"I think if there was a problem, there'd be some blood spilled," Ryan replied calmly.

"Could be right. Not mercies, you reckon?"

"No."

"What d'you want in Snakefish?"

"Bed and food for a couple of nights. Then I guess we'd be moving on."

"We're sec patrol for the ville."

Ryan nodded. "Figured that."

The Smith & Wesson was put back in the holster.

"You got names?"

Ryan introduced his six friends. The leader of the bike gang looked like he was concentrating hard. "You got all those?"

"Sure. Don't read or write much, but I got total recall." To prove it, he repeated the names of the group faultlessly.

"You got names?" J.B. asked.

"Yeah. I'm Zombie. Little guy with the beard's Priest. Fat brother's Riddler. Rat next to him. Mealy next."

Ryan looked at the faces behind the names, faces you saw in a dozen villes across the land. He'd read some about tunes before dark day, and had seen some faded vids. Old photos. Here they were. The same faces from the old pix. Brutish, redneck faces. Good old boy, shit-kicking faces. Narrow eyes that would never look friendly and would often look coldly vicious. Most had their names emblazoned across the backs of their denim jackets: Harlekin, Dick the Hat, Vinny, Freewheeler, Ruin, Kruger.

After the introductions there was an uneasy silence, which was broken by Doc.

"I would be most awfully grateful, gentlemen, if you could see your way clear to conveying a tiny piece of information. What's the distance to the nearest metropolis?"

"What?" Zombie gaped.

"How far t'ville?" Jak translated.

"Why dinne say so?" mumbled the Angel called Rat. "Stupe-straight!"

"Mile an' half," Zombie told them.

"Gas smell is strong," Ryan said. "You got a big plant in town?"

"Just outside the ville in an old fun park."

Rick Ginsberg coughed. "I used to be interested in theme parks and funfairs. Magic Mountain, Six Flags, Elitch Gardens and... what was this one called?"

"Sierra Sunrise Park. You know it?" Zombie looked suspicious.

"Heard of it. Built very late in the nineties. Nothing special."

"Special! It's where our chapter has its home!" exclaimed the rider called Dick the Hat. Since he rode bareheaded the name was something of a puzzle.

"Yeah. Last Heroes redoubt. You stay a few days in the ville, you could come see it," Zombie offered, addressing his words specifically to Lori. Who grinned at him.

"Who's the baron?" Ryan asked.

"Baron Brennan, Edgar Brennan. Old guy. Been baron more years than anyone can remember."

Rick had another question. "Where did you get the choppers?"

"Me and some of the other righteous brothers came here around three years back. Kind of traveling on. Found a big old warehouse, way out beyond the edge of town. Part where folks said it was a hot spot. We got us a geiger. Warm, not hot. Orange, not red." Zombie laughed. "Folks been scared for nothing. It had been HQ for a chapter before the winters. Found it all. Hogs. Colors. Manuals. Rules. Kruger's best at reading so he told it all. We liked it. Good way of living. All rebels."

"What are you rebelling against?" Doc asked curiously.

To his surprise, the bikers answered him in chorus: "Why? What ya got?" Then they laughed at some obscure private joke.

Zombie, shaking with amusement, tried to explain. "There's this old vid, mostly rotted. It's about some real old chapter of brothers, way, way back. And someone asks that question. We all kind of know it by heart. You know."

"Sure. So, we'll meet up in the ville?"

"Yeah, outlander. We'll do that. And you better walk right or we'll bust your asses. Blasters or not. Right?"

"Hey!" said Riddler, the fattest and oldest of the gang.

"What?"

"How'd they get through the rattlers? They was lucky, Zombie."

"True, Riddler, true." He stared at Ryan. "You see any real big mutie snakes back in the brush there?"

Before anyone else could butt in, Ryan answered him quickly. "Snakes? No. Would've run a mile if we had."

The president of the chapter nodded solemnly. "Been your best bet. Touch one of those beauties and you count living in seconds."

"How come?"

"Baron runs the ville, right? He thinks he does. But Snakefish is built on religion. Snake religion and old-time religion. When you get to the ville you'll meet up with the Motes. Marianne and Norman and their boy, Joshua. That's where the power is in Snakefish. You know that and you walk right. Right?"

Ryan and his companions nodded dutifully. Having butchered one of the ville's favorite pets wasn't likely to endear them to the folk who ran Snakefish.

At a signal from Zombie, the bike engines coughed into life, spitting great clouds of blue-gray smoke into the cool morning air.

As the Angels vanished into the distance, weaving from side to side of the blacktop, Rick sat down on the verge, whistling his surprise and relief. "Those are heavy dudes," he said. "You hear the way they talked? Like actors in some B-grade movie. Like they learned all that crap about Hell's Angels. But those bikes!"

Doc coughed again. "I have seen and read a little about these gangs of hoodlums. If they are the sec force, andif there are some religious leaders running the show, perhaps we should seriously consider returning immediately to the redoubt."

"Those bikes," Rick continued, ignoring Doc's suggestion, "are worth an arm and a leg. Well, back in my time they would have been." Zombie had the big Harley-Davidson, the Electra Glide. And some of the others had true classics, as well: a couple of British Nortons and a Triumph; an Indian Chief and a BMW 1000. Rick saw a 650 Yamaha, and the little guy with the scar on his arm had a beauty. It looked rusted and battered, through the chrome, but was still Bultaco Metralla. "You guys can't believe what some of those... I mean..." He shook his head in amazed disbelief.

Ryan was still thinking about what Doc had said. His own experience had been that the worst kind of ville was one where some sort of freak religion ran the place. Some cults had all kinds of taboos, and a man never knew he'd crossed one of them until he felt the knife opening his stomach.

"Thought about asking who ran the air wag," J.B. said. "Then I figured it could be best to keep zipped. Like on the snakes."

"Sure. You think we should head for the ville or back to the redoubt? If we didn't have the freezie in tow I'd say move back over the desert and into the gateway."

The Armorer took off his glasses and squinted through them, wiping away specks of orange dust. "Freezie'd never make it back up. Take two, three days. Guess those sec boys could be to the ville and here again in an hour. With more guys with blasters. Like you said, Ryan. Be some blood spilled." He perched the glasses back on his pale, sharp nose.

Krysty hooked her arm through Ryan's. "My vote's for the ville. Not that I reckon we've got all that much choice. Do we, lover?"

"No. Snakefish, here we come."

"What's this park place the biker was talking about?"

Rick considered Ryan's question as they walked together toward the distant ville. "Sierra Sunrise Park? I'm no authority on places like that. I only visited a few. I liked the white-knuckler rides, roller coasters and stuff, loops and spirals. Montezuma's Revenge. Demon's Triple. White-water rapids, flumes. Colossus. Giganticus. There was a ride at Sierra, but I can't quite... No. The name's gone. Sorry, Ryan."

"Gas stinks," Jak exclaimed, hawking and spitting on the worn roadway.

"Ville must be rich," Lori said. She'd been oddly silent since the Angels had left them, walking on her own in long, swinging strides. Doc was panting, trying to keep up with her.