Alan fired another burst so the Raider wouldn’t feel confident in a victory, and thought it through. It was doable. With all of the magazines he’d collected, he could hold off an army, and eventually the Raider would have to show himself – his own supply of ammunition wasn’t unlimited.
That would be Alan’s edge.
He reached to the saddlebag and removed another rifle and then three more magazines. He could do this. He might have to walk out of the desert under his own steam, but he could make it. No – he would make it.
The crunch of gravel from behind surprised him, and he twisted too late. The second Raider who’d escaped Alan’s ambush grinned like a demon, his AK leveled at Alan’s head from twenty yards away – an impossible shot to miss. Alan swallowed hard.
The Raider snarled at him. “Put it down or I flip your switch.”
Alan slowly lowered the Kalashnikov and tossed it to the side. The Raider gestured at his pistol, and Alan removed it with two fingers and set it beside him. The Raider waved at the other gunman, eyes locked on the lawman, and footsteps hurried across the loose rocks toward them. When the second man arrived, he had murder in his eyes, and when he spoke, his words exuded menace.
“Now we’re going to have a little discussion, and you’re going to tell us everything we want to know,” the Raider hissed. “Everything.”
Alan stared into the face of death.
He believed him.
Chapter 21
Lucas’s return trip through the narrow passage seemed to take forever, even after breaking one of his cardinal rules and removing his plate carrier so he didn’t have to contend with the extra bulk. Instead, he employed the heavy vest as a makeshift sling and used it to drag Eve’s unconscious form behind him, pulling her along using a coil of trip wire he kept in one of the pouches.
Once they were at the cave mouth, he paused and examined her – her pulse felt weak, and she was probably in low-level shock from hunger, fear, and the last three days spent alone in the dark. He wasn’t sure what to do about it, though, other than get her to the doc, his hope being that the old physician would have a solution.
Eve’s unconsciousness worked in his favor as he donned the flak vest once again, slung the M4 strap over his shoulder, and then carried her in his arms. At least she didn’t have to see the freshly killed Raiders or the pile of skeletons covered with flies. He walked with deliberate care, the girl practically weightless, and was passing the two sprawled gunmen when a scrape sent him into a ducking spin. He freed the Kimber from his holster in a fluid motion with his right hand as he maintained his hold on the girl with his left. The second Raider was struggling to level his AK at Lucas, his eyes burning with hate.
Lucas didn’t hesitate. The .45 barked twice, and the man’s head slammed sideways as the jacketed hollow points liquefied his brain. Lucas stood staring at him for an instant before holstering the handgun and cradling Eve again in both arms.
Her eyelids had opened partially at the sound of the gunfire, and she looked up at him with eyes so blue they seemed to be reflections of the sky. His heart skipped a beat and a chill ran up his spine like an electric shock. He looked away, perplexed by the uneasy sensation. His mind was playing tricks on him from the combination of fatigue and adrenaline. That had to be it. Because the depth of understanding compassion in the little girl’s gaze was vastly beyond her five years. She’d looked into him – no, had looked through him – as though reading his entire life in a flash.
When he glanced down at her again, her eyes were closed.
He shook his head to clear it. I’m losing it. Imagining things.
He needed to get to Tango and get the hell out of there before he made a mistake that cost them their lives.
Lucas trudged toward the trail he’d taken down the slope. When he reached the crest, he looked around, and seeing nothing but scrub shimmering in the arid wind off the mountains, headed toward the tree where he’d left the big horse tied.
Tango threw his head back when he spotted Lucas jogging to him and whinnied a greeting that Lucas barely heard. When he was abreast of the stallion, Lucas lay Eve gently on the ground and rummaged in his saddlebag for a canteen that he’d filled in case he was successful finding her. He withdrew it and unscrewed the top, and then knelt beside the little girl and raised her head slightly with one hand while holding the canteen to her lips with the other.
“Here. Drink. This will make you feel better,” he said.
