The hill on the right curved away from the road, creating a modest flat area covered by sparse grass and a few picnic tables near a paved loop that branched off from the highway. A tiny sign by the entrance had white lettering that read, ‘Kriley Pond, fishing, picnic sites, self-serve pay station.’
“I think we found it,” said Harper.
Daxton looked up from the ground, spotted the loop, and cheered—for two seconds. He fell quiet and stared up, at her, mortal dread in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Harper glanced at him briefly before surveying the D-shaped parking lot for threats, worried she might have missed something.
“My mother’s gonna kill me. I mean, I wanna see her bad, but she’s gonna freak out at me for running off.”
Logan patted the boy on the back. “She should. That means she cares. And you are a bit young to go off alone just because you heard a story.”
“Who else but a young boy would have that much faith or hope in a story.” Lennie chuckled. “Old men tend to sit where they are and die.”
A short distance past the parking loop, an oddly rectangular lake, much larger than the last one, came almost up to the road. It looked about as long as a football field, maybe three times as wide.
“So where is everyone?” asked Deacon.
“Keep going.” Daxton pointed. “It’s just up ahead on the left. Kriley Ranch.”
Not long after they passed the end of the lake, Harper spotted a weird building on the right that looked like a giant Monopoly house with three garage doors in the middle, a dark roof, and grey siding. Probably some type of Park Service garage or some such thing. More or less across the street from it on the left, a few paces farther, a picket fence surrounded a large property containing several individual buildings, two houses and a number of cabins. A dirt trail led from the road to a gate, under a wooden arch that bore a sign reading ‘Kriley Ranch.’”
A man holding a rifle stood a short distance inside from the gate, clearly on guard duty. At their approach, he raised his weapon toward them. “Who is there?” he asked, his voice thick with an Indian accent. “Please identify yourself.”
Harper, Logan, Deacon, Lennie, and Ms. Tiller all pointed their weapons at him.
“Oh, heavens,” muttered the man.
“Vijay!” yelled Daxton as he ran up to the gate. “It’s me. I found help. It’s okay. They’re friends.”
The man stepped closer, lowering his weapon. He looked to be in his middle thirties, wearing a long camo raincoat and bucket hat. “Daxton? Where the heck have you been? We’d thought the raiders got you.” Vijay ruffled the boy’s hair, patted him on the shoulder, and looked at Deacon—the man tended to draw attention. “Who are your friends?”
“Mind if we come in so I don’t have to explain twice?” Harper smiled and slung the Mossberg over her shoulder, grateful to spare her arms the weight of it.
“Oh, by gosh. You’re a kid, too.” Vijay whistled. “What are you, Army?”
“I’m not that young.” Harper smiled. “And no. We’re Evergreen militia. Dax here said you needed some help.”
Vijay’s eyes widened. He opened the gate—a relatively flimsy bit of steel fencing. “Evergreen? So it’s true? Quickly, please come in.”
28
Kriley Pond
Daxton sprinted up the dirt road inside the ranch compound, going past a light grey house at the front corner to a larger brown one behind it. Harper followed Vijay past two enormous soup pots apparently used to boil-sterilize water from the lake. A woman inside the house shouted Daxton’s name, then a mostly unintelligible string of yelling at him for scaring the hell out of her.
“Should we do anything if she starts hitting him?” asked Harper.
“I would,” said Logan.
“Nah. Jen wouldn’t raise a hand to him.” Vijay smiled. “’Course, she doesn’t have to. Buried a hatchet—literally—in the head of one of the raiders. Ain’t much that woman’s afraid of, except losing her boy.”
They made their way into the living room and the overpowering smell of cooked fish and wood smoke. Daxton embraced a fortyish woman with slightly darker blonde hair than him. He appeared to be crying harder than his mother, but grinned broadly. A handful of other people, all adults, occupied the sofa, recliners, and a few folding chairs. They appeared significantly underfed. Except for Daxton’s mother, they all had plates in their laps containing partially eaten fish.
