Bonner and the Sisters heard the blast six miles off. They felt ground tremble under the wheels of their machines and saw the plume of smoke rising into the sky.

"What the hell was that?" screamed Clara. Bonner had slowed down and, for one terrible second, wondered if this was one of the nuclear blasts he had encountered in his reading. It if was, then any second now a shock wave of radiation should have been washing over them. But nothing came.

"Helluva bang," observed Belle. Bonner nodded. There were missiles scattered all over this country. It seemed that one of them had gone off.

"Glad we weren't near it," said Clara. Bonner nodded. "I'm with you . . ." 

Missiles. It seemed that these were things that flew through the air bringing death to whatever they happened to hit. The notion of flight was quite strange to Bonner. Occasionally, he noticed a bird or two— vulture more often or not—and wondered how man had managed to build the machines that could actually travel through the air. Every so often he came upon pictures of the great spread-wing objects that the old men had constructed. He had even seen the rusting hulks of these things here and there around the country. Flying . . . that was just plain crazy.

What a time that must have been, he thought.

Bonner and the Sisters knew enough to rest when the sun got high. They pulled over to the side of the road and all of them hunkered down in the shade of their vehicles. The Mean Brothers wandered around in the sun for a few minutes and then they too flopped down for a snooze.

Before she dropped off, Clara had a couple of questions. "So when's the next oasis?"

"City of Glass."

"When do we get there?"

"Tonight maybe . . ."

"Why do they call it the City of Glass? I mean, it couldn't be made outta glass, could it?"

"Wait and see," said Bonner.

"You know Bonner; sometimes . . ."

Except for the buzzing of some insects, quiet fell over the camp. A single Mean Brother remained awake and watching . . .

The few remaining riders in Roy's outfit all felt glad to be alive, not to say lucky. Had the bomb blast, non-nuclear though it was, been on the surface of the ground instead of some two hundred feet under it, would have wiped them all out. They had as yet to connect the nose cone of the missile with the blast and probably never would. The constant and bloody attack that Bonner had kept up against them made them come to a single understandable conclusion.

There were only ten of them left now, hardly enough to do anything about the final destruction they were sure they would endure eventually.

Roy knew that the Rich Man was not going to be pleased. He had been sent to get mercenaries. Assuming he could get the nine remaining over the big mountains alive his record was going to look pretty bad. True, he had the destruction of the Snowman supply column to his credit and that must count for something ... but nine men out of sixty-six . . . that was pathetic, not to mention expensive.

Roy was mad, too. He wanted to get Bonner. He wanted to cut him in two, tear him apart for making him look bad. His mind wandered back to the plan that he had thought up that morning before they had all almost been blown to Kingdom Come.

It might work, he thought, as he muscled his bike back into the main road. He glanced over his shoulder at his handful of riders. Would they go for it? They would have to, he decided. They really didn't have much of an alternative.

Buildings were beginning to appear by the roadside. Few and far between at the beginning, the riders found that there were more and more as they drew near the City of Glass. There were blown-out gas stations with their old signs still swinging off rusty poles: EXXON, MOBIL, BP . . . There were a few of those weird buildings with the golden arches. And motels: THE LUCKY STRIKE, THE ACES HIGH, SEVENTY-SEVEN, THE BLACKJACK.

One sign had never made sense to Roy. It was on a giant billboard at the very threshold of the City of Glass. KENO CRAPS SLOTS AT THE NUGGET ... It seemed to be some kind of giant board of insult aimed at some guy named Keno. Someone wanted to tell the world that when this guy Keno got to a place called the Nugget he "crapped slots." Just what the hell a slot was, Roy figured he would never know . . .

WELCOME TO RENO, said the sign. But nobody who ever traveled that lonely road called it that. The main street of the city was lined with weird-looking buildings, all of which were faced with thin tubes of glass. In bright sunlight you could make out a little color in them, but when the sun got low they just looked black.

But they were everywhere. They shot up, tall pillars curved around in strange designs and spelled out

words. HARRAH'S, THE FRONTIER, CAESAR'S RENO . . .

There were giant pictures of men with giant, wide-brimmed hats, bowed legs, and weird pointed boots with spurs. On top of one building there was a single unintelligible sign, forty, maybe fifty feet high. What it meant was lost to time: $.

In fact that sign seemed to be scattered all over the City of Glass. Everywhere you looked there was a notice with that enigmatic symbol on it. CONVENTIONEERS!

STOP HERE AND WIN BIG $$$$$! THE SALOON, YOUR ONE STOP FOR $$$$$$

Roy had been in a lot of strange-rubble cities but none was quite as weird as the City of Glass.

"Hey, Roy," demanded someone, "what does that say?"

One of the riders was pointing a giant billboard that sat on top of a building on the main street.

"It says: 'Mick Jagger Junior and the New Rolling Stones, Harrah's, Sept 20-27.' Happy now?"

"Is that all it says?"

"No. It also says: 'Music the Way You Remember It.' "

"Music," shouted Buggy, "that was the shit those guys did in Dorca's. Jeez, I wish I was in Dorca's now ..."

