There wasn't a whole hell of a lot of Altoona left but it was in better shape than a lot of rubble towns Bonner had seen in his time on the road. The old mills that had once provided Altoona with its reason for being had been flattened as if by some giant, invisible, immensely powerful hand. Over the years the slaves had taken away sheets of corrugated iron to build crude shelters.

What had once been downtown was now just a few streets of shabby, weed-encrusted ruins. But Seth had chosen the site where they were to meet up for some very good reasons. He liked the old station there; he knew that the switches still worked and that the rail yards weren't jammed with rolling stock rusted fast to crumbling rails. Best of all, there was an old water tank with no top that usually filled up with rainwater. Pilling the boiler of the locomotive with a bucket was a pain in the ass and it took up the better part of the day with back-breaking labor even for a man with Seth's strength and single-minded devotion to work.

Bonner and the rest of his force motored slowly through the shattered streets, their engines booming in the still, melancholy air.

"Where we s'posed to meet him?" asked Beck.

"At the old station."

"Makes sense."

They got to the ruined red-brick structure and found no sign of their comrade.

"So now what do we do?"

"We wait," said Bonner.

"How do we know he's coming?"

"He's coming."

"Fucking nigger," said Beck, "who needs him?"

"What a fucking dimwit you are," Starling said. "We need Seth bad."

"Oh yeah? How come?"

"Think about it asshole, how much gas can you carry on that bike of yours? Seth has three fucking tanker cars on the back of his goddamn loco. With that much room we can haul away enough gas to make us all rich. That's why we need Seth."

"Oh," said Beck. He paused a moment. "You know, I heard that Leather was going to put tax men in this shithole of a town."

"No sign of them," said Bonner.

"Well, if it's all the same to you guys, I'm gonna walk around and take me a little look-see. 1 don't want no surprises. I hate surprises, you know what I mean?"

"Be my guest."

Beck shouldered his big machine gun and ambled off slowly down the street. He knew that he was unlikely to find anything of value in the ruins—this area had been stripped a long time ago—but he was glad he was going alone, just in case he happened on some loot that he could claim as his own.

The rest of the party sat silently in their vehicles or on the chipped steps of the station. As the hours passed, the Habs took out some dice and started a quiet gambling game among themselves.

Bonner found himself a patch of sun and dozed, listening to the sound of the light wind moaning through the broken buildings and the rattle of the dice and the quiet curses and exclamations of the northmen. The Mean Brothers found a scrawny kitten, its thin rib bones protruding through its dirty fur, and they played with the tiny animal, gently petting it with their vast hands.

Hours passed and Bonner slept, although he wakened immediately when his subconscious sensed Beck's return, picking up the heavy tread of his boots in the broken street. The giant raider walked up to Bonner and stood over him. Bonner opened his eyes and shielded them with his hand from the sun that glowed over Beck's burly shoulder.

"There's something down the road a piece that I think you should see."

"What?"

"And spoil the surprise?" said Beck. "Come on."

Bonner, Starling, and J.B. followed Beck through the bombed-out streets. No one spoke. They could smell their objective long before they could see it. Bonner shut his eyes for a second. He knew the smell well: death.

At what seemed to be the center of the old town a crude gallows had been erected. Hanging from it were two naked bodies some two or three days dead. And it was plain that these two men, whoever they had been, had died in great agony. They were hung by meat hooks that had been jammed into the soft flesh under their chins, their weight resting on their big jaw bones. The points of the hooks poked through the tongues and mouths. Their tongues and lips were black. Their eyes had been burned out. As the riders looked, a fat torpid fly emerged from one of the torn mouths and hummed along the putrefying flesh of the man's chest. The two mutilated corpses swung slowly in the cold breeze.

"Them Stormers don't fool around, do they?" said Beck. "What do you s'pose these two slaves did to piss 'cm off so much?"

"Sacre bleu," said J.B., unable to tear his horrified gaze off the two dead men. "They are very bad men these Stormers, I think."

Bonner stepped back from the twisted corpses. A huge pool of blood dried black lay beneath the carcasses.

"They're not slaves," he said. "How can you tell?"

"They're too well fed. They have flesh on their bones."

"Then they ain't Stormers," said Beck. "Stormers never travel in twos. And they don't look like no riders I ever seen. Of course, how the fuck can you tell what they looked like."

"No," said Bonner, "they aren't riders. They're the tax men you said Leather was putting in here. Slave revolt. That's what happened here."

Starling looked at the naked bodies. There were crusty red holes where the tax men's genitals had been. "Man, them slaves really hold a grudge."

As he spoke, a voice hot and heavy with hate screamed into the cold air.

"Death to Stormers!" There was the dull boom of a shotgun and a shower of rocks. Whoever held the firearm was not used to using it, for the shells dug up the pavement yards from where the riders stood.

