Riders of the Pale Horse by T. Davis Bunn Page A

table was a full four feet across, and made an excellent work surface as he went about preparing their dinner.
    Eventually the old man returned, a ghost of a smile on his features. “That was very wise, setting out the extra beddings.”
    â€œIt was Robards’ idea,” Wade confessed.
    â€œOf course.”
    At the sound of the old man’s voice, Robards sprang lightly from the truck. Wade handed him a plate of canned stew and a fork. He blew on the steaming food and demanded, “Ask the old man if there was any trouble.”
    â€œThere is trouble everywhere,” Mikhail replied, accepting his food with a nod. “Life itself is trouble. But they did not appear overly interested.”
    â€œWhat did he say we were carrying?”
    â€œParts for these cursed Russian trucks,” the old man replied. “Items too heavy to be stolen with ease and not valuable enough to fight over unless the takings were easy.”
    â€œOne of us will be on duty all night,” Robards announced. “Two hours on, four off. I’ll take the first watch. One will sleep in the front cab, one in back, one on top.”
    â€œI’ll take the top position,” Wade said quickly.
    Robards showed the glimmer of a smile. “Like to do a little stargazing?”
    â€œI’d just like a little fresh air. I feel as if I’ve been eating dust all day.”
    â€œWell, take a couple of extra blankets. The night will get cold up there.”
    It did. But Wade found he did not mind at all. Robards woke him for his watch with a hot mug of oversweetened tea and the words, “Be sure and sit up the whole time. Otherwise you might fall back asleep.”
    Wade sipped and sighed sweet steam and wrapped the blankets up close around his neck. The camp spread out in front of him for a half mile or more in three directions. Silent, still forms huddled around many smoldering fires. Shadow figures walked in quiet vigilance around trucks, tall guns jutting like spears from their shoulders or hanging down alongside their legs. Drunken laughter drifted up from points unseen. Overhead the stars stretched out like a glittering silver blanket, bright enough to paint the entire scene with ghostly luminosity. The peaks surrounding their escarpment slicedsharp edges from the sky, silent sentinels overlooking the madness of man.
    Morning was little more than a smudge across the eastern sky when Robards had them break camp and get underway. As usual, the old man rode in the front truck with Robards, while Wade followed close behind and ate the front truck’s dust. The morning was cold; Wade’s fingers were numbed by the steering wheel in the unheated cabin. His breath frosted the inside of the windshield, each dip in the road jarred his spine, the engine roared so loudly Wade could scarcely hear himself think. But he did not mind.
    Every turn in the road brought new vistas. The mountains had the raw, untamed look of a new creation. The sun crested distant peaks and flashed fiery illumination into the morning, transforming the road into a molten river of gold and the dust into figures that coalesced and beckoned and vanished and reformed. Wade shouted a laugh as the next curve revealed a flickering stream from which a flock of sheep drank, oblivious to the thundering motors. He waved to the bearded shepherd with his trio of dogs and ancient rifle and pair of crossed bandoliers. Wade had never felt so alive.
    By the time they approached the outskirts of Carcash, however, the thrill of adventure had long since faded beneath a blanket of fatigue and dust and heat. The sun poised mercilessly in a cloudless sky. In his cracked rearview mirror Wade inspected a face caked with white dust and a pair of red-rimmed eyes. His mouth tasted of grit and diesel fumes and the road. He was glad their mission was almost completed.
    He followed Robards toward the truck compound that dominated one side of the village. Their passage