There she was, peering from behind a pine tree. “Hello there,” he said, not knowing if she could or would speak.
She didn’t say anything but just stared.
“Hello there,” he said again, taking two steps closer. She turned to run, and he stopped.
“No, please don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. I just want to talk to you for a minute—if you can, that is.”
She cautiously stepped out from behind the tree. They stared at each another in silence. It was broken when Mac’s other guy called out, “Drake, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he called back, not taking his eyes off the girl.
She relaxed her shoulders and leaned up against the tree, smiling, with her arms crossed in front of her.
She finally spoke: “You’re not one of them.”
“One of who?” he asked.
“The ones who took my grandparents’ property.”
“Wait, you mean Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“They are your grandparents?”
“You’re a smart one,” she replied, still smiling.
“No offense, but I mean…don’t get me wrong…but you’re well, you’re uh...”
“My skin is light?”
“Well, yes, ma’am.”
“I get that a lot. Don’t be embarrassed. The MacDonalds are my grandparents on my mother’s side, and my father is as white as you, no offense.”
“No, it’s fine; it makes more sense now.”
“I’ve been watching you watch me, Drake.”
“I’ve been watching the others is all, and you keep popping up,” he replied.
“How do you know my name?” he asked, realizing the other guard must have said it.
“I don’t mean you were watching me now or a few days ago. I mean before.”
“Before what?”
“You don’t remember, do you?” she asked.
She sang in a slow, sweet country voice. “Drake and Whitney are sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes...” She trailed off, looking past him.
“Time to go, Drake,” said the other guard. “Mac wants us back up top.”
“Can it wait for just five more minutes?” Drake turned to ask him.
“Nope, he wants us now.”
Drake turned back to tell her he would be back, but she was gone, disappeared into the woods.
They got up the cliff just in time to hear the bell.
It was the triangle-shaped one Mrs. MacDonald had clanged at 5:30 every night for nearly 30 years, whether it was the whole family or just her and her husband sitting for dinner.
Whitney had heard that bell over the past several days, since she made it up here. Every time she heard it at 11 a.m., it would startle her and bring back a flood of memories of her parents and grandparents gathering for a family meal.
The past few days, she would play hide-and-seek with the kids for the hour, asking them not to tell the adults. So far, it seemed to work.
Mac and his men observed the children exiting the house. The front door was locked from inside. There was the unmistakable sound of a deadbolt sliding into place and they watched the curtains in every room being drawn shut.
“What is going on in there?” asked one of Mac’s guys.
“It can’t be anything good,” remarked a female guard.
Mac and Cory observed the scene for fifteen minutes, watching as three boys, maybe ten or twelve years old, tried peeking into a window, with two of them lifting the other up as quietly as they could while laughing aloud.
“I know what’s going on,” came the call from behind them. “And it’s nothing those boys should be seeing,” called out Whitney, standing at the base of the rock.
“Can I go talk to her?” Drake asked Mac.
“Okay, just be ready if we need you here.”
She waited for him to climb down, and then asked him to sit with her.
“Okay,” he said, “I do remember you. My brother and I would sit up here and watch your family. I always told him how pretty you were, and he would sing that song about the baby carriage and such. You were up here almost every weekend for years, and then one day you were just gone. I came back week after week but never saw you again.”
“I know,” she replied, “it’s not like we were friends you and me, but I heard how you talked about me to your brother, and I thought it was sweet.”
“Where are your parents?” he asked. “I mean, are they okay?”
“I don’t know. We moved to upstate New York five years ago when my dad’s job transferred him. We were supposed to move back here to Loveland in the next couple of weeks. I came out for the last school semester and stayed with an old lady that used to work with my dad, just so I could meet some new friends before summer. I never made it up here, though; well, until now. It was a long walk from town.”
“How old are you?” Drake asked.
“Eighteen as of two days ago. I had a party and everything right over in those woods,” she said. “With just some squirrels and a few rabbits.”
“I’m sorry,” Drake said. “I would have come…if I would have knowed, of course.”
“You’re the same age as me,” she said, matter of factly. “Where are your brother and parents?”
“They’re gone, all of them now. It’s just my dogs and me.”
“I’m sorry… Well, I hope my parents come back, and if they make it here they know right where to find me. Have you seen my grandparents?”
