“Faith. Honor. Hope!” Tyler raised his fist in the air. He stared straight at her before starting a second time. “Faith. Honor. Hope!”
“Faith. Honor Hope!” The crowd began with them as they pushed forward.
Kris joined in as she set a quick pace through the woods. Soon they would make it to the dirt road where the brush would clear, making for much faster travel. They could get there. They would get there.
With each step, she pushed out the fear and filled in the void with the words they chanted. After a hundred yards, many people had stopped chanting, but enough continued quietly to keep the rhythm in their steps. Tucker had begun to slow his pace. She could hear his rapid breathing and see him straining with the cart.
“Time for me to break trail.” Kris walked up beside him.
“I got this, Mom,” he said through his teeth with determination, reminding her so much of his father.
“Just like the geese, Tuck. We take turns.” She kept her words soft, hoping his little ego wouldn’t take offense.
He nodded and let her pull ahead.
“And Tyler needs your help. So I will take over your cart.” Hannah took the handles from him before he even had the chance to protest. “Go on. He’s encouraging those with young ones to keep moving.”
“But stay close,” Kris called out, trying to keep the fear from her voice. She wanted him by her side, but she knew Hannah’s ploy. “Thank you,” she told the girl.
“That is one special boy right there. I didn’t want him passing out from pushing so hard. I don’t think he would willingly stop until it came to that.”
“You read him well, Hannah. He’s always had that drive, but this last year has made him even more determined and unwilling to ask for help.” Kris sighed. “I’m hoping that living in a community where we rely on each other allows him to see that it’s okay to ask for help now and then.”
“That is something I could try to incorporate in our hikes.” Hannah paused. “You know, when we get settled in New Forest Glen, you should think about starting a school.”
Kris turned to meet Hannah’s eyes before concentrating on keeping on the right track.
“You don’t like the idea? I don’t mean like necessarily teaching algebra and chemistry. I mean, there is so much for these kids to learn about surviving, but we don’t want to forget to teach them how to read and write, or our history. Our culture would be lost without that.”
“Hannah, I love the idea of a school for the children. You are an incredible young woman for thinking of things beyond just surviving today.” Kris’s mind worked, formulating tentative plans for a school already, but she also watched Hannah as much as she could. “Your father is going to be okay.”
“I know.” Hannah said, a determined look entering her gaze. “Blake is with him.”
Kris let them be in their own thoughts for a while. She needed to concentrate on the trail. Somewhere close they should come upon the first of the old dirt roads. Having an open area and trail would not only make travel easier, but ease the stress of constantly losing the right path or getting stuck in thickets of brush.
Every time her worry went back to the volley of fire that echoed through the trees, she thought of Tucker’s words. He makes it. She let the words settle over her like a warm embrace. She had to believe that. She had to believe they all would make it back.
She pushed under a branch heavy with snow. After making sure the snow hadn’t dropped down to cover Mercy who slept soundly again, she looked up and caught her breath.
The road.
“You okay?” Hannah asked from behind her.
“Yes. We made it to the road.” Kris smiled, but as she stepped out from under the branches of trees and in the clearing of the road, the snow dumped in heavy sheets upon her. Her footsteps left over six inch deep prints in the pristine white road.
Kris drew up the wrap to ensure the snow wouldn’t land on Mercy and tugged her hood further over her face. She turned to watch Hannah drag the cart out onto the road.
“Wow. It’s deep.” She put a hand over her eyes and looked down the road.
“Looks like the trees shelter the road a bit further ahead. Let’s stop there briefly to check on everyone,” Kris said. She wanted to lay eyes on her son again.
“I like it. My hands could use a rest.” Hannah stretched her hands before pulling the cart the last few hundred feet before the promised break.
Kris understood. Her hands stung as she clenched them around the cart handles. Blake hadn’t sheltered her completely to physically demanding work, but he had shouldered a lot of it. Her hands were proof of that.
The relief in people’s voices as they saw a break so close tugged at Kris’s heart. She knew they should only stop long enough to account for everyone and then continue on. When would Blake catch up? She tried to blink back the snow long enough to judge where the sun was and how much longer they had of daylight. They would have to find shelter before then and make fires so everyone stayed alive.
As the last people crossed into the road, a scream shattered Kris’s thoughts. She immediately searched the crowd until she saw Tucker safe, a hand wrapped around little Ethan’s.
She searched for the source of the scream and saw Carly, Dillon’s wife, running toward a man leaning heavily on David and Mitchel. Laurie took charge of the situation with her calm, firm tone. Kris started toward them as they headed toward the most sheltered location under a tall cedar. She saw the trail of blood following the trio of men and stopped short.
Three men were back, but no sign of Blake or Arland and several others including Blake’s new charge, Butler. Pushing through the crowd that had gathered, she made it to the area Laurie had set up as an emergency healing station.
David stood up after easing Dillon down and met her eyes. “He’s alive,” he said.
“He saved my life,” Dillon breathed out as his wife held him and planted kisses all over his face.
