Which is why she wasn’t overly concerned when dusk began to fall and Katie still hadn’t returned. But as darkness settled in, Lila found an uneasiness taking over. This was totally unlike Katie. Unless arrangements had been made ahead of time, she wouldn’t have spent the night at Sophie’s. She voiced her concern to Ben.
“I’ll take a ride over,” he said. “I’m sure she’s fine. They probably let the time get away from them. It’s getting darker earlier now. Maybe it caught them by surprise.”
“I know. I just have a feeling though. I can’t verbalize it, but it just doesn’t feel right. Please be careful.”
It had been a long time since Lila had uttered those words. It brought back scary memories for Ben. He saddled up Moose, hooked a strong flashlight to the pommel, and set off to Brenda’s house. It was only a mile and a half away, and the trail was wide and smooth, but it was a bit spooky making the ride at night. In general, they avoided night riding. Besides the danger of unseen branches or holes and the occasional nocturnal hunter, it was especially hard for Lila, putting a strain on her one good eye.
He arrived at Brenda’s house a short time later. Frank, Brenda’s husband, was pacing the porch. He looked up when he saw Ben, the disappointment obvious.
“Was hoping you were Brenda,” he said.
“Do you know where they went?” asked Ben.
“Said they were going to have a picnic over on West Slope. Was going to give them another ten minutes, then I was going to go look for them.”
“Let’s go together,” said Ben. “Go saddle up.”
West Slope was not on the official Yellowstone map. It had been named by the residents of Rock Creek. A gentle slope at the base of a rocky point, West Slope was a favorite picnicking spot, with beautiful views and lots of shade. It was a good place to observe herds of bison and elk. Less than four miles from Brenda’s house at the end of a well-worn trail, it would be difficult to get lost coming from or going to West Slope.
Once Frank was saddled, the two men took off down the trail, going more cautiously than they would in the light. They were hoping to run into the group somewhere along the way, but they arrived at their destination having seen no one.
Ben shone the flashlight around, seeing no traces of the picnickers.
“Over here,” called Frank.
Ben rode over to where Frank was standing next to his horse. Now the worry was real. Next to a large rock was a bag containing sandwiches and drinks—all untouched.
“What the hell is going on?” asked Frank, a hollow tone to his voice.
Ben didn’t answer. He was shining his light over the whole area, hoping to find a clue. When he saw it, his blood ran cold.
Mixed among the footprints and hoof prints in the dirt below the rock were very distinct tire tracks. As Ben raised his light, he saw the tracks trail away in the tall grass away from the picnic site.
A truck. Ben knew. A truck had taken his daughter. And there was no doubt where it was going. And now there was no doubt where Ben was going.
He was heading for Nebraska, and Nebraska was going to feel his wrath.
Chapter 26
“It’s time to go.”
The truth was, it was long past the time they should have gone. Aaron knew it, but he also knew that they couldn’t leave until Emily was ready. He held her as the tears rolled down her dark cheeks.
“I know,” she said, her voice choking. “It’s just going to be so hard to leave them.”
“Some will be coming with us.”
“But not all. What will happen to the kids left behind?”
“It’s not like they don’t have parents or families. They will adjust. It’s what we’ve all been doing for almost eight years—adjusting.”
She nodded. Even with the sorrow clearly etched in her face, Aaron found her beautiful. Born in Haiti, Emily came to the U.S. when she was three, her parents seeking a better life. Although they never found the pot of gold they were hoping for, they provided for and loved their daughter, allowing her to grow up in a stable home—even while living in the slums of New York. The proudest day in their life came the day their daughter graduated from Columbia with her degree in teaching. She stayed in New York working in the inner city—a young, idealistic, popular teacher.
She had an ever-so-slight accent, inherited from listening to her parents speak, as she had no memories herself of Haiti. Despite Emily being five years older than Aaron and much more cerebral, the spark was there from the moment they met. They were deeply in love. With the world the way it was, neither felt the need to get formally married—was there even such a thing anymore? Being together was enough for them. They knew it was for real and forever.
“Maybe by the time we go we can convince some of the others to come with us,” she suggested hopefully.
“I think we’ve put out enough feelers. Those who are going to come have already committed. So far we’ve been able to keep it quiet. I don’t hold out a lot of hope that it’ll stay that way much longer. That’s why we have to go soon—within the week.”
“What do you think will happen if the don finds out?” asked Emily.
It was a subject they had purposely avoided up until now. But it was a valid—and disturbing—question. What would the don do? He was clearly evil, a quality no one saw at first. Once people began to recognize the dark side of him, they just assumed he was unstable. Instability had certainly become part of the picture, but he also knew exactly what he was doing, and he was calculating enough to take his time in letting it come out.
He had fooled them all. He came into Paradise putting across a toughness and an organization sorely needed. He wasn’t popular—hardly a concern to him—and he wasn’t trusted by some, but the town was in disarray and everyone knew it. Someone needed to bring order or all of Baxter’s work—his dream to restore power—would be for naught.
