They hiked west on Forest Lane, then turned south on Midway Road.
Blade felt disappointed by the lack of hostile activity. His plan to take a prisoner and vacate Dallas quickly was being thwarted by the refusal of those bearing the splotches to show themselves. They undoubtedly had a headquarters hidden somewhere in the city, and he racked his mind for a strategy that would lure them into exposing themselves.
An alley appeared on the right.
Blade stared at the heaps of refuse lining the alley entrance, an obvious indication that a large number of people were using the area on a regular basis, and frowned in disappointment. He took two more steps, then halted and whirled when a shuffling noise came from beyond the mounds of filth.
Footsteps pattered.
Blade pointed at Hickok, then the alley, and together they sprinted into its depths, skirting the fetid piles. The towering buildings on both sides obscured the high afternoon sun. He almost gagged at the stench, and to compensate he breathed shallowly as he ran.
Up ahead something moved.
Something on two legs.
“Stop!” Blade cried. He saw a frightened face glance at him, and the figure moved faster. “We won’t harm you!”
Whoever it was didn’t believe him. The figure ran recklessly, and that haste proved a mistake. Evidently the figure slipped on the garbage, because the next second there was a terrified squeal, a flapping of arms, and a loud crash as the runner went down, headfirst, into a rubbish heap less than six yards from a ten-foot-high wall.
Blade and Hickok slowed, covering their quarry.
“Don’t move!” Blade ordered.
The runner ignored the command, slipping and sliding in the mushy garbage while trying to rise.
Blade glimpsed long, stringy black hair and grimy feminine features, and he realized they had chased a young woman.
“Don’t kill me!” she wailed.
“We won’t hurt you,” Blade told her.
She twisted to confront them, her fear conveyed in the set of her countenance, her brown eyes wide. Her clothes were little better than rags, a green shirt and brown pants, both faded and torn in a dozen spots, both coated with bits of foul, slimy, clinging refuse. The only marks on her face were smudges of dirt.
“It’s just a blamed girl!” Hickok exclaimed.
“Who are you calling a girl?” she demanded, an incipient arrogance supplanting her fright.
“You,” Hickok responded, “although it’s hard to tell under all that gunk.”
She studied them for a moment, then looked down at herself and whined. “Look at what you made me do!”
“We didn’t make you do nothin’,” Hickok said. “It’s not our fault you’re a klutz.”
“I’m not a klutz, you meathead!” she snapped.
“You’re the one wearin’ garbage,” Hickok reminded her.
“Up yours!”
Hickok glanced at Blade and laughed. “Friendly wench, isn’t she?”
“I’m not a wench!” she declared. “Whatever that is.”
“A wench is a woman who doesn’t know she’s a lady,” Hickok said confidently.
“I’m a lady, you prick!” she informed them. “Who are you? Why the hell were you after me? You don’t look like you’re with the Chains or the Stompers, and you sure as hell ain’t one of the Chosen.”
“We’ll ask the questions,” Blade stated.
“And what if I don’t want to answer?”
Blade squatted and stared into her eyes. “I need information, and you’re the one who can supply it. You’ll tell us what we want to know, one way or the other.”
“You don’t scare me!” she said defiantly.
“What’s your name?” Blade inquired.
“Get stuffed.”
“Suit yourself,” Blade said, and looked at Hickok. “Shoot her in the leg.”
“The right or the left one?” the gunman responded.
“Take your pick.”
The woman glanced from one to the other in consternation. “You’re bluffing! You wouldn’t shoot me!”
Blade nodded. “You’re right. I wouldn’t shoot you.” He pointed at the gunfighter. “But he will.”
“The Henry would be a mite noisy in this alley,” Hickok commented, and slowly drew his right Python. “I’ll try to miss the bone,” he assured her, cocking the hammer. With deliberate care he aimed at her right leg.
She licked her full lips and swallowed hard. “Now hold on a second!”
“I just hope I don’t hit an artery or a vein,” Hickok mentioned. “If you lose a lot of blood you might get a tad dizzy.”
“Wait! Wait!” she shouted, holding her arms up. “Don’t do anything I’ll regret!”
“Sorry,” Hickok said, and shrugged. “Nothin’ personal.”
“Don’t shoot!” she cried, and glanced at Blade. “I’ll talk! I’ll talk! I think that son of a bitch would really plug me.”
Hickok smiled and twirled the Colt into its holster.
“What’s your name?” Blade repeated.
“Melanie Stevens.”
“How old are you?”
“What’s my age got to do with anything?” Melanie asked.
Blade sighed and gazed at the gunman. “It looks like you’ll have to shoot her after all.”
“Fine by me.”
Melanie shook her hands from side to side. “No! No! No! I’m nineteen! Nineteen!”
“How long have you lived in Dallas?” Blade questioned.
“In this city? About a year.”
“Where did you live before that?”
“I drifted around a lot,” Melanie said.
“Where’s your family?”
Melanie did a double take. “My what?”
“Your mother and father. Your brothers and sisters,” Blade said.
“My mom kicked the bucket when I was four and my dad was killed by a gang in Texarkana when I was twelve. I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”
Blade straightened and offered her his left hand.
Surprise flitted across her features and she hesitated before taking hold and allowing herself to be pulled erect. “Thanks, mister. It’s nice to know that at least one of you can be a gentleman when he wants to.”
“My name is Blade,” he disclosed. “This is Hickok.”
“Howdy, ma’am,” the gunfighter said.
“Ma’am?”
“Never mind him,” Blade directed her. “It sounds to me like you’ve spent your entire life in the Outlands.”
“Where else would I live?” Melanie responded, puzzled by the query.
“Why didn’t your family head north and live in the Civilized Zone? You’d be safer there than wandering around the Outlands,” Blade pointed out.
“The Civilized Zone?” Melanie said, and snorted. “My dad told me all about that place. They have guard posts everywhere, and if you try to sneak across their border the guards will shoot you.”
“They have sentry posts,” Blade admitted, “but the sentries don’t shoot travelers on sight. They detain those who want to enter the Civilized Zone until identities are established and physicals are administered, but they don’t shoot without provocation.”
“All I know is what my dad told me,” Melanie said. “And he told me they shoot on sight.”
Blade was about to refute her when he abruptly recalled a pertinent fact. “Wait a minute. Years ago a dictator by the name of Samuel the Second ruled the Civilized Zone, and he had thousands upon thousands slain in cold blood. But Samuel was killed about six years ago.”
“Oh, yeah? How do you know he’s really dead?”
“I killed him.”
Melanie blinked a few times, her brow creasing in bewilderment. “You took old Sammy out?”