Bonner was silent as he negotiated his big vehicle down the steep twisted road that led down the hill from Almost Normal. Every second took him further from that black place but the spirit of hell and horror he had found there seemed to follow him, to suffocate him like a poison smoke. It would be a very long time before the hateful image of that dead place ceased to torment him. Revenge would go a long way towards soothing him but even then it would not be enough. The Mean Brothers could sense Bonner's seething anger, his torturing pain.

They were relieved when Bonner spoke. "You see the tracks?" He slowed down slightly and pointed at the dirt road rushing under them. "See them?"

The Mean Brothers nodded.

"Stormers or Devils . . . We won't know until we see if they cut north or south. North means we are following Stormers. South, Devils."

The Mean Brothers nodded again.

"We're going to follow them. Devils, Stormers, it doesn't matter ..."

The Mean Brothers shook their huge heads again. Nope. As far as they were concerned it didn't matter. An enemy was an enemy. They only ceased being an enemy when the Mean Brothers had dealt with them in their own way.

"And when we find them, we are going to kill them," said Bonner. A few seconds of silence followed and then he added: "All of them ..."

The Means nodded and grinned again. They were always up for a fight.

They wound down the mountain, the Mean Brothers following the tracks very closely. Bonner studied them too, trying to learn from them. He wished Beck was there. Beck was a giant smuggler who could follow a man over water if he put his mind to it. Bonner was good, but Beck was better.

Bonner stared at the snaky gray marks in the gray dust of the rocky road. Where other men would have only seen a tangle of confused tire tracks Bonner saw a whole story. There were at least six trucks, their heavy treads easily recognizable to the trained eye, and there were at least two dozen motorcycles. A big force, certainly one large enough to take a peaceful town.

Bonner stared down at the tracks. He drove with both hands on the wheel but he kept his head crooked over the minimal bodywork of his car watching the road surface. At the end of those tracks, somewhere up ahead, maybe ten miles, maybe a hundred, his enemy was waiting for the destiny that The Outrider was meant to bring him.

A Mean Brother tapped Bonner on the shoulder. Bonner looked up. A few yards ahead of him, looming large in the failing light, lay a pile of logs. It blocked the road completely. Bonner could feel the Mean Brothers tense as if the matted hair on their huge bodies raised itself like the fur on a dog.

Ambush. Bonner reacted, channeling his unfailing animal sense of action perfectly. The car slammed' into reverse sped back a few yards then, from out of the gloom behind him a fat log swung out of the trees that overhung the road.

The heavy shaft of wood clanged into Bonner's fuel tank and was stopped dead by the tough pipe rollbar. The log swung back as if it was a giant pendulum, then the vines that suspended it broke and fell athwart the road behind him. To reverse over it Bonner had to push his car a few feet forward to give himself some running room. As he hit reverse again a shotgun blast rocketed out of the gloom and tore up the light canvas fender that protected the right front tire.

The gunman had made a mistake. He had fired both barrels at once and he had missed. Bonner heard it and so did the Mean Brothers. It was a simple error but one that inevitably spelt death on the road. The Means were over the side of the car, dashing for the light of the muzzle flash that still seemed to hang in the air. Unless the shooter had a back-up piece of artillery or could reload as fast as Bonner himself, the Mean Brothers had him.

"Alive!" ordered Bonner. He picked up his lethal, sharp-snouted automatic machine gun, the Steyr AUG. It could pepper lead into the area as fast as it took to sneeze.

In the darkness Bonner could hear the crack of. a gun barrel as it was smashed hard on the rocks by the side of the road. That was a Mean Brother neutralizing a threat. This sound was followed by a heavy smack, an open handed blow to a jaw. Then there came a tiny, girlish sob.

Bonner hit the light on his wagon. The white beam shot out and caught two very puzzled-looking Mean Brothers. Each held a child by the scruff of the neck. A boy and a girl. Bonner's heart gave a little leap. Dangling a full foot above the dirt road were Bobby and Emily, Charlie and Martha's kids. Emily was choking back tears and her white jaw glowed red where the Mean had belted her. Bobby stared defiantly into the white light.

