what the Major did, when he caught them flogging those whores.

8

The molten earth cooled enough that Reeva was able to track a solid trail across the expanse, and the party escaped the hill ahead of the storm. They rushed across the Shifting Sands as quickly as they could without stumbling into a spawning pool of sludge, with the wind whipping hard at their backs and the sky growing dark with blowing sand. They were nearly across the expanse, less than three miles from the eastern side, when the storm fell around them like a shroud, blinding their eyes, hiding the path before them. Reeva brought the group to a halt in the shrieking darkness.

“Join hands,’ she shouted, “Make a chain. Forget about the fucking horses.”

All around them the dust cloud swirled, the earth rumbled and quaked, unseen rivers of mud roiled up from the ground. Huck held Fawn’s hand with his right, reached down with his left to comfort Cyclops.

“We’re not gonna make it,” he hollered, “We can’t see where we’re going. Reeva, tell us what to do.”

He could barely see the guide, though she stood right at his side, clutching Fawn’s other hand. Reeva leaned her mouth close to his ear, spoke a word Huck had learned long ago to equate with hopelessness.

“Pray.”

Fawn tugged her hand free of his, pushed past Reeva, a frail shadow in the raging storm. Huck took a step after her, reached out to grab hold of her blouse, and Fawn began to sing. Her voice carried over the howling wind, a melody that rose and fell across the expanse, and the tempest stilled before her as she stepped lightly across the sands.

Fawn’s song did not dispel the storm, but cleared a path before her, a corridor of stillness and calm through the blowing sands. Huck and Reeva fell in behind her, Cyclops brought up the rear, and they followed the sound of Fawn’s voice across the desert floor. The storm raged in their wake, closing the corridor as they went, but before Fawn’s magical song, the earth solidified beneath their feet, the blinding sands parted for their passage, and the singing girl from the wastes brought them safely to the other side of the Shifting Sands.

9

By daybreak, the dust storm was over, blown through to the east overnight, leaving only a chilly breeze to sweep through Truck Stop Station. Monk insisted again on riding east and Hancock relented, admitting that three on the road would be better than two. Unwilling to risk another brother or leave the clan uncertain of his fate, Monk sent his hunter home with a message and a cache of weapons taken off the corpses of the fallen soldiers.

Hancock swung into the saddle, glanced at the radio operator. “Back at Monk’s encampment,” he said, “You told me you had a plan for traveling safely through the Kingdom.”

Quigley nodded. “I do, yes, yes…but let’s worry first about crossing the Shifting Sands. I’ve never crossed the expanse without a guide.”

He glanced at the dead Kingdom troopers.

“Security on the border will be tight,” he said, “Before the virus, the southern passage was only lightly patrolled, but the army bolstered its presence to keep out infected refugees; and now they’ll send reinforcements, to hunt for Fawn and Huck.”

Monk grinned at Quigley. “Are you suggesting a change of wardrobe?”

“Yes, yes, indeed I am,” Quigley said.

They stripped three of the dead troopers, put on the stolen uniforms, stowed their own clothes in their saddlebags. Hancock and Monk fit well into their disguises, but Quigley was too short for his – the sleeves swallowed his hands and the trousers bunched up at the top of his boots. The chevron and red armband that should have been at his shoulders sagged nearly to his elbows.

“You’re looking a bit sloppy there, Sergeant,” Hancock said, winking, “You’ll never pass muster wrinkled up the way you are.”

“Just you never mind, yes, yes.”

Quigley nudged his horse, Monk and Dalton fell in on either side of the track, and they rode out of Truck Stop Station, bound for the Shifting Sands and the border beyond.

10

Silence took up residence in Truck Strop Station. Rats scurried from their holes, crawled over the corpses, gorged on the flesh of dead soldiers. The sun climbed the morning sky, warming the desert floor and valley air, an easterly breeze ruffled the flaps of empty tents.

Lieutenant Kiljoy groaned, spit sand out of her mouth, opened her remaining eye, and sat up on the dusty street. She cradled her throbbing head between her hands, vomited onto the dirt. A glint of sunlight on metal caught her eye. She spied a small metal object, half-buried in the sand, picked it up, turned it over in her palm. It was a badge, adorned with three stars and the symbol of the Federation. She shoved it into a deep pocket on her uniform trousers.

Hmmmm. I think I've thought of a believable way to do something I thought I couldn't do. I'll have to see if it passes the reader test when I get there.

I've learned through the writers of Twitter that I am a pantser as opposed to a planster.

The chapter I'm writing now is leaning heavily toward being the true conclusion of Part 1, not the beginning of Part 2. This chapter deals with crossing the border - not only Huck's party, but Nevison and probably Hancock and Quigley. It's feeling like Part 2 should begin in The Midland Kingdom.

I did the same thing with TBWGitD - called the first part complete, then realized it wasn't when I started writing about the Starlight Motel.

I was a little embarrassed to realize the Midland Kingdom salute is basically a facepalm.

The soldier snapped to attention, stared blankly at the Captain, raised a perfect salute – the palm of his right hand pressed to his forehead, all five fingers extended like the points of a crown.

Oh, boy.

I've moved the action to the chest rather than the forehead to save myself from being ridiculous.

Part 1 is edited to my satisfaction. I can finally get back to the story. I have ideas for Part 2, but no idea about Part 2 - so this will be fun. I'd probably never say this about my own life, but I'm glad Huck and Fawn are leaving the desert. It's time for a change of scenery, a change of pace, and some surprises.

See...the line "night fell dark and moonless over the wastes" is redundant and sloppy. Any reader will know night is dark, especially a moonless one, so "the night fell moonless over the wastes" is better. The reader is smart enough to picture an unusually dark night without being told directly.

As I am so far behind on this, I have decided to wait until it is published. I am looking forward to reading it, but prefer to wait for the physical book. I hope you don't mind.😍

I used to hate revising, but I've learned to love it the more I recognized it's value. I've been working on Part 1, all weekend. just reading through each chapter slowly, doing just some light edits.

I know what my bad tendencies are now, so they're easier to spot and fix. I tend to write very long sentences, which are technically proper sentences. They're just too long-winded, and they're a result of writing hot, keeping up with my thoughts. I've gotten pretty good at recognizing the ones that work better as two sentences. I also find myself using "that" instead of "which."

Other than my own bad habits, I did find a few holes in the story that needed filling. In the opening pages I said Huck had never been beyond the western mountains or seen the Pacific, but later I wrote that he was born near Los Angeles and lived there until the quake. There was a bit about Quigley being too old for any action, which is obviously not the case. I also realized the hydro station at Truck Stop settlement had absolutely no reason to exist.

No major edits, no big rewrites - just some paint and body work.

I still have two chapters to revise before I carry on, but the events of Part 2 have been setting themselves up in my mind.

I'm taking a slow pass through Part 1 before I begin Part 2. Tidying up, sprinkling a little seasoning here and there, smoothing some rough sentences.

Part One comes in at 167 pages, 35130 words. Looks like this is headed for 500 pages or more.

Sigh.

This long chapter brings us to the border and the end of Part 1 - Oblivion. Next stop, the Shifting Sands and the Midland Kingdom.

Chapter Eight

The Border

1

By midday, when they dismounted for a brief rest and a lunch of coarse bread and jerky, Huck saw that Cyclops was worn out from the long morning trek. The dog had done well keeping up with the ponies over rugged terrain, but he ate only one strip of jerky, curled up in a stingy spot of shade and went to sleep. Huck sat beside him, stroked his back, examined his paws – the pads were calloused, cracked, and blistered. Cyclops would slow them down going forward and he would fall far behind if Huck and Fawn had reason to ride faster than the steady trot they had held the ponies too all morning. More than that, Huck had no intention of letting the dog suffer. Using a blanket stripped from his bedroll, he fashioned a sling, tied it to the rigging behind the saddle, and Cyclops snuggled in for the ride, swaying from the horse’s shoulder in a woolen hammock.

With his dog spared a toilsome walk behind the horses, Huck gave in to a persistent intuition that they had to move faster, rode harder than he had the first part of the day. He had lost a full day to his recovery from the jackrabid attack, lost the motorcycle, too, and would not make Truck Stop settlement until the following morning. He had no way of knowing how far behind him the soldiers followed, but he assumed they were nearer now than they had been since he departed the Listening Post.

Fawn rode along in silence, confident and easy in the saddle, her long hair streaming behind her, strands of sun-kissed honey on the breeze. Huck had known mutants before – not all of them were Gypsies – but he had not known any of them well or considered them friends. Three generations removed the bombs, much of the old fear and hatred of the variants had given way to a grudging acceptance, but even in the city, before the Federation fell, the mutants had been second-class citizens, performing menial labors and services, dwelling in ghettos on the outskirts of town. Since the quake, since his family settled in the desert, the only human mutants he had encountered were the Gypsies, historical rivals of the settlers.

In his brief time with Monk’s White Hills clan, Huck had been forced to question his own perception of the Dune Gypsies, to wonder how much of the old feuds were the fault of the settlers, not the nomads. On his departure from the caves, he had taken Monk’s hand in grateful friendship, but his prejudice was long-learned, his mistrust a necessity of survival in Orbit Falls, and he wrestled with an unexplainable growing fondness for the silent girl beside him.

She was hardly good company – not being one for conversation – and Huck knew no more about her than he had when they mounted up that morning, but every time he looked at her, his heartbeat quickened, his gaze softened, his resentment at bringing her along turned to a resolve to see her safely into the east. He was careful not to be noticed when he looked at her hooves, but with each stolen glance, he thought them more natural than abnormal, more attractive than unsettling.

On a blasted stretch of the road littered with the derelict steel bones of a dozen cars and trucks, a shadow passed over the track, drawing Huck’s attention. A dragonfly, bright red, as large as a pigeon, buzzed out of the blue sky, whirred around their heads. Fawn brought her horse to a stop, stretched a hand out before her, sang a lilting song, words Huck could not understand, but found beautiful and soothing.

The dragonfly dipped toward the ground on Fawn’s left, flew beneath her pony, rose on her right, circled once around her head. It stilled its wings, settled on the back of the girl’s hand, remained there for the duration of her tune. Fawn finished her song with a gentle puff of breath, blew the insect from her hand, watched it rise once more into the clear, bright sky.

Huck was mesmerized, transfixed more by Fawn’s broad smile than the insect alighting on her hand, clearly responding to her mysterious song. Her eyes met, broke his trance, and he nudged his pony forward Huck shook his head and hid a smile. He recalled Maggie Hancock’s words, soft and sure on the ledge that morning.

All of this is magic.

2

Hancock knew from the captured courier that the King’s Advance raided the settlement at White Hills. He steeled himself for what he would find upon his return to town, but was unprepared for the sight of his neighbors, even the women and children, strewn dead in the streets. Flies buzzed around sticky wounds, the putrid scent of decomposing flesh clung to the air, at the mouth of a narrow alley a thin coyote tugged at the mottled bare leg of a dead woman, dragging her corpse into the shade between two rows of leaning shacks.

Without halting his horse, he drew the revolver from his right hip, shot the scavenging dog between its eyes. The blast shattered the town’s deathly silence, rang throughout the valley, echoed off the nearby hills. Quigley had seen many men who knew how to handle a gun, but none so fast and sure as Dalton Hancock.

“Whoa…”

Near the center of town, at the intersection of two thin tracks, Hancock dismounted, hitched the mare to a post outside a hovel constructed of wood and scrap metal. Drab curtains blew in open windows, the door was ajar, and Hancock stood a moment on the threshold, hands resting on his revolvers. Quigley climbed down from his horse, followed Hancock into his abandoned home.

The dwelling had been thoroughly tossed, its furnishings turned over, utensils and clothes strewn on the bare floor. Hancock moved through the shack, his eyes searching every corner, stooped to examine discarded scraps of parchment. He found nothing in the first two rooms, but in the third, the one where he and Maggie had shared a bed, he found a drawing on the wall – a charcoal sketch of an unmistakably simian face.

“Monk,” he said.

Quigley stared at the drawing, then at Hancock.

“Monk? What’s that mean?”

Hancock turned, stepped quickly toward the door. “It’s a name,” he said, “Maggie’s taken Fawn to the Gypsies. Come on, Quigley.”

They mounted up, rode east out of town, Quigley’s horse struggling to keep up with Hancock’s speeding mare. Several miles from the settlement, where the road curved around a crop of jagged hills, Hancock slowed his mount, stared up at the craggy peaks. He turned to Quigley, whose attention had been drawn by something on the ground, shining in the midday sun.

The radio operator dismounted, stooped, took up a rounded object fashioned from metal and glass.

