“Works for me.”
The mule required little coaxing to return to the outpost, and they kept the cart between them and the field until they were through the gates, just in case their lone shooter was still out there. Duke heaved the iron barrier shut and bolted it, and then returned to his position behind the sandbags.
“Clem?” Duke asked.
Lucas shook his head.
Duke frowned. “Damn. He was a good man.”
“Aaron said Doug’s wounded?”
“Yeah. Leg. I rigged a tourniquet. It’ll hold till we mop up.”
Aaron motioned to the smoking crater created by the grenade. “I’ll go get a couple more bulbs for the field lights.”
Duke nodded. “We’ll hold the fort.”
When Aaron was gone, Lucas joined Duke behind the bags and looked out over the darkened field. “Any idea who they are?”
“No. They came straight at us. We mowed down a half dozen of them before they fell back and dug in. Then they waited for nightfall. Which is what they should have done all along.”
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“I’ve known stranger.”
Five minutes later the lights went on again, illuminating the field to the three-hundred-yard markers. Nothing stirred. Aaron rejoined them and wiped his face with a trembling hand. Duke grunted and stood. “You boys keep watch. I’ve got to patch Doug up.”
He walked to the main building and disappeared inside, leaving Aaron and Lucas alone. Lucas looked over to his right at the grenade tosser’s corpse sprawled by the wall, and his jaw clenched. They must have been desperate, or high, to try to take on Duke’s group.
“How’s the girl?” Lucas asked.
“Out of it. But you could light a smoke on her. She’s that hot.”
Lucas nodded. At least she was still alive.
Aaron eyed Lucas. “Clem?”
“Didn’t make it.”
Aaron nodded. “Figured as much. When your number’s up…”
“Yup. Rest in peace.”
Chapter 8
The interior of the trading post main building was bathed in the dim glow from two LED lamps. Doug lay on the table, biting a strip of leather as Duke finished his ministrations.
“This will hurt,” Duke said, and Doug looked away as Duke seared his leg wound with the soldering iron, the sound like a steak frying on a too-hot grill. Doug’s scream was muffled by the leather strap and faded to a moan as Duke set the instrument aside and carefully bandaged the damaged flesh.
Duke stepped away and regarded Doug. “Sorry about only using lidocaine, but I need you sharp in case there’s more fighting to do.”
Doug grunted. “Burn’s worse than the bite.”
“You can have some morphine come sunup. Till then, we’re all on duty. Can you walk?”
“Should be able to.”
“I’ll help you out to the sandbags.”
Nearby, Lucas stood over the woman, noting the sheen of sweat on her face. When Duke returned from helping Doug, the trader sat down on a hardwood chair nearby and took a swig from a plastic water bottle. Lucas turned to him.
“She’s not going to make it, is she?”
“The truth? No,” Duke growled. “Not without antibiotics. Danger is sepsis, and her fever tells me she’s going in the wrong direction.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Duke nodded. “What about you?”
“Looks like I can either chase horses or risk it all to get her to Loving before she dies.”
“You thinking about taking her?” Duke asked, his tone skeptical.
“Be faster than a round trip, don’t you think?”
“Yep. But traveling at night… And your horse has been through a lot.” Duke hesitated. “You don’t look so spring fresh yourself.”
“We’ll be fine.”
Duke fixed Lucas with a probing stare. “What is it about the woman that’s got you sticking your neck out, Lucas? This ain’t like you. No offense.”
Lucas’s voice was soft when he answered, “None taken.” But he offered no elaboration, and Duke didn’t ask again.
Duke gave the woman another injection of morphine and helped Lucas carry her outside to the travois. Lucas rigged the contrivance as Tango waited patiently, and then they set her onto the sling between the two poles. Lucas patted his empty magazines and held one up.
“Used up a lot of ammo,” he said.
Duke nodded. “Fair’s fair. Fill ’em up. Cost of doing business.”
Lucas wasted no time reloading and, when he was finished, shook hands with Duke.
“See you soon. With mustangs,” Lucas said.
