Wolfehaven

by Foy W Minson

  ◆◆◆

  Raymond crouched behind a bush at the corner of a house. From his position he could see the flagpole where it lay on the ground with Charlie’s pennant still attached and spread out in the dust, occasionally trod on. Standing just beyond the pile of rocks Charlie had positioned to hold the pole upright was a tall man. He stood with his fists on his hips and feet set wide as he observed the progression of the raid. He occasionally issued instructions to the raiders, but mostly just stood and watched with a grim eye. From what Raymond had heard in Sherri’s narrative of her life in New Napa, he judged the tall man was none other than the Prophet Morgan.

  In his initial contact with Raven, the one that had sent her to her knees on the beach before he powered down its strength, he had told her of the raid. She responded that they would be returning as soon as possible, but they had several miles of winding river to negotiate and, even pushing it to unsafe speeds, could do it only so fast. Since then, he kept up a running monologue to her.

  He gives many orders, but none to include mercy. Several have died already, and others are being brought alive into the Village Center where he orders them to lie in the dirt. Some tried to fight back, but, being mostly old or sick, they could do little.

  ◆◆◆

  Dan peeked around the corner of a house toward the Village Center. He could just see Charlie’s flagpole. Several of the raiders milled about, talking and laughing and occasionally pointing at something out of his view. As some would wander out of his sight, others meandered into view. From the ones he could see, and from the screams he could hear, although, fewer and less frequent, he judged their number to be at least a couple of dozen. Even if it was a sword against their clubs and knives, the odds were too much against him for a frontal assault.

  He was trying to decide which direction to go to intercept more of them in one-on-one battles when he heard men’s voices approaching. They sounded like they were on the opposite side of the house at his back.

  “…so, I said, ‘Then here’s how you die, witch lover,’ and busted his head open real good.”

  “Hell, I don’t even give ‘em a chance to admit it. They’re apt to put a hex on me or something. Why take a chance? The Prophet said they all have to die, so why string it out?”

  “I figure if I can get one to confess and atone…”

  “Well, what I figure is the only way they can atone is to die. And I’m just happy as hell to provide however many whacks it takes.”

  “Yeah, but that last one you hit, I mean, you know, pregnant and all—”

  At that moment, they rounded the corner and spotted Dan waiting for them. They took another couple of steps before they also spotted the sword in his hand, and their charge trailed off. Before they could do more than look at each other in confused surprise, he was upon them in a whirlwind of death.

  With a quick wipe of his dripping blade on their clothing, he left the pair in the dust and crept toward the center of the village. He stopped near the corner of the nearest house, eased forward and peered around it.

  Ten feet away, two men held an elderly woman on her back between them. With each gripping an arm at the wrist, they had her stretched flat so she could gaze up at a third man standing near her head. The third man hefted his nail studded mace over his head as he eyed his target, her head.

  Dan lunged around the corner and charged.

  The man with the mace jerked backward, stumbled and almost went down. The closest of the two men holding her never saw him coming. After Dan cleaved his head, he followed up with a decapitating swing at the other. By that time, the man with the mace had recovered and charged Dan. However, his bellow brought Dan around in time to block his swing. Then, before he could swing the heavy club again, Dan’s sword pierced his throat.

  Dan helped the woman to her feet and urged her toward the weapons academy and the woods behind it, then he headed the other way.

  Just before reaching the corner of the next house, a man came around it. “Hey, Rick,” the man called out. “You guys havin’ a problem with granny or somethin’? Hell, she’s—” and he stopped when his eyes lit on Dan. “Who the hell are you?” Then he spotted the three dead men behind Dan and gaped.

  Dan responded as he lunged, “I’m their problem.”

  Two houses farther he found The Judge using a quarterstaff to fend off three men with clubs. A fourth man lay on the ground, dead or unconscious. Huddling behind The Judge, Sherri held her son in one arm and her daughter in the other.

