He looked up and scrubbed the tears off his cheeks, wiped his nose on his sleeve and looked at her.
“Can she make my Dad better?”
“I hope so. What happened to him?”
Abby came and dropped on the ground beside him, “What’s your name? Mine’s Abby, and that’s Lucy. That’s my Dad up there, and Miss Gina,” She pointed over his shoulder, up the hill. “The lady who just went up there is Journey, and she was riding…”
“Abby, let him talk. He can’t get a word in if you keep talking.”
“Lucas,” he said, his voice still threatening tears. His blue eyes were glassy with unshed tears, and he wiped at his face again.
Lucy pulled a crumpled paper towel out of her hoodie pocket and handed it to him, “It’s new. Just wrinkled from being in my pocket.”
He blew his nose and crumpled it in his hand. He stared off into the trees as if looking for his words. He sighed deeply and began, “Some people came to our house. My Mom, Dad, and Uncle Sam tried to help them. Mom cooked for them and then more and more people came. Uncle Sam told the people they had to leave after they ate. Some did go. And then Uncle Sam and my Dad went to lock in the horses so they wouldn’t get stolen and a man tried to take them. When my Dad told him no, the guy started screaming, waving this huge gun around. Another guy hit Dad from behind, and the other guy shot him.”
“Were there other people besides the man who shot him and the one who hit him, still there?
“Not then. They were out in the barn. My uncle knocked the guy out and tied him up. The other guy, the one who hit my Dad, started crying and fell to the ground. Uncle Sam tied him up too. He wanted to shoot them, but Mom wouldn’t let him. She said the Akin’s weren’t that kind of people.”
“What happened to him if you guys are up here? Is he still tied up in your barn?”
“I don’t know. Uncle Sam loaded some of our stuff up, and we came up here. Then he made another trip to the ranch and got the horses. He had to make two trips while Mom doctored my Dad.”
“Maybe he did kill him then,” Abby said, she sounded excited with the idea. “He was a bad man, and he shot your Dad, I bet my dad would have.”
“Abby, no he wouldn’t. At least…I don’t think he would.” Lucy really wasn’t sure if Ben could have shot the guy or not, and she hoped she never had to find out. She had seen enough senseless killing in Afghanistan to last her forever. She had also seen the aftermath of what bullets could do to the human body. She never understood how Journey and Gina dealt with the ravages of war every single day. She knew from personal experience how involved they were on a daily basis, with all of the men and women they gave care to. She felt like she was one of the lucky ones. If not for the compassion of her friends, she often wondered where her life would have gone if not for their intervention. Now, she needed to find a way to distract Lucas and get his mind off his father.
“Well, we have our orders, so what do you two say to feeding the horses and Gus?”
“Can we walk them to feed them?” Abby asked.
They had let the horses graze a little on the shoulders of the road earlier, while Gus meandered where ever he wanted, looking for the choice grass.
Lucy didn’t know how the others would feel about them leaving the camp, but she knew it wasn’t something she was comfortable with. With only her 357 for defense, staying close would be the best option, but how could she put it to the kids without scaring them.
“No, I don’t think so. For tonight we’ll use some of the bagged feed and a little of the hay. I’m pretty sure the horses won’t mind.”
Once the horses and Gus were fed, the boy kept staring off up the road. She needed to keep them busy.
“You know, the last thing your father said was for us to finish setting up the camp and without Journey here, that leaves it up to us. How about we build a fire up and start some dinner. It’ll be dark soon, and when the others get back, they’ll be hungry.”
“Not if my mom is cooking. She always tries to feed everybody. That’s why it made me so mad when those people wanted more. Dad said our cupboards would be empty if he left it up to my Mom.”
Lucy was busy putting small sticks and twigs on the fire when she overheard Lucas, “They set our house on fire. Uncle Sam doesn’t know that I know, but I heard him and my Mom talking. Mom cried a lot. Uncle Sam said he was glad the hay barn sat far away from the house or they would have burned it down too.”
