Richard Harding - Outrider 1, Premier Volume Read online

  Richard Harding - Outrider 1, Premier Volume

  Copyright 1984 by Robert Tine

  AFTER THE APOCALYPSE

  Hard to believe, but once the burn victims were gone and those who were going to go crazy had lost their minds, the ones that remained, the hardiest survivors, began to rebuild. Slowly, life had been reborn. Men stopped living in their caves and burrows and they began to adapt, to fit their lives to their new world. They built shelters, they planted what crops they could, but they still lacked the courage to walk over the hill, to trail down the road to see what lay just over the horizon.

  Bonner had been the first. The first to get an old Dodge motor running well enough to venture out into the world.

  He had traveled, cautiously at first, through the continent finding groups of survivors-not many but enough to convince him that his work was worth doing. Slowly he began linking the bands together, building a network, trading information for supplies. Others had joined him. Leather came riding out of the dawn one morning and said he had been all the way to New York.

  Gradually people had come to trust the Outriders, they were the closest thing to heroes the new world had. Bonner began to coax the survivors out of their little enclaves- they were like nervous puppies-trying to get the bands to join together, to unite, to rebuild. It wouldn't be the old America, but it would have been a land that might have been free of fear and that would have been a good enough start for Bonner.

  THE OUTRIDER; Volume One: Premier Volume

  by Richard Harding Bonner's eyes opened and he lay still, staring into the darkness, giving himself a moment to accustom himself to the night. Gently, he slipped off the weight of the woman who lay in the crook of his shoulder, her long hair trailing across his chest. She did not stir.

  He swung out of the bed and pulled on a pair of pants and quickly laced his holster to his hip. In the faint light, the handles of the three knives he carried gleamed dully. Noiselessly, he crossed the room and stood by the door. On the other side of the door he heard the tentative step of a man, walking so slowly and placing his feet so carefully, that it was plain that he was approaching Bonner's lair stealthily. Bonner wondered who was being so stupid.

  Outside the man paused. A second later, the door-frame shattered and Bonner caught a quick glimpse of a man, a big man, plunging into the room. Bonner was on him in a flash, throwing his weight at the intruder, scything his legs out from under him. The man fell heavily, and wheezed as the full strength of Bonner's foot slammed into the space between his shoulder blades. The wind was knocked from his lungs and he gasped for breath, his head spinning. He was not so disoriented, though, that he did not feel one of Bonner's knives lying with menacing weight at the nape of his neck, where the spine met the skull.

  The girl was sitting up in bed, spotlighted by the light shining through the door. Her dark hair fell down her shoulders and curled around her breasts. Her eyes were wide with surprise, her mouth open, but she emitted no sound.

  "Fuck, Bonner, Christ..." gasped the man.

  "Who are you?"

  "It's me, man, Hatchet."

  "Hatchet?" Bonner should have known. Only someone like Hatchet would have been so dumb...

  "Yeah man, Christ, will you get that fucking blade out of my neck."

  Bonner put a touch more pressure on the knife. "What are you doing here?"

  "Leather sent me. I got a message from Leather..." Hatchet was the kind of person who lied even when telling the truth would have served him better. Bonner didn't believe him for a second. He also knew that Hatchet was no coward, he wasn't smart enough to figure out fear. "Leather? What does he want with me?"

  "Shit, man, let me up and I'll tell you."

  "Tell me now." "Come on, Bonner..."

  Bonner dug the tip of the blade into Hatchet's neck. A tiny spot of blood appeared in the ripple of the skin.

  "Okay, okay, shit... Dara's alive."

  "You're lying to me. Hatchet." Bonner's jaw had tightened and he had raised his voice for the first time since Hatchet ploughed through the door. Hatchet couldn't see Bonner's face, but he could feel his fury through the shaft of the blade.

  "No, its for real. Honest."

  "Prove it."

  "I can prove it, but I have to get up."

  "Where's your gun?"

  "I lost it when you jumped me."

  "Where's your spare?"

  "Ain't got one."

  The knife dug a tiny bit more into Hatchet's thick neck.

  "It's in my belt. I.'m lying on it for Chrissake."

  "Get it, slowly..."

  That was just what Hatchet wanted to hear. If he was fast enough he might be able to roll away from Bonner and get off a shot. Maybe two.

  Before Hatchet made his move, Bonner spoke. "Hatchet?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Before you do anything stupid, I want you to take a look at the bed."

  Slowly, Hatchet raised his eyes. The woman still knelt on the bed, still naked, but she looked back at him along the twin barrels of a shotgun, the stock pressed into the firm flesh of her shoulder, her finger resting lightly on the two triggers. "Very pretty, Bonner. Really nice." "Now get your gun."

  He pulled the gun from his belt and laid it on the floor next to him. The girl sprang from the bed and picked up the gun, allowing Hatchet a quick sideways glimpse at her smooth lithe legs and tight buttocks.

  "All the comforts of home," said Hatchet. "Get up, slowly," ordered Bonner. The girl returned to bed, watching as Hatchet crept to his knees, then gradually straightened himself. H? held his arms away from his sides.

