The storm continued all that day and into the night.They slept within the broken body of the car, and it sheltered them. When the storm ceased. Tanner opened thedoor and looked outside, closed it again.

"We'll wait till morning," he said, and she held his Hellprinted hand, and they slept.

XVI In the morning, Tanner walked back through the mudand the fallen branches, the rocks and the dead fish, andhe opened the rear compartment and unbolted the bikes.He fueled them and checked them out and wheeled themdown the ramp.

He crawled into the back of the cab then and removedthe rear seat. Beneath it, in the storage compartment, wasthe large aluminum chest that was his cargo. It was boltedshut. He lifted it, carried it out to his bike.

"That the stuff?" she asked.

He nodded and placed it on the ground.

"I don't know how the stuff is stored, if it's refrigeratedin there or what," he said, "but it ain't too heavy that Imight not be able to get it on the back of my bike. There'sstraps in the far right compartment. Go get 'em and giveme a hand—and get me my pardon out of the middlecompartment. It's in a big cardboard envelope."

She returned with these things and helped him securethe container on the rear of his bike.

He wrapped extra straps around his left biceps, and theywheeled the machines to the road.

"We'll have to take it kind of slow," he said, and heslung the rifle over his right shoulder, drew on his glovesand kicked his bike to life.

She did the same with hers, and they moved forward,side by side along the highway.

After they had been riding for perhaps an hour, twocars passed them, heading west. In the rear seats of boththere were children, who pressed their faces to the glassand watched them as they went by. The driver of thesecond car was in his shirtsleeves and wore a black shoulder holster.

The sky was pink, and there were three black linesthat looked as if they could be worth worrying about. Thesun was a rose-tinted silvery thing, and pale, but Tannerstill had to raise his goggles against it. , The pack was riding securely, and Tanner leaned intothe dawn and thought about Boston. There was a lightmist on the foot of every hill, and the air was cool andmoist. Another car passed them. The road surface beganto improve.

It was around noontime when he heard the first shotabove the thunder of their engines. At first he thought itwas a backfire, but it came again, and Corny cried outand swerved off the road and struck a boulder.

Tanner cut to the left, braking, as two more shots rangabout him, and he leaned his bike against a tree andthrew himself flat. A shot struck near his head and hecould tell the direction from which it had come. Hecrawled into a ditch and drew off his right glove. He couldsee his girl lying where she had fallen, and there wasblood on her breast. She did not move.

He raised the 30.06 and fired.

The shot was returned, and he moved to his left.

It had come from a hill about two hundred feet away,and he thought he saw the rifle's barret.

He aimed at it and fired again.

The shot was returned, and he wormed his way further left. He crawled perhaps fifteen feet until he reacheda pile of rubble he could crouch behind. Then he pulledthe pin on a grenade, stood and hurled it.

He threw himself flat a? another shot rang out, and hetook another grenade into his hand.

There was a roar and a rumble and a mighty flash, andthe junk fell about him as he leaped to his feet and threwthe second one, taking better aim this time.

After the second explosion, he ran forward with hisrifle in his hands, but it wasn't necessary.

He only found a few small pieces of the man, and noneat all of his rifle.

He returned to Cornelia.

She wasn't breathing, and her heart had stopped beating, and he knew what that meant.

He carried her back to the ditch in which he had lamand he made it deeper by digging, using his handsHe laid her down in it and he covered her with the dirt.Then he wheeled her machine over, set the kickstand, andstood it upon the grave. With his dagger, he scratched uponthe fender: Her name was Cornelia and I don't know howold she was or where she came from or what her lastname was but she was Hell Tanner's girl and I love her.Then he went back to his own machine, started it anddrove ahead. Boston was maybe thirty miles away.

XVII He drove along, and after a time he heard the sound ofanother bike. A Harley cut onto the road from the dirtpath to his left, and he couldn't try running away from itbecause he couldn't speed with the load he bore. So heallowed himself to be paced.

After awhile, the rider of the other bike—a tall, thinman with a flaming beard—drew up alongside him, to theleft. He smiled and raised his right hand and let it fall andthen gestured with his head.

Tanner braked and came to a halt. Redbeard wasright beside him when he did. He said, "Where you going,man?"

"Boston."

"What you got in the box?"

"Like, drugs."

"What kind?" and the man's eyebrows arched andthe smile came again onto his lips.

"For the plague they got going there."

"Oh. I thought you meant the other kind."

"Sorry."

The man held a pistol in his right hand and he said,"Get off your bike."

Tanner did this, and the man raised his left hand andanother man came forward from the brush at the side ofthe road. "Wheel this guy's bike about two hundred yardsup the highway," he said, "and park it in the middle.Then take your place."

"What's the bit?" Tanner asked.

The man ignored the question. "Who are you?" heasked.

"Hell's the name," he replied. "Hell Tanner."

"Go to hell."

Tanner shrugged.

"You ain't Hell Tanner."

Tanner drew off his right glove and extended his fist.

"There's my name."

"I don't believe it," said the roan, after he had studiedthe tattoo.

"Have it your way, citizen."

"Shut up!" and he raised his left hand once more, nowthat the other man had parked the machine on the roadand returned to a place somewhere within the trees to theright.

In response to his gesture, there was movement withinthe brush.

Bikes were pushed forward by their riders, and theylined the road, twenty or thirty on either side.

"There you are," said the man. "My name's BigBrother."

"Glad to meet you.""You know what you're going to do, mister?"

"I can really just about guess."

"You're going to walk up to your bike and claim it."

Tanner smiled.

"How hard's that going to be?"

"No trouble at all. Just start walking. Give me yourrifle first, though."

Big Brother raised his hand again, and one by one theengines came to life.

"Okay," he said. "Now."

"You think I'm crazy, man?"

"No. Start walking. Your rifle.**

Tanner unslung it and he continued the arc. He caughtBig Brother beneath his red beard, and he felt the bulletgo into him. Then he dropped the weapon and hauledforth a grenade, pulled the pin and tossed it amid the leftside of the gauntlet. Before it exploded, he'd pulled thepin on another and thrown it to his right. By then,though, vehicles were moving forward, heading towardhim.

He fell upon the rifle and shouldered it in a prone firing position. As he did this, the first explosion occurred.He was firing before the second one went off.

He dropped three of them, then got to his feet andscrambled, firing from the hip.

He made it behind Big Brother's fallen bike and firedfrom there. Big Brother was still fallen, too. When therifle was empty, he didn't have time to reload. He firedthe .45 four times before a tire chain brought him down.

He awoke to the roaring of the engines. They werecircling him. When he got to his feet, a handlebarknocked him down again.