Apparently, Harper and her group had interrupted their meager dinner.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Daxton’s mother peeled him out of the hug and shook him by the shoulders. “We’ve been searching all over for you.” She picked her plate off the chair she’d been seated in and offered it to him. “Here. Eat.”
“No, Mom.” He pushed her arm back toward her. “Go ahead. I already ate tonight. I’m stuffed. We found chickens on the way here.”
“Seems we didn’t go far enough afield in our search,” said a man in his early forties. His black hair still somehow looked neat and perfect despite the beard stubble on his cheeks. He reminded her of her junior year English teacher who used so much hair gel that all the students joked it could deflect bullets.
Daxton spun around, leaning back into his mother while gesturing at that man. “Mr. Henderson, I found help. What that lady said about Evergreen is true!”
“Looks like your boy snuck off, Jen.” Mr. Henderson looked at the kid, his expression part annoyed, part impressed. “Spent a lot of hours looking around for a body. You have any idea what you did to your mother?”
Daxton bowed his head. “I’m sorry. But we’re not gonna make it much longer. I had to do something. We barely have food. The raiders won’t stop.”
His mother squeezed his shoulders, staring at Harper and her team. Her expression said ‘thank you for keeping him safe.’
Some murmurs went around the other locals, grumbling at spending two days searching for him while fearful that he’d been taken by a wild animal or fallen into a hole, drowned in the lake, or so on. Despite the near universal scolding, Daxton maintained the most endearingly defiant expression Harper had ever seen. He didn’t appear to feel guilty for risking himself to get help, or ashamed of making those people waste time hunting for him, though she got the feeling it bothered him that he’d worried his mother.
“So, who are you?” Mr. Henderson approached Deacon. “Carl Henderson. I’m basically in charge here since no one else wanted to be.”
“Deacon Owens. Daxton tells us you’re in a bad way up here. This is”—he indicated everyone while introducing them—“Harper, Lennie, Logan, and Shari. Harper”—he gestured at her—“got this thing about helpin’ people. So, here we are.”
“Sherri,” said Ms. Tiller.
“My bad.” Deacon smiled. “Sherri.”
“You’re well-armed, I’ll give ya that.” Carl looked them over. “But it’s going to take more than the five of you to deal with the raiders. Real squirrely bunch they are.”
Harper stepped up to him. “We didn’t come here to be assassins or mercenaries. As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, there isn’t any gasoline left.”
“The hell do we need gasoline for?” snapped a fiftyish woman with long, black hair and a grey sweatshirt.
“Easy, Margaret.” Carl raised a placating hand. “Let the girl talk.”
“Mrs. Olson’s mean to everyone. It’s not your fault,” whispered Daxton.
Jen sighed, staring an apology at Margaret. “Be nice.”
“The boy ain’t wrong.” A thirtyish man sitting in the recliner wagged his half-eaten fish at Daxton before taking a bite.
“Mason, she’ll stab you in your sleep,” said an older man on the way into the room from a hallway. “Trust me. I know.”
Margaret rolled her eyes in exasperation at the older guy, but leaned against him when he sat beside her.
“That’s Mr. Olson,” whispered Daxton. “They’re married. He’s the only one she isn’
t mean to.”
“So, where were you going with the gasoline thing?” asked Mr. Henderson.
Harper exhaled. “Dax said you’re having problems feeding your people and the attacks aren’t making things any easier. We’ve got a fairly established farm and a good-sized militia for defense. Since we don’t have gasoline, it’s not really possible for us to send a meaningful amount of food up here. We can’t carry it and don’t have any wagons.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t walk all the way out here to tell us you can’t help.” Mr. Henderson looked over their group again. “And if you’re not here to help us fight the raiders, what’s your plan?”
“We’re here to offer an escort back to Evergreen.” Harper smiled.
Everyone got quiet, exchanging glances.
“I’m gonna go back with them no matter what. They have food there. Even a school. And doctors.” Daxton held one leg up to show off gauze bandages through the giant hole in his jeans. “Mom, you gotta come, too.”
