After and Again

by McLellan, Michael

  “Well, you got all that old crap that we collected in the wagon, I know he’ll like that electric machine, whatever in hell it is. I have personal business back at that last town we hit.”

  “Just what does that mean?” Grayson asked, feeling like Trask was about to double-cross him somehow.

  “It means, Grayson,” Trask said, not liking Grayson’s tone. “That you have a choice. I’m taking four men and eight horses and riding back to that little dung-heap town that we torched, and I’m going to skin that little whelp that caused all of this and bring back that black-haired prize that we were saving for The Man….maybe those two young ones as well. Meanwhile, you are going to take a few riders and that sack of gold to Herald’s Ford and recruit some more men. Send a couple back to Auburn and have ‘em try to dig up a few more there too. If you don’t like that, then take him the wagon load of useless old junk and hope that he’s in a good mood.”

  “But,”— Grayson began.

  “I know that we’ve pretty much picked up everyone in Auburn willing to ride with us, but maybe they can catch some migrants at the inn, have ‘em check the jail too, they could always buy some drifters way out.

  Point here is, we just need to pick up another fifteen men, then when I get back we’ll sack Auburn, and Herald’s Ford like we had originally planned and head back to The Crack. And then my friend, you and I will have done what we were set to do, and will never have to come back to this world again. Now what do you say?”

  Ben Grayson stood there uncertain for a moment, Trask looking at him as patiently as he had looked at the innkeeper. “Alright, I’ll meet you back here in…. say eight to ten days?”

  “Perfect,” Trask said, and walked away.

  Ben Grayson did not like Desmond Trask; not one bit. The man’s intelligence, paired with his incredibly volatile temper always made Grayson uneasy. He sat and rolled a smoke feeling irritated after his conversation with Trask a few minutes before. He was a little pissed that The Man in Charge hadn’t given them more men to begin with, keeping the bulk of them—the ones with guns—to guard The Crack, and that other place; that rip or whatever they called it. There were only so many men who would do what Grayson and Trask did of their own free will, and only so many more that they could force to join them. He didn’t understand why The Man wasn’t content with having that rip place guarded, after all of this time he decided he needed to kill everyone in the area? And what about the girls….he pushed the questions aside. He did wonder what had happened to Trask’s face, and imagined that whoever had helped the women escape had gotten the best of him, as well as killing Stryker and the others. Maybe there had been more men in the mountains like there had been on the plain….”

  “What the hell, Ben? I have to go runnin off with Trask so that he can kill some kid who messed up his face?”

  “Looks that way, Taylor,” Ben said, looking up at the man standing before him.

  “Can’t you talk to him? You know, get him to pick someone else?” Taylor asked, clearly agitated.

  “You know I can’t tell Trask a damn thing, Taylor. Just make sure he brings back the girls and doesn’t snap and kill them or something. I wanted to have twenty of ‘em before we got back to The Crack, and we done two towns and have exactly none.”

  “Well maybe if the Man wasn’t so damn picky—” Grayson was on his feet and had Taylor by the shirt in a blink. “You don’t talk about The Man, and you don’t worry about what The Man says, does or thinks. You got that, Taylor?” Grayson said, through clenched teeth. “Not if you know what’s good for you,” he added quietly, releasing the other man.

  “Well yea, jeez, Ben, I was just sayin….” he trailed off. “Guess I’ll go saddle my horse.”

  13

  Zack, Holly Sanderson, and the two Goodman women left the Martin’s just after sunrise. Emily had wanted to go, but had agreed to stay behind and look after Liz as everyone except Toby, Miranda, and Heath were going to be gone. Jonus had also wanted to go but had promised that he’d help Hal King with some cow fencing that still needed to be ran at the Sanderson’s. He and the Kings—including Dalia who was going to visit with her parents for a few days—had left before sunrise in Holly Sanderson’s wagon. The Sturgess family had gone back to their house after dinner the night before and everyone else was going fishing at Hat Lake with the Millers.