“Yes, we rescued them up here a few days back, and they are back down the mountain at Saddle Ranch. Don’t worry, they are safe.”
“So, what are you all doing here?” she asked in a direct but respectful tone.
“We are trying to get the house back for your grandparents.”
“Before they find the supplies, right?”
“Exactly,” he replied.
“Okay, let me help,” she offered.
Drake led the clearly unarmed girl to the top of the mountain. She was wearing green shorts and a matching lightweight long-sleeved shirt that blended into the mountain like stylish camouflage.
They reached the top, and she was introduced as the granddaughter of the MacDonalds.
“The ritual,” she said to all, but keeping her voice low, “is some kind of voodoo or black magic. They do it every day before lunch and no kids are allowed. The main guy is the leader, the one who got shot.”
“That would be Ralph,” offered Mac.
“So, what’s the plan?” she asked Mac directly.
“Well, they have a deadline of 8:30 a.m. tomorrow morning to move on up or down the mountain.”
“Or what?” she asked.
“Or we have the unpleasant job of removing them from the property—not unlike the way it used to be before the day,” continued Mac.
“That’s a tough call,” she replied.
“It sure is,” replied Mac. “I don’t suppose you have any other suggestions?”
“Maybe just one,” she said, climbing back down the steep rock face.
“Hey, where are you going?” called out Drake.
“To save the children!”
* * * * * * *
Chapter Thirty-six
Saddle Ranch
Loveland, Colorado
Whitney walked around to the side of the house, under the windows.
She gathered most of the children and led them 50 yards into the woods where they could talk. She told them they would have to leave this house but not to worry. She had another house in mind.
“What’s she doing?” Cory asked aloud.
“She said she was going to save the children,” replied Drake.
“This is getting more complicated by the minute,” added Mac. We have twenty minutes left before noon, Drake. I need to get her attention and convince her to come back with us so we can talk. We can’t have everyone doing something different here.”
“Yes, sir. I’m on it.”
Drake snuck around the opposite side of the house where she could see him without alerting the parents and children.
It didn’t take much to convince her to come down the mountain, after promising a reunion with her grandparents.
At 12:03, according to Mac’s watch, the front and back doors of the house were opened wide, and so were the shades covering each window.
“Time to go, everyone,” Mac called out quietly.
* * * *
Drake walked ahead with an excited Whitney, and when Mac and Cory returned, she was already telling the MacDonalds her story.
“We just knew you would come out here,” said her grandmother. “I’m sorry you couldn’t find us, but we didn’t have time to leave a note. We will be back home soon, we hear.”
“About that,” said Whitney. “There are children up there, a lot of them. If they are driven blindly into the mountains, they won’t last a week.”
“That’s not our concern,” said her grandfather sternly.
“Yes, it is!” both his wife and granddaughter agreed.
“There is the camp,” Whitney offered, with a nod from her grandmother.
“No, no, not a chance. I knew one of you would bring that up,” argued Willy. “I need that place; it’s the best hunting in the state,” he added.
“You haven’t been up there in four years,” his wife reminded him. “It could give them a new start over the mountain, and we would be doing something good for the children as well.”
“What if someone is already there?” he protested.
“Then whoever is up on our property will have to share it,” she continued.
“Well, I’m not agreeing,” he said, “but...”
“Oh, there’s more,” his wife told him. “We will also give them enough supplies to get started.”
“Now wait a minute,” he protested. “Just so I hear you right. You want me to give them not only my property but also my food?”
“I think you mean our property and our food,” his wife replied, sternly crossing her arms like a mother catching her child doing something bad.
“Well, yes, of course, that’s what I mean.”
“She may have a point,” said Cory. Mac nodded in agreement.
“Not so fast, gentlemen,” Mrs. MacDonald said, with her arms still crossed in front of her. “You also will have skin in this game, unless of course you want Willie to stay here long-term complaining about this, that, and the other.”
Mac smiled, knowing she was right, but he didn’t say anything. “All right, ma’am, you’ve got my ear,” he replied. “What do you propose?”
“I propose, as you say, relocation of the lot of them over the mountain to our other property with enough provisions donated by us, this Ranch and the group down the road to properly get started. There are enough animals up there still, I’m sure, to sustain them if they are willing to work for it.”
“What’s to keep them from coming back to your place here?” asked Cory.
