Reaper's Run - Plague Wars Series Book 1

by David VanDyke

  -10-

  It had taken a long day of searching for a good spot, where the train had to slow before a descending corner, and then more waiting for the early nightfall to hide them jumping aboard. They drank water from a running stream, but did without food, hungry all the time.

  They climbed aboard a flatcar without incident. Snuggling up next to construction machinery against the cold airflow was starting to seem routine, and the smells of West Texas mingled with the odors of diesel and grease.

  “Home stretch,” Python said, his mouth close to her ear. “We should have asked more about the border.”

  Jill turned to him so they could converse, practically rubbing noses. “Not if we’re supposedly heading for Los Angeles. We got two choices. One, try to slip through at a busy border crossing. They didn’t used to check outgoing Americans. Or two, try to cross at some lonely spot at night. You heard anything that would help make that decision?”

  “No. I’ve been inside for twelve years, remember?”

  “What do you think, then?”

  Python chewed on his lip. “I’d rather take my chances at night in the open. They could have face cameras, blood tests, fingerprinting. We got no ID anyway.”

  “We could try to get some in El Paso. I’m sure you can find someone who makes them.”

  He laughed. “All the good fake IDs are made south of the border. The only things you can get here barely fool bartenders.”

  “All right, night crossing it is.”

  They looked up at the skies for a time, clear now that the glow of sunset had faded and they had left the lights of Fort Worth a hundred miles behind. “I ain’t seen stars like this in a long time,” Python said. “Prisons don’t like cons outside in the dark.”

  “And your eyes are like a kid’s again,” she responded.

  “Something else is like a kid’s again,” he half-joked.

  Jill smiled and kissed him. When he stayed silent, she asked, “Run out of words?”

  “I got enough words. A few of them just for you.”

  Jill put a hand up to his mouth. “Not until we’re safe.”

  Are you even intending to keep that implied promise? she asked herself. You crossed that line already but…why? To keep him loyal? To reward him? You don’t love him…do you?

  She didn’t know how to answer herself, so she put such thoughts out of her mind and rolled into his embrace. The rhythmic jouncing of the flatcar made her body wish for a full joining, but in her rebellious mind, she remained glad that was verboten. It gave her conscience some salve to believe it wasn’t really real until that last act took place.

  Besides, she hadn’t the energy, and probably neither did he. She felt dreadfully weak, her body’s fuel reserves as low as they had ever been.

  From time to time they saw traffic off in the distance, lines of headlights and truck running lights that seemed to crawl, though she knew they must have been doing seventy. For hours they paralleled what she believed to be I-20, and passing through towns they shrank back deep into the shadows of the caterpillar treads for fear that some stray gleam might betray them. Jill was grateful for the tip about the express train; it dodged a lot of potential trouble that local stops would have brought. Now and again they passed an eastbound, and clung to one another as the cold winds buffeted them.

  Eventually the long train diverged from the freeway again, rails running out into the badlands west of Pecos. Moonlight illuminated scrub-covered hills as the engineered grade cut straight through them. By this time her tongue felt swollen from thirst. They needed water, and food, soon.

  After more than an hour of suffering, they passed through a final notch to see the interstate off in the distance – I-20 or I-10, she thought, depending on where they rejoined the big roads. Should have had Python buy an old-fashioned paper map at the truck stop so long ago, she thought, rather than relying on memory.

  As they approached the line of vehicle lights perhaps half a mile away, the train slowed through a curve. It appeared that instead of crossing the interstate, the railroad would pick up parallel to it again.

  “Get ready to jump off,” Jill yelled. “This might be the last slowdown before El Paso.” He nodded, and they stuffed their meager belongings back into their pillowcase sacks. “Protect your head and roll,” she instructed.

  At the sharpest part of the curve, they leaped off, despite the ground rushing by beneath them. Jill estimated they were still traveling at thirty miles per hour, and the impact knocked the breath out of her. Rolling through brush and over rocky soil tore skin off her arms, back and knees. She clamped down on the pain and told herself to be thankful for no worse injury.

  Python was not so lucky. His right wrist was sprained at least, possibly broken, swelling up quickly. She knew that without food and water, the Eden Plague would mindlessly try to heal him. Like a stupid construction crew that tore down good buildings to repair bad, the disease could not be shut off.

