Denver Run

Chapter One

The wind from the north was bitterly cold.

“Hurry it up,” groused the tall soldier, his brown eyes scanning the surrounding countryside, his cheeks stinging from the icy gusts, as he stamped his booted feet again and again in an effort to keep the circulation going.

One of the two troopers engaged in changing a rear tire on their jeep glanced up at the speaker, scowling. “If you think you can do any better, big mouth,” he snapped, “be my guest!”

The first soldier shook his head. “You’re doing just fine. What are you getting so touchy about? I’m freezing, is all.”

“And you think we’re not?” demanded the second trooper, an older man with a protruding paunch.

The third soldier looked up, glaring at both of them. “Will you two shut the hell up? We’d get done a lot faster if you would stop your damn bickering!”

“I just don’t see why Brandon can’t help,” complained the second soldier, arching his back to alleviate a cramp in his right hip as he crouched next to the jeep.

“Somebody has to keep watch,” stated the third trooper, removing the punctured tire and placing it on the highway next to the lug nuts.

“Why can’t I be the lookout?” demanded the second soldier.

Sighing, his black hair whipping in the breeze, the third soldier stared at the second. “What the hell is the matter with you, Telford? You whine more than anyone else I know. If you moved your arms as much as you flap your gums, we would have been done by now.”

Telford grunted, reaching for the good tire lying on the road next to his left leg. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said in justification of his griping.

“No,” the third soldier cracked, “you never do.”

“Let’s just get it changed, Mitchell,” Brandon remarked, “and get the hell out of here.”

“I’m with you,” Telford chimed in. “I don’t like being left out here in the middle of the boonies.”

Mitchell, the youngest of the trio, took the spare tire from Telford and positioned it on the hub.

“I still don’t see why the captain had to go and leave us here,” Telford went on while Mitchell worked at replacing the lug nuts.

“You know the answer to that one as well as we do,” Brandon commented while watching a stand of trees on the other side of Highway 81. “Speed and surprise are essential to our mission. He couldn’t afford to wait while we fixed the flat.”

“I wish I was an officer,” Telford said longingly.

Brandon chuckled. “You? An officer? Don’t make me laugh. You’ll always be a private, lunkhead, just like the rest of us.”

Mitchell was working on the last of the lug nuts. “It won’t take us long to catch up with the others.”

Telford snickered, his expression slightly sinister. “Won’t the Family be in for a big surprise!”

Brandon cocked his head to one side, listening. “Do you guys hear something?”

“I don’t hear anything,” Telford responded.

Mitchell slowly stood, the lug wrench clasped in his right hand. He stared to the west, back the way they had come, and focused on the distant horizon. Highway 81 stretched for as far as the eye could see in a westerly direction, sections of the road buckling or cracked from age and neglect, a rarely traveled reminder of the technological status of civilization before World War III. “I hear it,” he confirmed.

“Sounds like a truck to me,” Brandon commented, clutching his M-16 a bit tighter.

“I hear it too,” Telford finally affirmed. “What do you think we should do?” he asked nervously.

Mitchell dropped the lug wrench on the ground and walked to the driver’s door. He opened it and removed a pair of M-16’s from the jeep.

“Here.” He tossed one of the weapons to Telford.

The three of them, the lanky Brandon, the cranky Telford, and Mitchell moved behind the vehicle and spread out along the highway. Mitchell took the center of the road, Brandon stood to his right, and Telford edged to his left.

“Maybe it’s one of ours,” Telford said hopefully.

“It probably is,” Mitchell stated.

“Nobody else uses these roads,” Brandon mentioned.

The noise of the approaching truck grew louder and louder. A black speck appeared on the horizon, then grew larger and took on a distinct form as the vehicle drew nearer.

Brandon recognized it first. “It’s a troop transport!” he exclaimed in relief. “It’s one of ours!”

“I wonder what it’s doing way out here,” Mitchell speculated aloud. He knew the troop transport wasn’t part of the special force sent to eliminate the detested Family. Their jeep had been the only vehicle to suffer a breakdown, and the remainder of the convoy would be miles ahead of them by now. Maybe the transport had been sent to join the expedition.

Then again, it really didn’t matter. At least the occupants would be friendly, fellow members of the Army of the Civilized Zone.

Soon, Mitchell mentally told himself, the Family would learn an important lesson: it wasn’t smart to mess with the Civilized Zone. One hundred years after the horror of World War III, the Civilized Zone embraced what was left of the former United States of America. During and after the nuclear conflict, the Government had evacuated thousands upon thousands of citizens into the Midwest and the Rocky Mountain region. Martial law had been declared, and the once-proud people of the United States had found themselves living under a military dictatorship.

The former states of Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, most of Wyoming, eastern Arizona, and Oklahoma, the northern half of Texas, and most of Montana had been incorporated into the Civilized Zone and were currently ruled with an iron fist by Samuel II. His father, a man named Samuel Hyde, had been the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare at the outbreak of the war. He was attending a speaking engagement in Denver when the war broke out, and assumed the reins of government after the President, the rest of the Cabinet, Congress, and the Supreme Court had been obliterated in a preemptive strike on Washington, D.C.