  When Dan charged the assailants’ rear, two turned to meet him while the third continued to parry with The Judge. Dan cut down one club wielder without slowing, but the other was more skillful. Changing his hold to two hands placed apart, he used his club more like the staff in The Judge’s hands. He didn’t have much potential for offense, but his defense held Dan at bay long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

  When five more men swarmed in, Dan spun to meet them, felling two before they realized the prey was armed and dangerous. The rest encircled him, pressing from all sides until one had a shot at the back of his head. The last thing he heard was a scream from Sherri.

  ◆◆◆

  From his hiding place, Raymond kept up his narrative of the raid to Raven.

  …The Judge. Someone just brought him in and didn’t even give him a chance to sit or lie in the dirt before shoving him down.

  Oh, no! There’s Dan. They got him, too… He must be knocked out.. If he was dead, I doubt if they would bother to bring him there. There is now a lot of laughter. Uh oh. They’ve got Sherri and her children. I don’t know what may be next, but you must hurry. Please, hurry!

  CHAPTER 23

  Emmie’s hair streamed behind her, the ends whipping like the tail of a racing horse at full gallop. Squinting couldn’t stop the tears forming in her eyes, but it wasn’t only the rush of wind that caused them; sitting behind the minimal protection of the small windshield couldn’t dispel the fear that they would arrive too late. Anyway, she had to stand for the best view of the river ahead and whatever hazards might lie on or beneath the surface.

  Satan had worked his way forward and inserted himself between Jason and Emmie. Standing on all fours with his legs splayed and flexed to take the motion of the boat like a blue water sailor, his head was high enough to peer over the top of the windshield at the river wending ahead. Raven’s answer to his startled questioning of the sudden change in mood among the newly arrived travelers had been quicker than spoken words, and he was among the first to re-board.

  Those seated behind leaned and swayed to the motion of the racing boat, and then, in unison, leaned backward and then forward again in response to yet another burst of speed.

  The only sound besides that of wind rushing past ears was the unwavering swish of the hull skimming the surface of the water.

  Should she go faster and risk hitting something so hard the boat could be disabled or destroyed? Should she slow down to ensure a better chance they would arrive back at the village intact, but possibly too late to be of use to any of those left behind? How could she decide? She was just a kid!

  “Dad, what do I do? Faster or slower?” It wasn’t necessary to go into the negatives and positives of either option; everyone on board was already fully aware.

  He paused for a moment before responding. “Is it possible to raise it any higher? Then if we did hit something, it’d have to be jutting straight at us to do much damage.”

  “I already tried that, and we started to slow down. I’m about maxed out, now, at the balance of lift and push. But, is it better to get there faster if it means maybe not getting there at all? I can’t get us any faster, but I can get us safer. What do I do?”

  After another short pause, he said, “Steady as she goes.”

  She almost responded to his probably unintended comedic allusion to naval action by responding with her own, “Aye aye, Cap’n.” But she caught herself. How could she make light of a situation that might include the death
s of so many good people, friends she had grown to love? That was something a kid would do. And, in this new world, at eighteen she was no kid.

  ◆◆◆

  A grin spread across Morgan’s face as he glared along the top of his pistol’s barrel and into the unwavering eyes of The Judge. His thumb hooked over the tip of the hammer. It clicked twice when he pulled it back with deliberate pause. “I’ve dreamed of this moment,” he growled. “You in my sights, my finger on the trigger, and you begging like a dog for your life.”

  “I don’t doubt it — and I pity you for it, that even your dreams are filled with such hate.”

  Morgan leaned forward as he sneered. “You can keep your pity, you pompous old bastard. You withheld it when tyranny ruled your courtroom, when my son and I bore your judgment that we were not fit to walk among free men. Now, it’s my thumb on the scales. I could send you to rot in the dungeons, to bring you out on occasion for some newly devised tortures, but I think I’ll just enjoy killing you…right here and right now. You want to try to talk me out of it? Go ahead, use your fine, legal mind and tell me what your rights are. Or just beg me not to kill you. Yeah, that’s even better. Beg.”