  Jill supported him as he walked, grimly stomping over the broken ground toward the freeway. It seemed the only source of what they needed. Perhaps someone would stop and help them. She started concocting a plausible story about their car breaking down in the hills and having to walk out to the interstate.

  She also resigned herself to the possibility she might have to steal the car of whoever stopped, or even kidnap them for a short time. One of those might be the only option. She couldn’t let someone call the police or an ambulance.

  The irony of possibly mugging a Good Samaritan did not escape her, nor did it make her feel any better.

  They stumbled along across country, closer and closer to the divided four-lane. Off to the right Jill could see an overpass, and she inferred on and off ramps from the truck she could see exiting. It cloverleafed around and headed away from them on a road only visible because of the vehicle itself, toward a cluster of lights about a mile south.

  “You see that?” Jill said huskily, barely able to talk. “Whatever it is, it’s better than trying to flag down a car on the freeway. Any facility should at least have water faucets.”

  Python just mumbled something unintelligible and kept plodding, holding his arm. Shortly they came up to the freeway, and they waited unsteadily for a break in the westbound traffic. When it came, they shambled across the lanes and into the divider.

  The cold took its toll, as well as thirst and hunger. In the arid southwest, winter days were pleasant but the nights could easily dip to just above freezing. Jill’s body screamed for calories, reminiscent of the swim that had begun her odyssey. For agonizing minutes they waited for a break in the steady eastbound traffic, then ran across when they could.

  “Come on, Keith, only a mile to water, and maybe some food. Gotta be something.” They stumbled down the grade into a field of sage and weeds. Jill felt as if she was floating, her feet operating on automatic as her eyes glued themselves to the harsh lights on widely spaced poles ahead.

  “I hope that’s not a camp,” Python muttered.

  “No way. Not enough light, and they wouldn’t put it so close to Mexico.”

  “How far?” he croaked.

  “Dunno. Just a few miles, I think. That was I-10; I saw a sign. It parallels the border. Worst case, we can drink from the Rio Grande.”

  “Not sure I’m gonna make it.”

  “Don’t give up on me yet, Python. You are far too badass to quit now. Just put one foot in front of the other.”

  It seemed like forever but was only minutes before they approached the mysterious group of buildings. These resolved themselves into eight to ten huge yards, each with a long low central open structure and a couple hundred black-and-white cattle. In the center of it all stood a larger, closed building. A dozen trucks of various kinds stood in a parking lot next to it. Most of the light came from there, with the rest of the complex soaking up moonlight.

  “It’s a dairy,” Jill realized aloud. “Feed and water in those long sheds, and they get milked twice a day in the big bui
lding.”

  “Water,” Python croaked, and began struggling over the retaining fence around the nearest corral.

  “Not yet. We’re too close to the main building. We might be seen. Let’s go around the perimeter to the farthest one.” Jill grabbed him and pulled him to the left, along the fence line.

  Two hundred yards later she felt it safe to cross the barrier, and they trudged through the dimness atop drying dirty manure, aiming at the end of the feeding shed farthest from the central building. Its roof stood at least twenty feet high, providing shade and space for cows, and for trucks to pull up, to drop off feed and other supplies.

  When they reached it, Jill and Python found troughs of relatively clean water, kept full by floater valves. They plunged their heads into the life-giving fluid, sputtering and drinking until they could hold no more. Most of the sleeping animals ignored them, but a few lowed mournfully, a sad sound of protest against their domain being invaded during the sacrosanct night.

  “Now the feed,” Jill said, feeling herself strengthen already. “Must be some around here…” They split up and searched until they found a line of bins that looked like they would dispense grain. They found a few leftover buckets-full of stuff that they ate, unsure of its provenance. It smelled like food but tasted like wood.

  Jill mused, “Silage, I think. Ground up corn with the cobs, stalks and all. Mostly these cows eat hay, but silage adds protein.”

  “How do you know all this stuff? I thought you were from the city?”

  She replied, “If you grow up in California, at some point you’ll go on a school field trip to a dairy. It’s agribusiness. The state produces more milk and cheese than Wisconsin and more beef than Nebraska.”

  “Okay, teach. But this stuff ain’t gonna be enough.”

