Free Last Ranger by Craig Sargent

asked, easing the bike slowly forward.
    “That way,” she said, pointing with her other hand so her fingers were right by his eyes. “Along the hills the way I was heading
     when the Jalopios took me down.”
    “Jalopios?” Stone asked. “You mean those slugs riding those fucked up trucks and cars back there?”
    “Yeah, the Jalopios. They run this whole part of the territory for about fifty miles to the east. Until you get within twenty
     or thirty miles of Amarillo. Then the Tribunal takes over. Me and my gang had our run-ins with these Jalopios before. Usually
     they don’t come this far west. They’re dumb as shit but somehow they got themselves a whole damned fleet of junk. Though you
     managed to give ‘em a nice hurting. Got to congratulate you on that again,” she said, patting Stone on the shoulder. That’s
     great, he thought—getting stroked on one side, knifed on the other. When they said women had two faces, they sure as hell
     knew what they were talking about.
    “You mind if I ask you a few questions, nothing personal?” Stone asked as they drove through the mid-afternoon light of a
     gray day.
    “Sure, you’re cute, ask away,” she said cheerfully enough, keeping the blade right up against his flesh so that when he went
     over bumps in the prairie the edge actually sawed back and forth and dug in even more. He could feel a thin trickle of blood
     already oozing down his neck and onto the top of his sweatshirt.
    “Who are the Tribunal who rule Amarillo you mentioned?”
    “The freaks. You never heard of them? Everyone in Texas fears those bastards. They’re—ruthless. Make the toughest of the gangs
     out here in the badlands look like kids fucking around. The Greenshirts—the Tribunal’s enforcement squads—come out sweeping
     up people. You never see them again. Just gone. Some say they’re used for terrible experiments, that they cut them up and
     sew them together again. Others say they eat them. Who knows.”
    “Where are they located?” Stone asked, finding it hard to speak as his throat was a little constricted from being nearly cut
     into sandwich makings.
    “Well, they don’t want no one to know. But I know, ‘cause me and my sisters we had our own run-ins with these Greenshirts
     before. So we spied ‘em out. Found out they got this whole operation underground about ten miles south of Amarillo. An old
     missile complex or something. It’s underground. Completely impregnable. Why, we dropped a few petrols down on top of the entrance
     grates, which were closed—and we couldn’t even get a decent fire started. Then these automatic machine guns rose up right
     out of the ground and started firing at us. There wasn’t even no one manning them, just spraying out a whole shit-load of
     slugs and turning back and forth real fast. We got the hell out of there. Always meant to go back and do some real damage.”
    “Well I see we’re on the same side,” Stone said with artificial cheerfulness.
    “I never said we weren’t on the same side,” she laughed. “Of course we’re on the same side.” Stone didn’t like the sound of
     the laugh. There was a mocking quality to it like she knew something he didn’t—and it was pretty damned funny.
    “You ever .hear of a young woman named April? April Stone, eighteen years old, no—God—she’s nineteen now,” Stone said, realizing
     her birthday had been just weeks before. “Blond hair, blue eyes.”
    “Stone, you know how many missing girls there are in this state? More is missing than ain’t missing. Why I was missing when
     I was younger. Kidnapped by half a dozen different groups of slimebags until I finally managed to kill the last ol’ bastard
     who kept me tied up under his bed and came out here and joined the Ballbusters. We don’t let no one mess with us or we—”
    “Yeah, I get the picture,” Stone said quickly, not wanting to get into graphic detail of just what they did to their enemies.
     He wondered