"Shuttup," ordered Roy.

He pulled his force to a stop in the forecourt of one of the big old hotels. There was a large fountain in front of it and across the street a gas station.

"This is it," said Roy.

"This is what?" demanded Buggy.

"This is the oasis. Gas across the street and we can get some water outta this fountain."

The nine riders looked dubiously at the dried-up fountain.

"You can?"

"You guys . . . everything gotta be done for you. You have to open it up, you know, turn it on." Roy slipped off his bike and dragged a T-shaped piece of iron out from under a junked stretch Cadillac that was parked in front of the main entrance of the hotel.

He jammed the rod in a hole, attached it to some underground fawcet and twisted. There was nothing for a minute, then a burbling-bubbling sound came up from the dusty pipes followed by a burp. A few seconds later water came grumbling up and squirted out of the nipples of a metal mermaid that reclined in the dry fountain bath.

"Hey, neat," said Buggy. He fixed his thick lips over one of the metal teats and sucked. Water dribbled down his dirty face, carving clean white gullies on his grizzled, scarred face.

There were a couple of bronze fishes cavorting alongside the mermaid and, after a moment or two, water started dripping out of their wide-open mouths. An inch or two of water slopped across the bottom of the pool and a couple of the riders frolicked in it happily.

Roy walked across the street and opened the gas tank set in the concrete apron of the service station. The big space beneath him echoed as he dropped a bucket down into it. Soon this route from east to west would be unpassable. This oasis was running out.

'Course, Roy didn't care much. Once this trip was over, he swore he was never going to go east again. It just wasn't worth it. Until the Snowmen had come along the Rich Man hadn't had too much trouble. Being a gun for him was easy. It was just a matter of keeping the slaves in line.

"Hey," he yelled to his men, "come over here and gas up."

The riders were flopping around in the dusty water.

Roy couldn't really blame them—they had had a very tough day.

The sopping wet men backed their vehicles over to the reservoir and worked methodically with the bucket to fill their thirsty steeds. This would be enough gas to carry them over the mountains and into the welcoming, if war-torn, lands of the Rich Man.

"Okay," said Roy, "listen up."

The men gathered round.

"This here is the nearest oasis for anyone traveling the road we just come down. Now I bet Bonner knows that and I'm prepared to bet that he's gonna pull in here before too long for gas 'n water."

"So what are we waiting for," said someone, "let's get the hell out of here . . ."

"No," shouted Roy, "not this time. I say we take him here and now. Get this thing over with."

"Getta loada him," observed Buggy. "Bonner sets off a bomb under our asses this afternoon and suddenly we got a fuckin' hero on our hands."

"Look around you, fer Christ's sake."

The men looked around them. Tall, bombed-out buildings, maybe a little different than usual, but they were still just tall ruins.

"Yeah? So?"

"That building there—" Roy gestured at the hotel that the fountain stood behind, "—that ruin has a clear shot of the fountain and the gas oasis. All we gotta do is get up on that roof and wait for Bonner to pull in here. Tell me that nine guns, hidden up there, couldn't take him if he wasn't expecting it. And once he's gone it's a nice, quiet drive over the mountains to home."

"Your home, maybe . . ."

"Look, he's cutting us down one by one. How long before he gets us all?"

"Whaddya mean one by one, he got about thirty-five of us today ..." observed Buggy.

"You know what I mean . . ."

"Yeah and what if something goes wrong?"

"What could possibly go wrong."

"Like maybe he wins."

"Then you'll be dead."

"Oh. Yeah," said the rider.

"You forget one thing, smart ass," said Buggy.

"Like what?"

"Like it's gonna be dark in not too much more time. How are we gonna see him?"

"Hadn't thought about that, didja?" observed a rider.

Roy hadn't. "Okay, okay, its simple ..." His face brightened suddenly. "I know, we'll bomb him and then we'll start shooting."

"Man is awful fast," said Buggy skeptically.

"Oh now, come on. Someone throws a bottle with gasoline and it lights up. Then the rest of us cut him down. No one is that fast."

"Bonner is," said Buggy.

"We'll see . . ."

They moved their vehicles over to the opposite side of the hotel. The plan was to cut Bonner down, then dash down the stairs and beat it the hell out of town. Buggy wanted to ask what the hurry would be, what with Bonner dead and all . . .

Roy filled a bottle with gasoline, stuffed a gas-soaked rag into the neck, and led his small band into the hotel.

The big reception area was thick with cobwebs. They hung off the gaudy, dead chandelier. Roy clawed his way through the thick gray, sticky nets and pushed open a double door. The room was dark, but they could make out a stage on the far side of the room. The rest of the space was filled with tables and chairs. Lining the walls and standing in an orderly row down the middle of the room were hundreds of steel, square machines with a single arm standing up straight.

"What the hell are these?"

"I donno, but they're all over the place." He pulled on one of the arms and nothing happened. He rocked the lever back and forth. In frustration he knocked it over. It hit the one next to it and that one knocked into the one next to it ... They went down like dominoes, kicking up dust and making a hell of a racket.

