Twin Cities Run

Chapter Twenty

“I don’t like it, pard. They’re taking too long!”

“Relax, man. Like I told you. Maggot takes his dear sweet time when he’s feedin’ that ugly puss of his.”

“I’m tired of waiting,” Hickok stated, his left ear pressed against the door, listening.

“What’s your big rush?” Bear asked. He was squatting on his haunches a few feet away. “They’ll come sooner or later.”

“I can’t afford to wait,” Hickok said, frowning.

“Why?”

Hickok stared at Bear. “I’ve got some friends I need to account for, and nothing better have happened to them.”

“Bertha?”

Hickok nodded. “Yep. And three others. I don’t know where they are. I don’t even know if they’re still alive. But I’ve got to find out. They could be needing my help right this moment.”

“So what’s your plan now?” Bear inquired.

“You’ll take me to where Maggot is eating.” Hickok stood.

“Say what?”

“You heard me.”

Bear also stood. “You’re crazy!”

“You said that before,” Hickok reminded him.

“This time I mean it! We can’t do it,” Bear protested, “because Maggot will be with his flunkies. Maybe twelve of them.”

“We go,” Hickok announced, and cautiously opened the door. He peered both ways to insure the corridor was clear.

“How you figure you’re gonna waste Maggot with all his bodyguards there?”

“I’ll think of something,” Hickok assured him.

“You sure you ain’t a Wack?” Bear demanded.

“If I am,” Hickok said, grinning, “what’s that make you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re following me, aren’t you?” Hickok eased out the door into the hall.

“Damn!” Bear exclaimed. He hesitated, considering the risks. “Oh, hell!” Smiling, he followed Hickok.

“Where is Maggot right now?” Hickok asked when Bear joined him.

“About three stories up.” Bear pointed at the ceiling.

“You know this place,” Hickok said. “What’s the best way to get to him without anyone seeing us?”

Bear pondered the question. “We’re lucky that no one uses this lower level too much. We can take the stairs up to the third floor. There might not be too many using the stairwell.”

“Is there any other way?”

“Just the shafts,” Bear casually mentioned.

“The shafts?”

“Wait a minute, Hickok,” Bear immediately objected. “We can’t use the shafts.”

“Why not?”

“Why, the only way up them is the cables!”

“The cables?”

“Yeah. They hang down the middle of the shafts. We’d have to climb them. Three stories!”

“Let’s go.” Hickok beckoned for Bear to lead the way.

“You don’t understand,” Bear complained.

“Then show me.”

Bear shrugged and led Hickok to the right. The corridor was lit by torches attached to the walls at twenty-foot intervals. The door to the pit was at one end of the hallway. In the center were two open doors, revealing two confined chambers, measuring five feet by five feet.

“What the blazes are these?” Hickok asked. They reminded him of two immense closets.

“Beats me,” Bear replied. “No one knows what they were used for. Look at those.” He pointed at two square openings, one in the roof of each closet. “You can climb up and get on top of these things. That’s where the cables are. They’re fastened to the middle of the roofs, and they go straight up to the top of this building, which is eight stories high.”

“Which reminds me,” Hickok said. “Where is this building?”

“Oh. It’s on our turf, of course, in pretty safe territory. Think it was called the Riker Manufacturing Complex before the war. Off of Olsen Memorial Highway.”

“How far from no-man’s-land?” Hickok needed to know.

“From where they found you?”

Hickok nodded.

“About five or six miles.”

Hickok sighed. “Let’s get this over with.” He entered the left cubicle and glanced at the opening above his head.

“Now just a minute…” Bear began.

“Now what’s the matter?” Hickok snapped, impatient with Bear’s constant carping.

“This ain’t such a bright idea,” Bear informed him.

“You say it leads to the floor Maggot is on?”

“Sure enough.”

“And we won’t encounter other Porns using this way?”

Bear grinned. “None of ’em would be loony enough to try it!”

“Good.” Hickok leaped, catching the edges of the opening, pulling his body up and through, bracing his feet on either side of the square after attaining the roof.

Bear stepped into the compartment and looked up. “You’re goin’ to do it?”

“You need to ask?”

“What if the cable breaks?”

“Try and put me back together before you bury me.”

“Damn! You sure are one contrary honky!” Bear muttered. He walked around to the other cubicle and followed Hickok’s example, pushing his Winchester onto the roof before he clambered on top.

“This is a great idea,” Hickok complimented him.

“You think so, huh?” Bear nervously peered into the darkness, uncomfortable, assailed by the oppressive silence and a sensation of being watched. Something rattled to his left. “What was that?” he asked, scooping up his Winchester.

“Just me.” Hickok stood and tested the cable, yanking as hard as he could, wondering what it was secured to on high.

“Don’t do that!” Bear cried out. “You like to scared me half to death!”

Hickok had already replaced the C.O.P. in the holster strapped to his left leg. The Mitchell’s Derringer was firmly attached to his right wrist.

Not much, considering the arsenal Maggot had at his disposal and the number of men on his side, but it would have to do. “Are you all set?” he asked Bear.

