“An’ half the time,” said Angel, “it’s their brothers and cousins and all that’re doing the kneecaps and necklaces.”
“Word up,” said Lyle. “Neighbors huntin’ neighbors. No wonder they ain’t happy campers.”
“Folks back here don’t always draw a line between bandits and friend-lies,” I said, thinking about my ©-Net story, “The Loyalist.” “So your possemen feel they have to prove their loyalty.”
“Righteous beans,” said Angel. “Hey. You hear what happened to the 7th down in the live oak country? ‘Rooster’ McGregor—you ever meet ’im? Skinny guy with teeth out to here?—he was doing just what you were, Jimmy. Riding with the posse when he couldn’t take his platoon out. Only it turns out the possemen were the bandits. Deputy Dawgs by day; camos and piano wire by night. Rooster, he got his ticket stripped over it, but he accidentally hung the sheriff before the court martial took his bars.”
Jimmy hadn’t been listening. “They don’t respect us,” he said. “Never understood that ’til the last time I was Inside. Now…” He voice trailed off and his eyes took on a distant look. I traded glances with Lyle and Angel, and waited.
“We called him ‘Wild Bob,’ ” Jimmy said finally. “I suppose he had his own name for himself and some mumbo-jumbo, self-important rank. Generalissimo. Grand Kleagle. Lord High Naff-naff. Maybe he called himself The Bald Eagle, cause he sure as shit had no hair; but he could’ve called himself Winnie the Pooh, for all I cared. ‘Cause what he was was a murderer and a rapist and an armed robber, and he probably picked his nose in public. What he’d do every now and then—just to let us know he was still around—he’d send a body floating down the river from the high country. One of our agents or a friendly or maybe just someone looked at him cross-eyed. Or he’d throw a roadblock up and collect ‘tolls’ from everybody passing through. Or he’d yee-haw a firebase and pick off a freshie or two.
“Yeah, he was a piece of work, all right,” Jimmy said. “And he knew to the corpse just how far he could push it before the higher-ups would scratch their balls and wonder how ‘pacified’ the area really was. So Badger Stoltz—that was the sheriff—he developed a keen interest in learning Wild Bob’s whereabouts. One day, word came in that Bob was holed up in an old mining town, name of Spruce Creek. The silver gave out way back when, but no one had the heart to close it up. I seen the place, and I can’t say I blame ’em. It’s a spot worth stayin’ in, just to open your eyes to it in the morning. It sets in a high, isolated meadow, with peaks on every side and four passes leading out. A spruce forest surrounds it and climbs halfway up the mountain flanks before giving way to krummholz and bare, gray rocks. The state road follows the creek through the center of town; but the Joeys have watchtowers on both east and west passes and it wouldn’t take ’em more’n ten minutes to turn either one into a deathtrap if anybody tried to come in that way. The townies either support Wild Bob or they’re too scared not to. Or both. Hell, like I said, even the friendlies don’t much like us. And I can’t say they weren’t given cause in the old days.”
“Don’t mean nothin’,” Angel said. “Don’t excuse what they done. Don’t excuse collaborating, neither.”
Jimmy just shook his head. “It’s a damn shame what things have come to. Gimme another Skull, would you.”
Lyle handed him the bottle. “So what about this Wild Bob?”
“I’m comin’ to it.” He popped the cap and tipped the neck toward us in salute. “In and Out,” he said.
“Yeah.” That was Lyle. “Except you want Out.”
Jimmy darkened. “I said I was cornin’ to that. I just gotta give you the topo. There’s another road. A county road. Packed dirt and gravel, mostly. Comes in from the south, gives the townies something they can call an intersection, and meanders out over the north pass. At that point whoever put the road in, must’ve figgered out there wasn’t any place to go over on the other side; so it just fizzles out in the rocks and tundra. The Joey’s keep an eye on the south pass, but don’t pay much mind to the north.”
Angel spoke. “I sense a plan,” he said clapping his hands together. “A Strategy.”
“Four suit louies,” I said. “Two to keep ’em interested in the state road; one to block their retreat over the south pass; and one to sneak in through the bathroom window.”
“Sure,” said Jimmy, “except I didn’t have no four suit louies at the fire-base. Just me and Maria Serena—and one of us had to stay Out if the other went In, in case Joey yee-hawed the firebase. Wild Bob had maybe twenty, twenty-five bandits with him—he ran the town like a damn safe house, and every terrorist in three states could put up there for a week or two. I had the sheriff’s posse—Badger Stoltz and ten whipcord guys who took their tin stars serious—and I had my power suit. So I figured the odds at better’n even. Plan was, the sheriff would waltz with our boy on the county road, draw ’em south a ways, while I took the walker in from the north.”
“Couldn’t use a floater, then?” Angel asked.
Jimmy shook his head. “Too steep. Ground effect don’t work too good when the ground is vertical. I’d have to do finger and toe climbing the last stretch. There’s a reason that road don’t go nowhere. Sheriff sent one of his guys with me—a cute little bit named Natalie who just happens to be his daughter—to show me the way. I had the photos from the up-and-down, but like I said, things can look real different on the ground. Me and Stoltz worked it out and didn’t say beans to nobody until the day I went In—’cause, you know, someone might have a cousin or talk in his sleep or something. So the day comes and Stoltz rides his ten guys south—they got the most ground to cover before they get in position—and Natalie waits while I go into the teep room and wriggle into my power suit—”
“Duck into a phone booth!” said Lyle. “Put on your cape and Spandex!”
“Superman!” said Angel. “Ta da-daah!”
“—Fiber ops and hydros hooked up—”
“—Leap tall buildings—”
“—Set my virtch hat—”
“—Faster than a speeding bullet—”
“—Power up the suit and—”
“Oh, man, I know that feeling—”
“—Ain’t nothing like it—”
They bubbled, their words tumbling one atop the other, a glow spreading across their faces. I remained quiet and stared into my beer. I could remember what it felt like. Infinite power. You could dribble the world and shoot hoops. My fingers cramped into a sudden ball and I hid the rebellious limb under the desk.
“I took the walker out to the fire-base perimeter and leaped over the wall right beside Natalie.”
“Yee-haw!” said Lyle.
“It scared her. She hadn’t been expecting it, and her horse reared up and near threw her. I told her I was ready-Freddy; and she just looks in my optics and says, let’s not waste any more time, and she yanks on her bridle and heads off toward Spruce Creek.” Jimmy drained his bottle and tossed it to Angel, who placed it carefully in the growing architectural wonder our empties were creating.
“The town wasn’t too far, as the bullet flies; but you couldn’t rightly get there going straight. Still, her dad and the others needed time to get in position, so Natalie set off at an easy canter with me loping along beside her. You know what it’s like in those walkers. You want to leap and soar. And of course it’s scaled about twice the human body, so you have to get used to the difference in stride and reach and squeeze. So I’d stretch my arms and the walker’s manipulators would reach out and tear a limb off a cottonwood. Or I’d take a couple giant steps, just for the hell of it; then wait for Natalie to catch up. Third or fourth time I did that, she told me I was scaring her horse and please stop; so I had to plod the rest of the way. It was like being hamstrung.”