  “I know, but it’s all we got.”

  “Why don’t we go try to steal a truck? Then we can go to the nearest town and get drive-through,” Python said.

  “Hell, no. That’s asking for so much trouble. We can make it. Here, suck on some of this.” She took out her multi-tool and chipped a piece off a whitish block.

  “What is it?”

  “Salt block. Mostly salt, some sugar and minerals. Keeps them drinking, keeps them making milk.”

  Python put it in his mouth and hummed with pleasure. “Makes me thirsty again.” He headed back for the water troughs, while Jill choked down a couple more gulps of silage, and dumped some more into her sack. Then she drank water again alongside him.

  “Let’s go. Home stretch. Just a few miles, and then a swim.”

  “Swim?” Python stopped short.

  “Yeah, the Rio Grande is the border.”

  “Oh, yeah. Okay.”

  “You can swim, right?” Jill asked.

  “Sure, I swim like a fish.” He didn’t sound sure.

  Jill clapped him on the back. “Come on, snake. Let’s go. And remember, like you said, anything’s better than being caught. No matter what, we’re getting across.”

  Python didn’t reply, just put on a burst of speed across the dirt and manure to escape from the corral over the fence. She followed him, and was just starting to relax when she heard the roar of an engine.

  Looking back, she saw a pickup truck speeding along the outside of the dairy behind them. It turned the corner and picked up speed, chasing them from two hundred yards back.

  “Run off the road,” Jill cried, and they turned left out into the scrublands, away from the dairy. The truck braked nearly to a stop in a cloud of dust, then turned its headlights toward them until they speared the two in their beams. A moment later they heard a rifle shot, and a bullet kicked up dust near their feet.

  “Separate, get out of the light, keep running!” Jill screamed, and turned right while shoving him left. Several more shots came before they got far enough away to be out of easy sight.

  “They’re not supposed to shoot at people fleeing!” Python grumbled as he rejoined her in the dim moonlight.

  “This is a new country, with martial law and all the fear. And besides, Texas is an HNK state.”

  “What?”

  “He Needed Killin’. That’s the standard defense against manslaughter. Basically, if you see a crime in progress, you can confront and use any level of violence necessary to stop the felony from taking place.”

  “That’s crazy!” Python said.

  “Really? Texas has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the nation. You were a hard case. Would you ply your trade here?”

  “I’d look for an easier state,” he replied vehemently.

  “I rest my case.”

  “Okay, maybe not so crazy,” he conceded.

  Jill held up a hand for silence, pulling Python to a stop. “I hear an engine again.” She looked back, but saw no headlights. “I got a bad feeling. Let’s run some more.” They sped up, jogging along a track that seemed to go in the right direction. She had no idea how far the border was. It could be five hundred yards or five miles, but she knew it was close.

  The sound of a revving motor came louder and louder, but they still could not see anything. Stumbling over gorse and sage and other woody scrub, Jill caught a glimpse of something off to her right, movement and reflection in the light of the dairy behind them. It was a vehicle, some kind of light truck or SUV, running blacked out, jouncing over the rough terrain.

  “Border Patrol, I bet. They must have night vision goggles, or infrared,” Jill yelled. “Somehow they can see us. Get lower down, and ditch the sacks.” She crouched and ran that way, feeling the fire of straining muscles with a surfeit of lactic acid and without enough glycogen. Python followed behind, his breathing ragged.

  The sound of the engine steadied off to their right, not growing closer, but gradually getting around in front of them. “They’re trying to cut us off,” Jill panted. “Angle right. We’ll come across behind them. They won’t expect that.” They continued their bent-over scramble. Soon they seemed to be following in the wake of the hunting vehicle, and then it moved off to their left.

  A subwoofer pounding alerted Jill to another problem. “Helicopter,” she said. “They’ll have infrared for sure. Keep going. We have to keep going.” Python said nothing, the only sound his labored breathing.

  The aircraft arrived fast, from the northwest, the same direction from which the vehicle had come, probably from El Paso. Jill could see its running lights and strobe. Had she been armed, she might have used those markers to show them what fools they were, but as it was they hardly made a difference. The two could not run fast enough to dodge its range of vision.

