the girl, Natalie, said, holstering Rourke's revolver.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rourke sat by the small Coleman stove, water still steaming from the yellow kettle, the red-foil Mountain House package in his left hand, a table spoon he'd found held in his right. He gave the contents of the foil package a last stir and scooped a spoonful of the contents up and put it in his mouth, then leaned back against the rear bumper of the pickup truck. 'I love their beef stroganoff,' Rourke commented, almost to himself.
'This stuff is terrific!' Rubenstein said.
'What have you got there, Paul?' Rourke asked.
'Chicken and rice,' Rubenstein answered, his speech garbled because his mouth was full.
'Next time try some of this—the noodles in it are great, too.'
Natalie, still stirring at the contents of her packet, looked at Rourke across the glow of the small Coleman lamp between the three of them, saying, 'Well—now that we've found food, plenty of water, gasoline and a four- wheel drive pickup—what next?'
Rourke leaned forward, looking at the full spoon inches from his mouth, saying, 'Don't forget we found cigars for me and cigarettes for you.'
'That guy really had the stuff put away under that warehouse,' Rubenstein commented, his mouth still full.
'Yeah—too bad he never got a chance to use it, apparently,' Rourke sighed, finally consuming the spoonful.
'I can't understand that town,' the girl said. 'Why hadn't the brigands been there?'
'Well…' Rourke began.
'And why and where did all the people who lived there go?' the girl went on.
Rourke looked at her, took another spoonful of the food and began again. 'The way I've got it figured, everybody in the town just evacuated—I don't know to where. When those kids showed up and started shooting everything that moved, I guess the lead elements of the brigand force probably pulled in there, got killed and never reported back. There are two kinds of field commanders.
Whoever's in charge of the brigands apparently isn't the kind of guy who took losing a squad of men as a personal challenge. He just went around the town, maybe figuring the people there were too well armed. That means he's smart. He's not out to conquer and hold territory— he's just out to keep his people going on whatever they can plunder. I'd figure right about now he's got a dicey job.
Could be several hundred of them, no discipline, drinking up everything they can get their hands on and staying smashed most of the time on drugs. Be like tryin'
to control a gang of alcoholic gorillas—or maybe more like the stereotype of Vikings. Come in and strike hard, earn a reputation for brutality, retreat or withdraw fast and steal everything that isn't nailed down.'
'Then they're still ahead of us,' the girl stated more than asked.
'Yeah—and strong and probably by now spoiling for a good fight. I wouldn't worry. We're bound to bump into them,' Rourke concluded, finishing the last of his food packet and crumpling it in his hand, then tossing it in a sack in the back of the truck.
'Why did you go to all that trouble?' the girl asked, looking at him earnestly.
'What—not just throw it on the ground? Enough of the country's ruined; why ruin more of it?' Rourke reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a cigar, lighting it with the Zippo.
'Here—give me that, the lighter,' the girl said and Rourke snapped it closed and tossed it to her. She stared at it a moment—the initials 'J.T.R.' on it— turned it over in her hands and lit her cigarette, then snapped it closed, looked at it a moment and threw it back to him, 'Am I starting to ring bells for you, too—can you remember me yet?'
'I don't know what you mean,' Natalie told him, smiling.
'Hey—' Rubenstein said, brightly. 'Why don't we all have a drink? I mean, I could use one—we got six bottles back in the truck. 'Where'd you put 'em, John?'
'In the front right-hand corner,' Rourke answered, not looking at Rubenstein, but looking at the dark- haired, blue-eyed girl instead, her face glowing in the warm light of the lantern. 'There, just in front of my bike—I wrapped 'em up in an old towel I found. Go get one if you want.'
Rourke glanced away from the girl and toward the truck. They'd found the warehouse just as darkness had started, and Rubenstein—good at finding things, Rourke decided—had uncovered the doorway leading into the small basement under the main floor of the place. Using one of the flashlights they'd taken a long time back from the geological supply shop in Albuquerque, Rourke had gone down and discovered the cache of supplies. All the ammunition had been .308 and Rourke had left it, not having need of additional ammo for the Steyr. But the vast supplies of Mountain House freeze-dried foods, water and gasoline had been welcome. They had taken comparatively little, resealing the door after themselves just in case the original owner was still alive. They'd found the pickup truck a half-hour earlier and with the added supplies decided on taking it along—the keys had been in it.
The girl had been left on guard outside the warehouse while Rourke and Rubenstein had done the loading, the most awkward thing being getting the Harleys aboard the truck and securing them. There had been no further signs of the doomed, insane 'Guardians' they had confronted earlier. As the three had started to leave—darkness already having fallen—the girl had said to Rourke, 'You're a doctor—isn't there something you can do for them?'
'Mercy killing?' he'd asked quietly. 'And beyond that, they're beyond help. If I had a hospital, some specialists in nuclear medicine, we could make them comfortable, prolong their lives by a few weeks, maybe. But
