Horses of the North

IX

Once more, Milo closed the pages of his memories to beam a telepathic encapsulization of the long-ago events for Arabella Lindsay.

“Of course, my dear, it wasn’t that easy, that quick a decision. No, the council chewed over it for nearly the whole of that long winter, with shouting, pounding of fists on tables and walls and, occasionally, on each other, exchanges of insults and some very harsh words between the pro-farming and the pro-nomad factions—in other words, all of the usages and forms of polite, gentlemanly discussion. The only thing on which everyone seemed to agree for a while were the facts that we must leave the environs of Cheyenne, that south of southeast seemed as good a direction as any to travel and that the building of the carts and a few wagons were essential, along with the training of teams and drivers. About everything save those few points, they argued endlessly and ofttimes violently.

“Slowly, however, one and two at a time, Jim Olsen and Harry Krueger and Chuck Llywelyn began to wear down and win over their opponents; sometimes it appeared to me that they were managing the feat solely by outshouting them, but nonetheless, it was done. By spring, as the snows began to melt off, a very few diehard holdouts remained adamant about the benefits of farming over those of a nomadic herding and hunting existence, but even these were by then ready and more than willing to accompany the others at least as far as a decent area of arable land to farm and settle upon, and Olsen and the rest were still confident that even these few stubborner cases could be won over once on the march.

Despite a winter of unremitting labor, almost around the clock, in the forge and the wagon works, it slowly dawned on the council that all would not be ready by the time that the countryside had dried out enough to begin a journey of such proportions. Therefore, Milo suggested that he and his scouts set out to ride a reconnaissance of at least the first part of the projected route of the trek. Most of the leaders agreed readily; it was better to know precisely what you were moving into, especially with families, herds and all one’s worldly possessions at stake. However, Dr. Clarence Bookerman flatly refused his consent to the venture unless he was included in the party of scouts, and, at length, Milo felt compelled to grant this demand, for all that he was more than a little leery of riding out on what might well be a very rough and possibly dangerous trip with a man of Bookerman’s advanced years. Milo consoled his conscience with the thoughts that, firstly, the mayor was in splendid, almost unbelievable physical condition for a man who admitted an age of between sixty and seventy and had not lived anything approaching an easy life during the last thirty-odd of those years, and secondly, that the man was after all a medical doctor who surely would know and recognize his own limitations … and whose skills just might come in handy, anyway.

By now, the herd of camels had become just that, there being a full dozen of the tall, long-legged, irascible beasts, and Milo had, mostly by trial and error, trained four of the younger, slightly more malleable and less vicious beasts to riders rather than pack-carrying, constructing traditional camel saddles from pictures and descriptions gleaned from books in the stacks of the main Cheyenne library. The tamest of the quartet were Fatima and Sultan, both of whom he had gotten away from the older camels and bottle-fed when they still were spindly-legged calves, but even these would often end a day of riding with a serious attempt to savage Milo with their cursive canine teeth. He had found out early on why camel riders, no matter what their other gear and equipment, always kept a stout stick ready to hand when around their treacherous mounts.

As his last-ditch argument against Dr. Bookerman’s forced inclusion in the reconnaissance party, he remarked that he had intended to use the esoteric beasts not only as pack animals this time, but for riding, as well. They could not outstrip a good horse over a short stretch, but they could keep going for long after hard-pressed horses either had foundered or died; he had dug out records of dromedaries traveling two hundred miles in a day, for many days straight, and on the scouting expeditions into Wyoming, years back, he had found the camels could and would eat anything that a goat would, in addition to many things that a self-respecting old goat would not. There was, if any more plus factors were needed, the fact that camels could easily take care of themselves in confrontations with even the most-feared predators, and this would be no talent to be taken lightly by a small, light traveling, hard -riding party of men.

But Bookerman had just allowed one of his brief smiles to flit across his thin, pale lips. “Wonderful, Milo! It has been far more years than I care to count since last I rode a camel, but I have not forgotten how.”

A bit stunned at this sudden revelation by the multi-talented physician, Milo simply acquiesced to what seemed to be the inevitable.