“Any adult returning to our property will be shot on sight without warning,” she suggested. “And if they miss the 8:30 a.m. deadline tomorrow, we need to give them a taste of what’s to come. You all drove the Ralph guy, their apparent leader, off three times already, just to have him return again, looking for something else. Am I right?”
“Yes, ma’am, that is correct,” replied Mac.
“So, you’re talking about a show of force with an olive branch at the end, right?” asked Cory.
“Yes, that’s right,” Mrs. MacDonald replied.
“All right, everyone, we have a big afternoon ahead of us with serious decisions to be made,” said Mac. “Cory and I will get with those in charge here on the Ranch, along with Samuel, from down the road, and see if we can all get on the same page with this business. I will hopefully have an answer by later this afternoon, or tomorrow morning at the latest.”
Mac and Cory called for a meeting with everyone’s presence requested.
With the smoke bomb proposal already approved, with tear gas only as a last resort, there was only the voting on giving away some provisions from each group and making sure they made it over the mountain.
Most agreed it was a sound plan, with the few outliers not able to come up with a better one on the spot.
It was agreed that they would be given an assortment of canned goods, beef jerky, vegetables, pasta, and planting seeds to feed the group for eight weeks, enough time to grow plants and establish hunting and fishing spots in their new territory.
Beyond that, there would be no more supplies or donations of any kind, assuming they were agreeable in the first place.
* * * *
Mac and Cory headed back to the machine shop for what Mac hoped would be the last meeting of the day.
“I’m not used to all this stuff,” he told Cory as they headed back on foot.
“What stuff?”
“All the meetings and having everyone’s agreement on things I would not have even thought about discussing in the old world.”
“Trust me; you get used to it,” replied Cory. “I always had someone looking over my shoulder— from the City Council to the Mayor, and an occasional news reporter begging for a story.”
“Yeah, I guess,” replied Mac. “I’m not looking forward to tomorrow,” he added. “I don’t think they have any intentions of leaving.”
They met up with the security team. “We need eyes up there tomorrow morning by 7:30,” Mac told them. “We will scout it out, and if they don’t leave, we will observe the 11-12 hour to see if the children are put out again. That will be it for tomorrow morning—observation only.”
There was some grumbling amongst the crowd of nearly twenty, just as Mac had expected.
“Any questions?” he asked loudly. More than half of the hands went up. “Besides why we’re only observing tomorrow morning?”
All hands went down, except one.
“Yes, Whitney,” he said.
“I just want to make sure none of the children get hurt, no matter what.”
Mac, sensing the growing connection between her and Drake, took the opportunity to bring him into the conversation, hoping he would answer the way he wanted him too.
“Drake, what do you know about us here in regard to children?”
“Well, I know you are all about families first, before anything else. Is that what you’re asking?”
“Yes, that is it. We’re about families. We want the children to have a fighting chance in this new world, but we can’t keep them here or at your grandparents’ house. And the adults, as Mrs. MacDonald said before, need to know we are serious and that this will be our last encounter with them. That, unfortunately, may require some tough love to get the point across.
“Get some rest today. We may have a big one tomorrow…and the next.”
* * * * * * *
Chapter Thirty-seven
Saddle Ranch
Loveland, Colorado
Sarah spent the night, for only her second time, at Mac’s place. She listened to his plans for tomorrow and quieted his deepest fears.
“What if we gas them and get the kids in it?” he asked. “What if someone has breathing problems and we kill them trying to make a point?”
“You will do what needs to be done,” she told him. “Nothing more, and nothing less. It’s not about one or two of us now, but all of us in this Valley. I don’t want to walk this pristine land that I have always called home in fear. Not now and not ever. You have given Ralph enough chances, and anyone who chooses to follow him now will be lumped in with his fate, as far as I’m concerned.”
“I understand,” he replied solemnly. “I will figure it out and have them moving on tomorrow, however it has to be.”
* * * *
Mac was up early at 5 a.m. and grabbed Cory for a meeting before everyone else was up.
They met out in front of Cory’s place. His son, Cameron, was sleeping in.
“What do you think?” Mac asked him.
“I don’t think they will be gone by the 8:30 a.m. deadline, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Families First: A Post Apocalyptic Next-World Series Volume 4 Hard Roads Page 24