“Drop it!” she snapped.
“I think we have a tie here,” Blade said calmly.
“Tie, hell. You drop it or I’ll put a hole in you the size of my fist,” the woman threatened.
“What the blazes is going on down there?” Hickok called out.
“You! In the cab!” the woman yelled.
“Who are you?” Hickok responded, glancing down. His view of the woman was obstructed by Blade’s massive form.
“Never mind. Throw your weapons out or I’ll shoot your friend,” she declared.
“Blade, did you get caught again?” Hickok asked.
“So it would seem,” Blade responded in a low tone to avoid agitating the woman.
“Pitiful. Just pitiful. Are you tryin’ to set the new world record for the most times being captured in one day?” Hickok queried.
“You have no room to talk,” Blade commented.
The woman’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Are you crazy? I have a gun on you! I could kill you.”
“If you’d wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead,” Blade said.
“Drop your machine gun,” she insisted.
“No,” Blade replied.
“I don’t believe this,” the woman stated angrily. “This is not the way it’s supposed to work.”
“Why don’t we discuss this intelligently?” Blade proposed.
“Drop your damn gun or I’ll shoot you!” she vowed, her facial muscles tightening.
“No, you won’t,” Blade said.
“And why won’t I?” she demanded.
“Because if you do, ma’am.” interjected a voice next to her head, “I’m afraid I’ll be obligated to ventilate your noggin.”
Startled, she looked up to discover a smiling blond man in buckskins with a pair of gleaming revolvers trained on her forehead. “Where’d you come from?” she blurted.
The blond man’s smile widened. “I’m an expert at tippy-toe.”
“You are crazy!” she exclaimed. “Both of you.”
“We’re crazy?” Hickok responded. “You’re the one tryin’ to bushwhack a half-track, for cry in’ out loud.”
“We need this!” she said.
“We?” Blade repeated.
“Don’t move!” commanded a man to their rear, the effect of his command vitiated by the quavering manner in which it was delivered.
Blade glanced over his left shoulder. “Oh, boy.”
“What is it now?” Hickok inquired, his Pythons fixed on the woman.
“You won’t believe me,” Blade said.
“I’ll believe you,” Hickok promised.
“There’s a guy covering us with a bazooka.”
“I don’t believe it,” Hickok said, and risked a quick look behind them.
A thin, short man in a soiled brown suit, wire-rimmed glasses perched on the tip of his nose, stood 30 feet away. Cradled on his right shoulder was a bazooka.
“Now we’ve got you!” the woman gloated. “Make one false move and Clyde will blow you to smithereens.”
“Clyde?” Hickok said.
“That’s right!” Clyde chimed in. “One move and you’re history.”
Blade straightened. “You won’t fire.”
“Why won’t I?” Clyde demanded.
“This must be amateur hour,” Hickok muttered, then impatiently yelled at the man in the brown suit. “You won’t fire, you ninny, because if you do, you’ll hit this dingbat too.”
“Who are you calling a dingbat?” the woman asked.
Clyde appeared to be mulling over the situation, and he grinned as an idea occurred to him. “I’ve got it! You two stand still while Bonnie moves aside. Then I can blow you to smithereens.”
“I’m dreaming all of this,” Hickok said to Blade. “Tell me I’m dreaming all of this.”
“Drop your bazooka,” Blade instructed the aspiring ambusher, “or we’ll shoot the woman.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” the woman responded defiantly.
“Don’t shoot Bonnie,” Clyde said.
“Then drop the blamed bazooka!” Hickok snapped. “We don’t have the time for this nonsense. Drop it, now, or I’ll plug the ding-a-ling.”
“Do you mean me?” Bonnie queried.
“Do you see any other ding-a-lings around here?” Hickok answered.
Then he gazed at Clyde. “Other than Bozo, of course.”
Bonnie’s lower lips began to tremble and her cheeks turned red.
“You’re—you’re—” she sputtered, then finally finished the sentence.
“Rude!”
Hickok glanced at Blade. “Would you sock me on the jaw?”
“Why?”
“I’d like to wake up now,” Hickok declared.
Blade stared at the man with the bazooka. “I won’t say it again. Drop it!”
“Don’t listen!” Bonnie urged. “We can take these jerks.”
“You and what ten armies?” Hickok retorted.
“Oh, yeah?” Bonnie rejoined. “So you think we’re amateurs, do you? I’ll show you!” And with that, she pressed the Caspian into the giant’s groin and squeezed the trigger.
Chapter Six
Memphis was a typical post-apocalypse metropolis, a wrecked relic of a bygone era, some areas a shadowy shambles, other areas partially, crudely restored. Like many an American city, Memphis had been spared a direct nuclear strike. World War Three had not resulted in the ultimate Armageddon everyone feared. Neither side wanted to thoroughly annihilate the other; conquest was the goal, and conquest implied having something worth conquering after the last missile was launched and the decisive bomb dropped. The American public, conditioned to near-mass hysteria by an alarmist, self-aggrandizing media and headline-seeking politicians, expected the world to wither and die, totally ignoring the lessons to be learned from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Within 40 years of World War Two, within four decades of the date the first atomic bomb was used on major cities, both seaports were inhabited by predominantly healthy citizens and could boast gardens the equal of any others on the planet.
The aftermath of World War Three was no different. Cities like New York and San Diego, struck by large-megaton weapons, were reduced to molten slag. But municipalities such as Memphis, lacking any primary military significance, were seldom hit. In military circles, Memphis was rated as a secondary target, not worthy of being hit in the first strike, and consequently slated for one of the follow-up bomber or missile attacks.
Fortunately for Memphis, the war was over before the Soviets could get around to destroying it.
All of these recollections filtered through Rikki-Tikki-Tavi’s mind as the two jeeps traveled into the heart of the city. Most of the buildings were vacant and dilapidated. Rikki speculated that the populace had been evacuated once, for whatever reason, and had never returned. He knew the government had forcibly transported people from the Eastern cities to the Midwest. Perhaps the population of Memphis was one of those forced to relocate. Since then, the city had literally gone to the dogs.
Packs of canines roamed the streets seeking rats and other small game.
Piles of refuse littered the sidewalks. Looters had wrecked all the business establishments, and the residential neighborhoods were in an advanced stage of disrepair. Overall, Memphis reeked, a subtle, putrid odor permeating the oppressive atmosphere. The dogs were in their element, scouring the buildings and alleys for meals and functioning as a collective early-warning system for the other inhabitants of Memphis.
The humans.
Occupying decayed, ramshackle structures in the center of Memphis, the human element was a motley collection of scavengers, outlaws, and outcasts. Except for the Hounds, whose neat black uniforms lent them the distinction of seeming to be from a higher, advanced civilization, the people of Memphis were attired in grubby clothes only a degree cleaner than themselves.