Lucy’s ears perked up hearing about the hay barn. Their hay could be an answer to her prayers. Gina had said they would have to go out and pull grass for the horses and store as much of it as they could before the snows came, but Lucy didn’t see where they could put it, nor where they would find enough to feed three horses and a mule for the whole winter.
“I wonder if my Dad is going to be okay?”
“He has the best nurses anywhere,” Abby told him. They fixed Miss Lucy’s leg, and she says it’s almost as good as new.”
“Did she get shot?”
“No. I think it exploded or something. She was far away when it happened, and she said Miss Gina and Miss Journey saved her life.”
“Wow. I hope they can fix my Dad then. Mom says he is the backbone of our family. She said if it weren't for Dad, Uncle Sam would still be leading a bachelor’s lifestyle hell bent on destruction.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. But Uncle Sam says she is always trying to save his soul.”
“Kid’s, get in the cave. Now!” Lucy hissed. She heard voices, and she couldn’t tell where they were coming from. Earlier, she thought she’d smelled cigarette smoke, but only for an instant and then it was gone. She had visually inspected the area around camp, but had not seen anything amiss. Not even Gus had raised a fuss, which was normal for him if he saw something or someone he didn’t know.
They had moved the horses to a long line they had strung between the old gate post and a tree for the night. They were all standing in a similar posture, heads hung down, with one hip or the other cocked, completely relaxed.
Lucy saw exactly when Sailor picked his head up, ears twitching in anticipation. Before he could whinny a greeting, Lucy ran to him and placed her hand on his nose. She never understood why it did, but it stopped him from making any noise.
When she heard a muffled whinny, she knew it was Bess coming back and was surprised to see Gina and Ben walking with a small person up on Bess’s back. The figure was too small to be the same lady she had seen earlier.
“Hey, you guys. What’s going on and who’s this?” Lucy asked when she saw they had a girl about the same age as Abby riding Bess. Blue eyes, fringed in dark lashes, the same as the woman, and sandy blonde hair hung down in two braids over her shoulders. She wasn’t all wobbly on the horse as Abby had been and looked comfortable on the horse. She had a hank of mane in one hand, the other rested on her knee.
“This is Sherry. We brought her down to meet Abby, and she’s going to spend the night down here with us.”
Lucy tipped her head at Lucas, “I’m sure Lucas wants to hear about his father and what did you do with Journey?”
“Lucas, your Dad is going to be just fine. Gina and Journey got him all fixed up, but your Mom thought you should stay down here with us tonight. I’ll take you back up in the morning.”
“How do I know she said that? You could be holding me hostage or something.” His fists rested on his hips, and he was bent at his waist leaning in Ben’s direction. He seemed to be leading with his chin.
Ben tried hard to hide his smile, but he couldn’t keep it from reaching his eyes. He pulled a small backpack off of his shoulder, and threw it down at the boy's feet, “Here’s your pajama’s. Your Mom said to brush your teeth. Would a kidnapper bring you your pj’s and toothbrush? Nope. I don’t think they would.”
“Oh,” his posture relaxed. “But, why can’t I go home?”
“We don’t have a home now. You know that. Mom said we have to stay
here because Miss Journey is staying there to look after Daddy.”
Once they had moved their possessions into the cave it hadn’t left much room for living in. It turned out the cave, even though it was posted as a mine, wasn’t much of a mine at all.
There was an area that had been hollowed out, but the ceiling was too low for Ben or even Gina to stand up straight in. They had stacked the bags of feed on the furthest wall, on one of the shelter halves with the unopen hay bales around the outside walls.
The food for the horses barely left enough room to set the tent up in. Lucy figured Abby and whichever of the women who wasn’t on guard duty could sleep in the tent, and Ben could roll his sleeping bag out on top of the hay bales if he wanted to.
Lucy and the kids had cleared away as many rocks off the floor as they could, but knew whoever was sleeping was sure to find the ones they’d missed.
