Beyond the New Horizon (Book 3): Living on the Edge

by Conaway, Christine

  “Well, aren’t you a sight,” Willy told her. “He a friend of yours?”

  “How did you guess? He’s my friend's mule, but he has a thing with Sailor and so he thinks he’s mine. I’m just wondering how he came to be here. He was supposed to be going to the new place.”

  “Here you go,” Sam called and hung the halter at the end of a lead rope over the bank.

  Gina grabbed it and turned to put it on Gus who was now standing beside her. He wore an expression she couldn’t identify, and his ears hung limply. “Hey buddy, how long have you been here?” She got the halter on him after an adjustment and draped her arm around his neck and gave him his usual hug. When she stood up to lead him upstream, Sam hollered at her.

  “Shit, look at the front of you!”

  Chapter Twelve; Someone has shot Gus!

  Gina looked down, she’d been wearing one of Sam’s white tee shirts, and while it wasn’t as clean as when she’d put it on, it hadn’t been covered in fresh blood as it was now. It had to have come off of Gus. Gina ran her hands all over Gus’s head and neck until she found the source. “He must have hurt himself when he fell in.”

  Parting the hair on his whithers, Gina could see the injury, and at first, she didn’t believe it. She used her finger to prod the hole, and fresh blood seeped out. Gus flinched when she put pressure on it. She looked up at the three faces peering down at her, “Someone has shot Gus.” His body was wet and his hair dirty, and the injury had dirt on it making her think it had happened before he fell. The shot had to have come from up top.

  “How bad? Can we get him out of there?”

  “I don’t think its life threatening. I can feel the bullet or at least the end of it just under the hair. What worries me is that whoever shot him is up there with you guys.”

  Sam and Willy both disappeared out of sight. Gina saw where she was going to have to take Gus downstream where the banks weren’t quite so high to get him out. Gina knew the men could probably put ropes around him and pull him up, but she wasn’t altogether sure if it was a bullet she felt or a piece of his shoulder blade. She didn’t want to take the chance that it was the bone.

  “Come on Gus, let’s find a place to get out of here.” Gina led him downstream. Olivia walked the upper edge carrying the shotgun she’d claimed as her own the day before. Gina knew she still had her Targus. It was the first thing that she’d checked after she’d fallen and she knew it would still shoot. Gina also knew that as soon as they hit the ranch, she would be breaking it down and cleaning it. She couldn’t afford to have it rust.

  The further they went east the lower the bank became. When it was only a matter of three feet, Gina passed the lead rope up to Olivia, “Is Sam there too?”

  “Nope. He and Willy are looking for whoever shot Gus.”

  Gina nodded and realized she had done the thing that pissed her off about conversations. If someone wasn’t looking at you, they couldn’t hear your head shake or nod. “Okay, you pull, and I’m going to push.”

  Gus made three or four lunges, and he was standing on top, shaking. Olivia stretched her hand down and helped Gina up the last step. As soon as they were on firm ground, Gina went over Gus’s body to make sure he only had the one injury. He had some hair missing on the inside of his cannon bone, but it looked like it had been scraped off on a rock.

  “Damn mule, I’m really beginning to think you’re more trouble than you're worth,” Gina told him as she and Olivia started back toward the wagons. He didn’t have to be pulled along but was content to stay beside Gina. She noticed that he had a limp, but it wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be if he’d broken his shoulder blade.

  “You going to fix him at the wagon’s?”

  Gina looked up as she walked, “Nope.” She pointed at the top of the oak tree in the distance. “I think that tree is the one we used for a lookout, so we’re almost there. As soon as we get there, Journey can take a look and see what she thinks, but I bet my last dollar it’s a bullet wound.”

  “I guess you wouldn’t be betting much then.”

  “No, you missed my meaning, I meant that…oh, I suppose you 're right." They laughed because money wasn’t even good to start a fire with anymore. A dollar before the collapse hadn’t been worth the paper it was printed on, and now it was worth even less than that.

