Rising: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (The Traveler Book 4) Read online

  Lou adjusted her hat and brushed the curtain of hair from her eyes. “How do you know about the dreams?”

  “I heard you,” Marcus said. “The other night. You had a nightmare. I’m putting two and two together just now.”

  “Just now, huh? Guess you’re not even the kind of person who thinks he’s smart anymore.”

  Marcus smirked. “That’s fair enough. I sure as heck haven’t been smart enough to figure you out.”

  “There’s not much to me, Dorothy,” said Lou. “Really, there isn’t. I’m just a girl who wants to live the best I can in a world that don’t account for people wanting to live the best they can.”

  Marcus nodded. They had less than a hundred miles to go. Maybe after that there might be a chance to start living again. If a spunky seventeen-year-old with assassin skills could hope to live beyond the revenge she’d sought and achieved, maybe he could too.

  Then again, maybe not.

  CHAPTER 15

  OCTOBER 27, 2042, 1:10 PM

  SCOURGE +10 YEARS

  OUTSIDE DEL RIO, TEXAS

  The Appaloosa died a mile from Del Rio. It whinnied, staggered, and collapsed on the edge of Highway 277 before it became 377 heading south into town. They were on a bridge south of a rough canyon, having nearly finished the toughest part of the trek so far. Marcus managed to jump from the animal as it fell, bracing himself against the waist-high railing that lined both sides of the two-lane bridge.

  There were the remnants of a large body of water beneath them, a former reservoir made from the Rio Grande River, and the highway crossed its easternmost finger. The lake was dry at its steep edges and Marcus considered shoving the horse over the side of the bridge and to the bed below. Lou talked him out of it.

  “I ran the poor thing too hard,” he said, pulling his belongings free from underneath the weight of the dead beast. “How’s your paint?”

  Lou shrugged. “Fine. I guess.”

  Marcus tightened the shoulder straps on his pack. He held the Springfield with both hands. “I’m going to walk. We don’t have far to go. Maybe ten miles.”

  He walked alongside the paint for the better part of an hour. They were halfway to the center of town, crossing under the overpass for Highway 90, when a pair of men appeared from the shadows. One of them had dollar-sign tattoos on his hands.

  Fifty’s ears pricked. He growled and tensed. Lou calmed him, holding onto the leather collar around his neck. He whimpered, his body twitching and ready to pounce.

  “Where you headed?” asked the man with the tattoos. He had his hand on a holster holding a nine millimeter pistol. The other man had a baseball bat leaning on one shoulder. It was stained with blood on one end.

  “South,” said Marcus. He kept both hands on the rifle but had it aimed toward the bottom of the overpass.

  The man with the bat eyed Lou. “That girl yours?” he asked. He spoke with a lisp from a lack of teeth in the front of his mouth. It took every bit of restraint Marcus had not to mimic him when he responded.

  “Depends on who’s asking,” said Marcus.

  The tattooed man looked over at the one with the bat then back at Marcus. “Let’s say we’re in the transportation and entertainment business.”

  Marcus smiled. “What a coincidence. So am I.”

  The man with the bat pulled it from his shoulder and took a step back. He gripped the bat with both hands and swung it as if he was warming up.

  The tattooed man smiled. “So you’re headed south?”

  Marcus nodded curtly. “Yeah.”

  The man with the bat took another couple of swings. The bat whooshed as it cut through the air underneath the overpass.

  “You’re gonna need a guide,” said the tattooed man. “Or you could give us the girl and we can do the job for you.”

  “I’ve got a guide already,” said Marcus. “I’m on my way to meet him.”

  “Is that so?” asked the man with the tattoo. “Who is it?”

  Marcus glanced at Lou before he answered. They’d anticipated running into a roadblock before reaching their ultimate destination. This was part of the plan.

  “Cego,” he said, pointing to his eye, “the dude with one eye. I’m supposed to meet him. He’s expecting me.”

  The man with the bat stopped swinging. The one with the tattoo swallowed hard. Both men’s postures weakened, their eyes dancing between Marcus and Lou.

