Wild Country

Chapter Fifty

Not far from where Alec Wardrop engaged his last boar, another engagement took place to the south. The rundown headquarters at the old south homestead were, as Jer Garner said, plenty roomy to hide a hovervan, along with the cycles that flanked the van like the outriders for gold shipments of a century earlier. But the street value of Sorel's cargo, gram for gram, was currently more dear than gold. Its price would drop sharply as soon as Sorel got far enough north to begin dumping it, at unheard-of low prices, to one buyer after another. And then the strategy would be tested when, and if, stupid Americans consumed a thousand kilos of cheap, top-quality skag every month.

Now, Felix Sorel had a problem. He could have bought a small European country for the heroin that rested in cartons carefully repacked and labeled "Light Crust Flour" in the cargo section behind him. But the stuff wasn't worth a peso if he couldn't get it to market, and he would never get it out of Wild Country if the van's diesel kept acting up like this. Two of the men. Reeve and Billy Ray, were passable shade-tree mechanics, but they were unable to trace the problem that made the supercharged van engine chuff and misfire. They had found the fuel filter choked with the kind of crud that often went with Mexican fuel, and after a good flushing they pronounced the problem solved.

It wasn't solved as long as tiny particles were clogging the injectors. Further, every time the engine was hard to start, the starting procedure put extra loads on the individual diesel glow plugs, which required a contortionist midget to replace. By the time Sorel decided he must make serious repairs before going farther, he was roughly halfway between the south homestead and the shanty on the north end that Garner's men had thrown together from old lumber. For the umpteenth time, the diesel staggered so severely that the van threatened to rub its skirts on caliche dirt. "This damnable thing will not take us much farther," Sorel grumbled to Jerome Garner, who sat with an assault rifle near the right-hand window and watched the head of a cycle rider bob in and out of sight some distance away on their right flank.

"It'll have to, Sorrel. There's no place else on the spread."

"Are you denying the obvious? Your own ranch headquarters is the place to pull a big engine. It will be quicker and safer than—"

"You don't know the old man. Way he is now, an outfit like this would purely bring out the border guard in him."

The diesel chuffed again and nearly died, the van bouncing its tough forward skirt from the dirt. Sorel cursed and made a hard decision. "What is the shortest distance to your headquarters from here?"

"Goddammit, I told you we can't—" Jer began with some heat, then saw Sorel's face and decided maybe they could. He pointed several points to the right. "Straight over there about seven, eight miles. You got any bright ideas what to tell my old man?"

"That is your problem, which you will solve," said Sorel tightly, steering across open country from which most of the trees had been removed a generation before. "You have always, always given me to understand that you command this region. Well… command it," he finished.

It went without saying that Sorel himself was the one man in that region whom young Garner should not even attempt to command-who would, in fact, command the commander. Jer looked out the window so that he would not have to look at the driver. This was the second time in a row that Jer had been faced down by a self-assured little hardass on his own spread. Come to think of it. Sorrel and Ted Quantrill seemed to have a lot in common. Both blonds, compact, graceful in movement, going about their business with minimum fuss — and augering holes through anything that tried to box them in. Jer wished he could put the two of them in a pit together like roosters so he could watch the feathers fly. Briefly, he thought of mentioning Quantrill to the Mex, then thought better of it. Jer was not about to recount his dust-up with Quantrill, and his men knew better than to talk about it if they wanted to remain on Garner land. He was still enjoying thoughts of eventual revenge when the distant rooftops of the Garner headquarters poked up over the horizon.

Sorel took the VHP handset and, using its scrambler, advised the outriders to fall in line behind his dust trail. Here in the heart of the Garner spread, they had little to worry about as long as Jer exercised the control he bragged so much about. That control would be a lot easier to maintain if they managed somehow to get into the equipment bam without Mul Garner noticing.

Jer seemed nervous as a virgin in a cantina as Sorel guided the van to the equipment bam, Jer leaping out to slide the double doors aside, his glance darting frequently to the big limestone house a hundred meters away. The four outriders — Billy Ray, Slaughter, and both of the Longo brothers — dropped the dolly wheels of their cycles and cut their engines to minimize dust in the yard, which had once been a corral. Unlike the van, most hovercycles lacked power-driven maneuvering wheels because of the weight and cost penalties, and were light enough to be pushed by hand. Billy Ray and Reeve Longo, who knew old Mulvihill Garner well, seemed especially anxious to push their cycles out of sight. Harley Slaughter, with the instincts of a back-shooter, began an immediate reconnaissance in the bam.

Felix Sorel did not fail to notice these preparations, as if for an approaching storm. To himself, he admitted that he had taken Jer too much at face value. Now that face was changing.