“What is it?” Hancock said, “What have you found?”

Quigley turned the object over in his hands, stared at his companion. “It’s a lamp,” he said, “A motorcycle headlamp, to be precise, yes, yes. It belongs to the bike the boy was riding.”

He examined the surface of the road, saw other bits of metal, a dark oily stain on the dirt.

“He’s crashed the bike,” he said.

Hancock gestured toward a series of tracks that led from the road to the base of the hills. The machine had been dragged, not rolled, across the desert floor.

“Mount up,” Hancock said, “The Gypsies have your machine. They may have the boy, as well.”

3

“Riders! Two riders pounding hard for the slope!”

Monk rushed from the cave, joined the sentries on the north-facing edge of the crags, took a telescope from the nearest guard. Three of the clan’s hunters rested against the rocks, rifles pointed into the valley, where a plume of dust chased a pair of horses toward the encampment. Monk peered through the spyglass, saw a face he did not know and one he recognized immediately.

“Hold fire!” he shouted, “Hold your fire. It’s Dalton Hancock! Someone call for Maggie – tell her he’s come home.”

Maggie Hancock did not have to be called for. Most of the clan had exited the cave when the alarm was sounded, Maggie among them. She hurried to the edge of the shelf, grabbed the telescope away from Monk, watched her husband’s approach until the eyepiece began to fill with tears. She would have known him without the glass – he was that near the base of the hills – and she rushed for the trailhead, eager to meet him as he climbed.

Monk followed, two of his hunters right behind him. He had no reason to think the stranger posed any threat – Dalton Hancock would kill an enemy or be killed trying before bringing one to the cave – but dangerous times called for at least a measure of caution, so he descended the trail with the shock rifle in hand but did not cycle the charger.

At the bottom of the hill, where sand gave way to rising stone, the riders dismounted, led their horses up the steep, zig-zag path. Hancock looked up, saw his wife and the Gypsies hurrying to meet them, felt a twinge of worry that Fawn was not among them, then his wife was in his arms, her own wrapped round his shoulders, sobbing, laughing, shaking. She flung herself so hard against his chest, they would have both tumbled off the trail, down the steep slope, if Quigley had not caught hold of Hancock’s shirt.

“Where is she?” Dalton said, “Where’s Fawn?”

“She’s gone away east,” Maggie said, “Just this morning at dawn with a boy from Orbit Falls.”

In that moment, Quigley knew that Hancock’s reunion with his wife would be a brief one and recalled his earlier thought that his alliance with the former sheriff would not be broken just yet.

4

Kiljoy was relieved to be out from under the Ranger Captain – freed of both his command and his bony, smelly body. It had been foolish of Nevison to think a full expeditionary force could move quickly across the wastelands. He had been twice the fool to think he required so many troopers to pursue a lone boy and track down one missing girl. Maybe it had not been foolishness, at all, but cowardice – fear of what the girl had done to the patrol in White Hills. She was glad the Captain had chosen to lead the expedition over the mountains, left the boy, and maybe the girl, up to her.

Under her command, the smaller strike force – nineteen hardened troopers on lean horses – had covered ground quickly, reached the rim of the White Hills valley. Her red lens glimmered in the sunlight, her human eye teared-up by blowing dust.

She dismounted, joined two of her soldiers examining the remains of a small campfire. On the surface, the ashes were cool to the palm of her hand, but she dug through the coals with a stick, found warm embers underneath, still glowing.

“Do you think it was the boy?” one of the troopers said.

Kiljoy shook her head, examined two sets of footprints in the dirt around the fire ring. “Not unless he’s traded his dog for a human companion,” she said, “It might have been nomads, or maybe privateers after the bounty.”

She swung atop her horse, the other soldiers followed suit, and the squad moved forward once more.

“We’ll stop in White Hills,’ she hollered to the sergeant on her left, “If they’re after the girl, they’ll have gone there next. The boy will have passed there, too, on his way to the border.”

She leaned forward in the saddle, pushed her horse harder over the broken road.

5

After a hurried meal and a brief meeting around the Gypsey fire, Hancock and Quigley rubbed down their horses, prepared to mount up once more, continue the hard ride east. Huck and Fawn were only a half-day ahead of them, the troopers were likely a half day behind – Hancock intended to close the gap and find his daughter before the soldiers did. Quigley was just as determined to catch up to the boy.

Maggie stood with her husband, tucked dried meat and skins of water into his saddlebags, relieved that he would be riding out to keep their child safe, brokenhearted that she would likely never see either one of them again. She reminded herself of the faith she had shared with the boy.

Everything is as it should be, all will be what it must.

Monk approached, leading a stout pony by the halter, two more of the clan’s hunters behind him, already in the saddle.

“We ride with you, Dalton Hancock,” he said, “The White Hills clan will do what it can to see your party safely east, to ensure the mission succeeds.”

Hancock shook his head. “No, Monk. A party so large won’t easily sneak across the Midland Kingdom. I’ve no idea yet how we’ll travel without notice, as it is.”

“I’ve got a plan for that,” Quigley said.

Monk nodded. “Understood,” he said, “We’ll ride with you to the border, then - turn back when you’ve safely reached Truck Stop settlement.”

“We’ll welcome the escort,” Hancock said, “The King’s Advance is not far behind.”

“Aye,” Monk said, swinging into the saddle. He nudged his pony to the edge of the shelf, stared out across the eastern valley, avoided the tearful goodbye between Maggie and her man.

“Catch up to our girl,” Maggie said softly, “See her safely east and save the west.”

Dalton did not speak, only nodded, kissed her long and long. He glanced at Quigley, climbed atop his horse, stuck his pipe between his lips.

“The day’s burning fast,” he said, “We’ll have to ride just as fast.”

It was a slow trot down the trail, but once they were clear of the hill, the party pounded hard for the East-West Road, a plume of dust rising up in its wake, the desert sky ahead gone purple, well on its way to full dark.

6

Huck and Fawn rode through the night, took only two brief stops to rest and water the horses. With daybreak a thin strand of pink on the far horizon, they crested a low hill, spied a structure in the distance, several twinkling lights marking the site of a settlement. An hour after that, the morning sky a hazy grey, they saw a rising, tilting column, an ancient sign that should have fallen to the desert floor long ago. Huck raised his binoculars, read the faded wording on the massive sign.

TRUCK STOP

As they drew nearer the border settlement, Huck noticed other, smaller structures built up around the main building. Like any wastelands town, there were rows of small, makeshift shelters, tents of canvas and wool, broken trucks fashioned into homes. They rode cautiously into town, quietly moved along silent streets, the smell of decaying dead thick on the breeze. Dark clouds of flies buzzed around tent flaps and open doors, several buzzards roosted on the roof of a shack, seemingly well-fed and content. Death was all around, but there was no sign that anyone still lived in Truck Stop settlement.

“Looks like the virus wiped them all out,” Huck said to Fawn, knowing she would not respond, “I don’t think there’s anybody here.”

He glanced across his shoulder, Fawn glanced back through sea-green eyes, shrugged.

“I was supposed to meet a man here,” Huck said, “A guide named Talbot. He was supposed to get us across the shifting sands.”

Huck pulled his horse alongside a hitching post, climbed down, tethered it to the rail. He lifted Cyclops out of the sling, set him down to sniff around and do his business. Fawn dismounted, too, left her own horse standing free, took a walk with the dog along one of the rows.

“Don’t wander far,” Huck called out. He pulled the stopper from a water skin, tilted it back for a good long swallow, saw a moving shadow, heard footfalls directly behind him, then the double click of twin guns being cocked and a woman’s voice.

“Who are you? What’s your business with Talbot?”

Huck did not move, hoped Cyclops and Fawn would not return suddenly and startle the woman with the guns to his head. He supposed Fawn could disarm her with a song, maybe even by whistling, but he was not certain she could do it before he was killed.

“My name’s Huck Fagen,” he said, “I’m from Orbit Falls. There’s a girl with me, and my dog, too. Quigley sent me. He told me a man named Talbot could help me cross the border into the Kingdom.”

Silence, then a suspicious sigh.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth,” the woman said, “How can I be sure you’re not an agent of the Gyro King?”

Huck thought of the talisman Quigley had given him, to prove his story to Talbot, a man Huck presumed had been killed by the Dragon Cough.

“Can I turn around?” he said, “Will you shoot me If I face you?”

“Go on.”

He turned slowly, stood face to face with a tall, muscular woman, her skin as black as her eyes were blue. Her face was strikingly beautiful, but her eyes were all mean business, gazing into his with suspicion and doubt. She wore typical wastelands garb - khaki trousers, high boots and a long western jacket like the one that had been Huck's father's but now belonged to him. In either hand she held a long-barreled ballistic revolver.

“I have something,” Huck said, “Quigley told me to show it to Talbot. It’s in my satchel.”

The woman motioned with one of the guns, told him to fetch what he spoke of, but to do it slowly and not get himself shot. He rummaged through the satchel, found the silver badge, displayed it on the palm of his open hand. The woman holstered one weapon, took the badge from Huck, examined it, then holstered the second pistol.

Cyclops bounded into view, slouched low and barked at the woman. Fawn was directly behind him, fright in her eyes, glancing from Huck to the woman.

“It’s alright,” Huck said, slapping his thigh for Cyclops to come to him, glancing at Fawn, “Don’t sing – she’s a friend…I think.”

The woman nodded. “I’m a friend,” she said, “I’m Reeva Talbot. My father’s been dead for two weeks, but I know the sands as well as he did.”

She stared across the flatland, gauged the breeze, eyed a low cloud in the distance, dark against the morning sky.

“Dust storm’s kickin’ up,” she said, “Bring the horses and come inside, tell me what makes you two so important that Quigley sent you east.”

Inside the ancient structure, they stripped the horses, stabled them in a room with three other ponies, joined Reeva Talbot by a hot iron stove, a pot of some aromatic stew set to boil on an open burner. They ate from chipped antique bowls, drank clear water from real glassware, and Huck told their story, beginning with the fallen satellite, explaining how his lone quest had come to include Fawn, finishing with a shrug of his shoulders and a warning of pursuing soldiers.

Outside, the wind howled, darkness dimmed the sun, blowing sands beat against ancient windows, blew in through empty frames and crumbling gaps.

Reeva glanced at Fawn’s hooves. “You’re the singing girl,” she said, “The one the troopers have torn up the region trying to locate.”

She looked to Huck. “And you’ve got the satellite power core. The two prizes the Gyro King seeks, come together on the road by some coincidence.”

In his mind, Huck heard the voice of Maggie Hancock.

All of this is magic – all will be as it must.

“Will you help us?” Huck said, staring at Reeva Talbot, “Will you guide us across the border?”

Reeva nodded. “I will, but not until the storm blows through. Crossing the shifting sands is a bitch on a clear day – damned near impossible in the dark of a dust storm raging.”

Huck glanced out a window.

“It will blow through in a few hours,” Reeva said, “You two should sleep – you both look worn clean through. I’ll pack my gear, wake you when the weather’s cleared.”

Until she mentioned sleep, Huck had not realized how exhausted he was. He spread his blankets in a sheltered corner, Fawn rolled out her bedroll beside him and they slept through the roaring winds, Cyclops snuggled between them, snoring softly.

7

Lieutenant Kiljoy’s patrol was not hindered by the storm – the dust blew through ahead of them, battered the Truck Stop settlement, thinned on its way across the border. From a sloping rise along the road, Kiljoy could see the settlement clearly in the near-distance, a lone rider moving fast out of the east – the advance scout she had sent ahead at the break of day, returning in a hurry. The trooper rode up alongside the patrol, turned his horse into the march, stared at the augmented officer.

“Report,” Kiljoy said.

“We’ve got contact,” the trooper panted, “Three alive at the settlement, two of them look to be the boy and the singing girl.”

Kiljoy grinned. “We’ve got them! God blast it, we’ve got them both.”

The trooper shook his head. “There’s more, Lieutenant. Five riders pounding hard for Truck Stop. Three of them are muties, one of them is that twitchy radio operator – the one who blew the Listening Post.”

Quigley. The spy and saboteur.

“Take half the squad,” Kiljoy said to her sergeant, “Run them down and kill them all. If Quigley’s on his way to the border, it’s because he sent the boy there and means to meet him.”

The sergeant saluted, followed the scout in pursuit of the outlaw riders, eight of the troopers falling in behind them.

Lieutenant Kiljoy shouted at the remaining troopers. “You’re with me,” she ordered, “Don’t fuck this up. The girl and boy are to be taken alive, both of them.”