  “Cego?” asked the one with the tattoo. “You know Cego?”

  “We’ve met,” said Marcus. “We’ve talked. I know Barbas and Rasgado too. They send their regards.”

  “We can take you to Cego,” said the man with the bat. “He’s…on the other side of the border. Is that where you’re supposed—”

  Marcus dropped the rifle from his shoulder and aimed it at the man with the bat. Fifty jumped from the horse, free of Lou’s grasp. He lowered his shoulders and snarled, protecting the ground between the men and his wards.

  “Cego didn’t say anything about a couple of flunkies taking me across the border,” Marcus snapped. Sensing a newfound advantage, he stepped forward, his feet planted shoulder width apart. “How do I know you’re not playing me?”

  The man with the tattoo held up the back of one hand and pointed to the black ink. “See this? I’m LRC.” His eyes were wide and lacking the confidence they’d carried mere moments before.

  Marcus aimed at the man with the bat. “How do I know you’re not playing me?”

  The man with the bat opened his mouth, but before he could respond, Marcus drilled a shot right through the gap in his teeth. The man’s eyes widened, rolled back in his head, and he hit the ground before the bat did. The shot reverberated loudly in the confines of the space underneath the overpass.

  The man with the tattoo started to reach for his gun, but Marcus had already cycled the bolt, loading another round, and had him in his sights. “Don’t do it. Raise your hands.”

  The tattooed man obliged. “Why did you do that? We can take you to Cego.”

  “You can take me to Cego,” said Marcus. “And now you know what happens if you don’t.”

  He stepped to the man and withdrew the handgun from the holster. With one hand, he dropped the magazine from the grip, fired the chambered round into the dead man on the ground, then shoved the gun back into the tattooed man’s holster.

  “Take us where we need to go,” he said. “Cego is waiting.”

  The man lowered his arms and shakily turned around to lead Marcus and Lou south to Del Rio. Fifty walked alongside Marcus. The man was a good ten yards ahead of them when Lou nudged Marcus with her foot.

  “Why did you kill that man back there?” she whispered. “You didn’t need to do that.”

  Marcus opened the bolt of his rifle and loaded an extra round. “I didn’t like the way he looked at you. He would have been trouble.”

  Lou sat up straight in the saddle. “Oh. Thanks. I guess.”

  “We’re going to have a tough enough time without some toothless Babe Ruth,” Marcus said under his breath.

  “Who’s Babe Ruth?”

  “Really? He’s a legendary baseball player.”

  “Didn’t get to the sports section in the library,” said Lou. “I was too busy reading Sun Tzu.”

  “The Art of War?”

  “Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting,” she said, quoting the Chinese strategist and general.

  Marcus had read the book. He remembered many of its teachings. He knew that a leader should lead by example, not force. He’d learned to appear weak when strong and strong when weak. It was excellent advice coming from a general; however, it wasn’t always practical, or even possible, in the fog of war.

  And Marcus was in the middle of a war. He had been since he’d shipped out for his first tour in Syria decades ago. He was in a war with others. He was in a war with himself. There was no peace for Marcus Battle. There was only the fight.

  Nonetheless, he smiled
at Lou. “It’s good advice. Very good advice.”

  ***

  They entered Del Rio a little after three o’clock in the afternoon. There was a southerly wind blowing north, warming the brittle air. Marcus loosened his jacket collar and unbuttoned it, wiping a sheen of sweat from the back of his neck.

  Unlike many of the other towns, the streets were narrow and densely packed with buildings, some of them in decent shape, others crumbling. It reminded Marcus of Aleppo but without the constant shelling or the Arabic designations on the street corners and above the shops and restaurants.

  He tensed as they entered what amounted to a concrete and steel valley. They were ripe for an ambush.

  “Any weird movements or signals and I end you,” Marcus warned. “Anything at all, and I pull the trigger.”

  The tattooed man had slowed his pace. He was walking only a few feet ahead of Marcus and checked over his shoulder every couple of hundred yards. His eyes always found the rifle before he turned back to the road ahead.

