16
Frank Olsen caught up with Desmond Trask and Robert Taylor at the same pond where Zack had stopped to water Grace weeks before. “Where’s Cap?” Taylor asked, taking the reigns of the two empty horses from Frank.
“There was a man hiding in a closet that we missed before,” Frank said, dismounting, and sounding winded.
“He stabbed Cap in the throat and killed him, almost killed me too!” he said, looking past Taylor to where Trask was standing looking speculatively at him.
“That’s quite a little gash he gave you,” Trask said, moving forward and standing in front of him.
“Yes sir, but I took him in the chest after he slashed me,” Frank said eagerly. “He never knew what hit him.”
“Is that so?” said Trask thoughtfully. “How was it that he got the jump on a fighter like Cap Young and was killed by a runt like you?” he asked, looking Frank up and down.
“Well, see, Cap opened the closet an’ I was standing behind him, he uhh, stuck Cap, and then turned and slashed at me, but I was already ready see, and I stabbed him right through the ribs,” Frank answered, smiling nervously. Trask was silent for a long moment before speaking;
“Well then! Cap got what he deserved didn’t he.” Trask said, clapping Olsen on the back. “Taylor, get that bitch back on her horse and let’s get moving….Oh, Olsen, the man in the closet… someone you knew?”
“Umm, no, well yea, he was a ranch hand…. Hemphill or something.”
Emily Hodgkins was terrified. They had put a burlap bag over her head and tied her hands to the saddle horn. The horse was at a run and she was waiting to be thrown, and dragged, hanging from the saddle. She knew that Zack would try and come for her. For a brief moment she had considered that he might just make for the time-rip but discarded the notion almost at once. Zack McQueen would come for her. She feared for him though, and at the same time hated herself for selfishly wanting him to hurry. She thought about escape, but didn’t know how she would do it. She wasn’t a hardy rancher’s daughter, or a farmer’s. Her father was a shopkeeper and her mother a seamstress. Emily had never been afraid of work, she just hadn’t done much, outside of occasionally arranging things on shelves. She didn’t consider herself strong or rugged and wouldn’t know the first thing about foraging for food or hunting if she did manage to get away. Oh Zack, she thought, please hurry.
Tal Miller read the sign tacked to the back door of the Martin’s house with a sinking heart. He turned to Martha and the others who were all standing shoulder to shoulder behind him on the small landing. Fighting tears, he said, “Toby, Miranda, an’ Heath are all dead.”
Grace was running at a good pace, not anywhere near what she could do, but Max couldn’t keep up with her when she was at top speed. The wolf however, was still amazingly fast, and had run ten miles flat before appearing to need a rest. They had stopped once before they reached the north/south road and again an hour later. Now they were resting in the shade by the pond that Zack had stopped at before. When they had first arrived, Max had scrambled around sniffing the dirt while he growled menacingly. Zack guessed it more likely that he was smelling Trask, than it having anything to do with Emily’s scarf.
Sitting under the tree gave him a chance to start thinking about how all of this might unfold. He knew that he had simply been lucky when he freed his mom, Emily, and the other women. In fact, he was well aware that were it not for Toby and Tal, and the rest, that he would certainly be dead and most or all of the women recaptured. Everyone was calling him a hero and other extraordinary things but the truth was, in Zacks mind, that he was really just a teen; more than a boy, but less than a man.
He didn’t think that there was much of a chance of overtaking them, so making any sort of a plan was difficult. He would just have to follow until they stopped long enough somewhere or arrived at their destination. He couldn’t even understand why they’d come all the way back anyway. Miranda had said that Trask wanted to find him. Did he really ride all of the way back to the Martin’s for revenge? And why take Emily? She did say that her and Lacy and the two younger girls were being saved for someone. The thought made him angry all over again. He stood. “C’mom Max, let’s go.”
Zack set camp at the very same spot on the little stream that he had last time. He once again had crayfish for dinner, catching quite a few more this time around and giving some to Max. Apparently it wasn’t enough because the wolf disappeared out into the grassland shortly after and returned some time later with a jackrabbit. Zack stopped brushing Grace and looked over at the wolf. “Bring enough for both of us next time why don’t you.”
