Chapter Ten

 

 

For over three hours the AMAC had rumbled across the rocky plain, pushing deep into the Black Hills. Though the ride was much smoother than it had any right to be, Ryan was growing impatient.

 

When he'd first boarded the long, box-shaped Armored Mobile Anti-Riot Control unit, he had been so impressed that the rather slow speed and cumbersome maneuverability of the vehicle hadn't bothered him.

 

J.B. had been in just as much awe, especially when the prideful Hellstrom pointed out the blaster racks, the sixteen frag and CS gas grenade launchers and eighteen weapons ports.

 

Hellstrom explained that the AMACs were virtual wheeled fortresses and had been used in the late twentieth century to deter rioters. The vehicle was in perfect operating order, as though it had been built a year before, not a hundred. The big engine throbbed smoothly, the suspension didn't creak or squeak and the air-conditioning system kept the interior cool and comfortable.

 

"Where did you find this wag?" J.B. had wondered aloud, his voice full of envy. "It makes Trader's war wags look like baby buggies."

 

Hellstrom had only smiled a mysterious smile and touched a forefinger to his lips.

 

Ryan, Krysty, J.B., Doc, Jak and Mildred shared the passenger compartment with Hellstrom, Fleur and eight shaven-headed X-scarred sec men, who were identically armed with spidery-looking, lightweight SA-80 automatic rifles.

 

A pair of bipod-mounted, gas-operated M-249 machine guns were positioned at gun ports on either side of the vehicle.

 

Two men were in the control cockpit, one driving and the other constantly checking their backtrack with a periscope-type device that rose from the roof of the AMAC.

 

During the ride Hellstrom was acting as the perfect host. He had been carried into the AMAC, fan-backed chair and all, and he passed sandwiches and beverages around to everyone but the sec men.

 

He maintained a steady stream of inane chatter about crops, the weather and some of the odd people who had passed through Helskel. His manners were impeccable, and his vocabulary was large and almost as flowery as Doc's, without the use of anachronisms. He was a Deathlands anomalyan educated man.

 

Still, his brittle conversation scratched at Ryan's nerves. He kept busy repairing the torn seam of his holster, but midway through the third hour of eating, drinking and listening, Ryan was irritated enough to ask bluntly, "How long has Helskel been in existence?"

 

Hellstrom broke off the anecdote about the four-breasted stickie he had once seen to say, "Feels like forever."

 

"Mebbe that's what it feels like," J.B. said, as anxious as Ryan to talk about something more substantial, "but me and Ryan have been in this general region several times, especially with Trader. Montana, Colorado, the edges of Wyoming. Never heard so much as a whisper about your ville."

 

"Not surprising," Hellstrom replied. "I wanted to keep Helskel an unknown quantity until we were strong enough to fend off incursions from rapacious insurgents like your friend Trader."

 

"If Trader had wanted us to take your ville," J.B. stated, "we would have."

 

Hellstrom shrugged. "It'd be interesting to see him try it now."

 

Ryan started to say something in defense of his missing mentor, but he shut his mouth. There was no point in engaging in a saber-rattling contest, extolling the warrior virtues of a man who might be dead. Besides, Hellstrom was right. Trader certainly had his rapacious impulses, and Ryan couldn't deny that Helskel looked to be too big a mouthful even for him to comfortably chew.

 

"We can't help but be curious, you know," Mildred said.

 

"I'll answer what questions seem fitting when we reach our destination." Hellstrom's tone was cold, barely civil. He didn't look in Mildred's direction.

 

Ryan reflected that since Hellstrom based his life on the racist beliefs of Manson, Mildred and her obvious relationship with J.B. was a source of great offense to him.

 

It never failed to surprise and sadden Ryan how the worst aspects of predark had survived; rarely had the kinder, more enlightened perceptions made it through the nukecaust, the skydark and the big freeze.

 

Ryan glanced past Hellstrom, focusing on the panorama of broken hills displayed beyond the windshield. He knew if he looked at Hellstrom, he wouldn't be able to disguise the loathing in his face.

 

In the distance, a mountain seemed to grow. Towering and dark, the play of sunlight on the broken, eroded edges of butte rock seemed to form faces. Then the mountain receded as the AMAC dropped down the side of a slope. There was grass in the shallow valley, and a creek ran between a grove of cottonwood trees. As the vehicle rumbled on, the walls on either side lifted higher, almost joining together at places, making a narrow passageway.

 

Krysty suddenly stiffened, her eyes widening.

 

"Danger," she said in a clear voice.

