04 I DON’T know anything else, but that’s what I saw… that’s everything,’ the kid finished, having explained the whole story to Ballow, who just looked on. ‘You think I’m snow-crazy, don’t you?’

‘No,’ said Ballow immediately. ‘No, I really don’t.’

The tall Rifleman walked out into his office area and grabbed his tablet, returning quickly to his sleeping quarters. He leaned against the wall and thumbed through networked reports.

‘Six weeks ago near Snakespar a mining party went missing, their entire camp abandoned, nothing out of the ordinary save for shuffled forked hoofprints in the snow,’ Ballow read from the tablet, then swiped to another. ‘Five weeks ago, a logging plot forty kilometres north of Abandonpoint. No contact with loggers since, nothing found. Only tracks in the vicinity of the camp are believed to belong to beasts of burden, potentially from off-world. Three weeks ago, at Harmony’s Drifts, a drovers’ camp. Only tracks found were thought to belong to chuupa, though they were so trampled it was hard to tell…’

The kid stared at Ballow and nodded, but said nothing for some time. Finally, he scrunched his nose and mouth, and asked, ‘You really think that they’re all related?’

‘I’m not sure,’ answered Ballow, ‘but I think it's a real possibility.’

‘What’re you going to do about it?’

‘Well, I suppose I have to contact my superiors and see what they say.’

The kid wrapped the heat-retention blanket tighter around him. ‘The Citadel in the Steppes?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ Ballow smiled, ‘that’s right, the Mounted Rifle Patrol headquarters.’

‘What do you think they’ll say?’ the kid asked, and Ballow could hear the panic starting to take hold in his voice.

‘I’m not sure kid. I’ve got someone in my holding cell back there,’ Ballow gestured to LeMowe, ‘and I can’t rightly just leave him. But I’m probably the closest Rifleman to where you said your camp was, by days most like…’

Ballow trailed off as he returned to his work desk and plugged his tablet back into its cradle on the desktop. He pulled his chair around and sat his impressively large frame into it, the green button-back leather of the upholstery creaking as he did so. He picked up the keyboard, comically small in his large hands, and typed a series of commands furiously fast before flipping two toggle switches hardwired into the back of the desktop.

A slight static emanated from the tablet for a second, before a face appeared across its screen; the face of an older, balding man with thick, bushy mutton chop sideburns that met his walrus-like greying mustache.

‘Sergeant-Major,’ the older man on the tablet screen said, nodding his head in greeting.

‘Superintendent,’ replied Ballow.

‘What can I do for you, Sergeant-Major?’

‘I have a… situation, sir,’ started Ballow, relaying the story told to him by the kid.

The Superintendent sat patently, listening intently, as Ballow told the story exactly as it was told to him. By the end, the Superintendent held his chin in the palm of his right hand, the pointer finger of the hand tapping the very tip of his nose in contemplation. ‘Very interesting…’ he said ruminatively.

‘My holding cell is occupied, sir,’ Ballow explained, ‘and I figure it wouldn’t be just to leave with no one to attend to the current resident.’

‘Quite,’ said the Superintendent, ‘but this matter of the drovers’ camp is extremely time sensitive. What did you say this,’ he scrolled through a small tablet in his left hand, ‘LeMowe character was picked up for?’

‘Just a petty theft, sir,’ answered Ballow. ‘Well known character around the vicinity of Whitestorm, card cheat and such.’

‘Perhaps this Mr LeMowe will appreciate what good luck he suddenly has. Give him two days’ worth of rationsticks and a heat blanket, and send him on his way, Sergeant-Major. And press upon him,’ the Superintendent said, ‘that the Mounted Rifle Patrol will not be so lenient in any future encounters.’

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

‘Understood, sir,’ affirmed Ballow.

‘Maybe at one of the mines out in the southwestern Radiation Zone would a man of Mr LeMowe’s… talents… be employed.’

‘Yessir, perhaps.’

‘I’d like you to head to this drovers’ camp, Sergeant-Major. See to the validity of this child-drover’s story. Leave no stone unturned, and report back as soon as possible.’

‘Yessir, understood sir.’

The video on the tablet’s screen went black, and Ballow rose from the chair. He grabbed six or seven rationsticks from the consumables alcove near the fireplace, slipped them into a rubberised envelope, and then grabbed a few of the crinkly, silver heat-retention blankets from a shelf nearby. He then walked over to the holding cell, and deactivated the force field that held LeMowe inside. Ballow tossed the blankets and the rubberised envelope of rationsticks onto the floor, his right hand resting on his holstered firearm.