Bear was bothered by the lack of light, just enough filtering in through the openings to enable him to detect Hickok’s form on top of the other cubicle. He gazed up the shaft, noting that black stretches alternated with patches of light at each story. All of the doors to the shaft had been pried open long ago, and the light from the respective hallways provided minimal illumination.

“Are you ready?” Hickok demanded.

“As ready as I’m gonna be.”

Hickok gripped the cable and jumped, wrapping his ankles around the cable for added support as he slowly climbed, hand over hand, toward the next story.

Bear tucked his Winchester under his belt, angling the rifle along his right hip. He tightened the belt to insure he wouldn’t lose the gun as he scaled the cable.

“Will you come on!” Hickok’s voice carried from the darkness above.

Bear took a deep breath, grabbed the cable, and started his ascent, mounting the cable in the same fashion as Hickok. He found himself speculating whether the rats could climb the cable.

Hickok reached the open doors at the first-floor level. He paused, hanging onto the cable, waiting for Bear to catch up.

“Is somethin’ wrong?” Bear asked when he reached a position on his cable directly aligned with Hickok. The two cables were eight feet apart.

“I thought maybe you were taking a nap,” Hickok cracked.

“You ain’t funny, man,” Bear responded.

“I remembered what these things were called,” Hickok informed him.

“You do?” Bear spoke softly, his eyes on the portion of the first-floor hall visible through the open doors.

“Yep. They were tagged elevators, I believe.”

“Remind me to tell you how impressed I am,” Bear said, “after I get off this cable!”

Hickok grinned and resumed ascending his cable, his wrists, already injured in the pit incident, smarting painfully. They had to hold out until he reached the third floor! If he lost his grip now, he’d bust his skull in the fall.

Bear paced his exertions, keeping level with Hickok. He wondered how Hickok and Bertha had met, and he hoped Bertha was still alive because he wanted to see her again, to tell her all the things, express all his feelings, the emotions, he’d never been able to display before she deserted the Porns for the Nomads. Why hadn’t he gone with her? She had wanted him to go with her, even pleaded with him, tears in her beautiful eyes. And he’d refused. In all his years, Bear castigated himself, he’d never met a bigger asshole than the person he saw when he stood in front of a mirror.

They reached the second-floor doors and paused, resting.

“Only one more to go,” Bear whispered to Hickok.

Hickok nodded and grinned.

The voices and the two women were on them before they could scurry for cover.

“I don’t like it one bit,” the first woman stated as they walked into view, engaged in conversation, slowly passing the open elevator doors.

Hickok and Bear hung in plain view, scarcely daring to breathe, waiting to see if the women would spot them.

“I don’t like it none either,” the second young woman said, “but I don’t see what I can do about it.”

“I know what you can do,” the first woman, a brunette in a faded green dress, commented.

“Like what?”

“Stick a knife in the bastard,” suggested the brunette.

“You’re nuts!” the second woman, dressed in baggy brown pants and a yellow shirt, exclaimed. “I’d never get away with it.”

“Sure you could.” The brunette grabbed her friend by the arm and the pair stopped. “You just tell his buddies you found him dead. I’ll back you and be your alibi.”

“I don’t know,” the other woman said uncertainly.

“It’s the only way you’ll get rid of him.”

“I know.”

“Don’t you want me anymore?” the brunette asked.

The second woman kissed the first on the lips. “Of course I do!”

“Then you’ll do as I say,” the brunette directed.

Her companion nodded and they continued along the hall. Neither of them had glanced into the shaft.

Hickok looked at Bear, who shrugged and led the way up the cables.

They slowed as they neared the third floor, cautious, anxious to avoid committing the blunder they’d pulled on the second floor.

“I’ve never seen any person eat as much as him!” a male voice wafted down the elevator shaft.

“Quiet! Do you want him to hear you?” asked a woman.

“He can’t hear me.”

“He has ears everywhere!” the scared woman stated.

“This is our fourth trip to the food pots!” protested the man.

“At least we’re alive to make the trip,” the woman snapped testily.

The sounds of conversation faded.

Hickok inched up the rope until his eyes were above floor level. He leaned out and glanced both ways. “The hall is empty,” he whispered to Bear.

“You still sure you want to go through with this?” Bear queried.

“How many times must I tell you?” Hickok replied. “It’s time the Porns had a new leader.”

“I hope you know what you’re doin’.”

“So do I.”

“You sure can give a man confidence,” Bear sarcastically quipped.

Hickok scaled the cable until his feet were above the hall level. He swung his legs forward and back, twice, and on the second swing he vaulted into the corridor, landing crouched, already drawing the C.O.P., scanning for any sign of Porns.

A moment later Bear joined him. He pulled the Winchester from his belt and checked to see if a round was in the chamber. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” he told Hickok. “Which ain’t sayin’ much.”

The hallway was carpeted and both walls were covered with wood paneling, some of the panels broken or cracked or missing altogether.