  The Judge remained silent. His eyes still unwavering from the lock he held on Morgan’s.

  Without a change in his smile, Morgan lowered the aim of his weapon to The Judge’s right knee and pulled the trigger.

  The Judge cried out as he spun and fell, half curling his lanky body to grip his destroyed knee. Through the swirl of acrid smoke, he glared up at Morgan with burning eyes, but he remained silent.

  Wearing a smile and taking his time, Morgan broke open his weapon, a single-shot shotgun with a the stock cut off behind the full pistol-grip and a shortened barrel. He held it up for The Judge to see. “Nice, huh? Probably not something you’d have allowed back in the good old days, though. It’s a four-ten, but I use it with forty-one caliber brass pistol cartridges re-loaded with home-made black powder and home-cast lead balls. There’s not a lot of range, and not much accuracy either with no rifling, but it’s just fine up close. I’d rather have a twelve-gauge, but they didn’t make brass cartridges that big. I’ve been thinking about trying to reload paper ones.”

  He removed the spent cartridge and dropped it into a pocket. “Of course, the empties have to be saved and refilled, and finding sources of lead for the bullets is getting harder all the time. If one of my men hadn’t come across a whole box of primers, well…without them… That’s why I must be judicious — I like that word, don’t you? Yes, I have to be judicious about what rates the use of one of my bullets.”

  He removed a fresh cartridge from another pocket and nosed it into the breech. He gripped the barrel and raised it until, with a click, it locked closed. He thumbed the hammer back, clicking it twice, once to get past the safety lock, and then one to cock it for release. Still wearing a placid grin, he swung the barrel out to point, once again, at the man on the ground.

  “Sometime — not often — but sometimes, I find something that’s worth more than one.

  The second ball shattered The Judge’s left shoulder, and he flopped to the left. After a moment, he turned back around to face Morgan with agony distorting his face, but he remained silent. The haze of smoke and the stench of sulfur hanging in the air slowly dissipated.

  “Beg, old man. Beg for your life. Maybe I’ll spare it.”

  After long moments of more silence, another ball shattered The Judge’s right shoulder.

  Addressing two of his men, Morgan said, “Help the old man back up, and keep him facing this way. I want to see his face. Just don’t stand in front of him. I’d hate to waste a bullet on one of you.”

  With both shoulders and his knee shattered, all The Judge could do was sprawl in the dirt until Morgan’s men moved in and raised him to a sitting position. But when they held him from flopping backward by stretching his arms out to the sides, the agony caused by the tension on his shoulders was too much. Within seconds and with a wide-eyed grimace twisting his features, his head flopped forward as he fell unconscious.

  Growling, Morgan said, “Okay, let go of his arms. Prop him up and stand behind him, one on each side so he can lean back against you.” Then, grinning and with a light tone. “I should be able to hit him instead of either one of you from this distance.”

  Still, the two men leaned as far away from the man propped between them as they could manage and still support his dead weight. It didn’t take long, though, for The Judge to begin to stir, mainly in response to the pain that engulfed him.

  “Come on, old man, wake up. You’ve still got lots more suffering to do before I let you die.”

  The Judge raised his head at the summons, and opened his eyes to glare, again, at Morgan.

  “Are you going to beg, now? …No? …I really didn’t think so. Okay, we’ll just keep playing this game until I run out of bullets or you run out of places to shoot.”

  Morgan shot The Judge’s other knee.

  While Morgan reloaded again, he watched The Judge’s body writhe in the surge of added agony, and his grin widened. But, then the old man stopped moving. He just lay there.

  “That old bastard pass out again? Wake him up, and sit him up.”

  One of the two men leaned over and felt for a pulse. After a pause, he stood up and shook his head. “I think he’s dead.”

  “What! I forbid it! Wake him up!”