“Best of luck.”
Lucas offered a curt nod. “You too.”
Once on the trail north, Tango settled into a plodding walk that would get them to Loving by morning. Lucas kept a sharp eye out, sticking to the back roads and trails, wary of ambush. He’d been involved in two firefights in a matter of hours, which, even post-collapse, was a record for him. He went out of his way to avoid conflict, keeping to himself on his grandfather’s ranch, avoiding contact with his fellow man to the extent he could.
Duke’s question burned in his ears. Why was he risking his neck for the woman? Ordinarily he’d have continued south the following morning in search of the herd, and if she survived, super – if not, it was just the way things worked out. Reality was hard, and it took no prisoners. Lucas was as compassionate as was practical, but was in no particular hurry to shorten his life, especially with his grandfather relying on him. The old man was hard as saddle leather, but he wasn’t a spring chicken. When he’d invited Lucas to move north to the ranch in New Mexico when the troubles had started, Lucas had refused; but once Kerry passed and his job had gone the way of the dodo, he’d had no other kin, and he’d packed everything he could carry in his truck and braved the drive.
That had been before fuel became unavailable, and he knew he’d been more lucky than smart to leave El Paso when he had. While the old man was self-sufficient due to his lifestyle on the ranch, Lucas hadn’t done much more than assemble a bug-out bag with essentials, stash some gold, ammo, and weapons, and stored a few basic food stores and water containers in case of calamity. Still, that had been more than most, as he’d quickly discovered when El Paso disintegrated into riots. Rival gangs had taken the opportunity to settle scores and run amok, and the police and National Guard had been overwhelmed within a short period – it turned out that there were a lot more bad guys than good, and the delicate social contract wherein the vast majority behaved well quickly turned ugly and became anything goes.
A part of him realized that the flu and financial collapse had been catalysts and that the dark side of human nature had always been lurking just below the surface, for all the pretensions that it had been eradicated in modern times. Any moral superiority he’d felt had dissolved when he’d seen the wolf packs of murderers in action – including those who’d snuffed out his wife’s life without a thought.
Lucas had prayed for a forgiving nature, but it had eluded him, so he’d settled for being a loner who tried to do no harm. By staying detached from humanity, sticking to his knitting, and taking each day as it came, he’d remained sane in a world gone mad.
So why this, why now? Why risk it all for a woman he didn’t know?
Was it really as simple as a shot at redemption? Was he projecting his guilt at being unable to save his wife, some infantile part of him believing that the endless nightmares of Kerry’s final hours might stop if he could save this one? She looked little more than a girl, once her face had been cleaned off – early twenties or so. Was he doing it because he hoped for gratitude, to be repaid…however? A good-looking woman in the wilderness, owing him her life…
He shook off the thought. No, it was more than guilt or lust. Something about her, her situation, had struck a chord. He wasn’t big on the concept of a deterministic universe, never had been. Lucas had free will. Things were not writte
n, they were earned, carved out of nothingness and made manifest through sweat and intestinal fortitude.
He twisted his head to the side and spit road dust into the brush. That line of reasoning was useless. There was no such thing as destiny. People who believed they were preordained for anything inevitably used it as an excuse to do harm or delude themselves. It was a comforting weakness, but a liability he couldn’t afford.
“Enough of this,” he whispered. He couldn’t allow his mind to wander. He needed to stay sharp and focused, or his destiny would be to wind up dead in a ditch, like poor Clem.
The monotonous clip-clop of Tango’s hooves on the loose dirt marked the passage of hours as the moon rose in the night sky, the stars a glimmering tapestry that stretched into infinity. Lucas paused for five minutes every so often to water Tango and stretch his legs, checking at each stop to verify the woman was still breathing. At the second break, he poured a trickle of water into her mouth and she swallowed reflexively, but other than that, she remained dead to the world, an enigma with long hair and an angelic face, precariously perched at the edge of the abyss with only Lucas between her and oblivion.
