The Kalispell Run Read online

  David RobbinsChapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  * * *

  David Robbins

  THE KALISPELL RUN

  Chapter One

  The three men were huddled together several feet from the roaring fire, conversing in hushed tones, idly watching the blonde woman prepare their evening meal: rabbit stew. All three wore a tunic and cloak made from bearskin, stitched together using deer sinew. All of the men were filthy, their long hair and beards matted with sweat and grime, their bodies reeking from neglect and a devoted aversion to water and bathing. The tallest of the grubby trio was armed with a Glenfield Model 15 bolt-action rifle, snugly cradled in his brawny arms. The oldest carried an axe, and the youngest a crude spear consisting of a lengthy straight branch with the tip sharpened and hardened in the smoldering ashes of a fire.

  “Can’t figure it out,” the youngest commented to his companions.

  “Where could they all be?”

  The tallest shook his head. “We’ve looked and looked. If they don’t show up in a week, we’ll go south.”

  “Why south, Grant?” the oldest inquired.

  Grant gazed at the stars filling the sky. “Winter comes in a couple of months. I’m tired of cold. I heard it’s warmer in the south.”

  “What about her?” the youngest asked, jerking his left thumb in the direction of the woman.

  “What do you think?” Grant replied. “We have some fun, and then we kill her, just like all the rest.”

  “I’m looking forward to the fun,” the youngest admitted, licking his thick lips.

  “Me too!” the eldest cackled.

  The blonde woman provided a stark contrast to her bestial captors. She was lean and lithe, attired in skimpy, tattered rags. Her entire demeanor was marked by dignity and composure, despite her perilous predicament.

  Although she was covered with cuts and scratches, and there was a large welt above her right eye, she bore the pain patiently and resolutely. As she stood to take the metal pot of stew to the men, her own stomach growling from her prolonged lack of nourishment, she steeled her mind, refusing to give the bastards the satisfaction of seeing her buckle.

  “Move your ass, woman!” Grant contemptuously bellowed.

  “Yeah, Sherry!” the oldest added. “We’re hungry! Give it to us.”

  Sherry’s green eyes flashed. I’d love to give it to them, all right, she mentally told herself. Right in the groin! She crossed to them and held out the metal pot, taken from the ruined remains of a nearby building.

  Grant lunged and grabbed the pot. He screeched as his fingers made contact with the scorching metal and he inadvertently dropped the pot.

  The steaming contents spewed over the ground.

  “Damn your hide, female!” Grant surged upward and gripped her by the flimsy fabric of her torn yellow blouse. “You made me drop the food! It was hot!”

  “What did you expect, you congenital idiot?” Sherry retorted, forgetting herself. “It just came off the fire.”

  Grant savagely backhanded Sherry across the face, knocking her to the grass at his feet. “Forget the food. The fun comes first.” He began to hitch his tunic up his legs.

  “I hate to spoil your fun,” a voice intruded, “but I don’t think you want to meet your Maker with your dingus flapping in the wind.”

  “Look!” the youngest of the trio blurted, pointing.

  The newcomer stood on the other side of the fire, directly across from them. He was a blond man with a sweeping blond moustache, and he wore buckskins and moccasins. Strapped around his slim waist were a pair of pearl-handled revolvers.

  Grant froze, momentarily stunned.

  “Where are they?” the newcomer asked.

  “Who?” Grant responded, perplexed, uncertain of his next move. He didn’t like the way the blond man’s hands hovered near those revolvers. A glint of light from the fire revealed the newcomer had a rifle hanging across his back, suspended from a rawhide cord slanted crosswise over his chest.

  “I’m not in the mood for games, pard,” the newcomer warned icily.

  “Where are they?”

  “Who?” Grant replied, genuinely confused. He let his tunic drop. The Glenfield was in his left hand, and he toyed with the notion of shooting this stranger, but something in the newcomer’s manner deterred him.

