The Last Pilgrims

by Michael Bunker

  He was always amazed at how much “stuff” was really usable, but instead was quite invisible to people who didn’t know how to think.

  As he approached the rear of the building that once housed the motel office, he stepped onto a thin paving stone—about two feet square—that was almost completely covered over with weeds and debris. The stone made an interesting hollow sound, so he reached down carefully and flipped it over, nearly laughing aloud again as he found himself peering down into an underground cistern that was nearly 2/3 full of good water. He looked towards the office, which was one of the few buildings that still had a roof, and saw where steel roof gutters—still intact—ran into the ground, and obviously terminated into this cistern. He smiled to himself inwardly in his amusement.

  They were in the borderlands of the Chihuahuan Desert at this time, and the people who originally built these structures were quite industrious, and would have taken advantage of even the sparse amount of rainfall received in the area. He figured that, conservatively, there were probably 40 to 50 similar cisterns in the immediate vicinity of the town.

  He stepped out behind the office to urinate, and, when he had finished, he walked back by the cistern, stopping to replace the paving stone over the hole. Once he had the stone back in place, he kicked the dirt and debris back over it, and, satisfied that he had obscured the cistern, he looked back up to find Troy leaning against the cinderblock wall about 30 feet away, watching him with a “now we’ve got a secret” smile on his face. After a few seconds of eye-contact, and without a word, Troy turned around, walked along the poolside without giving it a second look, and strolled back into the building they had chosen as their home for the night.

  The third day of his captivity dawned cold and fair, and despite the emptiness of his belly, and the burning thirst in his throat and mouth, he felt strong and alive. It had gotten quite cold overnight in the desert, and, although he knew it was going to be very hot throughout the day, he was glad when the first rays of warm sunlight arrived to take the chill off of the morning.

  Troy’s suggestion that they leave early in order to take advantage of the cool of the morning was gruffly vetoed by Leo, and Jonathan was not at all surprised when it was already after 9 a.m. and growing hot when they finally got underway.

  The horses had not recovered much, and before long the heat of the morning began bearing down on man and beast, amplifying the effects of dehydration and hunger.

  By noon they had reached the ghost town of Texon, Texas, an old oil-boom town that had already been abandoned—other than by a handful of souls—even before the collapse. Remarkably, though Texon was a ghost town, many of the buildings in the old town were still standing and in moderately good repair. It’s as if someone has been maintaining the place, Jonathan thought.

  His suspicions were realized when they saw an old man, walking with the help of an ironwood cane, come out of the old service station to meet them.

  He noticed that the old man was particularly lively despite his age and the fact that he was obviously quite blind. Jonathan felt his heart go out in immediate concern for the man, especially when Leo approached him with a smile on his face.

  “Well, howdy, Old-Timer!” Leo shouted, as he dismounted.

  “Howdy to y’all,” the old man replied. “You don’t sound like militia… and if ya be traders, I’ve nothing to trade for right now, so ya might just be on your way.”

  “Easy, old man,” Leo responded sharply. “We need water for these men and for our horses, and we’ll decide if you have anything worth taking.”

  The old man leaned on his stick, his face pointed down, and he sighed deeply before he responded. “Ahh. I see… more looters. When will y’all realize I got nothin’ left to steal?”

  “Where’s the water, old man?” Leo demanded.

  “There’s some water in the box over yonder,” he indicated with the stick, “where the downspout runs off the roof. Take what ‘ya need, but please don’t mess with the box on account of it’s my only source of water.”

  Leo walked up and poked the man heavily in the chest, sending him hobbling backwards a few steps. “You don’t tell us what to do! We tell you what to do!”

  “Take it easy, Leo.” Troy said, with obvious disgust in his voice.

  “YOU don’t tell me what to do either, punk!”

  “We’re not all looters, sir,” Jonathan offered. “I’ve been kidnapped and am currently being held captive by these men.”

