Denver Run Read online

  Helmet-head nodded. He could understand such a motive. “I am coming across! No tricks!” he paused. “Hey! Aren’t you the one who raided our camp and stole one of our jeeps?”

  “It wasn’t me!” Hickok lied. What did he mean— stole a jeep?

  Helmet-head smirked and said something to whoever was inside the tank. It rolled across the drawbridge, treading carefully, inch by inch.

  Helmet-head glanced up at the rampart as he passed below it, but the defenders he could see weren’t pointing their weapons in his direction.

  Dozens of troopers closed in on the heels of the tank.

  Hickok withdrew another eight feet or so.

  The tank crawled over the drawbridge, stopping when it reached the inner bank.

  Hickok found himself staring into the muzzle of the cannon. He detected a slight motion to his right, and realized a machine gun was covering him through a narrow port. He also noticed an inch or two of clear space between the barrel of the machine gun and the edges of the port.

  An officer, the one with the binoculars, walked around the left side of the tank, taking care not to fall from the drawbridge into the moat. He had brown hair and an angular chin. “You are the Warrior known as Hickok, are you not?” he demanded as he halted in front of the vehicle, just to the left of the machine-gun port.

  “Howdy!” Hickok beamed. “I’m right pleased to meet you.”

  “Cut the prattle, you buffoon!” the officer snapped. “I am Captain Luther. All of you will lay down your arms immediately!”

  “Say ‘pretty please’ first,” Hickok said.

  Captain Luther scowled. “This isn’t a joke, you idiot! Your surrender will be unconditional and immediate!’”

  “Surrender? No one said we were surrenderin’,” Hickok stated.

  “What?” Captain Luther was turning red in the cheeks. “Then why were you waving a white flag?”

  “Flies,” Hickok replied.

  “There aren’t any flies at this time of year!” Captain Luther almost shrieked.

  “My mistake,” Hickok admitted. “I meant to say vermin.”

  In those final fleeting seconds, Captain Luther comprehended. He tried to turn, to shout a warning to his men.

  He never uttered a word.

  Hickok glanced up at Spartacus, nodded once, and dropped the white pillowcase as his hands flashed to his Pythons. He cleared leather and fired before the pillowcase reached the earth.

  The gunman’s shots caught Luther near the right ear and exploded out his forehead, raining blood and brains on the tank.

  Even as the gunfighter drew, Spartacus was in motion. He took a flying leap from the rampart, his broadsword clutched in his right fist, and sailed over the heads of the soldiers below. His feet landed on the rear of the tank, on the very lip, and he nearly lost his balance before he recovered his footing and lunged at the man with the helmet.

  Helmet-head heard the pounding of a heavy object behind him and spun.

  Spartacus swung his broadsword with all the power in his muscular shoulders.

  Helmet-head was about to yell an order when the point of the broadsword ripped into the left side of his throat and drove out the other side in a magnificent crimson spray.

  Hickok pivoted, aiming for the machine-gun port, and fired three rounds into the small open space between the barrel and the port.

  There was a ghastly scream from within the truck.

  “Open fire!” Hickok cried at the top of his lungs.

  The defenders on the western rampart entered the fray, all 133 of them concentrating their fire on the soldiers behind the tank.

  About a dozen of the hapless troopers were on the drawbridge, and they bore the brunt of the onslaught. Their bodies jerked and rocked as bullet after bullet slammed into them.

  The column of soldiers on the other side of the wall suffered the same fate; they were decimated by the hail of lead.

  “Raise the drawbridge!” Hickok yelled.

  A few of the troopers managed to return the fire, but they were speedily downed.

  The mass of soldiers in the field beyond raised their voices in a mighty whoop and charged the Home.

  “Raise the drawbridge!” Hickok shouted again.

  The four men handling the mechanism were doing their best, but it was difficult for them with the added weight of the dozen troopers on the drawbridge.

  On the tank, Spartacus stooped and shoved Helmet-head downward.

  The lifeless body dropped from sight. Spartacus swiftly sheathed his broadsword and unslung the HK93. He stuck the barrel into the hatch and pulled the trigger.