  But, even when Morgan stomped over and kicked the body several times, even ground his foot down on a gore soaked knee, there remained no sign of life. Like a fuming child, he stomped around the area while those watching stood unmoving, fearful of becoming The Judge’s replacement.

  Finally, Morgan stopped and turned slowly to glare at the next prisoner in line.

  With Jackie Johnson standing behind her and with both hands firmly on her shoulders, Sherri gripped her daughter’s hand in her own and held her son tight to her breast with her other arm. She quavered standing before the Prophet, but she refused to lower her gaze from his eyes.

  The Prophet spoke. “You are returned to my original decree. To save your own soul, you will slay the witch beside you. If you refuse, she will die anyway. However, rather than the swift death from a blade in the loving hand of her mother, she will be dismembered one piece at a time starting with her toes. You will watch the entire process and hear her screams as toes, feet, legs, hands and arms are hacked off. You can stop it at any time by picking up the knife and slitting her throat. This is the fate you have brought on yourself for thinking you could escape my justice.” He drew a knife from a sheath on his belt and threw in down. “There is your blade. Pick it up and do as I have commanded.”

  Tears streamed down Sherri’s face. “Please. Please don’t do this. I beg you.”

  The Prophet spoke again. “I think what you need is to see what an axe can do to flesh and bone. Jackie Johnson, wet the blade on that black whelp of Cain’s. It has to die, anyway. And, do it the same way — first the feet, then work your way up from there. Don’t bother with the toes.” Morgan pointed to two others and issued more orders. “You two hold her on her knees close enough so the blood splashes her. You, hold the witch-girl on the ground next to her mother. Let her see what’s coming her way. Make sure some of the blood splashes her, too.”

  With one man relieving Jackie in holding Sherri from behind, the other one pried her arms apart so Jackie could take hold of her son and hand him to another man.

  “No! Please, please, don’t! NOoooo!”

  Jackie looked back at Morgan who reinforced his command with a scowl, first to Jackie, then to the man holding the infant, and his finger jabbed toward the ground before Sherri.

  ◆◆◆

  Emmie and everyone else in her boat leaned right as the boat veered left around the protruding limbs of a tree. It was a large oak that had washed down the river by succeeding annual floods over several years. The last flood had moved it this far, and it might reach the ocean in another ten years or s
o. It was a familiar obstacle just two hundred yards before the last four bends of the river in quick succession, one to the right, two to the left, and one more to the right, creating an oxbow just before the village would come into view.

  Vonnie’s boat followed close behind but stayed farther to the right side of the stream in case Emmie’s boat met disaster and took hers out too before she could swerve around the wreckage. So, when Emmie swerved left, Vonnie went right around the other side of the tree, a course no one had ever taken because it was out of the river’s deep, center channel. Nor had anyone, fearful of jagged branch ends gouging tender skin, ever swam about in the area of the mobile tree. And so, no one was aware that on the right side, a very large limb that was big enough to be a second trunk rose at an angle away from the rest of the tree almost to the surface before curving and pointing upstream. The jagged stub of a four inch wide limb caused eddies and swirls where it ended just two inches beneath the surface ten feet over from the nearest exposed limb. When the bottom of Vonnie’s boat struck it, it ripped out the bottom in a gouge a foot wide from bow to stern. The sudden deceleration threw four of the passengers overboard and forced the others to make desperate grabs onto anything solid enough to hold them. Both Vonnie and Charlie slammed into the top of the windshield hard enough to leave serious bruises. The boat didn’t disintegrate, but it began sinking even before it slowed to the speed of the current.

  Emmie caught herself in time to avoid turning to look at what had made such a horrific sound; at their speed, she couldn’t take her eyes off the river ahead for an instant. But Jason jerked around, as well as everyone else on board.

  “Keep going,” her father instructed. “Vonnie hit something at that tree. Boat’s going down, but in one piece. I can’t tell if everyone’s okay. Sayeko’s slowing down to help. They’ll be okay. Just keep going. Woody’s coming up on us fast, and Lila’s not far behind.”