Eve’s eyes fluttered open and she touched it uncertainly. “What…is it?”
“Orange juice. Fresh from our ranch orange trees.”
Confusion clouded her expression. “Orange?”
Lucas realized that she’d probably never tasted an orange. Why would she? It wasn’t like the Crew was interested in orange groves or sound nutrition when there was blood to be shed and sin to wallow in.
“It’s good. Taste it. You don’t like it, you don’t have to drink it,” he assured her.
He tipped the canteen to her lips and she took a swallow. After coughing, she nodded. “More.”
Eve finished the entire canteen in a few minutes, and her color began to return. Lucas offered her some dried fruit and jerky, and she took small bites washed down with plentiful water. When she finished with the offerings, Lucas checked his watch and straightened. He gestured toward his mount.
“This is Tango. He’s the best horse in the whole world.”
Eve didn’t say anything, just watched Lucas with those preternaturally large eyes. Lucas had as much experience with small children as he did with space travel and was at a loss as to what to say next. He tried again.
“Have you ever ridden a horse?”
This time he got a nod. “Aunt Sierra. With her.”
“Good. Then you know how to ride. I’ll help you up. We need to get going.”
Another nod, and he scooped her up and set her onto the saddle, and then swung up behind her, shielding the child from harm with his body. He clucked at Tango, who obliged by sauntering slowly forward, speeding up until he was trotting. Eve bounced in the saddle, her eyes closed, leaving Lucas to imagine what her last three days must have been like – alone except for the bloated corpses in the gully being picked apart by vultures by day and coyotes and feral dogs at night.
He didn’t pause to think about how the experience might have scarred her – she was alive and she’d deal with it, and unfortunately would probably see far worse in the future. That was just the world they lived in, and the luxury of worrying about how many years of nightmares the trauma would cause had been lost when the country plunged into chaos.
Still, the eerie lucidity that radiated from her eyes had thrown him.
But he had other matters to concern him.
Like rendezvousing with the lawmen.
And ensuring they weren’t gunned down on the way back to Loving.
He glanced at the sky, where streaks of high clouds were drifting slowly south, and reminded himself that they had thirty miles to cover, at least, and less than five hours of daylight left. He didn’t want to consider yet another night ride, but given the girl’s fragile condition, he could see no other viable option.
Lucas gritted his teeth and nodded to himself. So be it. The hard part was done. Now all that remained was the journey north to reunite Sierra and Eve, and thereby discharge any obligation he had, imagined or not. Then he could sleep for a week and go in search of the herd of mustangs, leaving the rest of the world to figure things out without his meddling.
He saw nobody else on the ride to the burned-out ranch house, and there were no signs of being followed. When he arrived, it was getting dark, and he made a mental note to wait for no more than an hour and then continue on if nobody showed. Carl and Alan knew the way from there. If they’d been delayed or had fallen in their run-in with the Raiders, there was nothing his waiting would accomplish, and his priority now was the girl.
“We’re stopping to let the horse rest some,” Luc
as announced as they paused near the gutted ranch house.
Eve didn’t protest or comment, and merely sat in place until Lucas could lift her from the saddle and help her down.
“You feeling any better?” he asked, reluctant to let go of her as she stood unsteadily.
She nodded and tottered back to Tango. She patted his head, and when she smiled, she was momentarily radiant. “I like horses.”
“Better than most people,” Lucas agreed. “Want some more water?”
She nodded again and continued to stroke Tango, who seemed enamored with the tiny human whose miniature hand was offering appreciation. Lucas removed another of the five-gallon water jugs from a saddlebag and poured a measure into his smaller plastic bottle before giving the rest to Tango. He took a swig, swished the mouthful around, and offered her the remainder.
“Do what I did. It’ll make you less thirsty,” he said. She mimicked him, and he ferreted around in his bag and withdrew more rations. “Here’s some salt. We collect it from a salt lake to the east of our ranch. Put a pinch in your mouth and swallow it – or you can drop it in the water, let it dissolve, and drink it that way.”