Payment for this trip would come from Sorel, so it was Sorel who gave the orders to remove the van engine. It weighed roughly as much as a big man, its castings chiefly of lightweight polymers and ceramics. He had hopes of getting that engine to Rocksprings for overhaul before nightfall, but those hopes were short-lived. Sorel and Slaughter were lifting a rear body panel from the hovervan when the taciturn Slaughter jerked his head to peer into the yard. "Sounds like bad news," he said.

Sorel let go of the panel and moved in shadow so that he could monitor the trouble while Slaughter eased back into the van. Sorel did not have to ask why his confederate sought cover; Slaughter's coldgas weapon was useful only at very short range. Sorel saw a pale old fellow fifteen paces away, facing Jer, carrying a vintage pump shotgun in the crook of one arm. Even with the stooped shoulders he stood almost as tall as Jerome, and his aspect was anything but friendly. Jer looked as though he wanted to kick clods, standing with hands thrust in hip pockets, turning his head this way and that as if the old man's words were slaps. Jer tried to offer a plausible lie.

"Don't know his name. Pop. His van was about to crap out, so I brung him here."

"What's this, a good neighbor policy all of a sudden?" Old Mul strode nearer to the open doors, waved sharply with his free hand, and called, "Everybody out of my barn, for a nose count." The men in the barn glanced not at Jer but at Sorel. who nodded and strolled into what was left of the late sunshine. He stopped near the safety of the doors and waved the others out into the yard with a gesture not intended to be seen by the rancher. Mul Garner saw it anyway and decided those men were not so much under Jer's control as that of the golden-haired stranger with the face of a matinee idol. Sorel still had a backup, for Slaughter was still lying hidden in the van. No one spoke for a long moment.

"Listen up," said Mul Garner, shifting the scattergun a bit for emphasis as he scanned the men. "I won't ask what this is all about. Sifting through your lies would be worse than shoveling fleas with a pitchfork. This is my spread. I won't have any part of whatever you're up to." He stared hard at his son's flushed face. "I see you have Reeve's no-account brother with you, Jer.- Why not just carry a sign that you're up to no good? I want these men to clear out, same way they got here. Loli brought the pickup back, if they need it. Take it and good riddance. You've already shot the goddamn thing full of holes and killed the best foreman I ever knew."

Jer straightened. "Me? I was all stove up when Cam got it. Daddy."

"And Loli was in her room near the cookhouse, and she heard you give the orders. You know how it was with her and Cam. Don't expect her to take care of your dirty laundry anymore, boy; she'll barely keep house for me now. Your orders got Cam killed, and in some ways that's worse than doing it yourself."

Now Jer was breathing deeply as though fanning some inner flame, no longer avoiding his father's gaze. "Yeah? And how about you, settin' the law on my trail in Austin? Nobody else knew where I was headed, old man. You nearly got me bushwhacked."

"That's a goddamn—" Mul Garner caught himself on the defensive and changed tacks. "If that's what you think, you and I have nothing more to say."

"Speak for yourself. I say you tried to get me killed." From long habit, Jer let his hand move toward the sidearm at his hip. It was a bluff that had worked in the past, and he tried it without thinking.

The report and the spat against the barn wall were almost simultaneous, and Mul Garner wheeled toward its source. "Loli, no!" he bawled toward the woman who stood on the porch, steadying her scoped varmint rifle against a pillar.

Sorel drew from his armpit holster, ducked behind the nearside door, and fired as Clyde Longo sprinted into the barn for his weapon. Billy Ray and Reeve did the best they could do without weapons: they fell on their faces. Mul Garner staggered, struck in the kidney from behind, and despite the shocking pain he spun around, bringing the shotgun to his shoulder. He knew that round had come from the mouth of the barn.

Jer had drawn his automatic by reflex, saw the barrel of that scattergun rise in his general direction, and missed his father from a distance of three paces. Mul Garner squeezed off a round of double-aught buckshot toward the barn as Loli, nearly a hundred meters away, saw Jer fire that single round. Her second shot may have been intended merely to graze, but on the other hand, maybe not. It caught Jerome Garner squarely in the forehead, taking away the back of his skull in its passage. Jer folded backward from the knees and fell on his back, legs twitching, blood pooling around his head as he stared open-eyed into the heavens.

Felix Sorel felt the load of buckshot slam against the door; squeezed off two more rounds while Mul was cycling his pumpgun and saw the old man fall. Clyde Longo got his assault rifle unlimbered and, from a prone position near the other bam door, raked the porch with his first burst. The woman screamed, dropped the little varmint rifle, and doubled over, trying to reach the front door. Longo caught her in the doorway. She lurched against the door facing, her arms hanging as if broken at the shoulders, then fell on her side and did not move again.

