Chapter Four

      The desert night air was cool and sweet, scented with the flowers from the nearby cactus grove. The roiling polluted clouds overhead had broken, allowing the crescent moon to shine a silvery light across the landscape, turning the box canyon a stark black and white. The only source of flickering color came from a small cookfire. Squatting around the crackling flames, the four Rogan brothers licked their fingers and wiped greasy mouths on grimy sleeves.

      Hawking and spitting on the ground, Alan Rogan cut loose a satisfied belch. “Now that was a good dog.” He chuckled, scratching his belly. “Don’t you think so, bro?”

      The elder Rogan scowled at his brother. “Shaddup,” John snapped, tossing a gnawed leg bone onto the fire. The impact stirred up a cloud of red embers that lifted into the air and danced about to float away on the breeze.

      Alan frowned. “Hey, I was only—”

      “Go water the horses,” John ordered, licking his fingers clean. “This shithole didn’t have anywhere near the number of people we were told. We ride at dawn.”

      “Hopefully to a ville with some sluts,” Robert groaned in a horrible, barely human voice. The large bald norm then broke a bone in two and sucked out the dark marrow. A dirty silk scarf was wrapped around his throat, almost hiding a long puckered scar that completely encircled his neck, the classic telltale mark of a hangman’s noose.

      Dropping the pieces of bone into the flames, Robert rubbed a greasy hand across his bald head and smiled ruefully. “Been a long time since I showed some gaudy slut the ceiling,” he croaked. “Too goddamn nuking long.”

      “We still have the shovel,” Alan said, jerking a thumb at the darkness outside the nimbus of the firelight. “I’m sure if ya really wanted to you could still find the wrinklie. Mebbe the ants haven’t eaten much of her good stuff yet.”

      John snorted a laugh at that, but Robert lowered his head as if about to charge like a rampaging bull. “I’d do you before a rotter,” he growled in mock warning.

      Without any expression, Alan gestured and knives slipped from his sleeves into each hand. “Any time you wanna try, big brother,” he replied softly, turning the blades slightly so that the feathered edge of the steel reflected the reddish light of the campfire.

      Moving back slightly, Robert raised his hands as if in surrender, and Alan now saw that one fist was holding a pipebomb, the fuse smoldering and spitting sparks.

      “Come to Poppa,” the bald man snarled, gesturing closer.

      “Cut out the fragging drek and get to work,” John ordered, dismissing them both with a wave of his scarred hand. “Alan, the horses. Robert, go spell Ed.”

      Grinning broadly, Robert licked two dirty fingers and pinched out the fuse, then pulled the string from the pipebomb and tucked it away into his voluminous jacket. The bomb itself went into a pouch on his belt. “Sure thing. No prob, bro,” he croaked, and stood to walk away into the night.

      “Why is he always on my ass like that?” Alan complained, tucking the blades away again. “I was only joking around.”

      “He’s bald as a rock, and you got a ponytail down to your balls. Figure it out yourself,” John said, sneering contemptuously. “Now water the fragging horses, or do ya wanna try that knife trick on me?”

      Angry, Alan started to shoot back a taunt, but then saw his elder brother’s face and thought better. John was in charge of the gang because he was the smartest, there was no denying that. But also because the other brothers were terrified of him, and there was no denying that, either.

      Forcing a smile onto his face, Alan strolled away into the night, kicking at the sand to raise little dust clouds as he moved toward the remaining horses.

      As Alan vanished into the gloom, Edward appeared and sat on the ground. Taking a haunch of roasted meat from a rock near the crackling flames, the barrel-chested man started tearing off pieces like a wild mutie. In spite of the cool evening, he had his shirt mostly unbuttoned, and a grisly necklace of shriveled “trophies” hacked off his enemies was clearly visible.

      Lighting a handrolled cig, John sucked in the sweet dark smoke of the zoomer, nodding in satisfaction that he finally got the mixture of tobacco, marijuana and wolfweed just right. A little too much of the tobacco and you didn’t get zoned. Too much of the mary and it tasted like drek. Some people chatted about shine as if it had tits and an ass, but weed was the cure for what ailed a man.

      “Any more?” Edward demanded as a question, trying to crack the bone apart for the marrow. But the bone splintered in his enormous hands and he cast the greasy mess into the flames. The glowing charcoal sputtered and started to give off thick smoke.

      “Nope, we each got a quarter,” John said, letting the zoomer dangle from his lips. “Share and fair alike, as always, bro.”

      “I’m bigger,” Edward complained, thumping a fist onto his hairy chest. “I should get more.”

      “Would, should, could. Don’t mean shit to me.”

      “Ain’t fair,” Edward rumbled dangerously.

      Blowing out a smoke ring, John debated getting rough, when there was an unexpected flash of light. For a split tick, he thought he was having a vision from the drugs in the cig. But then the light came again, softer, whiter, and rapidly expanded to fill the entire box canyon as if it was high noon.

      “Son of a bitch!” Edward cursed, reaching behind his back and pulling out a short hatchet. “What the hell is this?”

      Dropping the zoomer, John rolled backward off the rock he had been sitting on and grabbed the blaster from his bedroll. Clicking back both of the hammers on the double-barrel longblaster, the elder Rogan looked frantically about. The weird light completely filled the box canyon, all the way up to the rocky ridge