Chapter Eighteen

 

 

Savannah had been used as a military base for some of the top-secret, silo-based ICBMs that had dominated American military policy for much of the latter part of the previous century. It had brought wealth to the city, and extra prosperity to the merchants, builders, tavern owners and storekeepers.

 

It had also brought the wrath of the Russkies, raining molten fire from the heavens, wiping the town and the surrounding region to the northwest away into an arid wasteland of black glass and rolling sand. It was a dangerous hot-spot that, nearly a hundred years after skydark, still sent the rad counters off the orange section of the scale way across into the red.

 

The raft drifted on south, carried by the gentle stream of the Tennessee.

 

The clouds had vanished, and the afternoon saw temperatures rising well into the upper nineties.

 

Everyone except Ryan took turns steering the raft, following the center of the river as it wound its way between the deserted land. There was nearly half a mile between the banks, and they saw nobody to threaten them.

 

At the place where the rad count was highest, they saw a number of small, capering creatures that hopped and skipped, throwing stones in their general direction. They were less than three feet in height, and several of the vaguely humanoid muties seemed to have extra limbs, with one or two having secondary skulls. But there was a heat haze lying over the river, and it was difficult to be absolutely certain.

 

At the most blighted part of the terrain, Jak had been dabbling his hand in the river to cool off, when he jumped. "What fuck that!" he exclaimed, looking at a bead of blood that clung to the tip of his white finger.

 

They all looked over the side of their craft, trying to see beneath the sun-dappled surface, shading their eyes against the bright sunlight.

 

"Eels," Mildred said, leaning so far over that her beaded plaits nearly dangled in the water.

 

There was a sudden explosion from the deeps of the river, and several tiny eels erupted and clung to the plaits. They were no more than four or five inches long, thick as a man's finger, and had a dozen protruding eyes and staggeringly ferocious triple sets of needle teeth.

 

The woman screamed in shock, pulling back, while J.B. and Jak tugged the vicious little creatures off her, throwing them back into the sullen water.

 

After that, everyone kept clear of the edges of the raft, avoiding the places where the logs didn't fit well, with gaps straight down into the river.

 

 

 

JUST PAST SAVANNAH the Tennessee forked, split down the middle by a gigantic spit of muddy yellow sand.

 

Doc was at the helm, and he called out for instructions.

 

"Right or left? Should I sail for port or for starboard? Starboard or larboard? Red light or green? Keep off the lee shore, Mr. Hornblower! Pass the starboard I mean, pass the port, if you please." He was grinning broadly, the light breeze tugging at his silvery mane of hair. "Clockwise or counterclockwise or widdershins about?"

 

Ryan had been sitting on the roof of the cabin, and he stood, balancing with care, trying to see which of the channels seemed the better option.

 

"Try left, I think," he called, then hesitated. "No, make that right. Seem to be shallows to the left. Yeah, steer her to the right, Doc."

 

The makeshift steering oar creaked as Doc heaved at it, sending the lumbering craft crabbing its way to the side, passing the soft shallows on the left.

 

"Boat ahead," Krysty called.

 

Everyone looked down the Tennessee, where it bent to the right. Just on the crown of the bend was a small rowboat, with a pair of oars rising and falling in perfect rhythm.

 

It was coming upriver toward them, making fine progress against the sluggish current. Because of the way that they were facing, the oarsmen had no idea that they were closing fast with the raft.

 

Ryan waited until they were fifty yards ahead and then hailed them.

 

"Yo the boat!"

 

If he'd launched a frag gren at them, it would hardly have had more effect.

 

The man on the left caught a crab, his oar digging in deep, the loom rising and hitting him under the chin, sending him sprawling flat on his back in the bottom of the little boat. His companion tried to look around while carrying on rowing, which meant that his oar completely missed the water, flailing around in the air like a demented windmill.

 

"What the fuck is this?" yelled the man lying sprawled on his back, kicking his little legs in the air, his arms whirling as he tried desperately to recover his balance and regain his seat on the thwart.

