But she’d go on. Because she was just too stubborn not to.
By three a.m. she was dragging. It only then occurred to her that she’d not only been up the entire previous day. But she’d also spent the day doing physical labor. And she’d only gotten a few precious hours’ sleep before that. Her body was spent, and so was her mind.
She had to admit that traversing the desolate highway, unable to see clearly, and with her defenses down, was a bad idea.
She found a ridge, overlooking the highway and a bit above it. She hiked up to it and entered the forest there, then walked into the forest about fifty feet until she found a tiny clearing. She could smell a stream nearby, although she wouldn’t be able to find it until morning light. She knew it would be a good source of water the next morning, and hopefully had some fish for her breakfast. For although she’d made sure that Beth had plenty of food and water within the house to sustain her until Red’s return, Red had brought precious little food and water with her.
It wasn’t an oversight. She preferred to travel light. She could move faster that way, a lighter backpack was less strain on her body, and she’d never had any problem living off the land.
She unrolled her bed roll and took the tiny blanket that was rolled up inside of it. Had it been a cool night, she’d have covered herself with her blanket and laid her head upon her crooked arm. But it was a warm night, so she chose instead to ball the blanket up and use it for a pillow.
She took off her boots and set them aside. Then her socks, so her blisters could breathe a bit.
She was asleep within five minutes, and within ten was dreaming of little Rusty.
The early afternoon sun, peeking through the treetops and warming her face, brought her back to the living. Red opened one pasty eye and looked skyward, estimating it to be around two o’clock or so.
She’d slept in the same position, never rolling or moving, the entire time. Her muscles ached from the lack of mobility, and she groaned as she rolled over, then tried to get comfortable. She only wanted a little bit more sleep. Not much, just a little…
Two hours later she awoke with a start, and the realization that if she were going to eat supper, she’d best get up and start looking for it.
“Damn, is this what it feels like to be old?”
Every muscle in her body ached as she sat up atop the hard bed roll, placed the same dirty socks back on her feet, then checked her boots for insects or snakes and eased her sore feet into them.
The blisters had hardened as she slept. She knew they’d soften when she got up and walked around, but would be tender for the first half hour or so.
She walked stooped, like an old woman, as she walked over to a tree and turned her back to it. She dropped her jeans and squatted, leaning back against the trunk for support, as she relieved herself. The stronger than normal aroma of her urine told her without even looking at it that she was dehydrated.
She went to her backpack, took out a bottle of water and chugged it down, only stopping twice to catch her breath. Then she took out another and sipped at it as she walked farther into the woods, down the ridge and to the area where she knew she’d find the stream.
By six p.m. she was sitting next to a small campfire, roasting a small rabbit over a spit and waiting for her small pot of boiled water to cool so she could transfer it into the empty water bottles.
The stream had held no fish, but the unfortunate bunny who paused there long enough to get a drink would fill her stomach for another night.
As she ate alone she looked up at the sky and pondered some things. Life and the frailty of it. Justice, and what it meant, and whether it was really more important than merely surviving from day to day.
And whether she was crazy for leaving behind yet another vulnerable person she cared about, just so she could pursue that justice.
She finally decided she wasn’t out for justice at all. She was out for vengeance, pure and simple.
And it wasn’t just vengeance for her father, or for her family.
No, she sought vengeance for all the vulnerable people of the world. The Beths and Milams. People like the young girl Sarah, who’d been as sweet as molasses and who’d had her throat cut for no reason. People like the nameless and faceless who were shot down in great numbers because marauders found it easier to pick jewelry and coins off of dead bodies than to rob people at gunpoint.
Even people like Crazy Eddie, who had the capability to defend himself but who succumbed to someone who’d gotten the drop on him.
Or who sneaked up behind him, like a thief in the night.
Perhaps that’s what it was. Perhaps she wasn’t a seeker of justice at all. Perhaps she was little more than an avenger who acted on behalf of those who could no longer act.
Or who were too timid and scared.
In the end, it didn’t matter much. She had nothing better to do with her time, other than mourn her losses and long for the time when the world was a better place. And she knew she wouldn’t stop fighting for the little guy, the oppressed and senselessly murdered, until she could rid that world of as much evil as she possibly could.
It didn’t matter what title she put on it. She was in it for the long haul.
As the sky turned a deep orange and the sun started to dip below the treetops, she picked the last bits of meat from the last bones of her rabbit and kicked dirt onto her campfire to douse it.
Then she poured her water into the empty bottles and packed up her gear.
Ready for another night on the road, a few more miles closer to Lubbock, and her mission… whatever it was.
Chapter 49
Three nights later Red passed the city of Slaton. She could have gone into town, perhaps bought some supplies, maybe had a drink at a local saloon and asked about Luna.
But she decided that was unnecessary.
She was still hunting or fishing for her food, and still eating well. She still had band-aids and ointment for her blistered toes and heels. Still found water sources every day or so to refill her bottles.
