David L. Robbins - Endworld 18 - Memphis Run

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2024-12-23 0 0 372.73KB 188 页 5.9玖币
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Memphis Run
#18 in the Endworld series
David Robbins
Chapter One
"Did you see that?" the girl asked.
"See what?" responded the lean man in buckskins. His keen blue eyes
scanned the lush foliage ahead as his hands dropped to the pearl-handled
Colt Python revolvers strapped around his narrow waist. The westerly
breeze stirred his blond hair.
"I saw something," the girl insisted.
Frowning, his sweeping blond mustache curling downward, the
gunman took several strides in front of the child. "What was it? Another
blasted mutant?"
"I don't know."
"I'm gettin' fed up with havin' to blow a mutant away every fifty miles
or so," the gunman commented.
"I don't think it was a mutant," the girl said. "It looked like a man."
"Are you sure, Chastity?"
The girl walked up to the gunman and tugged on his right pants leg.
"Would I lie to you. Daddy?" She wore a blue jump suit in need of a
thorough washing. Her shoulder-length blonde hair framed a face of
angelic innocence, and her blue eyes looked at the man accusingly.
"No, princess. I reckon you wouldn't," the gunman admitted. "How far
away was this varmint?"
"There," Chastity said, pointing at a cluster of trees a hundred yards
distant.
"Something wrong, Hickok?" inquired a newcomer behind them in a
deep, resonant voice.
"Or is it time for another potty break, Daddy?" added another man
with a hint of humor in his tone.
Hickok turned and stared critically at the second speaker, a small, wiry
man dressed all in black with a katana scabbard aligned under his belt on
his left hip and the corner of a brown pouch visible behind his right hip.
His black attire complemented his dark hair and eyes. "Are you makin' fun
of me, Rikki?" Hickok demanded.
The Family's supreme martial artist kept a straight face. "Would I
stoop to teasing you? The code of Bushido does not permit a perfected
swordmaster to indulge in sarcasm."
Hickok made a snorting noise. "If words were bull manure, I'd be in it
up to my waist! You're worse than that mangy Injun."
"What mangy Injun?" Chastity interjected.
The gunman gazed down at her. "One of my best buddies is an Indian
named Geronimo. He's a Warrior, just like me."
Chastity nodded. "Oh. That's right. You've talked about him before. You
must like him a lot."
"For a six-year-old, you're pretty sharp," Hickok remarked. Then he
sighed. "Yeah. I miss Geronimo heaps. But don't ever tell him that."
"Why not?" Chastity questioned.
"I don't want him to think I'm gettin' mushy in my old age," Hickok
said.
"You're not old," Chastity insisted.
The fourth member of their quartet cleared his throat. "If you don't
mind, I'd like to keep moving unless there was a reason for stopping."
Hickok faced the man with the deep voice, a towering giant whose
bulging muscles served as a visible testimony to his prodigious strength.
"Chastity saw something or someone up yonder," he reported.
"Why didn't you say so?" asked the titan, a seven-foot colossus attired
in a black leather vest, green fatigue pants, and black combat boots.
Suspended from his belt on each hip was a Bowie knife in a brown sheath.
His gray eyes narrowed and he ran his right hand through his dark,
windblown hair. He scrutinized the terrain in their path, then looked at
the girl. "What did you see?"
"A man, I think. He went from tree to tree," she answered, and gestured
at the stand of trees.
"Did he see us?" the giant probed.
"He was looking at us, Blade," Chastity replied.
Blade rested his hands on his Bowies. "Now what?"
"I'll check it out," Hickok offered.
"Allow me," Rikki interjected, and grinned at the gunman. "Daddy
should stay here with Chastity."
"Go," Blade said to the martial artist. Then he added an afterthought:
"Be careful."
"Will do," Rikki promised, jogging off.
"I like Ricky-Picky-Daffy," Chastity declared. "He's nice."
"How many times do I have to tell you?" Hickok responded. "His name
is Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and he took his name from a mongoose."
"I still don't get it," Chastity admitted. "How come you don't keep the
names your mommies and daddies give you?"
"I've explained it before," Hickok noted. "At the place we come from, a
compound called the Home, everyone goes through a Naming ceremony
when they turn sixteen. The man who built our Home, the man we call the
Founder of our Family, started the Naming ceremony. He wanted us to go
through the history books in our big library and find any name we liked as
our own. It was his way of trying to make sure we stayed in touch with our
roots, so to speak."
"I don't understand," Chastity said.
"Don't fret your noggin' over it," Hickok stated. "I'll explain the whole
deal again when you're seven."
