Larry’s .30-.30 roared to life, spitting fire and delivering the 130-grain bullet to the center of the man’s chest, knocking him off his feet and into the roaring fire. His clothes caught, and in seconds the man was screaming as the flesh began to sizzle and burn off of his bones. Larry tried to get to him, to pull him out of the fire, but the flames were too high. He couldn’t reach him without getting burned. Soon his screams stopped and the clearing became silent except for the occasional sizzle as the body cooked and dripped fat into the flames
Amanda stepped out of the shadows and walked towards the fire. She stood over the body, staring down at it, mesmerized by the blue and yellow flames dancing across the charred flesh. The sickly sweet aroma flooded her nostrils, overwhelming her senses. It reminded her of a pork loin roasting in an oven.
She walked back to the tree line and vomited. When her stomach was completely empty, she felt a touch on her shoulder. She turned and hugged Larry, crying with deep moans of anguish.
“Who were they?” she managed between sobs. “What did they want? They didn’t say anything. They just walked in and tried to kill us. Who does something like that?”
“They probably wanted the horses. I imagine they saw our tracks on the highway and followed them up the side of the canyon. I think we need to leave here. I don’t think we should wait until morning. We’ll leave the highway and go over the mountains.”
“How will we find our way?”
“We’ll head southeast, in a straight line. Eventually we have to hit highway 395 or the Izee highway.”
“But Jerry said we wouldn’t make it over the mountains in winter.”
“No, what he said was we’d never make it on foot.”
Larry gently pushed Amanda away, walked over to the horses, and got a water bottle out of one of the saddlebags. He came back and handed it to her. He gently touched her cheek and smiled down at her.
“Wait here and keep watch,” he said. “I’ll get everything ready to leave.”
He walked to the fire and kicked snow over it, thrusting them into darkness. It took several minutes for their eyes to adjust. Soon they were able to make out shapes again and see down the hill. Amanda peered into the darkness, watching for the man who’d rolled away. Larry saddled the horses and stowed their gear, except for the Winchester. He whistled and motioned for her to join him. She walked over to the horses.
He held a finger up to his lips and handed her the reigns. “Let’s go as quietly as we can.”
They mounted up, slowly picked their way down the hill, and crossed the highway. From there, they turned southeast and into the mountains. They’d ridden for about a half a mile when they came to a barbed-wire fence that blocked their path. Larry jumped out of the saddle and pulled a multi-tool from his pocket. He cut the fence, led them through, and mounted up again.
“I feel bad about cutting the fence,” he said, “but we don’t have a choice.”
By the time the sun was up they’d ridden into snow that was over three feet deep. The horses were having trouble jumping through it, and Amanda and Larry were having a hard time leading them without getting trampled. The horses were lathering up. Sweat poured off their straining muscles, collecting at the corners of their mouths, giving the appearance of rabies.
Amanda was exhausted and overwhelmed. She’d been behind the scenes in countless covert operations with the Pentagon. But until now, her only involvement with death and warfare had been from behind a desk. Nothing she’d experienced could have prepared her for the brutal hardships they were now facing. Somehow, Amanda knew their troubles were just beginning. She was frightened.
“We need to give the horses a break and get them some water,” Larry said.
They stopped at a small, frozen lake. Larry gingerly tested the ice. It moaned and crackled under his weight. He knelt and cleared the snow away from a small section. In the trees, he found a large limb which he carried to the lake and used to break a hole in the ice. They let the horses drink while they cleared away snow in a wide circle, exposing vegetation underneath so the horses could eat.
“I think we need to keep walking for a while,” Larry said, “at least until we get over the mountain and partway down the other side. The snow’s way too deep for the horses.”
“How far do you think we’ve come?” Amanda asked.
“I figure we’ve only gone about seven to ten miles from the highway. We have at least forty or fifty miles to go. If we’d gone straight over the mountain yesterday when we started out, we’d be well over halfway by now. It will take us the rest of the day, and at least half of tomorrow, to get down out of the deeper snow, and at least one more day of steady riding in order to reach Bear Valley.”
