Nomad Omnibus 01_A Kurtherian Gambit Series

by Craig Martelle

  As they passed by the place where they fought the final battle with Marcus, Terry told James to take the group to the outpost of buildings that used to be the Weathers’ home.

  Terry and Char waited while the long caravan of people walked by, trudging inexorably forward. Many waved as they passed, and Terry and Char waved back, smiling. They’d given their horses to the others and were walking just like almost everyone else. They sat and waited until the group was well into the distance before they climbed down the bank and to the stream that masqueraded as a river. Terry breathed an audible sigh of relief when he saw the graves were undisturbed.

  “What? You expected him to rise from the dead after you cut his fucking head off?” Char asked, surprised at Terry’s reaction.

  “Kind of, maybe. But I’m happy no animals got in there either. I’d hate to think that Devlin became more than worm food,” Terry countered.

  “Make love to me, right on his grave?” Char prodded, looking hungrily at Terry. They hadn’t been alone since they’d killed the boar, and they were both getting anxious.

  But this?

  “Are you serious?” Terry wondered.

  “Maybe it’s a Werewolf thing, but I have to have you, right here. I’m your alpha and you’re mine, and don’t you doubt for one second,” she poked him in the chest, her purple eyes flickering, “that I take ‘until death do us part’ lightly.”

  Terry was torn, but not for long as Char stripped at an unnatural speed. Who was he to deny his mate? When Terry committed to something, he was all in…

  ***

  “Are we there yet?” Ted asked innocently. The pack had changed to human form as they rested in a small stream after a long run through the lowlands of an area previously called Tabasco.

  “Fuck off!” the others said in unison as they threw water on themselves trying to cool down.

  “I am bone fucking tired,” Merrit said slowly, enunciating each word. “You are such a ball-slapping, wiener-whopping, ugly-ass dick face. Why didn’t we just check on Char and Marcus before we left?”

  “We’ve been through this a thousand times, ass licker,” Timmons countered. “We should have just killed him ourselves, but you panty-waists didn’t want to. Ooh, we’re so afraid of the big baddie that even though he’s comatose, monkeys might fly out his ass and get us! You pack of whiny bitches!” Timmons turned to protect his private parts in case anyone got ideas about kicking him again.

  “Go fuck yourself,” Merrit snarled. “I’ve had about enough of your sanctimonious bullshit to last me a lifetime and I’m talking a Werewolf lifetime.”

  “You fuck yourself!” Timmons puffed out his chest and tried to look bigger than he was.

  “Fuck you!”

  “No, fuck you!”

  “So this is what we’ve become?” Sue asked, looking at Xandrie. “We’re a bunch of fuck offs and fuck yous. I’m so embarrassed. I’m glad my mother isn’t alive to see this.” Xandrie and Shonna giggled. Adams snickered.

  Timmons and Merrit looked at each other and then sat back down.

  “Will we get there tomorrow?” Ted asked.

  “SHUT UP!” Timmons yelled, before collapsing into the stream.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Terry and Char jogged through the desert toward the homestead. It had turned dark hours ago, but they wanted to be with the others for the night to better kick off early the next morning.

  They were happy. In the middle of the Wastelands, with a long road ahead of them, they were happy.

  “I think we need to pick up the pace, TH,” Char said, running easily. Terry dug in and dashed ahead.

  She quickly caught up. “That’s not what I meant,” she clarified. “I’m talking about civilization. We’ve covered what, a tenth of what used to be the United States and found exactly squat. The most modern city around is New Boulder and that’s pretty scary. If we could find the pack, we could leverage their smarts. Did you know that one of them is a nuclear engineer? How about some nuke power to last a lifetime?”

  Terry slowed to a walk, looking at the ground as he did when lost in thought. He mumbled and pointed to various points in the cosmos, none of which registered with Char.

  “Do you have any idea where the pack went?” Terry finally asked.