  There was screaming from within the metal coffin as the slugs whined and ricocheted from one side of the tank to another.

  Hickok raced past the tank to the drawbridge.

  There were a dozen bloody forms sprawled on the drawbridge. Another two dozen were lying on the ground outside the wall. Dashing toward the Home, already halfway across the field beyond, was the bulk of the strike force.

  They had to get the blasted drawbridge up!

  Hickok bolstered the Pythons and frantically began rolling bodies from the drawbridge. The dead soldiers struck the water with a pronounced splash.

  Two, three, four bodies landed in the moat.

  The strike force was getting closer.

  Hickok shoved two more troopers from the drawbridge. “Keep trying to raise it!” he ordered the quartet at the mechanism.

  The four men were straining to their utmost, pushing on the metal lever responsible for activating the gears and chain.

  “Need some help?” Spartacus joined the gunman, flinging bodies into the water as rapidly as he could.

  Some of the charging soldiers began shooting. One or two bullets bit into the drawbridge near the harried Warriors.

  The defenders on the west wall blasted away at the approaching soldiers.

  Only one dead trooper left to go. Hickok grabbed the man’s ankles and hauled him to the edge of the drawbridge. He kicked the body with his right foot, and it toppled from sight.

  The drawbridge was beginning to elevate.

  “Let’s go!” Spartacus urged, running for the bank.

  Hickok took three steps, and then something bit into his left thigh, wrenching his leg from under him. He fell to the wooden planks, clutching at his injury, blood flowing over his fingers.

  He’d been hit!

  Hickok glanced over his left shoulder.

  A pair of soldiers had far outdistanced their companions. Miraculously untouched by the barrage of lead from the western rampart, they were rapidly closing on the drawbridge.

  The drawbridge was still rising. It was now a foot above the inner bank.

  Hickok rose to his hands and knees and made for the end of the drawbridge. He had to make it! He’d be cut to ribbons otherwise!

  Spartacus, already safe on the bank, spied the gunman’s predicament and jumped onto the drawbridge.

  “Go back!” Hickok prompted. “Save yourself!”

  Spartacus ignored the injuction and ran to Hickok’s side. He looped his right arm under the gunman’s shoulder and hauled Hickok to his feet.

  “You can take a nap later!”

  A stitch work pattern of bullets bit into the wood at their feet.

  Spartacus twisted, the HK93 cradled in his left arm. He leveled the barrel at the pair of nearest soldiers and let them have it.

  The two soldiers reacted as if they had smacked into a wall, coming to an abrupt stop, their chests erupting in red dots, as they were brutally slammed onto their backs.

  The drawbridge was now three feet above the bank.

  The chattering of the M-16’s and the popping and booming of the other guns involved in the battle attained a deafening crescendo. Exposed in the open, realizing their vulnerability, the soldiers in the field had checked their headlong rush and many were retreating, leaving dozens of their fallen comrades behind.

  Spartacus and Hickok reached the end of the draw
bridge.

  The ground was four feet below.

  “Can you make it?” Spartacus yelled in Hickok’s left ear.

  “I was hopin’ you’d carry me piggyback,” Hickok responded, grinning.

  He stepped free and pushed off with his good leg, vaulting to the inner bank of the moat. His left leg buckled as he landed and he tumbled onto his stomach.

  Spartacus sprang to the grass. He leaned over and assisted the gunman in rising.

  “Thanks, pard,” Hickok said. “I owe you one.”

  With the drawbridge devoid of extra weight, the four men were able to speedily lift it to a vertical position.

  The firing on the western rampart was tapering off.

  Spartacus knelt and examined Hickok’s left thigh. “It looks like it caught you in the fleshy part on the outside of your leg,” he informed the gunman.

  “Then it ain’t nothin’ to fret about,” Hickok remarked. He began reloading the spent rounds in his Pythons.

  “You should see the Healers,” Spartacus recommended.

  “Not now,” Hickok said.

  “But you’re bleeding!” Spartacus protested.

