Into the River Lands (Darkness After Series Book 2)

by Williams, Scott B.

GARY HAGGARD CURSED UNDER his breath as he battled the nearly impossible thickets of briar vines that slowed their progress to a crawl. If not for the two nearby gunshots, he would have hacked his way through these thickets without hesitation, taking a chance of a random encounter rather than creep along at this excruciating pace. But the chances of trouble were more than random now. Two gunshots in the direction of the creek that Wayne was traveling with their prize was simply something that could not be ignored. Whatever he had to do to get there, Gary was determined to reach the banks of Black Creek again and stick to the stream course until they were all back together.

  But these briar patches that grew up in these areas of blow-down were worse than any he’d ever seen. Patches of blackberry and other thorny vines grew ten feet tall or more, their long, grabby tendrils reaching out in all directions and twisted together in impenetrable tangles. They grabbed at his BDU trousers and shirt, and raked the exposed skin of his face and hands, drawing blood as he impatiently forced his way through them. The worst ones required coming to a complete stop, delicately lifting the vines free of his clothing by grabbing them between thorns as carefully as possible. He would then pass it to Jared, who would duck under and pass it in turn to Paul. It was infuriatingly slow, but the only way to traverse this mess without making noise.

  “How did we ever wind up getting this far from the creek?” Jared whispered, equally exasperated and tired of dealing with the briars.

  “It’s easy to do in woods like this,” Gary whispered back. “The way it bends and all these sloughs that run into it. It’s hard to follow the lay of the land; a lot harder than in the open country over there. At least in the mountains and desert, you can see where you’re going.”

  “This is like trying to find your way through a maze,” Paul said. “Except there aren’t any paths, the right way or the wrong way.”

  “It can’t be much farther. We might have veered off a ways, but we’re still in the creek bottom. It’s just that the farther downstream you go, the wider and wetter the bottomlands get.”

  “Wayne’s the one who’s it got easy,” Jared muttered. “Just riding the current downstream with nothing in his way and a hot girl to stare at all day. No wonder he wanted to take the canoe!”

  “It may be easier, but it’s a hell of a lot riskier. You all know that. But women make men do dumb things.”

  “Yeah, it’s like he’d rather take a chance at getting shot than to leave her behind. I mean, she’s fine and all, but I don’t know why he’d want to be bothered with trying to keep her. And especially with that baby. Two more mouths to feed and she’ll always be looking to get away somehow.”

  “He’ll get tired of her, just give him time. He may even be tired of her by the time we get back home.”

  “If he hasn’t already gotten himself shot,” Paul said.

  Gary really didn’t think that had happened, especially considering the two shotgun blasts were spaced apart by at least 15 or 20 minutes. It seemed more consistent with someone hunting, but even so, the hunter had to be close enough to the creek that Wayne’s passing in the canoe might be noticed. If something did happen, Gary wanted to be there to back him up. Knocking that punk out this morning on the sandbar had been a little taste of action, but it took so little effort it was hardly notable. It was nothing like going up against a worthy adversary. And his trigger finger itched as he wormed the muzzle of the AK through the briars. It had been awhile since he’d engaged a real armed tango, and the prospect of encountering that shotgunner gave him that old rush of adrenaline he had been missing lately.

  He finally found the end of the blow-down clearing and once again they entered a deeply-shaded area of mature hardwood timber. The winds that leveled the area behind them hadn’t touched this area. Gary knew hurricanes were strange that way. Microbursts of intense downdrafts or isolated tornadoes within the cyclone’s path would level some houses in a neighborhood and leave others without so much as a lifted shingle. It was the same in the forest, and he was glad to find another of those untouched, pristine areas where travel was once again not only reasonable, but pleasant. They stopped to regroup on a soft carpet of deep green moss in the shade of a giant beech, and after a moment of cussing the thicket they’d just left behind, Gary hushed the others so they could listen carefully. A faint sound drifted through the trees from not far ahead—the sound of running water.

