Tainted Cascade

“Not likely,” Ryan agreed grimly, rubbing his unshaved jaw. There were two other wags in the convoy, the cages in the back jammed full of scrawny people. However, Krysty and Mildred were the only adult females with some flesh on their bones, and all of the slavers were men, not a single woman among their ranks. Yeah, come nightfall, things would get ugly.

“I am glad to see you back, my dear Ryan,” Doc rumbled, wiping his mouth on the back of a hand. “I had feared that your consumption of the tainted water may have taken you across the River Styx.”

“Not aced yet,” Ryan stated, flexing his hands, feeling the strength slowly return.

“Got a plan yet, buddy?” J.B. asked, reaching up to adjust his glasses. With a start, the man frowned when his fingers only touched bare skin. Dark night! the Armorer thought. Without those I’m nearsighted to the point of being blind! About as useful as a dick on a cactus.

“Working on it,” Ryan murmured, studying the cage and wag.

“Work faster,” Jak whispered, picking up an old piece of string and using it to tie back his long hair. Although only a teenager, the albino youth was covered with a wide assortment of scars forming a rippled pattern caused by being caught in acid rain, knife cuts, laser burns and the circles showing a healed bullet wound.

Deep in thought, Ryan merely grunted in reply. If this had been an iron cage that would have been another matter. But these wooden cages were generally the providence of slavers. Cannibals used iron cages because they didn’t really care if the prisoners banged their heads against the bars and took their own lives. They were going into the cooking pot either way, and beating themselves up only made the meat more tender. However, slavers used wood, sometimes with canvas padding wrapped around the bars, because they needed the merchandise alive and relatively undamaged.

Carefully, Ryan studied the other two wags, noting their positions in the caravan, then he turned his full attention to the two men in the front of their wag. Both were fat, but with broad shoulders and wide hands, suggesting that some of their girth came from being large men. The driver had a mustache, the gunner was bald, and each was armed with a machete, a club and a bullwhip—but not any of the blasters taken from the companions. Fireblast! He had been counting on the slavers carrying the weapons on them.

Unfortunately, aside from the green hay, bits of string and some old yellow straw, there was nothing else in the cage but the companions. Slowly, a plan began to unfold in his mind, and Ryan briefly told the others. They nodded and moved to the appropriate positions. They would only get one chance, and failure meant worse than death.

Briefly, there was a tickling sound along with the smell of fresh urine.

Abruptly rising from the hay, Krysty and Mildred loudly yawned and scratched themselves, the women spreading their arms to display their figures to the fullest advantage.

“Well, well, looks like we got a couple of gaudy sluts this time.” The gunner leered, glancing over a shoulder. “Keep it up, sluts! I likes me a good show!”

“Then how about some dinner theater?” Mildred snarled, throwing forward a gob of newly moistened dung. The drek hit the wooden bars and splattered across both of the slavers.

“Stupe move, bitch,” the driver snarled, the back of his shirt speckled with the material.

“Yeah, tonight we’re gonna make you eat that.” The gunner smiled, rubbing his crotch. “Along with some other stuff, too!”

“Without first having dessert?” Krysty asked, and flung a second wad. The dripping drek sailed through the bars to smack directly into the gunner’s face, catching him in the middle of a chuckle.

Hacking and choking, the fat man bent over the side of the wag to loudly wretch, while the driver howled with laughter.

“She got you good, Billy!” The man guffawed, slapping a knee.

“Shut up, Henry,” the gunner panted, using a sleeve to wipe the bile and drek from his face. Pursing his lips, the man spit filth from his mouth, then stood to uncoil the bullwhip at his side. “Fuck the bounty! I’m gonna skin that bitch alive!”

“How very odd,” Doc said in a cultured tone of voice, sitting upright amid the hay. “Because that was exactly what I said to your mother before I raped her.”

“Wh-what did he say?” Henry gasped in genuine shock, almost dropping the reins.

“My, my, you should have heard how she squealed like a little piggy.” Doc grinned amiably. “It was most amusing. I bet that you can squeal like a piggy, too, if you try. Come on, squeal, my fat little piggy. Squeal for Daddy!”

Sputtering obscenities, Billy turned a bright red in the face and lashed out with his bullwhip.

Expertly, the knotted length shot between the bars to score a bloody furrow across the old man’s chest.

Gushing crimson, Doc was thrown backward from the brutal strike, but Jak and Ryan dived on the whip and pulled with all of their strength. Caught off balance, Billy was hauled forward to smack his face hard against the wooden cage. Rising from the hay, J.B. thrust his hands through the bars to grab the slaver by the ears and bang the man’s head repeatedly against the cage until blood poured from his slack mouth and his eyes rolled back into death.

“Son of a bitch!” Henry yelled, and clawed for a wooden whistle tucked into his belt. But before the slaver could sound the alarm, another gob of dung hit the whistle, and it tumbled out of sight.

“Mutie fuckers!” Henry snarled, reaching for his machete.