So while he wasn’t liked, the townspeople saw him as a necessary evil. They just didn’t realize the depth of that evil. Even Aaron, his senses honed by his Marine training, failed to pick up that side of the don at first.
The truck convoys were sent out at first simply to gather supplies, so when the first few trucks arrived with newcomers to the town, they naturally thought the people in the trucks had come willingly. Truth was, in the beginning they did. They were told about the electricity and it was enough to convince most. After all, they had been without the conveniences of their former life far too long. They equated electricity with normalcy. Aaron even went on a few of those early supply runs. The survivors they ran into seemed so grateful to be invited to come back with them.
But things changed. Besides the goons the don had brought with him, he enlisted others of questionable repute. Some were from the gangs that roamed the countryside. An offer of regular food and shelter was enough for many of them to join his force. These men took over most of the truck runs. After that, Aaron began to notice that as the number of survivors who returned in the trucks began to increase, many of them seemed to object to having been brought there. And more recently, when he began to hear that force was being used, he knew it was time to leave. He couldn’t fight them, and he was concerned about Emily’s safety. He had wanted to go soon after the don came, and really wanted to leave with Sean. But Emily felt she would be abandoning her students. The town’s population had swelled to over five hundred, and somehow she was still the only teacher. She had forty students of varying ages to teach. What would happen to them if she left?
As sad as she was, Aaron knew she was finally ready. It would soon become dangerous, and they had no idea what the don had in store for the future.
Electricity had been restored. Lights worked. Refrigerators and electric stoves worked—though not all of them. The older the better—even some old VCRs with equally old TVs were working and people were watching movies and regaling in the nostalgia. DVD players and the newer TVs were still silent. It had something to do with the sophistication of the later circuit boards. Aaron
had been responsible for getting some of the electronics working, but he wasn’t sure many of them would ever work again. Even some of the ones old enough to work had rusted out over time.
There was also the question of the supplies that were brought in. There were freely distributed to the townspeople from a small warehouse—the “company store” some people began to call it—but even that was subtly changing. More and more, the residents were relying on that warehouse. They all had gardens, but were doing less hunting and gathering on their own. Aaron suspected that the don was counting on this growing reliance. Somewhere down the line, it was going to come back and bite the townspeople in the ass.
So yes, the town had electricity, but he was beginning to wonder if it was worth all the work. So much attention was being put on getting the town “on line,” something else was missing. It felt to him that everyone was trying too hard to relive the past.
Suddenly, a week wasn’t soon enough.
“We have to leave tomorrow or the next day,” he announced.
Emily cocked her head in a questioning way.
“A week might be too late. I can’t explain it. I just know it.”
“I believe you. I’ll teach class tomorrow while you let those who are coming know. We’ll leave tomorrow night. Can you steal the trucks?”
Aaron appreciated that when a decision was made, Emily was on board. Her tears were in the past. Now was the time for action.
But it was just a day too late. The next morning as Aaron and Emily were leaving the house, four of the don’s men met them at the door. As usual, they were well armed.
“Aaron, the don wants to see you.”
“It’ll have to be later. Tell him I’ll stop by.”
“Now.” The weapons came out.
They were serious.
“Can you give me a minute?”
“Nope. When he says now, he means now. Let’s go.”
He touched Emily’s hand, knowing that they had waited too long. The don had heard of their plans. Her face showed fear, and Aaron knew it wasn’t unfounded. Their chances of leaving now gone, that was no longer Aaron’s greatest concern. Knowing the don’s irrationality, he knew that Emily was afraid she’d never see him again.
Yeah, well that wasn’t going to happen. Aaron had led a quiet life in Paradise and had purposely stayed in the background. But it was time to step out of the background. He hadn’t become a Marine for the fun of it. He had prepared for life on the front lines in Afghanistan and was an expert marksman. More importantly for the situation he was probably about to face, he had become highly skilled in the martial arts. And in the Marines, you don’t learn the martial arts to win tournaments. You learn them for one simple purpose—to kill.
Chapter 27
Marco “the don” Bolli was a fraud. Not only was he not a don, he wasn’t even Marco Bolli. His real name was Henry Young. And now he was in trouble. He had gone too far, and he knew it. But there was no way to undo the damage. To reverse things now would make him appear weak and indecisive.
He never should have forced people to join his town. The real Marco Bolli would never have been so heavy-handed. Bolli had a grace about him. He could be vicious, but he could also be charming. People wanted to be around him. But Bolli was dead, killed in the event like so many others.
Henry Young was a two-bit thug who had worked for Bolli. More intelligent than most thugs, he had actually gone to college and had real goals. He saw the success that Bolli had enjoyed as a big-time Chicago mobster and wanted some of it for himself. In reality, Bolli wasn’t really a don. In fact, Henry didn’t even know if there had even been any old-style dons anymore. But if not, Bolli would have been the closest thing to it.
So when the “big bang”—as Henry called it—happened, and he found himself the only one of Bolli’s men alive, he did the logical thing. He became Marco Bolli. Bolli was well-known in Chicago, but not well-photographed, so it was simple to assume the role of Bolli. Who would know?