 

"Sorry to startle you," Ryan called. "But you were going fair to hit us."

 

The rowboat had gone around in two tight, complete circles, but the occupants finally managed to get her under their control again.

 

"Tarry-hootin' Yankee bastards!" Both men were now revealed as elderly, with identical white beards. "Sneaking up on a couple about their lawful fucking business and trying to run them down and fucking sink them."

 

"Hey!" Krysty shouted. "Watch your language. There's ladies on board here. And you would have run straight into us if we hadn't warned you."

 

Now that they'd turned their skiff around and had it gentled down, the two old-timers also calmed themselves. One of them wore a battered Stetson, and he raised it to Krysty.

 

"My 'pologies, ma'am. My tongue sort of ran away with me. Guess we owe you thanks for saving us from getting plowed three fathoms deep."

 

"Eel-bait is what me an' Jericho would've been," the other old man shouted.

 

"We seen the eels," J.B. said as the two crafts came almost alongside each other. "Vicious little bastards. Figure that it would be triple-bad news if you went over the side with them anywhere around."

 

"Many a good man been lost to them," said the one called Jericho.

 

"You live nearby?" Ryan asked.

 

"Little ville off a side stream of the Tenner. Called Down the Line. Sixty-four Christian souls. My name's Daniel, and this is my wife's brother, Jericho. Hardly ever see anyone comin' south on the water. Not out of the dark lands."

 

The raft continued to drift with the current, the little boat keeping station with it.

 

Ryan didn't feel like going into a lot of detail about who they were and where they'd come from. "Traders," he said. "From up yonder." He pointed vaguely past where Savannah had once stood, toward the north.

 

"Where ye headin'?" Daniel asked.

 

Ryan jerked his thumb in the opposite direction, still keeping a tight grip on his stick, balancing against the gentle pitching of the craft.

 

"Y'all visiting Shiloh battlefield?" Jericho asked. Their boat was drifting away from the raft as they worked at the oars to try to hold it on station.

 

"Thought we might. How far is it from here? Can't be a great distance."

 

The two oldsters cackled with laughter. "You northerners sure speak kind of strange. Can't hardly understand it. Strangle the words in your throat."

 

"How far?" Ryan repeated.

 

The two old men looked at each other, simultaneously putting their heads on one side, like a couple of world-weary crows on a fence watching an unwary frog. Ryan caught Krysty's eye and grinned at her.

 

"Clumsy old raft like that should get you to the landing by Shiloh around dusk," said Jericho.

 

"Want the tour of the battleground?" Daniel asked.

 

"Be interesting," Ryan admitted. "You know someone does that down there?"

 

"My brother's cousin's your man," Jericho said. "Name's Judas Portillo."

 

"Judas!" Doc exclaimed. "Does that mean we shall have to pay him thirty pieces of silver for his guiding? Or he might hang himself?"

 

The two old men looked at him with total bewilderment. "Why'd you do that?" Daniel asked. "Handful of jack or some chawin' tobacco or a couple rounds of .38s'll do him fine. Silver wouldn't be no good, no how."

 

"Let it pass, let it pass," Doc said.

 

"We gotta go," Jericho called. "Losing all the good ground we sorely won against the Tenner. Good luck to ye."

 

"Judas Portillo? We'll be sure to look out for him," Ryan said.

 

"Tell him he owes me for a faucet in his shack," Jericho said as he and his partner began to pull away together in fine style, propelling the little boat over the water, swiftly widening the gap between them and the raft.

 

Ryan waved to them, watching as they moved off, shrinking until they were only a tiny blur on the surface of the meandering Tennessee.

 

 

 

THERE WAS A SUDDEN FLURRY of light rain as the sun set on their starboard quarter.

 

J.B. stayed at the steering oar while the others crowded into the cramped little cabin.

 

"Won't last," Jak said, peering out of the rough-hewn window at the leaden sky. "Shower."

 

"Sure?"

 

"Yeah, Ryan. Blue sky coming this way from south. Get here soon."