Despite stops to check bridges, cuts, fills, and the general condition of the deteriorating roadway once called Interstate 87, the speedy, long-striding camels bore the reconnaissance party more than sixty miles in the first day of travel, more than halfway to Denver, their goal for the initial portion of the trip.

The country through which they passed was breathtakingly beautiful. Game abounded, and fish leaped in the streams and small lakes the waterways sometimes formed with the help of colonies of beaver. But still Milo was saddened by the abundant evidences of the dearth of mankind—the crumbling roads, the tumbling ruins, many with caved-in roofs, now the haunts only of rodents and snakes, the faded, weather-battered highway directional signs and those advertising products and services not available for more than a generation.

Here and there, mixed with the herds of deer, elk and bison, could be spotted feral cattle, sheep and goats, as well as a scattering of the more exotic ungulates—American, African and Asiatic antelope and gazelles ranging in size from tiny to huge. From a distance, with the binoculars, they once watched a herd of llamas, wildebeest and a few zebras and feral horses being painstakingly stalked through the sprouting grasses by a small tiger. Even as the four men watched, fascinated, the feline rushed the suddenly panicky herd, sprang and brought down a shaggy-haired zebra.

As he cased his optics, Bookerman remarked, “A completely wild tiger killing and eating a completely wild zebra—who would ever have thought to see such a drama enacted in North America forty years ago, Milo?”

Milo nodded. “Yes, it would have been unthinkable, back then, before the War. But did you notice the long, shaggy coats of all those beasts—the gnus, the zebras, the horses, even the tiger? They have obviously adapted to this colder, harsher climate far better than anyone, either back then or now, would ever have expected them to do. It makes me wonder just how many more surprises we have ahead, how many other rare animals have been able to make a home in this new wilderness here, in what was once one of the most populous of human civilizations.”

They could not approach too close to the place where had stood the city of Denver, for it had been nuked. But they rode well out around the still-radioactive area, cross-country, to the east and thence south, until they came onto Interstate 70. This road, for some reason, seemed to be in far better shape than had been Interstate 87, and they followed it almost to what had been the Kansas border, finally heading north once more on Route 385 to its conjunction with Interstate 76, which they followed the few miles to where it intersected with Interstate 80, the route which led them back to Cheyenne.

Nowhere on their circuitous journey did they sight even a trace of recent human occupancy or passage. The wild game and feral beasts seemed not even to know what a human looked or smelled like. They returned with glowing reports on the countryside they had seen … and with three additional camels to boot—two-humped ones.

The three, an elderly female and two younger, but adult, females, had simply drifted into the camp one dawn and, since then, followed the four riding and two pack dromedaries everywhere that the journey took them. At the leisurely pace set by Milo on the return to Cheyenne, the shorter-legged, shaggy Bactrian camels had had no difficulty keeping up with the longer-legged dromedaries.

Figuring that not even a completely wild camel could be any more vicious than their supposedly tame ones, Milo and one of his men had put a halter on the older of the Bactrians with no more difficulty and danger than they experienced every day with their riding and pack dromedaries, then strapped on a packsaddle they had fashioned from scavenged materials and filled it with odds and ends picked up here and there in the course of the reconnaissance expedition. From that day on they had had three pack camels, and Milo wondered aloud if some of the bloodlust might be bred out of the dromedaries by crossing them with the better-dispositioned Bactrians, wondering also if the two were closely enough related to breed naturally or if they might produce the camel equivalent of a mule, a sterile hybrid.

“Oh, yes, Milo,” Bookerman had assured him, “the two can be interbred, and often have been in the Middle East and Asia. However, the offspring, though completely fertile and potent, are smaller and less strong than the dromedaries, and most of them have two humps, though one is often much smaller than is the other. However, I never have heard of any improvement in the traditional camel disposition being accomplished by such interbreeding.”

“But, Doctor,” expostulated Milo, “you saw how docile that camel cow was when Richard and I haltered and saddled her. She only snapped at us a few times during the whole procedure, and those snaps were halfhearted, I thought.”