The space was dark and depressing, but it would be dry and out of the elements. The walls sloped up to the ceiling in a bowl-shaped cavern, small rocks continued to slough off. The walls didn’t feel like solid rock to her, nor dirt, but more like granite with its sparkles and ridges. The texture reminded her of a thunder egg with all of its bumps and sharp edges.
There was a low opening on what she thought would be called the back wall, but only a little over a foot tall and not much wider, she stacked a hay bale in front of it. If there was a bigger opening on the side of the wall, she didn’t want to know about it. Small dark places made her skin crawl.
Lucy hoped they could figure out how to build an outside shelter to sleep in because she would rather not have the roof come down on their heads while they were asleep. They could keep the cave to store the horse feed and their food in.
Ben gave the cave a thorough inspection and declared it safe for them to sleep in. He decided the shiny bits were mica and they rock probably was granite of some sort.
Gina, with help from the girls, led the horses down to the creek so they could drink their fill of water, while Lucas gave each of them one scoop of pellets in their feed tubs. He had one sitting on the ground where each horse would be tied, then slouched beside the fire with Ben.
“We already gave them feed earlier, before you got here,” Lucas said, his voice sullen. His brown hair stood up all over his head as if he’d worn a stocking hat and pulled it off without smoothing the hair down. Blue eyes like Sam and John’s glared at him.
Ben was trying to find something to say to get the boys attention away from his parents when he remembered the cigarette smoke. “Lucas, does either your Dad or Uncle smoke?”
Lucas wrinkled up his nose, “Eww…nope.”
Ben looked at Lucy and frowned. He remembered what Gina had said the night before. She had been sure that something smelled like stale ashtrays or clothing that reeked of stale cigarettes. Before he could open his mouth to ask why, Lucy shook her head no. He took it to mean she didn’t want to discuss it in front of Lucas.
She thought he may have considered himself grown up, but he was still a boy. From what she had already heard about the ranch, he’d already seen more bad things than most adults.
Gina and the girls came back to camp with the horses and tied them in front of their prospective feed tubs. Ben had heard them coming long before he saw them. He would have to remember to talk to them about the noise. He hadn’t thought of the possibility of anyone else being up where they were, but first Gina, and now Lucy had smelled cigarettes or at least stale cigarette smoke. Up at the cabin, he had neither smelled or seen anyone smoking.
He hoped both women imagined it, but he wasn’t going to take the chance. They would have to be more vigilant about their security, starting immediately. He and Gina had really screwed up, and he knew it. Sam, Mary nor Lucas should never have been able to simply walk up on them like the three of them had. He wondered where they had gotten their training. He wished he had spent more time talking with Sam, but Journey and Mary had wanted Gina to bring Sherry down with Lucas and Abby. As much as he had wanted to stay and pick Sam’s brain, Ben wasn’t about to let them go alone.
Gina had offered to bring the baby too, but red-faced, Mary had told them she was breastfeeding him. Ben was surprised because of all of his friends who had babies, he didn’t know any of them who did that. Then he realized he probably ran with a different crowd then these ranchers.
Lucy stood in front of him with a plate. He had been so lost in his own thoughts, he hadn’t seen nor heard her.
She smiled, “You were a million miles away,” She handed it to him along with one of the three forks. He felt honored by the gift of the fork. Previously, he had been given a spoon along with Abby to eat with. The women had three of everything and no more.
Once the kids were tucked into their sleeping bags, or in the case of Sherry and Lucas, who were tucked into the women’s big bag together, Ben asked Gina and Lucy to join him at the fire.
He dropped another tree branch on the flames and pushed the ends from previous branches to the middle of the fire and sat across from the girls.
“Gina and I really screwed up today. If it had been anyone but those folks, we might not have made it back here.”
“We’d probably be dead or wishing we were right now,” Gina confessed. “The trouble is, I never learned to be a soldier, and I feel like we need to be. You and Lucy have had the training, but Journey and I haven’t.”