  “The creek!” Gary whispered. “Let’s fan out a bit and slip up to the bank. I want to be sure no one’s there first, then we’ll pick our way downstream.”

  * * *

  Mitch hated following three armed men through a tangle like the one through which the trail led. He knew they didn’t have any reason to suspect that they were being followed, at least no reason that he was aware of, but still. What a perfect place to lie in wait and ambush your pursuers. They could cut him to pieces with rifle fire in here before he ever saw them. He tried not to let these thoughts creep into his mind as he followed the tracks, but he knew it would be a relief when the trail emerged from this mess. Mitch wanted the space to be able to use his bow if possible, though he knew that odds were, he’d be finishing this fight with his dad’s Smith & Wesson AR more than likely.

  Carrying it at the ready as he pushed through the briars brought back a flood of memories of the times the two of them hunted together. Many times while following up on a covey of quail flushed by Old Charlie, his dad’s English Setter, they had busted through briar patches similar to this, shotguns at ready for the fast-action that would follow when the singles burst out of cover in ones and twos. To Mitch at ten years old, it had been a lot more exciting than just trying to kill a few birds. Stalking into the briar patches with his dad on his flank, both their guns locked and loaded and ready in a two-handed, low grip, Mitch had imagined they were at war. The enemy would appear at any second, but they would be ready. He would look out for his dad and his dad would cover him. Together, the two of them were an unbeatable team. On some hunts the imaginary foe would be Viet Cong hidden in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Other times it might be a band of renegade Apaches or outlaw train robbers. No matter what, it was never just quail hunting in Mitch’s mind, and thinking back to those days, he really wished now he had his dad with him to cover him for real. This time when he found his quarry, they would be shooting back if he gave them half a chance.

  It was a relief when he came to the place where the men emerged from the thicket and entered another patch of real forest. They had not stopped to lie in wait for him and now the conditions were more in his favor for seeing them well before they saw him. The trail across the moss-covered ground was harder to follow, but here and there were still places where a boot had torn the bright green ground cover or overturned a few leaves. Such places were fewer now though than before, and Mitch figured it was because they were moving with more care, for the same reason they had stopped cutting through the briars shortly after they entered the blow-down area. They had heard the gunshots too and were trying to move quietly as they made their way to the creek to investigate.

  Twenty-five

  BENNY EVANS HAD NO doubt that this woman who said her name was April was telling the truth. Seeing the way that fellow who had tried to kill his boy left her and her little girl tied up, he doubted that she was lying when she said she didn’t know the man he’d just shot before today. Benny figured a fellow like that who would try to shoot an unarmed man in the back with an arrow for no good reason would do most anything. And seeing how he believed what she’d said about the man, Benny took her warning about the other three being nearby to heart too.

  What she said about going upriver made a lot of sense. Even if it wasn’t the direction she wanted to go, it was smart thinking because it would be unexpected by most people. Around these parts, at least before the big blackout, people either floated downstream in canoes or used johnboats with outboard motors if they needed to go upstream for some reason. Even now he hardly ever saw anyone trying to get upriver
under their own power, but Benny didn’t mind it himself. His granddaddy had taught him how, way back when he was a kid growing up in south Louisiana. You didn’t paddle a pirogue upstream anyway—you poled it. Back in his granddaddy’s day, nobody had motors on small boats, but they all knew how to pole a pirogue. It wouldn’t do to get way off downstream and not be able to get back up, so poling was as natural as paddling in those days, people just lost the knowledge of it, for the most part. Benny wasn’t one of them though, and he’d taught his boy Tommy how to use a pole too. It worked in a canoe as well as it did in a pirogue. You just had to have a long enough pole and an eye for reading rivers, so you’d know how to keep your boat where you could always find the bottom to push off of.

  Benny Evans liked poling upstream, and in fact, that’s how he and Tommy had reached the place they were camped now. Benny always told Tommy that only dead things floated downstream, and it was true. Any thing that fell in the river would get washed along with the current, but it took effort to go against it. It made Benny feel more alive when he made that effort. This whole new lifestyle made him feel more alive, in fact, and even though a lot of it was hard work, he knew it was good for a fellow to live like this too. People had gotten too soft before the blackout. Now they had to harden up if they were going to make it.

