More of the audience turned. Worried whispers passed through the crowd like a faint breeze. Crazy Joe sauntered down the aisle.

  “Howdy. Looks like I’m late for the entertainment. I do apologize. What’s this? A spider? Well, spiders can be entertaining too, I guess.”

  Archer rose. “What do you want? This is a decent place here!”

  Crazy Joe cocked his head in surprise. “Decent? Well, ain’t I decent?”

  The k-slinger rose as well. Crazy Joe didn’t even slow down, just looked at her.

  “You don’t want to start blazing in here with all these nice folks and young’uns and all, do you?”

  She paused. She hadn’t even gotten into the Ready position, and she already knew Crazy Joe was faster. And there were half a dozen of his men standing behind her. Through the door, she could see more on the street.

  Archer stepped in the aisle to block his way.

  “Now you listen to me, I—”

  The butt of Crazy Joe’s AK swung up and cracked him on the jaw, dropping Archer like a sack of oats.

  “Daddy!” Cynthia ran off the stage to her father’s side. Crazy Joe scooped her up in one arm.

  “That was easy. Whoa, there, ladies!”

  Two people had reacted instantly. The k-slinger had started to raise her weapon and the teacher had rushed over.

  Crazy Joe kept an eye on them both, but his gun was pointed right at the k-slinger.

  Both women froze.

  “Think you can beat me at the draw?” Crazy Joe asked the k-slinger. “I’m leveled and you still got to level your weapon. I won’t even ask if you can shoot me without hitting the kid, because of course you can, but I’ll plug you before you get the chance.”

  The teacher shook with rage. “You unhand that child this instant!”

  Crazy Joe smiled. “Bitch, don’t even try that schoolmarm shit with me.” He looked down at Archer, who lay moaning at his feet. “You got sense enough to listen?”

  Archer slowly nodded.

  “That’s dandy. Now you just walk on over to your power station, rev up all those purdy machines, and start shoveling tires into them. The lights go back on and they stay on, you hear me?”

  Archer grabbed hold of the nearest chair and hauled himself to his feet. Even though a couple of audience members were within reach, they didn’t help him. Cynthia reached for him but Crazy Joe stepped back. With Archer in the way, there was no chance the k-slinger could risk a shot, and Crazy Joe’s eye had only strayed from her for an instant. She had managed to get her gun up a bit more, though.

  “Don’t try it,” the scavenger next to her whispered. “He’s faster than a rattlesnake.”

  “If I turn on the power, will you give her back?” Archer asked.

  “Naw, we’ll keep her for a while just to make sure you behave yourself. Don’t worry, I won’t hurt a hair on her head. As long as you behave.”

  “You think that’s true?” the k-slinger whispered to the scavenger.

  “You can’t ever tell with that one. He might let her go, he might kill her tomorrow. He might kill us all right now.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I figured.”

  “It will be all right, Cynthia,” Archer told his sobbing daughter. “I’ll be right back.”

  He stumbled out. Crazy Joe nodded at the k-slinger. “You sit down.”

  “I’m not giving you my gun.”

  Crazy Joe grinned. “I wasn’t asking. Wouldn’t want to ruin the fun, would I? Now everyone just sit where you are. I found a spider in the house and I’m going to take it out onto the street. And when Behan comes running, like he will in a couple of minutes, y’all gonna get yourself a new mayor.”

  Crazy Joe walked slowly up the aisle. The k-slinger didn’t dare make a move. He didn’t take his eye off her and there was no way she could stand and bring her gun to bear without getting one between the eyes. As he passed and turned his back, she could see his men watching her every move. They filed out, the last one with a sawed-off shotgun aimed right at her.

  As soon as they were gone, she leaped up and hurried down the aisle as the crowd erupted in excited babble.

  “Useless,” the k-slinger muttered.

  Not entirely. The smelly scavenger and the teacher came right behind her.

  “Either of you got guns?” the k-slinger asked.

  “No.”

  “Then stay back.”

  Neither of them did. That earned her approval, and gave her something else to worry about.

  By the time she made it outside, Crazy Joe and his bunch had made it halfway down the block. Otherwise the street was abandoned. Everyone had fled for shelter instead of trying to help the crying, kidnapped little girl dressed like a spider.

  The men taking up the rear were looking behind them and nudged Crazy Joe when she came out of the school.