Torches hung in special brackets on the walls.

“Which room is Maggot in?” Hickok inquired.

Bear waved him to their right, to a closed door ten feet away.

“This is it,” Bear remarked. “The eating room.”

Hickok gently twisted the knob and quietly opened the door a foot. He peered around the jamb.

The meal was still in full swing. A table large enough for a dozen diners was in the center of the lavishly decorated chamber. Maggot, like a plump, ponderous hyena presiding over a flock of vultures, sat at the far end of the table on a chair higher than any other. His cheeks and jowls were coated with food and grease. He was smiling as he scooped mouthful after mouthful from a large bowl, using a white ladle, gulping the chunks of food without bothering to chew. Ten other men also sat at the table.

Hickok noted several items of interest. Rat was sitting immediately to the left of Maggot. All of the men were armed, but they had leaned their rifles against the wall behind their respective chairs, and out of their reach. Some of them would be packing handguns, but he wouldn’t know which ones for sure until they drew. He did know Rat had the Taurus on his left hip. His eyes lit up when he spotted his Pythons and the Henry, all three on top of the table within Maggot’s easy grasp. He eased out to the corridor.

“Are they still in there?” Bear whispered.

Hickok nodded.

“So how do we play this?” Bear inquired.

“You give me your Winchester and take off,” Hickok answered.

“Do what?”

“Just give me your gun and get out of here.”

“I thought you wanted my help,” Bear, taken by surprise by this unforeseen development, noted.

“I did,” Hickok concurred. “But I’ve changed my mind. I’m going in there alone.”

“Why?” Bear quizzed. “I don’t understand.”

Hickok drew Bear away from the door. “Listen, friend.” He placed his left hand on Bear’s broad shoulders. “One of us needs to stay alive. There’s a chance we’d both be blown away if we barged into that room.”

“I ain’t lettin’ you go in there alone,” Bear affirmed.

“I’ve got to.”

“No way, Hickok.” Bear vigorously shook his head. “I ain’t runnin’ this time. I’m stickin’ by you!”

“Don’t do it for me. Do it for Bertha.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you tell me you and Bertha are friends?”

Bear nodded.

“Good. Then get back to where they found me. That’s where I saw her, and my other friends, in that area. If something happens to me, I can go out easier knowing you’ll be searching for them and helping them if you find them. Their names are Blade, Geronimo, and Joshua. You’ll know them easy enough. They’re as crazy as you say I am.”

“Was Bertha still alive last you saw her?” Bear asked, his tone tinged with unconcealed concern.

Hickok noticed, his brow creasing. What did this mean? Was Bear more than a friend to Bertha?

“Was she?” Bear gripped Hickok’s left arm. “I got to know!”

“She was well when I saw her last,” Hickok slowly acknowledged.

Bear breathed an audible sigh of relief.

“I get the impression you like her a lot,” Hickok casually offered.

“I guess I do,” Bear confessed. “More than I been willing to tell anyone, even her. I’ve decided to ask her to be mine.”

Hickok turned away, pretending to watch the door. “Well,” he said softly, “I reckon life is plumb full of little surprises.”

“What do you mean?”

Hickok faced Bear, a devil-may-care smile on his lips. “I mean, pard, it’s more important than ever that you stay alive and find Bertha.”

“And you?”

“I got a score to settle with Maggot.” Hickok took the Winchester from Bear. “You wait at the end of the hall. If I ain’t the one who comes out of this room after all the shooting is done, hightail your butt out of here and go find Bertha and my pards.”

“I don’t know…” Bear said reluctantly.

Hickok gazed into Bear’s eyes. “Go, Bear, now.” His voice was low and hard.

Bear started to shuffle away. “Is something wrong?”

“What could be wrong?” Hickok walked to the door, his back to Bear.

“Get the hell out of here. Now!”

Bear went, unwillingly, confused by Hickok’s abrupt change.

Hickok held the C.O.P. in his left hand and raised the Winchester.

Good! He could use his thumb and forefinger to grip the rifle barrel and still hold onto the palm gun with his other three fingers. The Winchester contained six shots in its tubular magazine, the C.O.P. four. As a backup, he had his Mitchell’s Derringer on his right wrist.

Time to even the score!

He stared at the door, seeing Bertha’s face. What was Bear to her?

She’d never even mentioned him. Why not? If Bear liked her so much, she had to be aware of his feelings. Maybe Bear was the real reason she had been so dead set against coming back to the Twin Cities? Maybe she felt guilt because she found herself liking both men, one of whom came from a completely different background and culture. What chance did they have?

Realistically speaking? They were as different as night and day. Literally.

How would the Family react if Bertha and he become involved? What would they say? Since when had he cared what anyone else thought? He shook his head, his blond hair swirling. Enough of this morbid reflection!

Hickok grinned, recalling a statement he’d made to Blade and Geronimo after they’d killed a mutated bear. “I’d rather die in a fight, with my guns in my hands.” Wasn’t that what he’d said?

Well, now was as good a time as any!

That was when the door opened.