They rested for an hour, letting the horses eat and drink their fill, then put on snowshoes and started off again. They walked for the rest of the day and a few hours into the night before they reached the summit. A fifteen-foot-tall brush pile sat beside a dirt logging road. They cleared away the snow from several patches of vegetation and let the horses eat again. About fifty feet from the brush pile, they dug a hole and filled it with as much snow as they could carry. They unsaddled the horses, rubbed them down, and tethered them a hundred feet away. Larry lit the entire brush pile on fire. Soon the flames were shooting into the air.
Amanda backed away to keep from getting her hair singed off. “You think you could’ve built a little warmer fire?”
Larry laughed and mustered an innocent smile. “Well, we won’t be cold tonight.”
They sat on a log and had a meal of dried fruit, granola, and canned venison that Betty had stashed in their saddlebags.
After dinner, they laid out their bed rolls and settled in for the night.
“How’re your ribs?” Amanda asked.
“Still pretty sore, but it’s nothing a good hot bath wouldn’t fix.”
Amanda got goose bumps at the thought of a hot bubble bath. “Mmmm. What I wouldn’t give for some candles and to be enveloped with fragrant bubbles in a bathtub fourteen feet deep right now.”
Larry laughed. “Fourteen feet, huh? That would be some tub.”
Amanda giggled and reached for Larry. He took her hand and smiled. Their eyes met. Amanda felt exactly the same sparks she’d felt the first time they’d met. He lifted the corner of his bedroll. Amanda smiled and wiggled out of hers. The cold air took her breath away. She was tingling all over as she pressed her bare body into his warm embrace. He held her tightly.
A tear rolled down Amanda’s cheek. “I love you so much,” she whispered in his ear.
“I love you more,” he whispered back.
They fell asleep locked in each other’s arms, their hearts beating together.
Larry and Amanda awoke to a cloudless blue sky. The sun was already above the tree line when they rolled out. The fire had burned down to a thirty-foot bed of coals and the hole they’d dug was full of water. They refilled their water bottles and led the horses over to let them drink. After the horses had eaten grain from the saddlebags, they loaded up quickly and headed down the mountain.
The landscape began to change. Thick pine forests gave way to sagebrush and rocky hillsides. The snow thinned out. They packed their snowshoes, got back in the saddle, and rode all day, not stopping even for lunch. The sun was setting and shadows were growing long when they reached the edge of a deep canyon. Larry could hear a river roaring over rocks in the bottom.
A narrow game trail led into the shadows. Larry dismounted and surveyed the trail. “We’ll probably have to lead the horses down,” he said. “We might want to stop here for the night and wait till we have more day—”
The mountain lion came out of nowhere and was on top of Amanda and her horse before Larry could react. Larry ripped his Winchester from its scabbard and took aim. He couldn’t fire for fear of hitting Amanda.
The lion slashed under the mare’s neck and tore out her throat. Amanda screamed as the horse’s blood sprayed across her face. She jumped off th
e horse. The mare reared up on its hind legs, then fell to the ground, kicking.
One of the blows hit Amanda. She lost her footing and, to Larry’s horror, tumbled over the edge of the trail and out of sight. The cat crouched next to the now-dead mare and screamed at Larry. He pointed the rifle at the center of its gaping mouth and squeezed the trigger.
Larry ran to the lip of the canyon. The drop was steep. It was almost completely dark now. He couldn’t see her anywhere.
“Amanda!”
She didn’t answer. Larry stumbled down the hill, continuing to shout for her. The farther down he got, the more he began to panic.
“AMANDA!”
Fear gripped him. He felt helpless, frantic. He’d never known terror like this. He had to find her. He had to save her. What if she was already dead? This thought nearly paralyzed him. He fell to his knees and screamed for her until he was hoarse.
It was pitch black now. Larry felt around in the brush until he found a large stick. He tore the sleeve off of his coat and wrapped it tightly around the end of the stick. He fished out the lighter in his pocket and lit a makeshift torch. He forced himself to calm down and began searching carefully in a grid pattern.