  As long as he had Tommy, Benny was determined he was going to make it. Losing Betsy after nearly fifty years had been hard on him, but at least he wasn’t alone. When her medicine had run out and she passed on, Benny and Tommy buried her in the backyard and locked up the house for the last time. The two of them had been ranging up and down Black Creek ever since, hunting and fishing along the way and trying to stay out of sight and out of trouble. They had managed do so for the most part, but Benny knew that what happened today had been a really close call. If he hadn’t made it back to that clearing when he did, his boy would be dead. And if those men that the woman warned him about found out he’d killed one of their own, he and Tommy were going to sure enough have a gunfight on their hands. Benny had no intentions of getting tangled up in a shootout like that, so he was ready to do just what April suggested and get upstream on this creek as fast as possible. He just had to get Tommy and their own canoe and gear first. He knew Tommy wouldn’t be expecting him to come around the bend in a canoe, and Benny didn’t want to surprise him and risk getting shot, so when he got close he whistled a signal.

  “It’s so he’ll know it’s me and that it’s all right,” he whispered, when April gave him a look like she thought he was crazy for making loud bird sounds. When a nearly identical whistle from downstream replied right away, Benny told her it was the call of the bobwhite quail.

  “I had no idea,” April said. “I think I’ve heard that before, and I knew it was some kind of bird, but I’m a city girl.”

  “I can tell you are, young lady, but you’ve survived this long, so eiher you’re doing something right, or somebody up there is looking out for you. There he is.” Benny nodded in the direction of a clearing that came into view a few seconds later as the canoe rounded the bend. He knew his boy would be completely shocked to see him paddling another canoe, and one with a pretty young woman and a little girl in it to boot.

  “It’s okay, Tommy!” he called, careful to keep his voice low as he steered the bow into the mud bank. “This here’s April. And her little girl….”

  “Kimberly,” April said, as she held her baby in her arms and greeted Tommy. “I’d get out, but I turned my ankle so bad this morning I’m afraid I can hardly walk.”

  “I had a little trouble myself, Miss April.” Tommy had a hunting rifle cradled awkwardly in his arms as he kept pressure on his wound with a blood-soaked, wadded-up T-shirt.

  “I know. I’m sorry that happened, but I’m sure glad that man is dead.”

  “Tommy, I know you’re hurt, but we’ve got to get out of here, son. April here says there’s three more of them fellows just as bad as that one laying there, and they ain’t far away either.”

  As he said this, Benny saw April staring at the dead man with little visible emotion. He couldn’t imagine how scared she must have been, after what they did to her child’s father and then the way they took her and that little girl. Benny figured the two of them wouldn’t have lasted long after those fellows had their fun. It was just a miracle really, that he shot that hen turkey when he did, and it was that gunshot that led to the bad guy being dead instead of the young woman and her child.

  Benny walked over to the body and removed the holstered automatic pistol. Then he found the man’s sheath knife and after searching his pockets, some spare magazines for the pistol and a large folding Sypderco that April said was hers when she saw it. He was ready to go then.

  “We ain’t got time for that,” Benny said when he saw Tommy turn to try and finish packing up the tent. Let’s just throw everything in these two boats and go. We’ll sort it out later. With any luck at all, they’ll naturally think we went downstream from here and they’ll head that way.”

  “I don’t think I can be much use with a pole with this arm like it is, Pop.”

  “That don’t matter, you just worry about keeping that bleeding stopped. We’ll tie April’s canoe to our stern and tow it. It won’t make no difference at all. You can hardly feel the weight of a canoe, towing it like that. I can manage the poling for a while by myself. As long as we get around a couple of bends up I think we’ll be all right and I can rest when I need to. But now ain’t the time for talking about it. We’ve got to do it and now! And we’ve got to be as quiet as possible about it too.”