Bookerman just nodded. “Yes, I saw it all, and I suspect that she most likely was thoroughly—well, as thoroughly as any camel ever is—domesticated long ago, before the War, in her youth. You see, Milo, a camel lives for thirty to fifty years, and she is clearly an elderly one, the other two being most probably her daughters.

“Interbreed the camels if you wish, although as the only bull camels we have are dromedaries, I suspect that when next our three volunteers come into their estrus, it would be worth the lives of any of us to try to interfere with interbreeding. But do not expect lamb-gentle offspring, my friend, for you will most assuredly be bitterly disappointed. Those offspring, when once they have achieved their full growth—will be—rather than tall, very strong, long-legged, impressive murderous beasts—relatively short, shaggy, ponderous-bodied murderous beasts.”

“How the hell do you know so much about camels, anyway, Doctor?” Milo demanded.

Bookerman smiled another of his fleeting smiles. “Quite easily explained, my dear Milo. My father spent a good bit of time in the Middle East just after World War Two, after having already served some time in North Africa with General Erwin Rommel and, a bit later, in Tuscany, where camels had been in use as beasts of burden for generations. He talked much to me of his experiences, Milo, and he also wrote and privately published a book about those experiences. I studied that book quite often.”

In the end, some half-dozen extended families refused to take leave of Cheyenne at all, and a number of others insisted on lading their transport with plows, other tilling implements, seed corn and plant slips; they also carried large items of furniture, in some cases, and drove along, with the help of dogs and children, small herds of domestic swine.

Most of the folk who left, however, drove only cattle, sheep and goats. These traveled far more lightly than did the minority—bringing along tents, bedding, small and easily portable furnishings, carpets, weapons, spare clothing and footwear, cutlery and utensils, here and there a homemade spinning wheel or a small loom, tools of various sorts and usages, ropes and thongs to repair harnesses, tanned hides and oddments of hardware, jewelry and small personal possessions, perhaps a few books and reference manuals.

Because he had no wife or children to drive it for him, Milo had ordered no cart or wagon for himself; rather, he rode his dromedary, Fatima, and packed his tent and other gear on the bull dromedary, Shagnasty, and the oldest two-humped cow camel, Dishim, leaving his horses to be herded with the remuda. His two baggage beasts hitched behind the carts of friends, Milo himself spent most of every day patrolling the length of the winding columns, from vanguard to rearguard on his long-legged, distance-eating, almost-tireless mount, his path ofttimes crossing that of Dr. Bookerman, mounted on the younger bull dromedary, Sultan.

The physician was an enigma to Milo. He gave an age at wild variance to his appearance and physical abilities. Furthermore, conversations with the man were seldom less than surprising to Milo, for the physician usually demonstrated detailed knowledge of subjects, places and events of which it seemed impossible for a single individual of only some seventy-odd years to know.

Bookerman was definitely a skilled surgeon—Milo had seen him at work—but he was also so very much else, besides—natural horseman, crack shot with rifle and pistol or smoothbore, fast and accurate and very powerful with the saber, far better than Milo at use of a lance from horseback, a born leader of men and skilled in the necessary aspects of organization and administration of those he led. The anomalies, however, started with the fact that although he had at one time said that he had emigrated to the United States as soon as he had taken his M. D. in Germany and had then left his adopted homeland but seldom and even then for very short trips, he seemed to know most of Europe in detail, as well as parts of North Africa and the Middle East. The only languages with which Milo was conversant that Bookerman was not were those of the Far East—Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and the like. Otherwise, the physician could write, read and fluently speak Latin, archaic Greek, modern Greek, Hebrew, Yiddish, numerous dialects of German and Arabic, French, Italian, European Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and other Slavic languages, Finnish, Swedish and Danish and Norwegian, English, Dutch, Latin American Spanish and God alone knew what else. The natural “ear” for languages which Booker-man always claimed might have accounted for his fluency in speech but not, to Milo’s way of thinking, for the concurrent abilities to read and write that veritable host of widely diverse tongues.