  The aircraft roared over them at low altitude with a blast of rotor wash, then climbed a couple of hundred feet as it turned back. Undoubtedly it had spotted them, so Jill straightened up. “Run now! Fast as you can!” They sprinted over the broken ground, miraculously avoiding anything more than brief spills and the tearing of sharp-thorned shrubs.

  The helicopter came to a hover overhead and they saw the truck heading back for them, directed from above. Darkness loomed, and they thought all hope was gone, when the ground fell away in front of them. Suddenly they found themselves scrambling and rolling down a slope, toward an unnaturally flat stretch of ground in front of them.

  This was no impediment to the helicopter, which hung overhead like an unavoidable angel of doom, but the truck slammed to a stop at the edge of the semi-cliff and they could hear yelling as searchers dismounted.

  At the bottom of the slope, they bolted out into the open, only to find themselves suddenly ankle-deep, then up to their knees, in water. What they had thought was level ground in the darkness turned out to be river.

  “This is it!” Jill cried as she stripped off her hoodie. “Swim, Keith, swim!” She waded farther out, until she was up to her armpits.

  Checking backward, she noticed Python had stopped. “I lied, Jill,” he said in an agonized voice. “I can’t swim to save my life.”

  Irrationally, she came back toward him, frantica
lly trying to think of a way out of this mess. “Why didn’t you tell me? We could have tried to go across in town!”

  “It doesn’t matter. You have to get away. I deserve anything that happens to me, but you have to go!” He backed awkwardly to the shore, regaining dry ground where he stopped. “Go, swim, damn you! I’ll buy you some time, so don’t waste it. I love you Jill!” he cried, and then he was gone, running eastward along the shoreline.

  Her heart tore within her, but she could see the line of four or five armed border guards coming down the slope. He was right; it made no sense for both of them to get caught. She swore to herself that she would figure out a way to come back for him, to come back for all of the unjustly imprisoned people that a frightened nation had made its scapegoats. Then she turned back to the river.

  Shots rang out on the shoreline, and she turned to sidestroke, swimming so she faced eastward, straining to see what Python’s fate would be. A blaze of gunfire, muzzle flashes in the night, showed that either he had gone down fighting, or they were not interested in taking prisoners. Her tears mingled with the water that surrounded her.

  He said he couldn’t go back, but I have to believe he might be alive.

  Jill rolled over to begin a steady crawling stroke across the slow-flowing Rio Grande, when the first bullets smacked into the water near her. Startled, her training did not fail her as she gulped a breath and dove under, swimming frog-style beneath the surface. Suddenly, brightness blazed around her as the helicopter turned on its spotlight, its infrared now useless.

  She stayed under as long as she could, then popped up for a breath. More splashes in the water showed they definitely had given up on the idea of arrest, and would be content to kill her.

  Kill me for what? Escaping their clutches? It’s proof that genuine law has broken down, to use deadly force against someone who is no threat to them. Ironic, how the worm has turned: Americans frantically trying to make it into Mexico.

  One of the bullets poked hot into her calf, its momentum slowed but not stopped by two feet of water. Her lungs burned within her and she kicked off her cheap tennis shoes, all but wrecks now anyway. Another gulp of air and she stripped off the rest of her outer clothes, leaving nothing but bra and panties.

  Pushing herself as far as she had ever done, she stayed under until she had to rise, thankfully outside of the circle of the helo’s searchlight. Several deep breaths restored her somewhat, enough for another dozen yards beneath the surface. Then she did it again, and again, in increasing darkness. It appeared they had lost her, or given up.

  Coming to the surface to swim, she saw a low bank in front of her, and reached down with her foot to find the river bed. Something sharp stabbed a toe as she tried to get purchase, but she ignored it, just grateful to have made it to the other side. Once she reached the waterline, she stopped to rest, just lying there with her head in the dirt.

  Something rustled above her head, and she rolled over to look upward into the faintly dawning sky. The silhouette of a uniformed man with an M16 blocked her view as he bent over to look at her closely. “Hola, Señora. Bienvenidos a México.”

  Jill started to cry, whether from joy or grief or just exhaustion, she was not sure. The Spanish she had learned so long ago from her grandmother came back to her, well enough. “Gracias Señor. Solicito asilo en México por favor.”

  “Si, bella dama. Ven conmigo.” He held out his hand, and she took it.