She snapped the reins, squinted into the wind, grinned all the way to the settlement. She meant to capture the Gyro King’s prizes, deliver them both to Gearhead City, rise up the chain of command, leaving Nevison outranked and sent back to the wastes.

8

One of Monk’s hunters saw them first – the band of soldiers closing ranks behind them, a second group veering off the road, pounding over open desert for the settlement. He rode to the head of the party, pointed ears wagging nervously, hollering against the wind to warn his chief.

“Soldiers on our asses,” he shouted, “They’re nearly upon us. More of ‘em heading for Truck Stop, over there north of the highway.”

Monk looked over his shoulder, Quigley tugged his shock rifle from its sheath, Hancock dropped to the rear of the pack, fired several rounds from a pistol. The troops spread out on their horses but did not slow their advance. A red bolt whizzed past Dalton’s ear, another felled one of the hunters, a third blew a roadside boulder into airborne dust and stone. Hancock swung his horse back to the fore of the group.

“We can’t fight them in the open on horseback,” he shouted, “There are too many of them.”

“There,” Monk hollered, steering his pony toward the burned out shell of an ancient transport, so long abandoned in the desert that it had knelt into the earth, become a part of the road. The Gypsy bringing up their rear got off a round of scattered bolts that dropped one soldier from his saddle and bought them just enough distance to reach the ruined vehicle.

Dalton yanked the unusual three-barreled rifle from its rigging, scattered the horses as the men dismounted – better to round them up after the fight than lose them to the enemy’s guns - watched his crew rush inside the lengthy wagon, crept along one side to peek around the rear. He leaned against the faded machine – peeling letters beneath broken windows branded it a Greyhound – leaned into the open, shock rifle pressed against his soldier, shot the first oncoming trooper through his chest with a bolt that nearly sliced the man in two.

Quigley and the Gypsies had spread out through the length of the transport, poked the barrels of their weapons through broken windows or rusted breaches on either side of the hull, fired round after round – ballistic ammunition and alien bolts – that caught the circling troopers in the open, dropped three of them dead, sent the remaining six fleeing to the shelter of two smaller burned out hulks.

Hancock entered the vehicle, took up position at a window beside Monk, saw the soldiers huddled behind ruined automobiles, returning fire. Their bolts struck the buses hull, blasted through to the carriage, one exploded dangerously close to Quigley’s head, melted metal and glass.

“This could be a long standoff,” the radio operator shouted, “They’re dug in now, and so are we. All bad, my friends.”

Monk nodded, fired a volley of bolts at the nearest troopers. “The other soldiers,” he said, “The ones we saw pounding east – why would the squad split off like that when they had us outgunned four-to-one?”

Hancock stared at the clan chief, glanced at Quigley. “They’re in a rush to get to Truck Stop. They know something we don’t.”

Quigley agreed. “Huck and Fawn, yes, yes. They must be at the settlement.”

“Aye,” Hancock said, “They are. I feel it in my gut, Quigley.”

The station master frowned. “We’re deadlocked,” he said, “This could be a long siege, yes, yes.”

Hancock winked. “That’s bullshit, yes, yes.”

He pumped the shock rifle three times, the barrels rotated once, the sound of the charger cycling up louder than any Quigley had heard before. He stared at the glowing tips of the triple barrels, was reminded of Huck Fagen’s three-eyed dog.

Dalton stepped up on the armrest of a rotting, torn seat, stuck his torso through a blown-out window, leveled the enormous rifle at the nearest barricaded soldiers. He squeezed the trigger once and all three barrels exploded, lobbing wide yellow bolts that engulfed the ancient car, and the soldiers it shielded, in a massive ball of flame and billowing smoke. The enemies wandering horses, accustomed to gunfire and small arms explosions, scattered and fled at the sound of the blast.

Hancock ducked back into the bus, pumped the rifle three times.

“Man alive,” Monk said, “What kind of god blasted rifle is that?”

Hancock crossed the carriage, peered out a smoldering hole in the opposite hull. “This here’s the real deal, boys,” he said, “It’s not a modification. This is an original, salvaged from the bony arms of some long-dead spaceman.”

The fight had gone suddenly silent in the aftermath of the explosion, the remaining soldiers shocked by the blast, but they recovered and returned desperate fire. A bolt burst through the hull, struck Monk on his left shoulder, dropped him to his knees.

“I’m alright, I’m alright,” he hollered, “Blow the bastards straight to hell already.”

Dalton Hancock shoved the gun through the jagged breach, squeezed the trigger once more, and another great explosion disintegrated the last of the Kingdom troopers.

Quigley knotted a length of cloth, torn from his shirt, around Monk’s wounded arm. The sleeve of his robe was bloody, his eyes were pained and drawn thin, but he stood and led his companions out of the transport.

“Hurry,” he hollered, “Round up the horses. We’ve got to get to the settlement.”

9

Gunshots peeled across the flatlands, echoed off the crumbling walls of the ancient truck stop, carried over the dusty street where Huck’s party stood preparing to depart. Fawn was already in the saddle, Huck was loading Cyclops into the sling, Reeva was strapping down the last of her gear.

“Soldiers,” she said, “We’ve got to hurry now.”

She put one boot in a stirrup, but before she could pull herself onto the horse, while Huck was still working his dog into its hammock, mounted soldiers rounded the structure at either end, the sound of their approach muffled by the persistent thunder of nearby guns. The troopers closed in quickly, surrounded the companions, shock rifles leveled at their heads. A woman with a mechanical eye, wearing one gold bar on her collar, rode to the fore, stared down from the saddle, pointed her weapon at Reeva.

“Get your hands up, bitch,” the officer said, “All three of you, put your fucking hands in the air.”

Reeva stretched her arms above her head, showed her empty hands. Huck and Fawn followed suit.

“You children have been hard to find,’ she said, glancing from Fawn to Huck, “And here you are, together. Did you really think you might make it all the way east, with the whole of the Gyro King’s army hunting after you?”

She laughed, climbed down from the horse, her rifle still trained upon Reeva.

“You didn’t even make it out of the west,” she said, “You’ll see the Kingdom, alright, but not as tourists sneaking through. You’ll see it up close, likely meet the King himself.”

She nodded at Huck.

“You’ll meet him, at least,” she said, “He’ll be very interested in you – not just for the power core you’re smuggling. Where is it, by the way? I’ll be taking that burden from you now.”

A deafening explosion sounded in the distance, roared over the plain, startled the horses and soldiers. Her hands still above her head, Reeva threw open her duster, revealed another pair of arms, drew her pistols quick as a wink. Huck stared in shocked disbelief, too stunned to reach for his rifle.

She’s a mutant. She’s got four arms.

Reeva shot the officer in the head, shattered the glowing red lens, spun and shot another soldier through his chest, knocking him out of the saddle. She was fast with her weapons, drew a second pair of pistols from a shoulder-rigging with her two free hands, fired all four guns as she spun on her heels, killing three more of the troopers.

Huck recovered his senses, took up the rifle Monk had traded him, missed a soldier but shot his horse, which fell to the ground, pinning its rider beneath its dead weight.

Four trooper remained, dismounted now and hidden behind shacks and flapping tents, firing upon the companions. Bolts exploding all around them, Reeva crouched behind a rusted barrel, Huck ducked into a shaded doorway, Fawn sat tall and still atop her horse. She lifted her chin, closed her eyes and began to sing, long notes that sounded like darkness might sound if death could speak. One by one, the Kingdom soldiers screamed, fled their barricades, fell dead on the street. A thin flow of blood, fine as a thread, ran from Fawn's nose, trickled over her lips; she wiped it away with the hem of her calico blouse.

I could see myself returning to the world of this story once it's finished. There's plenty of opportunity for standalone short stories that have nothing to do with Huck's journey.

If Huck were to come across the skeletal remains of one of the aliens somewhere along the road and if that skeleton had wings, I will have created a connected universe and given readers of TBWGitD a nice little nod.

I couldn't do that, though. Could I?

After TBWGitD, I was looking forward to writing something much shorter, but this story is already building on itself and wants to stretch out.

I'm the guy who thought, yeah, I'll write a story about a kid on a 3500 mile trek through a post-apocalyptic America, hunted by an army, confronted along the way with mutant animals and dangerous people - that ought to be a nice short one.

I thought this chapter would bring us to the end of Part 1 - Oblivion, but the story tells itself and it's going to take one more chapter to get us across the border. I've made a few revisions - the Chiriaco settlement and valley are now called White Hills. I'll go back and edit the previous chapter as it's posted here.

Chapter Seven

The White Hills

1

“Take her with me? I can’t take her with me all the way to the east. The odds of me making it alone are slim enough, and you want me to drag her along?”

The rest of the clan had gone, departed down dim tunnels for beds or chores, and the fire burned low. Only Maggie and Monk remained, seated on either side of Huck, a conspiracy of persuasion, insistent that he take the girl, Fawn, as his companion on the East-West Road.

“You won’t be dragging her along,” Maggie said, “She’ll do as well as you on the road, if not better. My girl’s no fragile creature, no matter the softness of her beauty.”

Monk nodded, put a hand on Huck’s shoulder.

“She has abilities beyond your imagining, settler,” he said, “You said yourself, you should be dead, but here you are without a single bump or bruise.”

“That’s right,” Maggie said, “You already know what she can do.”

Huck threw up his hands, frustrated, shook his head.

“But I don’t know,” he said, “You said she healed me with her song. I don’t understand that at all. How is it possible? What kind of mutie is she?”

Maggie sighed, Monk stiffened, removed his hand from the boy’s shoulder.

“That’s an ugly word,” Maggie said, “We don’t use it here.”

Huck’s cheeks warmed with embarrassment.

“I don’t mean anything by it,” he said, “It’s just a word folks have always used. What am I supposed to call them?”

Monk stared into the boy’s earnest eyes. The man’s features were simian, but his expression purely human.

“People,” the clan chief said, “You call us people.”

Huck looked from Monk to Maggie, his expression a comical blend of realization and confusion.

“Okay, you’re right,” he said, “What kind of person is she? What kind of a girl is Fawn?”

Maggie shrugged, her mouth a gentle mother’s smile. “Fawn is a minstrel – at least, that’s what we’ve always called her, because her magic is in her song.”

Huck said nothing, only stared across the fading fire at Maggie Hancock.

“You came through White Hills Settlement,” she said, “Tell me what you saw there.”

Huck recalled the empty village, the wind through the broken windows, the bodies of men, woman and children littering the streets like so much human debris. He thought of how he had rushed to fill his water jugs and escape the town’s lonesome silence, for beneath it, he imagined the whispers of rising ghosts.

“Dead people,” he nearly whispered, “Everyone was dead, everywhere I looked.”

Maggie nodded. “Yes,” she said softly, “Killed by what?”

Huck blinked, remembering bloody foreheads and open chests.

“Soldiers,” he said, “All of them were killed by soldiers - shot with shock rifles. None of them looked like they had the Dragon Cough when they died.”

“None of them were infected,” Maggie said, “But three weeks ago, all of them had the virus.”

2

The sickness came to White Hills the same way it arrived at every other settlement throughout the wastes – uninvited, on the breath of someone passing through, an invisible tourist as sneaky as a thief. In this case, death rode in with a trader from the north, hawking meat and furs, hacking all over his customers. The peddler never left town. He died in his tent his first night in White Hills, and within three days, most of the settlers were coughing and running a fever. By the end of that week, many had taken to their beds and two people had died.

The White Hills settlers had known about Fawn’s unusual abilities for as long as the Hancock family had been in the encampment. They had known her to heal a sick child with her song, cause a field of wildflowers to bloom with a simple melody, even bring a brief burst of rain with a thunderous shout. It was Fawn who nourished the community gardens with her melodies, and when her neighbors became infected with the deathly virus, she went from shack to shack and saved them all. At the bedsides of the dying, she sat and crooned softly, her beautiful voice a poultice, her magical song a miracle cure.

For years, no one outside of the settlement, was aware of Fawn Hancock, the girl who sang spells and incantations, songs no one understood, but everybody felt. The people of White Hills and the local gypsy clan kept the girl’s magic a secret, protected her from those who might seek to twist her gift into power. There were outsiders in town, though, when the outbreak occurred, stranded on the road by the fever, too ill to travel on. When they were healed and went about their way, they told everyone they met about a girl in the eastern wastes, a mutie with split hooves like a doe, and a voice that worked miracles and wonders.

