Chapter Seventeen: Safe Passage — Part 5

The problem with Stupid, Joe thinks to himself as he looks in his rear view mirror, is that Stupid is too damn self impressed to realize its limitations.

Of course he’s thinking of Dominic when he puts these words in his mind. Dominic, is barreling up on them at ninety miles an hour, his headlights flashing as he bumps down the road, thinking he has the edge. He thinks he’s chasing children who have run away from home, even after the display back at the Glenn, which should have taught him that even the youngest, most ideal of the pack can best him and those working for him under the worst of conditions. Joe smiles when he considers his own limitations. His biggest concern is that the Major might only want to take the children alive.

“Blake, sunrise is coming, how close are they now?” Joe asks.

Blake whistles out a quick series of notes from his lips, which translates from nautical terms to about half a mile and gaining.

“Good. We’re going to pick up the pace. There’s a morning fog building.” Joe says.

He flashes his lights, and the signal works all the way up to Jynx, who bursts the speed up to 65. Soon Joe is moving faster, and Blake looks tense as Major Dominic and his crew put on the speed, hypnotized by the hunt. The gray of morning and the patches of fog can’t hide the Major and his caravan gaining on them, and Joe gears down in a way that causes a sudden burst of black smoke to pop from his exhaust pipe. The Major reads this as possible engine trouble, and brings his van in even closer. As they approach within fifty yards, the plan, obviously, will be to push past the caravan on the side of the road and force Jynx to a stop.

Once the Major’s van is within fifty feet of the back of the truck, right when he decides to try to pass at high speed to the right, Blake grabs a black canvas tarp laying at the back of the truck and pulls the bottom fold, sending thousands of caltrops bouncing out onto the road. The Major sees the flicker too late, and he’s in a partial turn when dozens of prongs hit his tires, tearing them to shreds. The steel of the hub catches against the rock of the road and the van flips repeatedly, rolling off the road against the trees. In moments the chase is over, because the rest of the vans are incapacitated, their tires utterly destroyed.

Jynx doesn’t have to look in the rear view mirror to know that Joe is signaling for her to stop. They’ve won, and quickly, and now, she thinks, is as good a time to gloat as any. When the signal to stop does come, she gets down from the seat, sore, but satisfied, and now more visibly armed, gets ready to walk back to help Joe finish his plan.

“Kevin, ChoCho, stay here and guard The Girl. We’ll be back in a minute.” Jynx says, taking Daria’s hand and helping her from the truck.

Kevin and ChoCho do their best to put on their most vigilant looks, and Kevin makes a salute that ends with his right hand flattened out, palm to the ground, against his right shoulder. Jynx turns away from them so she can smile. The walk to the back of the caravan is a long one, and though she has Daria at her side, she’s starting to feel nervous about being so far away from The Girl, even if it is a little irrational, considering the virtual impossibility of ambush.

When she comes up on the Major’s van, twisted, crunched, and upside down, thrown up against a tree, the smile vanishes. Jon and Teri are cutting the Major loose from the seatbelt, working hard to get him to the ground while Joe and Blake make sure that none of the surviving vans will have any hope of being quickly repaired. The Scavengers, rather than test the mood of two wiry men with long, thick, frighteningly sharp bastard swords, are all clustered in one place, glowering in rage.

Jynx walks the pace of the vans, looking for injured, finding only food and piles of handcuffs and leg shackles in one van, and fuel in the other two. The shackles force her to suppress her more violent urges, causing her to scowl, while the fuel makes her smile. To men who see her go through both transformations, it is hard to say which is more horrific. A couple of them take a step back from her, even as she opens the door and, with Daria helping, begins acquiring their fuel, pulling aside the food and piling it up.

Joe surveys the scene. Blake has walked about ten minutes back down the road, leaving them with a crossbow for hunting, and the keys for the shackles. Binding them is a three-person process, Daria guarding the men while Blake puts on steel, and Joe makes a point of looking vicious. In the distance Opus is standing next to Arpie. Opus isn’t looking at anything in particular, but Arpie is staring at Major Dominic with the kind of focus that hints at a fury swirling within. The same kind of rage is building in Joe. The thought that the Major would consider using chains to restrain children during their transport back to the Glenn causes his blood to boil, but since ChoCho has established the rules of engagement, and nobody has been hurt, at least in the immediacy, Joe’s feeling pretty darn compassionate. At least for a pirate who’s been land-locked for so many years.

“Major Dominic?” Joe says politely, once Teri confirms that the man is only mildly injured, and can be safely bound.

The Major is sitting on the ground, his back against the bumper of a van whose tires and radiator are trashed. His glare is one of pure contempt mixed with the kind of pain that comes from being slammed around the inside of a rolling vehicle. He’s not bleeding from anywhere, but his face looks a little bruised. Joe is actually surprised he’s alive, considering the damage done to his van. Joe doesn’t say anything immediately, but waits to give the Major a chance to come out of his mental shell. Joe’s daring, brash smile is obviously lacking in enough sincerity to foster any kind of courtesy. The Major stays quiet.

Joe starts talking when it becomes apparent that the Major isn’t going to respond, no matter how much sardonic flavor Joe adds to his words. “I know you and yours are probably pissed because we ran our swords through your radiators and tore gaping holes in your tires. I know it was cruel of us — in your eyes, at any rate — to take all your reserve fuel, including the gas in your tanks, and leave you to walk the seventy plus miles home. But really, I’m a nice guy. You’re alive, in good shape, relatively speaking. You’ve got strong legs, and in about five days, you and yours should be back with those who love you. The alternative, of course, would have been Blake and me making short work of you and yours, tossing your bodies in the woods, and leaving you as fodder for flies.

“See those sweet little puds you were chasing because you thought you could bend them to the serving class of the world you’re trying to build? The short ones in the vans over there? Yeah, I know what you’re about, and I know why you wanted them, what with your military bearing and your training on Utopian ideals. But they aren’t yours anymore. I have them under my care, and they will know freedom, and they will not know you. I’m going to be real nice this time, but if you come gunning for us again, I will cut you down. You will die. There will be no mercy. That is my promise to you.”

The Major doesn’t say anything, he just stares off in the distance. He knows he’s beaten, he knows Joe is serious. His silence is testament enough.

Joe’s smile gets bigger. “Major, we were kind enough to leave enough of the water and food you and yours brought with you to get you home. Up the road, you’re going to find a crossbow and some bolts for hunting or protection, and some keys, if Blake made the choice to be kind, to get you out of your irons. Be safe, okay?”

By the time Jynx and Daria have finished their packing, by the time Joe has finished securing the food in the back of the cargo truck, Blake has returned from his walk up the road, and it is time to leave. Joe signals to Jynx, who is far ahead at The Girl, securing the gasoline containers into the back of her truck. None of them are diesel, but they’ll reduce scavenging for the vans, at least. The signal means it’s time to head out. They leave the Scavengers and the Major to walk back home, knowing that there will not be a problem arising from the direction of the Glenn again.

Jynx revs up her engine, starts driving away, the vans and cargo truck following behind, leaving the Major and his crew to walk awkwardly in the opposite direction. The scavengers are quiet, at least until TJ talks.

“They fucked us.” TJ says quietly.

“They could have killed us.” Major Dominic says, wondering why they didn’t.

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