  They were moving due south toward the old airport. It was an international airport, but that was like calling the House of Pancakes international. They were so close to the border, Marcus could have spit and called the wad an international flight.

  “You keeping the girl with you once you cross?” the man asked almost breathlessly. “Or you giving her to Cego? Most people do one or the other.”

  “That’s my business,” said Marcus.

  “I’m just saying it’s no crime either way. We get a lot of folks who can’t afford the mouth to feed. They’ll give up a young one for food, fuel, or protection. You wouldn’t be the only one to do it.”

  Lou opened her mouth to say something, but Marcus shook his head. She gritted her teeth and scowled.

  The man slowed his pace and walked a step ahead of Marcus. He ran his hand across his forehead. He was sweating too. “There’s gangs on the other side of the border. I mean, there’s gangs everywhere since the Dwellers took over and lost control. I’m sure I ain’t tellin’ you nothing you don’t already know. But I’m letting you know it ain’t as easy as it looks to get you to Cego when he’s on the other side.”

  “It is what it is,” said Marcus. “Nothing’s as easy as it looks.”

  “You could wait for him here,” said the man, scratching the dollar sign on the back of his hand. “We could find a nice spot for you. Maybe even find a girl for you. An even trade, so to speak.”

  “Not interested.”

  “You got a bad limp,” said the man. “I ain’t noticed it before, but it’s getting worse. You okay to keep walking?”

  Marcus jabbed him with the shotgun. “Just take us where we need to go.”

  The man was right; Marcus’s legs were tired. When they were tired, the muscles weakened and his limp was exaggerated. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, and they were too close to the border to stop and rest. Maybe his judgment was exhausted too. He didn’t know this man could take him to Cego. He was trusting him every bit as much as the man was trusting Marcus not to put a thirty aught six slug in his back.

  Marcus took inventory of his surroundings. He motioned for Lou to follow him and he moved to one side of the street, stepping onto the curb and keeping himself close to the wall of the buildings. It made him less of a target by providing a clear shot to those on only one side of the street.

  The tattooed man didn’t notice at first and kept marching in the middle of the street. When he did see that Marcus and Lou had moved away from him, he spun around and walked backwards, his eyes roaming the second and third stories of the brick and concrete structures on both sides of the street.

  “You worried about an ambush?” the man asked, swinging back around, his back to Marcus. “I wouldn’t worry about that. No friend of Cego’s should have to worry in Del Rio. But you know that.”

  There was something about the tattooed man’s new tone that had Marcus concerned. A hint of doubt was sprinkled in the way he talked, as if he didn’t believe what Marcus had told him.

  “Stop,” Marcus ordered.

  The man kept his back to Marcus. Lou eased the horse to a stop. Fifty stood at the paint’s side. He lifted a back leg to scratch his side.

  “Where are you taking us exactly?”

  “You need a coyote to get you across the border,” said the man. “You can’t do it on your own. I’m not doing it.”

  The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Something was wrong. “Where is the coyote?” Marcus asked.

  The man turned around slowly, his hands at his sides. He motioned over his shoulder with his head. “He’s a couple of blocks this way. We got a holding room. Everything gets worked out there and then you cross.”

  Marcus drew his rifle to his shoulder. He narrowed his eyes and held the tattooed man’s gaze. The man stared back at him, expressionless. Then his eye twitched and he glanced, for a split second, over Marcus’s left shoulder.

  “Marcus!” Lou warned, whipping a knife thirty yards into a man about to open fire from an open doorway.

  The man grabbed the knife and pulled it from his chest. Blood poured from the open wound and the man dropped as another behind him stepped into the light from the shadow of the doorway.

  Marcus immediately swung around, but it was too late. Though Lou had taken out the second would-be gunman with a second expert throw, a sniper perched on the roof of a limestone building next door managed three shots before Marcus returned fire.

