Tainted Cascade. James Axler

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СКАЧАТЬ former beauty ferried dirty dishes and slept in the corner near the fireplace, kept warm by the glowing embers and her lost dreams of youth.

      “I hear tell you’re called the Pig Iron Gang,” the waitress said, pouring drinks into the glasses and mugs. “How come?”

      “Shut up,” Petrov snarled, not willing to admit that he had no idea what pig iron was, he just liked the sound.

      With a shrug, the waitress turned and went away, looking for more empty glasses to fill, her long day only just starting.

      “Enjoy the shine, this is the last round,” Petrov said, sipping the acidic brew. “And we’ll be sleeping outside the wall tonight, so try and steal some blankets.”

      “We broke already?” Rose said out of the corner of her mouth, dealing a new hand of cards.

      “Shitfire, that seems to happen faster every month,” Charlie mumbled, watching the deal as he picked his teeth with a sliver of wood. He found something interesting and chewed the unidentified morsel briefly before swallowing.

      “You eat too much,” Thal rumbled in a surprisingly gentle voice. Then the giant scowled and clawed for his Remington.

      “Fragging, mutie-loving bastards!” the outlander snarled, staggering back through the doorway. There was blood dripping from the back of his head, chilling in his blurry eyes and a scattergun held in his shaking hands. “Gonna ace ya all!”

      Instantly, Petrov and his people cut loose with their assorted weapons, the barrage of arrows and lead blowing the outlander off the floor and sending him sailing back into the street.

      “Nuking hell, you boys are fast!” a sec man gasped, his own blaster only halfway out of his holster.

      “The way that idjit was waving his blaster around it was him or us,” Petrov said, the smoking Webley still tight in his fist.

      “Well, you boys got yourself a free round on me,” the sec man stated, slapping the other man on the back. “And feel free to take anything that outlander owns.”

      “That include his blaster?” Rose asked, nocking a fresh arrow into her crossbow.

      “Yep, the scattergun is yours now.”

      “What about his horse?”

      “That too, if he had one.” The sec man nodded. “Now I know that seems kinda hard, so I’ll tell you what. Baron Cranston gets half of any brass recovered from a fight, that’s the law.” Then the man paused. “But I won’t be counting it very closely. Savvy?”

      “Yeah, we savvy,” Charlie replied, already cutting a fresh notch into the stock of his own blaster.

      Gathering the loose cards, Rose stuffed them into a shirt pocket. Only a feeb left their belongings unguarded in Heaven. Rising from the table, Petrov walked outside and found a crowd gathered around the body, but nobody was closer than a few yards. The accuracy and speed of his gang were well-known in the ville and much respected.

      Rifling through the warm, bloody clothing, Petrov unearthed a dozen rounds for the scattergun and passed three of them to the waiting sec man, then one more. Pocketing that extra round, the sec man gave the gang a brief salute and walked off toward the brick house on top of the hill in the center of the ville, a former National Guard armory that was now the castle of the baron and what remained of the Cranston family.

      Divvying up the rest of the belongings with his crew, Petrov gave the gun belt and scattergun to Rose. She beamed in delight over finally owning a blaster and tested the action on the weapon several times before loading in two live cartridges. The weight perfectly balanced her crossbow and made the diminutive woman feel more dangerous than a shithouse rat.

      “Short barrels mean a big spray,” Thal stated. “And watch for the kick. That scattergun is gonna rise up hard. A lot more than your crossbow.”

      “Just cause there wasn’t any iron on my hip doesn’t mean I’m a fragging virgin,” Rose answered curtly, tucking her thumbs into the gun belt. Then she smiled up at the giant. “But thanks for the advice anyway, Bear.”

      Unsuccessfully, the colossus tried to hide a grin at the use of his private name. They had been bed partners for years, and it amused the other two men to pretend that they didn’t know about the raucous nightly coupling.

      “Pity the outlander didn’t have a horse,” Petrov said, turning away from the body to head back into the tavern. “We could have sold it for a week of hot food and clean beds here at Heaven, or just slaughtered the beast and lived off the jerky for a good month.”

      “Fragging son of a bitch cost us a fortune in brass,” Charlie muttered angrily. “The shine and blaster help, but we’re still coming in low on this.”

      “Mebbe we could go check the traps,” Rose suggested, pausing at the open doorway. At her appearance, a cheer came from the patrons and staff.

      “This soon?” Petrov said with a scowl, scratching the back of his head. “Only been a week or so.”

      “Mebbe we’ll get lucky,” Thal rumbled, patting the new cartridges for his blaster. “It feels like a lucky day.”

      “More lucky for some than others.” Rose laughed.

      Hitching up his gun belt, Charlie frowned. “Think Big Joe will mind us…?” He left the sentence hanging.

      “What he doesn’t know won’t kill him,” Petrov said, smirking, and he walked into the cool darkness.

      TRODDING UNDER the merciless sun, time seemed to stand still for the companions, the hot day lasting impossibly long. Or so it seemed, anyway. A dozen times over the past few miles, they passed more of the shallow saltwater ponds, the sight of the water a growing ache in their throats and bellies.

      Pausing to take a tiny sip of warm water, Ryan sloshed it around in his mouth before swallowing. The urge to take a big gulp was strong, but he knew the foolishness of that. Drink too fast when you’re that hot, and it could come right back up. And that was moisture he couldn’t afford to waste.

      “What’s that sound?” Krysty asked, glancing around, a hand going to her blaster.

      Immediately alert, the rest of the companions drew weapons and scanned the vicinity. But there was nothing in sight except the endless shifting dunes and the sparkling vista of dried salt.

      “What did you hear?” Ryan asked, then paused as he caught a faint whisper over the desert wind. It was gone in a heartbeat, but just for a split second, it sure as nuking hell had sounded just like a—

      “Waterfall!” J.B. shouted, pointing a trembling hand straight ahead.

      Hesitantly taking a step forward, Ryan scowled at the vague sight of something blue in the distance. It seemed to be coming right out of the side of a rocky escarpment that rose from the baked sand like an island in the sea. There was even some ragged green tufts of grass on top, a tiny touch of life almost lost amid the rolling sand dunes and windswept salt.

      “Is…it…a mirage?” Doc asked, his normally booming voice reduced to a hoarse whisper.

      “No, I smell water. Clean water!” Jak СКАЧАТЬ