  “No. And what was that talking with yourself all about? I’m not marrying a psycho, am I?” Char pushed him away playfully.

  “Sorry, I was thinking out loud. I’m just trying to reason through it. So much infrastructure needs to be rebuilt. Power distribution is hosed because the system melted down. EMP, computer viruses, everything worked together to destroy technology. We have to make microchips from scratch and I don’t think that’s possible. Or we have to go old school on power transmission. Getting factories up to speed means a robust trade in raw materials, a smelter, major industry. It’ll take forever,” Terry said matter-of-factly.

  “I think it will take less time than that, TH,” Char said, bumping him with her hip.

  “What?” he laughed.

  “We’ll see it through. I vow to live long enough to see civilization return. I want to take you dancing in a night club, show off my man!”

  “Why do you think I can dance?” he asked skeptically.

  Char looked around conspiratorially, then whispered, “Anyone with your moves in bed has to be killer on the dance floor.”

  “Hey.” The darkness covered his blush. He always thought of himself as a decent dancer. It had been decades since he last cut a rug. He hadn’t had much to dance about, and there was no music even if he wanted to shake his groove thing. “I’d like that. Someday we’ll dance, and I vow to keep you alive long enough to see it.”

  “Bullshit!” Char shot back. “You’ll live to see it too. I don’t need any of your macho man crap. Don’t make me kick your ass right here to prove that I don’t want you to die.”

  “The beatings will continue until morale improves?” Terry asked.

  “Exactly!” They started jogging again. Within moments the homestead came into view.

  Terry and Char both heard the noise from the ravine at the same time. Loose rock sliding. A heavy footfall.

  Char pulled her pistols and dropped to one knee, ready to fire. Terry dove forward, hugging his rifle to him as he rolled, coming into a tucked position where he aimed down his rifle barrel at James and Lacy, not twenty feet away. James froze midway buttoning his shirt. Lacy stopped buttoning her pants.

  Terry pointed his barrel skyward. “What the hell were you doing down there?” A rhetorical question. He knew very well what they were doing. Char shook her head and holstered her pistols.

  “What were you two doing?” James asked back.

  The fire rose within Terry. He didn’t like being questioned, but he’d given the members of the Force more slack than his old unit. And James was right. If it was good enough for the colonel, why wasn’t it good enough for the corporal?

  Terry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Probably the same thing you two were doing, and we won’t say or hear another word about it. Deal?” He held out his hand for Lacy, then James. “Who’s minding the store?”

  “Gerry has it locked up tightly. We’ve good people in the squad, sir. Our watch starts in a little and we’ll be ready for it,” James said confidently.

  “However you want to spend your down time, that’s your business. When you’re on watch, you’re all eyes and ears. Put us on after you. We’ll be your relief, and then who’s after us?” Terry looked intently at James.

  “Jazzy and Stokes. They’ll appreciate the extra shut-eye. Thanks, sir, ma’am.” James and Lacy saluted and ran off toward the buildings.

  “Ah, young love, isn’t it sweet?” Char whispered as they walked, holding hands. “Unlike us old people.”

  “Do you sense anything besides this mob?” Terry asked, turning serious.

  “Not a thing. Bunch of horses and a gob-load of people.”

  “We’re on the home stretch now,
be there in less than a week,” Terry said.

  “Then what, TH?”

  “You know, the usual. Build up the Force, train, look at infrastructure, get married, build us a hot air balloon, and then head north and east. We need to find a place where we can rebuild the world—decent climate, a sound and substantial water source, industry that can be restarted. The usual,” Terry quipped.

  “Hot air balloon?” Char asked. “Our honeymoon is a trip in a hot air balloon? Are you stoned? Which one of us is marrying the psycho, I have to ask?” Char raised one eyebrow, her purple eyes sparkling in the darkness.

  “Okay, maybe no hot air balloon. It would help if we could find your pack,” Terry added.