  When they got to the wagons, Willy and Sam were standing on opposite sides scanning their surroundings. “We found where Gus went over the side and Willy thought he’d found some footprints, but they could have been ours from when we rescued Mike and his family. I would have thought they would have been erased by now, but you never know. Gina. You and Gus can walk in front, and we’ll let you set the pace. Olivia, you drive the buggy and Willy will take the wagon. I’ll be behind, keeping an eye out for trouble. Gina if you see anything that looks wrong, you holler.”

  The closer they got to their turn off the faster Gus seemed to walk. Gina was about ready to turn the mule loose when she saw two people coming toward them. Gina was trying to halt Gus when the person waved, and Gina recognized the long blonde hair and waved back. It was Journey and Andy which she identified by his hat.

  As they walked, Gina had been noticing little puffs of gray dust that rose up every time she planted her feet. She looked up at the mountain and saw it was smoking again. She wondered if it had blown while they were gone. They had all felt tremors a couple of times, but it was getting to be something they barely took notice of anymore.

  The sun felt hot on the top of Gina’s head, and she realized how stupid they were. The museum had offered authentic cowboy hats as well as baseball caps with the name of the town embroidered on them for sale in the gift shop. There was a stack of them on a shelf behind the counter.

  “Damn, I can’t believe we passed them up.”

  “Passed who up?” Sailor had moved up to walk almost beside her and Gina had been lost in her thought about the hats. Olivia had overheard her.

  “The hats. We should have taken the hats. We’re going to wish we had them when we start gardening.”

  “I did. I took them. They’re in the back with the material.”

  “You just confirmed why I’m going to keep you. You remember the things that I don’t.”

  “Grandpa said you were going to keep me before that. He said we had a connection.”

  Gina nodded, “He was a wise man.”

  Journey ran up to Gina and threw both arms around Gus. “Oh my God,” Journey wailed, “We thought somebody shot you.”

  She looked up at Gina, “Last night he got out and disappeared, you know how he does, we heard shots, but we couldn’t find him in the dark. We’ve been looking all day.”

  Right then Gina heard the unmistakeable bawling of a cow. “You’re kidding. Right? Where did the cow come from?”

  From the floor of the wagon, the calf let out a bawling noise of her own. “Well, I’ll be darned, no wonder that damn cow was so hard to move. She must have had her calf hidden in the grass, and we didn’t see it.” The calf bawled again, and the mother answered. “We better get the little critter down there before she tears up the goat shed.”

  “Lead the way, before this calf decides to jump out and find her on her own. Olivia, you might want to give the buggy to Gina and hold this little girl. She’s liable to break a leg if she jumps.”

  Gina grabbed the reins that Olivia threw as she jumped down. Gina climbed in and patted the seat beside her. “You may as well turn him loose because he’s not going to leave Sailor.”

  Journey removed the halter and climbed to sit beside Gina. Her eyes opened wide when she saw the drying blood, and her face paled, “Tell me that’s not yours.”

  Gina shook her head and aimed her chin in front of them where Gus was keeping pace with Sailor. Gina pulled back on the reins to slow them down.

  Journey saw that Gus was limping slightly. “What did he do?”

  “Those shots you guys heard. I expect someone thought Gus was a deer and took a sh
ot at him. They hit him just above his withers.”

  When Journey made to jump out of the moving buggy, Gina grabbed her arm. “He’s fine. The bullet is still in there and either they were too far away or the caliber was too small, or they were poor shots. I could feel it lodged just under the skin. To add to his humiliation, he fell in the river, and that’s probably why he never came home, and you never saw him.”

  “Okay, if you’re not worried then neither am I. Now, tell me where you got this lovely buggy and the buckboard.”

  “They are courtesy of Willy, or we would have been here yesterday with nothing but what we could carry on the cart. Thanks to him, you would not believe the stuff we’ve brought back. That’s not the best part. Well, maybe it is, but you remember Carver Jones?”

  Journey thought for a minute, “No. Should I…oh, I do. The country singer you had all the cassettes of. Why is that important?”