Chastity pursed her thin lips for a moment. "Where did your name
come from?"
"Mine? Hickok was the name of a great gunfighter," Hickok detailed.
"He lived centuries ago. His full name was James Butler Hickok, and he
was one of the deadliest gunfighters who ever lived."
"Is that why you picked his name?" Chastity inquired.
"Not because he was deadly," Hickok said. "But because he was the best
at what he did, yet he never used his skill to deliberately hurt folks unless
they had it comin'. He was a lawman in the Old West."
"What happened to him?"
"He was shot in the back of the head by a mangy, yellow coyote by the
name of McCall," Hickok disclosed. "McCall was too yellow to take Hickok
on man to man in an honest shootout." He paused. "Everyone knew
Hickok was unbeatable. The only way to get him was in the back."
Chastity's expression became a mirror of concern. "You won't let that
happen to you!"
"Jack McCall bit the dust ages ago."
"Not him. But another bad man might try to shoot you in the back,"
Chastity said in alarm. She impulsively reached out and hugged him
around the knees. "Don't let anyone kill you. I don't want to lose another
daddy."
Hickok gently placed his left hand on the top of her head. "Don't worry,
princess. No one will ever plug me in the back."
Chastity squeezed tightly. "I hope not. I love you."
The gunman swallowed hard. "I'm fond of you too, little one." Eager to
change the subject, he glanced up. "Rikki is gettin' close to those trees."
Chastity released his knees and turned. "He'd better watch out."
"Was the man you saw armed?" Blade asked.
"I don't know," she replied.
Blade gazed at the gunman. "I'm beginning to believe you're right."
"About what?" Hickok responded.
"About returning to the Home," Blade said. "If our map is accurate, we
should be within forty miles or less of Memphis."
"If Memphis is still there," Hickok observed. "Maybe it was hit during
the war."
"We'll find out," Blade declared. "In any event, we need transportation
capable of reaching Minnesota. We've been walking for weeks, and we
have over twelve hundred miles to go. Here it is, August already, and at
the rate we're traveling we won't reach the Home until next August."
"So what was I right about?" Hickok asked.
"About acquiring transportation," Blade mentioned.
"You mean when I said we should steal it?" Hickok inquired.
The giant nodded. "We may have no choice." He sighed sadly. "I miss
Jenny and Gabe."
"You miss your missus and young'un, and I miss mine," Hickok
concurred. "All I think about is Sherry and Ringo."
"And me?" Chastity interjected hopefully.
"And you," Hickok said with a smile.
"I hope Mrs. Hickok and Ringo like me," Chastity stated.
"They will," Hickok assured her. "And call my missus Sherry. Mrs.
Hickok sounds sort of stuffy."
Chastity's features abruptly conveyed an inner melancholy. "I wish my
mommy and daddy were alive."
Hickok and Blade exchanged glances.
"I'm happy that you're my new daddy," Chastity said to the gunman,
"but I want my mommy and daddy back."
"They've gone to a better world," Blade said.
"Where?"
Blade pursed his lips and watched Rikki enter the forest ahead. What
could he say to alleviate her remorse? He tried to recall conversations he'd
had with his son along similar lines. "Our Elders teach us that death is
just the way we get from this world to a higher spiritual level. Your
mommy and daddy have gone on ahead of you and will be waiting for you
when you arrive."
"Mommy told me we go to heaven when we die," Chastity said. "Will
mommy and daddy know me in heaven?"
"I believe so, yes," Blade affirmed.
"I can't wait to get there," Chastity asserted.
"Whoa, princess. There's no rush," Hickok remarked. "We all pass on
when the time comes."
"'When will my time come?"
"We have no way of knowin'," Hickok said. "So we should live our lives
to the fullest until we do kick the bucket. There's no sense in worryin' over
when our number will be called. And there's no sense in hurryin' it along,
either. What will be, will be."
Blade chuckled. "I had no idea you're such a philosopher. You should
teach a class at the Home on the meaning of life. I'll write your petition to
the Elders."
"I'm not qualified to teach a schooling class, and you know it," Hickok
declared.
"Do you have a school at your Home?" Chastity queried.
"Yep," Hickok answered. "The young'uns are taught by our Elders in
one of our concrete bunkers. There are all kinds of classes."
"Like what?"
"Horticulture, agriculture, weaving, history, math, geography," Hickok
said. "You name it, the Elders will teach it."
"Did they teach you to be a Warrior?"
"One of them was my instructor," Hickok responded. "The Warriors are
given extra instruction to prepare them for the job."