The following week a patrol rode into town, eight soldiers of the King’s Advance, asking questions and knocking on doors, forcing every young woman in town to show their bare feet. Maggie Hancock hid Fawn in a closet, but the troopers came inside, found her, and dragged her out. In the street, as the soldiers took her to their horses, attempted to shackle her wrists, Fawn threw back her head and sang. Like every song she sang, it was a language all her own, a dark and slithering tune from the bottom of her range. The soldiers covered their ears, but the song was in their minds, and three of them fell to the ground and died within moments. The other five rushed to grab her, to stifle her voice, and she sang an octave lower, one long deathly note. All five soldiers were thrown across the road, as if tossed by some great wind, and never rose again from where they fell.

Maggie took her daughter and fled, miles west to the jagged hills where the White Hills Clan of Gypsies made their seasonal encampment in a high, hidden cave. They were welcomed in by Monk and the clan, for Fawn was a mutant, and the Dune Gypsies in the White Hills Valley were not as hostile toward settlers as their cousins to the west. That far into the wastes, both settlers and Gypsies had come to understand that survival was chancy enough without engaging in some ancient, useless feud. The Dragon Cough did not discriminate between settler or gypsy and Fawn sang healing to Monk’s people as she had her own.

A week after that, more soldiers arrived in White Hills - a full detachment rode into town, their rifles charged and cycled up to fire. When the first ten settlers questioned refused to tell them where the singing girl had gone, the soldiers shot every single person in town, from the oldest toothless hag to the youngest toothless babe.

3

By the time he sent word back through the column to halt the advance for the night, Nevison had killed seven men; four who collapsed from exhaustion, three who defied his orders and refused to march another step. He was surprised after killing the first derelict protester, that he had to shoot six more, but the expedition had picked up speed after that and covered much ground.

Along the route, he had dispatched four squadrons with orders to spread out and comb the wastes, from the border to the western hills, turn out every settler’s shack and hermit’s hole in search of the singing girl. He had reduced his force to just over a hundred troopers would divide the remaining force once more the next day, send twenty fast riders after the boy, turn the rest of the regiment northeast. He would lead them over the Highlands Pass, back to the Kingdom, where he would make his report to the command in person.

On the northern edge of the White Hills region, a day’s ride from the singing girl’s home settlement, campfires flickered in the darkness, exhausted troopers fell asleep quickly despite the rocky ground they lay upon, sleepy guards stood watch on the camp’s perimeter. In an uncharacteristic display of good-hearted generosity, the Ranger Captain had cut the standard watch period from six hours to three, so none of the troopers would go without sleep.

He would sleep for two or three hours himself, soundly with several shots of whiskey in his belly, once he sent Kiljoy back to her tent, or ordered her into his. She was an outstanding trooper, as capable as any man in the King’s Advance, more ruthless and ambitious than most, and a worthy successor to the recently departed Bolger. She was the only one of his officers Nevison trusted to lead the pursuit of the boy from Orbit Falls.

Beneath her combat fatigues, Kiljoy was curvaceous and smooth, her skin as soft as her heart was hard, her beauty so striking that it was not diminished at all by her mechanical augmentation – an amber lens, secured in a gunmetal grey frame, covered the empty socket where her right eye had once been. Two thin copper tubes connected the hardware to twin sockets surgically implanted in her temple. Some of the troopers called her Red-Eye and she didn’t mind the nickname, rather liked it, in fact.

Nevison passed her the flask, purposely brushed his hand against hers, lit a cigarette. Kiljoy tilted the canister back, had a long draw of whiskey, passed it back to the Ranger Captain with a sly smile. She favored him with a wink, not with her good eye, but with a horizontal dimming of the glowing alien lens.

The Ranger Captain stood, capped the flask. “I suggest we both retire to our bedrolls,” he said, “We ride at dawn – you to the Shifting Sands, me to Gearhead City.”

Kiljoy stood, reached out and cupped the bulge in her commander’s trousers. “Yes, Ranger Captain,” she said, the red lens on her face glowing brightly, “It’s a march itself back to my tent across the encampment.”

Nevison grinned, stomped out his cigarette, pulled back the flap of his tent. “Well, then…mine is right here and large enough for two.”

Kiljoy followed him to his bedroll, made sure of the promotion she knew she had already earned. She had slept with the Ranger Captain before, knew it would be a brief liaison, that he would fall asleep moments after he finished.

4

Quigley and Hancock rode through the night, unwilling to surrender the dwindling lead they had on the King’s Advance. Looking north from a low clump of hills, where they rested the horses briefly, they had seen the distant glow of many campfires, orange pinpoints on the horizon where the enemy force was camped, only a half-day behind them now. In silent agreement, they both climbed back in the saddle and followed the East-West Road into the White Hills Valley.

Quigley bit down on the lip of his pipe, leaned slightly toward Hancock, hollered over a noisy midnight wind howling through from the south.

“How will you locate your daughter? Those soldiers will be all over the valley in another day, yes, yes they will.”

Hancock nodded, hollered back.

“When we get to the settlement,” he said, “Maggie won’t have taken Fawn into hiding without leaving some sort of message, some kind of sign for me to find.”

“How far?” Quigley shouted, “How long until we get to White Hills?”

Hancock stared straight ahead, swayed in the saddle. “We’ll get there by midday. I expect our paths will part after that.”

Quigley wondered about that. He had the strangest notion that he and the former sheriff would not be parting company so soon. He kept the thought to himself, nudged his horse, smoked his pipe. Beside him, Hancock sang – an old song well-suited to his rich tenor.

5

The day broke cool over the White Hills Valley and a thick bank of fog shrouded the craggy peaks that hid the Gypsy clan’s cavernous encampment. Huck stood with Maggie Hancock on a narrow ledge, two ponies stomping and chuffing, saddled and loaded with gear. Monk tightened one last strap around one of the pony’s shoulders, drew Huck’s shock rifle from its scabbard, replaced it with his own ballistic weapon, turned to the boy.

“I’m keeping the rifle,” the clan chief said, “You can’t take it with you. Possession by a civilian carries a death sentence in the Midland Kingdom.”

Huck shrugged, but his tone was sharp. “I’m pretty sure I already carry a death sentence in the Kingdom,” he said, “Anything else you want? You’ve already taken my motorcycle, now you’ve stolen my rifle.”

Monk admired the weapon’s digital scope, its machine-tooled barrel, the alien charging coil. He shook his head. “I’ve stolen nothing,” he said, “We’ve bartered.”

He waved a hand toward the wrecked motorcycle, its front forks twisted hard to the left, a fracture in the engine’s casing oozing dark, smudgy oil.

“The vehicle is of no use to you,” he said, “And the rifle will get you arrested, then quickly executed. I’ve given you two good ponies and a weapon that won’t arouse suspicion across the border.”

Huck sighed, nodded.

“You’ve also burdened me with a girl whose life I’ll be responsible for,” he said, “You think that’s a fair exchange, Monk? I’ll almost surely get us both killed before we reach the Republic.”

Maggie shook her head, took Huck by the hand, walked him to the edge of the shelf, looked east across the valley through the lifting, thinning fog.

“You will fulfill your quest,” she said gently, “You will see the Eastern Republic, you and my daughter both.”

Huck looked into her eyes, saw the sadness of her daughter’s departure and the certainty that the girl would arrive safely on the far side of the continent.

“How can you be so sure?” he said, “Maggie, how can you know that? I’m just a boy – your daughter and me, we’re only kids.”

Maggie held his gaze, took both his hands in hers “I’ve seen it,’ she said, “Not your journey, but its end. My mutation may not be as obvious as my daughter’s, my abilities far less profound, but I’m a variant, too.”

Huck stared at her, his eyes curious ovals.

“I’m somewhat of a seer,” she said, “Not a powerful one, and what little of the future I see comes to me randomly, brief slivers of visions. I suppose that’s part of where Fawn’s mutation comes from, my weak psychic flare and her father’s voice. Oh, that man can sing.”

“I’ve never heard of a mutation like that before,” Huck said, “The kind that enhances the mind or gives muties – I mean people – special abilities. It doesn’t make sense.”

Maggie shrugged, smiled. “Do any of the mutations make sense, Huck? Some are more easily explained – the extra limbs, distorted human characteristics – but what of the animalistic abnormalities? How do you explain a man with the face of an ape, or my daughter’s hooves?”

Huck shook his head, glanced at Monk.

“I can’t explain it,” he said, “Even science hasn’t explained it.”

Maggie laughed, an unexpected sound that both startled Huck and put him at ease.

“Science never will explain it,” Maggie said, “Because it’s not biology, child – it’s magic. It’s the revival of nature and nature is magical. All of this is magic, all of this is meant to be.”

“You saw that in one of your slivers of visions, too?” Huck sighed.

“I don't need a vision to see the truth, Huck,” she said, “Do you think it was chance, some rare coincidence, that the alien satellite fell from orbit at a place called Orbit Falls? Do you think it random selection that the power core came into the hands of the only settler there who’s immune to the virus, and that your path led you here to these caves?”

Huck did not answer, only looked at her, a bewildered frown creased his lips.

“All of this is magic,” Maggie said once more, “The mutations, the fallen satellite, the journey that awaits you and Fawn. Everything is as it should be, and all will be as it must.”

“I wish I believed what you believe,” Huck said, “But I don’t.”

“You saw the fields at White Hills?” Maggie said, “The vegetables? The grain?”

Huck nodded.

“They grow because of Fawn,” Maggie said, “She sang life from the ground, Huck. We all sowed the seeds, but Fawn’s song brought the rain and the impossible sprouts of green.”

Huck turned at the sound of small hooves on loose earth, saw Fawn approaching the ponies, the early morning sunlight captured by her golden hair. Cyclops trailed behind her, wagging his tail.

“Magic…” Huck said softly.

Maggie Hancock embraced her daughter, crying against the girl’s shoulder, held her tight as if she weren’t about to send her away forever. Huck stood awkwardly to one side, an intruder at the farewell, climbed into the saddle, the satellite core, tucked safely in its pouch, a light weight against his chest, a heavier burden on his heart.

Monk approached Huck’s horse, gazed up at the boy, extended a hand. The mutant chief had saved his life, taken him into his camp, given him a strong pony to ride. He reached down and clasped Monk’s hand with his own, shook it firmly.

"I thought you Gypsies didn't ride," he said, patting the horse's flank.

The clan chief grinned. "We do when we can manage to steal a settler's horse."

Huck turned in the saddle, called out to Fawn.

“You ready to ride?” he said, “Let’s get started before I change my mind about the whole godblasted trip.”

Fawn did not answer. She put one hoof into a stirrup, pulled herself gracefully onto the horse’s back, nodded.

“She doesn’t speak,” Maggie said, “She only sings.”

Huck shrugged, slapped the reins lightly and nudged the pony onto the trailhead, called for Cyclops to follow.

Well, at least she’ll be quiet, then.

Maggie watched them descend the trail, wiped tears from her cheeks, stood at the edge of the shelf until the ponies were well on their way out of sight on the East-West Road. She glanced at Monk, saw that he had been crying, too.

“There’s much we didn’t tell the boy,” the clan chief said, “About Fawn, about her importance.”

Maggie sighed. “He doesn’t even understand his own importance, aside from the prize he carries under his shirt. I pray he gets through the Kingdom without learning the truth – that heartache would almost certainly doom his quest.”

Monk nodded, followed Maggie Hancock into the sheltering cool of the cave.

I named Huck before I found out that his mother read to him from a ruined copy of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I named him for the dog from Southern Highway Gospel Companion, the one I caused to die, and I'm starting to realize that Cyclops is my subconscious trying to right (write) a wrong. I suppose Cyclops will either make it to the end of the journey and I'll have redeemed myself through this boy or the dog will be killed on the quest and I'll never live it down with myself.

I saw a tweet from a writer today that said "The dog always lives. First rule of writing dogs."

I thought, "not always, though."

Covers are one aspect I play around with right up until publication, but I'm leaning toward something more folklore than sci-fi. I like the stark silhouette artwork of TBWGitD and the new SHGC cover.

Chapter Six

Fawn

1

Huck’s second day on the East-West Road unfolded much like the day before it, with the early sun in his eyes, the arid wind on his face, Huck beside him in the sidecar, smiling the way only a dog in a breeze can smile. A week ago, he would have said a trip across Oblivion, deep into the blasted country, would be the hardest trek a man could make, but now, he was almost enjoying the desert, dreading what lay beyond it in the Midland Kingdom. He would be a stranger there, possibly a known fugitive, and he was unfamiliar with the customs of the people who lived there – a people his had been at war with all his life. They were the victors of that war, he realized, the subjects of the Gyro King, and he was one of the defeated, a refugee at best, a spying trespasser at worst.

