Richard Harding - Outrider 1, Premier Volume Read online

  Once he got to the Cap he could square Leather. Leather could be reasonable, right? Cooker shook his head in answer to his own question. No, Leather could never be reasonable. Cooker thought about this a moment and then figured he was probably losing his mind. Forget the Cap. If he went before Leather there would be no deal-making. Sure, Cooker had information that Leather wanted, but if Leather wanted it he would just torture it out of him. Cooker had heard that sometimes Leather made his prisoners eat their own... forget it. Cooker thought.

  He cursed again when, far off, he heard two engines burst into life. Those goddamn fucking Stormers! Taken down. He listened to the sounds of the engines in the still air. Taken down and a couple of raiders or smugglers or some other pieces of shit were heading on in search of slaver women or ammunition or food or gas. But they would never find what Cooker had found...

  Cooker cursed even louder when, just about dusk, it started to rain. Water poured from the sky in great sheets as if the clouds were dumping rain onto the dirty land in a desperate effort to cleanse it. Cooker was soaked instantly and with the water pouring onto his face he screamed and yelled and damned everyone from the Fates to the Stormers for bringing him to this sorry state.

  He rolled over onto his belly and started to crawl toward the minimal cover of one of the Stonner cars. As he made his way across the wet asphalt he suddenly found himself caught in the powerful beam of Bonner's light.

  In that second Cooker had two thoughts: I'm saved...I'm done for.

  Cooker twisted his head and looked over his shoulder. Through the pounding rain he could see the white shaft of light making the area around him as bright as day.

  "Hey! Who the fuck are you?"

  Bonner and Starling killed their engines. The light died a slow death. The only sound now was the thrumming of the rain on the concrete and the odd metallic ping it made when it hit the steel bodies of the dead Stormer's vehicles.

  Cooker was aware, even in that darkness, of the eyes of the drivers. He stared into the dark till his eyes hurt. He half expected each rumble of thunder to bring with it the crackle of gunfire.

  "Why don't you fucking say something?"

  "Well I'll be damned if it ain't the gas-man." Starling's laconic drawl sounded faintly amused.

  "Who's that? Who?"

  "You know," said Bonner, "I think it is the gas-man." "Who?" Then Cooker realized. "Bonner? Bonner? Is that you?"

  From the darkness came a chuckle. "You bet, gasman, it's me."

  There is a fucking God! thought Cooker. And joyful tears began to mix with the rain on his face.

  "Hey, Bonner. Untie me. Who are you with? Did you bring down that fuck Drexy? Son of a bitch!"

  Bonner spoke, as if he was meeting Cooker at a table at Dorca's instead of in that smoky and wet patch of borderlands.

  "Hey, Cooker, you seen Seth?"

  "Seth? Seth! Are you out of your fucking mind? Untie me, then we'll talk about that crazy nigger."

  "That's the gas-man all right," said Starling.

  "Who is that?" bellowed Cooker.

  "Starling," said Starling.

  "Starling? You fuck. You owe me."

  "So maybe I'll untie you."

  They untied Cooker and while he danced and capered, trying to get circulation back into his stiff limbs, Bonner and Starling methodically went through the Stormer's cars. Starling pocketed a huge old.45 automatic and was pleased when he located two spare clips of ammunition. Stowed in one vehicle was the patrol's rations and Starling and Cooker started a fire in the ruins of the motel and started preparing a meal.

  Bonner backed his own and Starling's vehicles over next to the Stormers' and started to drain their fuel tanks. That done, he joined his companions.

  "Look," said Starling, his mouth full. "Bread." Bonner accepted a piece of the gray, clayish substance and took a bite. "Great," he said disgustedly.

  "Come on, Bonner," said Cooker, "when was the last time you had a piece of bread?"

  "You know he doesn't give a shit about food."

  "Where's your tanker. Cooker?" Bonner asked.

  "Down the road a ways. Other side of the big ruins."

  "So what happened."

  Cooker slurped some of the rations into his face. It was some kind of meat and it tasted great to him "Man," he said, "I seen the promised land..."

  Starling stopped eating. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  In the firelight. Cooker's mean, dirty face seemed to soften, as if he was suddenly thinking about a beautiful girl, clean sheets and a secure place. "Man, I found it. I found what I been looking for all these years."

  "Don't tell me you found the tanks?"

  "Fucked if I didn't."

  Cooker had been talking about this for years. Somewhere, he was sure there was a huge, undiscovered stockpile of gas. A reservoir so vast that he could sell and sell until he was the richest man on the continent. Cooker, by profession, was a tanker, a gas-man, a gas-hound-there were a lot of names for his type although there weren't too many men that followed his particular calling. Sure, raiders and smugglers were always on the look out for the stuff but they didn't seek it out the way guys like Cooker did. The tankers worked with the single-mindedness of the old prospectors looking for gold.

