Prodigal's Return

Crawling to the edge of the river, he washed the weapon thoroughly, dropping the magazine to make sure the rush of water reached every crevice. Later on, he would disassemble the blaster and give it a through cleaning and oiling. But his father had taught him that a fast wash would do in times of danger.

“Which this is, since I have no bastard idea where I am,” Dean growled, slamming the magazine back into the weapon and working the slide to eject a round. “Much less where Rona is by now.”

The memory of his mother screaming his name from the other shore of the wild river filled the youth with a sharp pang of loss. But he knew she was a fighter, and would survive on her own just fine. She had for many years. Sharona had stolen him away from his father and the others, and Dean had been really pissed about that. But his mother had convinced him that she needed him, that Ryan would never have allowed Sharona to stay with the companions. So if Dean would stay with her for a little while, she would let him go back to his father sometime soon. She needed him. The confused youth had given in.

Dean hadn’t been alone since he was nine years old. Rona or her old faithful friend, or one of the companions had been around to lend a hand when it was needed.

“But not today,” he muttered, shaking the blaster to try to remove any lingering moisture. Until further notice, he would have to fend for himself. Oddly, the idea didn’t feel him with unease. He had learned a lot traveling with his father and the other companions; and Dean felt sure there were damn few things in the Deathlands that he couldn’t chill, outrun or outthink. Except for a howler, mebbe.

Thoughts of his father, Krysty and the others flooded his mind. He felt bad about what his mother had done. But she needed him, and that was that. He’d had to look after her like he did before. He knew Ryan would never forgive him. Perhaps when he was a little older he’d try to find him—if he lived that long.

Rising to his feet, Dean stomped to help restore circulation while he took stock of the area. The river rumbled steadily along, disappearing out of sight. There were fruit trees and bushes on the other side, but they might as well be on the moon, so he turned his back to the display of inaccessible food. Out of sight, out of mind.

Outcroppings on this side of the river rose to foothills that were backed by proper mountains. There were a lot of pines and oaks in sight, as well as a wide field of grass. Dean knew a few parts of a pine tree were edible, but reaching them involved a lot of hard work for a small return. Thankfully, he saw a copse of cacti only a few yards away, and lurched in that direction.

Shuffling over to a forked cactus, Dean paused to check for any signs of a feeder hidden under the ground. But there was no indication of the subterranean mutie, and Dean eagerly drew his bowie knife to hack off the crown of the plant. Clear fluids welled up from the juicy pulp within, and he stabbed the chuck of cactus with his knife, carefully removing the needles, before carving out the pulp. It was sticky and sweet, and tasted like life itself. Smelled good, too, like a flower blossoming in the dead of winter.

Most of the cactus was inside his belly before Dean felt some of his strength return. Spearing one last chunk, he walked back to the river to wash the mud off his clothing. Then he knelt on a relatively dry section of ground to carefully disassemble, oil and reassemble the Browning Hi-Power. With internal nylon bushings, the predark blaster supposedly never needed to be oiled, but J.B. had taught him well. It was always better to be safe than buried.

Trying the action on the piece a few times, Dean grunted in satisfaction, then reloaded the blaster and tucked it away. Washed and armed once more, he decided it was time for some real food. Pine trees were a favorite home for a lot of birds, which translated into eggs for breakfast and, with any luck, something roasted for lunch. Falcon was the best, but there was nothing wrong with owl, or even robins—although it took about a dozen to make a decent meal. Plucking that many tiny feathers was something Dean wouldn’t wish on a fragging coldheart.

“Afterward, I’ll start searching for a ville,” he muttered, brushing back his damp hair. He took some comfort in the sound of a human voice, even though it was just his own.

The riverbank was alive with chirping insects and croaking frogs, a virtual chorus of nature. If the trees proved to be barren, he’d eat the bugs and frogs. Food was food. He would honestly much prefer a nice roasted crow over a baked frog stuffed with cicadas. Still, whatever didn’t chill you made you stronger, as Mildred liked to say.