Now, from the bunkhouse, came more fire peppering the barn, kicking dust spurts from the ground. Reeve Longo, face down as he had been from the first shot, shouted, "L.J.; cookie! It's us, dammit!"

More firing. "They know it's us, dumbfuck," called his brother. "They seen the old man go down."

Sorel did not know how many men, or how much firepower, they faced. But there was no time now for a pitched battle; for that matter, no time to shift their cargo to a pickup truck. As Clyde Longo fired toward the bunkhouse windows, Sorel ordered the others to run for the safety of the barn and covered them with several well-spaced shots.

As Clyde kept up his fire to keep their opponents inside, Sorel and the others slapped the van's body panel in place. Harley Slaughter did not have to be told to try starting the big diesel. Coughing gouts of smoke, then steadying, it surprised them all. Maybe it would get them as far as that shanty.

All the while, half of Sorel's mind was planning. He had four men left and a VHP scrambler in the van. Even if he made it to that shanty, they'd have to remove a ton of plastic-encased heroin from the van and stash it somewhere on the Garner spread. If the van coughed its last out on the open range, he would need three cycles. Reeve and Billy Ray had helped erect the shanty, and Billy Ray seemed the more dependable of the two, so he would ride in the van as guide. The others could bring the cycles after sabotaging other vehicles in the barn that might be used to give chase. Leaving no tracks, they might yet find a place to hide.

Sorel did not explain, simply barking the orders. Slaughter accepted his role frowning, but silent, and a minute later Sorel was accelerating the van out in fan mode, a great dust cloud of yellowish gray belching like cannon smoke from the mouth of the bam. It almost obscured the following cycles.

An hour later, after cursing the van's increasing ills and Billy Ray's faulty memory, Sorel saw the waddie jab a forefinger to their left. They had found it in failing light, no more than a shed with open ends, but adequate shelter from aerial spotters. He entertained no hope that the van would continue for even another half hour; indeed, only by lowering the van skirts to the soil and picking his way around the brushy undergrowth had Sorel got the damned thing this far. Still, it was satisfactory. They could find a place to hide the cargo, then get that hundred-kilo diesel engine loaded onto one cycle. With three deaders lying at Garner Ranch, they'd be courting suicide to show up at Rocksprings. Billy Ray would have to take that engine to SanTone, where overhauls and ranch hands were more anonymous. That would leave Reeve Longo at the van, with the remaining canned goods and the assault rifle. Surely those two knuckle-bangers could reinstall the engine without help while Sorel and his hired guns made tracks elsewhere.

Sorel refused to permit a fire, even inside the shanty, to warm their supper that evening. Taking the worst case, those men at the ranch might have started an aerial search, perhaps even with Search & Rescue satellite help. A strong IR signature was the last thing he needed. The first thing he needed was to contact help using the VHP scrambler. The van's mapfiche proved they were tantalizingly near to several sizable towns: Rocksprings, Junction, Sonora. And those towns might already be crawling with federates in plainclothes. Sorel's slight accent was enough to tag him as neither Anglo nor TexMex, and in any case some descriptions of him did exist.

San Antonio Rose kept late hours, and Sorel's caution worked overtime, so no message was left on the phone in SanTone Ringcity. Around midnight Sorel finally made direct contact. As always, Felix Sorel made as much use as possible of the adage, "Never complain; never explain." Even though he had worked side by side in mutual trust with San Antonio Rose before, Sorel knew he would be unwise to let the man know just how much he was needed. Sorel's exact location would remain a secret as well. It was enough that San Antonio Rose knew Sorel's immediate needs. These were simple enough: a place to obtain new clothes and to alter appearances for three men, and access to fast transport northward. While Sorel and his gunsels conferred with his drug outlets, Billy Ray and Reeve could get the van ready. The two mechanic cowpokes would also make good telltales, in case some posse did track the van somehow. They were more expendable than they knew. If you stake a bad dog in front of your door and find that dog missing or dead on your return, it's a fair bet that you should keep walking and never return…

San Antonio Rose was firing on all cylinders that night, with a brilliant solution to Sorel's needs. Wild Country Safari was larger than the Garner spread and hosted the world's widest variety of guests. At least twice a week, it received passenger flights by the huge thrumming delta dirigibles that made direct connections to Dal Worth and Santa Fe. It was less than two hours away by cycle. With so many people coming and going by varied kinds of private transportation, three men should have no trouble mixing with the vacationers, gamblers, dudes, and hookers in the synthetic Old West town of Faro. The place was hard to miss, served by excellent roads with two modem hotels and adjacent state-of-the-art thrill rides just over a rise from the little sin city. Sorel should find it easily and would find reservations waiting.