As he made his way through the spruce trees, climbing higher up the slope, Gareth stumbled upon clear evidence that he was on Vicky’s trail. He had been watching out for tracks, as the one thing that stuck with him from all the times he’d hunted with Aaron was the importance of looking at the ground. Aaron was really good at tracking and could tell from the subtlest sign about how long ago an animal or person had passed by, finding indications that most people would never notice. Gareth knew nothing of that, but he knew what fresh horse shit looked like when he saw it, especially when he stepped in it and got it smeared all over his boots. Grinning as he scraped the soles against a tree root to wipe it away, Gareth paused for a moment to dig more rifle cartridges out of his pocket, shoving three fresh ones into the Winchester’s magazine to replace the ones he’d fired.
The drainage was like a natural funnel with only a couple of reasonable ways in or out. Vicky had taken the only possible path a horse could negotiate on this side of the canyon. She had to either keep going or else turn around and go back down to the creek and follow it up, but if she tried that, she would run right into him. Gareth pressed on, confident that he would soon have her cornered when she reached the point where there were no more options. He couldn’t see back down to the creek from where he was now in the forest, but he hoped that Jeremy and Brett would soon have his back and be there waiting and ready in case Vicky somehow found a way to elude him and make for the pastures and the road beyond.
When he reached a place where the woods opened up and the ground became rockier and steeper, Gareth spotted movement among the trees up ahead and stopped to raise his rifle, so he could use the scope. It was Tucker, the horse she’d taken, standing there by himself, looking back at him! Gareth moved the crosshairs slowly beyond the horse to an open area of boulders that covered the slope, creating an obstacle that Tucker couldn’t cross. Vicky was nowhere in sight, and he was sure she had continued across the rocks on foot, as it was the only way she could have gone without him seeing her. He approached Tucker and tied the reins to a branch. He was going to need him on the way back and he didn’t want him to get away. “Just hang tight, Tucker. I’ll be back for you before long,” Gareth whispered. “I know the last thing you wanted to do was come running off up here this late in the afternoon after all the riding we’ve been doing. You’ll get a break after this though, I promise.”
Just as he emerged from the woods and began looking for the best route across the boulders, Gareth spotted something moving on the other side, and once again raised his rifle to use the scope. It was Vicky! She had seen him though, and already disappeared around the rock face to her right a second after he had her in focus. Gareth had to shoulder the rifle on its sling in order to pursue her further. The boulder-strewn slope was a serious obstacle that required his full attention to traverse without twisting an ankle or worse, and he often had to use his hands as well as both feet to climb up and over the larger ones. He’d just reached the edge of them and was studying the only possible route forward when he saw movement again, this time nearly two hundred yards farther ahead and higher, on a ledge that formed a natural path to the head of the canyon. Gareth steadied himself and raised the rifle to get another look through the scope. He knew it was her, even before he leveled the crosshairs on her face. Vicky had seen him again too and was looking right at him for a second before she turned away, trying to duck from his view. He could see that she was carrying a rifle, and that it looked like the .22 Magnum that Brett had been using, which made sense, because Brett had been the one guarding the horses. Gareth was really pissed at Brett now, and figured he must have totally fallen asleep on the job, in order for this girl to sneak up like that and steal not only the horse, but his weapon too. If she did that, she could have killed the dumbass as well if she’d wanted to, but Gareth doubted she had it in her. Even so, she was armed, so he knew he had to be careful. But he hoped she’d give up now that she knew she was trapped. Gareth moved his aim point a bit farther up, putting the crosshairs on the rock face some ten feet above her head. He was tired of this chase now and he was ready for her to stop. He hoped as he pulled the trigger that a bullet slamming into rock that close would get her attention and make her realize that the game was up.