  There was something about being a gas-hound that made you crazy, thought Bonner as he looked into Cooker's lunatic eyes. It was probably because if you were a gas-man you drove around by yourself with a big tank mounted on the frame of your car, a huge drum that carried maybe three hundred, perhaps four hundred gallons. You were a sitting duck pushing that big rig all over the continent. You could be spotted from miles away, you had no speed with all that weight and everybody, but everybody, wanted what you were carrying. They always worked alone, the gas-men, and they trusted no one. They were always sure that they were a target-and that was usually true.

  "So?" said Starling, "where is it?"

  Cooker sat back on his heels and turned his face toward the dripping ceiling, opened his mouth and laughed, braying like a donkey. He laughed so hard he fell sideways and kicked his feet and squirmed and pounded the floor with his fists.

  After the fit passed he wiped his eyes. "That was a good one, Starling... Where is it," he said, as if to himself, and laughed a little again.

  "You think I'm going to tell you? You must be fucking crazy."

  "Just asking," said Starling.

  "Don't forget you owe for a tank. I gave it to you on credit..."

  "The hell you did." "Hey, Cooker, how come you're still alive," Bon-ner asked suddenly.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that Stormers aren't famous for taking prisoners."

  Cooker scowled. "Yeah, I know. When they caught me I told 'em. I told 'em I had found the tanks... Man I am glad you took 'em down..."

  "You told them where they were?"

  "Nawww, I just told them I had found out where they were and I'd only tell Leather. If they killed me, they would never find out."

  Bonner's face darkened. "But you were going to tell Leather."

  "Don't be an asshole, Bonner. I was stalling. I figure I had a few days before I had to worry about Leather, but right at that moment I just didn't want those Stormers to slice my ass. You know that Drexy... He likes entertainment of a certain variety."

  "Very smart. Cooker," growled Starling. "If we hadn't come along and taken those guys down the whole fucking Stormer battalion would have been out looking for your find."

  "And don't think I'm not obliged to you gents," said Cooker. "Tomorrow we go to my truck and I'll give you a free fill up."

  "Then what are you going to do?"

  Cooker laughed. "I'm outbound for Chi. I'm going back and I'm going to have your friend Lucky make me the biggest tank the continent has seen since the bomb. Then I'm inbound for the promised land. And I'm going to keep going back until... until..." Cooker's eyes glazed over. "Shit, you should see it, Bonner. Hundreds of 'em, tanks as big as... fuck I don't know.. , big. Wo
rth a fortune, and all mine..."

  Bonner and Starling exchanged glances. "How long till some raider follows you. Cooker?" asked Starling.

  Cooker suddenly looked very mean. "Some fucking raider follows me and I'll fry the skin off his bones. I'll bum him so bad he'll wish he hadn't left home. No one is going to take this away from me. Not a raider, not Leather and not you either..." Cooker's eyes glowed and he looked as if he was sure that Starling and Bonner were just about to jump him.

  "Settle down. Cooker. It's your stash. All we want to be is customers."

  "Maybe," said Cooker.

  "Some fucking thanks," said Starling, a note of disgust in his voice.

  Chapter 8

  The rain in the night had made the smoky air damp and it seemed to stick to their clothes like mud. Bonner awoke in the ruins of the motel, smelled the dirty air and told himself he would be glad to get out of the borderlands. The farther he advanced into the Slavestates, the more danger he would face, but it would be better than hanging around in the smoky hell of the borderlands.

  He eased himself to his feet, feeling the cold of a long, wet night in his bones and in a dozen old wounds. He stood in the gray morning light looking east wondering for a moment if it was worth going on. Ahead of him lay miles of firefights, pain and death. And that was before he made the Cap. Turn back now, he thought, go back to Chi. But a single fact chased his longings from his mind: Dara.

  Cooker sidled up to him. "Starling tells me you're going to the Cap."

  "That's right." "Ever been there?"

  "Years ago."

  "Tell me about the Cap, Bonner."

  "Lots of big buildings, ruins. Lots of big ruins. There's a river. A lot of broken roads, broken statues... Cooker, the Cap isn't any different from any other bombed-out city, except the ruins are prettier."

  "Tell me," said Cooker eagerly, "is there one big mother of a ruin, they say it's fucking huge."

  "They're all huge. Cooker."

  "Yeah, I know, but this one is huge. I mean really fucking enormous and it's got a big round whatdyacallit on the roof.''

  "A dome."

  "Yeah, a dome. Is there one like that?"

  "Yeah, Cooker, there's one like that."

  "Damn," said Cooker as if he couldn't believe it. "Damn."

  "Yo, Bonner, Cooker, let's get moving." Starling was swinging up into the seat of his rig.

  "Can I ride with you, Bonner?" Cooker asked like a child begging for another bedtime story.

  "Yeah, sure."

  The going was still pretty tough in the alley. Bonner's car led, bumping along the narrow track while Cooker stood where the passenger's seat would have been, his back braced against the crossbar on which the machinegun was mounted. The roar of the powerful engines bounced off the steel walls making it seem as if the two vehicles were trapped in a sealed box of noise. "Hey, Bonner," Cooker shouted, "you got any idea how bad the gas situation is inside the Slavestates?"

  "Yeah," shouted Bonner, "bad."