  "Good. In there." Bonner gestured toward a doorway on the far side of the room. To the woman he said: "Go back to bed."

  Without taking his eyes off Hatchet, Bonner lit the kerosene lamp that sat on the table between them. As the golden light filled the room. Hatchet could see that they were in a large space almost empty of furniture. A big room always favored a man with a gun. And Hatchet had a gun, tucked up under his left armpit, hidden by his leather jacket. Hatchet settled himself in a rickety wooden chair. Maybe Bonner wasn't as smart as they said, or he had gotten soft since his outriding days. Back then he didn't have to depend on a naked broad with a shotgun. If it hadn't been for her, Bonner would be dead now. Hatchet looked around the room. "Christ, Bonner, I heard you were making a fortune smuggling. This place is pig-shit. You ought to see how we live in the Capital. Leather runs the whole thing, we got slaves and women... You ought to come join us..." Bonner ignored him. "So, where's the proof?" Hatchet did not have any proof. The way he figured it, he didn't need any.

  "Okay," he said, "I'm going to reach inside my jacket and I'm going to pull out a letter. It's from her..."I'm going to pull out a forty-five and blow your fucking head off, he thought. Then take out the pussy in the next room-maybe have a little fun first-then head home to Leather and the ten thousand gold ones, the price Leather had put on Bonner's head.

  Hatchet thrust his hand into his jacket, grasped the handle of his revolver and whipped it from its nest. As he did so, four inches of blade, thrown like lightning, slammed into his thick breast bone.

  Bonner was on his feet. Hatchet had slumped to the floor, a fine trickle of blood running from his mouth. His breathing was short and labored. Bonner stood over him.

  "Hatchet, listen to me..." Hatchet's eye's swiv-elled in their sockets. "Is Dara alive? Nod if she is."

  Through a blaze of pain and shock. Hatchet had more than enough life left in him to hate Bonner. Fuck you, he tried to say.

  "Hatchet, the way it is now you are going to live for a while, maybe three hours, maybe four... maybe till this tim
e tomorrow. You tell me what I want to know and I'll finish it quick and easy, right now. If not, I'll walk, and you'll end up drowning in your own blood."

  Bonner looked at Hatchet a long minute. Just how dumb can one man be, he wondered.

  "Now, is she alive?"

  Hatchet nodded: yes.

  "Is she with Leather?"

  Hatchet nodded again: yes.

  "At the Capital?"

  Another nod: yes.

  "Nice going. Hatchet," said Bonner almost tenderly, "maybe you're not so dumb after all." Bonner leaned heavily on the black handle of the knife and felt the blade slip sideways, puncturing the cardial sac and slicing deep into the left ventricle of Hatchet's heart. As the black wave of death washed over him. Hatchet thought his last thought: I hope Leather cuts your balls off. He gave a spastic kick and died.

  Unceremoniously, Bonner placed his foot on Hatchet's stomach and yanked the deeply embedded knife from the man's body. He snatched off Hatchet's bandana, cleaned the blade, then slid it back into the holster resting on his hip. Two other knives rested there and the three black bone handles gleamed, as if smiling at the job done and waiting alertly for another chance to strike.

  The force behind Bonner's throw had been born of pure hate and, inwardly, he cursed himself for it. He could not afford to get worked up, not where Leatherman was concerned. He had to trust his in- stincts but keep anger out of things. Anger made you sloppy.

  Leather wanted Bonner and he knew that there was only one piece of bait that would bring Bonner running into the Slavestates-Dara. In the Slavestates, Leatherman was the law. Bonner could not believe Dara was alive-that was the answer to his wildest dreams. That she was in Leather's hands was the darkest of his nightmares.

  Maybe it was a trap, maybe Dara was dead. But maybe not, maybe she was rotting in that shell of a city that used to be Washington that Leather now called his capital. The thought raised Bonner's anger again and reminded him that there were old scores too long unsettled. Like a hungry mad shark Bonner swept out of the depths to snatch at the bait. He was headed East.

  Chapter 2

  The girl was asleep when Bonner hefted Hatchet's dead weight onto his back and started for the door. Along with the corpse, Bonner carried his three knives and the cut-down stockless, Winchester pump that was pre-bomb if it was a day. It was reliable and it could saturate an area with shot like a hailstorm. The gun was slung over his back too, resting in a worn leather holster.

  Slowly he made his -way down the stairs and dumped Hatchet's body in the street and hoped that he wouldn't be there when he got back. Parked in front of the old building that Bonner called home, was a car, a Toyota, pre-bomb by a good ten years. Bonner knew every piece of machinery that remained in the ruins of Chicago and he didn't know that one. It must be Hatchet's. He paused to examine it and approved. It had been modified by inelegant but skillful hands. They had stripped away anything that reduced the vehicle's speed-all the fancy stuff that Mr. USA wanted in a car back in the days when everybody had one.