With the sun sitting straight up at noon, he came upon a wide chasm in the road, a long, twisting ravine carved out by some long-ago flood or an atomic blast, and nearly rode the bike headlong over its edge. He realized at the last moment that the shimmery expanse on the road ahead was not a mirage but a gorge, braked hard and brought the bike to a dusty, skidding stop on the brink of disaster. He rolled the motorcycle backward, away from the edge, climbed off and stared down into the ravine. Chunks of crumbled asphalt were scattered like tombstones on the chasm floor, broken skeletons and busted up automobiles littered the expanse, the length of which snaked in either direction, beyond the limits of his vision.

“We’ve got to go around, Cy. I don’t know how far out of the way we’ve got to go, but we can’t get across, not without leaving the bike behind.”

Cyclops stared, and panted, obviously in full agreement with his master.

Huck glanced northward, then southward, saw nothing to influence his decision on which way he would go, chose to ride south because it would keep the most distance between him and the King’s Advance. He wondered how far behind him the troopers were, knew he had to reach Truck Stop Settlement and the border before they caught up to him. He climbed back on the bike, settled into the saddle, rode south over open desert for the end of the ravine, however far ahead that might be.

Ten miles south of the road, the chasm began to thin, and ten miles further still, it closed completely. Huck called a break, fed and watered his dog, rested ten minutes in the cobweb shade of a Joshua tree, then climbed back on the bike and headed north on the opposing side of the chasm, veering wide across the desert to make up a few lost miles on his way back to the East-West Road.

Coming over the crest of a hill, the road a thin strip in the distance, Huck came upon a settlement – a fairly large one. It looked like any other Oblivion community – crooked rows of crooked shacks, tarpaulin tents swaying in the breeze, old vehicles and scrap metal fashioned into homes. He saw no movement on the shabby dirt streets, heard no voices rising from the valley floor, assumed the settlers – most of them, at least – had been killed by the Dragon Cough.

Another dead town…maybe.

He peered through his binoculars, studied the windows of the shacks and the alleys between the tents, saw no living beings, only dead bodies strewn throughout the encampment. He knew from watching folks at home die, that the virus put its victims in their beds before it sent them to their graves, but here many of them had died on the street.

A settlement, dead or not, would have water, either a well or a small hydro station, and water was all he needed from this particular waypoint. Quigley had said he would reach the Shifting Sands by the end of the third day. That left more than a full day of road in front of him, and he was low on water. He powered the motorcycle forward, down the gentle slope of the hill, stopped on the village’s edge, where a leaning wooden sign marked it as White Hills Settlement, and hollered out.

“Hello?” he shouted, “Is there anybody here? Is there anyone here at all?”

He listened, got no answer, called out and listened once more. The only sound was the wind through the broken windows and flapping tents. He steered the bike through the narrow tracks, weaved around corpses, came to the center of town where he knew he would find the water source.

The square was littered with bodies, none of them in an advanced state of decomposition, and none of them displaying the blackened eyes and bleeding mouths that were telltale signs of the virus. These people had died recently, within the last week, and they had been killed by guns – shock rifles by the look of the wounds.

I know the soldiers have been cleansing infected settlements, but why would they kill all these people if they weren’t sick -and why weren’t they sick?

Huck became uneasy, was suddenly in a hurry to get away from the ghostly town. If soldiers had been there a week ago, they might still be somewhere near. He filled the jugs from the settlement pump and climbed aboard the motorcycle. The rumble of it’s engine seemed an offense in the dead, still village and he rolled the throttle open, sped away for the East-West Road.

He glanced over his shoulder, imagining that the noise he had brought to town had awakened the dead settlers, that they were lumbering after him, shuffling over stony ground on clumsy feet.

Riding out of the settlement, he passed a field of green vegetation, neat rows of sprouting vegetables flourishing in the arid desert soil. He had seen small gardens in Orbit Falls, hardscrabble pepper plants and failing tomatoes, but nothing like the acre of growth on the edge of the White Hills settlement.

No one here had the virus, and none of them were starving, either

2

From a jagged hill above the highway, Quigley watched the rider dismount, hunker down, examine the road, then stand and raise a spyglass toward the southern hills. The man, a stranger to Morton Quigley, did not wear the uniform of the King’s Advance, but he moved like a trained soldier, and was heavily armed. He wore two ballistic sidearms, studded holsters slung low on either hip, a bandolier across his chest held hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a shock rifle hung from his right shoulder. Strapped to his horse – a big mutant mare with antlers – was a second shock rifle of a kind Quigley had not seen before, longer than most, with three thick barrels. The stranger wore a western-style hat, pulled down low to shade his eyes from the mid-day sun, and a bio-mask hung around his neck.

Quigley could not be certain at that distance what it was that drew the man’s attention to the surface of the road, but he guessed it had been the twin imprints left by the motorcycle – the same tracks he had been following along the East-West Road since the previous night.

A mercenary from the Kingdom, yes, yes, or some local bounty hunter.

The stranger shoved one dusty boot in a stirrup, swung gracefully onto the tall mare’s back, settled into the saddle. From within his coat, he produced a pouch, loaded a long pipe, stoked the bowl. He prodded the horse forward, smoking as he rode east. Quigley could hear – just barely – a snatch of song. The stranger was singing.

Quigley remained on the ridge, hidden between two jagged outcroppings, watched the rider until he was nearly out of sight, then led his mount down a narrow path to the road. He pulled himself into the saddle, had a look ahead through binoculars, set out to follow the stranger, remaining far enough behind that he expected to go unnoticed.

3

A tumbleweed – that’s what Huck thought it was at first glance, the dark shape moving rapidly across the desert floor. The wind was light, though, nowhere near powerful enough to push a dead clump of sagebrush along so hard and fast. Whatever was coming toward him was a living creature, closing the distance between them at an alarming pace. He lifted his binoculars to his eyes, realized what he was looking at, saw a second one behind the first, leaned low across the motorcycle and opened the throttle.

Jackrabids!

He had never seen one of the feral mutant lupines – they lived only in the easternmost regions of the wastes – but he had heard enough tales from his father, and from travelers passing through Orbit Falls, to know they were deadly. They were not carnivorous, but they carried a disease, an enhanced strain of rabies that made them raging berserkers, prone to attack anything that moved in the vicinity they patrolled near their warrens. They were unnaturally large, some as big as a small pony, and extremely fast, propelled by muscular, overdeveloped hind legs and wolfish rage. They were known to attack not only a single rider, but sometimes entire caravans, shredding the flesh of their prey with long incisors, pounding them beneath their enormous back feet. Few survived an assault from a jackrabid and those who did died within a few weeks, strapped down and raging on their deathbeds, infected with the mutant strain of rabies.

Cyclops barked furiously at the nearing beasts, Huck held the throttle open as wide as he dared on rough terrain, and still the jackrabids closed on the speeding bike. The larger one veered away from its companion, running hard to cut across the motorcycle’s path, and the smaller one – easily as large as Cyclops – took up chase directly behind the bike.

Huck considered stopping the Harley-Davidson, attempting to fend the creatures off with the rifle, but changed his mind when he realized just how close the rabbits were. By the time he unshouldered the shock rifle and took aim, they would be upon him. He twisted the throttle, the motorcycle rattled under the strain of such extreme speed, and the larger rabbit leaped from the ground - its forepaws stretched out before it, its mouth a snarling mass of long, sharp teeth - and came down hard on Huck, knocking him from the motorcycle, sending the machine tilting and tumbling across the road, where it came to rest on its side, Cyclops thrown from the sidecar.

Huck heard Cyclops barking, caught a glimpse of the dog fleeing across the desert, the smaller rabbit giving chase, kicking up dust and stone in its wake. He fumbled at his belt, tried to pull his knife from its sheath, but the jackrabid was on him, gnashing at his flesh, thumping him with its hind legs.

So this is how I die. I hope Cy gets away.

He wrapped his arms around his head, protecting his skull the best he could from the rabbit’s deathly stomps, and just before he lost consciousness, he heard a series of violent pops that sounded like gunfire, but must have been his bones breaking. He thought of the power cell, still nestled in the crashed motorcycle, had a vague awareness that he was being dragged across the stony ground, slipped into silent darkness with the knowledge that his quest had failed.

4

Night fell dark and moonless over the wastes. The stranger’s campfire was easily spotted, even from a distance, it’s flickering orange glow illuminating a wide circle of desert floor. Quigley tethered his horse to a scrub tree, crept stealthily toward the flames, the stranger’s form a resting shadow at the edge of the fire. The horned mare, freed of its saddle and tack, was tethered to a twisted tree, chomping on a patch of brown desert grass.

Mindful of how far the slightest sound carried over the open wastes, Quigley pumped his shock rifle, cycling up the charger some distance from the encampment. He walked slowly, deliberately, hunched over to keep himself as low to the earth as possible. He drew near enough to the camp to realize his mistake, heard a voice, and a rifle charging close behind him.

“Don’t turn around just yet,” the stranger said, “You’ll want to drop that long gun, friend.”

The shadowy form at the fire was not a man, but a piled clump of saddle and bedroll, meant to fool him in the dark, and it worked. The man had called him a friend, but Quigley recognized a threat woven into the word, let the rifle tumble from his grasp, raised his hands above his head. The breeze blew cool over the back of his neck, the stars sparkled and shined, the campfire’s smoke carried a sweet, tangy scent.

As good a night as any to die, yes, yes.

“You’ve got the drop on me, yes, you do” he said, “Would you shoot me in the back or allow me to look my death in its face, the way a man should?”

He heard the stranger sigh, the soft crunch of the man shifting his weight from one boot to the other.

“Go on and turn around then, Quigley.”

The man knew his name, but that did not necessarily mean he was not a foe. Quigley turned, saw the stranger’s face clearly, did not recognize him at close range any more than he had earlier, from a distance.

“Do I know you?” he said, lowering his hands slowly to shoulder height.

The stranger shook his head.

“Not likely,” he said, “But I know you. You’re the radio operator, the master of the Listening Post.”

He frowned, spit on the dirt, shook his head.

“Seems your station’s been blown clear to hell,” he said, “It was still burning when I passed that way last night.”

Quigley nodded. “Indeed,” he said, “I blew it up myself, actually.”

The stranger grinned. “Yes, I thought you might have,” he said, “You might as well put your hands down – I’m not going to kill you, not unless you force me to.”

Quigley lowered his hands, stared at the stranger.

“You a bounty hunter?” he said, “You’re after the boy from Orbit Falls?”

The man lowered his rifle until its barrel pointed at the ground, shook his head.

“No, I’m not a bounty hunter,” he said, “I’m a father. I’m looking for my daughter, and my wife. Fetch your horse and come sit by the fire.”

5

Ranger Captain Nevison waved the caravan forward, shouted for the men to keep marching, smacked the reins across his horse’s neck and pounded hard for the center of the column, where a commotion had brought the rear march to a confused halt. A crowd of standing troopers parted before his horse and he ordered the men to disperse, to keep marching, as he passed. His anger blossomed red upon his face as he came upon the cause of the delay – a minor calamity at best.

A wagon, loaded heavy and high with munitions and stores, had lost a wheel, the axle lay splintered and broken beneath the wagon, and so did one of his troopers. The boy lay on his back, pinned to the earth by a corner of the wagon. His eyes searched frantically, blindly, and blood ran from his mouth, staining the collar of his combat uniform.

Another soldier, this one even younger than the boy beneath the wagon, stood against the loose wheel, staring at his suffering comrade. Nevison knew by his rank and the wear on his gloves that he was the driver.

“Trooper!” Nevison shouted, “What in hell are you gaping at?”

The soldier snapped to attention, stared up at the Captain, raised a perfect salute – the palm of his hand pressed to his forehead, all five fingers extended like a crown.

“Nothing, Ranger Captain,” the boy shouted, “I didn’t know what to do, Sir. It would take ten men to lift that wagon, Sir.”

Nevison glanced at the marching soldiers filing past, a few of them staring straight ahead, most of them stealing glances at the crushed trooper.

“Why, there are hundreds of men marching right along with you,” Nevison said, “Are you some kind of simpleton, Private?”

The kid shook his head. “No, Sir,” he said, “It’s just…well, he’s going to die anyway, and taking the pressure off him might make it more painful than it has to be.”

Nevison nodded, drew his sidearm, shot the dying trooper in the head, sneered at the driver.

“Can you repair the wagon?”

The Private swallowed audibly, trembled under his commander’s gaze. “No, Ranger Captain,” he said, “Not in the field. The wagon’s finished, Sir.”

Nevison turned in the saddle, stared at the team of horses tethered to either side of the wagon’s yolk, shot all four of them dead. Again, he stared at the young soldier.

