Chapter Twenty-Nine

 

 

The eggs were golden and perfectly circular. The bacon was lean and crisp, in long rashers. The tomatoes had been sliced precisely into halves and fried in salted butter. The hash browns had been sliced thin as a whisper and then cooked until their texture was exactly right. The bread was in uniform slices, and the grits were snowy, served in equal mounds on every plate.

 

And it was dull, dull, dull.

 

Krysty leaned across and whispered to Ryan, "Like the sort of food you see in old women's mags, brilliantly photographed so that it looks better than you could imagine. And when you eat it, then it somehow tastes like the paper the pix are printed on. I don't know how they do it."

 

The countess hadn't yet joined them, and Straub had told them that she was probably dining in her room alone.

 

"This is going to be so exciting. I just hope that we don't meet any muties or malcontents on the road."

 

"Is it far?" Ryan asked.

 

"I checked the maps last night. Sleep seems to evade me more than it once did. Few miles south of downtown Memphis. Whitehaven township in what was once called Shelby County. It's off Highway 51 South. On Elvis Presley Boulevard. One of the small number of streets in the whole region that keeps its predark name. Number 3764. I never saw it yet."

 

"Is it still a popular attraction for tourists?" Mildred asked, then shook her head. "But you don't have such things as tourists now in Deathlands, do you?"

 

Straub smiled gently, like a wise uncle responding to a foolish but lovable niece. "Tourists. I've read the word. People on vacation. I have asked the guards and most say it was once popular, but not many go now. Elvis Presley is fading away into the past like a vampire at dawn."

 

Doc drained his coffee cup and wiped his mouth with a spotless linen napkin. "Few names have survived, have they? Even I have heard of Elvis. We all have. Yet who can remember many of the main political figures in the world at the time the nukecaust broke across Earth?"

 

The door opened at the end of the dining hall, and the guards snapped to attention.

 

In came the Countess Katya Beausoleil, baron of her own powerful ville. She was wearing a pantsuit in maroon cotton, the pants tucked into a pair of black Western boots. Her only jewelry was a large uncut opal set in white gold, on a silver chain around her neck.

 

"Is everyone ready?" she asked.

 

Straub leaped to his feet and bowed and nodded. "Everyone is looking forward to the expedition, Countess."

 

"Did I say you were coming?"

 

"No."

 

"Do you wish to come?"

 

"Only if you wish me to come. If you wish me to stay, then I wish to stay."

 

"Creep," Mildred whispered loud enough for the man to hear. He turned toward her and for a moment the fawning devotion vanished, and she winced at the physical impact of the look of burning hatred that daggered in her direction. Then Straub blinked and the anger was totally gone, replaced with a bland smile.

 

"I wish you to come with us. I shall drive my own two-seater, and you will ride in the armawags with our guests and with the sec men. You think twenty will be enough?"

 

Straub thought about it for a moment, his black eyes closing as he considered the combat logistics. "There have been no reports of serious trouble from the city in months. The muddies keep to their own swamps. It was unfortunate that I was so far from home without an escort. And my thanks yet again to the outlanders for my salvation."

 

Katya looked around the room, then turned on her heel, hesitated and swung back. "I will take one of the outlanders with me in my wag." Her eyes roamed along the line of friends.

 

"Surprise me, bitch," Krysty mouthed just loud enough for Ryan to hear.

 

"Perhaps the old man would enjoy the trip?"

 

"Bullshit," Krysty muttered.

 

"No. My men would think it an honor to ride with me. Therefore, the honor must go to the leader of the group. That is you, is it not, Ryan Cawdor?"

 

"Best surprise, no surprise." Ryan was puzzled at the depth of genuine anger he detected in Krysty's whispering voice. It wasn't that important.

 

"Very well. Let's go."

 

 

 

THE CAR WAS a two-seater Mercedes sports car with gull-wing doors. The countess told him the model, but autowags didn't much interest Ryan. A something-or-other SL, he thought she said. Despite his lack of interest, Ryan had to admit that the vehicle, with cream upholstery, was in amazing condition.

 

The engine was smoother than anything he'd ever heard, and he wondered what she was paying for gas processed to that sort of standard. She touched the pedal, and he was pressed back in the soft seat. The car thundered onto the gravel driveway in front of the house and skidded to a halt. Three armored trucks waited there, and one of them set off in the lead at her signal.

 

"We go next."

 

Ryan saw Krysty sitting in the back of one of the other wags with Doc and Jak, and he lifted a hand in a wave. But she didn't respond.

 

 

 

THEY DROVE AT A GOOD speed. Despite the rain of the previous day, the roads had dried out and they moved at the center of a whirling dervish of reddish gray dust. Ryan tried to see where they were going, but it was impossible to make out any details from the Mercedes.

 

They had traveled a few miles in silence, when the countess started talking, asking him about everyone in the group, seeming to pay most attention to his relationship with Krysty.

 

How old is she? How long had they known each other? Were they married? Did they intend to get married?

 

"What are your thoughts about starting a family, Ryan? Settling down someplace?"

 

"We've talked about it."

 

"Does Krysty want children?"

