“At least he never lost.”
“Nah, too stubborn to ever go down. He liked the pain too much.”
“Or back down. No matter how big the other guy was.”
“That’s part of his problem. Well, that and his temper.”
Heston’s eyes locked onto the corpses on the hill. “Someone has to do it. I’m sure you’ll agree, we all appreciate his unique skills.”
Fox nodded. “The right man for the right job.”
Heston turned his attention to Fox. “I want everything ready to go in an hour. Let’s move the backhoe and the extra fuel to the back, out of Frost’s sight. No reason to rub it in.”
“Still can’t believe he agreed to let it go.”
“Leverage, my friend. It’s all about leverage. Even with an asshole like him.”
“That it is, boss.”
“I want extra guards posted at every station, too. We maintain the peace at all costs, understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s get it done,” Heston said in his firmest voice, the hairs on his neck standing at attention. Each month when Frost and Edison met, tensions would spike, for him and the rest of his men. Today would be no different.
Heston changed course and walked to the area known as Trader’s Row. It was front and center, only fifty yards inside the switchback fences that guarded the main entrance.
Don Faster stood next to the first makeshift booth, waiting for Heston with a clipboard and pencil in hand. His wire-rimmed glasses were off level, like always, matching the unevenness of his bald spot. It looked like he’d been run over by a bailing machine, slicing off what little hair he had across the crown. “I’m ready when you are,” he said when Heston arrived.
“What’s the count?”
“Thirty-seven,” the thin-nosed former accountant said after glancing down at the top sheet for a beat. “Everyone is paid up. We went through an hour ago.”
“Excellent,” Heston said. Some of his men thought the ten percent fee levied on the traders should have been higher. But he knew that too steep a tax would drive more of the traders into the grave.
He needed them to be there every day, conducting business. Otherwise, he wouldn’t get his cut. He had mouths to feed and ammo to acquire. Fuel, too. None of that would happen if Trader’s Row turned into a ghost town because of too high a tax.
The booths down the center weren’t normal setups, each with an improvised covering like a tarp or a blanket, and some kind of table for displaying their wares. A few of the traders used crates. Others deployed boxes. One even used an upside-down wash tub. Cast iron of course, its four legs acting as corner markers.
Faster led Heston to the first booth, where an elderly man and woman sat behind an old card table. It was gray in color and blended well with their fraying hairstyles, the wind just starting to pick up. They traded potatoes—something self-replicating and easy to cultivate in limited space. Every one of them was white and small. Yet each was of value, nonetheless.
The next booth displayed an impressive array of hand-forged knives, plus a few packs of cigarettes. The blades were rusty and the packs looked ancient. Even so, someone would come along today that needed what the purveyors had to sell, and would pay dearly for it.
Heston continued to walk the line like a general inspecting the troops, checking each trader’s merchandise, shuffling forward a yard at a time, his eyes sweeping their inventory.
All of the traders had the same goal in mind: give and get on an equal basis. Worthless fiat script had been outlawed since the governments who’d backed the IOUs had long since vanished.
Paper bills were now nothing more than a poor man’s toilet paper, if you didn’t mind a nasty case of green-colored swamp ass, courtesy of Lincoln or Washington.
The next booth was staffed by an underweight man with dirty coveralls, flannel shirt, torn jacket, and lanky suspenders. He wore a straw hat that had been latched down to his head with a leather belt. He might have looked a thousand years old, but his three daughters didn’t. Each was blonde and a real head turner. The oldest was maybe sixteen. There was no sign of a mother.
Heston had seen this same farmer and his kin there almost every day the past month, trying to move their swatch of goods. The middle-aged man had a little bit of everything: bandages, bar soap, gauze, scissors, salt, hard candy, a handful of drywall screws, powdered toothpaste, and even rat poison.
His odd collection of inventory wasn’t what brought the buyers around. It was his daughters. Each one was available for an hour or two, depending on what you had in trade. The girls commanded a high price. No doubt they were what was keeping the family alive.
Heston had sampled each of the lovelies, rotating through them on the days when the farmer couldn’t pay his fee. The youngest of the three was the most skilled, which seemed odd given the norms of society. Then again, society had vanished a long time ago, leaving what was left of humanity to reinvent the rules. And the standards.
Gold, silver, fur, and ammo were the preferred forms of money. Jewelry too. Either way, only fair exchange was allowed, including the peddling of flesh. Men, women, girls, or boys. Heston didn’t give a shit. It was all legal. Just the way it had to be. It was simple to enforce and easy to police. In the end, it didn’t matter what the traders sold, as long as commerce was done in a conflict-free manner. Oh, and he got his cut.
The rules were simple.
All deals were final.
No refunds.
No exchanges.
Just the way he envisioned it when he agreed to take over after Edison came to him with a proposition.
Handshake deals ruled the business of the day. Break them and your neck was on the line. Literally. No reprieve. No appeals. No second chances.
His way of running things might have sounded harsh to the glut of snowflakes that used to rule public opinion before The Event. Now those same bleeding-heart mouthpieces were nothing more than frozen Scab food, having perished first, their all-consuming focus on social causes keeping them from preparing for the obvious: the end of days. They’d been consumed by the minutiae, leaving them brainwashed and vulnerable. And now dead.
Heston stopped his trek, his eyes glued to the space between the next two stands. He held out a hand, palm up, to Faster, who promptly gave him a yellow measuring tape, ten feet in length. Craftsman was the brand, according to the label.
He uncoiled the ribbon of metal inside, checking the distance with the numeral markings. When the results were in, he raised his arm and backhanded the old woman tending the booth, sending her tumbling onto her backside. “You know the rules, Martha. Twenty-four inches. No more. No less. Understood?”
She nodded with tears on her face, her hand rubbing her cheek.
“Good. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself outside the fence. Permanently.”
CHAPTER 31
When the Nirvana convoy arrived at the Trading Post, Summer opened the rear passenger door and stepped out of the lead vehicle. She went to the door in front of her and opened it.
Edison swung his legs around and plopped them on the ground. She helped the old man out of the truck and to his feet, his face smothered in a grimace. Since she didn’t smell any old man napalm, it meant his back was still bothering him, like before in his office.
Krista slid out of the driver’s seat as two squads of her men descended on her position.
Summer knew from their conversations on the drive over that they were from Team One and Team Three.
Krista slammed the door and huddled with her men.
Summer couldn’t hear what they were discussing as she helped Edison to the front of the truck. Summer swung her eyes to the right and scanned the fence line ahead, taking a read on the scene.