  Gina nodded, “Because that’s him,” she said in a whisper.

  “Him? I thought his name is Willy? That can’t be him he’d be, what, over sixty at least. Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. I heard him singing while we were digging the grave to bury his Mother. I’d have recognized that voice anywhere, and I did.”

  “Jesus. Do you know how many times Lucy and I wanted to hide those cassettes? You about drove us crazy. Over and over again we all listened to them until the cassette player broke.”

  Gina began to laugh, “And you guys bought me a new player for Christmas.”

  Journey laughed along with her, “We did because we couldn’t stand your moping around singing his songs unaccompanied. We needed to have the real voice to drown out yours.”

  Gina punched Journey in the shoulder, “That isn’t very nice. You guys always said that I had a sweet voice.”

  Journey rubbed her shoulder, “Because that’s what friends do.”

  “Not good friends. Good friends are honest. They don’t lie to their friends.” Gina sat silent for a few seconds and then forgetting she had the source with her, burst into her rendition of ‘The Rodeo Queen.’ She sang the whole first verse at the top of her lungs and Journey plugged her ears but pulled her fingers away when Gina slammed her mouth shut and her face turned bright red.

  “Well,” Gina finally said, “This is a little embarrassing. Think he heard me?”

  Journey couldn’t help herself, she held her sides and roared with laughter. She managed to choke out, “Everybody in three counties heard you.”

  “Bitch! Why didn’t you stop me?”Gina hissed at Journey.

  Gina clucked, flipped the reins, and she and Journey headed for the trailer with Gus trotting alongside. Journey grabbed onto the side bars, “You’re going to tip us over.”

  Gina sat up straight and urged Sailor on completely ignoring Journey. When they dropped off the small rise above the trailer, Gina saw Lucy and Ben at the goat shed. Over the sounds of the buggy, she could hear the cow bellowing. She pulled up and was surprised when the wagon, with Willy at the reins, pulled in right beside her. Olivia was holding the calf on the seat beside him. The calf was struggling to get away from Olivia and was as excited to hear her mother as the cow was to have her calf back. As soon as they stopped, Willy jumped down, grabbed the calf from Olivia holding it with his arms wrapped around the calf, he hurried to the pen and set it over the side wall.

  Gina and Olivia got to the pen just in time to see Colby go straight to her mother’s udder and begin to demand food by head butting her. She must have found what she wanted because they could hear her loud sucking noises.

  Gina avoided looking at Willy because she knew she had butchered his song. His number one for six weeks at the top of the chart song. She didn’t think she was going to live it down anytime soon. The best she could hope for is that he forgives her and nobody else brings it up.

  Lucy came over to stand beside her, “Sounds like you guys must have had one hell of an adventure, but what the heck was you thinking?”

  Puzzled, Gina looked at her, and as soon as she saw the not so hidden grin she knew, “Journey told you to say that, didn’t she. That bitch, I’ll get her.”

  Lucy was laughing as well as all of the men, “No…we heard you clear down here and half the state probably did too.”

  Gina stomped back to the buggy and unhitched Sailor, ignoring all of them. She led him away still wearing his harness. When she was far enough that she couldn’t hear their laughter, she began to take the harness off of him.

  “It wasn’t that bad…those girls just don’t like my taste in music,” she muttered as she pulled the harness from his back. She turned with it and ran smack into Willy. He had his arms held out for her to hang it on.

  “No ma’am, and you’re right. It wasn’t that bad, and I will admit that I’ve never heard it sung with so much gusto.”

  “I am so sorry, and I never meant to offend or insult you in any way, in fact, I forgot you were here.”

  “You know, as far as I am concerned, you have obviously listened to it enough that you knew every word, and I thank you. It’s been a long time since I knew anyone who could sing it without humming when they didn’t know the lyrics. So, as long as you enjoyed my music, I am pleased.”

  “I really can do a better job singing it than you heard.”

  “Yes, I expect that you can. It's pretty hard to bellow it out at the top of your lungs and still keep the tune.”