In addition, Milo had spent most of his remembered life in one army or another, the first few as an enlisted man and the remainder as a commissioned officer. Bookerman claimed never to have served in the military, yet continually, certain of his behavior patterns and comments led Milo to silently question those claims. Often the physician comported himself as nothing more nor less than the quintessential Prussian officer of the old pattern.

Milo honestly liked and highly respected the man, and he wanted to believe his accounts of his prewar life, but there were simply too many inconsistencies, and these seriously bothered him, for everyone knew that, despite the council, he and Bookerman shared the actual command and leadership of the people.

While he rode the swaying dromedary and pondered, Milo had no way of knowing just how very soon all of the responsibilities of command and leadership would fall upon his shoulders alone.

The column was quick to scavenge and scrounge arms, ammo and any other usable artifacts from homes, farms, ranches, crossroads and small towns they passed along the way. They had anticipated this and brought along empty carts to contain the loot, for to have done less would have been, under the circumstances, extremely stupid. Milo and Bookerman and the council did, however, draw the line at plastic sheetings and containers, for these could not be repaired when holed or worn and replacements would not be certainly available. Containers and utensils of the thicker, heavier grades of aluminum were permitted but not really encouraged, those of iron, steel, copper, pewter or silver and silverplate being preferred by the leaders.

They found that they also were forced to draw a definite line as to the quantities of precious metals, gems and jewelry that any one family was allowed to add to their baggage and personal adornment, else there would not have been enough animals in all the column to pack or draw all the pretty but presently useless baubles. Liquors and wines, too, had to be held down to a certain allowance per person for reasons of space and weight, though Milo and Bookerman agreed to be a bit more lenient on canned and bottled beers, ales and soft drinks, since droving, driving, riding and walking in the warm to hot late-spring days were hot, dusty work and these potables were sovereign thirst-quenchers, good sources of nutrients and needed calories, and either low in alcoholic content or lacking it entirely.

In addition to alcohol, jewelry and arms or ammunition, the choicer items included tents and tarps, especially the larger ones which could house a family, best-quality carpets and bedding, clothing and boots, saddlery and harness, rope, any still-usable foodstuffs, metal canteens and larger flasks, books dealing with identification of edible wild plants, matches and disposable lighters, hunting and fishing equipment of any sort, pipes and still-sealed tins of tobacco and cigars, cigarette papers and snuff and chewing tobacco, horseshoes and any other farriers’ equipment found, still-pliable rubber tires that could be cut up to provide traction and protection on the highways for the hooves of horses and the steel rims of wheels, edge weapons such as sabers or swords or longer bayonets, medical and dental supplies and nonelectrical equipment for the use of Dr. Bookerman and the other doctor and the two dentists in their party, all older men and women.

Several times during the cross-country trek, one or another of the diehard farmers announced an intention of settling in a rich-looking, well-watered area, but each time Bookerman was able to discourage these dreamers through the expedient of pointing out that, though well-watered now, following a long winter with very heavy snows and a wet spring, these watercourses were clearly seasonal and no one could predict just how long they might decline in drier weather or conditions. And so everyone continued on, finally coming onto what had been Interstate 70, a little to the northwest of the sometime settlement of Agate, Colorado.

They found, to their general consternation, that the place had not only been thoroughly looted, but burned, as well … recently burned, for it had been a whole unblemished ghost town when Milo, Bookerman and the other two men had ridden their dromedaries through it bare weeks before.

Following this discovery, a heavily guarded perimeter was marked out around the night’s camp and march of the succeeding day was preceded by a well-armed vanguard, flanked by outriders and trailed by alert rearguards.

Milo did not like to be suspicious of the motives of fellow human beings, rare as they had now become in this once-populous land, but the long caravan and the herds raised a dust cloud that could be perceived for many miles hereabouts, yet no one had so far bothered to approach them in peace by day or to come in to the cheery beacons of their fires by night. Nor was he alone; Bookerman and the council shared his trepidation and heartily endorsed all the security measures.

