Ain't Talkin'

Two levels down the bunker had a hanger. A trio of canvas-backed trucks stood to one side flanked by a pair of motorcycles. A half dozen cars in various states of disrepair lay scattered across the room, which all told was larger than most large houses. Most valuable of all was a gasoline pump in one corner. Jex had told Roche once that there were reserves of gasoline held beneath the bunker. Enough gas for ten vehicles to cross the continent and back many times. In a world where the majority of the gas reserves had been tapped out some fifty years back, it was like living above a gold mine.

But, that wasn’t what Roche had come for. In one corner of the hanger Jex had built a makeshift stable. Six stalls in all, though four stood empty.

Synthetic horses had been a product of the pre-Catastrophic world. Militaries were fixed to begin invading countries with ill-suited terrain for vehicles of any kind. It only made sense to hearken back to the days where wars were fought on horseback, but the likelihood of pouring funds into breeding stock and losing out on animals killed in action at a consistent rate didn’t fly with major military organizations. The solution was as simple as the problem.

Mechanical horses, synthetics. Orchestrated with the latest in muscle replacement technology and animatronics, these metal and ceramic-weave beasts were powered with lithium batteries and ran as smoothly as any real animal.

It was a blessing that any of these creations survived the end of the world, but they did. There were thousands of them scattered across the globe, and though they were expensive, for those who could afford them they were invaluable.

“Down to just two of them, eh?” Roche asked.

“One actually. Had five and four of them got bought out by some mercs headed up to the northwest. Rough country out there and I’m the only man in two-hundred miles with horses in stock. They paid a pretty penny and wanted all five but I kept one for myself just in case. You never know, and I’d rather have a horse on hand for myself then not. Know what I mean?” Jex puffed on his pipe and his voice echoed across the hanger, which, large as it was and stocked with vehicles, was predominantly empty. “I know what you mean. Said you had one horse for yourself, why’re two stalls closed? And you said you had stock for me, Jex, what is this?” Roche was all of the sudden irritated with the Emporium’s owner and operator. He turned on Jex and his body language said it all, Roche was a man of patience and means but he was not a man who enjoyed being jerked around.

Jex laughed. The sound was hearty and deep and when the old merc caught some pipe smoke on a guffaw’s inhale he doubled over in a coughing fit. When all this was through, teary eyed from coughing and red in the gob from laughing Jex just pointed at the second closed stall door.

Roche trod over to the half-door.

When you’re a man who spends his days slipping from one world to the next and to the spaces in between, when you’ve ceased to age and stopped needing to eat on a daily basis, when you kill men at a pinfall for looking at you the wrong way, it becomes hard to be surprised.

Roche had to grip the half-door to the horse stall to keep from falling over.

The walker could think of nothing to say, it had been decades since he had been speechless.

Inside the stall, saddle-sore and well ridden, but healthy looking and stout all the same was a bay mare with a black mane and tail and a single white fetlock.

“Showed up outside the front door one day. Caught a look at her through the camera. I went out the front and let her in the back way through the vehicle entrance and brought her down here. Been feeding her that dehydrated corn stuff that’s stocked in all the larders, fuck I still have a lot of that shit, they really prepped this place to be occupied for years, but when it’s only one man eating-”

“Where the fuck did a horse come from?”

“Still a few out there I’ve heard. More synthetics than real ones nowadays, but every once in a while you run across one. This poor girl showed up with tack and saddle all ready to go. Hungry and thirsty to be sure, but missing a rider. Poor bastard got shot off somewhere in the Mojave.”

“And she got through the minefield?” Roche was still stunned.

“Somehow, lucky bitch.” Jex just smiled wider and wider. “Been calling her just that. Lucky.”

Roche snapped his fingers and the mare turned to face him, all big brown eyes and twitchy ears. “How about it, Lucky?”

The mare nickered at the walker and the walker smiled.