“Why?”
“You’re losing plenty of salt from the heat. Need to replace it. You’ll thank me.”
She dissolved the granules in the water, drank several gulps, and made a face. “Ew.”
“It’s good for you. Drink it all.”
Eve did, and Lucas tried to focus on busywork. He cleaned the Kimber and M4 with his field kit and mounted the night vision scope to the rail of the assault rifle while Eve watched without comment. When he was done, he switched the scope on and let her look through it.
“See? It makes it look like daytime, but at night when it’s dark out,” he said.
She cocked her head. “Why not use a light?”
“Takes more power. And sometimes you don’t want the other guy to see you.”
“Thank you.”
He frowned. “For what?”
She looked away, and for a split second he was reminded of Sierra. Then she turned back to him, her expression placid as a mountain lake at dawn.
“Everything.”
It was his turn to look away, the air suddenly leaden as the light went out of the sky, the temperature dropping as the sun vanished behind the hills. What had she been through already? He didn’t want to imagine.
“Rest for a while. We’ll be riding all night, so this is your big chance,” he said.
“Can I have some more food?”
“Tango likes the dried fruit, if you want to give him a little too.”
Her shy demeanor brightened. “Okay.”
“Just watch his chompers. He’s a hog.”
Chapter 22
Lucas was beyond tired as the hours wore on. Tango’s sedulous plodding reminded him not to give in to the temptation to close his eyes, but it was growing increasingly difficult to resist the urge. Eve’s head rested against his plate carrier, and the little girl snuffled softly as she slept sitting upright, Lucas’s arms framing her to prevent her from falling to either side.
When Carl and Alan had failed to show at the prearranged time, he’d set off, resigned to making the trek on his own. A gibbous moon had risen in the night sky, illuminating the trail sufficiently for him to make his way, and when they’d finally hit the secondary road after crossing the highway with its rusting carcasses ghostly in the moonlight, he’d exhaled a long sigh of relief. The way from here was familiar and relatively safe; the area wasn’t claimed by either the Raiders or the Loco Cartel, there being nothing of real value other than Loving and Carlsbad, both of which were fortified and guarded by a citizenry that knew how to use its weapons.
As dawn approached, he heard the thunder of hooves from the west – a large party of riders traveling south on the highway half a mile away. He slowed, and Tango eyed the horizon with him as he swung his M4 up and looked through the night vision scope. The riders were too far off to make out any detail, but he guessed there must be about a hundred.
He’d never seen such numbers, and a coil of anxiety twisted tight in his gut. Why would a group that size be on the highway at night? The only things that occurred to him were bad and worse, and he clicked at Tango, who resumed his march, showing no indication of fatigue even after a brutal three days.
Lucas’s worst fears were realized as he approached Loving an hour and a half later as the sun rose through a line of clouds over the eastern plains. Columns of inky smoke were curling into the peach sky from the town, and as he neared the fortifications, he could see the gate blown off its hinges, scorch marks from grenades blackening the walls on either side. No guards were standing watch, and Eve squirmed against him at the sight of the smoldering buildings.
“What…?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” he answered, but flipped the safety off his M4. He raised his binoculars and took in the devastation, and then guided Tango to a tree and dismounted.
Lucas’s face was all angular planes, his eyes narrowed to slits as he tied the reins to a low branch and helped Eve down. “Stay here with Tango. I’ll be back soon,” he said, his voice low.
“Where are you going? Where’s Aunt Sierra? Is she here?”
“That’s what I’m going to see.” He unpacked the last of the dried fruit and handed it to Eve along with another bottle of water. “Don’t give Tango all of it. You’ll spoil him.”
She nodded mutely, eyes even larger than usual, and Lucas knelt down so his head was even with hers. “Don’t follow me in. I promise I’ll come back, but you have to promise to stay put. Even Steven. Deal?”
“What if someone comes?”