The night before, though, she’d splurged a bit.
She came across a big red tractor trailer which had been carrying pallets of soda from the bottler to Slaton when the power had gone out. The truck had died, like so many of the others, on the right lane of the highway, miles from anywhere.
Had it been passing through a town or city at the time, it would have been picked through long before.
But because it was so far from civilization, it had been mostly spared.
Not completely, for several nomads had grabbed a few bottles each on their way through.
And Red would do the same, discarding the empty bottles she’d been boiling water to refill, and replacing them with as many unopened bottles as she could stuff into her bag.
It would be very heavy upon her back for the next couple of nights, but would lighten a bit with every bottle she drank. She’d save time and energy searching for creeks or streams, and wouldn’t have to wait each night for her water to boil and then cool.
Best of all, for the next three or four nights she’d be able to drink water that didn’t have the flavor or aroma of pond scum.
For even though the boiling made the water safe to drink, it couldn’t rid it of the reminders of where it came from.
Bottled water from the truck was a taste of heaven.
But that wasn’t how she’d splurged.
Red hadn’t had a soda since a couple of weeks after the blackout. That had been a good year before. Within two weeks, with the water plant not functioning in Blanco, every single bottle and can of water, soda and beer in Blanco had been consumed or socked away.
There simply wasn’t any more to be had.
Now, Red was never much of a soda drinker. But she did enjoy one occasionally, back in the good old days when the world was normal.
The one she had while sitting on the back of the open truck was amazing. After a year it was still bubbly and refreshing. A bit stale, perhaps, bu
t not so much so it wasn’t worth drinking.
So she had another. And then another. And when she finally stepped back onto the highway to resume her journey, heavy pack full of water on her back, her hands were full of cola bottles.
As she walked down the asphalt toward Lubbock she was many things.
A bit giddy from the massive intake of sugar.
A bit gaseous, having to belch constantly because of the carbonated water.
A bit melancholy, missing the days when a rare thing like a soda wasn’t so rare. When even though she seldom wanted one, she knew it was available on demand when she did.
The good old days. When the world was normal, and not quite so mean.
She came across a green highway sign on the east side of Slaton that caught her eye. She was able to read it because of its reflective white letters, catching just enough moonlight to make the words glow.
It said:
LUBBOCK: 15 MILES
Red did some quick reckoning. She’d been averaging twelve miles a night, which wasn’t bad for someone without a horse and with sore and blistered feet. And she had half a night ahead of her.
By the end of the next night, she’d be in Lubbock. She had no clue what awaited her. It might be victory, it might be death.
It might be neither.
But whatever it was, it was drawing nearer and nearer with each step she took.
And it made her something else. Something that had nothing at all to do with the soda she’d binged on.
It made her excited.
Chapter 50
In Lubbock, at the precise time Red was bedding down for what would be her last day on the road, Jesse Luna was meeting with a man named Mike Townsend.
Lubbock was decimated after the blackout, even more than other area cities. Many of the city’s residents chose suicide in the days and weeks after the lights went out, finding that option easier than having to grow crops and hunt for their own day to day survival.
And Lubbock was delivered a second punch, as a plague swept through the area the summer flowing the crisis.
That, too, was common among cities of any size, not just in the United States but around the world.
The problem was that Lubbock was slammed harder than almost every other city of comparable size in the country.
The virus sprung up from rotting bodies, suicide victims with no one left to bury them or dispose of them. First responders tried to keep up with them but were overwhelmed, and thousands of bodies just lay where they died, decomposing on city streets and in houses across the city.
Mosquitoes did their part, sucking the blood from the still warm victims and transferring it to live souls. Flies did the same thing, spreading the virus near and far.
Between the suicides and the plague victims, only eight percent of the city survived.
No one knew why the city at the bottom of the Texas panhandle was so hard hit. But everyone seemed to have an opinion.
Lubbock had always been a church town, and ultra conservative. One of the most conservative cities in arguably the most conservative state in the nation. People in Lubbock loved their God and weren’t afraid to broadcast it to the world.
Non-believers claimed the city was almost wiped out because the devil had a direct hand in it. That Satan wanted to punish Lubbock for its godly ways.
The believers who were still alive went the other way. They argued that despite having more churches per capita than almost any other city in the country, Lubbock wasn’t Godly enough. That they didn’t pray hard enough to be spared the sun’s wrath. And they therefore felt the full brunt of it.
While most of the survivors were busy pointing fingers at one another and arguing about whose fault it was, a handful of unscrupulous men started making moves.
Moves to consolidate power amongst themselves by taking advantage of the fact that the Lubbock Police Department no longer existed. And that there was no one to stop them from murdering at will to help them consolidate their empires.
But they would get no blood on their own hands. Heaven forbid they’d have to explain their actions at the Pearly Gates themselves someday.