  He turned. They were at eighty meters, a tricky range for a snapshot. She didn’t dare with Cynthia held in his arms. The k-slinger started to walk toward them, gun still lowered. Dimly she was aware of the scavenger and schoolteacher flanking her. They spread out to move on either side of the street while she walked down the middle. They were brave, but not stupid.

  She got to fifty meters before Crazy Joe called, “That’s close enough!”

  “Where are the rest of your men?” the scavenger asked. He almost managed to keep his voice steady.

  “In key locations. They’ll get things moving again once I take care of Behan. Buddy, I see you ain’t packing. How can you play if you don’t have any toys?”

  The scavenger didn’t have an answer for that. He didn’t budge, though.

  Crazy Joe smiled. “Nice to see a couple of civilians got some backbone in them.”

  “Let her go,” the k-slinger repeated. “Let’s settle this, just the two of us.”

  “I don’t have no quarrel with you.”

  “You didn’t. Now you do.”

  Crazy Joe’s smile faded and his eyes narrowed. “You think you can beat me?”

  No.

  “Let’s see,” she said.

  Long pause. Not a sound in the street. Then, in the distance, came the low rumble of the power station. Out of the corner of her eye, for the k-slinger didn’t dare take her focus off Crazy Joe for an instant, she saw a plume of oily smoke rise above Tire Town’s skyline.

  “You got what you wanted. Now let her go.”

  Crazy Joe shook her head and cackled. “You weren’t paying attention to the lesson back at the schoolhouse. Getting the juice running again is just the start. I’m taking over the whole place. Once Behan gets here I’ll—”

  “I’m here, Joe.”

  The k-slinger and Crazy Joe glanced to one side. Behan stood, pistol aimed at his rebellious men, at the open door of a shop. He must have snuck through the back of the building and come on through, because there was no alley nearby.

  “You’re a fool, Joe. We got a good thing here. A bit of civilization, and every year we get a bit more. You could be a part of that.”

  Crazy Joe cackled. “Maybe I don’t want to. You’ve gotten soft, Behan, like Gregory. You used to rule the wildlands and now you sit in your office drinking your homebrew and chatting with little old ladies about how to get more books for the library. That might have made you a big man in the Old Times, except we ain’t in the Old Times no more. Now it’s all chaos.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “You think setting up a schoolhouse changes anything anywhere else? You been in town too long. Just ask this k-slinger here. She probably never even heard of your schoolhouse or your library or your water plant before she showed up. Out there everyone is still taking what they can for themselves. Out there everyone is still free.”

  “Ain’t no freedom in having to look over your shoulder all the time,” the k-slinger said.

  Crazy Joe flashed her a grin. “Sure there is, for people like you and me. We’re not built for town. The wildlands are where we belong.”

  “Don’t lump me with you.”

  “Oh, you think you ain’t wildlands born and bred? Then why didn’t you offer them enough road tax that they left you alone? Or just turn around and walk away? You’d rather kill three men than swallow your pride. That’s the way real folk are.”

  The k-slinger blinked. Crazy Joe went on.

  “You and I are the way folks is supposed to be, how they really are, deep down inside. That ain’t so for Archer. He thinks he’s special and wants to live the soft life when there’s no such thing as the soft life. It’s the same for that dried up old bitch standing next to you or this brat in my arms.”

  Just then, the brat changed everything. She bit down hard on Crazy Joe’s forearm. The man yelped and let go.

  Cynthia dropped to the ground and scurried away, cardboard spider legs flapping. Crazy Joe ducked after her, and for a second they were both partially obscured by one of his men.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  That man got one of the k-slinger’s bullets straight into his forehead.

  He fell back, thudding into Crazy Joe and slowing him down enough for Cynthia to gain some ground.

  After that, the k-slinger was too busy to pay mind to what was going on with her.

  She swiveled, dropping to one knee as she did so.

  That saved her life. A bullet whizzed by so close she could feel the heat on her scalp. She plugged the man who had fired it, then rolled and flicked the AK to full auto as she did so. A couple of bullets spat up earth where she had been the moment before.

  A long spray against Crazy Joe’s crowd took out two more and scattered the rest. Another jerked and fell to a bullet not her own, probably Behan’s. There was so much firing going on at that moment she couldn’t tell much of anything.

  She kept rolling until she ended up behind a water barrel by the side of the street. A couple of bullets thunked into it, but thankfully the barrel was full and the bullets didn’t come through the other side.