Chapter 9
Pink and orange glowed in the predawn sky as Lucas arrived at the outskirts of Loving. What remained of the townspeople had organized themselves into a loose militia responsible for guarding the perimeter, and everyone had pitched in to create defenses that encircled the town. At last count there were ninety-seven residents, the population down from a pre-collapse high of 1500, reduced by the flu, starvation, other diseases, and raids by criminal groups before a coherent civil defense had been mounted.
For the last few years, life had settled into a routine, with twenty of the adult residents on guard through the night, working six-hour shifts, and five keeping watch during the day, when visibility was such that they could easily see approaching strangers coming. Lucas knew most of the residents by name because of the farmers’ market on Saturdays, when the collective gathered and traded among themselves. The survivors were a hardy bunch who’d faced down adversity and clawed an existence from lousy circumstances, much as their ancestors had when they’d crossed the Great Plains in search of opportunity. Most were involved in farming or hunting and fishing, with a few creating value with specialized skills – two handymen, the local doctor who also resolved disputes and acted as veterinarian, a school teacher for the twenty children, a minister who tended cattle, and a sheriff and his part-time deputy responsible for the town’s defenses.
Theirs was a simple, agrarian life, most living without power, their water brought from the river and sterilized over a fire. The community had grown tight-knit, and neighbors helped each other, watched each other’s kids, and lent a hand when someone was sick. While imperfect as any society, despite its differences this one had managed to find a way to function, probably because even before the collapse most of the population was self-sufficient by virtue of the rural location.
“Morning, Lucas,” a tall Hispanic man called from behind the thick wall that guarded the entry to the town.
“Morning, Manuel,” Lucas allowed. “I’m here to see the doc. He’s expecting me.”
“Sure thing,” Manuel said, and pushed open the heavy wrought-iron gate the residents had erected across the main street as part of their fortification. That and the wall, some sections nothing more than tall barricades built from debris and ruined houses and cars, others from homemade adobe, had paid for itself many times over. “You know the way?”
“I remember.”
A rooster crowed nearby as the town awakened, and the sun’s early rays warmed Lucas as he rode down the dusty street toward an empty water tower in the distance. The doctor’s house was near the church off the main square, and as Lucas rode through the area, he gave an occasional tip of his hat to residents emerging from their homes to start their workday in the fields near the river. Horses stood by makeshift barns, and he recognized a few of them, having bartered many of the animals from his successful forays in the foothills. A brindle-coated dog loped along beside him for a block, hoping for a scrap, but gave up when none was offered.
Lucas stopped at a simple single-story house, a rudimentary affair devoid of the slightest charm, whose paint had faded from a vivid green to something resembling vomit in the few places it hadn’t peeled away. He dismounted and stretched his arms over his head, and then approached the front porch and knocked on the door.
When it opened, a man in his late sixties regarded Lucas over scratched steel-rimmed spectacles beneath a crown of thin white hair worn longish in the back with a few wisps combed over a pink scalp.
“Lucas!” the man said, his voice gravelly. “Wasn’t expecting you. Is…Hal all right?”
“Course, Eric. No stopping him.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Got a wounded woman needs tending.”
“Wounded? Ah. The antibiotics Duke asked about.” The doctor looked past Lucas at the travois. “Bring her in. Here, I’ll give you a hand.”
Lucas waved him off. “I can carry her. Doesn’t weigh hardly anything.”
“Suit yourself. Let me get the exam table cleared.”
Lucas carried the woman inside to the first bedroom on the right, which was set up as the doctor’s examination room. Morning light streamed through the window as Lucas laid her on the cracked vinyl table. The doctor leaned over the woman and felt her forehead with a frown. “She’s burning up. What did they give her?”
“Morphine and a shot of some kind of expired antibiotic. That’s all I know.”
“Let me see if I can raise Duke on the radio. I don’t want to give her just anything.”
Lucas nodded and waited as the doctor moved to the living room desk. He had one of four shortwave radios in town and enough solar panels to provide minimal power during the day. When the doctor returned, he looked like he’d gargled vinegar.
