Outrider Read online

  It was barely dusk and the land was still aglow beneath a pale sky. The night fear had not yet taken Wilton and in his mind he was still the force to be reckoned with. The badass to be feared. You and me, baby. Shady and K. We got ’em all right where we want em, huh? He thought. Then out loud Kretch continued. “Ain’t a fuckin’ thing out here to be feared ‘cept for us, ain’t that right Shady? Ain’t that right Shady boy?”

  Kretch hummed softly to himself as he wheeled the colt to begin his rounds of the sunfield’s western perimeter. Far away the city of New Las Vegas and its surrounding towns were switching from solar energy to molten salt power. Wilton fell silent for a moment, thinking he had heard something. There came no sound save the horse’s plodding hooves and the rising wind, beginning to swirl as the evening air cooled. Then the mechanical drone of hundreds of QV arrays swiveling back toward the eastern horizon drowned out all noise. The slow, familiar grinding of gears lasted for nearly two minutes and then, after a series of clicks, the desert was perfectly still. Kretch must have imagined the distant, baleful moan. It must have been just the night’s fear setting in. He drew his six shooter and rested the pistol across his saddle as he began to whistle softly.

  The janitor wheezed and coughed as she leaned against the large terracotta planter. She had slipped on the marble floor she herself had just mopped and it had taken her nearly three minutes to regain her feet. Her left knee throbbed and both wrists ached where she had caught herself. She feared something was broken. A slow trickle of blood stained the sleeve of her cobalt blue uniform where the IV needle had been ripped from its port.

  The old woman sighed wistfully, looking at the two hundred plus square feet she had yet to clean. The swirling veins of the dark stone floor leered back at her. This was the lobby outside Dreg’s office—a room she rarely entered and one in which she was loathe to be caught doing a poor job. She knew The Mayor was out of town but at any moment the elevators were sure to open with one of his secretaries or guards or even just a courier; even the latter had security clearances here in the executive building and thus were of a higher station than the janitor. In the eyes of most everyone, she was the lowest of them all—a virtual untouchable.

  Her heart leapt each time she heard the drone of an elevator rising in the shafts below; her one wish at that moment was not to be seen by anyone, to merely finish what she had to do without drawing any attention. Slowly she rolled up her sleeve and re-inserted the IV line, wincing at the sharp pain from her damaged forearm.

  Then the worst happened. Finally one of the elevators rose all the way to The Mayoral penthouse and the doors slid open. Out stepped none other than Timothy Hale. The executive secretary’s face was dour even for him. His eyes were glued to the ground and his steps quick and angry as he surged off the lift. The ancient janitor tried to melt against the wall, pressing herself between the dark panels of mahogany and the large potted fern. Hale had taken only six steps when his leather-soled loafers slipped on the wet marble and he stumbled, breaking his fall with one hand on the stone floor and the other against the wall.

  “Jesus fucking—dammit! Fuck!” Hale spat, livid, as he stood and straightened out his suit jacket. He cracked his neck from side to side, letting out a series of angry grunts before he realized he was not alone. The city’s de facto second in command locked eyes with one of its lowliest peons: a cold, steely gaze met watery, frightened eyes. The two stood unblinking for a pregnant moment before Hale unleashed his rage on the poor woman.

  “Goddamn simpleton! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” The old woman trembled and was silent as Hale marched toward her, one foot slipping again. “Shit!” He shouted, stopping on the other side of the planter and peering between the fronds. “What’s your name?”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” The old woman stammered.

  “What . . . is . . . your . . . name.” Hale paused between each word, his eyes seething.

  “Candice, sir.”

  “Candice . . . what?”

  “Wilbee. Candice Wilbee, Mr. Hale. I’m sorry I—”

  Hale held up a finger and the janitor snapped her mouth shut. “Who is your supervisor, Wilbee?”

  “Mr. Tansingco. Sir—Ronald Tansingco. Services unit twenty three.”

  “Don’t move a muscle, Wilbee.” Hale took a few careful steps until he was on a dry patch of floor. Then he pulled his slender, silver-plated mobile phone from a pocket and pressed the small circular button at its bottom.