  The k-slinger pulled out the now-empty magazine and flipped it around the smack in the one taped to it. Then she switched back to single fire. The fight had developed into more precise work.

  Daring a peek around the barrel, she saw Behan fire from the cover of a pillar holding up the porch roof and take out another of Crazy Joe’s men who was slow running for cover. Two more were hiding behind a storefront on her side of the road, and a wounded man in the middle of the road was trying to level his pistol. Behan spotted him and took him out too, then had to get thin as a flurry of AK bullets chewed up the pillar.

  The k-slinger fired, but couldn’t get a good angle. It did distract them long enough that Behan could leap through the front door and into the darkness inside.

  A couple of more bullets thunked into the water barrel and the k-slinger hid behind it for a moment. The puddle around the barrel spread. It wouldn’t stay bulletproof for long. Then she glanced around the other side, where the barrel would keep her invisible to the gunmen.

  She scanned the street for Cynthia and Crazy Joe. She didn’t see either of them.

  “Cynthia!” she called.

  No answer, or at least none that could penetrate her ringing ears.

  A roar of fire behind her made her jerk around and level her AK, but she saw no one. The fire continued, and she could tell it was a couple of blocks away, at least a dozen or so gunmen trading hate. Behan’s and Crazy Joe’s men had kicked it off as soon as they heard the first gunshots.

  What she didn’t hear was anything from the two remaining guys just a few doors down on her side of the street. They’d been awfully quiet for a while.

  She peeked around the barrel and saw nothing.

  Uh-oh. They’d gone. Probably coming around to hit her on the flank, and she didn’t know the layout of this place.

  There was a small side street just behind her. Could they be coming around along that to get her from behind? Or would they come through one of the three buildings to her right—a tailor’s and two private houses—that gave a clear view of her hiding place?

  Time to move.

  She didn’t get far.

  As she bolted for the nearest private residence, gun trained on their last hiding place and ready to smash shoulder first into and through the front door, a man appeared the window to the tailor’s shop.

  He went down with two bullets in him, one of hers and one from Behan.

  What neither of them saw in time was the man who appeared a second later at the window of the house she was about to bust into.

  His bullet seared through her side, making her twist and slam into the door with her back instead of her shoulder.

  The weak door splintered open anyway, and she ended up lying across the threshold, half on the porch and half in the front hall.

  She scrambled to get into a firing position as the man moved from the room to an open doorway leading to the front hall. As soon as he came within sight, both let off a panic shot and missed. He ducked back around the wall.

  Taking a gamble that the wall was as flimsy as the door, the k-slinger flicked the gun back to auto and sprayed up and down the wall. She eased off the trigger before she emptied the magazine, struggled to her feet, and popped around the doorway, leading with her gun.

  She hadn’t needed to save those bullets. The man was dead.

  Jamming a fresh magazine into her gun, she moved for the front door.

  Her steps wobbled as she made it. The adrenaline was wearing off already and the pain from her side gripped her body. She checked the wound. The bullet had gone through the fleshy side of her midriff, not central enough to have caused any dangerous internal damage but enough to leak a lot of blood.

  No time to worry about that now. She had a fight to finish.

  And she needed to finish it fast or she’d fall down on the job.

  Keeping behind the dubious protection of the front doorway, she called out, “Behan, you all right?”

  A scattering of distant gunfire from at least three different locations was her only answer.

  “Behan!”

  A pair of closely spaced shots from across the street made her shrink further behind the doorway, eyes searching.

  Behan came limping out of an alley, clutching his bleeding leg with one hand and a smoking pistol with the other. Not far off, the scavenger popped his head out a window and glanced around.

  The k-slinger paused for a second, and when the mayor took no fire, came out.

  “You know where Crazy Joe took Cynthia?” she asked, jogging across the street. The scavenger emerged from his hiding place to join them.

  “Been too busy shooting rebels to check,” Behan said, his face tight with the pain.

  The teacher came running around the corner. She pointed back the way she had come.

  “He chased her that way. I think he caught her.”

  “Show me,” the k-slinger said.

  Just then, Mayor Behan toppled over.

  “Aw, crap,” he muttered.

  The scavenger knelt by him. “I’ll patch him up. You two get going.”

  The teacher led the way.

  “You want my sidearm?” the k-slinger asked.