"Sorry," he said.

They made their way to a staircase and slowly felt their way up a few floors. When he judged they had gone high enough, Roy motioned for them to follow him. He got off the stairs and wandered down the corridor, his footfalls making little dust clouds rise out of the carpet.

He kicked in a rotten door and walked into the room. He struck his fancy lighter and in the light it threw, he could see that the room had been occupied once. In fact the occupants of the room were still there. A skeleton was handcuffed to the bed, spread-eagled. Another skeleton sprawled on the floor but this one had some vestige of clothing on the bare bones. It was nothing more than a pair of boots that reached up to the skeleton's thighs. Six rat-eaten hundred-dollar bills were clutched in the fleshless hand. A purse stood open on the table. She seemed to have been struck down just as she was putting them in there.

Reno must have been a helluva town, he thought.

Down the corridor he heard the other men smashing windows in their rooms. They all looked down on the fountain. Roy settled down to wait. Bonner was good as dead.

A rider came into the room. "Hey, Roy."

"What?"

"Lemme throw the bomb."

"How come you?"

"Because I can throw better than I can shoot."

"Fuck off."

"Awww c'mon, Roy."

"No. You didn't think of it, why should you get to throw it?"

"I told you."

Roy could make out the rider's face. He was the dumbest of the bunch. They called him Amie the Idiot.

How hard could it be, thought Roy. How could even Arnie fuck it up? "Okay."

"Great," said Amie, grabbing the bottle and heading back to his room.

As he went Roy had a bad feeling about it. Shouldna done that, sung a voice at the back of his mind.

On a night like that, in a town like the one they were in, you eould hear a squad of powerful engines miles and miles away. The sounds of the Sisters' machines and Bonner's own reached them what seemed like hours before the riders actually got close. For a few agonizing minutes it sounded like the riders were going to bypass the City of Glass completely . . .

Then the note of the motors changed and Roy could feel the tension rising in him. He wished now that he hadn't thought of of this stupid scheme, he wished he hadn't given the bomb to Amie to throw. He wished he had never laid a finger on that girl . . .

He peeked out the window and caught a glimpse of a single powerful shaft of light nosing down the street. Jesus! Why hadn't he thought of that! Bonner would have a light on his car. They didn't have to throw no gas bomb, all they had to do was shoot at the light. Did he have time to go down the hall and stop Arnie from throwing it?

Bonner and the Sisters motored down the broken street. He made the turn into the forecourt of the hotel. His light picked up the mermaid fountain. Suddenly, all his instincts kicked in. He killed the light and shouted,

"Sisters! Heads up! We got company."

Bonner had seen the flare of the match in the upper story of the hotel.

Amie had lit the fuse when Roy appeared in the doorway.

"Amie, don't throw it."

But Arnie had already reared back. He looked over his shoulder.

"Huh?" And then he threw it. It smashed against the window frame and the room exploded in a shower of burning gasoline. Roy stepped back into the hall and closed the door. The night rang with Amie's screams ... He climbed into the window, setting the drapes on fire. Then he jumped into the forecourt.

The burning body cast more than enough light for Roy's boys to stick their heads out of the window and start shooting.

But they were too late. The edge had already passed to Bonner and the Sisters. They took a careful bead on the muzzle flashes and fired. The first volley caught four of the sharpshooters. They spun back into the dusty, dirty rooms, three of them shot in the mouth. The fourth with a neat shot from Miss Colt between the eyes.

Buggy didn't wait. He was heading down the the stairs, taking them six at a time. There were a couple of the smarter riders ahead of him. They had realized that the attack had failed when Amie fell out of the window and <hey had taken off.

They hit the lobby level and were about to run out to the front of the hotel when they realized they had parked their cars behind the hotel. That meant they were going to have to find their way through the hotel in the dark.

That was bad enough but they could see by the light of Amie's body, still burning furiously in the parking lot, something that made their blood run cold: the huge silhouette of the Mean Brothers coming through the broken front doors of the hotel . . .

Buggy was scared. He wanted to cry, but he didn't.

He darted through a room full of gaming tables and blundered through a set of double doors. He was in some kind of kitchen. He ran smack into a pile of kitchen equipment that fell with a clatter.

The Mean Brother who was pounding a rider into paste with a slot machine made a mental note of the sound. He would head that way when he was done here ...

His brother had cornered the other rider. He had drawn a knife and was waving it at the man-mountain. The Mean Brother reached out and took it away from him, the way a child takes a ball from a dog.

Then the Mean Brother reached out and grabbed the man by the shirt and lifted him up in the air. He turned the man upside down and stuffed him head first through a roulette table. The rider died in the fire, alone, many hours later.

Buggy hit the ignition on his car and took off down the road. He had gone a mile or two when he realized that there was someone behind him. He felt for the pistol on the seat next to him, although he knew that if it was Bonner or his gang, he was dead.

It was Roy who pulled alongside him.

"Good idea, Roy," yelled Buggy. "Great fuckin' idea."

They bombed down the highway, the night over the City of Glass turning orange as the hotel burned to the ground.

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