Bonner was on the road. He told himself he was searching, looking for the reason that Leatherman had chosen that moment to send a Radlep gunning for him. On the face of things, at the obvious level, he already knew the answer: Leatherman wanted him dead. He wanted Bonner dead more than he wanted all the power and all that power had to offer him. And Bonner knew why Leather wanted him out of the way. It was simple. Bonner had to die because Leatherman, the President of the Slavestates, the man who brought more misery down on the continent than anyone else; the man who killed for the pleasure of killing; the man who ordered those under him to rape and kill and steal and enslave; Leatherman, the most feared ruler the continent had ever known, had a conscience. Bonner was his conscience.

Bonner and Leatherman had been friends once. Best friends. Together they had ridden all over the continent. They had been the first Outriders. They had worked together to bring the shattered USA-back then it had almost been the USA—back together again. 

But Leather had heard the siren call of wealth, of power, the black strain that lurks within all men had taken root in his heart; the blood of every innocent man, woman, and child he had killed had enriched the evil in him, until it choked his heart and took over his soul. But there was a comer of his being that knew that what he did was wrong. He paid it little heed, he tried to ignore it—but try as he may, he always knew it was there. Bonner reminded him. As long as Bonner lived his knowledge that he was doing wrong lived. It ached in him like a man in pain or in love, like hunger to the famished. It was an unslakable thirst.

Bonner was the same—only different. He killed, he fought, his capacity for mercy was like an unexer-cised muscle. It was there but unused. He killed for vengeance, yes, he fought for the glory and hate of it. But more than that he did battle not for riches but for the ease it gave him, for the sense that he was fighting for righteousness. Where Leatherman thirsted for power, Bonner thirsted, hungered for good, for an end to evil. While Bonner lived Leatherman knew that he was doing wrong.

Together they could have ruled the continent. The whole big C. Bonner could have converted to Leather man's black faith, but he wouldn't; Leatherman could have followed the path followed by the Outrider, the ideals he had taken from the old world to give to the new, but he couldn't.

One had to kill the other. It was that simple. Bonner had tried to kill Leather. Leather had sent many dumb minions to kill Bonner. They failed. Their mutual loathing was something that Bonner had long since learned to live with—he could live with it because he knew one day the time would come;

eventually he would slay Leather. He had promised too many good people—good people now dead—that he would do it. He remembered Starling's last words to him: "Bonner? Get Leather for me. One day, okay? You get him ..."

And Bonner was as determined to get Leather and pay the debts he owed to his friends, to quiet the ghosts. Just as Leather wanted to get Bonner and silence his conscience once and for all.

But why now. Why send a Radlep after him now?

As Bonner drove over the ruined roads he wondered on this question. Leather probably had trouble sleeping nights . . .

He swung his road slayer south from Chicago, not really sure where he was going or how he was going to get there. A couple of times he fought the impulse to turn due east and head for the Cap, but he knew that was foolishness. He had made a raid on Washington once—he had emerged with his skin, a lot of men dead, a hateful memory of killing the only woman he ever really loved, and a bigger reputation for courage, for fearlessness, for daring. He didn't need any more martyrs. He didn't need more for his reputation. He needed to see Leather's blood shed. One day he would see it, he would inflict the wounds, he would kill evil. One day Leather would come to him.

The Mean Brothers sat up straight in the back of the thundering iron horse, content merely to go where Bonner the Outrider took them.

Bonner didn't know about the grand meeting of the three leaders, he didn't know that soon Leatherman would be coming to him. He didn't know that Leatherman had declared that during the conference in the old shoe store in Akron there was a fifty-mile "exclusionary zone" thrown around the ancient city. Bonner was ten miles into the red zone before he knew that there was trouble to be found on the road ahead of him.

He paused on an overpass and looked down the highway that stretched out ahead of him. The road below was the usual rusty reef of junked automobiles and garbage. Outside of the Slavestates, where Leather had cleared most of the main thoroughfares for easy movement of his troops, you more or less had to expect that the highways would be full of crapped-out hulks that had been abandoned in place by their old owners back when they were trying to escape the Bomb.

Riders had carved their own narrow gullies in the rusty canyons. It was along one of these allies that Bonner watched a lone bike zoom, chased by a half dozen Stormers, also mounted on bikes.

The Outrider pulled over and watched for a second. The rider—it was no one Bonner recognized— was a half mile ahead of his pursuers and making good time in his escape. Bonner had to admire the man's guts. He could have escaped but instead he pulled up sharp and stopped.

It was what he did next that fascinated Bonner. The mysterious rider stopped, hopped off his bike, knelt in the road, and aimed a bow down the metal avenue that his would-be killers followed. The man pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back, fitted it into the bowstring, and adjusted his aim.

Quite clearly, Bonner could see the steel-hard muscles in the rider's arms flex as he pulled the arrow back in the sling. He waited a second longer to allow the Stormers to draw a touch closer and then let the projectile fly.

There was less than a second of relative calm, the time that the arrow took to travel the yards between its strong launcher and its living targets. Once it hit them all hell broke loose.

The arrow hit the lead rider and in an instant turned him into a shimmering, blood-red mass of slop. The arrow exploded on impact, igniting the fuel in the tank of the bike that the rider had been pounding along on. The men behind their leader slammed on all the anchors that their dilapidated machines possessed. The archer sent another couple of arrows down the alley and managed to pull another Stormer from this life. The other arrows snatched great chunks out of metal hulks and threw the rusty steel fragments around the confined space. Murderous shrapnel.

It was, for Bonner, like watching the past come to life. All his violent life he had known only one man who fought with that weapon. But that man was dead. Bonner had seen him die, had promised him that he would get Leather. Starling.