  * * *

  As he slipped quietly closer to the sound of moving water, Gary Haggard was pretty certain that he was still moving directly towards the source of the two shotgun blasts. Now that they were almost to the banks of Black Creek again, he was also fairly certain that whoever fired that shotgun had to have been close to the creek as well. He had his finger resting lightly on the side of the trigger as the kept the AK in front of him, ready for action. A quick glance to either side confirmed that Paul and Jared were staying even with him on either flank as he closed the distance, and both of them were ready to engage as well.

  Gary hadn’t heard anything else besides the two shots. No voices or other human sounds, just the two widely-spaced blasts that interrupted the birdcalls and other natural sounds of the woods for a few moments, before all returned to normal once again. There was no way of knowing exactly where Wayne was in the canoe. For all he knew, he could be a mile farther downstream by now, but Gary knew he had to check this out. It was aggravating, and all of it was Wayne’s fault for being so stubborn, but it was too late to argue with him now.

  He finally caught a glimpse of water through the thick screen of greenery, and motioned for Paul and Jared to wait while he advanced the last few feet. If there was anyone near the bank, he wanted to be sure he saw them first before they had a clue that he and his friends were there. Gary crouched low and took two or three slow steps at a time, stopping to look and listen in between each move. When he finally had a full view of the creek, he was almost certain it was the right spot because directly across, in the forest on the opposite bank, was a good-sized clearing that looked man-made and looked like it had been there for a long time. The clearing was grassy but free of briars and brush, and in the middle, there was a well-used campfire ring surrounded by large logs that seemed positioned in such a way to favor sitting around the fire and talking.

  Whoever fired those shots was probably staying here, and Gary wondered if they had been here when he and the other guys had passed this way going upriver just a couple of days before. He knew it was possible, because just like today, they had been traveling on foot and had made many direct shortcuts between the long bends of the channel. This site was in just such a bend and that’s why they had missed it. Chances were, they could have been as far as a half-mile away when they trekked by this place on their upstream hike and whoever was here would not have been aware of the
ir passing.

  Gary watched until he was sure no one was hanging out at the edge of the clearing right now, then he motioned Paul and Jared to his side. When they got there, he said he wanted to go just far enough downstream to find a place to cross the creek unseen. He wanted the two of them to stay here, concealed on the bank on this side to cover him if anything went wrong over there. He was still suspicious that those shots somehow involved Wayne. But even if they didn’t he still wanted to know who fired them and why. It wouldn’t take long to find out. Once Paul and Jared were set up in a good spot to cover the clearing, Gary slipped downstream, keeping in the cover of the woods until he found a spot that was as good as any to cross.

  Twenty-six

  MITCH CAUGHT A GLIMPSE of movement among the trees ahead of him and immediately stopped to watch and wait. After a few more seconds, another movement confirmed that he had visual contact with at least one of the men. The creek bank was just ahead, just past the spot where he’d seen one of them working his way forward in a low crouch. Mitch stalked closer, until he saw that all three of the men he was following were squatting there on the bank, apparently discussing something. He knew that he had to be near the spot from which the gunshots came, and he was sure the three men were watching the river to see if they could determine the source too.

  He was too far away to hear anything they were saying, as they were talking in low whispers anyway. It was too risky to try and get closer at the moment, as the mature forest here was relatively open. He settled in behind a fat tree trunk to watch and wait, and soon one of the men left the other two, making his way downstream. Mitch recognized him as the one who’d hit David with the rifle butt. The other two stayed where they were, both of them now lying prone with their rifles pointed in the direction of the creek or the bank on the other side. Something there had attracted their attention and that was why the one had left alone. Mitch figured the other two were waiting here on this side to cover him, so he was probably going to try and get across to the other bank. That they were splitting up was good for Mitch. He decided he would wait until the other one was across the creek to see what they were up too, and then deal with these two while they were separated. But first, he wanted to get a look at whatever it was over there that got their attention.