 

Ryan and his group drew their side arms. Hellstrom didn't question her announcement, but called to the man in the front peering through the periscope.

 

"What do you see?" he demanded.

 

"Nothing," the man responded, eyes pressed against the viewer. "Getting a three-sixty recce, but all I see are some birds Oh, shit!"

 

The driver immediately lessened the pressure of his foot on the accelerator. Ryan moved forward, shouldering Fleur aside. He looked out the windshield, then lifted his gaze to the valley walls.

 

They sat on spotted ponies on facing rims of the arroyo, perhaps two dozen, twelve on each side. Scalps dangled from rope reins here and there. White, blue, red and yellow paint hideously distorted their faces into masks of naked, cruel hatred. They wore breechclouts and moccasins, with feathers in their long black hair.

 

The Sioux braced the butts of automatic rifles against their thighs, the barrels pointing upward. Their gazes were locked onto the vehicle as it rolled slowly beneath them.

 

At a word from Hellstrom, two of the sec men left their seats and crouched behind the M-249 machine guns.

 

"They're just watching us," Ryan said.

 

Hellstrom hitched over in his chair and looked up. "Like I figured," he said bitterly. "It's that fucking Touch-the-Sky and his band of zealots."

 

Ryan thought it best not to mention that he had met Touch-the-Sky, but he did say, "What can they do to us in here?"

 

Fleur looked at him contemptuously. "It's not what they can do, Cawdor, it's what we can do."

 

Hellstrom spoke to the sec men at the machine guns. "Explain it to them."

 

With rattling roars, the pair of M-249s opened up. Gouts of dirt exploded from the facing rims of the arroyo, flinging up rock and grit in high fountains. Spent shell casings clattered to the floor of the AMAC. Cordite stung the eyes and the nose. Behind it all was the steady double hammer of the machine guns. Even inside the AMAC, the whine of ricochets was audible, and they heard the patter of bullet-pulverized stone raining atop the vehicle.

 

The AMAC continued to roll forward slowly, passing beneath the position of the Sioux. The double streams of autofire kept on chewing up the edges of the arroyo, and Ryan saw that the Indians had disappeared from the rims. "They're gone!" he shouted angrily. "You're just wasting ammunition!"

 

Hellstrom swung his head, spearing him with an icy glare. The two men locked gazes. Without removing his eyes from Ryan's face, the white-clad man declared loudly, "Ceasefire."

 

The sec men complied immediately, the weapons falling silent at precisely the same time.

 

"Keep a lookout," Hellstrom ordered the man at the periscope.

 

Then he said sharply to Ryan, "It's my ammunition to waste, isn't it, Cawdor?"

 

"And it's our hair to lose," Ryan snapped. "It's an old trick of the Sioux, to keep an enemy hosing their ammo around, shooting at shadows until all the blasters are drained. That's when they mount an attack."

 

"Ah, I see." Some of the sharpness left Hellstrom's tone. "Have no fear, Cawdor. We have enough ammunition here to wipe out the entire tribe, not just Touch-the-Sky's group."

 

Swiveling his head, he bestowed a gallant smile upon Krysty. "And thank you, my dear, for your perceptions. I understand now how Cawdor has kept his life, when so many have wanted to take it."

 

Doc cleared his throat and asked, "So you are acquainted with that particular band of Sioux?"

 

Hellstrom nodded. "Touch-the-Sky is a traditionalist. He thinks that the nukecaust ceded the old Indian lands back to him and his people through divine intervention. He regularly patrols this area, killing any non-redskins who might cross into it. He's a vicious psychopath, completely unreasonable."

 

Doc raised his eyebrows in a "look who's talking" expression. He asked, "Why does he hold this area in such high esteem?"

 

The AMAC jounced as it climbed up a slope and out of the arroyo. As it topped the crest, Hellstrom gestured toward the windshield. "That's why."

 

The mountain filled the rectangular window, framed like a work of art. Though it was still miles in the distance, Ryan saw that what he had first interpreted as an optical illusion combined with erosion was indeed a grouping of carved faces on the mountainsideor what was left of them.

 

"Dark night," J.B. murmured, eyes wide behind the lenses of his spectacles.

 

"The nose," Jak said. He barked out a short laugh. "Get it now."

 

"By the Three Kennedys," Doc intoned in a husky whisper.

 

"No," Mildred contradicted him. "Roosevelt, Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. Or they used to be."

 

Ryan surveyed the granite cliff looming above heaps of broken shale and scrubby trees. He dredged up a memory from his childhood education and said softly, "Fireballs! Mount Rushmore."