  “I don’t touch guns.”

  “You’re in the wrong world,” the k-slinger said, hissing with pain at each step.

  “No, I’m in the right one. We’re trying to keep it that way.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  They came to a bigger street, passing the dead body of an unarmed citizen. No one else was around. All the windows and doors were shut tight. Briefly the k-slinger wondered where the occupants of that house she had the gunfight in had been. Hiding, most likely. The whole town was hiding, waiting to see which way the wind would blow.

  The teacher led them across a small square, the k-slinger struggling to keep up.

  She stopped at the other end and looked around. “He was right here, directing some of his men.”

  “There’s no trace of him now,” the k-slinger said, looking around.

  A staccato of shots on the next block urged them on. When they got close to the corner, the k-slinger put up a warning hand to tell the teacher to keep back, then she eased right up to the corner of the building and gave a quick peek around.

  Crazy Joe stood in the middle of street, holding Cynthia in one arm and his AK in the other.

  “You think you can stand against me?” he bawled at the closed-up buildings. “Y’all a bunch of soft townsfolk! Y’all prey. I’m the predator!”

  His one good eye fixed on the corner. The k-slinger tensed.

  “About time you showed up. I was beginning to miss your purdy face. Makes a man go all funny inside. You kill all my men back there?”

  “Me and Behan,” she replied without revealing more of herself.

  “Is he alive?”

  “Alive and kicking. He’s directing his men to mop of the rest of your gang. They’ll all be dead before long. Let her go and I’ll give you a head start out of town.”

  Crazy Joe chuckled and shook his head. “Even if Behan is alive like you say, he ain’t gonna beat my boys. But let’s not talk about them. Let’s talk about you and me.”

  “You want a fight? Let the girl go.”

  Crazy Joe grinned. “All right. But I don’t want any funny tricks. Here’s how it’s gonna play. I put the girl down and you come out. When you’re in full view, she’s gonna walk in a straight line between you and me, making it a bit tricky for us to start firing.”

  “Unfair. You don’t care about her safety. I do.”

  “Life ain’t fair except on rare occasions. This is one of ‘em. You care about her safety, but I care about beating you at the draw fair and square. I don’t want any tricks. So when she gets to you, she cuts to the side and around the corner out of harm’s way and we both get to see who’s the faster k-slinger.”

  I already know the answer to that.

  Something on the edge of her vision caught her notice. She did not turn, and did not get to see clearly. She only knew that the teacher had waved her hands at her and then snuck away.

  The k-slinger played for time. She paused, as if considering. The street remained silent. All around, though, they heard scattered fire.

  “All right,” she said when it became clear she couldn’t wait any longer. She moved carefully out from cover. “Let her down nice and easy. Cynthia, you be brave and don’t run for me. Come nice and slow.”

  The little girl, her face streaked with tears, only nodded.

  Crazy Joe put her down. Both k-slingers kept their AKs at Ready while the girl started to take uncertain steps forward.

  “I would have never really shot her,” Crazy Joe said.

  “Yeah, right.”

  To her surprise, Crazy Joe looked hurt. “I never kill young’uns. They might grow up interesting. Chances are against it, especially with a father like hers, but you gotta give ‘em that chance.”

  “Kids like her are the future, especially the way Behan is setting things up.”

  Crazy Joe snorted. “Ain’t no future.”

  Cynthia got to the k-slinger and stopped. The k-slinger waited a couple of seconds, trying to draw it out. Gunfire still crackled a few blocks away.

  Where the hell is that teacher? If she’s going to get reinforcements, she better hurry the hell up.

  “Get a move on!” Crazy Joe barked.

  The k-slinger inclined her head toward the corner of the building. “Get out of sight.”

  Cynthia gave her a panicked look.

  Panicked for me, not for herself.

  “Go on,” the k-slinger said.

  Cynthia moved off. The k-slinger got ready. Her head felt light from the loss of blood. Her right side was soaked and blood had pooled in her right boot. Yet her hands remained steady.

  But what had the blood loss done to her reflexes?

  Calm. Stay calm. Go for the torso. He’ll hit you first but if you can wound him, Behan and his men can finish him.

  The gunfire tapered off, and the only sound on the street was the distant thudding of the power plant.

  The k-slinger looked Crazy Joe in the eye. The eyes always gave away when someone was about to fire. Even someone with only one eye. Even someone as fast and experienced as he was.