  "Fucking right it's bad. Leather has every drop. Every lick of gas north and south of the Cap for two-three hundred miles."

  Bonner nodded. This wasn't news to him.

  "If they need gas in New York or some other garrison, they have to ask him and he sends it. They have tanks too, they travel in convoys."

  Bonner nodded again. He had been known to bring down a convoy now and then. Never in the Slavestates though, they were too big. He would hit convoys in the Snows or the Hots. They were smaller and two smugglers could handle them if they planned the right ambush at the right place.

  "So how do you plan to get in and out with your machine here? When you're outbound again, heading for Chi you're gonna be having your ass chased by every Stormer and Radlep on the coast. You won't have time to go sniffing around for no oasis. You're gonna have to point your nose west and haul ass. Run out of gas and you're a dead man."

  This wasn't new either.

  "So..." Cooker scratched the stubble on his chin. "So, I been thinking."

  Bonner silently wished that Cooker wouldn't think. It wasn't that he wasn't good at it, but somehow his plans always seemed to come out wrong.

  "You wanna know what I been thinking, Bonner?"

  "Sure." "I been thinking that you could use a tanker alongside."

  "What are you talking about. Cooker."

  "I'm talking about going with you to the Cap."

  "Cooker, what do you want to go to the Cap for?"

  "Got my reasons." Man, he thought, do I have my reasons. He was going to do his own little piece of damage to that shit Leather. It would be quite a sight. And it would make him richer, richer than the great tank field he found would do. Yes, Cooker thought, he had been doing some pretty smart reasoning. Bonner was smart, but Cooker thought he was smarter. Cooker told himself that he could have been an Outrider, if he had wanted.

  "What reasons?"

  "They're mine, Bonner. All I want you to do is get me into the Cap. You do that and you got me and my tank, no charge-" it was hard for Cooker to say the last two words-"all the way in and all the way out. What do you say?"

  Bonner always knew the gas-hounds were crazy. "Cooker," he began.

  "Cut the shit, Bonner. Its a fair deal. You're going to need a hundred, maybe hundred-fifty gals. My tank has five hundred, full..." Cooker ran an experienced eye over the fuel tank he was standing on. "What you got here, a fifty?"

  "Right."

  "And you got a thirsty machine. Think, you fuck. No fuel problems all the way into the Cap and all the way back to sweet Chi-town. And don't forget, I got my thrower. I'll help out in a firelight." He giggled. "I'll make it a real firefight."

  Bonner drove in silence for a minute. He didn't need any fuel problems. And he didn't need the crazy little tanker man around either. It was a question of which was the bigger hassle... Finally he said:

  "Deal, Cooker."

  Cooker smiled and laughed his crazy little giggle. "You won't regret it... We're coming up on my tank. Just up the ways a piece."

  Cooker's tanker was pulled up on the side of the road exactly where the little gas-man had left it. When he saw it. Cooker's eyes lit up, like a proud father.

  "Ain't she a honey, Bonner?"

  He jumped down from Bonner's car and scampered over to his old truck and climbed onto it with the agility of a chimp. Starling pulled up next to Bonner and shut down his engine.

  "That damn tank is the ugliest thing I have ever seen on two wheels, three wheels, four wheels or six."

  "Who drives six wheels?"

  "No one yet, but someone will. And when they do it'll still be prettier than that thing."

  The tanker was about as simple as a vehicle could be. A huge drum, a mean-looking welding job of rough iron plates joined together like a patchwork quilt sat squarely on a huge cast iron chassis. At the fore end was a big old engine looted from some long dead semi, completely exposed. Protruding from beneath the engine was a shaft over which a heavy gear chain hooked. This ran from the front of the truck to the sprocketed wheel on the rear axle, giving the behemoth a single gear, chain drive like a bicycle.

  The contraption was steered, by brute force, from atop the tank itself. Up there. Cooker had built himself a little perch, like the box on a stagecoach, with the steering wheel flat in front of him attached to the front axle by a long L-shaped steering column. Behind him, incongruously, was a big umbrella, like the one that people used to take to the beach, which he opened when he needed shelter from the rain or shade to fight the hot sun.

  Cooker climbed up to his box seat and slipped into the harness that held the weapon that was his trademark. A bright red cannister hung on his back like an old scuba tank and a long rubber hose snaked through the harness, around Cooker's waist into his hands. At the end of the hose was a big brass nozzle.

  Cooker reached over his shoulder and grasped a small pump handle that protruded from atop the tank. He worked it in and out once or twice and opened the nozzle on the
hose a touch.

  Bonner and Starling could see a fine shimmer of gas dancing in the air. Cooker lit the shimmering cloud with an old Zippo lighter then opened the nozzle wide. A roaring jet of flame spewed out of the hose and leapt onto some stunted vegetation. It vanished as if in a firestorm.

  Involuntarily, Starling and Bonner winced. They could feel the searing heat of the blast thirty feet away. Cooker giggled and ran across the back of the tank and let another bolt of flame shoot from his thrower. The fireball burnt itself out in the morning air, leaving a heavy orb of black smoke. The air was heavy with the smell of burnt gasoline.