On the second day out of ruined Agate, Milo and a half-dozen other men were riding in a well-spread skirmish-line pattern a quarter-mile ahead of the van, along the fringes of the roadway. About halfway through a narrow draw, a pair of bearded men, rifles slung across their backs, sprang out of the brush. One of them grabbed at Fatima’s headstall, while the other—a huge, thick-armed man—extended his ham-sized hands with the clear intention of dragging Milo out of his saddle.

The dromedary cow felt well served, and the smaller of the two bushwhackers immediately learned to his sorrow and agony just what those two-inch cursive fangs mounted in a camel’s jaws are intended to accomplish. While he staggered back, bleeding profusely from his torn, ragged wounds, trying vainly to fend off the attack Fatima was eagerly pressing, obviously relishing the rich taste of human blood, Milo first kicked the bigger man in the face, then shortened his grip on the slender lance and drove the edgeless point deep into the barrel chest under a tattered and faded camouflage shirt.

The entire encounter took but bare seconds of elapsed time, and only a few more seconds were required for him to blow a single, long, piercing blast of his brass police whistle, draw the small pyrotechnic projector from one of his belt pouches and send a single red star flare arching high to explode in the cloudless blue sky. Having rendered the predetermined signals for danger, he made to turn Fatima about, but she would have none of it, still being intent on following her prey into the brush, and as her strength and stubbornness were more than he could easily handle, Milo found himself compelled to acquiesce and proceed forward. However, he used his free hand to place the ferrule of the pennoned lance in its socket and loop its thong securely to the saddle, loosen his saber in its sheath, then draw and load and arm the submachine gun and sling it from his neck within easy reach, while gripping the shotgun with its gaping twelve-gauge foot-long barrels—he had discovered the deadly value of shotguns and buckshot loads in Vietnam and in Africa.

As the blood-mad Fatima bore him willy-nilly ahead into unknown dangers, he could hear other whistles passing on his danger signal, quickly followed by the triple blasts from the vanguard acknowledging the receipt of the warning.

Ail at once, another man nearly as big as the one he had lanced, kneed a short- and thick-legged mount no larger than a Connemara pony out of the concealing, more than head-high brush and fired at Milo with a short-barreled semiautomatic rifle of some sort. Because of the dancing of his small horse, the man could not have achieved any meaningful sort of aim; nonetheless, Fatima squalled once and her rider felt the tugs of swift-flying bullets as they passed through portions of his jacket.

Extending the sawed-off smoothbore at the full length of his arm, Milo squeezed the trigger and saw the puffs of dust as the double-ought buckshot load took the rifleman in the chest and upper abdomen. The stubby rifle went clattering to the ground at the feet of the panicky horse, which suddenly reared and dumped the fatally wounded rider onto his back to be ruthlessly trod upon by Fatima. The unfamiliar stench of camel filling its distended nostrils, the little horse bolted into the brush and out of sight.

As he rode over the jerking body of the rifleman, Milo’s keen vision detected a flicker of movement in the thick brush a bit ahead and to his right, and he quickly fired the other shotgun shell at it, to be rewarded by a hoarse scream and a frenzied thrashing about within the heavy undergrowth. Taking Fatima’s reins between his teeth, he broke the double gun, extracted a brace of shells from his bandolier and reloaded it.

And not a split second too soon, either. Four shaggy-haired men, with beards to their chests and clad in a miscellany of old and newer clothing, ran out of the flanking brush, shouting, their weapons spouting flame from the muzzles.

He could feel the impacts of the bullets that struck Fatima’s big, virtually unmissable body, and as the stricken beast began to go down, he leaped off her, coming down in a roll into the brush. Immediately he came to a stop, he unslung the submachine gun and dropped the four men with a long burst and two shorter ones. Lying there upon the hard, sun-hot ground, he could feel the swelling thunder of fast-approaching hooves, quite a goodly number of them. He hoped that those riders were his people rather than more of the scruffy bushwhackers, for he had dropped the shotgun somewhere in his roll for safety and he estimated that he now had only half a magazine load or less left in the automatic. There were eight rounds in his pistol, and he would have to expose himself -to retrieve either saber, light axe, lance or ammunition pouches from the gasping, groaning Fatima. He then resolved in future to carry his saber and at least one big knife hung from his body rather than his mount’s.

