Like that heavy driver in the corner, with his patty melt. A vanabon-Macon could tell from patches all over his mesh vest. Each patch represented a key business he carried for. He probably wandered northern Tennessee, doing everything from bringing eggs to market, delivering letters and parcels and subscriptions, to making spare parts runs-probably sneaking a passenger or two discreetly among the boxes.
Macon wouldn't take him, even if the man was stuffing his food to make a hasty exit before Macon asked to look over the contents of his van. Fat men rarely were rebels.
The gal at the folding table was a possibility. He might have to talk to her to decide. Aging, weathered, still with beautiful long hair, she wore a dress of nice material in flowing patterns.
Taking his cup, he walked up to her table and she offered a welcoming smile. Her portable table was covered with spices, medicines, candles, cut-glass vials, even a couple of beautifully restored plastic dolls. She evidently made her living selling sundries to the road traffic, something nice to bring home as a surprise to the wife.
"Are the candles scented?" Macon asked.
"Scented and unscented. Cinnamon is my most popular. I have beeswax as well, you can melt the stumps down and mix in a little linseed oil and use it as furniture polish. Not cheap wicks, either, they're braided."
She was a little pushy. Macon warmed at the thought that he could snap his fingers and have her lifted out of existence. Just stick something under my nose, babe, and you'll never see another cinnamonscented moonrise.
The washroom door opened, and a youth with calf muscles like horse hooves exited. Still spotty, maybe seventeen or so. His distinctive black-and-white striped shirt had a name patch-Kurt, it read-and vertical lettering in one of the white stripes read ENCOMPASS in red letters.
Encompass was one of the New Universal Church's principal periodicals for the masses, a monthly with a beautiful glossy cover and smeared pages between. Families who wanted to stay in the good graces of their local clergy would be able to discuss the month's lead article and lead editorial. The rest of it, printed on thin, soft, not very absorbent paper that almost begged to be used for sanitary purposes, made a decent sedative. Sinecured editorialists droned on and on about obscure reclarifications of a previous perceived error in Church doctrine, which, if you thought about it correctly, wasn't really so much of a mistake as it was an example of poor word choice. At the back you usually had a useful how-to or two on how to get the most vitamin value out of sixteen hundred calories or the quickest method to check your kids for lice before and after school.
Volunteers like this kid, now turning bright red for some reason as he checked his fly, sold subscriptions and delivered it. Each issue also contained a bonus offer for some household item of dubious quality the kids had to attempt to upsell and then deliver, assuming the stock ever arrived.
Tough job. Lots of miles, no pay, and plenty of headaches thanks to the summer heat.
A woman exited the washroom after the kid, fixing the two remaining buttons on her blouse. She looked like a cowboy biker, all overcoat, chain belt, and tight jeans. Smeared lipstick and short red hair, possibly dyed. Haunted, hunted eyes. No wonder the kid turned red, she was so skinny he suspected she might be a tranny. Well, no Adam's apple. Whatever her gender, the whore looked like she'd been on short commons for a while. Probably gave the kid a five-buck handjob while he felt her tits.
She clutched a rolled up copy of Encompass in her strong-looking hands.
Good job, kid. Never miss a chance to sell a loose copy.
Well, this whore had turned her last trick. He was half tempted to add the counterman to the bag. What kind of establishment was he running? Macon wondered what his cut was.
"Don't leave just yet," Macon told the kid, hurrying for the door and his bike.
"Th-th-th-that's t-t-t-three for you t-t-t-today, Red," a greasy-haired Indian at the counter managed.
The scarred-up Indian smelled like woodsmoke and swamp water. All the weathering made his age hard to guess, but there were a few flecks of gray in the otherwise shiny black hair.
The stuttering Indian must have had it in for the whore. Maybe he couldn't scrape together even the chump change to afford a throw. He'd all but painted a sign reading SHE'S A WHORE! TAKE HER, NOT ME.
Not quite as lean as the whore, well-muscled about the shoulders, he wore a tattered mix of legworm leather-rare down in Georgia but more common up here-and polyester felt insulated vest. He'd picked up some utility worker's canvas trousers, probably at a resale store. One of those hammer picks hung from a short chain at his belt. The legworm riders used them to peg down their mounts for the night with the hammer end, and the spike end had a slight hook to it, like a mountaineer's climbing pick. They buried that end in the skin of their mounts to pull themselves up. Macon felt a momentary doubt-the stutterer might be a deserter from one of the armies lately rampaging across Kentucky. He put one of the scented candles under his nose, turned, and took a good look at the Indian's boots.
He wore moccasins. Sort of. They looked like they had soles made out of old truck tires, fixed with thick sandal straps.
No self-respecting army would let its soldiers wear boots like that. Even the guerillas had better footgear.
The Indian glanced at Macon with wary brown eyes. "M-maybe f-f-four."
Overplaying a really weak hand, Macon thought. He spoke into his radio, ordered the Transporter to pull up and Casp to cover the door.
"Nobody leaves without my say-so," Macon said, when Casp's bulk filled the front door frame.
The Indian looked scared. Macon wondered if he'd do something stupid with the hammer pick, if push came to shove.
Everyone whispered about the Reapers, the suicides, the Resistance, and the rebels, but most of those bound for harvesting temporized and rationalized until the last few seconds, when death stared them in the face and effective resistance was impossible. Nine-tenths of the Georgia Control were inching toward harvesting, they just wouldn't see it.
Better give them a rationalization.
"I'm here to do a labor draft," he said, slowly and clearly. Some of these border types spoke English as though they'd learned it from a Scrabble scoreboard with a few letters missing. "You're all recruited. Easy work for one day, fifty Control dollars plus a week's ration draw."
"Easy how, boss?" the redhead asked. She had an odd twang to her speech, but she knew how to address Control authority.