He urged his horse forward, mindful of the animal’s footing in the slippery rocks. Everything was on the line here.
Ol’ Henry darted past him, barking sharply.
Something caught Mattea’s ear. He raised his hand for the others to stop and cocked his head, straining to hear. There it was again. Rocks tumbled, disturbed. He slid from his horse, shotgun in hand and ran silently along the far edge of the river bank, keeping to the grasses and washed up logs to quiet his footfall. Around 100 yards ahead, there was a bend in the river. On shore and blocking his view was a natural shelf created by a protrusion of tree roots and soil, one of those sights you might stop to wonder about, the tree defying gravity, it’s roots exposed, yet still it thrived. Here he slowed, ducked under the shelf and eased around to look. Then looked again.
Mattea stepped free of the shelf’s protection, turned and smiled, waving the others forward. By the time they reached him, Missy and Junior were rounding the bend themselves, making their way home, Ol’ Henry dancing possessively around the pair. Apparently, this was not a trip they were prepared to take part in. It was a start.
Mattea said to Wyatt, “Can I trust you to get Missy and Junior home on your own?”
“Yes, sir!” Wyatt answered, his eyes big.
Sean smiled at the boy. “Take Ol’ Henry with you. Deklin’ll be happy to see his friends back safe and sound.”
Dan added, “Be sure to let Bill and Catherine know we’re good out here and will keep tracking.”
“Yes, sir!” Wyatt guided his horse to lead Missy and Junior homeward, Ol’ Henry trotting alongside, taking his task as guide seriously, as always. Mattea wasn’t worried about the cow and her calf; they’d get home on their own, without a doubt. He was sending the dog along to be sure the boy arrived safely.
Mattea mounted up again. “Let’s see what else can go wrong with their escape plan.”
They moved forward, the evidence of Jarvis’s and Annie’s passing easy to see, though with darkness imminent, the tracking might end with nightfall.
They traveled for nearly an hour before they came across one of the trannies, stuck up to its wheel wells in mud where a stream made its way from a nearby open field and joined the river, creating a wide swath of fine silt. They dismounted again, slung ropes to the tranny and backed it out with all four horses pulling. It was packed to the roof with heavy preserves. All were wrapped in what appeared to be Sandy’s clothes and towels to keep them from breaking. This had taken time.
And the rice! Nicola danced on the river’s edge at finding the rice still intact and the oat roller and grain grinders jammed behind the driver’s seat along with their precious pressure canner. They exchanged hopeful looks and Mattea for one felt the hard stone of dread begin to ease off his chest.
Nicola was tasked with driving the freed tranny home to D.O.A., as she had the only night vision glasses and there was no option for headlights.
“No. Are you crazy? I can see just fine — the moon shines off the water — I can see it clearly and can follow it home.” She pressed the glasses into Mattea’s hands. “You’re our tracker, you take the glasses and find Annie and Jarvis. You find them and get our stuff back! What you do with them …”
She said no more, her feeling on the subject perfectly reflecting everyone’s. No one wanted Annie and Jarvis back in their midst, so in that way did not want to find them, but they did want to find what the pair had stolen.
Nicola left her horse behind and the men carried on, with young Malcolm, still grim-faced, sticking next to Mattea now, his eyes burning as he strained into the half-darkness, searching for the people who’d hurt his mother.
With darkness falling in a serious way now, Mattea relied heavily on the glasses Nicola had insisted he keep. Surprisingly, he could clearly make out where Jarvis had veered off the river bank following a narrow path into the forest. It looked as if the pair passed this way many hours ago. After conferring the men elected to keep tracking. They were determined to return with the rest of their supplies, no matter what it took to get them back.
Dan urged his horse up to pace at Mattea’s side, forcing young Malcolm back. “What do we do when we catch up with them. Have you thought of that?”
Mattea blew out a discouraged breath. “I have no idea, Dan. The obvious thing is, they know where we are, they can come back anytime, steal again, maybe bring others with them and...” he glanced back at Malcolm and lowered his voice. “And then we’re done for. They know the escape routes, the secret caches of supplies on those routes, our alarm system.”