 

"Look for a good place to moor us up for the night," J.B. called.

 

Jak had been correct. The rain quickly stopped, the sky clearing, bringing the promise of a fine evening and night. Once more they all went out onto the wet timbers, watching the wooded banks of the mighty river drifting by.

 

"Some sort of sign there," Mildred said, looking ahead and to the north bank.

 

"Who's got the best sight?" Ryan shaded his eye, seeing the black lettering on a white board but unable to make out what it said.

 

"Not I," Doc replied. "I can see a blob of white that could be this sign you speak of. But I fear that I can see no detail upon it."

 

Krysty was concentrating on it. "Something Landing," she said hesitantly.

 

"Shiloh?" the Armorer suggested eagerly, working the makeshift sweep oar to bring them closer to the right bank of the river.

 

"No. Begins with a letter P , I think. Yeah." The sun lanced through from behind a low bank of cloud, illuminating the sign more clearly. "Pittsburg," she said. "Pittsburg Landing. And it says to alight here for the Shiloh battlefield experience and tour. Spelling's kind of rough. This is the place."

 

 

 

A SMALL COLLECTION of ragged tar-paper shotgun shacks lined a narrow trail that ran westward from the banks of the river.

 

Rat-eyed, dirt-poor men and women came out of shadowy doorways to peer suspiciously at the outlanders, some of them making no effort to hide crude cap-and-ball pistols, or shouldering smoothbore muskets.

 

Ryan had called out, asking if it was all right to moor the raft at the primitive landing stage, but at first nobody would give him a reply. Then a large woman wearing a dress torn across her pendulous breasts, smoking a corncob pipe, came swaggering out of a building that called itself The Stor.

 

"Moorings cost good jack, outlander. You want free, then go back a spell up Snake Creek. Or farther down the Tenner you'll find an inlet called Dill's Branch. Mile or so downstream's Lick Creek. Free there."

 

"How much to moor here?"

 

She sniffed, wiping her running nose on her sleeve, leaving a slimy trail like a snail. "Depends on what you got. You want it looked after safe?"

 

Ryan's patience was never all that high, and he had never responded well to threats.

 

"We got enough blasters and plas-ex to blow every building in this ragged shit hole to the other side of Memphis," he snapped. "And to chill anyone tries to make out they can threaten us with their cheap trade blasters."

 

"Whoa back there, buck," she said, holding her hands out, palms spread. "No need to get your balls in a twist, mister. Just tryin' to be friendly."

 

"So, we can tie up here for the night free? That what you're telling me?"

 

"I guess so. Sure, I guess so. You come for the tour of the battleground?"

 

"Mebbe."

 

"Then you'll likely want Judas Portillo. Kin of mine, young Judas is."

 

"Heard word of him on the river. Couple called Jericho and Daniel. Said that Portillo owed him for a faucet. Put in his new shack."

 

The woman slapped her thigh, beating out a cloud of dust and fleas. "Damned old goats! Reckon if there's any owin' then the foot's in the other boot."

 

Ryan nodded. "Thanks for your kindness, lady. Your store carry food?"

 

"Trade it for a handful of them bullets you got for those pretty blasters."

 

"If the food's any good, you got a deal."

 

"And I'll send word along to Judas to come see you all while you eat?"

 

Ryan shook his head. "No. Been a long time traveling downriver. We'll take some supper and then sleep some. See Portillo at breakfast."

 

She nodded. "I'm Ma Jode."

 

"Still trampling out the grapes of wrath?" Doc asked, beaming broadly at the puzzled woman.

 

"You a few buckets short of a full flood, mister?"

 

"Just a small jest, ma'am."

 

"Very fuckin' small."

 

"That's what they all say," Mildred said with a grin.

 

Ryan turned away from the settlement. "We'll tie up safe and snug and come along for some eats."

 

Ma Jode pinched her nose between her fingers and blew a spray of yellowish snot into the dust by her broken-down boots. "Be welcome," she said.

 

Krysty looked at Ryan. "Can't wait, lover. Just can't wait."