The troop transport was barreling toward the jeep.

Telford lowered his M-16 and scratched the stubble on his pointed chin.

“I hope they’ve got a drink with them,” he remarked.

“You know we’re not allowed to drink on duty,” Brandon reminded him.

Telford deliberately belched. “Who’s going to know?” he demanded.

“The captain and Brutus are way up the road, and Sammy is probably playing with himself back in Denver.”

“Don’t you have any respect for your superiors?” Mitchell inquired, peeved, as always, by Telford’s abysmal lack of decorum.

“Of course I do,” Telford retorted, snickering. “When they’re within earshot.”

Mitchell decided to ignore him and concentrated on the rapidly approaching truck. He found himself reviewing the sequence of events leading up to his present situation.

A century after the war, Samuel II had decided the time was ripe to commence reconquering the territory outside the Civilized Zone. His forces defeated the Flathead Indians at Kalispell, Montana, and then prepared to attack a large company of superb horsemen known as the Cavalry based in South Dakota. Before the assault could be launched, and while the Army was in the process of assembling its tactical units at Cheyenne, Wyoming, for the big drive into neighboring South Dakota, something unthinkable happened.

Someone used a thermonuclear device on Cheyenne.

Samuel II was furious. And so was Samuel’s associate, a brilliant scientist known as the Doktor. The Doktor suspected that a small clan known as the Family was responsible for the nuking of Cheyenne. Without advising Samuel II, the Doktor dispatched 2000 soldiers, the majority of whom had been enroute to Cheyenne when it was struck, to the Family’s compound in Minnesota. This 30-acre compound, called the Home by the Family, was situated in northwestern Minnesota. Under the command of Captain Luther and Brutus, the special force had one mission only: to raze the Home to the ground.

The troop transport was 40 yards from the jeep and beginning to brake.

“Maybe the truck is carrying munitions,” Brandon guessed.

By the time it was 20 yards out, the truck had slowed to a crawl.

“I’ll bet the driver is as surprised to see us as we are to see him,” Telford commented.

Mitchell attempted to see the driver, but the truck’s windshield was caked with dirt and grime. He could distinguish nothing more than a blurred form behind the steering wheel.

The troop transport stopped ten yards from the three troopers.

Brandon took a step toward the truck.

Mitchell abruptly, inexplicably, was filled with premonition of impending danger. He’d felt it before, during the campaign against the Flatheads, and had learned to trust his instincts.

But what could be wrong now?

The driver’s door on the transport was flung open, and a lean, blond, buckskin-clad figure jumped to the asphalt. His blue eyes were dancing with mirth, and his blond mustache and lips were curling upward in a wide grin.

“You!” Mitchell cried in alarm.

“Howdy, gents,” the newcomer offered in a friendly manner, his tone belied by the proximity of his hands to the pearl-handled revolvers strapped around his narrow waist.

Mitchell glanced at his two companions. From the shocked expressions on their faces he knew they also recognized the man with the fancy handguns.

“I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you boys to drop your M-16’s,” the man in the buckskins stated.

Telford licked his dry lips. “And what if we don’t?” he demanded.

The newcomer chuckled. “That suits me right fine,” he said. “But it would be a heap healthier for you if you did drop ’em.”

Brandon gazed at Mitchell and Telford. “There’s three of us and only one of him.”

Mitchell hesitated. From what he’d heard, this man could take out all three of them without working up a sweat.

“I ain’t got all day,” the newcomer informed them.

Telford stupidly made the first move. He tried to bring his M-16 up, envisioning the great reward he would receive if he killed the man in the buckskins.

But he never lived to claim it.

The newcomer’s right hand flashed to his right holster, his motion a streak as the pearl-handled revolver cleared leather.

Mitchell saw Telford’s head snap backward as the revolver boomed, a portion of the upper rear of his cranium exploding outward in a geyser of blood, brains, and other bits and pieces. He was slammed to the asphalt by the impact.

Brandon attempted to bring his M-16 to bear, but compared to the gunman he was moving in slow motion. A bullet from the revolver caught him between the eyes and twisted his body to the left. His brown eyes locked on Mitchell and he blinked once, his face reflecting his shocked disbelief, before he groaned and crumpled to the highway.

Mitchell found himself alone, his M-16 held at his side, staring down the barrel of a pearl-handled revolver.

“What’s it gonna be?” the gunman questioned him.

“Do I have a chioce?” Mitchell asked, his tone strained.

The passenger door on the troop transport suddenly snapped open and a stocky man dressed all in green, with a green long-sleeved shirt and green fatigue pants, dropped to the ground and ran around the front of the truck. His appearance presented quite a contrast to the gunman’s. He was shorter in stature than the gunman by at least half a foot. His black hair was cropped short, barely covering his ears, whereas the guman’s blond locks descended to his shoulders. While both men might accurately be called handsome, the man in green had broader facial features and brown eyes. In his hands was an FNC Auto Rifle. Under his right arm in a shoulder holster was a revolver. And tucked under the front of his leather belt was a tomahawk.

“Drop it or die,” the gunman said to Mitchell.

