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It was a pleasantly warm day. An overnight rain had dropped a heavy shower left over from April, but it had blown north by the time we finished breakfast, and the day turned nice. The long-promised summer had arrived at last. The roads had more than the usual pedestrians, bicyclists, and bus riders out enjoying the filtered sun, hot enough to be felt upon bare skin.
Someone had inserted the word “whore” into the NbW Roadhouse sign, with an arrow to clear up any doubt as to where the substitution belonged.
“What’s the NbW stand for?” Home asked.
“North by west,” MacTierney said.
Home looked at the other side of the sign as we passed it, perhaps hoping for a coda. “I was hoping for ‘naked beautiful women.’”
“Hope away. It’s a sunny afternoon. Maybe some skin will be out hanging her wash in the raw.”
After checking fuel and fluids courtesy of the trooper station, with only two duty troopers supporting a single vehicle patrolling the highway from the Ordnance border to the nearest crossroads, we idled outside the Maynes Trekker. I pretended to go to sleep with my back against the warm radiator. Home and MacTierney engaged in their usual conversational nothings, with MacTierney giving answers that showed he was only half paying attention to Home’s chatter; yet Home pressed on with the conversation nonetheless.
“Wonder if there are any quality girls in the roadhouse,” Home said.
“Wouldn’t know.”
“Not, like, pros,” Home said. “They’d starve out here, doing a couple truckers a week. Just girls working the bar. A pair of tits always makes me feel like staying around for another round.”
“Don’t say. Do you ever talk about anything but pussy, Home?”
Home ignored him. “Still, bad country for a woman. Nowhere to shop, nothing to do that isn’t a two-hour trip on a bike. In good weather.”
MacTierney looked at the sky. “Now that the storm’s blown out. Don’t know that it’ll stay good. I bet we get another before long.”
“Suppose if there is any gash open for business, Mr. Maynes will smell it out. He could find pussy on a drifting iceberg.”
The sound of distant motorcycles echoed off the NbW. I stopped pretending to sleep and rose.
“Trouble, Boss?” I asked.
“Could be,” MacTierney said. He was the only one who spoke to me in tone and terms other than those you might employ on a dog. “King, stay here. Don’t let anyone into the Trekker, and if they try to block it in, swing around in front of the roadhouse and pick us up. . . . Home, best if we get to Maynes.”
They hurried across the road. The engine noises were identifiable now, a few motorcycles. I could see a mass of headlights moving south toward us.
Just to stay on the safe side, I slipped into the driver’s seat and pulled the Trekker around to the NbW. I saw one flash of concern from MacTierney and Home—perhaps they thought I was panicking and running south—but when I backed up again, neatly parking on the “wrong” side of the road, still facing south in case we needed to escape, they hurried in to get Mr. Maynes.
The new arrivals were a convoy of large vehicles and a few bikes. They slowed as they pulled into town, and at a signal from a diesel horn perhaps stripped from a train, they pulled over on the shoulder opposite the NbW Roadhouse. All the vehicles bore the red-and-white nine-square checkerboard of licensed bounty hunters, though a few had added tic-tac-toe, obscene crosswords, or chess endgame layouts with black markers or some such.
Painted on the side of the bus were white block letters: ZIHU’S ASSURED.
MacTierney and Home reemerged from the roadhouse. It had gone quiet inside and faces were populating the windows.
I opened the door of the Trekker to speak to the humans. “Boss come?” I asked.
MacTierney shrugged and Home let out a low “hoooooo!” “He paused to refresh himself. He’s getting dressed. But we’re not leaving; he’s greeting the newcomers on behalf of the family and the Coal Country.”
“It’s Zihu’s mob,” MacTierney said to Home.
“What ass-red?” I asked, pointing to the sign.
“Assureds,” Home said. “As in assured of not being klinked up as Reaper fodder.”
They parked with a precision unmatched by any military convoy I witnessed in my career. On the edges, motorcycles light and heavy pulled up, their riders waiting for orders to switch off and dismount. Strippe
d-down pickups with high-clearance suspensions and crew-served light cannon, .20 mm drum-guns, and the best Italian-made barrels with Japanese optics, had leather harnesses for the comfort of the gunners. The bikes and pickups had tow cables, chain saws, and other accoutrements for moving obstacles out of the way. A bus and an armored van carried the payload—captives and valuables scavenged from their trips into the wilderness. A small tanker truck idled at the heart of the formation.
Maynes joined the other two on the porch/sidewalk in front of the roadhouse. He was still closing buttons. “We’re not the only visitors to this one-holer, I see,” he said.