Crossing an open field, Dean breathed in the morning air, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face. Scattered beams broke through the dense cloud cover, causing what Doc used to call the cathedral effect. The air smelled faintly of river moss and punk. A small field of cattails waved gently in the morning breeze, pretty, but useless.

Watching the ground for any sign of animal spoor, or worse, the gnawed bones dropped by muties, Dean was about halfway to the trees when he heard the sound of distant thunder. Fearfully, he looked up at the roiling storm clouds overhead. Swirling black, laced with orange and purple and dappled with shafts of golden sunlight, they seemed normal enough. And there wasn’t any sign of precipitation, much less the tangy reek of a dreaded acid rain that could melt the flesh off a person in only a few minutes.

Dean had seen that happen once, and it was something he would never forget. He had made it safe into the wreck of a predark car, the metal roof and old glass windows offering more than enough protection from the deadly rain. But an old man had been caught in the downpour, and had never made it to the wreck alive. In the morning there was only his skeleton lying on the muddy ground, a bony hand outstretched, still trying to reach the door handle.

Shaking off the unpleasant memory, Dean frowned as the thunder sounded once more, much louder this time. Blasting baron, that wasn’t thunder, but horses!

Caught out in the open, he knew he wouldn’t reach the safety of the foothills in time, so he drew his blaster and knife, and stood waiting for the riders to appear. They might be sec men from a ville, out hunting muties, or slavers trying to recapture an escaped prisoner, or worse, cannies looking for fresh meat for the stew pot.

Grimly, Dean mentally prepared himself to take his own life rather than be taken prisoner and ritually stripped of his skin, then consumed alive by the demented throwbacks. Even barbs treated captives better than that, though not by much.

Just then, a large number of horses galloped over the horizon, the riders bent low in the saddles. Instantly, one of them shouted something, and the entire group changed direction, to head straight toward Dean.

Controlling his breathing so as not to appear frightened, he allowed the riders to come to him. He had five, mebbe six seconds to gauge who these folks were before the confrontation. In life and death, timing was everything.

The riders seemed to be norms, not muties, and there were only men, no women in sight. That wasn’t good or bad. The horses appeared to be in fine shape, not underfed or overly whipped, which meant the riders weren’t fools. However, their clothing was scraggly and heavily patched, with a wild mismatch of predark fabric, fur and what looked like tent canvas, as if the men had been scavenging through the ruins of some predark city, taking whatever they could find. Only a few of them wore boots. Most were wearing wraparounds, thick animal fur held in place with wide leather straps. It was the kind of clothing Dean would have expected to see barbs wearing.

Or clever folks pretending to be barbs, he thought, which might be the case, as every rider had a longblaster in a gun boot alongside his saddle, and was carrying another slung across his back. They were dressed like outcasts, but armed better than most sec men in a ville. The odd mixture made Dean suspicious of the group, and just for a second he wished that he had made a dash back to the river.

As the pack drew near, he raised his blaster and fired a round into the air both to catch their attention and let them know he had live brass. A lot of people carried empty blasters, and tried to avoid fights through sheer intimidation. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it made you a passenger on the last train west.

Reining in his chestnut stallion, a tall man stopped a dozen or so yards away, and the rest of the ragged group came to a halt close behind. Dean grunted at the display. There was no doubt who was in charge.

The leader was a thin man of mixed Asian descent, his skin faintly golden, but his face heavy with black stubble. He was wearing a black knit cap and buckskin shirt, and had numerous weapons—a Walther PPK .38 in a shoulder holster, an AK-47 slung across his back, and what looked like a Remington shotgun tucked into the boot near his saddle. There were a lot of AK-47 assault rifles in the group, and a few men with 40 mm gren launchers attached. All looked to be in fairly good condition.

“Morning,” the skinny man said, resting an arm on the pommel of his saddle. “What are you doing this far from Donner ville?”