“I suggest you fall in and march,” he said, “Before I put a bullet in that empty head of yours.”

The soldier fell in and marched, but not before Nevison noticed a dark wet stain down the front of the boy’s fatigues. The Ranger Captain spurred his horse back to the head of the expedition. He would call no rest that night, march his troops straight through the coming day, kill any man who fell out or protested.

6

The stranger brewed chicory coffee, poured it into the only cup he carried, passed it back and forth between Quigley and himself. There was meat from a rattlesnake he had killed and skinned earlier that day, thick chunks that sizzled in an iron skillet over the fire’s glowing coals. His name was Dalton Hancock, once a scout in the Federation Service, a local sheriff after that, enforcing the law in one of the sprawling communities outside Los Angeles until the quake made him a refugee, like it had so many others, and he led his family into the wasteland. They settled in a growing encampment called White Hills, a day’s ride south of where he and Quigley sat sharing coffee, where he had gone about the business of survival until the invasion of the King’s Advance caused him to take up arms once more, leaving his wife and daughter behind to join the fight in the northern Badlands.

“We intercepted an enemy courier, carrying a communication about a girl from the wastes,” he said, “A girl with uncommon abilities, wanted by the King’s Advance. I knew it was my daughter the troopers were after, and I left the fight – we were losing anyway – and rode south.”

Quigley nodded, took a final swallow of coffee, passed it back to Hancock to finish off.

“Yes, yes, the girl,” he said, “There was much talk of her among the invaders, yes, and great frustration that she had seemingly vanished into the desert.”

He glanced toward the shadowy hills, where a coyote had set to howling at the moonless sky.

“She’s a high priority target,” Quigley said, “The Gyro King’s only priority in the desert, until that satellite crashed near Orbit Falls.”

Hancock downed the coffee, stowed the empty cup in a satchel, took a chunk of seared snake from the pan, popped the steaming meat into his mouth. He nodded at Quigley and the radio operator took a hunk of snake for himself. It was chewy, but hot and savory, the first food he had eaten since fleeing the Listening Post.

“The power cell,” Hancock said, “This boy from Orbit Falls, he’s got it then?”

“Yes, yes,” Quigley said, nodding, chewing, “He’s eastbound for the Republic, to deliver it if he’s able.”

Quigley shook his head.

“I shouldn’t have sent him alone, but I couldn’t hide him at the Post. I remained behind to blow up the station, and the expedition right along with it, but the main force never arrived - only a single squadron.”

“At least you blew up the squadron,” Hancock said, “Forty less troopers to fight. I saw the expedition last night. They’re moving slowly, a good day’s ride behind us, I’d say.”

Quigley nodded. “I hope to catch up to the boy at the Shifting Sands,” he said, “But he’s got quite a lead on us and moving fast.”

“Those tracks on the road,” Hancock said, “They caught my eye. Some small vehicle, but not being pulled by a horse.”

“That’s right,” Quigley said, “A relic from the past, an old motorcycle I modified.”

Hancock dug his pipe and pouch from the folds of his jacket, packed the bowl and smoked.

“The soldiers,” he said, “They’re after this boy and my daughter both. There’s no way a force that size will make it across the Shifting Sands.”

Quigley agreed. “Captain Nevison – he’s the commanding officer, and a ruthless bastard – will divide his force as they ride, scatter some of the troops to continue the search for your daughter, send a small force east to Truck Stop Settlement after the boy. The main column will head for the mountains, cross into the Kingdom through the Highlands Passage.”

“Sounds about right,” Hancock said, “That’s what I’d do, at any rate.”

He stood, stretched, exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“We should ride together,” he said, “At least as far as White Hills. Two are safer than one out here in the wastes.”

Quigley nodded his agreement, took a long pull from his own pipe. “I’ll do my best to keep up with that mare of yours.”

Hancock stared at him.

“You need to sleep, or you ready to ride?”

Quigley grinned.

“Saddle up, my friend,” he said, “I’m in as much hurry to catch up to the boy as you are to find your daughter.”

7

Voices speaking in hushed tones, the smells of burning wood and something cooking, the comforting scratch of a rough blanket tucked under his chin – these convinced Huck that he had woken up alive, rather than dead in the afterworld. He kept his eyes closed, pretended he was still asleep, listened to the sounds around him, tried to determine if he were among friends or foes.

He felt no pain, none at all, but that made no sense – the jackrabid had pummeled him ferociously, opened gashes on his face and arms with its elongated teeth. He should be suffering from his wounds, no matter what medicine he may have been given, and from the lupine rabies.

No fever, no pain. I feel like I wasn’t injured at all.

He opened one eye, just enough to take a fuzzy peek. He was in a large cave or tunnel, but lying on a makeshift bed, not rough stone. The fire he had smelled burned in the center of the chamber, its smoke drifting up to the jagged ceiling and out a small hole where sunlight filtered in, an iron pot suspended over the flames. The voices came from an adjoining cavity, low murmurings too quiet to decipher, where human shadows stretched out long on the cavern’s walls. He heard gritty footsteps, and someone appeared round the connecting tunnel – a tall man with pointed ears, a face with simian features looking in on him.

Dune Gypsies! I’m captured, but I’m not retrained.

He opened his eyes completely, sat up, stared at the mutant, who turned and spoke to someone else, out of sight in the next room. He glanced around the chamber for his weapons and gear, reached for the leather pouch around his neck, found it empty.

I’ve lost the power core.

A woman with no apparent mutation appeared at the end of the tunnel, stepped toward the bedchamber, and a four-legged shadow brushed past her in the narrow passage, leaped upon the bed, covered Huck’s face with excited canine kisses and warm chuffing breath.

“Cyclops! You’re alive, old boy! You’re alive!”

The dog stretched out beside its master, wriggled with unfettered emotion, licked the boys neck and ears, turned its belly up for scratching. His tail wagged furiously, thumping against Huck’s thigh.

The woman came to his bedside, sat upon a handmade chair, stared into his eyes. Cyclops showed no fear, did not growl or bark, but hung his head over the edge of the bed to lick the woman’s hand. She wore a simple pattern dress and rugged boots, her hair fell long and grey across her shoulders, her smile was warm and genuine.

“You’re safe here, child,” she said, “So is your trinket.”

She reached into a dress pocket, brought forth a silver oval, handed it to Huck, who tucked it immediately into his mother’s medicine pouch.

“I don’t understand,’ Huck said, “I don’t understand any of this. I should be dead, or dying, but I’m not hurt at all. And this is a Gypsy encampment, but I don’t seem to be a prisoner.”

The woman stuck her hand into a wooden bucket, filled with clear water, withdrew a rag, wrung it damp, wiped it across Huck’s brow. A pair of Dune Gypsies stood at the end of the tunnel, watching curiously – the one with the ape-like face and another with a single curved horn in the center of his forehead.

“A gypsy camp, that’s right,” the woman said, “But you’re among allies, I promise.”

She stood and moved down the passage, back toward the chamber where the muties were gathered.

“Put on your clothes and come have some food,” she said, “We’ll talk some, and you’ll understand. My name is Maggie Hancock.”

8

Huck wolfed down a large bowl of rich stew, then another, with Cyclops resting at his feet and the Gypsies crowded around the pot, eyeing him, not with suspicion, but curiosity. Maggie sat beside him, working a needle and thread through an ancient pair of denim trousers, humming softly, saving her words until the boy finished his meal.

“I should be dead,” Huck sighed, setting the empty bowl aside, slurping water from a wooden cup, “Why aren’t I dead, or infected with the rabies?”

Maggie Hancock smiled, nodded at the man with the simian face.

“Monk and his hunters were tracking the rabbits that attacked you,” she said, “It’s your good fortune they were near enough, and fast enough, to kill the beasts before they pummeled you into the earth and ran down your good dog.”

Huck glanced at Monk, nodded his head, still not entirely comfortable in a cave filled with Dune Gypsies.

“I owe you my life,” he said to the mutant hunter, “I’m grateful, and I’ve no way of repaying the debt.”

Monk nodded.

“Your debt to the Gypsies is paid,” Maggie Hancock said, “I’m afraid the Gypsies have claimed that machine you were riding.”

Huck nearly protested, thought better of it when he remembered that he could be lying dead in the desert instead of sitting around a cozy fire, his belly full on coyote stew.

“But they can’t power the motorcycle,” he said, “Not without the satellite cell.”

Maggie shrugged. “They’ll strip it and use what parts they can to fashion weapons and other tools. They’ve already put the wheels on an old wooden cart.”

Huck nodded. He would have to travel on foot the rest of the way to the border, but that was a small price to pay in exchange for his life.

“Why aren’t I sick, or hurt?” Huck said, “That jackrabid beat me to hell and took more than a few bites out of my flesh. What kind of medicine mends broken bones overnight and staves off the rabies?”

Maggie shook her head.

“No medicine at all,” she said softly, “You were healed by my daughter, by her song, and that brings us to a debt you still owe.”

She glanced toward the back of the chamber, where shadow cloaked the gypsies gathered there, and a young girl, close in age to Huck, stepped forward and stood at her mother’s side. She was beautiful, the most beautiful girl Huck had ever seen, tall and lithe, with long golden hair and enchanting eyes, green as emeralds. She wore a calico blouse and loose kaki trousers that did little to hide the curve of her hips, but no shoes. She had no need for shoes, Huck saw, for her feet were like those of a deer, hooved, covered with a fine blanket of hair, as golden as the locks that curled across her shoulders.

“This is Fawn,” Maggie Hancock said, “My daughter. You owe your rescue to Monk and his hunters, but your life you owe to Fawn.”

Loving this story Rick.

Chapter Five

Get Your Kicks

1

Cyclops hopped willingly into the sidecar, settled in among Huck’s gear, sat patiently while his master and the station operator huddled one last time over Ramón’s handmade map. The dog was still weak from the venom, somewhat disoriented by the sedatives, but he scented the early-morning breeze and stared eastward. Maybe his gaze was drawn by the thin strip of pink-orange light breaking over the horizon; maybe he instinctually knew that east was the direction in which his master would lead him.

“Get across the desert, yep,” Quigley said, “Stay on the East-West track until it turns northward, then follow this road here, through the plains. Don’t stray too far north, no, no, or too far south – trouble either way.”

Huck stared at the map, studied the narrow corridor Quigley had shown him, his only viable path east through the Gyro King’s realm. A thin, crooked line traversed the map, from the central plains to the edge of the southern boiling swamp, where it curved north toward the coast. He pointed to a marker near the center of the map, just north of the long road.

“What’s this? What’s the Woven Shadows Enclave?”

Quigley shook his head. “Religious fanatics,” he said, wagging a finger at Huck, “You stay away from them the best you can. Nothing good in the enclave – all bad, all bad.”

Huck nodded. “They’re part of the Kingdom?”

Quigley waved his hand over the center of the map. “Everything in these lands here is part of the Midland Kingdom,” he said, “Yes, yes, everyone there is a subject of the Gyro King, even the ones who think they aren’t.”

Huck shrugged, wore a confused expression.

“The Enclave is large,” he said, “It’s got its own standing army, yes, and considers itself an independent religious state. The truth is the King’s Advance could crush that army in an hour, but why would he do that? The Enclave grows most of the Kingdom’s crops, is mostly loyal to the Gyro, and provides an auxiliary military force in the southern territory. In return, the King allows them to practice their crazy religion and govern their internal affairs. They serve their god, yes, sure, but they serve Gearhead City just the same.”

Huck understood. He would find no friends among the god-fearing folk of the Kingdom.

Quigley went on, pointing at a star drawn on the southern side of the highway.

“The Enclave’s position on the panhandle border helps keep rebellious types in New Texas from striking up a fight. The folks in New Texas think they’re independent, too, yes, yes, but their new oil wells feed Gearhead City and their young men serve in the Kingdom’s army. Appeasing them with the illusion of autonomy serves the King’s purposes, keeps the oil and recruits flowing north, guards against the brown folk on the gulf.”

Huck thought of Ramón Garcia, one of the brown folk. At fireside gatherings, when tales were recounted, Ramón had liked to tell an incredibly old story, about how Americans had fled south across the Mexican border in the days after the atomic bombs but were turned back north by farmers, women, and children. Ramón called it an ironic story and smiled when he told it. Huck did not know enough about pre-blast history to understand the irony, but he had always enjoyed the way Ramón told it – with a gleam in his eyes and just a twitch of a smile.

“I’ll stay on the road,” Huck said, “Or as near it as I can. I’ll avoid people.”

Quigley shook his head.

