AFTER (25 page)

Then came the bartering. Doctor
Rourke
brought out a crate of assorted post-war canned goods and firearm ammunition and set it on the desk beside the goods to be bargained for. Like two Indians trading over a campfire, boy and man swapped to and fro with courtesy and respect. The doctor examined each body part meticulously, checking for freshness, muscle tone, and size. Those that did not meet his standards, due to irreparable damage, disease, or rigor mortis, were discarded. The trading was done diplomatically: a box of .38 ammo for a man's arm, a can of beans for the leg of a child. As each transaction was haggled over and completed, the food and ammo were placed in
Owen's
wagon while the human limbs were stacked neatly like cord wood on a gurney to be carted into the warehouse deep-freeze for proper preservation.

The last item was a healthy human heart floating in a quart mason jar of fresh blood. The doctor was interested, as he already had a potential customer for the organ. "How about a couple of cans of halved peaches, along with a box of shells for your father's twelve-gauge?" he offered, figuring it to be more than a fair trade.

Owen's
face suddenly grew sad and angry. "I ain't got no use for shotgun shells no more, Doc. My dad…. he's dead."

The physician laid a sympathetic hand on the child's shoulder. He had noticed that the boy had been somewhat nervous and preoccupied, especially during one period of bartering. Now he knew why. "I'm terribly sorry, Owen. When did this happen?"

"Three days ago… before the big counterattack. The army came to Ruin Town looking for men to fight. Any man able to hold a gun they armed and herded into trucks headed for the front. They came for my dad, but he'd been awful sick with that new plague that's going around. They dragged him out of bed and, when he wasn't able to stand, they pushed him out into the street and put a bullet in the back of his head."

"Who was it, Owen? Do you know who was responsible?"

The boy nodded, near tears now. "It was
him
, Doc. It was the General."

Rourke's
normally serene eyes now darkened into angry pits. Jeremiah Payne, also known as the General, was a ruthless looter and murderer who performed wholesale injustice and horrid atrocities under the protective guise of military authority. He and his band of roving mercenaries fought the enemy when a battle presented itself. But, when the hostility died down, they were back to their old tricks, descending upon the meager population like hungry wolves. Cowardly bushwhackers with automatic weapons, that's what they were; sadistic thieves who preyed without conscience on the weak and helpless.

"What about you and your mother?"
Rourke
asked.

A single tear of rage trickled the length of
Owen's
scarred face. "I was hidden… but, Mom, she tried to stop them. The General knocked her down and tore off her clothes. He hurt her real bad, Doc… down
there
."

Silently, the doctor rose and went to the safe in the corner of his office. After a moment, he returned. "A new deal for the heart, Owen. The peaches and
this
." It was one of the last surviving cans of National Defense spam, bulky and rectangular and with its own turn-key for opening.

"
Meat
!" piped the boy excitedly. He picked up the can as if it were some priceless treasure. "Gee, I've never had real, honest-to-goodness meat before. If I have, I was too young to remember."

"Well, tonight you and your mom are in for a big treat. How about it? Is it a deal?"

"Deal!" agreed the child enthusiastically. They shook on it,
Rourke's
huge hand engulfing
Owen's
smaller one.

After everything had been squared away, Nurse Taylor cranked the door open. The howl of the western wind almost deafening in its ferocity. Owen covered the lower part of his face with a bandanna to filter away the swirling dust and began to lead the two dogs back out into the crumbling ruins that had once been the proud metropolis of Houston, Texas. He turned back once before the sandy haze swallowed him.

"So long, Doc," he said, waving. "And thanks a million!"

"Anytime," shouted the doctor over the wind. "Keep bringing me quality goods like these today and you'll have a steady customer."

Owen grinned and stared at Doctor Hamilton
Rourke
with an expression akin to awe. The man towered like a giant in the warehouse doorway, huge and powerful beneath the long drop of his white lab coat. His face was warm and friendly, the eyes sparkling blue, the full beard dark with a hint of gray.

The only peculiarity about his face was the forehead, which protruded slightly from the rest of his features. That was the result of the heavy-gauge steel plate that had taken the place of his frontal skull bone. The bumpy impressions of Phillips-head screws could be detected just beneath the skin. The cerebral replacement had been made years before the Burn had taken place; before the land gave way to chaos and nearby Dallas had disintegrated, becoming a thirty-mile wide hole in the earth. Before their Spanish neighbors to the South had invaded their borders, armed to the teeth and ready to take advantage of their sorry situation.

The nine-year-old scavenger regarded
Rourke
as though he were some sort of god. In a way, to many people in Ruin Town, he was one. For Hamilton
Rourke
was the man with the ability to make one's body whole again, no matter how severe the damage. He was the healer supreme, the medico
grande
.

He was the Flesh-Welder.

Evening came and, with it, the unnatural hues of nuclear sunset and the choking smoke of distant funeral pyres. The most recent bout of fighting had proved devastating for the western boundary of Ruin Town. An enemy mortar attack had battered a populated area of civilians, bringing much death and injury. The doctor and his nurse had been busy most of that afternoon and, as the shadows of evening grew long, the gathering of injured had slowly dwindled and only a few now remained.

Rourke
was examining a Navajo woman with severe abdominal wounds, when a roar of vehicles sounded outside and a commotion broke out as those who had been waiting were pushed roughly aside.

"Out of the way, you sorry sons-of-bitches!" shouted a familiar voice. "We've got wounded coming through!"

"It's
him
!" said Nurse Taylor, her expression more severe than usual.

Rourke
nodded grimly. "Yes… I know."

The band of soldiers, sweaty and reeking of blood and cordite, shouldered their arms and carried a single stretcher into the warehouse's cavernous chamber.
Rourke
exchanged a weary glance with Nurse Taylor as they set the stretcher directly across from the Indian that the doctor was attending to. He ignored the intruders and called to his assistant. "Nurse, prepare the operating room for surgery."