  “This is Hale, executive eight-two-one. Give me City Services immediately.” Hale glared at the old janitor as he waited. “Services? Exec eight-two-one. Give me unit twenty three, supervisor Tansingco.”

  “Sir . . .” the janitor implored.

  “Silence!” shouted Hale. Then into his phone he continued, “Is this Tansingco? What? Well where the hell is he? Excuse me? This is Timothy Hale, who the fuck is this? What’s your name? Number? Well when your boss gets back from lunch, you have him call me immediately and I will remember your number, five-one-six.” Hale ended the call and slowly, pointedly, slid the phone back into his jacket pocket.

  “Come here.” He beckoned the janitor without so much as looking over. From behind him came shuffling footsteps and an odd creaking. Hale turned to see the old woman trailing a mop in one hand, an IV tower in the other. He was struck by the pathetic sight before him. But he kept his jaw firm and his shoulders pulled back. “Listen, Wilbee. . . .” Hale thought of all the things he could say but the moment had passed; his anger had all but melted away. “When you mop the floor up here . . . dry it.”

  The janitor nodded emphatically, her neck popping and crackling.

  “Now just . . . go away. Go clean somewhere else.” Hale jabbed a finger into the down button on the nearest elevator to summon a lift for the woman and then hurried from the lobby. He drew his phone as he opened the door leading to the inner offices and feigned a conversation as he passed the two secretaries seated in the outer waiting room without looking up.

  Once in his own chamber, Hale sighed and dropped his mobile onto a chair. He leaned against his desk, hating himself for how he had just acted. The strain of the afternoon had come to a head when he slipped in the lobby and the wizened janitor had borne the brunt of his anger and stress. Hale had personally called or visited all twenty-one grids in New Las Vegas and had spoken to all the major transmission stations as well. Power usage was spiking hourly now and there was no other explanation left. . . .

  6

  Scofield watched the leech’s every move from the corner of his eye. You actually think I don’t see you, you dumb bastard? he thought to himself. The man had been slowly closing the gap between himself and the horse and rider over the past ten minutes. He’d been patient, gathering slack in the line tied to his hands as he drew ever closer. Scofield had slid the revolver from its holster minutes ago. His hand gripped the weapon tightly while his shoulders and neck remained loose, his head bouncing casually as he rode. From behind, he was the picture of relaxation. But his teeth were clenched and his breaths shallow. The outrider could easily track the leech’s long shadow on the sand, which was painted lavender by the setting sun. The move would come any second.

  The leech made his attack with impressive speed. In one motion, he tossed the rope over Scofield’s head and lunged for the rifle protruding from Reese’s saddle bag. This, however, was exactly what the outrider expected, and despite the man’s surprising quickness, Scofield was faster still. His left hand parried the tightening rope and with his right he cracked the grip of his pistol down on the man’s head. The rider spurred his horse and Reese took off into a full gallop.

  From behind came a shriek of agony as the rope went taught and the leech flew into the air, his shoulders wrenched by the initial shock and the wind knocked from him as he landed on the ground and was dragged. Scofield let Reese keep up the pace for a few hundred yards and then reined her back into a fast trot. He twisted around in his saddle to see the leech bouncing alo
ng on his back, his legs kicking helplessly at the loam.

  “Enjoyin’ yourself, asshole?” Scofield shouted angrily. He turned around again and spurred Reese up to a canter. The leech coughed and moaned behind him.

  “Please! Please stop!”

  The outrider clucked his tongue and the mare came to an abrupt halt. Scofield leapt down from the horse and pulled the rifle from the saddle bag.

  “Well sure, since you asked so nice,” he said, chambering a round as he approached the crumpled figure. The leech had curled into fetal position, his chin tucked against his dusty gray shirt. The rider stopped with his boots inches from the man’s face. “Stand up.” Scofield waited, silently counting to five. Then he took up the rope and leapt back, wrenching the man prone, before grabbing the thick knot around the leech’s hands and hauling the whimpering wretch to his feet. The leech gritted his teeth; his eyes were tearing.