Dan nodded. “They know too much.”
“But we’re not killers.”
Dan’s expression hardened. Dan did not agree.
“And Annie’s pregnant.”
There was a long moment of quiet between them, the only sound the creaking of the leather beneath them and the soft footfall of the horses on the trail.
Finally, Dan echoed. “And Annie’s pregnant.”
It was a game changer, no matter how they looked at it.
They rode on for another hour, following the signs of passage in the forest — broken branches, disturbed ground cover, found items not secured in their haste to escape. A rubber boot, size six, again Sandy’s. An empty thermos, the one with the red lid Catherine used for mint tea for the kids when they went down to the garden to weed. A random gray wool sock.
They broke free of the forest out onto the Alaska Highway maybe fifteen miles north of Dawson Creek, the broad blacktop clear even in the minimal light the slivered moon provided. They stopped here.
Sean muttered, “Seriously, Jarvis. You’re traveling out in the open on the freaking highway?”
“Nobody said he was the sharpest tool in the toolbox,” Dan replied, nudging his horse forward. “We’ve got no choice, gentlemen. If they make Dawson before we get them, we can’t follow. Too damned dangerous. I don’t care how much we need that meat and that tranny. Keep to the shadows.” He took the lead now, setting a quicker pace.
Mattea dropped in behind him, knowing that Dan was dead wrong. They could and would follow them into Dawson. They knew too much about D.O.A.
Secrecy trumped elk every day of the week.
It didn’t take them long to find the pair. Gunfire tended to speed along a search.
They broke into a gallop, closing in on the exchange, pulling up just short and stowing their horses. Grabbing their weapons, and staying in the shadows, they ran the rest of the way, ducking and weaving, staying hidden, always pressing forward. The scene they encountered was classic. Annie and Jarvis had stumbled into an ambush and were out in the open, pinned down behind the tranny with Jarvis popping up to return fire while Annie hugged the corner of the tranny and sobbed.
There was no choice. They had to throw in with Jarvis and Annie.
Mattea motioned positions; Dan and Sean darted away. He kept Malcolm back and out of range, but handed the boy a weapon, just in case. This was the reason they’d trained the two boys in the first place, knowing one day they would need these skills. For Malcolm, that day had come. The boy’s big eyes told him he would stay put, just as Mattea had instructed, and just for an instant, Mattea regretted he’d ever taught Malcolm how to shoot.
Mattea nodded then ghosted away, intent on coming up behind the attackers. A shot was fired, the bullet pinging. Annie’s crying stopped. He already knew what had just happened.
A ricochet. She’d been hit by a ricochet.
Mattea stepped out from the bush and took out the two shooters where they stood shielded by a felled cedar. A trick Wren had told him about. That’s all there were—two shooters. He walked to their bodies, nudging each to be sure they were dead and no further danger before lowering his weapon. He moved toward the tranny, reluctant to see what he knew he’d find. Sean and Dan appeared from their posts, their weapons lowered. Their faces were shadowed, but he knew no joy would be taken in what had occurred here on the highway.
The air was damp, the smel
l of gunpowder heavy, the only sound their boot heels clocking on the pavement. Mattea rounded the tranny. Jarvis was seated on the blacktop, his legs splayed before him with Annie’s lifeless body in his arms. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing. Her bulging belly broke Mattea’s heart. He’d seen movies where cutting a baby from its dead mother was depicted, the child’s life miraculously saved. Only in the movies.
He squatted down next to Jarvis. “She’s gone, Bud.”
Jarvis pulled his gaze from Annie, looked up and after a moment recognized and focused on Mattea.
“It’s over, Jarvis. She’s gone.”
Jarvis’s grip on Annie tightened, and he lifted her up against his chest, her limbs moving with his actions, sending a strange sensation down Mattea’s spine. Annie was dead, but with Jarvis’s compulsive hugging, she was moving as if she were still alive. Mattea would never get used to death—never wanted to get used to death.
He exchanged glances with Dan and Sean, unsure what to do next.
They stood waiting for a signal from Jarvis. Was he ready to give up Annie’s body?