  “You’re Trolls,” the stranger stated. “The slime of the earth. Scum. Vermin…”

  “Liar!” the youngest Troll screamed, throwing his right arm back, the one with the spear. “Liar!”

  He never completed the throw.

  Grant saw the newcomer’s hands flicker and the revolvers were in his hands, appearing faster than the eyes could follow. The two shots sounded as one, and the youngest Troll was flung backward, the rear of his head exploding blood and brains and hair in every direction.

  Grant held his breath, afraid to move.

  As miraculously as they were drawn, the revolvers were returned to their holsters.

  “As I was saying,” the stranger continued, “you’re Trolls. If you’ve survived, then others have too. Where are they?”

  “Survived?” the eldest Troll interrupted. “What do you mean?”

  “Obviously, you weren’t here when some of my friends and I took on your buddies,” the newcomer explained. “Your buddies lost.”

  “I don’t understand,” the graying Troll said, looking at Grant.

  Grant did. “You mean you killed them all?” He couldn’t believe it.

  “Not all,” the stranger reiterated. “You’ve survived…”

  “But we weren’t here!” Grant declared.

  “Case in point. Some of those who were here managed to escape, and I’m looking for them. Where are they?” The newcomer moved a step closer to the fire.

  “I don’t know,” Grant admitted. “We’ve been looking for them too.”

  “You expect me to believe you?”

  “He’s telling the truth.” Sherry, still on the ground, spoke up.

  The stranger glanced at Sherry. “You’re backing his play?”

  Sherry shook her head. “No. I hate them as much as you…”

  “Bet me!” the newcomer snapped, cutting Sherry off.

  “…but I know they’re telling the truth,” she resumed in a subdued voice. “They’ve drug me all over creation looking for their missing clan ever since we came back here to Fox and discovered no one here.”

  “How long have they had you?” the stranger inquired.

  “Over two weeks,” Sherry replied, glaring up at Grant.

  “Have they abused you?” the newcomer demanded, his tone harsh and grating.

  Sherry attempted to answer, but the disgusting memories overwhelmed her, her eyes moistening at the corners, and she simply nodded.

  “Figured as much.” The stranger stared at Grant and the other Troll. “If you don’t know where the rest went, you’re of no further use to me.”

  “What do you plan to do?” Grant asked a shade nervously.

  The buckskin-clad gunman glanced at Sherry. “Get ou
t of the way. Don’t stand up! You’ll be in my line of fire. Roll to one side, away from them, and then stand,” he directed.

  Sherry obeyed.

  “Now,” the stranger said to the Trolls, “the next step is all yours. I’ll let you make the first move.”

  “What if we just turn and walk away?” Grant offered hopefully.

  “I’ll shoot you in the back,” the gunman promised.

  Grant looked at his companion and nodded. The eldest Troll began to circle the fire to his left, hefting his axe. Grant walked to his right, gripping his rifle.

  The newcomer remained immobile.

  “You have a name?” Grant asked, his right hand inching toward the trigger on the Glenfield. There was already a round in the chamber.

  “Hickok,” the buckskin-clad man replied.

  “Well, Hickok,” Grant stated, trying to distract the gunman with conversation as he came around the fire, “I find it hard to believe most of my brother Trolls have been killed. What about our leader, Saxon? What happened to him?”

  “A friend of mine turned him from a bull into a heifer,” the stranger recounted, still making no move toward his guns.

  Grant and the other Troll were clear of the fire, only feet from the newcomer. “Maybe we can return the favor,” Grant mentioned sarcastically.

  “Just hurry it up!” Hickok rejoined. “I’m gettin’ bored.”

  Grant glanced at the elderly Troll and nodded again, and both men went into action simultaneously.

  Hickok finally moved, the Colt Pythons in his hands, and he swiveled to his right and fired, aiming for the head as he almost always did, the two heavy slugs catching the senior Troll right between his brown eyes and exiting out the top of his head. The Troll silently slumped to the ground, even as Hickok turned, the Pythons held low, at waist level, and the Colts boomed again as Grant was bringing the Glenfield barrel to bear on the gunman.