“Hide. I won’t be long.”
“What about Tango?”
“He’ll be fine.”
“I mean if someone comes?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Lucas said, eyes on the town. “He can take care of himself.”
That ended the exchange, and Lucas set off toward the gate, the M4 cool in his hands. When he reached the barrier, he studied the craters and the damage to the area around it and spat. Probably grenades, he guessed, which meant that the attackers had come loaded for bear.
The wall by the guard outpost was riddled with bullet scars, telling the entire story of the attack at a glance. He passed through the gate and spotted a body face down in the dirt in a black pool of congealed blood. He continued past more corpses, their weapons gone, no doubt taken by their killers. Ahead he saw a flash of color, and he swallowed back the acid that rose in his mouth. It was a little girl’s dress, the toddler bloating in the sun, a bullet wound in her temple offering mute testimony to the ruthlessness of the attackers.
Everywhere he looked, the dead lay sprawled, most of them townspeople he recognized, and some the attackers, he presumed by their dress. He slowly took in the ruined homes, many burned to the ground, only their chimneys still standing, and he spied someone he didn’t know. The man was clad in a black leather vest, his arms covered with full-sleeve tattoos and his head shaved, and was obviously dead, given the cloud of bluebottle flies clustered on his face. As Lucas approached the figure, he spotted the prison ink – a crude trident that represented Satan’s pitchfork and which established him as a member of the Loco Cartel.
“Damn,” Lucas whispered.
One of the eventualities the town had discussed was a coordinated move by the Locos, but it had always been dismissed over time as unrealistic – the cartel needed the goods Loving produced, and trade was the best way to get them. A raid would be a onetime event, and then the supply would end. The town leadership had gambled that the cartel wouldn’t cut off its nose to spite its face, and years of no belligerence had lulled everyone into the belief that the savages would stay in Pecos and not spread their evil contagion.
The destruction of the town proved that to have been a fatal bet.
But why attack now? What had triggered it?
Nearby, another stranger was curled
in a fetal position, a small river of blood running from his torso. Lucas studied the man, who was dressed differently than the cartel killer, his head also shaved except for a long black braided patch at the crown of his head.
Lucas toed the man’s head to get a better look and recoiled with a sharp intake of breath at the tattoos that covered his face, lending him the appearance of a demon – which, based on the massacre, wasn’t far from the truth. As far as he knew, the Locos didn’t ink their faces, so who was he? And what, if anything, did it mean? Another killer, perhaps a former inmate of the Pecos prison, who’d been affiliated with a different gang? That was what it looked like, but Lucas was speculating – and in the end it hardly mattered. The damage was done.
He continued past the carnage to the doctor’s house, not a creature stirring in the rubble. Inside, the doctor lay facedown with two bullet wounds in his back. His medicine cabinet and drug refrigerator had been raided, his radio smashed to bits, his beloved piano lay in pieces, the cat lay near the window with its head canted at an impossible angle. Lucas drew a long breath, the air heavy with the peculiar copper stench of blood, and then shouldered through the closed patient room door, already resigned to what he would find.
He drew up short when the wooden slab swung wide.
The room was empty.
That there had been a struggle was clear – the wooden chair was knocked over and the furniture in disarray – but Sierra was gone.
Maybe she’d heard the shooting and bolted, managed to escape the senseless slaughter? She was a survivor from Dallas, a city that was actively dangerous under the Crew’s rule, so perhaps her instincts were more finely tuned than the townspeople’s had been?
He had no explanation, and it wasn’t like him to jump to conclusions. He did a quick search of the room and found the antibiotics Sierra had been taking, the plastic bottle tossed in a corner. Lucas pocketed them and then backed away and returned to the living room to stand over the doctor.
“I’m truly sorry, my friend. You deserved better,” he whispered, and then offered an all-too-familiar prayer for the dead, ending with a soft “Amen.”
The Day After Never Bundle (First 4 novels) Page 12