Mr. Henderson raised both hands in a ‘hold on a moment’ gesture. “Now, let’s not get to panicking right away. I appreciate your concern, miss. But, there’s no reason for us to uproot ourselves and relocate. We have plenty of fish in the pond to sustain things.”
Daxton lifted his shirt to show off his ribs. “The fish are tiny, and they don’t catch many. Doctor Hale said I’m malnourished.”
“Mr. Henderson, with all due respect…” Harper looked from person to person around the room. “You and your people are clearly not eating enough. I mean, everyone’s lean nowadays, but seriously. Look at yourselves. The boy’s right. You’re not really hanging on here.”
“Did you own this land before the war? What’s important about staying here over your lives?” asked Logan.
Carl bowed his head. “Nah. Over a couple months after everything hit the fan, we all kinda ran into each other and decided to stay together for protection. Found this place right before winter set in. Sure we’ve got our issues. Fish ain’t biting like they used to, and them jackasses show up every couple of days to test our defenses. But, we’ll be okay.”
“I dunno, Carl.” Jen kept her arms around Daxton, pinning him against her chest as if afraid he’d run away again the instant she let go. “It’s been rough here past couple weeks. That girl’s right. Look at us. We’re walking skeletons. If that place has decent food, we should consider going.”
Margaret slapped the remains of her fish onto her plate. “I’m so damn sick of fish. Maybe we ought’a listen to them.”
“Whatever she wants,” said Mr. Olson.
“Clive, do you ever have an original thought or just do what your wife wants?” asked Mason.
The locals all laughed.
Mr. Olson pointed upward. “I always get what I want, because what I want is Margaret to be happy.”
“Umm,” said Daxton. “She’s ne—”
Jen covered her son’s mouth.
The boy shifted his eyes up at her, his expression saying ‘really, Mom?’
“All right.” Carl looked around. “It’s too dark to think right now. In the morning, we’ll get everyone together and have a vote. I’m not attached to this place that much, but it’s got everything we need and travel is dangerous.”
“The boy made it on his own,” said Logan.
“Only got shot at once.” Deacon chuckled.
“What!?” shouted Jen. “Someone shot him?”
“No.” Harper shook her head rapidly, her hair swooshing back and forth. “They shot at him. Missed. And… they’re dead now.”
Carl pointed at Deacon and Logan’s bandages. “Doesn’t really look like you had a safe trip.”
“Nothing we couldn’t handle.” Lennie smiled. “Bunch of Lawless.”
“The hell’s a lawless?” asked Margaret.
“Gang.” Harper frowned. “Short version, they’re a group of convicts who got out of prison after the nuclear strike and decided to take over Denver. Not really sure how many of them there are, but they’re basically shoot-on-sight. Wear blue sashes around their necks as a sign of membership.”
“Probably so they don’t kill each other in the middle of a raid.” Deacon grinned.
“Doesn’t always help.” Ms. Tiller shivered. “Some of those idiots get so riled up when they see blood, if they accidentally hit another Lawless, they’ll laugh at it.”
Carl walked up on Harper. “How much of a problem are these guys? Do they raid Evergreen? What’s the point of us going there if it’s just going to be the same thing all over again?”
“Whoa, slow down.” She leaned back, uncomfortable at his proximity. “They mostly stay around center city Denver. We haven’t seen them anywhere else until we made the trip up here. They followed Route 70 west to set up an ambush point. So far, they haven’t come near Evergreen. Even if they do, our militia has about fifty people split between north and south, and we’re carrying decent weapons. Like a third of the militia are ex cops or soldiers.”
“What kind of raids are you having here?” asked Logan.
“Bunch of idiots come at us from the northeast. They usually fire at us from far away, not too accurately.” Carl pointed at a bullet hole in the wall, high up. “Couple times, they tried rushing the gate and things got rough. We used to be twenty-six. Now, it’s about fifteen.”
“Crazy as hell.” Mason leaned forward, setting his empty plate on the coffee table. “They don’t even take anything. Just attack, kill what they can, and run away whooping like freakin’ coyotes.”