He didn’t risk a real campfire and had only burned a small one long enough to cook the crayfish. After dark he watched for the glow of a campfire ahead but saw none.
Zack couldn’t breathe, he struggled up from sleep and found Max’ fur pressed up against his face. “Jeez,” he said, sitting up quickly and pushing the wolf. “Trying to smother me you big galoot?” It wasn’t yet dawn but he wanted to get a move on at first light. He made another small fire in the hole that he had dug the previous night and heated some water for coffee. He gave Max a chunk of the brisket and even took a couple of bites himself. Boy, could Toby smoke meat, he thought with a small smile.
Trask had stopped the group for four hours to rest the horses and then continued on in the dark. He wanted to get back to the camp as quickly as possible before men started disappearing. Some he had been with for awhile, others were like Olsen; men that they had pressed into service. With him and Grayson both gone he couldn’t trust things to hold together. Also, he had an uneasy feeling, he wondered about the whelp. The girl had been pretty convincing; prepared to die even….still….
It was dawn and they had just started up the foothills; he expected to clear the summit and be heading down the other side that evening. With luck, they could be eating some of that dandy’s beef stew in Auburn by the following night.
17
Martha Miller had cried as much as she would allow herself, both for the Martin’s, and for her husband’s decision. She was packing food for Tal while he readied one of the Martin’s horses. Thankfully, unlike his own stables, someone had let the stock out of the Martin’s barn before they burned it.
She moved about the kitchen deliberately, keeping her mind on the task at hand. Molly Renfew helped her silently, grateful to be doing something. The air in the house was heavy with sadness.
Tal had ridden out to the Sanderson ranch directly after reading Zack’s note. He broke the news to Dalia Martin whose first reaction was disbelief, the second hysterics. Mary King had given her some valerian root mixed with brandy that calmed her some. Jonus hitched up the wagon and Dalia had sat quietly sobbing on the ride back to the Martin’s.
“This is gonna stop, an’ stop NOW!” Tal Miller shouted, raging through the Martin’s rear yard with Martha and Jonus right behind. Martha Miller had not seen her husband in such a state since before the boys were born. He had never shared his previous occupation with the people of Payne’s Station, not even Toby Martin and Theo Olsen, although both men had been curious from time to time but were too polite to ask. As far as most were concerned he had always been a stableman.
When Tal Miller was young, he had been a traveling prizefighter; had in fact met Martha down south in a town called Brownsville. He had traveled around and would wager himself against the meanest, toughest man that the town he was in had to offer. Between the ages of nineteen and twenty three, Tal had never lost a fight.
Tal was as gentle a man as they come, but there was something that came into his eyes when he was about to fight another man. Most men saw it and were beaten by it before the fight even commenced. It ended one night in a place called Princeton, when Tal beat the other man so badly that he almost died. He never fought again. Fighting was never enough to keep him and Martha fed, there simply weren’t enough towns, or people to fight. So he had learned to work tack in between, and eventually landed in Pay
ne’s Station.
Martha hadn’t seen that certain look in Tal’s eyes in twenty-five years… Until now.
I’ll catch up to the boy, an’ him and I are gonna set some things right,” Tal said, brandishing the twelve-gauge shotgun that he had taken (with Dalia’s blessing) from Toby’s gun cabinet.
“What about Martha and your boys Tal?” Jonus asked, watching the other man pack the horse.
“Martha don’t like it, but she understands, an’ the boys will understand later….no matter the outcome. I ain’t gonna leave that boy to his own a second time Jonus, an’ don’t look at me like that, I know I said he’s a man, and he is….sorta. He got the sand and the smarts but not the experience. ‘sides, these men are bloodthirsty and it’ll take more ‘n one man to slap that taste from their mouths.”
“They burned two towns that we know of to the ground and killed nearly everyone in ‘em, Tal. You and Zack are as good as dead if you tangle with ‘em. Now I respect if you want to go and help Zack get Emily, and maybe kill that man who done the Martin’s but anything after that is pure foolishness.