He found her three hundred yards down the canyon, wrapped around a tree on the edge of a cliff that fell straight down a hundred feet to the river below.
He pulled Amanda back from the edge and checked her pulse. She was alive, but unconscious and in pretty bad shape. Her right arm was broken. Her right hand pointed in the wrong direction. Her left leg was broken. The femur stuck out of her thigh and was covered with dirt and grass. As far as he could tell, the femoral artery was still intact. There was no steady, rhythmic flow of blood from the wound.
One painful step at a time, Larry carried and dragged Amanda up to the trail. He tied her into the saddle of his horse with the reigns from the dead mare and the climbing rope they’d retrieved from the hippie couple’s car. He had to get her to the ranch.
He walked into the night, determined to not let his wife die.
Larry walked for two days. He never stopped to rest, eat, or drink. Finally, he led the horse into the gate of the ranch and walked all the way to the front door. He opened the door and stepped inside.
“Nirsch!”
Levi Nirschell came into the front room just in time to see Larry Collins collapse in a heap on the carpet.
22
NIRSCHELL RANCH, SENECA, OREGON
APRIL 20
SPRING HAD DEFINITELY SPRUNG IN EASTERN OREGON. MOST OF the snow had gone, except at the higher elevations. Elk and deer had mostly shed their antlers and Canada geese had begun pairing up to nest. Steelhead and Chinook salmon made their way up the John Day River to spawn. Wild turkeys had begun to strut. Their gobbles thundered through the timber each morning as the sun peeked over the Strawberry Mountains and kissed the tops of ponderosa pines.
Nirsch stood in his kitchen next to the cook stove, warming his backside, sipping black coffee, and watching baby calves in his field. The smell of bacon, eggs, and baking bread filled the air.
“I am a blessed man,” he said, “but what I wouldn’t do for a white chocolate mocha right now.”
Michelle laughed.
There were a few things Nirsch missed since the attack, and yuppie coffee was definitely at the top of that list.
Michelle came up behind him, put her arms around his waist, and kissed his neck. “Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
“Like a rock. What are you thinking about?”
“I was just thinking how much I miss the coffee in D.C. I was also thinking that I’ve been cooped up here all winter. It’s a beautiful spring day, the turkeys are gobbling in the hills, and Adam needs to go hunting with his dad. How would you like a fresh wild turkey for dinner?”
“Did somebody say turkey hunting?” Adam came around the corner, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“I don’t know. You think you can shoot straight?”
“You bet I can!” Adam ran to his room, no doubt to get his camouflage gear on.
“You need to eat your breakfast and do your chores first!” Michelle yelled after him.
“But, Mom,” Adam whined from his room.
“Your mom’s right,” Nirsch called. “The animals need their breakfast too.”
“He’s definitely your son,” Michelle said. “He’d spend every day hunting and shooting something if we let him.”
“I’m glad to know he is actually my son.”
“Well, he could belong to Brad Pitt, but he has your eyes and your chin, so I’m 85 percent sure he’s yours.”
Nirsch pushed Michelle away. “Only 85 percent, huh?”
“Okay, maybe 90 percent. Now sit down and I’ll grab your breakfast.”
Michelle dished it up, then sat beside him while he ate. “I keep thinking about your niece and her son. Do you think Debbie and Jake are okay?”
“I don’t know,” Nirsch said. “But I do know that Austin wasn’t one of the cities leveled. The fact that they’re close to Mexico worries me the most. I pray for her daily and hope she’s okay. If she prepared herself and is able, it wouldn’t surprise me if she and Jake showed up here one day. That is one tough girl!”
“Do you ever wonder about people we knew in D.C. and other places?”
“All the time, but we can’t dwell on that now. Some of them may be okay, and we don’t know what kind of recovery efforts have been made in the rest of the country. Sometimes I’m curious about how other parts of the country are faring. One of these days I may have to travel south and see what’s happening. The little bit of chatter I pick up on the radios from the base doesn’t tell me a whole lot. I know they’ve started relocating people toward the coast. I know they have a semblance of a working command structure. I’ve heard enough to indicate not everyone is thrilled about being told to relocate. Some folks are fighting it, and from what I heard, are being met with force. I would not want to be near a medium-sized town or a military base right now.”