In the few months after the big bang, he ran across a number of surviving low-lifes who were desperate enough to latch onto someone with leadership qualities—especially Marco Bolli himself! Over the next few years, Henry made the transition from lowly thug to a man of power and respect. Since he really didn’t have the class and intelligence to do exactly what Bolli would have done in various situations, he winged it. And it worked. After all, he had long since convinced everybody that he was Bolli, so why wouldn’t they accept any decision he made?
Eventually he heard about Paradise and he knew it was for him. He was bored in the suburbs—he had vacated Chicago early on for a magnificent mansion in Lake Forest. There was nothing to do any more and no way to flaunt his power. And he liked to flaunt his power. His followers were getting restless and in time he would lose his control over them. He needed a new challenge. More importantly, he craved the electricity that a move to Paradise promised. Frankly, this new world sucked big-time. He wanted some conveniences, starting with electricity. He had accumulated a small fleet of older trucks, thanks to a nearby military base, and he had the foresight to recognize the importance of stockpiling gasoline. So his fleet included tanker trucks filled to the brim with gas.
When he made the decision to head to Paradise, his troops were ready. He told them the stories he had heard about the electricity, and promised them that he would take over the town, making sure his loyal followers reaped the benefits.
When he arrived in Paradise, he played it well, coming on as strong and decisive, while managing to piss off as few people as possible. It was quite easy, really, to take over the town. It was already in a chaotic state. Everyone wanted control, but all had a different opinion as to the direction the town should take. Henry—as Bolli—swooped in with his little army and made some quick decisions. Everyone seemed happy with a strong leader.
The problem came when Henry started to suffer from the paranoia often associated with power. It was easy for him to take over the town, but the town was still small—just a few hundred residents. What if someone even stronger, with an even larger force than Henry had, heard about the electricity and wanted in on the deal? The logic of that fear was baseless—ridiculous, really—but when you lived your whole life in a profession filled with paranoia, logic went out the window. And Henry realized too late that that was the difference between him and the real Marco. Marco would have taken in the whole situation and would have developed the town slowly, relying on his charisma and intelligence to develop loyalty. He would have known that the chances of an even larger force than his own showing up would be pretty implausible, judging by the state of the landscape after the earthquakes. No, the real Marco Bolli wouldn’t have botched it up. The fake one had.
What began as supply-gathering forays and scouting missions to recruit new town members eventually turned into instances of kidnapping. Power was in numbers, so the larger the population of Paradise, the less likely Henry would have a fight on his hands with some outside force. It had even worked at first. Many of the people brought to Paradise against their wishes actually ended up happy they had come, their memories of life with electricity rekindled. It gave him the confidence that he was right in his decision.
But then his goons became more aggressive and some lives were lost. Things were getting out of control. When a couple of his patrols failed to return—including the large one he sent to Monett—fear set in and he began to make stupid decisions. He was losing his grip, not just on his authority, but to some extent on his own sanity. It was inevitable, though. He was never prepared to be a leader of so many, and the pressure had finally taken its toll. But the greater the paranoia became, the less he was content in ruling a town. No, he needed more territory under his control, and it didn’t matter how he obtained it.
And now he was hearing rumors that some were planning to leave Paradise. He wasn’t going to let that happen. If he let them go, the decision might someday come back to haunt him. They could use their knowledge of the t
own to get back at it—at him—with others. Supposedly the ringleader was Aaron, the one person in town he steered clear of. The one person he had feared from the very beginning. Aaron had never been a problem, but he had a quiet strength that bothered Henry, the strength of a real leader. If he allowed Aaron to defect with a group, it could destroy Henry’s control over the town. And he could never allow that to happen. He had sent his men to get Aaron and put an end to the defection. Now Henry's only question was: "What do I do with him?"
Chapter 28
Katie wasn’t scared. In fact, she couldn’t really remember ever being scared. She looked over at Sophie and her mom and couldn’t understand why they were crying. Not that she had never cried before. She cried once when she fell down a steep slope of rocks. She cried when Ralph got hurt on their trip and when her dad fell in the big hole. And she cried when the fire drove them from their home. But it wasn’t for the house burning down, it was for all the animals who died in the fire. Her mom said a lot of the animals escaped, but she knew it wasn’t true. It made her so sad.
But not this. Katie knew they weren’t really in danger. It wasn’t just because the men had assured them of it, but she had heard her mom and dad talking about the men and the trucks many times with Sean. She also remembered the men in the other trucks by the ravine. Her dad had talked to her about that afterwards. She also heard all the noise when the trucks came to their town.
No, she wasn’t scared. She wasn’t even really angry. She grew up in the woods. Things happened. Her dad always taught her that she shouldn’t panic. She should just look for a way to solve the problem. She knew from experience that part of the problem would be solved for her. They were taking her away from her mom and dad and from her new home. Her mom and dad wouldn’t be very happy about that. Not at all.
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