Wolves by D. J. Molles Page A

barrels on a rotating cylinder. Except they are bigger than scatterguns. Like small cannons, maybe. The man behind the big gun tracks the approaching travelers, the big bores following them steadily.
    Rigo raises his hands.
    Jay and Huxley mimic the motion.
    â€œThat’s far enough,” The sentry with the rifle calls out. “Just keep your hands where we can see ’em.”
    Huxley, Jay, and Rigo stop, hands held in the air.
    The five-barreled minicannon creaks quietly on its metal hinges, the operator of the thing watching them with narrowed eyes.
    â€œWhy are you here?” the sentry with the rifle asks.
    Rigo looks back at Huxley with a questioning glance.
    Perhaps he is not as familiar with this settlement as it seemed.
    Huxley takes a half step forward. “We’re looking to do business.”
    â€œWhat kind of business?”
    â€œTrade business.”
    â€œYou plannin’ on causing trouble?”
    â€œNo sir, hadn’t planned on it.”
    â€œSee that you don’t.” The sentry waves them forward. “You say you want to trade. Let’s see what you got. And don’t waste my time.”
    The sentry gestures them to a table made of steel legs and a rotting plywood top. The sentry takes a position on the opposite side from them. Behind the table, the rusting scrap-metal walls rise up around the settlement, crowned with sharpened poles and sections of barbed wire and studded with broken glass. A hand-painted sign declares this settlement “BORDERLINE.”
    The sentry waits expectantly for them.
    Huxley isn’t quite sure what to do. No one else seems to know either.
    The sentry pats the table top. “Jesus Christ, gentlemen. Lay your shit out.”
    The man from the minicannon speaks up. “They’s Wastelanders, Bud. They don’t know.”
    The sentry eyes them, each in turn. “That true? Y’all Wastelanders?”
    Again, Huxley isn’t sure how to respond. But he gets the sense from how they say it that this somehow makes him of limited intelligence. Which is almost amusing to him. In the old life, under his old name, he’d been a scholar. A teacher. A reader. A lover of learning. These boys probably barely remembered the Old World. They probably hadn’t learned as much now, in their burgeoning adulthood, as Huxley had learned by the time he made it out of middle school.
    â€œWe come from out west, if that’s what you mean,” Huxley says. “You’ll have to pardon us. This is the first settlement we’ve seen. We’ve been in the desert for … a while.”
    â€œWell …” the lead sentry leans back a bit. “Idn’t that something.” He seems sincerely surprised. “Be honest, we don’t get many folks come from out west. I mean … the trade caravans and all. But not just a coupla guys walkin’. Y’all seriously never been in a town before?”
    Huxley looks at the walls. “No. I come from a farming commune. Seen a few outposts here and there. But nothing in the desert.”
    â€œWhat brings you so far east?”
    Huxley senses Jay stiffen beside them. They are in an unknown situation right now. They haven’t been in a settlement this far east. Were they friendly? Were they allied with the slavers?
    â€œJust business. Personal business.”
    The sentry narrows his eyes a bit. “Hm.”
    â€œOut east,” Huxley clarifies. “Little farther east than this town, I think.”
    â€œYou mean the Riverlands?” the sentry balks a bit.
    Huxley doesn’t know how to respond to that.
    â€œChrist, Bud,” the man on the minicannon gripes. “You tryna fuck the man? Check his pockets and let him go.”
    The lead sentry rolls his eyes. He taps the table. “Anything you have to trade, lay it on the table. If you got enough to make our time worth it, you can go inside. Otherwise, you can pass on. This