“That’s messed up,” said Harper. “Psycho. Yeah, you guys should really come back with us. Evergreen is about as close as it gets to civilization at the moment.”
Carl headed for the door, waving Harper to follow. “We’ll discuss it with everyone in the morning. You all can sleep across the way. The room looks lived in but everyone who used to sleep there’s been killed.”
“Damn. This place isn’t safe for you,” said Logan.
Grumbling, Carl walked across the dirt outside the house to a small, rectangular cabin. He stopped a few paces from the door and gestured for them to go on in. “Place is all yours for the night. None of the toilets in the houses work since the water’s dead. We built a latrine over by the firewood pile down the back end of the yard. Just head toward the gate, turn right and go all the way back.”
“All right. Thank you.” Harper shook Carl’s hand and approached the door.
The one-room cabin contained three cots and five sleeping bags arranged around a few stacked crates serving as tables. She couldn’t see much as a pair of skylights only let in a tiny amount of moonlight. Logan, Deacon, Lennie, and Ms. Tiller walked in behind her, feeling their way around.
“You go on and take a cot.” Deacon patted her on the head. “I’m too big for them, anyway.”
“What do you think?” asked Logan. “Safe here?”
“From the locals or from the raiders?” Lennie chuckled.
Harper sat on the nearest cot, looking up at the shadowy figures of her friends. The people here didn’t concern her too much. However, she couldn’t help but worry that falling asleep with her guard totally down would result in all of them being robbed of everything useful and either killed or sent at gunpoint naked into the wasteland.
“I don’t think these people are a threat.” Harper rested the shotgun sideways across her lap. “But whoever is attacking them could show up in the night. And… I also don’t want to be stupid. We should keep watch.”
“Agreed,” said Lennie.
Harper, not feeling at all tired, suggested she take first watch, then Deacon, Logan, and Lennie last.
“I could take a watch, too. Or do you guys not fully trust me yet?” asked Ms. Tiller.
“It’s not that. We have five people. Hmm. I guess we could take shorter shifts and get more sleep?” Harper looked at the shadow that spoke in Lennie’s voice.
“That works.” Lennie felt around for a sleeping bag. “I’ll wake her
for last watch then.”
“You take the last cot.” Logan nudged Lennie toward it. “I can crash on a sleeping bag.”
“I ain’t an old man just yet.”
“Too late.” Logan stretched out on the floor.
Lennie sighed, then sat on the cot grumbling about ‘young whipper-snappers’ in an overacted ‘old man’ voice.
Harper sat on her cot watching and listening. Distant voices suggested the residents of Kriley Pond had already started their debate about relocating. With no way to really tell time, she figured she’d take her best guess at an hour and a half.
Hope they don’t stay up all night arguing.
29
Best Interest
Harper woke groggily to Ms. Tiller shaking her by the shoulder. Sunlight flooded the cabin, filtering down from two large plastic skylights covered in a scattering of dirt and small debris bits. It hadn’t yet become too terribly warm, but she had a feeling this cabin would turn stifling soon enough.
“Morning,” muttered Harper.
Everyone dragged themselves upright and trudged out the door as a group in search of the latrine. The dirt road leading from the middle of the compound to the highway branched off to the right not far from the gate, heading toward a huge pile of firewood beside a fenced-in garden. Several flowerpots of varying sizes hung from a wooden frame, though it didn’t look like the gardener had any luck getting vegetables to grow. Or maybe they didn’t have any seeds.
After using the latrine, Harper and the others returned to the cabin, but sat outside on the ground to eat. Logan plopped down next to her and rummaged a pack of Fig Newtons out of his bag. She took an MRE from her backpack and opened it. Logan, Deacon, and Lennie all ate directly from cans they’d brought along. Deacon tossed Ms. Tiller a can of peach halves plus an opener.
“Fig cookies?” asked Harper. “Breakfast of champions.”
“Breakfast of what I had.” He chuckled and tossed a Newton whole into his mouth.
“Boys will eat anything.” She grinned. “Didn’t your mother tell you, cookies aren’t breakfast?”
Evergreen (Book 4): Nuclear Summer Page 25