‘It’s your lucky day, LeMowe,’ the Rifleman said, his loud voice nearly shaking the scoundrel from where he laid on the bunk. He motioned to the blankets and envelope on the concrete floor. ‘Grab those up, you’ve overstayed your welcome.’

‘Eh?’ LeMowe grunted, surprised. ‘What ees yous saying?’

‘You heard me, LeMowe. Grab them up, I’ve got your coat over by the door. Time to go.’

‘Een this storm, Ballow? Non non non, ees no thinking so,’ LeMowe chuckled, shaking his head. ‘I do not like thees trickery off yous.’

‘No trick, LeMowe.’ Ballow said, his voice rising louder. ‘Either you leave of your own accord, or I toss you outside without your coat.’

‘Non!’

‘Which is it?’

LeMowe stumbled from the cot and gathered up the items on the cold floor, the heating strips embedded in the rest of the bungalow’s floor having stopped just outside where the force field would have started. Ballow let the swarthy scoundrel move towards the entrance door, never taking his hand off the butt of his firearm.

‘Hands on the grips,’ Ballow said as LeMowe neared the thick, bulkhead door.

LeMowe grabbed two handles, painted bright yellow, on either side of the great wheel in the centre of the entrance door, there for this obvious reason, as Ballow rummaged in a metal tote by the wall. He pulled out a thick fur coat that smelled like cheap synthetic liquor and far too many nicotine lugs that had leaked, and threw it at LeMowe’s feet.

‘Latch it up and get going, LeMowe,’ the tall Rifleman said, replacing his right hand on the butt of the firearm.

‘Yous a no good dirty sonuvabitch!’ Yous a cheat, rascal!’

‘I’ve heard it all before,’ Ballow said, unphased. ‘All from you, in fact.’

Ballow punched the unlock code into the boxy terminal next to the door, and instructed LeMowe to spin the wheel and push the door open. The wind whipped straight into the bungalow, bringing with it a flurry of snow.

‘Yous better hope we neever meet again, Red Ballow,’ called LeMowe over the wind, turning around to look the Rifleman in the face.

‘I don’t suspect we will, LeMowe,’ Ballow said, taking a step towards the door and slipping his hand fully around the quick-draw bird’s head grip of his atomizer. LeMowe froze, his eyes growing wide with trepidation, and Ballow went on before shutting the thick door. ‘I hear the mines in the Rad Zone need some workers. Might wanna check that out if I were you, if you get my drift, LeMowe, because you certainly don't want to have another run-in with the Mounted Rifles.’

‘THE HELL I’m going back there!’ the kid yelled at Ballow. ‘No way you’re making me!’

‘Sorry kid, but I need a guide to the camp, and I can’t leave you here by yourself.’

Ballow was drinking from a steaming mug of caff to keep warm as he had hibernated all the computer systems in his office space. He had latched a pair of black harsh-environment bib overalls over his duty trousers, the quality of his eclipsing the pair worn by the kid’s even though his pair was much thinner, and tucked them into the tops of his knee-high black duty boots. He put the mug of caff down on his work desk and pulled his off-white duty shirt over the thermal undershirt already adorning his thickly thewed torso, then buttoned the asymmetrical bib of the shirt as far up as he could, tucking both shirts into the overalls.

‘You don’t understand, mister,’ the kid panicked. ‘I can’t go back there… I’m… I’m scared to.’

‘I get it, kid, I really do,’ said Ballow, picking up his distinctive woolen tunic of deep mahogany red. The kid’s eyes couldn’t leave Ballow as he draped it over his shoulders, inserted his strong arms into the sleeves, and zipped the closure that ran along the same asymmetrical line as his duty shirt.

Easily the most distinctive part of the Mounted Rifle Patrol’s outfit made the impressive man seem even more impressive.

‘I think I can draw you a map, if you give me your tablet,’ said the kid, feeling his forehead and his armpits start to perspire even in the chill of the room. ‘I think I’ll head southwest, like you told LeMowe… I think I like the idea of a desert right about now.’

‘How?’ asked Ballow.

‘Huh?’

‘How are you going to make it to the southwest? It’s thousands of kilometres. On foot you’ll never make it.’

‘Huh,’ grunted the kid.

‘Yeah, exactly,’ said Ballow, strapping his gunbelt around his waist, outside the mahogany tunic, and looping the kernmantle lanyard around his neck and under the epaulettes of the garment. He reached upwards over the door, where four pegs held different headwear, and hesitated at the crown of a large-brimmed plainsman's hat, but, listening to the wind buffeting the bungalow’s outer walls, instead chose a tall wedge cap of black fur and a mahogany woolen panel that resembled a bag -- much more appropriate for the conditions outside. ‘Eat a rationstick, warmup on some caff, and get your coat on. We leave in ten minutes.’