Spotting the downed camel, Harry Krueger waved the men behind him into the brush on either side, then advanced up the trail on foot, his reins hooked with elbow, his pump shotgun ready, at high port, as Milo had taught him and the others back in the Snake River country. When he saw the familiar boots sticking out of a clump of brush at the side of the trail, just beyond the felled camel, he felt his heart rise suddenly up to painfully distend his throat. He realized, all in a rush, that he simply could not think of, contemplate, a daily life without Uncle Milo, the man who had been around all of his remembered life, who had taught him and his peers so very much of living and survival. If Uncle Milo now lay dead up there …

“Damn fool boy!” Harry heard the well-known voice hiss. “Let that damn horse go and go to ground, before you eat a bullet. These bastards are murderous—no question, just an attack of some kind.”

But they found no more foemen that day, just eight bodies and six horses. All of the rifles turned out to be military-issue—M16s of the semiautomatic configuration—though without exception, old, well used and in very poor condition, so they were stripped of magazines, ammunition and any still-usable parts, then rendered useless by Milo and Jim Olsen, who also did the same for the assortment of rusty revolvers and pistols packed by the dead men.

Strangely enough, Dr. Bookerman announced, following a gingerly but thorough examination of Fatima, that he thought her wounds to be superficial, no bones having been broken and none of her vital organs seemingly affected. When Milo remounted the now-kneeling beast and gave her the signal to arise, she did so as grudgingly as always, but she seemed to maintain as good a pace as ever she had, though often groaning, bawling, squalling, hissing, snarling and mumbling to herself. But that night, Fatima dropped a stillborn calf, which Bookerman declared to have been delivered well before its appointed time.

The dawn after the day of the attack on Milo did not see the usual campbreaking and column formation; the camp was left in place and its perimeter heavily guarded while a well-armed contingent rode out eastward to check the highway, the countryside and the nearby town of Limon. These were under the command of Bookerman, it being his day to head the vanguards, as the previous day had been Milo’s.

Just before noon, he rode back into camp with a handful of his men and three strangers. Immediately upon dismounting, he called for Milo and the council.

The spokesman and apparent leader of the trio was of less than average height—about five feet seven, Milo guessed—but big-boned and, for all his thinning white hair, navel-length white beard and posture that was a bit stooped with age, still a powerful man, with broad, thick shoulders and firm handclasp. He identified himself as Keith Wheelock, once a colonel of the Colorado National Guard. Milo thought that while the old man looked distinguished enough, he resembled less an elderly retired officer and more a Cecil B. De Mille version of a biblical prophet.

Colonel Wheelock’s voice was strong but controlled, and his speech was literate. “Gentlemen, you and your party must be very wary while passing through this area, for there are roving bands of human scum now in these parts. They have attacked our settlement six times within the last fortnight after overwhelming the smaller settlement that our people had established to the west, in the town of Agate. These renegades are well armed, though lacking any meaningful number of horses. Although it is me and my people that they are really after, having trailed us here from our previous settlements, they are like mad dogs and will most certainly attack you for your horses, weapons and ammo or simply to see your blood flow.”

Milo nodded. “I sincerely thank you for your warning, sir, though it comes a bit late. I was attacked as I rode point yesterday; I had to shoot seven of the bastards and another of them was so badly savaged by my riding camel that he bled to death before he got far. We captured six rather sad and ill-kept specimens of horseflesh, some ratty saddles and harness, a few rounds of ammunition and a handful of usable parts off the worst-maintained weapons that I’ve seen in many a year. Here’s the only piece that wasn’t all dirt, fouling and rust.” He laid a stainless-steel single-action revolver on the carpet.