  There was little conversation on the way to the cave except for when Zack pointed out that Max was again following him. Like the previous day, he paced them at a distance. The wolf’s appearance had managed to appreciatively lighten the group’s otherwise tense, expectant mood.

  They passed the bones of Payne’s Station without a word and began the ascent into the foothills, stopping only once when Zack’s backpack came loose and fell off of Grace, spilling it’s contents on the hillside. He picked up the pistol and the flashlight and stowed them back in the pack. Holly, who had dismounted to help, handed him the box of chewing gum. “Hey,” he said. “Have any of you heard of this? It’s chewing gum, I found it in the cave.” The women all said that they had never heard of chewing gum. “Here try it,” he said, digging in to the package, “It’s taste’s really good, but I think that you’re supposed to spit it out when the flavor goes away.” He handed the women each a piece of the gum. Holly took hers and thanked him but looked uncertain while she unwrapped it and put it in her mouth. After a moment she smiled.

  “It is good,” she said, "It feels like chewing birch sap only it tastes better.”

  An hour later they were tying the horses up outside of the cave. Zack took the flashlight out of his pack and cranked it up while Kendra Goodman was lighting the two oil lanterns that Toby Martin had loaned them. They pushed through the thicket and into the mouth of the cave, the women were fascinated with the chill wind that came from its depths. Zack turned on the flashlight and walked over to the crates and there were cries of surprise from the women when the light on the wall suddenly burst into life—though not as nearly as bright, and for a shorter duration—than when Zack was first there. “Sorry,” he said, “I forgot about that.”

  Zack crouched in front of the crates, the women close behind him. He steeled himself, remembering the spider, and pulled the first crate off the stack and let it thump to the floor. “Set the lanterns down; maybe one over there and one over here,” he said, pointing to two spots on either side of the crates as to optimize the light in the immediate area. “If you run your fingers under the lid like this, you’ll feel a button. Just push it in and the lid will come off,” he said, showing them how with the crate that he’d pulled down. “And watch out for spiders,” he added, a bit self-consciously.

  “We can’t read,” Kendra Goodman said from behind him. Zack was not surprised, as it wasn’t uncommon for people to spend their whole lives never learning to read.

  He simply said, “Look for anything that looks like a map or anything with writing on it that doesn’t look like a story book….like these,” he said, grabbing a few books out of the crate and showing them.

  “I know what a storybook looks like, just can’t read ‘em,” said Kendra, sounding a little insulted.

  They set to work, occasionally getting sidetracked to ooh or ahh about something that they found. Zack was struck all over again by the amount of books that the man had hidden away in the cave, and found himself wishing that he could stop and read. After about thirty minutes Holly said, “I found it!” There was no doubt in her voice.

  Everyone had chosen a little space for themselves on the floor of the cave and Holly had a large map spread out in front of her. Zack and Kendra hurried over—Cassie stayed where she was, seeming more interested in the other treasures—and hunkered over the map. Zack enhanced the lighting with the flashlight.

  “Read this,” Holly said, handing Zack a large paper envelope.

  “Blast Zones one and two,” he read aloud, then set the envelope aside. He trained the flashlight on the map; it was an amazing thing, he thought. It wasn’t
a photograph but looked almost like one, and it apparently showed terrain. He had seen an old map once at Santiago’s house but it had been a lot different. It just had what looked like a million squiggly lines all over it and names of places that he had never heard of. This map didn’t have any squiggly lines or any names. In fact there were hardly any words on the map at all; there were lines going through it making squares like a checkerboard, only the squares were smaller, and two sets of numbers with a letter next to them in each square. The location of the blast zones were obvious—two large circles; one near the upper left corner and one near the lower right corner, with the edges of the two barely overlapping. The circle in the lower right had the number one written in it and the circle in the upper left had the number two written in it. Right where the two circles overlapped, one word was written with an arrow drawn between it and a small black mark. The word was Rip.

  “Here we are!” Holly exclaimed suddenly, pointing to a small circle drawn on the left side of the map about halfway between the top and bottom edge. It simply said Cave.