  Grant felt a tremendous impact in his groin area and he involuntarily doubled over, still holding his rifle, as the shock and the excruciating agony hit him.

  “That’s for Joan,” Hickok said grimly, walking over to Grant.

  Grant’s vision was spinning and he dropped the Glenfield. He managed to croak a few words as blood trickled down the right corner of his mouth.

  “Don’t! Please! No!”

  “That was for Joan,” Hickok repeated, reaching the Troll. “This is for me.”

  “Don’t!” Grant pleaded.

  Hickok ignored the entreaty. Instead, he jammed the barrels of his Pythons into Grant’s eyes and slowly cocked the hammers of the .357’s.

  Grant frantically attempted to pull away from the revolvers.

  Hickok pulled the triggers.

  It was as if the Troll was smashed in the head with a sledgehammer. He jerked backward and toppled on the grass, twitching.

  The gunman grinned. He twirled the Colts back into their respective holsters. “Piece of cake,” he commented.

  A heavy silence filled the night.

  Hickok sighed, stared at the fire for a moment, then walked around it, bearing east.

  “Wait a minute!”

  Hickok kept walking.

  “Hey! Hickok!” Sherry yelled. “Hold it!”

  He apparently entertained no notion of stopping.

  “Damn it!” Sherry angrily exclaimed. She ran up to him and grabbed his left arm, spinning him around. “Hold it!”

  The gunman glared at her in annoyance. “You want something?” he demanded.

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” she barked, peeved.

  “What’s it to you?” he retorted, pulling his arm free. He began to leave.

  “You’re going? Just like that?”

  “I have a score to settle,” he informed her.

  “You’d abandon a helpless woman in the middle of nowhere?” Sherry questioned him.

  Hickok stopped in midstride. He faced her and thoughtfully studied her from head to toe. “I doubt you’re the helpless type.”

  “Like what you see?” she asked, a hint of possible pleasures to come implied in her tone and her expression.

  “You offering yourself to me?” Hickok asked, his tone laced with unconcealed digust.

  Sherry stepped up to him. “I’m sorry,” she hastily apologized. “But you’ve got to understand my position.

  I don’t want to go it alone. I thought if I offered my body to you, you…”

  “You thought wrong,” Hickok interjected distastefully.

  “I’m sorry,” she stressed. “I misjudged you.”

  “Did you offer your body to the Trolls?” Hickok asked.

  Her temper flaring, Sherry aimed a slap at his right cheek. He easily gripped her wrist and prevented the blow from connecting. “They took what they wanted!” she answered. “They…” she began, then hesitated, swaying, her ordeal catching up with her. Two days without food, and the harsh treatment accorded by the Trolls, combined with the emotional excitement of the past few minutes, all conspired to take their toll at this particular moment. “I think I’m going to pass out,” she announced weakly.

  She did.

  Hickok caught her as she fainted and carried her over to the fire. He gently laid her on the grass and stared at her lovely face. “You remind me of someone,” he told the sleeping form, then grinned. “But, lately, every woman I run into reminds me of her. Guess it’s only natural.” His mind drifted, recalling another beautiful woman, a soldier with the Nomads in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, a feisty female named Bertha.

  “She has the spunk, but not the looks,” he absently mentioned. “You’ve got the looks, but I wonder about the rest…”

  Sherry groaned.

  The gunman smiled. “Reckon I put my quest on hold for a spell.” He gazed into the darkness. “But not too long. I’ve got a debt to collect, honor to satisfy, and a dummy to find.”

  Hickok set about ministering to her wounds. Just great! Just what he needed! He seemed to have developed a knack for attracting women in distress. Shaking his head, he looked straight up. Why me?

