The lone survivor of the massacre of Drexy and his patrol crawled out of his
hiding place the morning after the firelight, miserable, yet glad to be alive. He had sat
awake the whole night listening to the thrumming of the rain on the leaky roof of his
rusting metal shelter. He emerged hungry, tired, cold and with the pale yellowish look of
a man who has spent a long time afraid.
During the night though, he had managed to focus his thoughts enough to construct
some sort of plan in his mind. First he would head toward the camp that he and his fellow
Stormers had established at the head of the alley. Once he got back to the camp he was
going to grab his bike and head south before turning sharply east for the Cap. Perhaps if
he brought Leather news of Bonner's coming. Leather wouldn't freak out, lose it completely
and put him away.
As he started down the highway he remembered that they had taken that gas-hound
prisoner. That
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seemed like days ago. The Stormer hoped the guy had escapedotherwise he was
going to have to grease him. Alone, he couldn't handle a prisoner. Suddenly, the idea of
having someone to take down, someone to work out his frustrations on, cheered him. It
would be some consolation for having been scared into wetting his pants.
There in the smoky sunlight, the Stormer, whose name was Bart, thought a little
about the possibility of revenging himself on Bonner. Telling Leather would be a start but
what he would really like to do is get the big smuggler in the sights of his carbine.
Then Bart remembered the vicious fire that Bonner had laid down with that
Winchester pump and the eerie accuracy with which he directed those huge blades . . . Bart
decided that he would content himself with telling Leather that Bonner was on his way.
I might be a fuck up, he thought, "but I'm not stupid." Bart knew when
he was outclassed.
He reached the camp and was disappointed to find Cooker gone. His disappointment
turned to anger and frustration when he discovered that Bonner had drained all the gas
tanks of the seven bikes and had eaten or stolen all the supplies.
Bart slumped onto the seat of what had once been Drexy's machine and wondered when
he was going to get a break. He sat dejected for a minute or two then began wearily
trudging down the road. He remembered they had passed a village when they had been headed
for the border but he couldn't quite figure out how far back it had been. He hoped it
wasn't far.
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It was. He walked all day, getting more tired, hotter and hungrier with every
step. He was crazy with anger when along about dusk Bart began seeing signs of
civilization or at least what passed for civilization in the Slavestates. The road had
been cleared a little and the barren fields that lay next to it appeared to be under some
sort of primitive form of cultivation. Another slow mile passed before he saw, standing in
the stony fields, a small group of men, three of them, all leaning on hoes. They watched
him.
"Slave farmers," thought Bart. He stopped on the road.
"Hey, c'mere," he shouted. The men slowly shuffled from their spot and
approached him warily. Bart could feel their eyes on his carbine. Good, he thought, he
could use some respect. He had no doubt that if he didn't have that piece they might
approach him with something less than diffidence. Lone Stomers cut off from their units
had been known to die under mysterious circumstances.
The slave farmers sidled up to him cautiously, like puppies unsure whether they
were going to get a pet or a kick.
"Come on, granpa," said Bart to the oldest, an elderly man with a long
white beard, "nobody's gonna hurt you."
The three men stood before him and tugged at their dirty, matted forelocks. They
averted their eyes, yet kept a sharp look on the carbine.
"Where's your village?" demanded Bart.
"Down the road a ways," said the oldest man.
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"How far?"
"Not far."
"You got a tax man?"
"Yessir, yessir, we do."
"Got two," said one of the men.
"That's right, sir, we got two."
"Where are they?"
"In the village."
"Down the road."
"Nice men," put in the third, as if Bart was a friend of the tax men and
wanted to curry favor.
Bart smiled. Nice taxers? No such thing. If people thought the Stonners were
bloodthirsty crazies, they were considered gentlemen next to the tax men. In fact, of all
of Leather subjects the most feared were the tax men, except for maybe the Radleps, but
there weren't many of them anymore and one day they would all be gone.
"What are their names?"
"Uh . . . we just call 'em master, sir."
"Good enough," said Bart. "Go back to your shit there."
Dismissed, the slave farmers shuffled away and watched as he disappeared down the
road. Bart could feel their eyes on his back. Pathetic pieces of shit, he thought. If he
was in their position he would have lit out for Chi a long time ago.
Another mile passed and Bart came into a typical rubble village. There had been a
town here once, a real town, with neat little all-American houses and little stores and a
garage and a post office. Now there
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was nothing but ruins into which the slave fanners had burrowed until they felt
safe from the cold and wind of the long post-bomb night. A scraggly-looking bunch of
children watched as Bart picked his way down the main street, a pig snuffled in the
garbage that lay strewn around and some scrawny chickens pecked here and there.
A gray-looking woman, a baby clinging to a flat breast, stared at him as he
passed. She was standing in front of the dark, cave-like entrance of her burrow. The few
inhabitants all wore shredded homespuns that hung limply on their thin bodies. Bart, in a
genuine pre-bomb leather jacket and well-made denim pants ("genuine leevees,"
the quartermaster had said when they were issued to him), looked to them like a monarch on
a triumphal progress.
Bart had no problem figuring out which building housed the tax men. In the center
of town. there remained one structure that was not a complete ruin. It had stout white
pillars in front and wide glass-less windows that were protected by thick iron bars. FIRST
NATIONAL BANK OF MIDDLEB, the rest of the sign had been blown off. A
dirty curtain flapped in front of the space where the door had once been.