  Bonner peered into the gas tank and laughed to himself. Leather hadn't given Hatchet enough gas to make it back-because he knew that Hatchet wasn't coming back so why waste the gas? Sometimes Leather had a funny sense of humor.

  The streets were dark and littered with the refuse that nobody ever bothered to pick up. There was no law in Chicago and that was fine with the residents. Bonner picked his way through the streets, ready at any moment to pull the Winchester from his back. There were always a couple of street-men around looking to steal whatever you had and they didn't care a hell of a lot if you got hurt. You carried a gun. It was a fact of life. The shotgun the girl held on Hatchet was hers; it would have been like carrying a purse or a wallet in the old days.

  Bonner knew his way through the dark streets, but even if he had not, he would have been able to reach his destination by sound alone. There was a bar in Chicago, called Dorca's-Dorca being a bear-sized old smuggler who decided to settled down-and that was where you went for a drink, a girl, information. It never closed and it was always just this side of a riot. Dorca made sure though that things never got too much out of hand. But he was tolerant.

  "Hell," he would say, "these boys deserve a little relaxation."

  "These boys" were Chicago's elite citizens.

  Chicago was still the center of the country-only no one called it a country anymore-now it was known as the continent. Where the United States of America-the place forever eradicated by the bomb- had been there were sow four or five little kingdoms and all of them were bad places ruled by worse men. Leather called himself the President of the Slavestates, and he was about as bad as you can get. The survivors that lived there stayed because they were too scared to get out. They figured that it was safer to put up with the troubles where they were-even if that meant enslavement to thugs like Leather and Hatchet- than to risk crossing the wastelands to get away. But, if you had the guts to go, you headed for Chicago.

  Chicago was an open city and the men that lived there were the only daredevils or free spirits or whatever you want to call them that still lived on the continent. In the old days you would have called them criminals. But hell, thought Bonner, everybody these days was a criminal, or a corpse or a coward. It was in Chicago-or what was left of it-that you found the smugglers and the border raiders and the road guides and the runaways.

  If you made it to Chicago you were pretty safe from the enemies you might have left behind. If the. Lightning Squad from the Snowstates or the storm-troopers from Leather's Slavestates came looking for you, they would have to face every gun in Chicago. Over the years the stormers and the squadsmen and the Devils from down in the Hotstates, realized that if they didn't get you before you crossed the city line they weren't going to get you at all. The permanent residents, the regulars at Dorca's, figured that if you had made it that far, you deserved to stay. Staying alive once you got there, well, that was a different story.

  If you were smart and tough and had strong nerves and didn't have too many qualms about taking somebody else's property or life you might make a smuggler. All you had to know was where stuff had been hidden before the bomb-and it might be deep in the Slavestates or in the middle of the desert in the Hotstates-go get it, and blast your way back to Chicago. If you came back with liquor, meat, ammunition or, best of all, gasoline, you could sell it in the city and make a fortune. You got your money up front in gold or silver only, but then you had to worry about keeping it. There were smugglers who had fought storm-troopers or squadsmen for a thousand miles only to lose their haul to some joker with an ancient Smith & Wesson they happened to meet on the streets of Chicago.

  If you were dumb and liked to fight you could settle for being a raider. All you had to do was get a bunch of boys together, make sure they had enough ammunition and then wander into one of the States and have a look around to see what was worth stealing. Smugglers knew what they were going after and they had a fair idea of where it was; raiders didn't care, they would bring back anything they thought might be worth something, even people. Sometimes they brought back women and settled down to make serious money just pimping. Bonner was a smuggler and he was the best. Back when he was an Outrider-when there had been Outriders-he had covered every inch of the continent. He knew which roads could still be travelled, where bridges still stood, where people still lived. There weren't many people left and there were probably fewer now so all the stuff that had been stockpiled before the big war was still there, all you had to know was where. If anyone knew, it was Bonner.

  He missed the old Outriding days, but they were gone for good now. Today, it was kill or be killed. Steal or be stolen from. Leather had been an Outrider too and the first one to realize that he had the power to take a piece of the whole continent for himself. Leather had been the first to kill; the first to steal...

  As Bonner pushed open the door of Dorca's he saw a dozen faces he recognized and didn't trust.

  "Hey, Bonner," a wiry man with lan
k black hair called out.

  "Evening, Comer," said Bonner, making for the bar. Dorca's was crowded and the air was thick with smoke, bad tobacco that had been going around ever since Lawson and his raiders had brought in a ton of the stuff from down south somewhere.

  "Bonner," shouted Comer again, "there was a guy in here looking for you. Guess who it was?"

  Bonner looked at Comer with contempt. Comer was a street-worker who had made raider and finally set himself up as pimp. He was rich because his prices were low. "It was Hatchet! Fucking Hatchet!" screamed Comer. "He said he'd be coming back here when he had found you."

  "He'll be along," said Bonner.

  Dorca sat at his usual place at the end of the bar, keeping an eye on things. Resting against his knees was an old mahogany table leg, once the comer of some proud Chicagoan's pool table. The table leg, when used with Dorca's own brand of finesse, usually managed to keep order.