“There weren’t any trees where I was stationed either. It was all mostly rock, sand, and more rock.”
“The thing is, I didn’t have a clue they were that close to us, and it should have never happened. I might have to get together with Sam and find out what gave us away. We didn’t make much noise if any.”
“I wonder if they would share or trade us for some of that deer they had hanging from the tree?”
Lucy, who had been staring at the fire, perked up. “Deer? That’s how they did it. I bet they’re hunters. My Dad used to say he could sneak up on an elk and it would never hear or see him until it was too late.”
Lucy chuckled, “Even when fishing he had a technique. He used to use toothpaste on his hands to clean them so he wouldn’t get his scent on the bait. And, before I forget, Lucas told Abby they had a hay barn full of hay.”
This bit of news caught Gina’s attention. If it was true, it may just save them a whole lot of work if she and the other two women could do something to trade for some hay. She had thought they could pull grass up and store it in the cave, but as small as the cave was, there was barely room for what they did have inside of it. If they wrapped the grass up in a tarp, it would mold without being fully dry first.
Or, they could turn the horses loose in one of the meadows and let them forage for themselves. As much as Gina hated the thought of losing one or all of them, she thought they would be left with no choice unless Lucas was right. Pull grass, trade for hay or turn the animals loose, those were their choices
The travois had worked well for getting the things they brought with them to the cave, and she could build a new one every time they hauled hay if she had to.
Gina vaguely remembered the ranch, nestled in the valley east of where they had camped. From the service road, as they were leaving their campsite, they had sat looking out over the land. From their height, the ranch animals had been nothing more than dark dots on the green pasture, cows indistinguishable from the horses.
A hand touched Gina on the knee, and she jumped, “I asked if you wanted to get some sleep, or take the first watch with Lucy?”
“I’m not the least bit sleepy yet, so I’ll take the watch and besides, if I remember correctly, you haven’t had any sleep.”
“I don’t require the same amount as most people. Four or five hours are all that I ever need.”
“Geez, you and Gina…she never sleeps all night. It doesn’t matter if she goes to bed at ten or two, she is always up by 5 am and sometimes earlier than that. Journey and I could spend the whole weekend in bed if she’d let us.”
“Okay, how about you and me, then I’ll wake Lucy in four hours, then you wake me in four? I’d like to keep two people up at a time.”
“Sounds good to me,” Gina said and stood up. “We need to get away from this fire and let our eyes adjust.”
“I wish we had some way to bank it, but our wood is all too small to last the night and we’re almost out of matches.”
“Oh, that’s not a problem. There is a flint in the pocket of my pack. Abby should have one in hers as well. Tomorrow I’ll try to sharpen that ax, and we’ll have some bigger wood.”
“Brrr…I can’t believe how cold it is. Gina, you should put on my other jacket over yours, or you’ll freeze. The kids are in the sleeping bag, so there isn’t even that to use.”
“Actually, why don’t you climb in with the kids and Gina can use yours? Or better yet, use mine and it’ll be warm when I’m ready for it.”
This time, Gina and Ben sat further back in the trees than they had the night before. After laying out the ground sheet, she spread the bag out still folded in half, and they both sat.
“So, what do you think of our neighbors?”
Ben chuckled softly, “I still can’t believe they all snuck up on us so easily. Do you realize we should both be dead right now? If they hadn’t have been the kind of people they are, we would be or worse.”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about it. I’m going to ask Sam to teach me how he does it. He said their ability to move through the brush in silence comes from a lot of years hunting, but I think there is more to it than that. I’d like to learn the use of a bow also. We don’t have that much ammunition for our guns, if we ever need them.”
“We, Abby and I have a couple of bricks each for her handgun and the AR, but the shells for my 45 were in short supply, but what we have won’t last forever, especially if this whole thing turns to crap like I think it’s going to.”
Beyond the New Horizon Page 13