The woman was clothed with pants and a flannel shirt from the other room. Joshua had washed her, dressed her, and tended to her numerous wounds during the day. He’d also placed a blanket over her to keep her warm.
“How are you feeling?” Joshua asked her.
“Better,” she admitted. “White Meat tells me I have you to thank for that.”
“It was nothing,” Joshua said modestly.
“Sure was, honey.” She looked down at the blanket. “Most folks nowadays would have killed me outright, or put me to other uses, if you get my drift.” She grinned. “Can’t hardly believe my luck! Finding out there still are some nice people in this world. Men too! Don’t that beat all!
Even the Horns ain’t as nice as you been to me.”
“Can any man or woman do less when a brother and sister is in dire need?” Joshua asked. “We are all children of the Spirit. We must never forget this truth.”
“Hey, you sure you ain’t one of the Horns?”
“What is a Horn?” Joshua asked her.
“You never heard of the Horns?” She rose on her elbows, surprised.
“No.”
“How about the Porns?”
Joshua shook his head.
“Where are you guys from anyhow?”
“We’ll get to that in a moment,” Blade interjected. “Are you hungry?”
“I could eat a whole dog,” she conceded.
“I’ll prepare some soup,” Joshua offered. “We have canned food taken from the Watchers. Would that be okay?”
“It beats what they was feeding me.”
“Which was?”
“Nothin’,” she replied. “Unless you count what they was poking between my legs.”
“I’ll get that soup,” Joshua said, blushing.
The woman laughed. “Look at him! He’s turning red! I don’t believe it!”
Joshua quickly departed.
The girl laid back down. “Whew! I’m dizzy! Better not push myself just yet.”
“You take it easy,” Hickok told her. “You’ve nothing to worry about with us around.”
She gazed up at him, her eyes soft in the light from a single bulb burning in a socket directly overhead.
“I’m sorry to do this.” Blade sat down next to her. “We need to ask you some questions.”
“I can handle it,” she assured him. “Besides, I owe you. You saved my life.”
“What’s your name?” Blade began his questioning.
“Called Bertha. Most of my friends call me Big Bertha, on account of my boobs.”
Hickok chuckled.
“Where are you from?” Blade asked her.
“From the Twins.”
“The Twin Cities?” Blade inquired, excited.
“Some still call it that. Used to be called some other weird name before the War. Long, long time ago. Don’t remember what it was.”
“How’d you get here?” came from Hickok.
“Dumb luck, I guess.” Bertha pouted, her lips forming a small o. “Z wanted me to scout west of the Twins…”
“Who is Z?” Blade broke in.
“Zahner. Our leader. We all just call him Z for short. He wanted someone to see if the Watchers cover every exit from the Twins. You see, everyone knows the Watchers are there. No one knows where they come from. They block every road out of the city, and they kill everyone who tries to get out. Don’t know why. No one’s tried to get past them in years.”
“If you want to leave the city,” Hickok said thoughtfully, “Why don’t you just go overland, avoid the highways, and cut across country?”
Bertha snickered. “You crazy, White Meat? The Uglies will get you sure as I’m lying here!”
“Uglies?” Blade reflected a moment. “Could she mean the mutates?”
“Why don’t you just shoot the Uglies?” Hickok asked her.
“Wish to hell I could! But guns in the Twins are scarce, and ammo even rarer. The Horns have a few, the Porns even more, and we got three. We need ’em to preserve our turf. Can’t allow any guns to leave the Twins.
Have you ever tried to stop an Ugly with a club or a knife? Ain’t done, bro.
The Uglies stay out of the city, and we stay out of the country.”
“So this Z sent you to find a road that might be clear?” Blade goaded her.
Bertha sighed. “Yeah. Z thought that maybe, just maybe, the Watchers weren’t covering all the roads. I went out ’bout two weeks ago on one of the small roads. Got twenty miles from the Twins and was caught by a Watcher patrol. They had their fun with me, and then passed me to another group of watchers. They got their jollies, and I was passed to this group in Thief River Falls. They weren’t able to get their rocks off before you guys showed up.” She reached out and placed her hand on Hickok’s.
“Thanks, White Meat. Sooner or later they was going to waste poor Bertha.”
“Piece of cake,” Hickok told her.
“Why did this Z want to find a way out of the city?” Blade inquired.
“Because we’re tired of all the fighting.”
“Fighting?”
“Yeah. The Porns attack the Horns, and the Horns go after the Porns, and they both try and get us whenever they can.”
“Does your group have a name?”
“We’re mainly called the Nomads, ’cause we don’t give our allegiance to the Porns or the Horns. Then, of course, there’s also the Lone Wolves, the ones that keep to themselves and prey on everybody else. That leaves only the Wacks.”
“The Wacks?” Blade was striving to make some sense from all this information Bertha was supplying.
“The crazies, man, the crazies! You never want to get caught by the Wacks! They’d eat you alive.”
“They’re cannibals?” Hickok said, shocked.
“What’s a cannibal?” she asked him.
“A cannibal is a person who eats other people,” Blade answered her.
“Yep. Some of the Wacks have been known to munch on their captives.
Just thinking about ’em gives me the creeps!”
“Do these groups,” Blade inquired, trying to sort the facts, “fight among themselves all over the city?”
Bertha yawned. “No, man, no. The Porns, the Horns, and us all got our own turf we protect. The Wacks and the Lone Wolves attack you anywhere. The Wacks just pop up from the underground.”
“Underground?”
“Yeah, They come up out of the manholes at night, lookin’ for food and such.”
Blade bit his lower lip, reflecting. All of this was completely alien to any of his past experience. What was he to make of it? How should it affect their trip to the Twin Cities?
“What’s turf?” Hickok wanted to know.
Bertha studied him, perplexed. “You don’t know what turf is? Where are you boys from, White Meat? Turf is our territory. The Porns have the western part of the Twins. The Wacks are based in the south. The Horns have the eastern part, and some of the north. Mainly, though, we hold most of the north. It’s the smallest turf, but then they got more soldiers than we do.”
“Soldiers?” Blade repeated, surprised. “You have armies?”
“Not the way I think you mean, man,” Bertha answered. “A soldier is anyone who does fightin’ for their side. Get it? I’m a soldier for the Nomads. One of their topnotch soldiers,” she proudly boasted.
“I knew it.” Hickok grinned.
“What do you fight about?” Blade asked her.
“Just about anything, honey.” Bertha laughed. “We fight to protect our turf, and we fight to attack theirs, and we fight because we don’t much like one another, and because we’re all different. We don’t believe in the same things.”
“That’s a reason for killing one another?” Blade placed his hands behind him and leaned back.
“Can you think of any better?”
“I’m sorry, Bertha,” Blade told her. “I really don’t understand any of this. I’m trying. I really am. But it doesn’t make much sense. Can you comprehend any of this?” he asked Hickok.