“Well…. I’ll see the bo— Zack, and we’ll figure things from there okay?”
“Alright Tal, just come back….with Zack and Emily, Jonus said, and handed Tal a flask. “For the road.”
“You just take care of my family Jonus, an’ everyone else, looks like.”
Tal Miller kissed his wife and sons goodbye and rode out of the Martin’s dooryard ten hours after Zack McQueen.
18
Desmond Trask called a stop on the outskirts of Auburn, dismounted and walked over to the horse that Emily was on. He reached up and untied the strip of leather holding the burlap sack and pulled it from Emily’s head. He also untied her wrists from the saddle horn which were striped with angry purple welts. “Okay missie, were going to ride into that town and stop at the inn and have a meal, unless you’re not hungry of course.” Emily, who was given nothing but water since they left the Martin’s was famished, but she said nothing. “Now you may get some ideas about running that horse there, or calling out for help when we’re enjoying our dinner, and I’d like to try and discourage you from those thoughts right now. There is absolutely no chance that you’ll outrun us on that horse, if you try, I’ll make you wish that I’d let Taylor over there kill you back at that house. If you so much as squawk during dinner, I’ll start killing as many people in that room as I can. Won’t bother me a bit, most of ‘em will be dead in two days time anyway. So you just behave, where you’re going isn’t so bad anyway….hell, you might even like it.”
They entered The Mountain Rest Inn and Tavern at dinnertime and the common room was bustling. The story of Trask’s previous visit had been told and retold so many times that he had been storied to be eight feet tall and better than four hundred pounds, with a nightmare face like a demon. The real Trask was only about six and a half feet tall and three hundred twenty pounds. Hours later, the witnesses all agreed that the description of his face was the only understatement.
As before, the room fell almost silent when Trask entered, but quickly resumed its prior noise level when his eyes scanned the patrons. He selected a table that faced the door and the four of them sat down.
Andy Gross turned from the beer tap when the buzz in the room quieted, and all of the color drained from his face. The monster had returned and was smiling across the room at him.
Andy looked over at the table that James Devine, the town sheriff, was sitting at and noticed that the man had made himself scarce, his mug of beer and a nearly full dinner plate sitting alone at the table. Andy didn’t care much for the sheriff, but in this case really couldn’t blame him. The monster threatening Andy for free food was nothing compared to his horse thievery at the stables. Andy wished that he could vanish as well.
“It’s good to see you again sir,” Andy Gross said, standing at the table and addressing Trask.
“Didn’t I tell you he was a dandy one, Taylor?” Trask said, reaching across the table and giving him a rough shove.
“You sure did, Desmond, and that’s the gospel.” Taylor said, smiling like it was the most amusing thing that he had ever heard.
“Three pitchers of beer, bowls of beef stew and bread all around.” Trask said, sweeping both arms out in front of him magnanimously. “And pie,” he added. “You serve some fine, fine, pie…..I trust that my method of trade is still acceptable?” he asked, with a mock sheepish grin on his weeping, infected looking face.
“Oh of course sir…..will there be anything else?” Andy replied, sweet as honey.
“Nope, but I would be grateful if you would hurry that little dandy ass of yours up, can’t you see the girl is hungry?” Trask flashed what would have been a winning smile if not for his face, in the girl’s direction. Andy turned without another word. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in that girl’s shoes, he thought. He wondered if she could possibly be with those men willingly. “None of my concern,” he said to himself, walking into the kitchen.
It was almost dawn when they reached the camp. Emily was put back in the cage along with four other women. “Where did you get those?” Trask asked, walking to the supply wagon with Brandon Locke, the man who had led the recruiting party to Auburn.