  The old man looked up, blindly trying to gauge where Jonathan was, his head moving from right to left. In a moment it seemed that he had figured it out because he stared directly at him, smiling an almost toothless smile. “Well, then!” he said, his smile growing even wider, “you must be Jonathan Wall! I say it is great to meet ya, sir. I’ve heard great things about ya and I’ve been expectin’ ya!”

  Leo stopped in his tracks upon hearing this and shook his head before turning around. “What?”

  The old man turned back to Leo. “What, what?”

  “What did you say? How did you know that this man is Jonathan Wall?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I should have said something earlier when ya first arrived. My apologies, then.”

  “What the heck are you talking about, old man?” Leo exclaimed.

  The old man gestured with his thumb over his shoulder towards the service station office. “Them folks has been waitin’ for him.”

  As the last words escaped the old man’s mouth, and as Leo turned to look towards the office, a knife plunged into the kidnapper’s chest, throwing him backwards and onto his back.

  Sensing what was happening, Jonathan—just as he had done with the post-rider bearing the letter to the King of the South States—reached over and with one lightning quick movement, threw an unsuspecting Troy to the ground, immediately covering the young man with his own body.

  Arrows thudded into Atticus, knocking him over, as the old man leaned on his staff, listening and nodding his head in approval. The Aztlani soldier died still completely unaware of what was going on around him.

  Jonathan was yelling by this time, and it took a few seconds for the attackers to realize that the leader of the Vallenses was trying to save the young kidnapper’s life. When The Hood ran up with his bow at the ready, peering down the length of an arrow set to fly, Jonathan saw a quizzical look cross the militia freeman’s face.

  “Everyone calm down,” Jonathan yelled. “Nobody kills this one… I think he might be one of us.”

  Chapter 22 - Rollo

  They all thought that they were so smart. That is the trouble with them, he thought, they think they are the smartest people in the world. All he had to do is run down a list of all the mistakes they’d made to prove that they weren’t as good as they seemed to be.

  Phillip had allowed a spy to attack a prisoner who was in his custody. Rollo smiled at that thought. Getz the spy was the man who had recruited him in the first place. He never had liked Getz and was glad that the man was dead. Silly old fool had accomplished nothing with his sacrifice except to make Phillip look weak.

  Phillip had also let his wife and daughters get taken by Aztlan; then, with all of his resources he had let an entire Aztlani army sneak around him and butcher the Vallenses who were camped up by Comanche. Then he let Jonathan get taken from right under his nose. Fools.

  Worst of all was the fact that Phillip had never sniffed out the spy in his own leadership! Arrogant leaders are always susceptible to one glaring weakness… they always believe and trust in the loyalty of their inner circle. That’s why they always fail. When I’m a baron… I’ll trust no one.

  Rollo had risen up fast in the ranks of the militia due to his wit, his ruthlessness, and his ability to be in the right place at the right time. At first, he was just a mostly loyal mercenary, a hireling who fought with the militia just as he would have fought with anyone else who paid him well. Before long, though, the adulation and adoration that Phillip constantly received from the m
en started to grate on him. He silently sneered at the thought of it. The “Ghost” was just a fallible old man. Sure, Phillip was skilled, and he fought with some sense of purpose and honor; but all of that was just emotional nonsense. Phillip’s infatuation with the Vallenses had turned him into a puppet to his own emotions and affections. Emotional attachment had no place in the bosom of a warrior.

  Just when his resentment against Phillip had reached its peak… that was when Getz had approached him— recruiting him as a spy for Aztlan. Getz promised to pay handsomely—Aztlani gold now, lands and servants and titles once the Vallenses could be wiped out and erased from Central Texas. Getz had, by the authority of the King of Aztlan, promised him a barony, if, when the time was right, he would cut off the head of the rebellion.