Moving fast, Ryan lashed out with his stolen whip, slicing open the slaver’s forehead. Blinded by the flow of blood from the minor wound, the driver flailed about with the machete, hitting nothing. Ryan rushed to the front of the cage and shoved his arm through to lash the whip out sideways. The knotted length coiled around the slaver’s throat, and Ryan yanked back with all of his strength. There was an audible snap of bone as Henry flew out of the seat to crash into the bars. Gurgling horribly, the man could only feebly twitch as Krysty held him hard by the hair, and Mildred grabbed the machete to chop down twice and end his misery.

Freeing the whip, Ryan tried to get the reins and failed, the leather straps having fallen over the side of the wag in the tussle. Knowing that time was short, the companions dragged both of the corpses closer and looted them of anything that could be used as a weapon: both machetes, the other whip, a massive flintlock blaster with a barrel large enough to serve as a gren launcher, a canvas pouch filled with black powder, shot and cloth wadding. Plus a big iron key.

Using the long handle of a whip to snatch the reins, J.B. shook them gently and whispered soft words to the team of horses, making them maintain an even speed. If this wag fell behind, or the companions tried to make a break, they would be spotted instantly, and the other slavers would slaughter them with those longblasters. Meanwhile, hauling the dead men up against the cage, Krysty and Jak held them in place to make it look as if they were still alive. The trick wouldn’t fool anybody paying close attention, but all they needed was a few minutes. Speed was their best chance at survival now. Speed, and some triple-savage chilling.

Still bleeding, Doc passed the flintlock and ammo pouch to Mildred, and she started to quickly reload. The physician longed to help the wounded man, but this wasn’t the time or the place.

Going to the middle of the cage, Ryan went down on his hands and knees. As the strongest person there, he would be the foundation. Climbing barefoot on top of him, Doc reached up high and just barely managed to ease a hand around the bars to start fiddling with the key in the lock.

“John Barrymore, it will not fit!” Doc whispered, his legs trembling from the effort of standing. His face was pale and sweaty, the blood still flowing freely from the deep laceration across his torso.

“Probably just rusty!” J.B. whispered back tersely, furious over not being able to do the job himself. “Lube it up!”

“With what?”

“Piss, blood, spit—anything ya got!”

Having no other source of lubrication, Doc spit on the key and tried again, with an equal lack of success. Suddenly, raised voices came from the other wags, and a shot rang out, the wood near his fumbling hand sprouting jagged splinters. Jerking back in surprise, Doc cursed as the key went flying to clatter off the bars and land in the hay below.

“Here they come!” Krysty shouted, releasing the corpse.

“Yee-haw!” J.B. bellowed, shaking the reins hard, and the horses obediently took off to a full gallop. But even pressing himself against the bars, the man could just barely make out the grassland before the animals and had to rely upon the innate good sense of the horses.

Letting go of his own corpse, Jak dived for the key just as the racing buckboard jounced through a dried gully, and the key jumped into the pile of hay.

“Krysty, Mildred, cover fire!” Ryan shouted, rocking to the wild motions of the rattling transport.

Going to the side of the cage, Krysty grabbed a bar tight and leaned far to the left. Resting the long barrel of the flintlock handblaster on the stable platform of the other woman’s arm, Mildred clicked back the hammer, gauging for wind and droppage.

Clawing the green hay aside, Jak revealed the old straw and the key sticking out of a small pile of drek. Without hesitation, the albino teen grabbed the key and spit on it twice before wiping it clean and passing it up to Doc.

Holding her breath, Mildred braced for the recoil and gently squeezed the trigger. The hammer moved downward, scraping the flint along a worn piece of steel throwing off bright sparks that ignited the loose powder in the flashpan. There was a brief hiss, then the primitive blaster roared so loud that Mildred thought it had exploded in her hands. Then the physician saw with cold satisfaction the driver of the second wag fly off the buckboard to be trampled under the pounding hooves of the horses pulling the third wag.

“Hell of a shot,” Krysty grunted, shaking her hair to ease the sting from the fiery discharge of the weapon.

“I was going for the horses,” Mildred growled, already starting the laborious process of reloading the big bore blaster.

Shots rang out from the third wag, several of them smacking into the wooden bars of the cage with remarkable accuracy. Krysty grunted at that. Clearly, somebody over there really knew how to shoot. With no choice, the redheaded woman stepped in front of the frantically busy physician to offer what protection her body could.

Steering around what sort of looked like a pile of boulders, J.B. grimaced to see it had actually just been a stand of cacti. Dark night, he thought, I’m going to get everybody aced unless I get this nuking thing under control!

A flurry of gunshots rang out from the second wag, and Krysty flinched as a miniball scored a hot line across her thigh. Jak was thrown backward into the loose pile of hay, his arm gushing blood.

Trying the key once more, Doc was delighted when the spit proved sufficient lubrication and the lock clicked open easily. But the hatch was incredibly heavy, and try as he might, Doc couldn’t get it to budge an inch.