  “Popped a shoulder, huh? Both, even? That’s what usually happens. Y’see buddy,” Scofield dropped the rope and sized up his wounded rival, rocking back onto his boot heels, “you’re not exactly the first fellah I’ve brought in. And you wouldn’t be the first one I haven’t brought in, read me?”

  Mucous dripped from one of the man’s nostrils. His face was cut in a dozen places and sand stuck in his brown hair and five day beard. His knees buckled constantly. It was not to be underestimated what even a short dragging could do. The fight seemed to have gone out of him, both in body and spirit.

  “I want you to give me a good reason why I shouldn’t end you here and now,” Scofield hissed through clenched teeth. “And I’m serious, mister. I’m fuckin’ dead serious. Give me one reason.”

  “Paperwork,” the leech whispered back.

  At first the outrider was perfectly still, his face an inscrutable mask. Then, slowly, he cracked a savage smile. “Well . . . I guess you really do know how it is out here.” Scofield gripped the hard wood of the rifle stock firmly, taking a slow step toward the bloodied man.

  It was nearing midnight when Reese and Scofield crossed the glowline. The leech was still unconscious from the rifle butt cracked across his jaw. A squat cinderblock field station sat some fifty yards off, bathed in a pool of halogen light. It was garish and ugly in the black night; an insult to the crisp stars above. This far out on the southern line even the glow of the city was diminished to almost nothing. The sky was truly dark.

  Scofield had looped his drag line around the man’s feet and wrapped him in a tarp. It was more than the bastard deserved but there was something unique about this one. Unique and unsettling. The outrider wanted him compos mentis when they arrived at the station.

  When the trio reached the light of the little compound Scofield dismounted and first made sure the leech was still out cold. Some taps to the face and a gun barrel to the cheek accompanied by a few choice words confirmed that the man wasn’t playing possum, so Scofield cut away the excess rope and then tended to his horse. He’d not planned to make a stop at a post for days so the water sacks were still mostly full, but after testing the station’s water tap for purity, the outrider emptied and refilled his stores with “fresh” water (it tasted just like what it was, after all: desalinated ocean water piped across hundreds of miles and stored in a zinc-lined basin).

  Scofield filled the trough beside the water tap and then led Reese to it, letting the mare drink her fill. As she did so, the outrider untied the rope from her bridle, then removed the saddle and gear from his mount. Scofield keyed the November code—three-six-one-nine—into the station’s door, and tossed Reese’s harness and saddle and all the bags and provisions inside. He entered the building and switched on the lights and water heater; no reason to skip a hot shower and a night in a clean cot as long as he was already here. Then he searched for the cell key.

  Scofield stepped back outside and, glancing over at the leech, walked around behind the station, key in hand. Scofield worked the key into the heavy, rusted lock of the door to the iron cage—so many of the criminals who took to the field were engineers and technical professionals that the outriders had come to revere a good old deadbolt over anything electronic—and after a brief struggle it swung open, creaking in protest. The cell was a five by eight rectangle of metal beams with a concrete floor and ceiling. There was a water tap set into the wall above a steel grate—this was sink, shower and commode. A few of the stations had an old surplus cot. This one had a pile of burlap sacks.

  His standard mix of pragmatism and compassion led Scofield to pull a few horse blankets from the shed beside the cell. These he tossed into the cage. No good to let a man freeze to death—corpses don’t talk much. The water from the cell’s tap came out putrid and tinted orange with rust, so Scofield filled a bucket in the horse trough and set it inside the cage. Walking back to the trough, he topped off his canteen after taking a long pull of water. Finally, he approached the leech.

  “Wake up, asshole,” the outrider barked. The man stirred and muttered something. “Already awake, huh? Then get up, asshole.” The leech fell still again. Scofield waited a moment, and then roughly unzipped his fly, making the action as loud as he could. He held out his canteen and let a thin stream of water pour onto the man’s head.

  “Fuck’s sake, mister!” The leech bellowed, contorting into a ball and then trying to rise. As the leech fell back to the sand, his feet still bound, Scofield let out a howling laugh.

  “Easy boy. Just water. Now get up.”

  “My feet are tied together.”

