“Just seems out of character for Frost, that’s all.”
“It is, but he can’t just invade Edison’s side of the No-Go Zone.”
“Why not? We’d crush them.”
“Well, first of all, we don’t know where Edison’s camp is.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard to find. All we need to do is follow them after one of these meets.”
“Again, that’s not allowed in the treaty,” Dice said. “Even if it was, Frost is smart enough not to do it. We need them as much as they need us.”
“Free and fair trade.”
“Exactly. They need our fuel and we need their tech and their greens. Can’t eat that fucking mystery meat all the time. Gotta have some veggies once in a while. Plus, we need some of their manpower occasionally. Doc can’t do it all by himself.”
“Don’t you mean womanpower?”
Dice snickered, looking amused. “Shaw was an exception and you saw how that turned out. I’m pretty sure that’ll be the last female Frost accepts in trade.”
“At least for work duty,” Sketch added in his most sarcastic voice.
“No doubt.”
“She was a handful, that’s for sure. I kept trying to warn her. But she just didn’t listen.”
“Typical,” Dice said.
Sketch wondered if there would ever come a time when Edison would trade some of the hotter women for a little personal time, one-on-one like. Moonshine helped calm the troops but a nice piece of ass would accomplish so much more. He could only hope.
Dice tugged at Sketch’s arm. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”
CHAPTER 30
“Don’t come back, Paulo,” Heston scolded the drifter they had under arrest. The man had wandered into the Trading Post the previous night with clothes a tattered mess and covered in layers of dirt. His face wasn’t any cleaner, his black hair long and stringy.
Heston grabbed Paulo under the chin with a firm hand, yanking it up to make sure his pale, weary eyes were focused. They were set deep in his face, beyond the wrinkled skin sagging in clumps. “We’re not running a God damn homeless shelter. This is your only warning.”
A quick hand gesture sent Heston’s men into action. They whisked the vagrant away, pulling Paulo by the arms, his feet dragging in the muck, taking the cloud of stench with him.
Heston stood in his cowboy boots, his weight pressing down on one leg more than the other, wondering how many more of these people he’d have to kick out. They seemed to be multiplying, each looking for handouts. More so the past few weeks, bringing them out from wherever they’d been hiding.
His men led Paulo past the aging John Deere backhoe and the barrels of extra diesel fuel, through the maze of chain link fencing, then hauled him out of the main gate.
They tossed the vagrant forward, his chest, face, and arms spilling to the ground. The guards in the tower kept their rifles trained on Paulo, just in case the dirt rat turned around and attacked.
“I don’t know where they’re all coming from, but this stops now,” Heston said to one of the men standing with him. It was Aaron Fox, a tireless worker in his forties who used to work magic with horses. The kind of magic involving whispering. “I can’t believe I ever used to care for these people.”
“Desperate times make desperate people,” Fox said, his tone thick with a Texas accent.
Heston agreed with his foreman, but didn’t respond, his heart a cold slab of granite. It used to bleed for these beggars. All they wanted was food and a spare blanket. Now his insides were ice, barely raising his pulse rate when another one had to be evicted. Or executed.
Fox tilted his wide-brimmed, black cowboy hat up with a tip of his finger, his eyes forever hidden behind sunglasses. Somehow the stocky man had kept the same pair intact for ten years—a testament to his unwavering tenacity. “You know, we might burn a lot of ammo, but we could save a ton of time and headaches if we just lined them up and shot ‘em.”
Heston appreciated the man’s loyalty and his frankness. “I wish I could, but that goes against my agreement with Edison. He still holds the charter to this place.”
“Just thought I’d offer. You know I’m here for whatever you need, boss.”
Heston slapped his long-time friend on the back. The man had been at his side since day one of the Trading Post. “And it’s much appreciated, Fox. But we’ll have to come up with another solution for all these rodents.”
“I hear ya. My barn was full of them back in the day. Like the rest of us, the horses didn’t much care for them. Usually when I was in the middle of shoeing,” Fox said, his hands rough like leather gloves. They carried years of calluses and scars, the kind that only a lifelong cowboy carries as a badge of honor. “Broke a few ribs that way.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t fabricate something in that blacksmith shop of yours. Some kind of trap. Take them all out at once. Efficient like.”
“That’s what the feral cats were for. When they did their jobs. Damn things had a mind of their own sometimes.”
Michael Dean, the other man standing with them, finally spoke up. He was a preacher’s son with a broad chest, just on the other side of 30. “Repair teams are just about done with the fence line, boss. We’ll have her buttoned up in no time.”
“Make sure they check it twice. These vagrants are getting in somewhere and it can’t continue. Not today.”
“Consider it done,” Dean said, his prominent chin and dark eyes setting him apart from the other men, not just in looks, but in intimidation level. Few men had shoulders his size, regardless of age or former occupation. “Anything else, boss?”
Heston pointed to the hill above, where a trio of lifeless bodies, two men and a woman, hung from ropes by their necks. All three had been sentenced to death the day before. Each wore a white cardboard sign with handwritten black lettering that read: Zero Tolerance for Thieves. “Time to cut ‘em loose. I’m sure everyone got the message by now.”
“Feed ‘em to the dogs?” Dean asked.
Heston nodded. “We waste nothing.”
“I’ll take care of it personally,” Dean said, turning and walking away.
Heston didn’t doubt Dean’s last statement. The young man was an order-following machine. Never once did Heston have to issue an order twice with him, a welcome reprieve from some of the others.
Dean took off his white cowboy hat and ran a hand through his slicked-back hair, just like Heston had seen him do a thousand times before. The kid’s black hair didn’t contain a peppering of gray like Fox’s, but Heston figured it wouldn’t be long before it appeared.
Dean put his hat back on, fiddling with its fit until it was just so.
The fussiness didn’t surprise Heston. Every cowboy has his traditions. And superstitions. Dean’s were centered around his all-white hat. He spent more time cleaning his than anyone else in the crew. The kid kept it spotless, only taking it off to sleep or adjust his locks, like he’d just done. Dean preferred the sides of the hat curved up and the front angled down to match the back.
It’s said that no two fingerprints are exactly the same. Cowboy hats are much the same, each one distinctively personal. None more so than Dean’s.
“I’m sure the dogs will appreciate the extra meal,” Fox said in a matter-of-fact way.
“And Dean the work.”
“We all need a stress outlet, boss.”
Heston couldn’t agree more. “I’m sure he misses the old days.”
“He probably does. But not me. I got tired of those late-night calls from the Sheriff pretty damn quick. I had better things to do on a Friday night than drive into town and mop up yet another bar fight.”