  “I’ll just go find a place to put this where it’s off the ground. Willy, prepared to walk away, stopped and turned, “I have a confession.”

  Gina waited, thinking he was going to say he wasn’t Carver Jones or something along those lines. She nodded at him to continue.

  “We weren’t going to eat your horses that day. To me, it sounded like that was what you wanted to hear one of us say, so I did. We were hungry, but not hungry enough to resort to eating horses.” He laughed, “You should have heard Glen once we were alone…he was so upset at your suggestion that we would consider eating them.”

  “I think I know that now, and probably would have known then if I had given it some thought.”

  “You just keep on singing if it makes you feel good. It doesn't make any difference what tune you use or even if you’re in the right key. You have to do whatever makes you happy.”

  Willy walked off leaving Gina to wonder if he had made a joke at her expense. She had sung it in the right tune, hadn’t she? He’d said it had been a long time, and as far as she was concerned, it would be a lot longer before she embarrassed herself like that again. As she gave Sailor some of their clean hay, she hummed the tune, the same way that she had sung it and decided that couldn’t have been as bad as Journey made out. She used to get applause on karaoke night. Maybe she had embarrassed herself then and just hadn’t known it. She knew it was unbelievable how great other people sounded after she had drunk a couple of beers and how awful they had sounded beforehand. Alcohol went a long way to softening a person’s perception.

  “I’m glad you’re back. We were starting to get worried. When Andy and Journey brought the horses in, dragging that cow with them and it had taken them all day, we thought you guys would be right behind them. Once the cow was situated, and the horses put down below, Ben and Andy rode back down the trail to see if you guys were coming. The night before last, Ben and Andy went up and caught the rest of your chickens while Journey and I rebuilt your cage.”

  “Why does everybody keep insisting they’re my chickens? I caught them for the benefit of all of us. Oh crap, that reminds me, we need to pick some grass for Olivia’s rabbits.”

  “It’s already been done. It was the first thing Olivia did after having Ben dig the cage out. If you think about it, doesn’t it seem to you that things are falling into place just a little too easily?”

  Gina frowned, “Now what theory are you working on because nothing has come easily? If this is easy, then I want to start over. You were with me when we salvaged the trailer. That sure as heck wasn’t
easy and was it easy being kidnapped? Is it easy when we have to bury our friends?” Gina was standing in front of Lucy with her fists resting on her hips, “Your idea of easy and mine are a long way apart. Easy was our way of life back before the apocalypse. So far, we’ve had to work and work hard for everything we have.” At the look of despair on Lucy’s face, she changed tactics, “We’ve been lucky. Not just you, me, and Journey, but all of us. We all bring something to the table, and we are lucky that our talents and strengths compliment each other.”

  “I know, but if you think about it, there does seem to be an underlying plan otherwise how could we have all come together and be in the right places at the right times?”

  “You know what? You call it anything that you want to, call it providence, divine intervention, or whatever, I call it luck.”

  Lucy turned and walked off. Gina watched her leave and wondered if it was Ben’s influence or Mark’s but Lucy was changing. Then it hit her; maybe Lucy was reverting to the person she was before her injury. She and Journey hadn’t known Lucy back then, so they had no way of knowing who Lucy had been before. “And here you are overthinking it again.”

  “Are you talking to yourself or me?” Journey had two cups in her hands, offering one to Gina, “It sounded serious.”

  Gina took the one Journey offered and sipped, “Oh my God, this is heavenly.”

  “You need to lighten up just a little. Let’s walk.” When journey began to walk off, Gina followed her.

  “Okay, what’s up?”

  “Let’s just walk, for a little bit.” They walked up the hill past the cemetery. Journey never spoke until she found them a downed tree to sit on. When Gina sat down beside her, she turned and faced her friend.

  She reached up and put her open hand on Gina’s cheek, “You need to take some time for yourself. I know you haven’t looked at yourself in the mirror lately because if you had, you would see what Lucy and I see.”

  Gina laughed and moved her face away. “What are you talking about, I looked in a mirror yesterday?