Rather, they were putting the word out far and wide that Lubbock’s powerbrokers were paying good money for outside help to rid them of their adversaries and competitors.
Mike Townsend was a cattleman, and as such was one of the most powerful of the thugs running the city.
Before the blackout, Lubbock was run by three distinct groups. The oilmen competed against the cattle barons, and the politicians tried their best to skirt the limits of the law to take care of their own cronies and secure their own futures. It was a system which worked well for many decades.
The blackout and its ensuing plague pretty much did away with the politicians. There was no longer a need for oil, since cars and power plants no longer worked. Beef, on the other hand, was always in great demand, and was even more so since all the supermarkets closed down.
Mike Townsend became king of Lubbock overnight. His ranches were the largest, and contained the greatest number of head.
But biggest wasn’t good enough. He saw the new cattle boom not as something to be shared, but rather to be fought for. Other cattlemen who’d been his friends and allies for many years were suddenly enemies.
And threats to his expansion plans.
So he sent word, through a series of preppers with ham radios and then dedicated messengers in horseback, to locate a man he’d heard of but never met.
And the message he sent to the man was simple: Come to Lubbock and meet with me. I need your particular brand of services. And I have a stack of gold as high as your head to trade for it.
Chapter 51
Townsend poured himself two fingers of Glenlivet and offered his guest some.
“I’m a whisky man, Mr. Townsend, and thank you.”
“As you wish. Ice?”
“Ice would be nice. Thank you.”
Luna couldn’t remember the last time he’d had whisky on the rocks. Ice was something that had become virtually nonexistent since the blackout. But not, apparently, for Mr. Townsend.
“How long ago did word get to you that I was looking for you, Mr. Luna?”
“Not long. Maybe a month. I’d have been here sooner, but I had business in a little town not far from Austin. Why me, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Because you were willing to travel. And because you came highly recommended by some of our mutual acquaintances. And mostly because you’re unknown around here. My targets are all looking over their shoulders. Watching out for others that are known or suspected to be in your particular line of work. You can move freely in and around Lubbock without people suspecting that you’re gunning for them. And that will not only make your job easier. It’ll make it much more likely you’ll be successful.”
“What, exactly, is my job?”
“They’ve started calling me the King of Lubbock. I wasn’t the one who started it, but I have to say I like the title. They call me that because I have the biggest ranch in the county. And all the surrounding counties as well.
“But I don’t want to be the biggest rancher, Mr. Luna. I want to be the only rancher. It’s easier for me to control the price of my beef if I don’t have to compete with other cattlemen.
“Most of them saw the writing on the wall and accepted my offers to buy them out. They were smart. They accepted what I offered to pay them and got out of the business. And they’re living relatively luxurious lives, with a lot fewer headaches and a lot less stress. They realize that I actually did them a favor. They no longer have to worry about rustlers and poachers and strange men coming to do them harm.
“But there are a handful of holdouts. Men in Lubbock County, or in Hockley and Hale counties to our west and north. Men who say they like the cattle business too much to give it up. Or who’ve been on their land for generations and don’t want to sell it.
“Those men are standing in my way of being the only cattle ranch
er in the area. They are undercutting my prices and therefore cutting into my profits. And that, to me, is unacceptable.”
Luna looked around the expansive office, and recounted what he’d seen of the house thus far.
It was luxuriously outfitted, with the finest furnishings and servants at every turn. Maids scurrying about, trying to capture every little bit of dust as soon as it hit a table. Fine art and sculpture, and delectable smells emanating from a kitchen where not two, but three private chefs labored. Where others had learned to do without, this mansion had everything. Electricity, security, and women. Everything a man of means could want and hope for.
Except, maybe, for the exclusivity of being the only setup of its kind. That, apparently, required that the competition which couldn’t be bought out had to be taken out.
“I’m your man, Mr. Townsend. Shall we talk terms and specifics?”
Townsend laughed.
“I like you, Mr. Luna. You’re like me. Frivolous talk is well and good when you’re at a dinner party. When you’re at a business meeting, you should keep the mindless chatter to a minimum and get down to business. Otherwise you’re wasting everybody’s time.”
He handed Luna a glass of whisky and walked over to his desk. From the top drawer he took a red folder and handed it to Luna.
Luna sipped the whisky and placed it on the table beside him.
He opened the folder and found eight by ten photographs of twelve men.
He picked up the first one and examined it carefully. It was a studio portrait of a graying Hispanic man, probably in his late sixties. He looked a bit like Desi Arnez.
Across the bottom of the photograph was a white label with the man’s name and probable location:
Richard Sanchez Four S Ranch, South of Tahoka
Townsend explained.
“Those men represent my competition, and the only things standing in the way of my dreams. For me to really be the King of Lubbock, they have to be done away with. Each of them has been offered a generous amount of money for their land and cattle, and has refused.
Too Tough To Tame: Red: Book 2 Page 16