  “Well then you’re gonna do some hopping.”

  Groaning and swearing under his breath, the leech slowly got to his feet. The myriad cuts on his face and hands were caked with dried blood and sand. His body sagged from the trauma of being dragged. But his eyes were sharp and defiant. He somehow managed to look dignified as he stood there despite his constant shivering and bound hands and feet.

  “Hop.” Scofield said without venom, turning his back and walking toward the cell. He paused after a moment and waited, without looking over his shoulder, until he heard the leech awkwardly following him, alternately jumping and shuffling across the dusty soil.

  When the pair reached the cell, Scofield stood back and the man entered without protest. The outrider slammed home the iron-barred door and clicked the heavy lock shut.

  “OK, now go ahead and put your feet by the bars and don’t try shit,” Scofield said sternly, brandishing his polished, eight inch knife. The leech lowered himself to the cement floor and held his bound feet against the iron bars. Scofield reached into the cell, grabbed the rope, and with one smooth swipe severed the singed knot.

  “You can work the rest of that off yourself.”

  “What about my hands?”

  “Yeah. We’ll get to them.” Scofield sheathed his blade and walked back around the station. Reese was standing by the trough expectantly.

  “I know girl. Don’t you worry your pretty head.” He pulled open the station door and dug through the largest saddle bag until he found her feed sack and an apple. This he cut in two, munching on half himself. Back outside, Scofield fed the other piece of fruit to Reese, then knelt and poured a generous mound of oats into a plastic tub lying beside the water trough.

  Sighing, resigned to the unpleasant business at hand, Scofield returned to the clapboard shed and gathered a small armload of kindling and logs. The outrider fashioned a simple pyre and stuffed bark strips beneath it. He pulled a cigarette and lighter from a pocket and gathered the lapels of his long black jacket around his neck as he knelt.

  Once Scofield had a few timid flames licking at the piled wood, he held his cigarette to the embers, rising once it was lit. He stepped back and smoked, taking long, slow drags as the fire grew. Orange-yellow sparks crackled and danced up into the black night. Standing still, the heat of the fire beginning to warm his hands and face, Scofield first realized just how cold the night was. The breeze, calm since its usual twilight surge, was now picking up again. Scofield shifted back and fort
h on his heels and then began to lightly stamp his feet, fighting back the chill that had crept into his boots.

  The fire crackled as one of the thicker logs succumbed to the heat. As the flames licked and sang, Scofield thought for a second that he had heard a deep, distant moan drifting across the desert. He took a few hurried steps away from the fire and cocked his head to one side to listen. The only sounds that came were the crackling flames and swirling breeze. Scofield finished his cigarette, crushed the butt beneath a boot heel, and then drew his knife. He carefully slid the blade into the glowing embers and then stood back to let the metal heat. It was time for the leech to get another mark. Then they would talk.

  Dreg panted for breath as he stumbled across the frozen street. The pavement was coated in a thick layer of ice beneath five inches of fresh snow. Already The Mayor had slipped and fallen several times. It was just after 3 a.m. east coast time, and Dreg had been on a bender since nine o’clock that evening. The day had consisted of so much mindless drivel: he’d sat with the mayor of Boston to discuss advanced diffuse photovoltaic arrays—panels that could extract usable electrons through rain and fog—he’d met with the ambassador of some godforsaken eastern European nation still holding out from continental federation over a natural gas dispute, and he’d suffered through a gala dinner where countless state and local yes-men had jockeyed for his elbow.

  “Don’t they fugging know I’ve better things . . . better time to spend . . .” Franklin muttered as he stopped under the awning of a men’s apparel store. Dreg had put away several gin and tonics at the gala and, upon returning to his hotel, announced to his security detail and personal assistants that he was feeling ill and wished to be left alone. Like a debutante awaiting her father’s snore, Dreg had stood by the door to his suite until he heard his head of security walk down the hall for a piss. Then The Mayor, wearing his most non-descript three-thousand dollar suit, sharkskin boots, a fedora, and a heavy wool overcoat, had run to the nearest staircase, lumbered down fifteen flights, and burst forth into the wintery New England evening.