  Everything on the map became clear after seeing the circle with the word cave written in it. They could trace the mountain range that they were on, northward to the pass where it met the eastern range, and see the depression of the grassland that lay in-between the western and eastern ranges. Kendra said, “That pass where you found us sure don’t seem too far looking at it on here.

  “It doesn’t,” Zack agreed, scanning the map for a clue as to distance. “Here,” he said, “at the bottom…scale of miles….it looks like each square is supposed to be twenty miles. So if we’re here…” he began counting, “…thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, okay, sixteen. Sixteen times twenty is three hundred twenty, so it’s three hundred twenty miles.”

  “Not exactly right up the road is it?” Kendra said.

  “Well the sooner that we get out of here, the sooner that we can be on our way,” Holly said eagerly.

  “Alright, I want to grab a couple of things first,” Zack said, picking up the map and re-folding it. “If any of you see something that you want, go ahead and take it,” he said, while picking up the leather coat and some of the other clothes that looked like they might fit him. He was taking two more boxes of ammunition for the pistol when he saw the box of little cylinders that made fire. “Why didn’t I take some of these last time?” he said to himself. “Hey look at these,” he said, handing one of the colorful cylinders to each of the women. “If you spin this wheel with your thumb and then hold down the red thing, they make fire.” he demonstrated with one.

  “Ha haaha!” the normally quiet Cassie laughed. “A lot easier than a stone and steel by far!”

  They had re-packed the crates and were preparing to leave when Cassie, who was using her new fire toy as a light farther back in the cave asked, “Zack, did you know all of this was back here?”

  “All of what?” Zack asked.

  “More of those boxes.” Zack walked back to where Cassie was standing and aimed the flashlight beam into the gloom. “Holy crap!” Zack said excitedly, “look at all of this.” Zack hadn’t ventured very far into the cave the day that he had found it and therefore missed a great deal; there were crates like the others stacked row after row, probably fifty in all.

  Zack’s inquisitive nature made him want to stay and look through the crates. He even reasoned that they might find some things inside of them that would help with their journey to the time-rip. Holly was insistent that they didn’t waste anymore time. She wanted to get back to the Martin’s and pack that very afternoon, so that they could leave at dawn the following morning. Kendra sided with Holly, and Cassie in turn with her mother. Zack, who was beginning to wish that he’d just come alone, didn’t argue the point.

  Zack put everything that he had taken from the cave into Grace’s saddlebags. He had first pulled out the sandwich that Miranda Martin had made for him and tore it in half. He stuffed half of it in his mouth and then threw the other half to Max who was lying in the path about twenty feet away. “You just going to keep following me or are we going to make friends?” he called to the wolf who had gulped the sandwich down without so much as a chew. Then he just stood in the path as if waiting for Zack to get moving. “You’re hopeless,” Zack said, turning back to Grace and organizing his things.

  14

  Desmond Trask, Robert Taylor, Frank Olsen and Cap Young rode up to the Martin’s dooryard at midmorning. Trask dismounted, glanced around and bid the others to stay put. Heath Martin walked out to the porch with his father’s Winchester in his hands and descended the steps. He was shot through the neck with an arrow from Cap Young’s bow before he even had a chance to speak.

  Trask walked through the dooryard and stood over Heath who was on the ground writhing and grabbing at his neck. He made choking sounds and great gouts of blood spewed from his mouth. “Why thanks a lot mister, I always wanted one of these,” Trask said, bending over and picking up the Winchester. He had seen others like it before but had never fired one, so he quickly examined the mechanism, then with a satisfied nod to himself said,

  “Search the house, find the whelp, Olsen knows what he looks like, and that black-haired little beauty. Those two young ones too. Kill anyone else….unless of course they happen to be a beautiful woman between the ages of ten and thirty, then I want to see them first.” He strode away intending to block anyone’s exit from the rear of the house when he heard noise from the barn. Turning to the barn he raised the rifle and walked to the open doors.