“Awww, there was a couple of farms ‘bout ten miles outside Auburn. Ben Grayson was wanting to get a jump on things so we hit ‘em on our way outa Auburn….two for him, and two for us,” he said the last with a chuckle and a wink in Trask’s direction. Brandon Locke was one of the few people that he actually liked in his group of raiders. He had a sort of grudging respect for Grayson, but Grayson always looked warily at Trask as if he was a coiled snake ready to strike. Which was smart Trask supposed, because he was a coiled snake. But Locke, even though he wasn’t the smartest man in the outfit, was competent, merciless, and he genuinely did not fear Trask, and Trask found this little curiosity interesting.
“There will be plenty more here as soon as Ben Grayson gets back and we get busy,” Trask said.
“Well we’re all ready to go, some of these cutthroats are starting to fight among themselves.”
“Did you get anyone in Auburn?”
“Not a one, bunch of farmers and ranchers and the like. Seems, there ain’t too many hard men around.”
“I know, Locke; I have always believed that men were meant to be killers, smart killers, educated killers, but killers just the same. And I haven’t really seen it like it should be, it’s something that has bothered me for years….”
Locke stopped walking and faced Trask. “Desmond, where did you come from?”
“I was raised in an old library by a christian fellow who found me, starving and near dead in some rubble of a ruined city from the old days. He believed that the war—that’s what happened Locke, some kind of war—and its aftermath did something to people….something spiritual.”
“Spiritual?” Locke questioned, looking confused.
“Like having to do with god, and religion,” Trask explained. “He believed that the war cleansed most of the wicked people from the earth and that the rest were eliminated in the struggle to survive afterward. He thought that pure evil was vanquished, which was the reason that people didn’t seem to be killing each other very much anymore. Oh, he said that men still did bad things, that it would always be in their nature to sin, but the kind of evil that had plagued humans throughout history; murder for the sake of murder, done on scales that you could not even imagine Locke; the Crusades, Hitler, Leopold the second, Pol Pot…..” Trask saw that Locke was looking confused again and continued,
Anyway, he believed that the days of man killing man for hate, greed, and power were over, and that people would finally live in relative peace. He learned otherwise.”
“How’s that, Desmond?”
“I killed him,” Trask said simply, and continued walking to the supply wagon. Locke looked after him dumbfounded.
Ben Grayson returned two days later in the early morni
ng with seven men. “Slim pickings there Grayson, that the best you could do?”
“I was lucky to get them—hey, Preston, get these men some food will ya—they’re migrating workers with no work, they’re hungry and chances are two or three of ‘em will run for it when the party starts.”
“Just don’t give them too many details ahead of time. We’ll run it differently this time; we’ll go in just before dawn, catch them just getting up. We may have to skip the outlying ranches for the time being but we can pick them up later. Same ruse, tell everyone were just taking valuables and herd them into the stable—the one on the east side. Make sure all of the new meat knows to look for things from the old days while they’re rounding up folks. Any guns come straight to me. Once everyone is inside, you and I can pick out the women that we’re going to take. Oh, and get….Preston, I guess, to go to that little mill and gather up some boards and nails after the towns clear. There’s two windows and two sets of double doors that we’re going to need to seal up. I guess that’s it. Any of those sorry looking recruits have a decent weapon?”
“One has a bow, and two have skinning knives.”
“See if we have anymore machetes or some of those clubs that Cap made, with the spikes in ‘em.”
“Alright, you want to go tomorrow?
“Oh definitely.”
“I saw the black-haired girl Trask, but did you get the one who did that?” Grayson asked nodding his head indicating his face. Trask’s expression clouded.
“He’s dead,” was Trask’s answer. Grayson eyed Trask for a moment, waiting for more.
“Fair enough,” he said, think I’ll get me some breakfast.
Zack tied Grace to the hitching rail in front of The Mountain Rest Inn and Tavern at just before three o’clock, two days after Emily had eaten there with Trask, Taylor and Olsen. He had never been to a place like it before but had a rudimentary knowledge of how things worked. He untied his pack and slipped it over one arm, then looked over at Max who was sniffing around the plank walkway and alternately whining then growling. “They were here, weren’t they, Max?” he asked the wolf. Max stopped his pacing, looked up at Zack, and barked once; a short, deep guttural sound, then stood and stared at Zack expectantly, wagging his tail.
After and Again Page 15