Earthbound (17 page)

It was a gamble, but a good one as far as I
could tell. So I let Pace worry about the deception. I thought
through how many men had left in that posse. Ten or so I thought.
Mostly with shotguns. So if they didn’t pick anyone up along the
way, the odds were ten to two. I could take out eight, so long as
Pace could handle two.

Sure enough we saw the posse coming closer in
the distance. I could soon see the lawman from Augusta. He held up
his hand and his whole posse halted. They were jabbering but it was
too far away for us to hear them. Was he instructing them on how to
take us down? Meantime we just kept riding toward then, slowly
making our way toward our fate.

“Keep your cool,” Pace instructed. “Don’t
make them think they need to pull out their firearms.”

By the time we could see the lawman’s eyes,
they didn’t look too friendly. Or maybe he was just tired.

“Gentlemen,” Pace said with a smile. We
stopped our horses a yard away from the posse.

“Lewis, right?” said the lawman.

“Yes sir,” Pace replied. “And my good friend
James Monroe.”

“Your wounds healed up fast,” the lawman
said. Was there some skepticism in his voice?

“Thanks to the hospitality of your lovely
settlement,” Pace replied, killing him with kindness.

“Shame to leave empty-handed,” the lawman
remarked.

“It’s hard when you’ve got nothing to trade
for.” Then Pace changed the subject, getting to the heart of the
matter. “Did you ever find those bank robbers who ambushed us?”

The lawman was silent for a moment – wasn’t
sure what he was gonna do next. But then he opened up his mouth,
either with great reluctance or great calculation I wasn’t sure.
“We rode up north to Conrad. Didn’t find a trace of ‘em.”

“Sorry to hear. I guess they must be pretty
smart to outrun a celebrated lawman such as yourself.” The lawman
didn’t seem too receptive to the compliment, so Pace just kept
talking. With purpose, of course. “Tell me, did you stop in our
fair settlement on your journey?”

One of the older members of the posse started
to say yes, but the lawman quickly interrupted him.

“Nope. Wanted to get back to Augusta as soon
as we could.”

The conversation died off in that moment. I
think we all knew he was lying. But why and what he actually knew,
those were unknown things. The blowing wind filled up the space
between us. Then Pace rode forward a few steps and extended his
hand.

“I appreciate your hospitality,” he said. The
lawman shook his hand. “When we collect more supplies to trade, we
look forward to seeing you again.”

The lawman nodded. There was nothing else to
do but ride past them to the east. As we got a few feet away, I
could feel all their eyes burning holes in our backs. Had the
feeling we were gonna get gunned down at any moment. Surely if they
went to Great Falls, they knew who we were. Surely it would be
worth shooting us in the back, as cowardly as that was.

“You think they bought it?” I whispered.

Pace nodded. I allowed myself to relax. Maybe
we were in the clear.

Then we heard the lawman’s voice again. This
time fully throated, with authority.

“Pace!”

We stopped dead in our tracks. Not literally
of course. Pace and I glanced at each other.

“Draw your weapon,” Pace suggested quietly.
And with our weapons cocked, we turned to face the posse. They were
spread out across the road, ten in all, with shotguns aimed right
at us. The lawman was in the middle, and he looked like the one who
would get off the first shot.

“And you’re Ash, I suppose,” the lawman
shouted. I nodded, but I was really trying to figure out how many
shots I could get off before we’d get gunned down. “You had us
fooled pretty good.”

“How’d you figure us out?” Pace asked.

“When we reached the route 15 junction, most
of us headed north chasing ghosts, but I sent two men in to Great
Falls to check up on your story. Call it a hunch.”

“You’re a smart man,” Pace replied.

“Tell me,” the lawman continued, “what
condition is the bank back in Augusta?”

“Depleted of funds,” Pace admitted. “But what
say we call that payment for ridding you of your robot problem?
Surely your men heard about those robots when they went to Great
Falls.” A few of the men looked at one another with kinda scared
expressions on their faces. Yeah, they’d heard the stories.
Probably saw the damage firsthand. “Bet you didn’t know those
robots had been stashed out there your whole lives. If you want to
check them out, they’re in the bottom of your reservoir out past
the cemetery.”

I was trying to keep tabs on all ten of their
trigger fingers at the same time. The moment I saw one squeezing it
would be time to fire. Maybe even too late. But I was distracted by
a buzzard circling overhead. No doubt interested in watching the
mortal show down below.

There was another long silence, and Pace felt
the need to fill it with his babbling. I saw him open his mouth but
I interrupted him. “Hold it,” I whispered. “Just wait.”

Time for talking was over. It was time for
shooting. I just waited for that moment when there was no other
choice to make. And for the first time in my life, I realized
something. I was ready to take a human life. Not that I wanted to.
I just knew I could. And I was all right with it.

The lawman’s finger seemed to inch against
his trigger. I would take him out first. Not that he deserved it,
but he was the most likely to kill me first. But still, nothing
happened. They weren’t firing. That meant something. Either our
legend was already so strong that they thought we’d beat ‘em, or
more likely they had something else in mind.

“This is the only road in an out of Augusta,”
the lawman called out finally. “If you agree to stay off it and
never head our way again, we’ll pretend we never saw you.”