  Toby Martin heard the voices from the front and grabbed a hayfork and rushed out of the barn. “Where you going with that hayfork, Grandfather?” Desmond Trask asked, stepping in front of Toby and leveling the rifle.

  “You!” Toby said with an expression of shocked disbelief on his face.

  “Yes me, Grandfather. Are you the whelp’s sire or something? Or maybe the black-haired bitch?”

  Toby said nothing, and lunged forward with the pitchfork, which Trask easily dodged with a sidestep.

  “Okay, I’ll play,” Trask said, tossing the Winchester aside and pulling the longknife from underneath his serape. Toby Martin, as tough and rugged as the rancher was, could never be a match for a brutal killer like Trask. He lunged again with the pitchfork; like lightening Trask grabbed the handle of the fork and yanked it toward him while thrusting forward with the longknife and driving it into Toby Martin’s solar plexus.

  Trask watched the old man’s eyes glaze over; then, like so many others, let him drop to the ground without giving him another thought.

  Trask walked in the back door and through the kitchen, stopping long enough to grab two of the biscuits that Miranda Martin had just baked and stuff them in his mouth. When he entered the great room he saw that Taylor was holding the black-haired prize and an old woman at knifepoint in front of the fireplace. “Found these two hidin’ in the pantry,” Taylor said.

  “Does she look to be between ten years old and thirty years old?” Trask asked, pointing at Miranda Martin.

  Taylor looked at his boots. “No…she don’t.”

  “Well then?” Trask inquired, coaxing, like a teacher would a student. Taylor turned back to Miranda.

  “Sorry ma’am,” he said, and stabbed her repeatedly while Emily screamed in horror. Trask walked up to Emily and silenced her immediately with his right hand around her throat. She beat at his arm uselessly.

  “Where is the whelp?” he asked, his face just inches from hers. He gave her a brief shake and then dropped her, gasping, to the floor. “I am going to ask you again dearie, where is the little runt who set his dog on me and then shot me and left me for dead?”

  “He’s dead!” Emily screamed at him, standing up. “He got the gangrene from where you shot him and died three days ago.”

  “You’re lying…. Taylor!” he called to the other man, who was now standing across the room. “This one too.”

  Trask stood aside; Robert Taylor approached Emily with his knife draw
n again, glancing at Trask with a look of uncertainty. “Go ahead,” said Trask, “then let’s get out of here….unless maybe you want to stop lying and tell me where he is?” he added, looking at Emily, his eyebrows raised.

  “I told you the truth,” she said, weeping, but openly angry. “He’s dead! Just like you’re going to be soon, I can smell your festering face from here,” she spat, “go ahead and kill me, you’ve already killed everyone that I’ve ever loved!”

  Taylor moved forward, the knife clutched tightly in his hand. “Stay thine hand!” Trask bellowed dramatically.

  “I believe that the little slut is telling the truth, don’t you, Taylor?” Trask surveyed the other man as if he really wanted his opinion.

  “Uh, sure, I guess so.” Taylor said, realizing finally that Trask was not just mean, but completely crazy.

  “No one else is here,” Cap Young said, walking into the room from one of the hallways with Frank Olsen right behind.

  “You sick, dirty, little rodent, Frank Olsen! If your father were alive he’d strap you from here to christmas. How could you do the things that you’ve done? You better hope there’s no hell, cause if there is, your going—” Trask slapped Emily hard enough to knock her down.

  “Taylor, take her out to the horses, tie her hands and get ready to leave,” Trask ordered. “Cap, you and the dirty little rodent here search the place again; the barn too, those young ones are bound to be hiding around here….then torch the place and catch up.”

  “Okay, you take the rooms down that hall and I’ll take this one. And hurry the hell up, so we can get out of here,” Cap said to Frank Olsen before turning and walking down the hall. Frank, who thought it was stupid to look through rooms that they had already looked in, lingered in the great room.

  “Frank…. Frank Olsen….you’re not like these men, you don’t have to stay with them and participate in all of this wickedness.” Miranda Martin spoke weakly from the floor. “Help me,” she said, please, help me, Frank.”