  Now.

  Just before she slapped up her AK to fire, a shout came from further down the street, from behind Crazy Joe.

  “Hands up!”

  Crazy Joe didn’t turn, but his eye flicked to the side. Just for a moment.

  A moment was long enough.

  The k-slinger’s AK sprang into position and she put a bullet right through Crazy Joe’s heart.

  He flew back, firing as he fell. The bullet nicked her ear and she flinched.

  Crazy Joe fell to the ground and did not move.

  He let out a long moan and gaped, “Wasn’t fair.”

  He made no sound after that.

  The k-slinger kept her AK trained on him for a full ten seconds before she convinced herself he was dead.

  Then she looked down the street.

  The teacher stood a block away, a horrified look on her face.

  “I helped kill him.” Her voice came out so soft the k-slinger barely heard her.

  “You sure did. Thank you.”

  Cynthia rushed to her and gave her a hug.

  “Ow, mind hugging me on my unwounded side?”

  Cynthia backed up. “Eew. I got blood on my costume. Are you all right?”

  “I’ve had worse.” She sat down hard on some steps. For a minute she didn’t move. Then she looked around. “Where did your teacher go?”

  “She ran off to find a medic. She told you.”

  Had she? The k-slinger had somehow missed that.

  She knew she should keep alert, but the blood loss had caught up with her. She sat there, head in her hands, struggling to stay conscious. She told Cynthia to get away from her in case someone came gunning, but the girl refused to budge. Finally the schoolteacher returned with a medic. Archer appeared too, saying all of Crazy Joe’s men had been killed or captured.

  Then she fainted. She didn’t need to stay awake anymore.

  ***

  Two weeks later, her wounds healed enough that she could head on out, she stood at the edge of town. Behan, Archer, and Cynthia had come to see her off.

  “I wish I could convince you to stay,” the mayor said. He walked with a cane, his leg still not fully healed. He looked better, though, more sure of himself. There had been no more trouble after Crazy Joe and his men had been wiped out.

  “Cynthia here is far more convincing, but I gotta go.”

  “Why?” the girl whined. She’d been sitting at her bedside anytime she wasn’t in school, wheedling her about staying.

  “I caused a lot of trouble when I came here.”

  “You stopped a lot more trouble than you caused,” Archer said.

  “That might change if I stayed. When people hear of a good k-slinger, they want to set up a challenge. This place has seen enough trouble.”

  “Then quit,” Cynthia said.

  “It’s not something you can quit. Crazy Joe was right about one thing. I’m not built for town.”

  Behan extended a hand. She took it.

  “Well, if you ever change your mind, you’ll always be welcome. I think you’ll find that Tire Town will grow now that we have an engineering team being paid better than they ever have before.”

  Behan had been pretending the pay raise was his idea, even though Archer had told her that they’d been pushing for it for months.

  “Good luck,” the k-slinger said.

  She shook hands with Archer, hugged Cynthia, and turned to go.

  An hour later, the k-slinger was headed over the pass. A couple of Behan’s men were on guard there now. They nodded to her as she went by. A little ways beyond, she came across the two scavengers, the man and his young son, still digging. They’d dug more holes, and their pile of junk had grown. A coil of copper wire, a dozen old shoes with the soles all rotted from age, a heap of scrap metal, and a plastic bucket with a broken handle had been added to their pile.

  Both were working hard with their homemade shovels.

  They spotted her from a distance and stopped their work. While the boy pulled out his slingshot and the man readied his shovel, they didn’t seem as nervous as before.

  “How was Tire Town?” the man asked.

  “Real peaceful. How’s the scavenging?”

  The man grinned, showing white teeth beneath all the soot and dust. “Real good. Our luck is turning. I can feel it.”

  “That’s right, Pa. Soon we’re going to hit the Mother Lode!”

  “You will,” the k-slinger said. “You will.”

  The k-slinger walked on down the trail and out into the wildlands, headed for the setting sun.

  Tales from the Toxic World collection of novellas and short stories, set in my Toxic World series of post-apocalyptic novels. If you want to read the collection for free, along with the historical mystery Trouble in Tangier, . You get the two ebooks for free as well as a monthly newsletter with travel articles, the occasional short story, and updates about my writing. Your info will never be shared. I love my readers and I don't want them to hate me.

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