  “Not now,” Hickok reiterated. He headed for the stairs, limping. “Come on.”

  Spartacus reluctantly followed.

  Hickok replaced the Pythons in their holsters and ascended the stairs, gripping the railing to retain his footing until he reached the rampart.

  “They’ve turned tail!” a man yelled.

  Hickok and Spartacus peered over the top of the wall.

  The strike force had reassembled near the woods. A tall man attired in brown clothing was bellowing at them.

  “Who’s he?” Spartacus absently asked.

  “Beats me,” Hickok replied. “Check our people. Give me a tally.”

  Spartacus nodded and left.

  Hickok grimaced as a spasm lanced his left thigh.

  Great!

  Just great!

  The battle had barely begun, and here he’d gone and gotten himself hit!

  Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!

  What a cow chip!

  Hickok stopped berating himself and counted the bodies littering the field. Some of the dead soldiers were piled on top of one another, so an accurate count was difficult. As near as he could estimate, Hickok reckoned there were close to four dozen.

  Plus the dozen on the bridge.

  Five dozen. Not bad, he told himself. That only left about 1,940.

  Only.

  But at least the tank was out of commission.

  The tall man in brown was lambasting the troops.

  Hickok leaned on the top of the parapet, his arms extended to waist height, and prudently slid his fingers under the strands of barbed wire lining the outer edge of the wall.

  “Look!” a nearby woman yelled.

  The body of troops was filing into the forest.

  What were they up to now? Hickok wondered.

  The tall man in brown reappeared, carrying a white flag. Without hesitation, he strode toward the Home.

  “One of them is coming this way!” stated a man on the gunman’s left.

  What was this action? Hickok squinted, trying to clearly see the man in brown, but he was still too far off.

  Spartacus trotted up to the gunfighter.

  “How’d we do?” Hickok asked him.

  “You won’t believe it,” Spartacus replied.

  “How many did we lose?” Hickok pressed him.

  Spartacus beamed. “Not one.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “A few nicks and scratches,” Spartacus elaborated, “but not one dead.

  We were lucky.”

  “We caught them by surprise,” Hickok stated. “We won’t be able to pull a stunt like that again.”

  Spartacus noticed the man in brown approaching. “What’s this?”

  “Beats me,” Hickok said, shrugging. “I reckon he wants to palaver.”

  “It’s a trick,” Spartacus stated. “He’s doing to us what we did to them.”

  “Not likely,” Hickok disagreed. “He left all his men in the trees. I think he really wants to talk.”

  “I’ll go meet him,” Spartacus offered.

  “Nope.”

  “But you’re hurt,” Spartacus objected.

  “I can still wobble with the best of ’em,” Hickok responded. “Besides, I’ll have my equalizers with me.” He patted his Pythons. “If he so much as blinks crooked, I’ll perforate his noggin’.”

  “I should go along,” Spartacus protested.

  “You’ll stay put,” Hickok ordered.

  “Hickok—”

  “Keep me covered.” Hickok walked to the stairs and descended to the ground. “Lower the drawbridge,” he told the four men.

  Hickok stared at one of the dead troopers floating in the moat. Those bodies would have to be removed from the water before they polluted the stream. He gazed at the immobile tank, potentially useless unless it could be driven. How hard was it to drive a tank? Was it anything like driving a jeep or the SEAL? Somehow, he doubted it would be a piece of cake.

  The drawbridge clanked to the ground.

  The man in brown was waiting on the other side, about 20 yards from the west wall.

  Hickok nonchalantly placed his thumbs in his gunbelt and ambled from the compound. He wended his way among the scattered bodies until he was five feet from the man in brown.

  “Hello, Hickok,” the man said in a low voice.

  Hickok studied the speaker. He was a big one, at least six and a half feet in height, and every square inch appeared to be solid muscle. His brown clothing, immaculately neat, served as a distinct contrast to the man’s animalistic facial features; he had a pronounced forehead terminating in excessively bushy eyebrows, thick lips, a deformed nose, and two of his upper teeth protruded over his lower lip. His nose was deformed, almost flattened at its tip, and his skin was strangely pitted. A shock of black hair added to his bizarre aspect.

