Memphis Run

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.