“And the others?” Laurie asked, her hand holding the moss for his wound frozen in mid-air.
“Everyone else is, too.” Mitchel grasped her arm. “Arland is fine.”
Laurie nodded, but Kris saw the moisture in her eyes as she set about her work.
“Blake says the bullet has to come out,” Dillon said through clenched teeth.
“Do we have time?” Laurie asked.
“They are holding the edge to see if the men try to follow.” Mitchel crossed his arms.
“Why didn’t they just come back with you?” one of the other wives asked.
“The marauders could have followed our trail, and without being laden with gear and children, they would be able to easily catch up,” David said as he held his wife and kids who had come running as soon as they saw that he was there.
“Did Blake have any further instruction?” Kris asked hoping for something to hold onto to know she led the group down the right path.
“Just to keep going to the stopping point,” Mitchel said, and then took off to meet his wife who slogged through the snow toward them.
People were sitting where they could. Some had their feet out of their shoes and were rubbing their toes. Kris had quality waterproof boots, but still her toes hurt with the cold. She wondered how people with only tennis shoes were doing. As she maneuvered through the groups toward Tucker she heard them.
“My feet are frozen.”
“Am I going to get frostbite, Mama?”
She needed to get these people to shelter and start fires to thaw out their frozen bodies.
Tucker looked up as she approached. “Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, Sweetie. How are you holding up?” She eased down on the folded blanket the two boys sat on.
“Okay.” He looked at Ethan and then back toward her.
His nose and cheeks were red with cold, and he had his hands stuffed into his armpits. Thank goodness he had his gloves, but she still worried about him since he wouldn’t tell her how bad off he really was.
“
Do you think we’ll make it to the rock overhang Dad had told us would be our first night?” Tucker asked looking down the road.
Relief flooded Kris. She had been so stressed to get to the road she had forgotten the rest. The overhang would be exactly what they needed. A protected shelter where they could make fires and dry out their socks and shoes.
What had Blake said? A mile or two and the overhang would be on their left about a hundred yards off the road. At this pace, they could make it within the hour. One more hour to warmth!
A guttural yell sent the crowd to silence. All eyes turned to its source. Laurie had removed the bullet embedded in Dillon’s leg.
Kris blew out her breath and forced a smile as she looked down at the boys. “He’ll be better now. Dillon had a bullet in his leg, but Laurie took it out. Now he can heal. Rest up. We have one last push to accomplish for the day.”
She traveled through the groups of people, sharing the good news of one last push, sharing hope and faith that the rest of their men would make it to spend the night with them. As she did, she convinced herself so much that she could almost feel Blake’s warmth wrapped around her.
~6~
Blake watched the people piling into camp. He didn’t want to take the time to bandage up his calf, but if he didn’t, he would leave a trail as well. Rolling his pants up, he saw the bullet entrance and exit. It had taken a good size chunk out of his calf, but still only a graze. He counted his blessings and quickly patched it up while the others watched.
“How often do you get shot, Blake?” Arland asked, watching intently.
“Too often as of late it seems,” he said wryly.
“That’s nothing compared to that time we were holed up in—” Butler stopped as soon as he met Blake’s cold stare.
“This is not the place for war stories. How many have entered the camp so far?” Blake asked.
“Twenty-seven and the line is still coming.” Kevin looked through a pair of binoculars.
Blake stuffed the first aid kit back into his pack and surveyed the situation. There was no chance that they could take them on, and that wasn’t his intent. He merely wanted to watch, assess, and, only if needed, delay them following the community that fled into the forest—his community.
“What’s the strategy?” Arland asked.
“Wait. Watch,” Blake said, never taking his eyes off the people running into the camp he had called home for more than a month now.
“I don’t like watching,” Arland said, his voice low enough only Blake could hear.
“That I understand.” Blake nodded, thinking of when the marauders had shown up to take his bunker. He often wondered if the others that Chuck had promised were coming had ever come. Maybe he had been talking about Meyers’ crew.
Arland’s men had buried the bodies so the others might never know what happened to Chuck and the rest of his unit. The dark of that day constricted Blake’s throat. There had been nothing else to do. It was the survival of his family or their death.
He forced those thoughts back into the recesses of his mind and concentrated on the current problem. Pulling his rifle out, he peered through the scope and scanned the line coming down what used to be a barely discernible path. The men looked rough. Clothes in tatters, grime covering their faces, and shoes in a variety of bad-to-shredded condition.
Blake could tell instantly when Meyers and his personal guards came over the rise, for their clothes weren’t in tatters and their boots were good. Meyers himself stood almost regal in his commanding attire.
“That Meyers?” Blake nodded toward the line coming into the camp and then met Butler’s eyes.
Butler squinted.
Blake ensured the safety was on, and then handed the rifle to Butler, who immediately leveled the scope.
“Yep, that’s him,” he said, handing the rifle back toward Blake. “You have a kill shot...”
“No more killing unless needed. Who knows what chaos would ensue if Meyers were out of the picture,” Blake said, leaning the rifle against the tree. “We’re only waiting and watching right now.”