But Vicky didn’t stop. Instead, she ducked low behind another rock and pointed the rifle back his way. It was a long shot for a .22 Magnum, but Gareth wasn’t taking any chances. He dropped low among the boulders and waited, expecting an incoming round any moment. When it didn’t happen, he raised his head just enough to see and could tell she was still behind the rock. Gareth waited a moment more and when she still didn’t shoot, he brought his scope back up to his eye to get a closer look. He could see her now, fumbling with the rifle, working the bolt, and looking confused. Then he broke out into a laugh. Brett was such an idiot that he’d left the rifle unloaded when they’d all sat around cleaning their guns and taking inventory of the rounds they had left after eating the two MREs they found in the barn. He wasn’t planning on going hunting with them, so he didn’t refill the tubular magazine with the cartridges he’d taken out and put in his pocket. It was funny now, thinking about how Vicky must be feeling.
Gareth stood up and walked right towards her, the rifle at his hip and pointed in her direction. There was nowhere to run to that she could reach before he shot her, and she had to be aware of that. When he was halfway there, she stood up from behind her cover and placed the useless rifle on the waist-high chunk of rock in front of her. She was going to make it easy for him, and Gareth smiled with relief.
“I didn’t think you really wanted to shoot me, Vicky,” he called out as he walked closer, lowering the muzzle of his rifle as he did. “I don’t know why you took off like that anyway. I was looking forward to seeing you again when I got here. I was worried something had happened to you when we found the house burned down… and your grandparents buried out there…” Vicky didn’t answer, so Gareth kept walking closer, talking all the while. “I’m sorry about whatever happened to them, but we’re gonna all get out of here, Vicky. We’ll make a good team, you and me. Megan was just a big mistake. I know that now, and I know it was you I should have been hanging with all along.”
Vicky still didn’t react, even to that. Gareth kept closing in until he was only 20 feet away from where she stood behind that rock, her face expressionless as she watched him. It was as if she wasn’t even hearing what he was saying. But then suddenly, her hand came up and in the next moment she was pointing a black semi-automatic pistol directly at him, locking it down with a two-handed grip. He hadn’t expected her to have a handgun on her too, but figured it was one of her grandfather’s that she may have had on her when she escaped whoever raided the ranch.
“Don’t take another step, Gareth! Put my grandpa’s rifle down and turn around and go back the way you came!”
“Seriously, Vicky? You’re threatening me with a gun?”
“I will shoot you, Gareth Mabry! You stole from us and you’ve already shot at me twice today!”
“I wasn’t shooting at you Vicky, or I would have hit you. I thought you’d have enough sense to stop. Now quit this nonsense, or I will have to shoot you!”
“I’m not bluffing, Gareth. PUT. THE. RIFLE. DOWN!”
Gareth looked at her with a smirk. Did she really think he was that much of a pushover? He slowly raised the rifle to his shoulder, bringing it in line with her upper body. But before he could utter another word, he felt a sensation like hot needles burning through his chest, taking his breath away. For a split second, it made no sense, until his brain processed the barking reports from the pistol, and he saw the arc of spent shell casings spinning away from Vicky’s hands. Time seemed to switch to a kind of weird slow motion for Gareth as he first sank to his knees, still staring at Vicky, the last thing he saw before everything went black when his face slammed into the hard granite in front of him.
* * *
Vicky wasn’t really aware of how many times she�
�d fired the Glock. She just pulled the trigger over and over, trying to keep it on target until Gareth was no longer standing. She was surprised at how quickly he’d gone down, and surprised that she’d apparently hit him with most of her rounds. Vicky didn’t trust him for a second, and when he raised the rifle she acted without hesitation. Before her grandparents were killed, Vicky couldn’t really imagine taking another person’s life, but now that she knew there were those who would readily kill anyone weaker or caught off guard, Vicky’s entire mindset had changed. Even before she realized that the rifle she’d taken back from Brett was unloaded, Vicky had made up her mind that she would kill Gareth if he pushed her far enough. She’d already thought too that it would be better if she did, because even if he turned around and walked away if she threatened him, she wouldn’t trust that he would actually leave. She knew now that he was a genuinely bad person, and that he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted or needed to survive. She had hoped she could escape and evade him until Eric returned, but that had proven impossible. If she’d attempted to continue climbing out of the canyon, she would have made herself an easy target for Gareth or perhaps even fallen to her death as it was getting too dark to pick a safe route up those steep rocks.