“Hmm…” Pace muttered.

“What do you say?” the lawman asked.

“Why would you do this?” Pace asked.

“Shooting you won’t do any good. We’re not
killers. And bringing you in… well, never was much interested in
rewards. We just want to go back to the way things were. No bank
robbing. No robots. Just peace and quiet. Can we get your word on
that?”

I allowed my eyes to avert away from my
potential targets in order to get a quick consensus. It was shame
I’d never see Cheyenne again, but the deal was sound. Pace seemed
to be in agreement. We’d done what we needed to do in Augusta, I
suppose.

“You have our word,” Pace committed.

“Sorry this didn’t go down a different way,”
I added. “Augusta’s the kinda town a man can settle in.”

“We mean to keep it that way,” the lawman
stated.

Pace and I slowly put our weapons away as the
posse did the same. Then Pace tipped his hat, we turned and rode
off.

“I think they were scared of us,” I said.

“I think they were scared of what comes with
us,” Pace suggested.

Then another hour or so down the road we
heard something else coming. The slow grind of wheels scraping
along the ground. We both knew what this one was and felt no need
to get riled up about it. In fact, we kept our weapons stowed. Soon
enough, up rolled a horse-drawn cart ridden by two able-bodied men.
It was the trade contingent from Great Falls. The
real
one.

We both knew those guys. Not well – they were
a few years older but we’d seen them in the saloon now and again.
And they knew who we were. Oh yeah.

They stared at us wide-eyed as we passed.

“Just keep going,” Pace said to them. “Don’t
ask.”

I felt kind of excited when we reached the
railway bridge leading back to the Old City. Robbing a bank and
fighting off robots is pretty good and all, but I dunno. Those were
fleeting thrills. The Old City was mine. Sorta.

Anyway, I was sorta glad we had some better
supplies this time around. It wouldn’t be so effing cold. And we
had better food. Even though we still had no salt.

We reached our hideout and found it in the
exact same condition as when we left it. No signs of trespass,
human or otherwise. We dropped off our new supplies and sprinkled
some rat powder around just to make sure rodents would stay away.
Then we dropped off most of our gold in our hiding place. We both
placed a few coins in our pockets, and I stashed a few extra in my
socks. Next time I wanted to buy salt, I’d buy my own damned salt.
Then back at the hideout, we built a fire. We were definitely
warmer and so were the horses. That livened up the mood
considerably in there. We cracked open a bottle of good whiskey and
all in all had a pretty good night.

“You know,” I said, “I think we could
actually live here a long time. This place is better now,
right?”

“A little, sure…” Pace seemed kinda lost in
thought. He wasn’t one to be brooding. That was my thing. Something
was on his mind, and eventually he told me. “It’s just that… this
isn’t my idea of home. Yours maybe. Don’t get me wrong, Ash. Hiding
out here was a brilliant idea. Not one that I would ever come up
with. It just needs to be temporary. Not forever. I can’t grow old
here.”

“What? What’s wrong with this place?” I know.
I was getting defensive.

“It’s going to be hard to keep transporting
water here, with all the horses need to drink. We can survive maybe
a week before we’ll need to go get fresh water.”

“So we’ll go get fresh water somewhere.”

“And what happens when we run out of
food?”

“We go hunting.”

“And what about the smell of shit?”

“I dunno. We’ll build an outhouse!”

“That’ll attract animals.”

“Then we’ll go hunting and they’ll be right
here! What the eff, Pace!”

Pace laughed. I had an answer for
everything.

“Then what happens when you want to meet a
girl?” he asked, trying to stump me.

I had an answer for that too.

“I met Cheyenne,” I replied. “We’ll have
other opportunities when we visit other settlements, depending on
how long we can stay unnoticed.”

“All right,” Pace conceded. “Great, we’ll
stay here for now.”

I nodded my appreciation. Course now he had
me thinkin’ about Cheyenne and how it felt feeling her up and the
missed opportunity I had.

“So back in Augusta,” I asked, “how was
it.”

“Meaning Grace?” I nodded. “Nice girl. But
there’s only one girl for me, I think you know that.” Pace extended
his arm and we clinked whiskey glasses and we drank to that.

Couldn’t sleep well again that night.
Wondering if I was ever gonna find a girl to replace Becca and a
place to call home.

After a couple of nights when our supplies
started to get scarce, we figured we’d scavenge the area to see if
we could find anything useful. Pace had spied something interesting
coming south when we were coming back from Augusta. On the other
side of the Missouri, where the Old City was never built up with
skyscrapers, there were a bunch of single-story buildings – some of
them pretty large, like warehouses. There was one in particular
that looked promising, so we crossed the Missouri again on the
railway bridge. We rode up near the path that led to the Great
Falls settlement, but stayed far short of it, instead riding off
the trail past dilapidated buildings with caved-in walls covered in
graffiti. Then we found what we were looking for. The biggest
one-story building we’d ever seen, that’s for sure.

“Hey Pace, what’s that sign above the door
say?”

“Walmart.”

“What the eff’s a Walmart?”

We rode up to the entrance. The walls were
covered in thick ivy, and as we pulled some of it away saw there
were big metal bars over the boarded-up windows and doors.

“What is this?” I asked. “Some kinda
prison?”