“The sniper, he will come check on his shot.” Butler stared in the direction of the bloody patch of snow becoming slowly covered by the falling flakes.
Faster. Heavier, Blake prayed.
Several cheers went through the men ransacking the camp. They came out of the dwelling that had been used to store the food, holding baskets and racks of drying meat.
“They found what we couldn’t carry.” Arland sighed. “May it keep them from following us. Though I bet they don’t know how to cook all the greens, berries, and other foliage the women worked so hard on gathering.”
“We took all that could be carried.” Blake let his hand drop on his friend’s shoulder. “Surely we still have more than you had last winter.”
“True,” Arland said, nodding.
“I think that’s our sniper,” Butler said as one man veered off toward them. With questioning eyes, he reached for Blake’s rifle.
Blake nodded. He would have to trust him until he proved himself untrustworthy. He couldn’t afford to think twice about everything. Besides, he had his pistol and knife in easy reach, if needed.
Butler looked through the scope. “That’s him.”
“Ensure you are hidden, but move slowly.” Though his calf screamed at him, he squatted behind a thicket so he could still see without peering around the cedar he had been standing behind.
His men followed his moves as each found their own concealed location. Blake’s senses were on high alert. Adrenaline spiked through him as it did on every covert mission. His breathing eased, and his vision tunneled.
The sniper warily scanned the tree line as he walked toward them, his rifle at the ready. He stopped at the site where Dillon had fallen and squatted, keeping his eyes focused on where they were hidden. Then he briefly looked down, swiped the freshly fallen snow away to reveal the frozen blood. He looked up again, and the hairs on Blake’s neck rose, for it looked as if he stared directly at him.
“Perkins!” someone from the camp yelled.
The sniper stood, keeping his eyes on the tree line and backed away. Meyers and a few other men met him part way, their voices carrying across the open space.
“What are you doing out here?” Meyers asked the sniper.
“I got one of them. His body is gone.”
Meyers looked out into the forest. “Will they attack?”
“It would be foolhardy of them. I say they escaped into the forest.”
“Well, we have plenty here. What a score they left behind. Come.” Meyers gestured back toward camp.
Perkin’s feet stayed planted. “They killed Butler, sir.” Perkins held up Butler’s tags.
Meyers took them, clutched them in his hands, and glared into the forest. “You sure?”
“They shot him and threw him into a thirty foot deep ravine.”
Meyers stuffed the tags into his jacket pocket. “We will give these back to his family when we arrive back home. His sacrifice will be remembered.”
“We just going to let them get away with this?” Perkins snarled.
Meyers glared into the forest, scanning the edge. Blake watched him through the scope as he clenched his fists and tensed his jaw.
“They could pick our guards off tonight.” Perkins squared his shoulders.
Meyers let loose a growl of frustration before turning toward one of his guards. “Keep twenty men and guard the loot.” He turned to another. “Assemble the men. We have a score to settle.”
Blake tensed. They were coming after them because of a decision he had made. There was no time for self-blame. He signaled across the line to his men to retreat. They slowly backed further into the forest, until they were several hundred yards away from the edge.
“This is crazy,” one of the guys said. “We didn’t kill no one.”
“Not for real at least,” Butler said. “I can’t have the blood of your community on my hands, Blake.
I will return to Meyers.”
“No.” Blake clenched his fist around his rifle. He would not leave a man behind, even in this situation. “This was my choice. The rest of you do not need to suffer the consequences. Go back to your families.”
“So, you are going to sacrifice yourself, and thus the whole safety of the community, for one man.” Arland watched him seemingly without judgement, but more of a curiosity.
“Yes. I’ve been at worse odds. Don’t give up on me yet.” He pushed forth a smile.
“I’m staying,” Arland said.
“Now that would be selfish. New Forest Glen needs their leader, and we had a deal remember?” Blake stared earnestly at the scientist turned leader turned friend.
Arland hung his head. “You are always keeping me out of altercations, Blake.”
“A leader is the head of a community. Without you, there would be no one to keep them going. Now go. All of you. That army will be descending upon us in minutes.”
“I’m staying, but I would like a gun.” Butler stood firm.
Blake nodded. Arland handed him his rifle and another handed him a pistol.
“We’re staying, too,” Kevin and John said.
Blake gave each man a curt, appreciative nod. He looked at Arland, clasping his hand. “May we meet again.”
“May we meet again,” Arland returned, looked back at the three men returning with him. “Let’s go.”
Blake watched the four men jog through the forest, following the almost full footprints and covered blood trail that Dillon and the others had left. Their trail could be followed. Blake cut off a cedar branch and followed their tracks for a ways and then returned, brushing the snow so freshly fallen flakes could conceal them in less time.
“Walk around a lot in this area while we plan. We hunker ourselves in here. See those rocks?” Blake pointed out three different rock outcroppings set out in a line all facing the trail the army would follow. “We have a good vantage. Use bullets sparingly. Pick them off all across the line. We need to discourage them.”
Grant Us Mercy (Book 5): Grant Us Mercy Page 5