"Like what?"
Hickok looked at Blade. "Why is it kids ask so many questions?" Then
he turned back to Chastity. "Warriors must constantly train to stay sharp.
I practice with my Colts every chance I get. Blade does the same with his
pigstickers."
"What's a pigsticker?"
"He means my Bowie knives," Blade explained.
"Why does he call them pigstickers?" Chastity wanted to know.
"Haven't you noticed how Hickok uses funny words?" Blade asked.
Chastity nodded. "He uses them all the time."
"And do you know why?" Blade queried.
"Yeah. Rikki told me it's because my new daddy has a warped brain."
"What?" Hickok snapped, staring at the tree line. "When did he say
that?"
"A couple of days ago. Why? Isn't it true?" Chastity queried.
"If anything is warped around here, it's Rikki's sense of humor," Hickok
stated. "My brain is as normal as anyone else's."
"Then why do you use so many funny words?"
The gunman crouched and tenderly touched his right forefinger to her
chin. "Out of habit, I reckon. I started using words from the Old West
when I was a whippersnapper, and the habit stuck. I'm partial to the way
of life they lived way back then. When I was little, I wished I'd been born a
cowboy or a marshal in a frontier town. All my childhood heroes came
from Western books. Now Blade was different. He liked these books about
a man who went around swingin' in trees with nothin' on but his
underwear. This guy could talk to monkeys and elephants and he liked
livin' in the jungle. So who's more warped? Blade or me?"
"You."
"Me? Why?"
"Blade doesn't talk like a monkey," Chastity said, and hugged him
again, this time about the neck. "I don't care how you talk. I love you
anyway."
Blade saw the gunman's face redden and he smiled. "Hickok, I've got to
hand it to you. If you hadn't adopted her, I would've done so myself. She's
a peach."
Chastity let go and glanced up at the giant. "Really?"
"Really and truly," Blade assured her.
Hickok stood. "You'll like our Home, princess. A twenty-foot-high brick
wall keeps out all the mutants and other riffraff. You won't need to worry
about something tryin' to kill you every two minutes. And the folks are as
nice as could be. There are lots of young'uns your age to play with."
"When will we get to the Home?"
"Soon, I hope," Hickok said. "My feet are—"
Blade held aloft his right hand, interrupting the gunfighter. "Quiet!"
"What is it?" Chastity asked.
"Hush, little one," Hickok whispered. He cocked his head, listening, and
a second later heard an unusual, metallic coughing noise coming from the
trees.
Blade took three strides forward. "It sounds like a motor trying to turn
over."
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Hickok declared.
"Let's hide," Chastity suggested.
The noise was repeated, only louder and lasting twice as long before
sputtering into silence.
"Where's Rikki?" Blade inquired of no one in particular.
"Shouldn't we hide?" Chastity prompted.
"You take care of the princess," Hickok proposed. "I'll go find Daffy."
Before Blade could respond, there was a thunderous roar accompanied
by the crashing of saplings and the crushing of underbrush, and a green
behemoth lumbered from cover in the stand of trees and rattled toward
them.
"It's a half-track!" Hickok exclaimed.
"Hide!" Blade ordered, turning and starting for the woods 40 yards to
their rear.
Just as the half-track opened up with its .50-caliber machine gun.
Chapter Two
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi approached the trees cautiously. He suppressed an
impulse to yawn and gripped the hilt of his katana with his right hand.
The days and weeks of sustained tension, he realized, were beginning to
take their toll. No matter how superbly conditioned the Warriors might
be, they were not machines; they could not function at their peak level, at
full alertness, 24 hours a day, every day, without a letup. And they were
being forced to do just that. During the day they had to be constantly on
guard for animals, mutants, and human foes. At night their sleep was
fitful. Each one was required to take a three-hour shift tending the
campfire, and those attempting to catch a few hours of badly needed
slumber were continually awakened by snarls and shrieks emanating from
the darkness.
He would be glad when they reached the Home.
The forest ahead seemed ominously still.
Rikki slowed, searching for indications of movement. His concentration
flagged, and he thought of his friends. Hickok had performed a noble deed
in giving a home to Chastity. The poor girl had been devastated after her
parents were killed by Terminators from Atlanta. The Family would
receive her with open arms.
What was that?
The martial artist paused, his eyes focusing on a dense thicket to his
left. Had something moved? He grasped the katana tighter and advanced
to the tree line.
No birds were chirping.
No insects were buzzing.
The woods were like a tomb.
Why?
Rikki mentally debated whether to continue or return to Blade and
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