“That won’t be so easy as you expect, no, no,” he said, “Out here in the west, in Oblivion, you can travel for days without seeing another human being. That was true even before the virus. It’s not like that in the Kingdom, no, sir. You’ll be surprised how many people there are over there.”

Huck had spent his childhood near the Federation capitol, in a large town, and he had been to the city twice before it fell into the ocean. He had lived among crowds but known that there were very few populous places in the west.

“You’ll pass near settlements and cities,” Quigley said, “Yes, you’ll have to pass right through some of them. There will be folks on the road, yes, in the Kingdom’s heartland. Keep to your business, don’t talk to anyone you don’t absolutely have to, no.”

Huck folded the map, slipped it into his satchel, stood and reached to help Quigley up from the ground. The station master dipped into a pocket, pulled out a shiny badge, handed it to Huck.

“You give that to Talbot at the hydro station,” he said, “Don’t just show it to him; leave it with him. You don’t want to be caught with that in your pocket, no, no, not in the Kingdom.”

Huck stared at the badge, a rough silver disc, emblazoned with the Federation insignia and three stars. He shoved it in the satchel, clasped Quigley’s hand and shook it. Now that the time had come to mount the ancient motorcycle and ride east, to leave the west behind, he remembered that he was only a boy, that his only friend was a dog.

“Can’t you come with us, Quigley?” he said, “Don’t you want to get out from under the King’s Advance? If you come with us…”

“No, no, no,” Quigley said, clasping the boy’s hand more firmly, “I’ve got work yet to do right here. The Federation is lost, yes, yes, but I still serve the Federation.”

Huck was unsure what the radio operator meant but did not ask for an explanation. The eastern sky was growing bright, the soldiers from the fort might already be on their way, and there was nothing left to do but climb on the bike and ride.

“You ride all day, yes, yes,” Quigley said, “Ride late into the night before you stop to sleep. You’ll have a good long lead on the troops. Do the same the next day – by the end of the third day, you’ll reach the edge of the Shifting Sands.”

Huck nodded, climbed onto the motorcycle, settled into the saddle. He wore his father’s duster, slipped a pair of goggles – retrieved from one of Quigley’s junk crates - over his eyes, wiped dust from the scratched lenses. His bow stuck up from the sidecar, within easy reach, but he kept the rifle slung across his shoulder.

“So long, Quigley,” he said, “Thanks for the motorcycle; I feel bad taking it.”

Quigley grinned.

“You just ride it like you stole it, yes, yes.”

Huck laughed, started the bike.

“Listen, sonny,” Quigley said, “This is particularly important, yes. When you abandon the bike, at the station or before you get there, don’t forget the power cell. No matter what happens, remember to pull that core.”

Huck imagined trouble in the desert, leaving the bike behind, running for his life, the power cell forgotten in its socket.

“Oh, damn,” he said, “I won’t forget it.”

Quigley stepped away from the bike, Huck put it in first gear, rolled the throttle on, and pulled away from the Listening Post, bound for the mountains and the territories beyond. Quigley watched from the gate, rubbed rising dust from his face, hoped beyond hope that Huck would succeed on his quest. He heard the boy holler out as he sped across the highway, into the wilderness.

“Yaaaahoooooooooo!”

2

The expeditionary force moved south through the desert, a parade of horses, wagons, and marching soldiers nearly a quarter mile long. Ranger Captain Nevison rode near the fore, Bolger on his left, a quartet of troopers leading the march, and two advance scouts riding further up ahead. The cloud of dust created by the caravan was immense, a storm unto itself that both engulfed and trailed the expedition, but Nevison wore no face-shield, only a pair of tinted goggles. He could not smoke with a face-shield covering his mouth. He was agitated, and Nevison smoked heavily when he was agitated.

Returning to the Listening Post would put him a full day behind the boy, undoubtedly already bound for the east, and would slow his search for the girl, who he was certain was still being hidden somewhere in the wastelands. Communications with the desert settlements was slow, dependent on riders, not radios. His spies and soldiers in the wastes were not aware of the boy yet, but the girl had been wanted for weeks without a verified sighting or even a rumor of her location.

Nevison was not looking forward to radioing Gearhead City with his already overdue report., relaying the current failed state of his mission across the mountains to the Gyro King. He knew that his future rested on his task in the desert. Capturing even one of the King’s prizes – the girl or the power core – he would be rewarded with an easy post in the Capital and a promotion to the highest rank. If he failed, if he somehow lost both the core and the girl – not to mention the boy, whose importance was yet unknown to the King – he would finish out his service in Oblivion and never wear even a single General’s star.

Sixty miles north of the Post, where the road snaked down through jagged hills to the wide Barstow Flats, Nevison slowed his horse, raised one gloved hand high above his head, and sent riders back through the ranks with orders to bring the entire expedition to a halt. He sat tall in the saddle and stared out across the valley below, where a thin strip of crumbled track veered east from the Old Woman Highway.

“Mister Bolger,” he said to his Second Lieutenant, “Let’s have a look at the map.”

Bolger rummaged through a scarred leather satchel strapped to the flank of his horse, produced a folded parchment, opened it, glanced at his commanding officer.

“That track there in the distance,” Nevison said, pointing across the flats “Does it merge with the East-West Road?”

Bolger examined the map, traced his finger across the parchment, glanced at the horizon, then back to his finger.

“As far as I can tell, yes,” he said, staring at Nevison, “It’s not much of a path, though and there are no settlements marked on the map.”

Nevison nodded. “I’m going to divide the expedition.”

The Second Lieutenant folded the map back into the satchel, glanced across the valley. ”Yes, Sir. I’ll lead the eastward guard and you’ll ride for the Listening Post.”

“No,” Nevison said, “I’ll lead the expedition east, make up some of the distance the boy has certainly already put between us, and you’ll take a detachment to the Post.”

Bolger listened, nodded, said nothing.

“You’ll radio Gearhead City,” Nevison continued, “Alert the command that I’m riding east on the boy’s trail. Don’t tell them his name, Bolger; they don’t need to know who he is until we’ve got him in custody.”

Bolger was too good an officer to say it to the Ranger Captain, but he thought it was a chickenshit move to hold back the boy’s identity.

He doesn’t want the King to know who the boy is, in case he has to kill him to get the power core.

“Yes, Captain,” Bolger said, “And what do I report about the girl?”

Nevison shook his head, lit a cigarette. He blew thick smoke into the thin desert air.

“Tell them she is still in hiding,” he said, “Tell them I’ll disburse the expedition as we move east, fan troops all through the wastes. They’ll search every corner of every settlement, every shack from here to the border.”

Nevison nudged his mount forward and, slowly, the expedition began to move once more, the dust of its passage rising again onto the afternoon breeze.

Nevison leaned left in his saddle, hollered at the Second Lieutenant. “Once you’ve made the report, ride hard and meet me in the eastern wastes. Stay on the East-West Road and you’ll find me.”

Bolger nodded.

“Leave a squad behind at the Listening Post,” Nevison said, “I’ve had enough of wondering what that jittery sonofabitch Quigley might get up to out there on his own.”

“Will do,” Bolger hollered, “Sir, what if the radio is still out of commission?”

Nevison spit the butt of his cigarette onto the ground, glanced at his second.

“Kill him,” he shouted, “Kill him and ride for the east.”

3

Huck rode all through the day, as Quigley had instructed him to do, only stopping the motorcycle twice to piss and once to share some jerky and water with Cyclops. The dog was recovering rapidly from both the venom and the medication – he slept the first few hours of the ride, curled up in the sidecar, then sat groggily on his haunches with his tongue lolling out the corner of his mouth, finally leaning his head into the wind, his snout high on the breeze, ears twitching curiously, wagging his tail.

Huck had been timid on the motorcycle at first, intimidated by its power, uncomfortable with his ability at the controls, but by early afternoon, the Listening Post at least a hundred miles behind them, he fell completely in love with the machine. He settled comfortably into the saddle, slouched confidently over the handlebars, rolled the throttle open a little wider, picking up speed as the sun slipped over his shoulder. He rode fast, but not so fast that he couldn’t react to an obstacle on the road or a change in its surface.

The East-West Road was a long, dead snake of highway, a segmented worm that wound lazily through the wastelands. Long stretches were fairly intact while longer sections were cracked and strewn with rubble. Centuries-old asphalt, dusty but smooth, led to miles of stone and sand where the desert reclaimed the ground and Huck had to pay close attention to keep from losing his way. Once, in a particularly dusty valley, he did veer from the road for several miles before the map and the sun put him back on course. Occasionally, he came upon the rusted-out relics of ancient vehicles, some with sun-bleached skeletons still strapped in the torn seats, and he had to carefully weave the motorcycle between rows of dead slouching cars and ghostly hulking trucks.

He was farther east than he had ever been, deep into the wastelands, and his mind wandered ahead, imagining what strange terrors and unexpected troubles awaited him in the lowering darkness. He reminded himself again and again of the impossibility of his quest, wondered aloud to the wind why he had agreed to take it on, but sped on ever eastward, nowhere to run home to.

He passed through no settlements on that first part of his journey, only burned out buildings, which had once been fueling stations, roadside eateries, traveler’s inns, crumbling into the earth. Signs lay fallen along either side of the road, ancient, unreadable billboards long-faded by the sun, bent highway markers on twisted steel poles. Some of the markers still stood, lonesome reminders that the East-West road had once been called Route 66. On some of them, a third six had been added in sloppy red paint, but Huck had no idea what it meant.

Until early evening, the only life he saw was wild. Overgrown snakes and lizards crossed the track, some dying beneath the motorcycle’s wheels, and a lone, skulking coyote barked once then ran away in terror at the sight and sound of Huck’s machine. In a washed-out basin, where he had to steer the bike slowly, carefully down a steep embankment, he encountered a lumbering hard-shelled creature he could not identify. He was so fascinated by the animal that he stopped the motorcycle and stared at it until Cyclops let loose a bark and it tucked both its heads inside of its shell.

Coming over a low hill, the sky gone a pale shade of purple, he saw three human figures on a nearby bluff – Dune Gypsies silhouetted against the dimming horizon. He watched them without fear, riding too fast to be followed, too far from the bluff to be shot at, and one of them, a child by the size of him, raised a hand and waved as Huck sped by.

He grew sleepy as the evening surrendered the last of its light, but he rode on through the night until the moon, just a bony sliver, sat directly above him. Quigley had advised him to ride as far as he could, late into the night, and that’s just what he did. With an almost comfortable lead on the soldiers he knew were hunting him, and the night well into its prime, he slowed the bike and kept a lookout for a place he could camp. He did not want to sleep out in the open, not this far into the wastes, but he would stop at the next ruined structure, spend the night there if he found it deserted.

4

In the cluttered yard behind the Listening Post, where Quigley had kept his antique motorcycle hidden beneath a pile of scrap in the windmill’s spinning shadow, other secrets lay buried, too. Off the Post’s rear dock, along the station’s west-facing wall, eleven mounds of earth and a row of short wooden crosses marked the deaths of Quigley’s crew. Most of them had died of the Dragon Cough, but four of them had fallen beneath the guns of Nevison’s troopers. The crosses bore their names, but none of the graves held their bones. They had been good men and women, loyal to the Federation, and none of them would have minded that Quigley burned their corpses, planted their names in the dirt and filled their graves with high explosives.

He knelt there now, at the head of the row, twisted the bare end of a thick wire around the head of a metal rod fastened to one of the crosses. The wire curved through a window, snaked through the station among a hundred other cords and cables, connected to a relay in the heart of the main transceiver. Quigley gave the wire one final twist around the rod, stood and bowed his head – a moment of silence for his fallen comrades before the Listening Post got noisy.

The soldiers were coming, still too far north for their advance to be heard, but near enough that Quigley could make out a thin plume of roaming dust in the still night air.

Not quite the cloud I imagined from a full expeditionary force, no, not at all.

He rushed to a shed at the farthest end of the yard, saddled one of the captured horses, slung his gear across its back, and hitched the beast to a post. The other horse he turned loose, chased into the desert with a few scattered shots from a shock rifle, hoped that it would not return. He closed the shed and hurried round the station to stoke the fire and put on the supper pot. The soldiers would complain about being served boiled rat, none of them aware it would be their last meal, so none of them grateful to have it.

By the time the pot was at a full boil, Quigley could hear the advance, the sound of the horses hooves first a whisper up the track, then thunder at the gate. He rushed to let the troopers in, a considerably smaller group of soldiers than he had expected. The Ranger Captain was not among them.

He left the gate standing open, scurried across the yard to meet Bolger as he dismounted his horse. The rest of the squad climbed down from their mounts, went straight for the steaming pot.