Perched up there on the overpass Bonner felt as if he was watching Starling's ghost suddenly come to life, fighting his old enemies in the old manner.

The Stormers were disciplined. They weren't spooked by the vicious attack that the archer had launched so unexpectedly. They fell off their bikes and dived for cover in between the corroded bodies of the old, abandoned automobiles.

Bonner knew what would happen next. The Stormers would come down both sides of the line of wrecks. The archer could take care of either side without a problem but he couldn't defend against both at the same time. The Stormers would take casualties, but they would win. And winning was everything.

The archer seemed to know that he was in trouble on two fronts. He jumped onto his bike and kicked the omery machine. The engine coughed and died. Desperate now, he kicked it again. But it seemed like the motor was a traitor, secretly in the pay of the stalking Stormers.

The lead-hard guy reared up from behind a Dodge Dart, a fistful of handgun held out in front of him.

He seemed to take aim squarely at the rider's exposed back.

Bonner's fifty-cal death dealer cut him in half.

The rider didn't bother to look to see where his savior had suddenly sprung from. He slipped off his bike and cocked his terrifying bow. A silver bolt flew across the morning and blew a Stormer to pieces. His fellows retreated in a shower of their leader's warm blood.

Bonner stood behind the rocking fifty-caliber machine gun mounted on the rollbar of his automobile, a Mean Brother at his side feeding the heavy ammo into the chamber. The other Mean Brother leaned against the parapet of the bridge admiring the bloody view.

Bonner swept his gun this way and that, directing the heating barrel like a broom. He swept down one side of the alley, chopping Stormers into meaty hunks, then he turned it on the other side of the trench, cleaning up there. The archer, his bow in his hand, just stood and watched as his enemies fell before a tornado of hot steel.

The fire was withering. It lasted less than a minute.

As the last of the forward party fell, slipping slightly in the pool of his own blood, the archer turned and looked up at the overpass and spoke:

"Mister Bonner, right?"

Bonner ignored him. He was still poised behind the fifty cal, peering down the barrel. As the kid spoke, Bonner fired. A hundred yards behind the bow-and-arrow man, a Stormer dropped.

Bonner pushed the smoking gun away. "Two things, kid," he said sternly, "if you get a chance to count the guys behind you, keep the count. And remember, Stormers almost—I say almost—always leave a man or two behind for cover or follow-up. The firefight isn't over until you got them all. I'm surprised Starling never told you that."

"If it ain't over till you got 'em all. Mister Bonner, then you got a helluva lot more fighting to do. Down the road a ways you'll find yourself plenty of Stormers, Snowmen, 'leps, Devils—take your pick. And I never knew my daddy too well. He didn't get too much of a chance to pass on the benefits of his knowledge."

"Daddy?" said Bonner.

The kid climbed up to the overpass. Bonner watched him come towards him. The kid was tall like Starling, thin like Starling, burnt brown by the sun like Starling. Starling, Bonner's old buddy . . . Bonner smiled as he heard Starling's drawl volunteer to make the run into Leatherman's capital: "You know me, Bonner, I'll do anything to be liked . . ."

"Never knew Starling had a son."

"That's funny, I always knew he had a friend named Bonner." The young man grinned and shook Bonner's outstretched hand.

"So where did you spring from?"

"My dad met my ma up in the Northeast Kingdom. You know, Vermont. She didn't see him much. I never knew him. But she knew him well enough to let me know what kind of man he was. She knew who his friends were, too. I know other guys that know you, too."

"Yeah," said Bonner, "who might that be?"

"You know a tough Northman. Name of Jean-Baptiste? He's one of the Habs."

Bonner smiled. Yeah, he knew J-B. He was the leader of some very tough guys who lived up in the Canadian territories. They were poor, but they were free. "I know J-B. He and your father and me used to ride together."

"So he said. He said you used to hunt Stormers, Snowmen, Devils . . ."

"We didn't go looking for them, but we didn't run away from them either."

"That so?"

"That's right."

"That's a shame."

"How come?"

" 'Cause if you were in the market for all three I just happen to know where you can find all three:

Stormers, Snowmen, and Devils."

"Where?"

"Down the road a piece. Got 'em all mixed up together."

"Fighting?"

The kid shook his head and laughed. "Nope. They're all sitting around like they was best friends. 'And the lion shall lie down with the lamb,' know what I mean?"

"That's where you're different from your father."

"How?" The kid slid his hands into the back pockets of his pants.

"He never had much in the way of religion."

The kid laughed. "He didn't spend a lotta years with the Habs."

"No, I guess not. So what's this about, down the road . . ."

"I saw a big gathering of all three versions of the assholes down outside of Akron."

Bonner thought for a minute. "Care to show me where?"

"You asking me to ride with you?"

"Yeah, I guess I am."

"J-B always said that a man should be honored to ride with Bonner."

Bonner smiled. "I hope you know what kind of favor I'm doing you."

"I do," said the kid earnestly.

"If we're gonna be riding together," said Bonner, "you better meet the Mean Brothers. Meanies, I want you to meet—what do they call you?"

"Starling," said Starling's kid. "Starling's good enough for me."

They took the road south for Akron. Bonner felt good. It was nice to know that Starling had left a piece of himself in this world before he checked out. Starling had died, burned to death in a fireball. That was on a raid with Bonner. The Outrider felt good with Starling's son riding next to him.

When they got to Akron they found nothing there but some empty wine bottles and some stains on the concrete of the mall parking lot where oil had dripped from the crankcases of a hundred vehicles.

But Starling, the new Starling, told him what he had seen.

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