"Holy shit," said Starling as the stones bounced around him. The riders scattered, darting into the safety of a ruin. All the men pulled their guns except Bonner.

"Those fucks," bellowed Beck. "Those fucking slaves! They fired at us. They think we're fucking Stormers. Where are they? Let me see one and I'll fucking blow him to pieces."

Another wave of stones scattered at their feet. "I'm going to fucking slice them!" Beck screamed. "They're only slaves," said Bonner. "They can't hurt us."

"One of 'em has a gun," put in Starling.

"But he has no idea how to use it right," said J.B. "Let's get back to the station," said Bonner. The four men darted through the streets, running from doorway to doorway, rocks and glass dogging their hurried footsteps.

The Habs and the Mean Brothers had come under fire too from another band of slaves. When the four men returned from their own encounter, a Canadian I jabbered at J.B., pointing across the street. "He says they are on that roof there." "Which roof where, Frenchy?" demanded Beck. "That one." J.B. pointed to the upper story of a broken building that faced the station.

"Good," said Beck. "Beck," said Bonner, "leave them. You could

kill 'em all if you wanted, but why bother?"

"I want to. They think I'm a fucking Stomner. No one calls me a Stormer."

As if sensing Beck's anger and attempting to add to it, a voice rang out. "Give up, Stormers, we got you surrounded."

"The fuck you do," screamed Beck, "and we ain't Stormers!"

"No tricks," replied the voice. "Come out before we kill you all."

"How do you like the balls of that guy?" said Beck. "All they got is rocks."

With that the gun boomed again, splintering a doorframe next to Beck. A splinter shot into his arm and quivered there, stuck in his flesh. Beck pulled it out. "Okay, Bonner, they made me mad. Now they get it."

Beck kicked open the door and a hail of rocks bounced around him. One struck him painfully in the knee. He hopped around in pain on the steps, bellowing inarticulate screams of pain and anger. "Okay, you fucks, you asked for it." He hopped down the steps; when the gun fired again, he scarcely noticed the chunk of pavement it tore up.

Beck pulled a heavy Thompson 27A machine gun and chunked the drum magazine into the slot. "Bye slaves," exclaimed the giant, and let fly.

The big .45-caliber bullets tore up the low parapet that shielded the eight or nine thin, weak men. Bullets flew into their bodies and they fell with a scream. When Beck used up his thirty-shot clip, he rooted around in the saddlebag of his bike, found another, fit it to the stock, and fired again. There were no more rocks, no more shotgun shells. "Okay," he shouted, "satisfied now?"

There was no answer.

"You didn't have to get sliced, you know," Beck shouted. "Fucking fools." He tossed the gun back into the bag and rejoined the rest of the party. His sleeve was damp with the blood from the wound raised by the splinter.

Bonner looked disgustedly at him. "How many did you get?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Beck slumped to the ground and lay there in moody silence for the next few hours. He didn't even rouse himself when Seth slowly steamed into the station.

Bonner greeted his friend warmly. "Any trouble on the rails?"

"Some Stormers, nothing special. You have any hot spots."

"A couple. Look, we gotta get moving. Leather has taken over this spot but there's been a revolt. I figure it won't be long before they send some Stormers out to check on this place. No sense in waiting for them."

"Yeah," put in Starling, "it's getting cold too. I wanna find that gas and get back to Chicago."

"I just gotta fill up with water, then I'm ready to' move. You guys got any idea where this gas is." 

"Further south is how I figure it. You know the rails down that way?" asked Bonner.

"Know them well," said Seth. Then he caught sight of Beck and smiled. "Hey Beck, my man ..."

"What took you so fucking long?" growled Beck.

"What's bothering him?" asked Seth puzzled.

"Bad mood," said Starling.

The lone slave who had survived Beck's quick raking fire lay on the roof of the old building for hours. He watched the blood drain out of the men slain around him and wondered how he had got mixed up in this whole thing. They never should have killed the tax soldiers ... but when they had beaten Louisa to death ... it had been too much for them to stand. The men had acted without thinking, grabbing the tax men and killing them in the most gruesome way they knew how. It had felt good, but now this other group of men had come along and one man killed a dozen slaves. It had all been a terrible mistake.

He heard the men across the streets talking, and they seemed to stay for hours while they worked on the huge thing that had come rolling into town spitting smoke and fire. He was cramped and cold and scared, but he knew what he was going to do. As soon as the men left he was going to run, he didn't know where but he had to get out of this place. Two tax men dead meant that there were more Stormers coming and that meant more death. Probably his.

Along about nightfall he heard the engines of the riders burst into life. They rolled out of town, following one of the vehicles that had a bright light attached to the front. When the sound of their engines died away, he crawled from his hiding place and fled.

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