Abruptly, he did just that and was on his feet, his arm around Mattea’s neck, the point of a handgun pressed behind Mattea’s ear.
“Get back,” he cried, “or this jerk wad gets it. I’m not fooling around anymore. I’m done with you losers. I’m going home.” He was crying now, “All I want is to just go home.”
He backed toward the front seats of the tranny, keeping Mattea in front as a shield.
A shot rang out and Jarvis’s head slammed forward, knocking hard against Mattea’s. Jarvis dropped to the ground with a whisper. Mattea staggered to keep his footing, turning to stare down at Jarvis. He was dead, with the back half of his head missing.
Malcolm stepped out from the trees behind them, Ninja at his side, his weapon pointed safely to the ground as Mattea had taught him. The three older men watched him approach the scene, the boy’s expression giving nothing away about how he felt. He stopped before Jarvis’s body and considered it, then came to stand next to Mattea as if this was his natural place in the world. He shrugged and said in a flat voice, “He made it easy.”
28
RUN!
WHEN WREN AWOKE, the first face she saw was that of the man she’d rescued from cells — Randy. She jerked away in alarm, glanced around for a weapon, for escape, for Coru.
She was lying on the ground beside Beastette. Randy was swabbing her face with a water soaked cloth – a T-shirt; one of her own.
She pushed it away and sat up, the world taking a moment to settle at being viewed from this new angle. She felt her head, quickly locating a huge bump at the back. She croaked, “Where’s Coru.”
“Your friend’s in the back of your transport. I found some clothes for him, and wrapped him up as best I could. He’s still out — a good thing. The longer he’s out, the better. We need to get him somewhere I can look at his wounds.”
She struggled to her feet, still not convinced he wasn’t an enemy. “You followed me?”
“You’re the sanest person I’ve met here in Rushton—and my best bet to getting my wife to safety.”
She looked around. They were out in plain sight on the highway. It was still midmorning. She couldn’t have been out that long.
As if reading her thoughts — that was ironic — he murmured, “We’ve got to get moving.” He helped her to her feet and guided her to the passenger’s side of Beastette. “They won’t be long after they find the two dead in the police station and me gone.”
She started to nod in agreement and found the movement a mistake. She replied, ‘Yes,” and slumped into the seat, allowing him to fasten her seatbelt for her before running around to the driver’s side. He started the tranny up and raced toward the nearby cover of scrubby trees that lined the highway here in Rushton. Once shielded, he turned to her and asked, “Where to?”
“North,” she lied, still not trusting him. For some reason, she could not scan his mind. Was it the hit on her head?
“Good, ‘cause that’s where my wife is, north one mile, hiding in an old school bus shelter.”
Wren trusted him more now. He had a wife, and was concerned about her. And she knew from cells he’d come to find food for her, for them both. He loved his wife. Good to know.
“Okay, let’s go get her. Then we’ll make a plan. Keep to the trees.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Randy’s face was grim, and she noticed for the first time that he had cuts and bruises up his arms and across the part of his chest she could see through his torn shirt. Randy had been “handled” while in Rushton. She twisted in her seat to see Coru. He was on his side, his legs bent at the knees, his body cushioned with blankets, all strapped snug and tight across the two seats, still unconscious, a blessing as Randy had said. She could see the one side of his face was ruined—flattened somehow, a wicked gash that had bled a lot saving it from swelling more than it already had. What had they done to him while she’d been passed out, safely tucked away between that old shed and fence?
“You did that well,” she told Randy.
“Thanks. I’m a doctor.” He flashed her a grin. “I know these things.”
“You’re a…” Of all the good luck she could have stumbled into here in Rushton — finding a doctor was the most outlandish, out of this world, “Wish I Had It” list person she could have ever have imagined.
She smiled back at him. “Randy. A doctor.”
“You like?”
“Very much.”
They raced along the bumpy boulevard as fast as Randy could reasonably manage while still sticking within the protection of the trees. When they approached an old school bus shelter at the end of a narrow back country road, he slowed, parked, then stuck his fingers into his mouth and whistled. After a moment, a woman’s head appeared, long glossy black hair, pulled back in a ponytail, dark, frightened almond eyes. When she saw Randy, she burst from the shelter and ran toward him, her arms outstretched. He ran to meet her. They stood together, clutching one another for a very long time.
