"Or these guys are real, live Hell's Angels."
The man with the Smith & Wesson heard what he said. "One of you's got some sucking brains! Yeah! We're Hell's Angels. Snakefish Chapter of the California Motorcycle Gang. We call ourselves the Last Heroes. Riding the road and keeping the good word alive for today and forever."
"What's a Hell's Angel?" Lori asked, sucking at her thumb in a coquettish baby gesture.
One of the other riders answered her. "Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of the dead, we fear no evil. Because we're the most evil mothers that ever walked through the valley of the dead."
Ginsberg nodded. "I did a sociology thesis on these guys. Well, I mean, not these guys. These guys weren't going to be born for fifty years when I wrote 'The Social Phenomenon of the Motorcycle Gangs: Macho or Myth?' I decided that they were about ninety-nine percent myth."
"What you saying about us, you four-eyed straight mother?"
Ginsberg stepped closer. "You've got the colors and... chopped hogs. Sissy bars. It all comes back to me, Ryan," he said excitedly.
"How come you know so much? You ain't from around these parts. You seen other chapters of righteous brothers, someplace else?"
The long-barreled Smith & Wesson was sliding slowly from the tooled holster.
"No. I read about you back in..."
"Enough, Rick," Ryan interrupted quickly. "Let's cut the talk. We're traveling through. We lost our wag three days back. Heading for Snakefish. There going to be some sort of problem here?" Ryan's hand rested on the butt of his automatic rifle.
"Problem, straight? Outlander comes in looking like he's in charge of a gang of mercies. Snakefish doesn't like mercies."
Ryan figured they could take all eleven out, but not without a minimal body count against them.
"Mercies?" Rick whispered.
"Hired blasters," Krysty replied. "Short for mercenaries."
"Wrong. We aren't mercies. I asked you once. I'll ask you one more time. Do we have a problem here?"
Now the Smith & Wesson was jerked clear of the holster. The leader of the cycle gang smiled at Ryan, showing a mouthful of broken teeth. "Problem? What the fuck do you think?"
Chapter Fifteen
"I think if there was a problem, there'd be some blood spilled," Ryan replied calmly.
"Could be right. Not mercies, you reckon?"
"No."
"What d'you want in Snakefish?"
"Bed and food for a couple of nights. Then I guess we'd be moving on."
"We're sec patrol for the ville."
Ryan nodded. "Figured that."
The Smith & Wesson was put back in the holster.
"You got names?"
Ryan introduced his six friends. The leader of the bike gang looked like he was concentrating hard. "You got all those?"
"Sure. Don't read or write much, but I got total recall." To prove it, he repeated the names of the group faultlessly.
"You got names?" J.B. asked.
"Yeah. I'm Zombie. Little guy with the beard's Priest. Fat brother's Riddler. Rat next to him. Mealy next."
Ryan looked at the faces behind the names, faces you saw in a dozen villes across the land. He'd read some about tunes before dark day, and had seen some faded vids. Old photos. Here they were. The same faces from the old pix. Brutish, redneck faces. Good old boy, shit-kicking faces. Narrow eyes that would never look friendly and would often look coldly vicious. Most had their names emblazoned across the backs of their denim jackets: Harlekin, Dick the Hat, Vinny, Freewheeler, Ruin, Kruger.
After the introductions there was an uneasy silence, which was broken by Doc.
"I would be most awfully grateful, gentlemen, if you could see your way clear to conveying a tiny piece of information. What's the distance to the nearest metropolis?"
"What?" Zombie gaped.
"How far t'ville?" Jak translated.
"Why dinne say so?" mumbled the Angel called Rat. "Stupe-straight!"
"Mile an' half," Zombie told them.
"Gas smell is strong," Ryan said. "You got a big plant in town?"
"Just outside the ville in an old fun park."
Rick Ginsberg coughed. "I used to be interested in theme parks and funfairs. Magic Mountain, Six Flags, Elitch Gardens and... what was this one called?"
"Sierra Sunrise Park. You know it?" Zombie looked suspicious.
"Heard of it. Built very late in the nineties. Nothing special."
"Special! It's where our chapter has its home!" exclaimed the rider called Dick the Hat. Since he rode bareheaded the name was something of a puzzle.
"Yeah. Last Heroes redoubt. You stay a few days in the ville, you could come see it," Zombie offered, addressing his words specifically to Lori. Who grinned at him.
"Who's the baron?" Ryan asked.
"Baron Brennan, Edgar Brennan. Old guy. Been baron more years than anyone can remember."
Rick had another question. "Where did you get the choppers?"
"Me and some of the other righteous brothers came here around three years back. Kind of traveling on. Found a big old warehouse, way out beyond the edge of town. Part where folks said it was a hot spot. We got us a geiger. Warm, not hot. Orange, not red." Zombie laughed. "Folks been scared for nothing. It had been HQ for a chapter before the winters. Found it all. Hogs. Colors. Manuals. Rules. Kruger's best at reading so he told it all. We liked it. Good way of living. All rebels."
"What are you rebelling against?" Doc asked curiously.
To his surprise, the bikers answered him in chorus: "Why? What ya got?" Then they laughed at some obscure private joke.
Zombie, shaking with amusement, tried to explain. "There's this old vid, mostly rotted. It's about some real old chapter of brothers, way, way back. And someone asks that question. We all kind of know it by heart. You know."
"Sure. So, we'll meet up in the ville?"
"Yeah, outlander. We'll do that. And you better walk right or we'll bust your asses. Blasters or not. Right?"
"Hey!" said Riddler, the fattest and oldest of the gang.
"What?"
"How'd they get through the rattlers? They was lucky, Zombie."
"True, Riddler, true." He stared at Ryan. "You see any real big mutie snakes back in the brush there?"
Before anyone else could butt in, Ryan answered him quickly. "Snakes? No. Would've run a mile if we had."
The president of the chapter nodded solemnly. "Been your best bet. Touch one of those beauties and you count living in seconds."
"How come?"
"Baron runs the ville, right? He thinks he does. But Snakefish is built on religion. Snake religion and old-time religion. When you get to the ville you'll meet up with the Motes. Marianne and Norman and their boy, Joshua. That's where the power is in Snakefish. You know that and you walk right. Right?"
Ryan and his companions nodded dutifully. Having butchered one of the ville's favorite pets wasn't likely to endear them to the folk who ran Snakefish.
At a signal from Zombie, the bike engines coughed into life, spitting great clouds of blue-gray smoke into the cool morning air.
As the Angels vanished into the distance, weaving from side to side of the blacktop, Rick sat down on the verge, whistling his surprise and relief. "Those are heavy dudes," he said. "You hear the way they talked? Like actors in some B-grade movie. Like they learned all that crap about Hell's Angels. But those bikes!"
Doc coughed again. "I have seen and read a little about these gangs of hoodlums. If they are the sec force, andif there are some religious leaders running the show, perhaps we should seriously consider returning immediately to the redoubt."