Before Bonner could speak, Bobby's hand dived into the pocket of his worn homespuns and pulled out a knife. Wriggling in the Mean Brother's firm grasp, he tried to jam into his captor's chest. The Mean Brother's unoccupied hand swept up, grabbed Bobby's wrist as if his huge hand was a handcuff. The Mean Brother squeezed, but not nearly as hard as he could have. The kid cried out and let the knife fall.

The Mean caught it before it hit the ground, stuck the blade into his mouth, clenched his teeth over the steel like a pirate, and then bent it into a neat U with his free hand. He flung the knife into the darkness and shook Bobby like a pissed-off mother: Behave, he was saying. Stop trying to kill me.

"Put 'em down. Means." commanded Bonner. The Mean Brothers carefully put their captives on the ground. They could tell by Bonner's tone of voice that he was inclined to be friendly to the kids.

Bobby and Emily drew together, tense. Bobby looked into the light then around at the Mean Brothers, as if pondering the chance of running for it.

Bonner stepped out of the light, walking towards them.

"Bobby?" he said softly, "Emily? Do you remember me?"

Bobby's blue eyes grew wide. "Mr. Bonner?" he said as if he could hardly believe it.

"That's right," said Bonner. No sooner had the words left his lips than Bonner found his strong arms full of two sobbing kids.

The Mean Brothers smiled, pleased at their boss' sudden embarrassment. One Mean leaned against the other and they both smiled as if to say: That's so nice . . . . Emily had squirmed into his arms and clung tight to his neck. He could feel her hot little tears wetting the side of his face. Bobby grasped the Outrider's callused hand as if he could never let go.

Bonner had no experience of children and he groped for the words, something to say that might reassure them that they were safe with him. He could think of nothing save to murmur over and over again: "Okay, it's okay ..." But they hardly heard him. Just being there was enough for them. They wanted nothing more than a friendly face and an adult to give some sort of order to their lives. Bonner was the best they could have hoped for. A friend. A friend with a gun and a knowledge of the world to protect them.

Slowly Bonner uncoiled their desperate embraces and as he did so he motioned to the Means to build a fire. The kids were shivering in shock and fear—two people never looked so helpless, and for a second Bonner marveled that they had been able to survive for as long as they had.

Then Bonner remembered the artfully set ambush and the sudden and almost deadly accurate fire from the early evening gloom. The Outrider smiled to himself. What would Dorca or Beck or poor old dead Starling say if they knew that the great Bonner had almost got sliced by a fifteen-year-old kid who probably had a bruise the size of a pie pan on his shoulder where the old smooth bore had kicked back.

The Mean Brothers kicked together a fire in no time and the five of them gathered around it. Bonner had saved a few pieces of meat from the haul and he had a can of pre-bomb string beans someplace and the Mean Brothers set about preparing a meal. They worked with as much care as their massive hands could bring to the task. The steaks were as tough as old shoes now but the smell of them roasting over the fire caught in the kids' noses and they eyed the spitting hunks hungrily.

As the Mean Brothers worked they shot quick, curious glances at Bobby and Emily. Kids were rare in the new world and the Mean Brothers looked at them as if unable to make up their minds if the two teenagers were in fact children or some sort of adult arrested at some strange point in their development.

Bobby and Emily looked unabashedly at the Mean Brothers. If kids were rare, specimens like the Mean Brothers were rarer.

Bobby was blond and square-faced, tall for his age, which Bonner estimated to be somewhere around fifteen. He had the look of a kid who had known hard work from an early age. Martha and Charlie had taught their children well. They were polite, dutiful, and loving, qualities you didn't see much of these days, Bonner reflected.

Emily had dark hair and blue eyes and there was a firm cast to her chin that spoke of a tendency to defiance. Bonner could see in her fragile features the promise of radiant beauty in her future. If she had a future. If anyone had . . .

Gradually, slowly, as if not to alarm them, Bonner drew the details of the raid on Almost Normal out of them. They spoke hesitantly and if they were afraid fo stirring up a distant but dreadful nightmare.

Bobby did most of the talking with Emily adding pieces of information as she recalled them.