Wren blinked back tears at witnessing the reunion, bits of Randy’s wife’s thoughts stuttering their way into her head. Her name was… Olivia? She’d begun to believe her husband was dead and had wanted to die herself if that was the case.
Wren was so very grateful she had crossed 100 Street to the police station and rescued Randy from cells. The truth was she barely remembered the incident now. She remembered the two arrows — getting them back because she needed them. Had Randy helped her with that part? She remembered Randy’s face before he disappeared from the cop shop, an unsettling mixture of gratitude and horror. And she remembered getting the all-important bolt cutters.
There was more, she knew, and was content she had no memory of it.
Randy and Olivia approached her, arm in arm. Randy said, “This is my wife, Olivia McCall.”
Wren reached out her hand to the woman, who, she could see up close was painfully thin, but incredibly beautiful. “Hi Olivia. My name is Wren, Wren Wood. You and your husband are coming home with me and,” she glanced back at Coru, “my friend here, Coru Wisla.” She looked over at Randy. “Sorry, Randy, but I lied to you. We’re really heading south.”
Randy’s eyes lit up at this. He wanted something in the south. He wanted … She rummaged around in his thoughts, so thankful to find she was now able to do so. It was proximity that helped. When he was only a few feet away, her ability to read his thoughts faded dramatically. Not good… She brought her attention back to Randy. He had equipment — medical equipment stashed away south of Rushton.
She smiled, willing to wait for him to broach the subject in his own time. “I have a safe place there, with people you’ll want to meet. People you’ll be proud to know. Good people, who work together, share and care about one another.”
Olivia’s legs failed her and she began to cry, clinging to Randy, too weak with relief and gratitude to help herself.
Wren re
leased her seatbelt and clambered into the driver’s seat. “You two huddle together, I’ll drive. We’ll find a place to hide until dark, see to Coru as best we can, then we’ll head home.”
Randy and Olivia climbed into her vacated seat, Randy holding his wife in his lap, seat belting them in together.
They didn’t have far to go before the perfect hiding place presented itself. An abandoned old roofless barn, built of weathered planks that leaned in a gravity defying angle. No one would give this place a second glance.
Here they worked together to settle Coru onto a blanket on the ground. With time on his hands and the supplies Wren had in the back of Beastette, Randy was able to work miracles. With Olivia’s help — here is where Wren learned Olivia was an ER nurse — he dressed every wound, and there were many, evidence that Coru had been tortured while in Curtis Mather’s hands.
As he worked, Randy listed Coru’s injuries to Wren. “Broken nose.” He grasped it firmly and straighten it with a crunching sound that echoed down Wren’s spine. “Broken cheek bone-left side. I’m going to push it back into place the best I can now, while he’s out.” He thrust his fingers inside Coru’s mouth and worked at the cheek bone from inside until he was satisfied. “Best I can do,” he murmured. “It’s a miracle he still has all his teeth.” He returned to cataloging Coru’s injuries.
“Broken hand — right side, broken fingers, three on the left, two on the right. He set the fingers carefully, using sticks the women found on the ground — pieces of the crumbling barn. He whittled them down with a pocket knife, each to fit the finger it would support, then wrapped the finger and splint with strips of torn clothing. He straightened Coru’s right hand into a natural angle and settled it on a plate-sized plank and strapped it into place.
“The rest are all burns and knife wounds. A short blade — maybe two inches. Just enough to bleed, cause pain and trauma.” He was disgusted by what he was seeing. Thank God, I didn’t bring Olivia into town when I came to Rushton for help. This was what could have happened to either of us. If this had happened to my Olivia — his brain struck away the idea, too horrible to imagine. His next thought was a guilty one, regretful of his own thankfulness these injuries had not been visited upon them.
Lost Sentinel: Post-Apocalyptic Time Travel Adventure (Earth Survives Series Book 1) Page 32