 

"I already have a son, Dean, schooling up in the Rockies. He's closing in on twelve. Mother's long dead. I reckon that if we ever find that quiet place with sweet water and good land, then we might raise our own family. Me and Krysty. Talked about it. Almost since we first met. So hard to find a breathing time to walk away from the killing."

 

She nodded, shifting down as they encountered a section of highway that was particularly badly rutted.

 

"I can't tell you how much I want children, Ryan. I need them. Must have them. It's the greatest imperative, and it rules all my waking hours. My sleeping hours, too."

 

"I understand that."

 

She turned, and he saw tears glinting in the corners of her green eyes. "Do you? Do you, Ryan? No. Nobody does. Think I'm a stupe bitch, sliding toward an arid middle age. Then I'll get old and lose my grip on the ville with nobody to inherit. I must have a son."

 

"There must be any number of men who'd be more than happy to bed you and give you what you want."

 

"This part of Deathlands was badly nuked, and there's still a lot of residual hot spots."

 

Out of habit Ryan glanced down at the tiny rad-counter button on his lapel, as he'd been doing since they made the jump, as he did every hour or so, wherever they landed. The color was a clear, steady green.

 

"Not too bad here," he said cautiously.

 

The countess looked sideways at him, the wag swerving a little to the left. She corrected the movement automatically, wiping her sleeve across her eyes. "I say that it's the nuking that's affected all the men. They all have weak seed, and it won't grow within me and give me my son."

 

It was as if there was more she was going to say, but she held it back.

 

 

 

"NEARLY THERE, Ryan."

 

They were passing through a run-down, desolate suburb, with very little human habitation. Ryan had seen the crooked sign telling him they were actually on Highway 51 South, and he looked at the tumbled ruins of buildings that lined every such length of road across Deathlands Shell, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Diego's Donuts, Fluff 'n' Fold, Shoney's Big Boy, Ma's Place. There were realtors and accountants, banks and thrift stores, used-car lots on both sides, some with rusting predark wrecks rotting where they stood. Most of the small, rectangular units had broken windows and doors kicked in, but it looked to Ryan as if it might have been one of the places where the Russkies had used neutron nukes that tended to destroy all life and spare the buildings.

 

A dusty, unbroken window on a nameless, signless store on the left of the highway still bore a scrawled message in white paint from a hundred years earlier World Closing-Down Sale. Last Chance Bargains Before Eternity.

 

 

 

TH ARMAWAG WAS SLOWING, and Katya eased back on the gas. "Ryan?"

 

"Yeah?"

 

"Think about it for me."

 

"What?" Though he knew.

 

"You know."

 

There was no point in playing stupe. "You want me to try and father a child for you?"

 

"Please?"

 

"No. I'm sorry, but not me, Countess. Get yourself another stud bull."

 

"I could make you."

 

He shook his head. "I don't think so."

 

"We might explore that. You see what has happened to Straub, Ryan?"

 

He nodded slowly. "You think a threat like that could help to make me want to have sex with you, Countess? You think that, then I have to say you're missing a few shingles."

 

"Not many men speak to me like that," she said, her voice cold as Sierra meltwater.

 

"Can't help that." He looked ahead through the shield of the Mercedes. "We're stopping."

 

It was one of the most run-down areas that he'd ever seen. It was obvious that the region had recovered after the long winters, as the stores and eateries were in reasonable condition and one or two were still, just about, open. But most were closed and derelict.

 

"There," the countess said. "The opposite side of the highway." Her voice was calm and friendly, as though they'd never had the recent conversation.

 

He saw there was an oasis of green among the urban blight, with a number of tall trees, and a strange white gate of rusting wrought iron, with a guitar and musical notes built into it. A hand-painted sign was already weathered to near-illegibility Car Park And Elvisly Souvenirs. An arrow pointed farther down the boulevard.

 

"We just stop here," the countess said. "Don't think there'll be any trouble."

 

The convoy halted and everyone climbed out. Ryan went straight to Krysty and took her by the arm, steering her away for a quick word, feeling the stiffness and resistance in her body.

 

"Not going to explain why I went with her," he said. "You might not like it, but you know there wasn't any choice."

 

"No?"

 

"No." He felt the throbbing pulse of her anger. "She wants me to father her a child. I said I wouldn't. She's totally locked into thinking that it's all the fault of the men."

 

"She would."

 

"Anyway, that's what's happening."

 

"How did she take it? Your refusal?" Krysty's attitude was softening, and Ryan felt his surge of rage easing into the background again.

 

"I think she's mad. Really gone right around the bend and back again. Has no concept of responsibility and the abuse of total power. Quite frightening the way she can't see things she does are deeply wrong. Right now she's normal as anything. Doesn't mean she'll stay that way. Doesn't mean she's really taken in the fact that I've refused her."

 

They joined the others, surrounded by the posse of sec men, the pale sunlight glinting on the polished Ruger Redhawks in the greased holsters.

 

The gate swung open, and a chubby little lady in a checked cotton dress, came out to greet them. "You're all so welcome," she trilled. "Welcome to Graceland."