  In the meantime, he had served Aztlan well. It was he who had told the escaping spies where to find Phillip’s wife. He had been the one who had suggested the plan of drawing Phillip away from Bethany, and of the diversionary attack on that village in order to get the main Aztlani force out to the east without it being noticed. He had been somewhat disappointed in the loss of that army, and he had hoped to be able to warn Aztlan of Phillip’s plan of defense; but the attackers had served their purpose well by killing off over 2,000 of the Vallenses before they all died. Every bit of cancer that could be excised from his lands was a step forward in his opinion.

  Cutting off the head. That meant engaging in a bold stroke by taking out the four major impediments to an overwhelming Aztlani victory. Three of those impediments—Phillip, David, and the rebellious Crown Prince Gareth—were now dead. They have to be. Two shots from a pistol, and some hemlock slipped into a cup of tea, and the brains of the resistance were now gone. I wish I could have watched Phillip die.

  The plan hadn’t gone off perfectly. He had hoped to use his first bullet on Phillip from point-blank range. But Gareth, who had always been a bit suspicious, had figured out the plot at the last moment. Too late for Gareth, though, because he had already taken a drink of the hemlock tea before he had realized what was happening; but, as Rollo had run out to meet David and Phillip, Gareth had shouted to them from his window. That meant that he had needed to shoot before he was really ready to do so. He could not let Phillip have even a second or two of warning. The man was way too dangerous if he knew what was coming. So, rather than shoot Phillip first—which he had hoped to do—and because of their positions and his shooting angle, his first shot had hit David square in the middle of the chest. Center mass. The second shot had hit Phillip lower and towards his right side. Both shots had been significant enough to knock the rider off of his horse. Three down… one to go.

  He fled to the horse he had packed and waiting for him by the barn. The confusion going on near the front of the house had been a perfect diversion for his getaway. With one posse off searching for Jonathan, and the whole leadership of the militia now in question, Rollo doubted if another posse could be raised and on his trail very quickly. He would finish his job and be on the way to New Rome before they could possibly catch up to him.

  He found the posse at Harmony, where he had expected them to be. He had laughed. Anyone trained by Phillip was completely predictable if you knew what to expect. Militia thinking was so regimented and regular that their biggest weakness was a result of their biggest strength. They all thought like Phillip, and therefore he knew exactly where they would be by the time he arrived.

  Now his challenge was to keep the group from being suspicious of him, and to find a way to accomplish his fourth task without getting killed. He’d hate to lose out on the barony and all of the benefits of being a noble, just because he’d let his guard down or did something stupid.

  The posse was heading out to track Jonathan and his captors when he arrived at Harmony. With a new, fresh horse, he was ready to ride with them in minutes.

  The party was an interesting one. Jonathan Wall’s own daughter Ruth was part of the party. Too bad for her that she’s a part of this. She should have stayed home with Ana and the rest of the Vallenses, he thought. Not that that would save her for very long. With the head of the resistance serpent cut off, the rest of the creature would die soon enough. Surely another, larger, Aztlani army was headed this way. The militia and the Vallenses would be sitting ducks without Phillip, David, or Gareth to lead them.

  Hood was here. He was a good man and a good warrior, but was just too blinded by his own loyalty to know that he was fighting for the losing side. Rob Fosse was here too. Rob was Phillip’s best friend, and probably was the man most likely to take over the reins of the militia now that Phillip was dead… so he’d have to go too. Call him the fifth casualty of the decapitation of the resistance. And then there was this Marbus Claim boy and the young man named Timothy. Harmless orphans, for the most part. The Mountain didn’t know the Claim boy very well, and Timothy seemed to be a dreamer and not much of a threat. The two militia boys might live through this if they knew when to cut and run. If not, they’ll die for militia honor too.