  Chapter Two

  Hundreds of miles to the west, another man was reflecting along similar lines. Why couldn’t I stay at the Home this trip? Why must I constantly be separated from my beloved Jenny? Why couldn’t Rikki or one of the other Warriors go for once? He sighed, knowing the answer.

  None of the others had his experience with the SEAL.

  He was a large man, this malcontent, with bulging muscles, black hair, and piercing gray eyes. He wore a green T-shirt and green fatigue pants.

  Hanging in leather sheaths from his belt, one on each hip, were two Bowie knives, his favorite weapons. Absently avoiding ruts, holes, and cracks in the road, he steered the SEAL west on U.S. Highway 2.

  The vehicle was a green van, constructed with a bulletproof and heat-resistant plastic body. Its tires were huge, over two feet wide and four feet high. A pair of unique solar panels were attached to the roof, and suspended under the transport was a lead-lined case containing the revolutionary batteries used to store the converted solar energy and power the vehicle. The transport was called the SEAL, an acronym for Solar Energized Amphibious or Land Recreational Vehicle.

  Although no one outside the vehicle could view the interior because of the tinted plastic, the four current occupants were able to enjoy the scenery. The big man behind the wheel praised again, for the umpteenth time, Kurt Carpenter’s foresight.

  Kurt Carpenter. The man responsible for constructing the compound in northwestern Minnesota intended to serve as the survival site for his followers. The thirty-acre plot became known as the Home, and Carpenter’s followers adopted the title of the Family. Carpenter spent millions building the walled, fortified Home, and providing the provisions and supplies the Family would require after World War III. He wanted to ensure the Family would persist in a world run amok. The SEAL was built according to his precise specifications by automakers eager to take his money. They viewed h
im as another harmless, but immensely wealthy, eccentric. Carpenter wanted the engineers and scientists to fabricate a vehicle capable of enduring a century if necessary. He had the transport hidden in an underground chamber, leaving instructions that it was to be left alone until needed. Ironically enough, one hundred years after The Big Blast, as the Family referred to the nuclear conflict, the current Leader of the Home, Plato, had the SEAL uncovered and put to use.

  Plato wanted to send three of the Family’s Warriors, the trio known as Alpha Triad, to the Twin Cities in the hope of locating certain medical and scientific equipment he required. The Family was suffering from a form of premature senility, and Plato was optimistic he could discover the cause and develop a cure if he only had the right implements and resources.

  Alpha Triad successfully reached the Twin Cities, but it returned to the Home without the items Plato requested. To compound the matter, the Warriors hadn’t really looked. For one thing, they had been too busy staying alive.

  The muscular giant frowned at the memory of Plato’s scathing rebuke after they came back. True, he was badly beaten and not in any condition to go traipsing all over Minneapolis and St. Paul, scouring the dilapidated structures for the articles on Plato’s list. But, as his kindly mentor loudly noted, in a rare display of anger, the others weren’t seriously hurt and they could have searched if they had really wanted to do so.

  That was the crux of the issue.

  “If you had sincerely desired to do as instructed, Blade,” Plato had emphasized.

  Blade sighed, knowing Plato had correctly assessed the real reason for their failure. Unknown to anyone else, Hickok had wanted to return so he could go after the remaining Trolls, the ones responsible for his darling Joan’s death. Blade couldn’t tolerate being separated from his fiancee Jenny. And even the normally dependable Geronimo, it turned out, had entertained an ulterior motive for wanting to head back to the Home; he intended to assist a woman and her daughter named Rainbow and Star.

  Geronimo. Hickok. Himself. Alpha Triad. They had all changed in recent months, Blade reflected. Hickok was off somewhere, filled with a burning need for revenge, searching for the barbaric Trolls. Geronimo was quieter than usual on this run to Kalispell, and Blade wondered why. He knew Geronimo was the only remaining Family member with any vestige of Indian blood, and he also knew Geronimo had speculated on whether he was the last Indian left alive after the Big Blast. It must have come as something of a shock to learn there were thousands of Indians still residing in Montana, and probably elsewhere as well.