Bart swept it aside and peered into the gloom. It was dark inside, but he could
make out a broad space that fronted some broken counters that looked as if they had been
decked about with the bars of a cage. The wall was lined with miniature prisons, or so it
seemed to Bart. A broken sign"payroll checks only"lay on the floor.
The big room smelled of
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sweat and the smoke of a wood stove and the rancid bitter odor of meat cooked long
ago.
"Anyone here?" he called into the cavernous space. He took a tentative
step into the room. "Hey?" he shouted.
Very slowly, someone spoke. "Who the fuck is that?"
"Where are you?" said Bart. The voice sounded mean. But what could you
expect from a tax man?
"If you are a slave and you've come in here, you are dead meat."
"I'm no fucking slave," said Bart indignantly. "I'm a
Stormer."
"What outfit?"
"Drexy's," said Bart.
"No shit," said the voice. "Over here."
Bart walked in the direction of the voice, skirting the caged-in counter. He held
the carbine at the ready. These tax men could get crazy sometimesit only figured,
them being out here in the wilds year in year out. Bart was surprised to see that the tax
man was not behind the counter.
"Where are you?"
"Here," said the voice.
Bart turned toward an open doorway. The door was a huge hunk of metal that had
rusted open on its hinges. A faint light flickered from within. Bart stepped into the
doorway and peered in.
The room was a narrow one and its only piece of furniture was a dirty bed.
Reclining there was a full-bearded man, bare-chested. A dirty sheet covered
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him from the waist down. Two young women, as thin and as pale as the woman Bart
had seen on the street, lay next to him. A kerosene lamp burnt smok-ily next to the bed.
"Well, a big brave, tough Stormer," said the man nastily. He showed a
couple of rows of big yellow teeth when he spoke.
"You the tax man for this district?"
"One of 'cm."
"Where's the other one?"
"Working."
"You the night man?"
He nodded. The tax men were Leather's pro-consuls. They had been sent out from the
Cap to oversee the conquered territories. It was up to them to extract the most in the way
of food and fuel from the bands of slaves that worked endlessly to support the few
citizens of the Slavestates that had any kind of prominence. The Stormers, Leather and his
hangers on, the jailers and gas men in places like New York and Boston, all of them lived
off the labor of the slaves. The tax men were the law in their districts. Their own income
was based on a percentage of the produce they could extract from the district. Naturally,
the job made men hard-minded. You couldn't be soft and be a tax man of any importance or
wealth.
In some of the more remote areas, such as the one Bart was in, tax men worked in
pairs. A tax man was not beloved of his charges and they had been murdered in their sleep.
So labor was divided between the day man and the night manthough it was not
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uncommon for one to kill the other and double his profit. Leather didn't care who
killed whom as long as the food, the gas, the women flowed into the Cap.
"Where's the Drex?" asked the tax man taking his hands from under the
sheet and stretching. In one hand he held a pistol.
"Dead."
"No shit."
"We got jumped by a bunch of raiders ..." said Bart, acutely aware of
how lame his voice sounded.
"Awww, that's too bad." There was no love lost between tax men and the
Stormers. The tax men were responsible for outfitting the Stormer patrols when they were
on the road and that cut into profits.
"Look, man," said Bart suddenly angry, "1 gotta get back to the
Cap."
"Well get on your bike and ride, man . . . wait a minute. I didn't hear no
bike ..."
"I told you, man, we got jumped. Sliced. All of 'em, except me."
"Oh yeah and where the fuck were you?"
"I got lucky."
"The fuck you did. You hightailed it, more like."
"Listen," said Bart through his teeth, "if you don't help me get
back to the Cap then there's going to be a shit storm around here. I got information for
Leather."
"For Leatherman himself? Wow, I'm impressed."
One of the women stretched. She had an angry red bruise on her breast. What skags
these tax men were, thought Bart.
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"There's something you should know, man ..."
"Yeah. what?"
"You got troubles in this district and the sooner I get back to the Cap and
let them know about it the sooner you are going to be able to sleep peaceful with these
little puppies here."
"Trouble, what trouble?"
"Bonner took us down, man. Bonner and one big fucking party of raiders.
Bonner's inside your district and believe me, if he comes looking for you, you are
dead."
The tax man appeared to have paled slightly. "Bonner? Are you sure?"
"I saw him grease seven guys, man."
"Bonner doesn't work the Slaves, man," he protested. "And he don't
work with raiders."
"He does now, you fuck, he does now."
"Goddam. Why don't he go raid the Snows? Or the Hots? I'm having trouble
meeting my quota as it is. Shit."
"Leather wants Bonner. You get me to the Cap and this district will be
crawling with Stormers, all of them protecting your ass."
"And eating my profit," growled the tax man.
"No profits for a dead man."
The tax man thought a moment. "I can get you over to Scranton. From there you
can pick up some patrol or maybe a convoy to the Cap. Suit you?"
"Just fine, just fine."
"Bonner, shit."
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"Yeah man, and you should see that dude work a blade."
"I don't want to see that, man." The tax man was quite scared. He had
never seen Bonner, but he certainly had heard of him. The man was trouble.
"You got anything to eat?"
"Eat? You ain't got time to eat. You're getting your ass over to Scranton.
Tonight."
The two girls read the note of fear in the tax man's voice and smiled at one
another. They risked a whipping if he caught them, but it was worth it, for they liked to
hear him scared and hoped he would die at the hands of this man Bonner. They hated their
master greatly.