  The first shot hit the paint in the side, narrowly missing Lou. The horse bucked and squealed. It cried an ear-piercing, high-pitched scream and tossed Lou against a building and to the wide concrete sidewalk that ran along the street, then ran in circles before collapsing in apparent agony.

  The second shot exploded into the brick building in front of which Lou had sat a moment before she fell. The debris rained onto her as she pushed herself, dazed, from the ground. She reached for an imaginary knife from her waist but appeared paralyzed as she struggled to maintain her footing and fell back to the ground. Fifty leapt to her side, jumping onto her lap and licking her bleeding forehead.

  The third shot whizzed past Marcus to his left, zipping through the spot where he’d stood before spinning around to return fire. He loosely aimed in the direction of the sniper and pulled the Springfield’s trigger. The shot missed and Marcus sprinted into the street, finding cover behind the struggling horse.

  A fourth sniper shot hit the horse again, silencing its bloodcurdling wails. A fifth missed Marcus, hit the street, and ricocheted harmlessly off to one side. Lou was whimpering behind him, clearly concussed. Marcus fired a true shot skyward. It hit the sniper in the neck and the man dropped his rifle, slumping over the top edge of the building’s decorative brick façade.

  At that moment another shot whizzed past Marcus, grazing his side. There was a second sniper. He scanned the rooftops. Nothing. He quickly rolled onto his side and moved to scan the windows and doorways across the street as twin shots missed him to his right.

  “If these people could shoot, I’d be dead three times over,” he muttered.

  Another shot cracked and Marcus felt a familiar burn above his hip. He flinched but spun to his left and found the shooter in a second-story window. He thumbed the scope clean and pressed it to his eye, aimed straight for the man’s head, and zipped a shot right between his eyes. The man’s head snapped back and he disappeared into the building.

  Marcus spun immediately back to his right, searching for the tattooed man. He found him pressed against a building on the opposite side of the street. He had his handgun in one hand and was digging around in his boot with the other. He pulled from it a nine-millimeter mag.

  “Hey!” Marcus yelled at the man, pushing himself to his feet and marching deliberately toward him with the rifle set for another shot. “Drop it. My finger is on the trigger and I only put it there when I intend to fire.”

  The tattooed man didn’t obey this time. He quickly slammed the mag into
the bottom of the weapon and pulled back the slide in a fluid motion.

  Marcus followed through on his promise and pulled the trigger, sending a single shot into the man’s shoulder. He cried in pain and dropped the pistol Marcus cranked the bolt and stopped two feet from the man’s pain-twisted face. He kicked away the handgun and jabbed the rifle at the bleeding hole. The man weakly batted at the barrel with his other hand, but Marcus pressed harder.

  “I will obliterate your shoulder if you move a muscle,” he said. “Now get up.”

  The blubbering tattooed man struggled to his feet with his one good arm, using the wall behind him for leverage. His eyes were a mixture of pain, fear, and rage. He held his inked hand over his dead arm, applying pressure to the wound.

  Marcus guided him across the street and back to Lou, and ordered him to sit on the sidewalk. The man sank awkwardly to the ground and Marcus checked his own wound. It was a graze at his waist. The bullet had ripped a tear in his side, but he’d be fine. Instead of concerning himself with his latest injury, he turned his attention to the seventeen-year-old.

  Her eyes were glassy and her mouth was open. Her brown skin looked ashy. When Marcus talked to her, her brow furrowed as if she was confused by what he was saying.

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “Lou, can you understand me?”

  Her face brightened and her mouth curled into a smile. “Dad? Is that you?”

  A thick knot swelled in Marcus’s throat when Lou threw her arms around his neck and squeezed. She was giggling. Or crying. Marcus couldn’t tell.

  “Dad,” she said, her voice muffled with her face buried in his neck, “I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve missed you and I have so much to tell you.”

  Marcus hesitated at first, but gently placed his hand on the middle of her back and held her. He started to tell her who he was and what had happened, but stopped himself and rubbed her back, comforting her. She rested her weight on him and he wrapped his other hand around the back of her head. Her hat was on the ground next to her.