The Talisman

up the Uzi from his lap and looked at it dumbly, wondering if he really would be able to use this weapon. Could Blasted Lands hijackers have guns, too?
    ‘Richard, I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but this time I think the shit is really going to hit the fan, and I’m going to need your help.’
    ‘What can I do?’ Richard asked, his voice squeaky.
    ‘Take your gun,’ Jack said, handing it to him. ‘And I think we ought to kneel down so we don’t give them so much of a target.’
    He got on his knees and Richard imitated him in a slow-moving, underwater fashion. From behind them came a long cry, from above them another. ‘They know we saw them,’ Richard said. ‘But where are they?’
    The question was almost immediately answered. Still visible in the dark purplish twilight, a man – or what looked like a man – burst out of cover and began running down the slope toward the train. Rags fluttered out behind him. He was screaming like an Indian and raising something in his hands. It appeared to be a flexible pole, and Jack was still trying to work out its function when he heard – more than saw – a narrow shape slice through the air beside his head. ‘Holy mackerel! They’ve got bows and arrows!’ he said.
    Richard groaned, and Jack feared that he would vomit all over both of them.
    ‘I have to shoot him,’ he said.
    Richard gulped and made some noise that wasn’t quite a word.
    ‘Oh, hell,’ Jack said, and flicked off the safety on his Uzi. He raised his head and saw the ragged being behind him just loosing off another arrow. If the shot had been accurate, he would never have seen another thing, but the arrow whanged harmlessly into the side of the cab. Jack jerked up the Uzi and depressed the trigger.
    He expected none of what happened. He had thought that the gun would remain still in his hands and obediently expel a few shells. Instead, the Uzi jumped in his hands like an animal, making a series of noises loud enough to damage his eardrums. The stink of powder burned in his nose. The ragged man behind the train threw out his arms, but in amazement, not because he had been wounded. Jack finally thought to take his finger off the trigger. He had no idea of how many shots he had just wasted, or how many bullets remained in the clip.
    ‘Didja get him, didja get him?’ Richard asked.
    The man was now running up the side of the valley, huge flat feet flapping. Then Jack saw that they were not feet – the man was walking on huge platelike constructions, the Blasted Lands equivalent of snowshoes. He was trying to make it to one of the trees for cover.
    He raised the Uzi with both hands and sighted down the short barrel. Then he gently squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked in his hands, but less than the first time. Bullets sprayed out in a wide arc, and at least one of them found its intended target, for the man lurched over sideways as though a truck had just smacked into him. His feet flew out of the snowshoes.
    ‘Give me your gun,’ Jack said, and took the second Uzi from Richard. Still kneeling, he fired half a clip into the shadowy dark in front of the train and hoped he had killed the creature waiting up there.
    Another arrow rattled against the train, and another thunked solidly into the side of the boxcar.
    Richard was shaking and crying in the bottom of the cab. ‘Load mine,’ Jack said, and jammed a clip from his pocket under Richard’s nose. He peered up the side of the valley for the second attacker. In less than a minute it would be too dark to see anything beneath the rim of the valley.
    ‘I see him,’ Richard shouted. ‘I saw him – right there!’ He pointed toward a shadow moving silently, urgently, among the rocks, and Jack spent the rest of the second Uzi’s clip noisily blasting at it. When he was done, Richard took the machinegun from him and placed the other in his hands.
    ‘Nize boyz, goot boyz,’ came a voice from the right side – how far ahead of them it was impossible to tell. ‘You stop now, I stop now, too, geddit? All done now, dis bizness. You nize boys, maybe you zell me dat gun. You kill plenty goot dat way, I zee.’
    ‘Jack,’ Richard whispered frantically, warning him.
    ‘Throw away the bow and arrows,’ Jack yelled, still crouching beside Richard.
    ‘Jack, you can’t!’ Richard whispered.
    ‘I t’row dem ’way now,’ the voice came, still ahead of them. Something light puffed into the dust. ‘You boyz stop going, zell me gun,