  “I don’t have the first idea where to look, TH. I’m sorry. We can’t count on them. They bailed on us all, so I’m not sure we want to work them into the equation, even if I could control them. I don’t think their goals will ever marry up with our goals.” Char looked at the sky. The stars twinkled and it was hot, but not oppressively so. It was a pleasant evening in the Wastelands, if there ever could be such a thing.

  “If we did find them, what would it take to get them to buy in to our vision, get them to come along on this ride?” Terry wondered.

  ***

  Timmons took the lead during the trek, and tried to swallow his nagging fury. He wanted to be the leader, the alpha, and he knew he’d need the respect of the pack’s members. He’d been trying to vocal his way in, but his strategy wasn’t working. The only other strategy he knew was leading by strength, and by example.

  So Timmons set the example.

  He didn’t growl, or talk, or waste time asking for the opinions of the others. He just put paw to sand and ran out in front. The miles turned to leagues, and the leagues turned to a shit-ton of distance that would have been excruciating long, even by car.

  The rest of the crew followed him. Of course they complained by growl when the pace didn’t let up, but when Timmons didn’t break, the rest of them fell in line and the miles began to blur. When their paws hurt, Timmons kept going. When their sides ached, Timmons kept pushing. When the hunger came to overwhelm them, Timmons got lucky and managed to catch a deer. They ate the corpse wordlessly, while it still twitched, and their transformation to animal began to take over their minds.

  The days rolled by endlessly until the pack was of one mind.

  Then they hit what used to be New Mexico.

  “Fuck this shit! It goes on forever!” Merrit snarled after the pack had collapsed from exhaustion and changed into their human forms.

  The old Timmons would have cursed back, but instead he just stood in his wolf form and stared at the other man. He was tired, so fucking tired, but he knew that any sign of weakness would erode the leadership he had shown for these past few...days? Weeks? Years? He didn’t know how long it had been. All he knew was the agony of his paws and the ache of his limbs.

  Fucking vampire on a fucking boat. It would have been so much easier to do this run on the coast.

  “Are you going to say something? You’ve been driving us for—”

  “Shut up!” the normally mild-mannered Sue hissed. “And get some firewood so we can set up camp, or hunt, or do something useful. Timmons has been working overtime to set up the draft so we could run easier. Pull your own goddamn weight for once.”

  The rest of the pack’s eyes opened wide, and it was obvious that they were surprised by Sue’s stinging words.

  For a second, Timmons thought Merrit would snap at her, or snap at him, but instead the man just grunted, struggled to his feet, and walked into the small grove of oak trees they camped under. A few minutes later he returned with an arm full of sticks, and a small hill rabbit. No one asked how he had caught the thing, and he didn’t explain his luck when he began to build the small fire.

  ***

  It had been a long ride with the latest group of survivors, refugees, and immigrants. The colonel and his Force de Guerre had delivered the people into the waiting hands of those from Brownsville who Billy had designated for receiving and integration. The latest group brought the numbers close to three hundred and fifty total in New Boulder.

  Billy had been pleased to see the wide variety of people come into town. He introduced himself and welcomed everyone then turned them over to the welcoming committee to get settled and start integrating with the rest of the town’s people. It would put a strain on the food supplies, but only for a short while.

  Billy hoped there were a few accomplished hunters in the group. He had lost more than he replaced, but with Terry Henry returned, he would ask if the Force could go into the mountains and bring something home. Maybe they could start butchering their growing herd of livestock. The buffalo herd had moved close to New Boulder as well since the water sources led them that way.

  They’d tried to fence them in, but that didn’t work. In seconds, one angry buffalo was able to undo the work that four men had done over two full days.

  When the cheering stopped, Billy took Felicity’s hand and went back inside. He’d seen her scanning the crowd for young men to look at. He’d gotten over being jealous and simply accepted that it was her way. She liked to be appreciated and although motherhood had put a few extra pounds on her, which she complained about vociferously, he didn’t care and went out of his way to tell her how good she looked every single day.