"Over here, Doc!" called the man on the neighboring stretcher. "Me first!"

Rourke
regarded the man clinically. His only injury was a leg severed just above the knee. It was a serious wound to be sure, but not one that was critical at the moment. "I must take this woman first. She has some very serious wounds and she will die if I don't tend to them immediately."

The other cursed, drew a 9mm pistol from his hip and, placing the muzzle against the Navajo's temple, pulled the trigger. Gunfire and brains shot across the room, rebounding off the cinderblock wall. "Now, like I said before…
me first.
"

His eyes cold, Doctor
Rourke
left the dead woman and turned his full attention to his murderous patient. General Jeremiah Payne
reholstered
his Beretta and grinned smugly around the stump of a confiscated Havana. The commanding officer was a perfect example of the old redneck term "lean and mean", being as wiry as a weasel and twice as crafty. He wore a stained gray Stetson with a gruesome hatband constructed entirely of shriveled human ears… ghoulish trophies of the many battles he had won. Most were swarthy in color, Cuban and South American more than likely, but a few were black and Indian in origin.

"How bad is it?" asked the General. "A freaking SA grenade took it off at the knee. Right the hell off! Can you fix it for me? Have you got the part in stock?"

"Yes, a supplier brought a suitable replacement earlier today. But it will cost you."

"Sure, Doc. You name it. Guns, grub, gasoline… I even have some gold I filched from the Bank of El Paso. Just get the show on the road, will you?"

Doctor
Rourke
motioned for Payne's men to carry him into the room that adjoined his office. A gas generator ran noisily, providing a battery of fluorescent lights overhead.
 
"Nurse, prepare two pints of type A positive blood," the doctor said, then started toward the freezer for the appropriate limb.

"Yes, sir." Nurse Taylor emptied a packet of what looked like cherry Kool-Aid into a container of distilled water. It was a unit of synthetic plasma crystals, "instant blood", which had been developed when 95% of the world's blood supply became contaminated with the AIDS virus.

Ten minutes later, the IV had been hooked up and Payne was sedated. The other soldiers in the General's group waited uneasily outside as the doctor and nurse donned heavy canvas gowns, neoprene surgical gloves, and bulky welding helmets. After both ends of the host and replacement bones had been prepped,
Rourke
connected a stainless steel clip to each end. They were cellular stimulators, designed to generate growth and healing by way of delicately administering charges of electricity. He then opened a sterilization box and brought out a synthetic bone rod. An equally sterilized electrode was produced. Holding the electrode in one hand and the bone rod in the other,
Rourke
lowered them to the primed sections and pressed a pedal switch with his foot, generating the necessary voltage.

Carefully, he began to weld the two halves of the femur together. A hissing crackle from the union of rod and electrode spat blue-white sparks of flaming bone splinters into the air like fireworks and, slowly, the two ends began to fuse into one. Fifteen minutes later the first step of the procedure was completed. Lifting his mask,
Rourke
took a long mill bastard and began to file away most of the excess flash and globules of molten bone.

Then, taking a soldering iron and a spool of synthetic nerve filament, he began to carefully hot solder a few key nerve endings in place to ensure proper motor function. The operation drew to a close when the helmet was again lowered and the muscles of the leg were welded together using a special flesh-fiber rod. After the melding of muscle tissue had been completed, the epidermis was closed with a staple gun that injected skin sutures into the upper layers.

An hour later, Jeremiah Payne awoke from his anesthesia. "Hurts like hell!" he grumbled, but he was thankful to see the new limb.

"It will hurt for a couple of days," informed the doctor. "There will be a few little problems to work out – muscle coordination, stress and weight adjustment, perhaps possible tissue rejection."

"Well, let's hope that don't happen." The General caressed the pearl handle of his pistol for emphasis.

Payne's men carried him from the recovery room into the open warehouse. The injured who had been waiting had been taken care of and sent on their way. One of Payne's flunkies lit him a cigar and the commander pointed to the rear of the transport truck outside. "Go ahead, Doc. I'm ready to pay my tab. Pick out anything you want."

"I want none of your pilfered goods, General Payne," he told him. "There is only one thing I want in return for my services."

"Name it."

Rourke
regarded him gravely. "I want you to leave those poor people in Ruin Town alone. I've heard of the heinous crimes you've committed, the awful acts you've performed there. Just give it a rest, at least for a month or so. Find fresh territory to conquer."

The General began to laugh heartily, as if someone had just told him an obscene joke. "Now, why would I wanna go and do something like that? Hell, it'd be like butchering the goose that laid the golden egg! Ruin Town and every other providence hereabout are ours for the taking. Besides, what are those people to you? They're nothing but a bunch of niggers, wetbacks, and redskins. They're not even your own kind! What do you care?"

"So you refuse to pay up as promised?"

"You got it, sawbones. I'm not about to strike such a foolish bargain – even if you did give me a new leg."

"Then get the hell out of here!" shouted
Rourke
in an uncharacteristic burst of emotion. "And don't bother coming back. I'll not have anything more to do with you or your men!"

The soldiers in the General's unit carried their superior out the open door and into the cool twilight, placing the stretcher across the back of a jeep. "Oh, we'll be back alright… any time we please. And you'll have no choice but to patch us up… or die if you refuse."

Rourke
and Taylor stood in the gathering darkness and watched as the convoy of jeeps and supply trucks headed west toward Ruin Town. From their hooting and hollering and discharging of arms, the doctor knew that his harsh words had riled something terribly dangerous in the General's men that night. Something that would plunge the poor citizens of that settlement into a hell of fear and humiliation until the soldiers moved onward at the crack of dawn.