Wheelock squatted, picked up the weapon and, after opening the loading gate and rotating the empty cylinder, examined the piece briefly. When he raised his head, his eyes could be seen to be abrim with tears. He grasped the barrel and extended the revolver to Milo, butt-first, saying, “Sir, if you will remove the grips from this weapon, you will find the letters K. B. W. and the numbers 9-19-71 engraved on the frame. This was once my pistol, then my son’s; they must have taken it from his dead body, for I cannot conceive of any man’s taking it from him while still he lived and drew breath. He was the leader of the Agate settlement.”

The camp and herds were moved into the environs of Limon the next morning, and shortly thereafter, Milo and Bookerman became aware of just how desperate was the true plight of Colonel Wheelock and his followers—almost out of ammunition, very low on food of any sort, their hunters not daring to go outside the perimeter lest they be ambushed and slain by the marauders.

For all that there were thirty-odd families in the settlement, there were only fifteen adult men, including Wheelock himself; augmented, perforce, by a few of the bigger boys, they were all the fighting force now available, in the wake of the numerous and vicious attacks and the subsequent deaths from wounds sustained during them. Trying to farm by day and guarding the settlement by night, and doing it all on little food, these men and boys looked and moved like zombies, all save Wheelock, who seemed to possess depthless reserves of strength and vitality.

Two days after the arrival of the column in Limon, an attempt was staged by the brigands to run off some dozens of horses from the herd. For them it was a failure, exceedingly costly in their blood.

Nineteen of them were killed outright, and three were so severely wounded that they could not escape and so were captured; perhaps six or seven got away, but from the trail that they left, it was clear that at least a few of them bore wounds, too.

Of the captives, one died of a combination of shock and blood loss soon after being taken, and another was shot out of hand when he drew and tried to use a hidden pistol, so there was but one left for Milo and Bookerman to interrogate.

When Bookerman, in his capacity as physician, determined that the prisoner was as ready as he would be at any time soon for a session of questioning, he summoned Milo, Harry Krueger and two other members of the council, about all that could crowd into the cubicle with any degree of comfort.

“Gentleman, this prisoner gives his name to be Junior Jardin and claims the age of twenty-six, which roughly tallies with his physiological development. He follows, he avers, a leader called Gary Claxton, who along with most of his men is from Utah; Junior and a few others, however, were born in and around Durango, Colorado, and joined this group when it passed through their natal territory.”

Milo stepped forward to where the propped-up prisoner could easily see him and demanded, “How many men did your pack number as of this morning? And where is your base located? Answer me truthfully, if you know what’s good for you, for you’re entirely in our power, now.”

The bandaged man just sneered, then coughed, hawked and spat a blob of yellowish mucus at his interrogator. “Fuck yew an’ all your buddies, yew shithaidid fucker, yew!”

Milo smiled and nodded at Harry Krueger, saying, “There speaks fear, Harry, as I told you. This sorry specimen knows that his chosen leader and the few straggling dunces who trail after him are simply too weak, ill armed and gutless to offer us any real threat. They’re likely no more than another of these tiny little knots of skulkers with their pitiful spears and clubs and knives, too stupid and unskilled to make good use of a gun even if one fell into their clumsy hands.”

His voice dripped scorn and contumely, and these stung to the very quick and pride of the unsophisticated Junior Jardin.

“An’ thass all yew knows, too, yew asshole yew!” he burst out with heat. “Old Gary, he done got hisse’f more’n sixty mens long of us. An’ we most of us got real army guns, too, what old Gary brought up from Utah with ’im, an’ soon’s we gits us more hosses … aw, piss awn yew, ail yew!”

Then he clammed up. Not one additional word could threats or guile elicit from him; not even several slaps and buffets did any more to accomplish their purposes.

Outside the cubicle, out of range of Junior Jardin’s ears, Milo said, “Clarence, have you got any sort of drug that might work on him? We have simply got to know exactly where those bastards are holed up, for forty to fifty men armed with Ml6s pose a considerable threat to us all, either here or on the march, and Wheelock’s people are dead meat the moment we pull out.”

Bookerman shrugged. “I’ve found drugs of the sort you mean, here and there, but they are so old that I’d be afraid to use them, unless we had more than the one captive. However, Milo, I know a few tricks myself. Let me try one of them on him.”