  The one guy he had to watch out for, and that he did not want to mess with, was Piggy. Piggy was Phillip times two. Phillip had been raised by the world, and had become a militiaman as a grown man. By contrast, over 20 years younger, Piggy had been raised in the militia and it was his natural home and environment. Most militiamen were good fighters with strong minds and strong wills. Piggy was an apex predator. He had a mind that would dwarf some geniuses, yet he was completely at home and happy in the somewhat simple and structured militia world. As opposed to Piggy, Phillip was just a genius. Piggy was a phenomenon. Phillip was a deadly and efficient fighter. Piggy was a demon. Rollo himself had been forced to fight with Piggy during a training session. It had not gone well for The Mountain, he remembered all too well. No man - not any militia man—not even Phillip—had remained standing for more than 10 seconds when going into training combat with Piggy. Then, he had seen Piggy in battle. He was a force, an efficient and effective killing machine, an entire front of his own.

  Piggy was a renaissance man, an artist and a poet, and probably the deadliest man Rollo had ever even heard of. He was a military Michaelangelo who could kill his enemies while painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling and not even sense any disconnect between the relative moral values of the two acts. He did not seem to struggle with philosophical concepts like death and life and meaning. He just knew. He existed in this complicated and dangerous world as confidently as a giant oak or a rainbow. Piggy just was. And any man who would come against Piggy did so at his own peril. Someone might try to sneak up on him or get the drop on him, like I did with Phillip, but I wouldn’t… not if I want to live. Piggy was going to be a big bone to be chewed. The biggest.

  As they tracked westward during the late afternoon on the 2nd day after Jonathan’s abduction, it became very clear that the posse’s task was going to be much, much easier than they had originally thought. Timothy told him that on the first day, the captors had made really good time. Because of this, they had basically given up hope of actually catching them in the desert. The posse had left Harmony resigned and expecting to have to try to rescue Jonathan from some cell in the castle at El Paso.

  After finding a couple of dead horses, and the obvious trail being left behind by the pastor of the Vallenses, the posse had figured out that they were dealing with complete ignoramuses, and that they would probably catch up with the Aztlani party overnight.

  Rollo shook his head as he checked off the list of grave errors made by the kidnappers. First, they had decided to take the direct route to El Paso. While that might sound like a good idea, it was a horrible one. The straight route was terribly hazardous, and for that reason it was the route the militia always used. The posse would know every inch of the trail and the route, while the kidnappers were completely ignorant of hazards, as well as where to find water, shade, or a place to rest.

  Second, the kidnappers were trying too hard to make good time and in doing so they were slowing themselves way down. They
had killed a couple of their horses, and now they were evidently on foot. A slower, circuitous route would have made tracking them infinitely more difficult.

  Third, no one was watching the captive. Jonathan Wall was marking his trail so well that he might as well have left signs with giant arrows on them. The kidnappers were making no effort at all to obscure their trail.

  Fourth, the captors had been traveling hard by day—obviously leaving late in the morning as the day got the hottest—and quitting just as the cool desert night temperatures set in. They were doing the opposite of what they ought to be doing. By contrast, the posse had travelled by night, slept underground most of the second day, and had only left Harmony around 4 hours before sundown. Now, as the sun was beginning to set, they would plan on travelling all night, but by the look of things, they would be upon their prey sometime after midnight.

  He had to admit, Aztlani soldiers were stupid compared to the well-trained and well-ordered militia forces. Aztlan won engagements only when they could present superior numbers and could stumble into some element of surprise, which almost never happened. Rollo attributed the epidemic of stupidity and sloth among the Aztlani army to their comfortable and consumptive upbringing, and their education in Aztlani schools. They were relics of the time before the crash. Aztlan had learned few lessons from the old world.

  Now that he was knowledgeable of the means, methods, and training regimen of the militia, he planned on raising his own army once he received his barony in Central Texas. Who knows? Maybe he would get strong enough and declare his own kingdom in Texas! Defeating Aztlan would be easy enough, if only he had the manpower to do it.

  For now, he was stuck working for the King of Aztlan, and he needed to figure out a way to do his duty without being killed by the likes of Piggy.