“Second Lieutenant,” Quigley said, “I was expecting the Captain, yes, yes. I do hope nothing terrible has happened to him on the road.”

In truth, Quigley hoped something terrible had befallen Nevison and the bastard was lying dead on the desert floor, but he knew better than to say so.

Bolger shrugged. “He’s gone ahead with the expedition,” he said, “I’m here to transmit his report to the Kingdom. Is the godblasted radio working?”

Quigley nodded. “Yes, yes, it’s working just as right as new,” he said, “They’ll hear you loud and clear all the way across the desert.”

Nevison took a step toward the station, but Quigley stopped him with a tug on his uniform sleeve.

“It’s just not quite ready to transmit,” he said, “Tubes have to warm up, yes, but it won’t take long. Have your meal, Lieutenant, and by the time you’ve eaten, that old mess of a radio will be warm and ready.”

Bolger frowned. “It better be,” he said, “I’m a fast eater.”

He went for a bowl, sat at the end of a long bench, dipped a wooden spoon into the bland, grey stew. Quigley made himself busy with the horses and other chores around the station, bustling in and out of Bolger’s field of vision, and was nowhere to be found when the Lieutenant finished eating.

Bolger called for the radio operator, decided the nervous old fool had fallen asleep or was too deaf to hear him, decided to let him be unless he had trouble raising Gearhead City on the radio. He had posted two guards at the gate, but the rest of his men were bedded down in the dooryard, wrapped in thin grey blankets, and he stepped over them on his way into the station. He would allow the troops two hours of sleep and catch brief nap himself once he made his transmission

The communications array seemed to be functioning and its tubes had warmed up, if the blinking lights and glowing monitors were any indication. Bolger tossed his cap on a bare metal shelf, eased into a tattered chair at the main radio console, placed a headset over his ears, pressed a red button on the microphone’s base.

“Gearhead City, come in…”

He heard the briefest, strangest hum, from deep within the console, then a deafening blast, and the last thing he saw was a flash of orange and yellow as the Post was engulfed in a massive ball of flame. The explosion burst forth from the earth, blossomed in the open air and consumed the entire station, vaporizing Bolger where he sat, setting the sleeping soldiers ablaze, even killing the guards at the gate.

There would be no further communication between the Midland Kingdom and the invaders in Oblivion. The Listening Post was closed for business, permanently.

5

The structure was not of human design, but it was deserted. Just off a curve on a crumbled stretch of the road, a dead alien machine tilted into the earth. A drift of sand piled up against one side of a metallic sphere, the framework of a broken wing lay beneath it, like the skeleton of some mechanical snake. Scavengers had picked the machine clean of its weapons, gutted the interior, and removed the glass from the hatch-cover, which hung open to the night, inviting Huck inside to rest his head.

He pulled the bike into a shadowed recess beneath the alien machine, climbed off the saddle, stretched, and yawned. Cyclops bounded from the sidecar, hiked one leg to piss on a Joshua tree, made a loping circle around the downed aircraft, sniffing at the smooth metal hull and the sand that rose to meet it. The dog frightened a ground squirrel from it’s burrow among the wreckage, chased it into the desert and returned with its limp, bloodied form dangling from his jaws, dropped it at his master’s feet.

“Tired of jerky, boy?” Huck said, stooping to take up the dead rodent. He left most of the gear in the sidecar, but removed the blanket Quigley had given him, climbed through the aircraft’s hatch, and spread his bedroll on the floor of the circular cockpit, just big enough that he and Cyclops could curl up on the curved floor, the windowless hatch-cover closed behind them, and sleep among the stray bolts and fasteners that littered the stripped cabin. First, he would make a fire to cook the squirrel.

Wood is hard to come by in the wastes without a hatchet, but he found enough dry lengths of scrub oak and Joshua tree to build a small fire – enough flame to roast the meat, not enough to be noticed by anyone who might be lurking in the nearby darkened hills. He skinned and gutted the squirrel, skewered it on a thin stick and hung it over the flames. The smell of the roasting flesh increased his hunger, his empty belly gurgled and moaned, and Cyclops sat patiently, watching his master slowly rotate the spit until the meat was cooked through.

They ate beneath the stars, hot chunks of roasted squirrel and strips of tangy jerky, washed down with water from a jug. Huck remembered overnight trips with his father and Ramón, camping in the desert, hunting rabbits and coyotes, bringing the meat home to Orbit Falls, and wished he were on some brief excursion rather than the long road east. His hunger satisfied, his eyelids grown heavy, he doused the fire with a cup of water, went to the motorcycle to remove the power cell, in case some scavenger should come upon his camp while he slept.

Far away west, a momentary flash of light on the horizon caught his eye and he stared across the desert until it flickered and faded from sight. He had no idea what had gone up in flames all those miles across the wasteland, but he knew it had been a large explosion if he could see it from where he stood.

Maybe the King’s Advance firebombed a settlement.

He yanked the power cell from its socket beneath the motorbike’s seat, tucked it safely into his mother’s medicine pouch, took his satchel and bow from the sidecar, climbed into the alien craft, called for Cyclops to follow. Stretched out on the blanket, his father’s coat rolled up beneath his head for a pillow, Cyclops breathing deeply beside him, he took the tattered book from the satchel, carefully unwrapped it and read from Mark Twain’s story, his mother’s voice a sweet memory, until he drifted off to sleep.

6

Quigley heard the explosion, turned in the saddle to see his beloved Listening Post go up in a massive ball of flame, and urged the horse to gallop even faster over the barren desert floor. He had meant to kill Nevison and the entire expeditionary force, but he was no stranger to war and accepted that his plan had not been a total loss, even if it hadn’t gone as he intended. At the very least, the Second Lieutenant and his squad were dead, communications with the Midland Kingdom were severed, and he had exacted a measure of vengeance for his fallen station crew. He had not wanted to kill the horses along with their riders, but there had been no way to scatter them without arousing Bolger’s suspicion, and he did not allow himself to dwell on that regret.

War is hell, oh, yes it is.

He would ride hard through the night, hoping to stay ahead of Nevison’s caravan, maybe even catch up to Huck before the boy reached the Shifting Sands. He bent low in the saddle, lay his face against the horse’s ear, and whispered into the oncoming rush of wind.

“Pound that earth, you mutie nag,” he said, “We’ve got miles and miles to cover, yes, yes.”

7

The expeditionary force bivouacked in a long slender valley, hundreds of men sleeping in woolen blankets or gathered around small fires and lanterns, horses tethered to wagons or desert trees, snatches of conversation and song rising into he still of night. Nevison sat in the open flap of his tent, smoking a cigarette, rolling another.

The garrison had not covered as much ground as he had hoped it would – the track was a hard one to follow over rugged terrain and a brief skirmish with a large band of Dune Gypsies had set forward progress back at least an hour – but he would allow the men a rest rather than lose more ground the next day to fatigue and low morale.

He crushed his spent smoke beneath a boot, popped the fresh one between his lips, struck a match and the sky lit up day bright and an echoing roar rolled over the valley. He was momentarily blinded by the great flash of white light but rose from his blanket and rushed to the top of the nearest hill, where two guards stood staring west, watching a great fire burn on the horizon.

He slipped a long spyglass from his belt, peered through the tube, shook his head.

“Quigley!’ he hissed, “I knew the shaky bastard was with the resistance. I should have killed him with the rest of his crew.”

More soldiers were clambering up the hill, roused from their brief sleep by the explosion. One of the guards turned to the Ranger Captain.

“What was it, Sir?” the enlisted man said, “What’s out there in the waste that could go up like that?”

Nevison scowled, fought the urge to smack the soldier across his dumb country-boy face.

“The Listening Post, you idiot,” he said, “That bastard radio operator has blown up the station, and the Second Lieutenant right along with it.”

Losing the Post was a significant blow to the war effort, severing communications between the southwestern forces and Gearhead City. The next nearest station was a thousand miles north, on the jagged Badlands border, where the King’s Advance fought a strong insurgency in the bluffs and on the plains.

Always one to seek the benefit – especially to himself – in a bad turn of events, Nevison stared at the dark cloud of smoke in the west, saw a silver lining that nearly forced a grin upon his stony face.

If no report were transmitted, the King has no idea how far behind the boy I’ve fallen.

8

Cyclops woke early, nudged his master from slumber, hunched through a glassless slot in the hatch-cover, and made a brief patrol around the perimeter of the camp, scenting the earth and the breeze for strangers or some small creature he could chase down and kill. He smelled no humans or rodents, only the scent of threat, blowing in from somewhere near, pointed his snout to the north, and loosed a series of shouting barks.

Huck clambered down from the aircraft, the shock rifle cradled in his arms, went to his dog, stared into the northern dunes. The morning was bright, and the hills were rocky, shaped of shadow and stony outcrops where any man or beast could hide.

“What’s out there, Cy? What you smell, boy”

He raised his binoculars for a closer inspection, saw nothing but brown hill, then a moving shadow slinking between two boulders. The coyote, a great broad-shouldered beast, skulked into view, stood on the crest of the hill, howled against the wind. Another, then a third, and then two more crept from the shadowy stones and followed their alpha slowly down the hillside, fanning out as they stalked toward Huck’s encampment.

Cyclops growled, marched a few paces toward the advancing coyotes, but Huck ordered him back. “Not a fight you can win, boy,” he said, “Not one I can win, either.”

He leveled the shock rifle, set it firmly against his shoulder, breathed deeply and put one of the wild dogs in the center of the scope. He fired one shot, a deadly amber bolt that dropped his target and scattered the pack, sending the mutant coyotes a hundred yards back up the hillside, where they formed a hollering crowd.

“They’ll come back for us,” Huck said softly, “C’mon, Cyclops, we’ve got to move.”

He rushed to the alien craft, climbed inside, and retrieved his belongings, careful not to leave his mother’s book behind. Cyclops waited in the sidecar, growling, the fur on his haunches bristled. Huck knelt beside the bike, fumbled the power cell from its pouch, shoved it into the socket. The coyotes were approaching once more and he fired another round, a shot that missed the alpha, but kicked up stone and dust in the ground at its paws. The dogs scattered again, but not as far or wide as they had before, and Huck swung onto the saddle and started the motorcycle.

He worked through the first two gears, spun a sharp turn that threatened to tip the machine over, found the crumbled surface of the highway, and opened the throttle, shifted through to top gear. He yanked the goggles from the brake lever, slipped them over his eyes, looked back and saw the coyotes giving chase, falling farther behind as the bike sped east once more.

The morning sun was in his eyes, the King’s Advance somewhere behind him, and he passed a twisted sign that marked the road Route 666.

Just a brief update. I'm enjoying the more relaxed pace of this writing, but the story continues. After the last project, it's a relief to be able to take a few days off, ride my bike, sleep, work on the audiobook without feeling like I'm not doing my job on this book. I spend a lot of time thinking about my own youthful journey, figuring out what little memory I can incorporate into Huck's road trip.

I'm almost done with another long chapter, and not so far off from the end of the first part of the book. If a hundred-fifty pages or so turns out to be the average for each part, this will come in substantially shorter than TBWGitD, but still fairly long. Of course, I'm only speculating. I have no idea how wide open the story may get or how close it will stay to the road I have in mind for Huck.

The story has already told itself to me, so far as the main things that are going to happen, how it will end. I'm not aware of any underlying message, but there may be one. I'm just enjoying writing something strictly for fun, just for the sake of telling an adventure story and satisfying my science-fiction geekiness.

Huck is well on his way through the desert, Nevison is slowly getting closer to his trail, Quigley is jittering away at the Outpost.

I expect to post something up tomorrow or the day after.

I've revised the previous chapter, chapter four, and edited the post. The revisions are to reflect the decision to keep Huck and Cyclops on Route 66 through to the Midwest, rather than crossing the Rockies. It will serve the story better for him to take this route.

Will you write a character for me? Someone older, intelligent, sarcastic, and maybe not so pale this time? 😁

I think I've settled on this cover design...

I thought I was writing at a more relaxed pace, taking two days for most chapters, but I realize I'm writing much longer chapters than usual, so I'm still matching the daily word count I averaged with TBWGitD. I'm writing longer sessions, but I'm taking more frequent breaks, when I finish a sub chapter. It doesn't feel so urgent - like if I don't write tomorrow, I could live with that. Then again, that's easily said since I am already planning to write tomorrow.

I envision three parts - Part One will see Huck as far as the Rockies, Part Two will follow his adventures in the Midland Kingdom, Part Three will take place in the Eastern Republic.

Yes! I finally get to give one of my characters a motorcycle.

There was a girl in The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark, too. Things didn't turn out so well for her or anyone else.