Instantly, the gesture put Dean on the alert. It seemed casual, but effectively hid the newcomer’s gun hand from observation. These folks like tricks too damn much to be anything but coldhearts, he reasoned, and swiftly changed his tactics.

“Looking for you,” he lied, trying to sound like his father. “The name’s Cawdor, Dean Cawdor, and I want to join the gang.” That statement caused an expected ripple of smirks and snorts.

“Looking for us, way out here, on foot?” the leader asked skeptically, shifting slightly in the saddle.

Sheathing the knife and blaster, Dean shrugged. “Lost my woman, both horses and my best dog, trying to cross that rad-blasted river.” Then he patted the checkered grip of the Browning. “Still got my blaster, though. Held on to that like a cross-legged virgin in a gaudy house.”

Now the group of coldhearts guffawed, and Dean felt some of the tension ease. It was just like his father had always said—make the other fellow laugh and you’re halfway done making a deal.

“Mighty bad luck,” the leader drawled, removing his arm from the pommel.

“Sounds more like mutie shit to me,” snarled a fat man with a cloth tied around his head in lieu of a hat. He was wearing one ragged shirt over another, clearly too stupe, or lazy, to sew on a patch, and around his throat was a necklace of dried ears, some from norms, a few from muties.

“Wasn’t talking to you, tubby,” Dean said, not even glancing at the corpulent rider. “So, you them, or not?”

“Them?” the skinny man asked, feigning innocence.

“The coldhearts that have been hounding Donner,” Dean continued, struggling to recall the name of the ville they had just mentioned. “I’ve had enough of the baron, and wanna join.” Then he tilted his head as if challenging them to give the correct answer.

Studying the distant foothills and weedy fields as if expecting an ambush of ville sec men, the skinny man said nothing for a few moments. “Yeah, we’re them,” he said at last. “I’m Wu-Chen Camarillo, and this is my gang, the Stone Angels.”

“The Stone Angels,” Dean repeated without inflection

“Nuking A! And we rule this fragging valley from Glass Lake to the Iron Mountains!” a bucktoothed man added fiercely, a scarred hand resting on a throwing hatchet sheathed on his thigh.

An old friend named Jak had taught Dean about that particular weapon, and he now marked the short man as one of the most dangerous in the group. It took a long time to learn how to control the unwieldy weapon, which meant the coldheart had a lot of patience and determination. That was a powerful combination.

As the rest of the coldhearts muttered their agreement to the declaration, Dean nodded along, as if it were a well-known fact, even though he had never heard of the gang before. One blaster against fifty made for triple-bad odds. His only real weapon here was intelligence. He hoped that would be enough to survive.

“Yeah, so I heard,” he said. “Wasn’t interested in joining up with a bunch of gleebs.”

That caused more smiles from the riders. Clearly, they had nothing to fear from one youth, and if he did want to join, well, they always needed fresh boots in the saddles.

“What was your name again?” Camarillo asked, a touch of humor slightly warming the demand.

“Look at them clothes and hair!” The fat man chortled. “Mud Puppy, his name be Mud Puppy!”

“Shut up, Bert,” Camarillo snapped. The youth was barely old enough to grow fuzz on his face, yet he stood facing the Angels without the slightest sign of fear. If nothing else, the kid had iron, and that was always in short supply in this line of work. Too many gleebs thought a blaster made a person brave. But a blaster was just a tool, nothing more. Just a tool, like a hammer or a shovel. It was a cold heart that made you truly dangerous.

“Mud Puppy. Funny, that’s exactly what your mother called me,” Dean said in a smooth, even tone, “just before I parked my tool in her drawer and we fucked in the gaudy house that employed her.”

The crowd of coldhearts laughed uproariously at the joke, and even Camarillo smirked, but Bert looked as if he were going to explode.

Reaching into a pocket, Dean withdrew an empty brass shell. “Here. I forgot to pay for her services,” he said, flipping the valueless shell toward the red-faced man. “Keep the change.”