Circle War by Maloney Mack

Author:Maloney, Mack [Maloney, Mack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480406674
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-04-29T15:44:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-one

PECOS, NEW MEXICO WAS like a living hell.

The highway outside the small town was jammed with refugees from Texas fleeing the butchery of the Mongol raiders about a hundred miles to the east. Inside the typical throwback Old West town, a huge gun battle had been raging off and on for the past five days. New Order New Mexico was a so-called Free Territory—no central government, just every town for themselves. So an occasional gunfight was nothing new in Pecos. But this one was turning into a small-scale war.

It started with the local sheriff and his small deputized force shooting it out with a band of local criminals, troublemakers and looters. Then everyone who had a gun and a grudge to settle began to take sides. By the end of the second day, it had become impossible to tell who was shooting at whom and why.

The town’s two banks had been long ago robbed and many large buildings burned to the ground. The small airport had been bombed, the water supply destroyed and about half the high tension wires bringing electricity into the city had been dynamited. What was worse, someone had blown up all seven of the town’s gas stations and also a half dozen small oil derricks on the east side of town, leaving blazes that would take weeks to burn out. It made no difference in one respect, though; most everyone owned a horse and soon the equine was the preferred mode of transportation.

And the two Main Street saloons and the whorehouse on Gowano Avenue were still opening and holding packed houses. Liquor seemed to be in unlimited supply as was ammunition. Card games were going on everywhere, a few of which escalated into smaller gunfights. When the bullets started flying, the nonparticipants nonchalantly took cover, waited for the lead to stop, then returned to their drinking and poker and whoring.

Hunter was an odd sight when he first appeared at the swinging doors of the Pecos’ Double Star Cafe. Most everyone at the bar and at the card tables turned to look at him, clad in a black flight suit, carrying an M-16 in his hands and his flight helmet on his belt. He purposely strode into the saloon, staring down the few who chose to look at him for longer than three seconds.

Don’t fuck with me, his eyes said. No one dared to. The card playing and the drinking started up again almost immediately. Outside another gun battle was in full fury.

Hunter leaned up against the bar and ordered a whiskey, throwing down a dozen real-silver quarters. The bartender, aware that Hunter had overpaid for his drink by about five times, quickly recognized the bribe and asked: “What do you want to know?”

“Scary Mary,” Hunter said. “Who or what is it?”

“Depends on which one you mean,” the barkeep said in a voice drenched in Western twang. “Got two of ’em. One in town, the other outside.”

Hunter downed the whiskey and motioned for another. It was late afternoon.

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