They both stared out the window. Nirsch thought about what it must be like to have lost all freedom. He wondered how they’d gotten here as a country, how the political leadership could have been so naive to think they could treat terrorists like a normal enemy and meet their violence with negotiations and platitudes. They actually bought into the idea that if they were nice, everyone would coexist and love each other. “Peace through understanding,” was the phrase President Hartley had coined. More like “defeat through appeasement,” Nirsch thought. Boy, do I miss Ronald Reagan and “peace through strength.”
Adam came into the kitchen in his camos and sat at the table.
“Where do you want to go, Dad? I was thinking up toward Dry Soda or Summit Prairie.”
“I don’t think we have to go that far. There should be birds in the meadows up the creek four or five miles. Besides, that way we can check on the Beckers. I haven’t talked to Charlie since Christmas. I want to see if they need anything. Now hurry up and eat so you can get your chores done. We’ve got some serious huntin’ to do. When you finish your chores, saddle up Joker and Moe and put the scabbards on them.”
Adam shoved two pieces of bacon, an egg, and a full slice of bread covered in butter and honey through his lips. He chewed loudly and spoke at the same time: “Awl white dud hurwy ub, I waana gohh.’’ Adam hurried outside, a mixture of egg, honey, and butter trickling from the corners of his mouth.
Nirsch winked at Michelle and slapped her on the behind. She turned and shoved him. He grabbed her and kissed her just as Jillian came around the corner.
“Eeeww, yuck! Old people should not do that!”
Nirsch chuckled. “Who are you calling old?” he said. “I can still take you in a fair fight.”
“Oh yeah? Bring it on, old man, or are you afraid you’ll break a hip?”
Jillian lunged at him. He easily sidestepped and grabbed her around the middle as she passed by.
Michelle grabbed a wooden spoon and plowed into Jillian, knocking them all over. They fell into a tangled pile on the hardwood floor, laughing. Nirsch stood and feigned injury.
“Oh, my hip, I think you broke it,” he said. He limped toward the bedroom. “I better get my turkey gear while I can still walk.”
“Turkey gear?” Jillian asked. “Are you going hunting?”
“Adam and I are heading up the creek a few miles. Do you want to go with us?”
“Maybe next time. I thought I might go over to the Hansons’ and see if Brett wants to look for elk sheds today.”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time there lately. You’re not overstaying your welcome, are you?”
“It’s fine, Dad.”
“You are behaving yourself with Brett, right?”
Jillian blushed and rolled her eyes in typical know-it-all teenager fashion. “We’re just friends, Dad.”
Michelle broke into their conversation, rescuing Jillian from further embarrassment. “I’m going to need some help in the greenhouse before you go. Kathy and I thought we’d get the seeds in today and repot the tomatoes. I could also use help getting more wood put up. The nights are still cold enough that the fire has to be going in the greenhouse. Amanda may also join us and get out for some fresh air. I told Larry I’d like her help. I might need you to help lift her spirits. She’s having a hard time.”
“Sure, Mom,” Jillian said. “I don’t mind. You want me to wash some clothes too? I’m running low on jeans.”
“Thanks, sweetie. We should have you out of here by eleven. That should give you plenty of time before dark.”
“Thanks, Mom. I was also hoping we could talk a little.”
“What do you want to talk about?” Michelle asked.
This was Nirsch’s cue to exit. He went to the bedroom, put on his favorite pair of camos, and rummaged through his gun safe. He grabbed Adam’s Winchester model 1300 20-gauge, some three-inch Nitro Magnum six shot, and reached for his grandfather’s box call, a contraption about four inches long with a thin wooden paddle attached above it with a hinge. Nirsch smiled and wondered who first had the idea to rub a piece of wood on the side of a box to perfectly imitate the sound of a hen turkey.
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