  “Should I know you, gruesome?” Hickok baited him.

  “No,” the big man conceded. “My name is Brutus.”

  “So what’s with the white flag?” Hickok inquired. In reality, it was a strip of white sheeting affixed to a branch.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” Brutus revealed, his tone low and forceful, the trace of a grin touching the corners of his wide mouth.

  “We have something to talk about?” Hickok retorted.

  “The Doktor wants his notebooks,” Brutus declared.

  “What notebooks?” Hickok answered, stalling. How had the Doktor discovered the Family had them?

  “Don’t play games with me,” Brutus warned. “The Doktor’s last radio contact concerned four blue notebooks of his. They’re his journals on his research and other activities. The Doktor wants them back. He knows one of your Warriors, Yama, stole them from Cheyenne before it was nuked. He knows the Family has them. Hand them over.”

  “Why don’t you stick that branch where the sun don’t shine,” Hickok told him.

  “I take it you refuse to turn the notebooks over?” Brutus asked.

  “Ain’t you the bright one!” Hickok stated. “You must make your momma real proud.”

  Brutus abruptly clenched his brawny fists, his face reddening.

  “Touchy, ain’t we?” Hickok said. Why did Brutus react so angrily to a harmless insult? Suddenly the answer hit the gunman: Brutus didn’t have a mother. Brutus was one of the Doktor’s test-tube creatures, one of his genetically engineered deviates.

  “I will have those notebooks,” Brutus vowed, “one way or the other.”

  “The Doktor wants them that bad, huh?” Hickok queried, an idea occurring to him.

  “The Doktor wants them,” Brutis affirmed.

  “Then you’d best take your tin soldiers and skedaddle,” Hickok said, “or I’ll burn the notebooks to ashes.”

  Brutus smiled. “Go ahead.”

  “But you just said the Doktor wants his journals back,” H
ickok said in surprise.

  “He does,” Brutus confirmed, “but he wants the Family destroyed even more than he wants his notebooks. Go ahead and burn them.”

  Hickok didn’t respond. He knew the notebooks were invaluable to the Family. The Family Elders were close to deciphering the contents, and the information gleaned so far indicated that the cause of the premature senility affecting the older Family members was contained in those notebooks.

  Brutus gazed up at the west wall. “I will demolish your Home.”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” Hickok reminded him, “Some other idiot just tried. The Home is still standing.”

  Brutus inexplicably smiled. “Captain Luther was an inexperienced dolt!

  He really believed you were going to surrender. He thought you were terrified at the mere sight of our troops and the tank.” Brutus chuckled. “I knew better, of course, but I couldn’t convince him. I knew it was a trick!” he bragged. “I advised him to keep most of our men in reserve, in case it was an ambush. And the jackass fell for it!” Brutus laughed crazily.

  “I take it you were rather fond of old Luther?” Hickok quipped.

  “With him gone,” Brutus informed the Warrior, “I’m in charge now.”

  “From a jackass to a horse’s ass,” Hickok said. “I don’t see where you’re an improvement.”

  Brutus glared at the gunman.

  “I must say,” Hickok went on, taunting his foe, “I’m impressed by all the fancy words you sling around. I didn’t think the Doktor’s pets were that smart.”

  Brutus resembled a beet from the neck up. “I’ll make you eat those words, you bastard! I’m one of the Doktor’s favorites!”

  “Whoop-de-do!”

  “By this time tomorrow,” Brutus pledged, “you will be dead, you and the rest of your miserable Family. I will show no mercy!”

  “I have a question for you,” Hickok stated.

  Brutus, working himself into a frenzy over the gunman’s insults, was taken aback by the comment. He stared at the Warrior, flustered. “What question?”

  Hickok grinned. “How are you gonna get back to them trees?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How are you gonna get from here,” Hickok said, pointing to the grotesque man’s exceptionally large feet, “to there.” The gunman pointed at the forest 130 yards off.