The trooper debated his prospects. He could comply with the gunman’s command, or he could try to kill the gunman, an act equivalent to certain suicide.

Mitchell released the M-16 and it clattered as it struck the surface of the road.

The gunman grinned. “Smart move!”

The man in green glanced at the gunman. “I thought I told you to wake me up if we ran into trouble.”

The gunman shrugged. “There wasn’t any trouble.”

“Oh?” The man in green nodded in the direction of the two bodies.

“What do you call this?”

The gunman chuckled. “A piece of cake, pard,” he replied.

“One day,” the man in green predicted, “your arrogance will be the death of you.”

“Worrywart!” the gunman retorted, and laughed. He casually reloaded his right revolver from his cartridge belt, then twirled the handgun into its holster.

The man in green covered Mitchell with the FNC.

“So what do we have here?” the gunman inquired. He sauntered up to the soldier. “What’s your name?” he demanded.

“Mitchell,” the trooper hastily blurted out. “Arthur Mitchell.”

“And what are you doing here, so far from the Civilized Zone?” the gunman queried.

Mitchell swallowed hard, but refused to respond.

“We’ll get to that in a moment,” the gunman stated ominously, his hands resting on his pearl-handled revolvers. “I noticed you recognized me when you first saw me.”

Mitchell nodded. “You’re Hickok.”

“How’d you know who I am?” Hickok asked.

“We know about the Family,” Mitchell revealed. “And we know about the Warriors.”

The man in green stepped closer. “Then you must know who I am as well.”

Mitchell shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t quite place you.”

Hickok cackled.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” the man in green said to the gunman.

Mitchell was astonished by their cool composure. What were they going to do to him? Kill him? Were they playing some kind of game? Was that it? How could they make jokes at a time like this? Hickok had just slain two men, yet he was engaging in light-hearted banter as if nothing had happened. What kind of men were these Warriors?

Hickok indicated the man in green with his right hand. “This is my pard, Geronimo. Geronimo, meet Arthur Mitchell.”

“I heard him say his name,” Geronimo remarked.

“Why do you have such strange names?” Mitchell ventured to inquire, hoping if he kept the conversation going, if he kept them talking, they might delay doing whatever they were going to do to him.

“Strange?” Hickok repeated. “What’s so strange about our names?”

“I’ve never heard of anyone called Geronimo before,” Mitchell explained.

Geronimo straightened. “I selected my name in honor of a great Indian who lived long, long ago in prewar times.”

“You picked your own name?” Mitchell questioned in disbelief. “You Family types sure are weird!”

“I thought you said you knew about our Family,” Geronimo reminded the youthful soldier.

“I know you have your compound in northwestern Minnesota,” Mitchell divulged. “We were told you’re a pack of filthy degenerates, renegades intent on murdering everyone in the Civilized Zone. The officers also told us about the Warriors, about how you’ve slaughtered innocent woman and children and done all kinds of terrible things.”

Hickok gazed at Geronimo. “Is this bozo for real?”

Geronimo’s brow was furrowed in thought. “Evidently, the officers have told the lower ranks lies about us.”

“Why would they feed the troops a bunch of bull about the Family?” Hickok asked, puzzled.

“Obviously, they want to insure that their troopers will hate us so much, will consider us so despicable, so vile, we’ll be shot on sight, no questions asked,” Geronimo reasoned.

“Mighty clever of the rascals,” Hickok commented.

Geronimo stared at Mitchell. “It would seem you have a lot to learn about our Family.”

“I already know all I need to know,” Mitchell responded defiantly.

“Which reminds me,” Hickok stated. “There’s something I need to know from you.”

“I won’t tell you a thing!” Mitchell declared.

“I think you will,” Hickok disagreed. His left hand slowly drew his left revolver and raised the gun until the barrel was touching Mitchell’s nose.

He cocked the hammer. “I want to know what you’re doing here, and I want to know now.”

“You’d better tell him,” Geronimo offered.

“And if I don’t?” Mitchell boldly asked, as if he didn’t already know the answer.

“Well, then, Arthur,” Hickok said, grinning, “I reckon I’ll ventilate your nostrils with my Python.”

Geronimo grimaced and took a step backward. “Just don’t splatter his blood all over me! These are clean clothes I’ve got on!”

Hickok’s steely blue eyes bored into Mitchell’s. “What’s it gonna be?”

Mitchell gaped at the gleaming metal barrel of the Colt Python and felt a shiver rack his body.

“I’m gonna count to three,” Hickok announced. “One.”

Mitchell’s mind was racing. He knew it would be tantamount to an act of treason to disclose the information the gun fighter wanted.

“Two.”

Mitchell’s mouth was abnormally dry. He wasn’t a coward, but he disliked the prospect of dying needlessly. What purpose would it serve to be—

“Three,” Hickok finished his count.

Before Mitchell could find his voice, the Warrior pulled the trigger. The blast was deafening.

Geronimo shook his head and sighed. “Now look at what you’ve done.”

Hickok’s moccasined right foot flicked out and nudged the form at his feet. “Kind of pitiful, ain’t it? They sure don’t make soldiers like they used to.”