Vicky’s hands were shaking hard now, even though she’d managed to control them when she was actually shooting. She still had both of them wrapped around the grip of the Glock, and she kept it pointed in Gareth’s general direction until she was certain he was down for good. But even in the fading light, she could see the blood spreading on the stone surface beneath his body, which was unmoving. Vicky would have to walk right by him to get back to where she’d left Tucker, and she knew she couldn’t wait any longer if she wanted to ride out of the drainage before dark. Gareth had fallen on top of the deer rifle, but Vicky was determined to retrieve it, not only because it was her grandpa’s, but because she didn’t know where Jeremy was or even that Brett hadn’t made his way out here to join in the search for her. The answer seemed to come, and her heart nearly stopped when she heard someone shout her name from the direction both she and Gareth had come. But then she saw that it wasn’t Jeremy or Brett. The man calling out to her was Eric Branson. He was waving at her now and he repeated his name again to make sure she recognized him. Vicky left the rifle where it was under Gareth and backed away to wait for him to get there.
“Are you okay, Vicky? Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine,” she said, holding the Glock down at her side now, pointed at the ground. “I didn’t want this to happen,” she said, glancing at Gareth’s body, and then back at Eric as she struggled with the words to explain.
“It’s okay, Vicky. You did what you had to do, and I’m glad you were able to. I take it that’s Gareth, right?”
“Yes! He was chasing me. He already shot at me from somewhere on the other side of the creek when I was riding down there on Tucker. I was sure he was going to kill me just now. I tried to get him to put down the rifle, but he wouldn’t do it.”
“I know, Vicky. You don’t have to explain.”
“I didn’t think anyone would help me. I had no idea you’d be back so soon. Or that you would look for me here.”
“I found horses faster than I expected, Vicky. But I also found Gareth’s friends, Brett and Jeremy. They told me you were up here, and that Gareth had gone after you. I came as fast as I could, but I would have been too late. I’m glad you were able to use that,” Eric said, nodding at the Glock.
Vicky suddenly remembered who it belonged to, and handed it to him butt first, taking care not to point the barrel back at herself as she did so. She watched as he swapped out the magazine for a full one, and then returned it to his carry position inside his belt. She couldn’t watch though when he squatted down beside Gareth’s body to check for vital signs.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” She asked when Eric stood.
“Yes. You did well. It was quick.”
“I didn’t really want to kill him, but I had to stop him!”
“It was the right thing to do, Vicky. From what little I’ve learned of him since I got here, he couldn’t be trusted. There were some questions I wanted to ask him, but maybe his two buddies can answer most of them.”
“I thought they were after me too and when I heard you call my name, I thought it was Jeremy.” Vicky became nervous again, glancing back over Eric’s shoulders. “They’re still out there somewhere! We’d better be careful!”
“Nope, you don’t have to worry about either of them, Vicky. Megan’s mom is keeping a close eye on Jeremy, and Brett isn’t going anywhere until I cut him loose. You are completely safe now, and the horse you were riding is waiting for you just back there in the woods.”
That was a lot to process, and now Vicky was really confused. Eric had mentioned that Megan’s mother was supposed to be heading to the ranch, and that he’d expected her to be here when he arrived yesterday, but Vicky had seen no one else here since the place was attacked.
“I’ll explain it all later,” Eric said. “Let’s get down out of here before it gets dark. Shauna must have heard all the shooting and she’s going to be wondering what happened.