  It was a lesson that Terry Henry had urged him to learn. Billy told Terry that he should do the same thing for Char, which made Terry laugh, because he thought that she knew she looked good, so why did he have to say anything?

  Sixty-five years and he still had a lot to learn.

  Terry dismissed the squad, sending them to the barracks for well-earned R&R, while he and Char headed toward the home that Margie Rose shared with them. They never considered getting a place of their own. They’d adopted the old lady as their stand-in mother.

  James took his squad back to the barracks. Although they couldn’t wait to be home, they rode slowly. The horses were tired and Gerry didn’t want to see them strain anything at this late point in their journey.

  “What in the holy jump-the-fuck-up-and-down is that?!” James bellowed as he and his squad were making their way around the barracks and to the stables.

  James called a halt as Blackbeard and Mark rolled out of the building yelling to “hold fire.”

  “Do you like our mascot?” Mark asked, not fully committed. Blackie ran past the others and to the enclosure. He jumped the fence and stood between the returning squad and the grizzly cub.

  Blackie shouted, “His name is Hank, and he needs us!”

  James put his face in his hand before wiping it and looked around before coming back to Blackie. “So where do we put the horses?”

  Mark pointed to the back side of the stable. “We’ll have it partitioned soon. The cub kind of likes the horses, even though we had to finish its mother because she killed and ate one of the civilian’s horses and was coming after us. Got us eight hundred pounds of meat out of it, along with the cub.”

  Blackie rustled the small bear’s head, and the two started to wrestle. “What in the hell are you going to tell the colonel?” James asked.

  “Still working on it,” Mark replied.

  “I expect he’ll be here tomorrow morning, sooooo, good luck with that,” James waved the squad forward. They settled the horses, giving them a quick brush, before lugging their gear back to the small building where they slept four to a room.

  Except for James and Lacy, they headed somewhere else.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  “I’m so happy to see you!” Margie Rose glowed, older and gimpier, but still rosy-cheeked and happy. Terry and Char both hugged her as they went inside, Clyde pushing past and heading straight for the kitchen. He snagged two muffins from the counter before Margie Rose got to him. “I’m not happy to see you, you flea-bitten mongrel!”

  “How’s my beer?” Terry asked.

  “How would I know?” Margie ans
wered, waving him away.

  “That’s the first thing you say?” Char said, slapping TH on the shoulder. Margie Rose looked at them expectantly. “We’re engaged!”

  Margie Rose rushed in for another hug, inadvertently surrendering her defense of the kitchen. Clyde was there like a shot and counter-surfed the other four muffins, before heading to his spot on the couch.

  Margie Rose and Char giggled together as they headed toward the old woman’s room. Terry stood in the living room, alone and forgotten. Not even a muffin to eat.

  He went outside, walked around back, and dug into the shaded dirt under the house where he kept his beer. The mason jars were still sealed and cool enough. He popped one.

  Fizz. He touched it to his lips. A smooth dark beer with a hint of cherry. He closed his eyes. Yes, this could possibly be the best beer he had ever tasted in his whole life. He sat where he was, in the shade, and casually sipped the remainder of that jar, belched like a man, then grabbed a second one for his return indoors.

  The women had returned and were chatting on the couch. They both glared at him as he stood there with a beer.

  “What did I do?” They laughed without sharing the joke.

  “Time to celebrate with the happy couple,” Margie declared before dragging them into the kitchen.

  “You have to taste this,” Terry told Char.

  “What the hell for?” Char shot back. “Beer is your thing, but a good Port is more my speed.” Char winked, but Terry pressed the beer into her hands. She sipped it, made a face, and handed it back.

  “That means more for me,” he said, smiling. She sniffed.

  “Smells like you’ve had enough already.” She put her hands on her hips.

  Terry had previously thought their relationship had been like being married without the benefits. Now that he had the full package, he realized that he had been right, and she’d been right, too. They’d been married from the second she moved into the house.

  He had wasted two years.