"It was almost night," said Bobby, rubbing some of the beef grease from his chin. "The men were on their way back from the fields. ..."

"When," asked Bonner, "when was this?"

Emily and Bobby looked at him blankly.

"How long ago? How many nights have you been out here? How long have you been alone?"

"Five nights," said Emily firmly.

Five nights in the wild, thought Bonner. These kids were a lot stronger than they looked. Of course, they came from hardy, self-reliant stock. Five nights . . . That was bad news for Bonner, though. That meant that the marauders had a hell of a lead on them. If they were Stormers they were probably deep in the Slavestates now. Probably, they were approaching The Cap, the ruined white marble city-cMw-tomb from which Leatherman ruled his domain.

"We heard their engines," said Bobby. "Everyone stopped where they were and listened. I think ... I think some of the men, like Dad, they knew there was trouble coming. ..."

"Some of them went and got their guns," put in Emily.

Their guns, thought Bonner. A few old hunting weapons nothing that would hold up a determined band of raiders for more than a few seconds. Even if every man in Almost Normal had been armed some Stormers of silk-Devils would have cut them up in no time flat.

"Where were you?" asked Bonner.

"I was digging the yard," said Bobby. "Emily was with Mama in the kitchen."

"They came straight into town. The noise ..." Emily searched for the words. "... the noise, it filled everything. It was everywhere. ..."

"One of them, a leader, I guess, went up to Ralph Woods. I saw him. He just went up to him and Just shot him. While he was standing there. Just shot him, for no reason ..." Bobby's voice strained and cracked but he kept his tears in check. Bonner figured that the death of Ralph Woods was the first time that young Bobby had ever witnessed an act of wanton cruelty. It would not be the last.

"Some shouted 'Round them up' " said Emily, looking over to her brother as if expecting him to confirm her words.

"How many," Bonner asked. "How many men were there?"

"I dunno," said Bobby, "a lot."

"Emily?"

"Yes. A lot. I don't know exactly how many."

"Were they dressed in any special way? You know, a uniform or something like that?"

"Orange shirts," said Bobby firmly.

"Devils," said Bonner to the Mean Brothers. They shrugged. The brand of their victims was of little interest to them. Just so long as they found them and killed them the Mean Brothers were happy.

The whole story spun out slowly. The kids would start then stop when the details of the story became too much for them to bear.

In the confusion they had become separated from their mother and father. Bobby had hid in the crawlspace under their modest house. Emily had hid under the stairs. The Devils had searched every house before torching them but they were in a hurry and it was the people of Almost Normal they wanted, not their meager possessions. Both children had fled from the commotion away from the gangs of men in the main street. They had hidden in the woods—the Devils hadn't bothered with a perimeter guard—and they spent the night listening to the screams and watching as the black night sky turned orange as the flames consumed their village. Gradually the screams died away and the sky turned pink with the glow of the dawn. 

"When it was light, we went back." Bonner thought of the horror of the dozens of people hanging from the tree. "You went back? Why?"

"To find Momma and Poppa," said Emily matter of factly.

"And did you?"

"No. They were gone." Bobby's voice was flat and dull and sounded in those moments like that of a very old man.

Bonner was relieved. None of the bodies in the tree were those of his friends. He realized now who those poor dead people were. They were the few old men and women of Almost Normal, some of the few people on the continent to make it to old age. They were honored and taken care of by the younger inhabitants of the hamlet, paid homage for their age and wisdom. But to Devil slavers they were just human garbage. The men were too weak to work. The women were too old to bear children. Hang them, they figured and let the living know that the Devils meant business.

"Where did you get the gun?"

"Found it."

"Who put up the trap. The roadblock?"

"We both did," said Bobby.

"Why?"

"Because they might come back," said Emily matter of factly.

"And we wanted to ready for them next time," said Bobby simply.

Bonner looked sadly at Bobby. He had already ceased to be a young kid The horrors of the last few days had compressed a lifetime of experience into a few days. He had cried when Bonner found them but those would probably be the last tears he would ever cry. Bobby had left his childhood behind in a ruined village. Now he was started on the road to becoming a man. And a killer.

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