Eight
ERIC WASN’T PARTICULARLY HAPPY about finding Gareth Mabry dead, but he didn’t want to make Vicky feel bad about it either. She had done well to defend herself against him and had come out the victor in a close-range armed encounter, which was an accomplishment for anyone, even those with training and experience. Eric had been prepared to kill Gareth himself if necessary, to protect Vicky, of course, but he’d really wanted to talk to the young man if at all possible. He was sure that Gareth could have told him more about Megan than anyone else he could ask here in Colorado, even her former roommate. Megan had been romantically involved with him (according to Vicky) at least for a time, and Gareth surely knew what she’d been thinking, and what she’d wanted to do when things began deteriorating around them. But Gareth was dead now, and that was that. Eric would have to find his answers elsewhere. Considering all that had happened, he figured he was lucky to have Vicky, Jeremy and Brett to question. Vicky would be going south with him, of course, so there would be plenty of time to talk with her. Jeremy and Brett however, most certainly were not, and Eric had to get their story quickly because there was little time to waste. They untied Vicky’s horse from where Gareth had left it and led it down to the creek bed to find Eric’s. It was dark and getting cold fast, but they found Shauna and Jeremy waiting where they were supposed to be. Eric introduced the two women and informed Jeremy that his friend was dead.
“We’ll go back and get Brett and the other two horses and then go back to the barn for the night.”
“What about Bob?” Shauna asked. “We can’t leave him out there all night. The coyotes and other animals will find him for sure.”
“We’ll put him on one of the horses then and bring him back to the barn too. We can redistribute stuff from his packhorse in the morning since we have an extra horse now. It won’t be a problem to take him back to his cabin for burial.”
Jeremy said little during the ride back to where they’d left Brett. He was visibly shaken though when Eric and Vicky came back without Gareth, and Eric thought that was a good thing. The boy knew without question he meant business, and hopefully, he and Brett would talk freely now that they had no fear of repercussions from their ringleader. Both of them were probably scared to death, wondering what he was going to do to them for killing Bob. They had to have seen enough by now to know that justice was in the hands of whoever had the guns, and that it was being meted out far more swiftly and efficiently than at any time in recent history. He didn’t want them to know it, but Eric had already made up his mind he wasn’t going to punish them directly for shooting Bob. Eric believed that Jeremy shot him out of fear for his own life. Eric knew they were all thieves, and Gareth had paid the ultimate price for their decision to come back here to steal yet again. The other two would probably pay it too soon enough, simp
ly because they didn’t have the means or the skills necessary to survive out here. What happened to them after they were left here without the stolen horses and guns wasn’t Eric’s problem, and he would make that clear to them when he was done with his questions later.
It was cold, and they were all tired by the time they arrived at the barn more than an hour later, but no one was going to sleep until they were done talking, and Eric had his answers. Eric busted up some of the planking boards from one side of the old structure to build a fire outside the gate. He didn’t care what happened to the barn after tonight; the boys could stay and use it for shelter or not, but he was going to burn all the wood he needed to have a fire so they could comfortably sit and talk.
“We can start from the beginning, because Shauna hasn’t heard any of this except the few bits and pieces I told her on the way here today with Bob. I want to know everything that happened since you all left Boulder,” Eric said, including Vicky in his questioning. “I especially want to know why Megan left this ranch when it was still relatively safe here and there was plenty of food to go around. Why would she take off alone with Aaron like that? And what did Gareth do in the first place to cause her to break up with him if they were so wrapped up in each other when all of you left the campus?”
It took a lot of back and forth and roundabout questioning to get it out of them, but Jeremy and Brett knew exactly why Megan had come to be disgusted with Gareth. The more time she spent with him, the more she learned who he really was. Gareth had already been involved in more troublemaking activity than she knew about when she first went with him to that resistance camp. He’d bragged about the details of some of those actions to Jeremy and Brett to impress them, but when he later opened up to Megan and told her more over time, her reaction was opposite what he’d hoped. She was horrified that he was capable of such things, and especially that he wanted to do even more if he could find another group to join. By the time she’d learned all this, she had already gotten to know Aaron and was drawn to him because his motivation was only to survive and find peace; quite the opposite of Gareth. Most of their story matched what Vicky had already told Eric about Megan and Aaron, and why Megan went with him, though even Vicky was learning new things about Gareth too as Brett and Jeremy kept talking, especially when they described what happened after they and Colleen left with him.
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