“Well?”
“Let me give her a shot and clean her wounds. Duke worked on her?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll check to make sure she’s not hemorrhaging or necrotic. Best if you wait out in the living room to avoid any more contamination.”
“Lot of road dust on her.”
“So I see.”
Lucas took a seat in an overstuffed easy chair whose surface was thick with cat hair. The doctor had moved to Loving after the collapse; his nearby retirement ranch was too difficult to defend for one man and of no use to him when there was a town that needed health care. He’d sold his private practice in Taos two years before the collapse and bought a small piece of land to live out his days in bucolic tranquility, but reality had intruded, and now he was the sole caregiver for not only the town but visitors from the surrounding compounds, who traveled hours, and in some cases days, to be seen.
A furry form scurried from a dark corner to the kitchen. Lucas sniffed the air and rose to attend to Tango.
After watering the stallion, Lucas negotiated a half bale of hay for a couple of rounds of 9mm ammo he’d held onto for pocket change and fed him. As he watched Tango munch on his breakfast, a tall, reed-thin figure approached.
“Lucas. Is that you?” the man asked, his tone sonorous.
“Yes, minister.”
“What brings you to town? Everything’s well, I hope?”
“Yes. Found a traveler in need, so I brought them to the doc.”
The minister smiled. “A good deed.”
“Let’s hope it goes unpunished.”
Both chuckled. The minister, a Baptist, tended to a more moderate stance, one of the bones of contention among the townsfolk, some of whom believed that the collapse was due to sinfulness and loss of faith. Everyone had an opinion, Lucas supposed and found considerable value in keeping his to himself.
“Haven’t seen you for a while,” the minister said, the reproach in his voice clear.
“Been in the field a lot.”
“Well, you’re missed at Sunday worship.”
>
The minister continued on his way, and Lucas was turning to go back inside when a voice called out from across the street.
“Lucas!”
Lucas sighed softly and rolled his eyes, and then slowly pivoted to face the speaker crossing the street. A pair of revolvers hung at his side in hip holsters, slung low like an old west gunfighter. The sheriff, Carl Green, was irritating, if harmless, and Lucas was short on patience given the paltry sleep he’d gotten over the last forty-eight hours. Carl bore him a small grudge, having been the town’s second choice for lawman after Lucas had politely declined, and Lucas could tell that it still ate at the man, even after years had gone by.
“Carl,” Lucas acknowledged.
“Miriam told me you had someone in that rig? Brought them to the doctor, did you?”
Miriam was the town gossip, whose house looked out onto the main street near the entrance gate.
Lucas nodded. “That’s right.”
“What’s the deal?”
“Found her in the hills. Shot up. Raiders,” Lucas said.
“What was she doing there?”
“Beats me. Ask her.” Lucas paused. “If she lives.”
“Rough, is she?”
“Shot twice.”
“Was she alone?” Carl asked.
Lucas shook his head and gave the sheriff a brief account. When he finished, Carl’s eyes were wide, although he quickly masked his expression. “Interesting. So you don’t know anything about her?”
“Nope. Just what I told you.”
“Well, I’ll stop in to check on her later. Whereabouts did you find her again?”
“About fifteen miles southeast of Duke’s place.”
“Not much out there.”
“Just banditos and crazies,” Lucas agreed.
When the sheriff had departed, Lucas walked back into the doctor’s house and almost ran headlong into him in the doorway.
“Well?” Lucas asked.
“I did what I could. Duke’s not half bad at triage, actually. It’s the blood loss and the infection that’s the danger now. The wounds will heal. Shouldn’t be any lasting damage she can’t live with. I shot her full of antibiotic. In the old days I would have run it in an IV drip, but…” He didn’t have to finish the sentence, frustration evident in his tone. Everyone was doing the best they could given the circumstances, but Lucas could see that the doc was annoyed at the limitations, which were growing worse as time passed and all the meds were past their expiration dates. “How about you, young man? Any complaints?”
The Day After Never (Book 1): Blood Honor Page 6