"Richard Harding - Outrider 02 - Fire And Ice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harding Richard)

brown, dead lake bed. There lay the main east-west road into Chicago. There
was no other way in and the citizens of Chi liked it that way. No one would
ever be able to bring a force of any size across the vast expanse of emptiness
without being seen. That way the whole city avoided a sudden raid from the
feudal states. The Slaves, the Hots, the Snows hated Chicago. It was an open
city, a place where men who refused to submit to the boot of another man found
their refuge. If they had their way, the heads of the States would have wiped
out the men of Chicago, but they knew that to take on Chicago meant losing
most of their best men for little return. Chicago was the town that you went
to if you thought you were tough enough to make it on your own, to live by
your wits and your gun. Once in a while a runaway slave from the feudal
states would wander into Chicago. The feeling among those who lived in the
city was that once you made it that far you deserved to live, so if Stormers
or Devils or Lightnings came looking for you, every gun in Chi-town would be
turned against your enemies. If a member of the town decided that he didn't
like your face or your talk-well, that was personal, between you and him and
may the toughest, or the dirtiest, fighter win. Bonner and Starling's wheels
hit the hard-packed lake bed and began to consume the miles voraciously. No
one knew what happened to the lake. The bomb had removed it somehow. Bonner
always thought he would loved to have seen that much water right there in the
middle of the continent. It must have been an amazing sight. They pointed
their noses for the east and Bonner couldn't suppress the strength of the joy
he felt. He wanted another shot at Leather, he wanted to hit the road again,
he wanted the activity, the nerve-tingling duel with death. He looked into the
sun and felt the cold wind whip around his neck. It was the kind of day that
demanded that a man get in his car and go-to see what was out there, to see
how many more of his foes he could vanquish. Seth's big steam locomotive
eased out of the yards where the vast old Chicago station had stood. Acres
upon acres of rusting rails glistened in the morning sun, blood red where the
icy rays of the sun hit the centuries-old corrosion. He stood on the foot
plate and peered ahead of him. There were numerous switches on the line that
he had to throw before he could make his way out of the Chicago yards. He
worked his mind over them as if he was solving a giant complex puzzle. He set
the train on a slow throttle and then jumped down from the engine. He raced a
few paces ahead of the slow-moving behemoth, grabbed the heavy weighted lever
of the switch, and threw it effortlessly. He stood by the side of the rail and
waited for his train to catch up with him, like a dutiful pet. He stepped
lightly onto the vehicle and tugged on the throttle. The engine picked up
speed and curved over the track he had set for it. Behind him stood the giant
coal car that he filled himself in the dangerous, hateful firelands. The
firelands were Seth's domain.... Behind the coal car were three tanker cars
that he had coupled onto his engine the night before. They would be the first
carriers of the gas out of the promised land. It wasn't much, but it was more
gas -than Chicago had seen around in one place in a long time. Seth pushed
the throttle up a bit more and the train picked up more speed. He jumped down
from the cab again and swung another switch open. "East," he said aloud, as
he jumped back onto the foot plate. He felt Bonner's sense of elation. A crisp
morning, the open rails, a mission, an adventure, a prize... He clutched his
little M3 machine gun-it was always slung over his shoulder-to his side and
did a little dance on the foot plate. "East," he said again, happy, and