“Hey.”
“You didn’t sign up for this, and it makes me angry.” He closed the medical pack with a jerk and stuffed it into his backpack. “Not to mention I put us in harm’s way by thinking I could take on Hugo.”
“You didn’t know for certain who we were taking on.”
“But I should have.”
“You know, Gabe, it would be nice if you were perfect.” She waited until his eyes met hers. “No doubt we’d get there faster and have fewer problems. Unfortunately, last time I checked, we’re all human. So how about you give yourself a break?”
Instead of answering, he stood and reached for her hand to pull her up from the ground. Then they walked to where the others were waiting.
TWENTY
It was fortunate they arrived at dinnertime, and the fact that Gus’s group shared their beef stew said a lot about what type of people they were.
“Actually, it’s squirrel stew,” Gus said.
“Tastes great.” Bianca scraped the last bit from her bowl. “Nearly as good as my mamá cooked.”
Max thought a look of longing passed over her face, and he wondered fleetingly how she was dealing with losing both parents so close to one another. But at that moment, Bianca looked up into Patrick’s eyes, smiled, and accepted his last bite of stew. Bianca would be fine, and Patrick? He was a good man to have the faith and dedication to take on such a thing as a marriage at this point in their lives.
Or maybe Max had that backward. If there was ever a time to commit to one another, it was now.
He stared down into his empty stew bowl, and then he glanced up at Gus. It was incredibly kind of them to share what food they had. Unless they’d poisoned it.
But why bring them all the way here to kill them?
Gus could have left them back at the ambush site. Hugo would have found them soon enough.
The RVs blocked the worst of the north wind, and a small campfire blazed in the middle of the group. Max had no doubt that it couldn’t be seen from the opposite bank. This group wasn’t messing around. They even had mesh stretched over the top of the entire encampment.
“So it can’t be seen from above.” Gus grinned like a proud father.
“But…there aren’t any planes.”
“No, but we’re halfway down this riverbank, and though we’re tucked in, if the sun shines at a certain angle, you can make something out from either the top of this bank or the opposite side.”
The group consisted of eight RVs and eighteen adults, almost equally split between men and women. There were an unknown number of kids. Unknown because the young ones were passed from lap to lap, making it difficult to count, and the middle-aged ones were playing a raucous but silent game of freeze tag. Other than Decker and Jack, Max didn’t see any other teenagers.
Surprisingly, the leader wasn’t Gus. It was Hauk.
“H-a-u-k.” He shook hands with each of them. “I’m not a bird of prey, but our parents enjoyed the old names.”
Hauk and Gus looked enough alike to be kin. They had the same red hair and long sideburns, but there the similarities ended. Hauk was smallish, trim, and a few years older, given the gray in his sideburns.
“Cousins,” Gus explained when Max asked. “And sometimes cousins can be closer than brothers.”
“I still don’t understand how you anticipated the flare.” Shelby had pulled out her notebook, with the permission of the group, and was taking notes.
“We didn’t,” Hauk said. “We anticipated something, but we didn’t know what.”
“We scoped out this place years ago,” Laurel said. She was Hauk’s wife and petite in a way that reminded Max of a child. She had warm, brown skin and long, black hair. “We even tried to buy some land along the river, but it was either privately owned or government owned, and no one was selling.”
“Funny. No one from the federal government has stopped by to ask why we’re here.” Gus glanced up from the fire, a grin tugging at his face. The man seemed to always be smiling, though Max couldn’t imagine why. Or maybe why not. His family was here. He seemed in his element. Whatever he’d done for a living before the flare apparently wasn’t something he missed.
“So we appropriated it for our use,” Hauk admitted.
“Don’t worry, cousin. I have a feeling the taxes I paid for the last twenty years were more than enough to cover it.”
Hauk laughed. “Gus was a dentist in our previous life. He’s still bitter about the thirty-eight-percent tax he paid.”
“Money I could have used to buy more supplies when there were supplies to be bought.”
As they had finished eating, most of the adults peeled off into twos and threes. Lanh and Carter walked off with Decker and Jack. Max and the rest of their group were left in the company of Gus, Hauk, and Laurel.
“You’ve done a good job making a safe place for your families,” Patrick said. “Do you plan to stay here?”
A silent look passed between Hauk and Gus. After a moment, Hauk said, “We have several other locations. We start up the RVs every third month and move to a different place.”
“You’re moving to keep the tires in good condition,” Gabe said.
“RVs are designed and built to be moved. We knew that would be one of the most challenging aspects of our plan. While they provide good shelter, if we can’t move them, if we become stuck in one spot, chances are that we will be attacked and won’t survive.”
“It’s hard to believe that’s what our world has become.” Shelby stared at the journal in her lap, but still she didn’t write anything.
“Perhaps it has always been that way, only we’d forgotten.” Hauk pulled his wife closer to his side, whether because of the cold or for emotional support, Max wasn’t sure. “Although we didn’t know what the crisis would be, everyone in this group was convinced that the way we were living could suddenly end. Some folks expected a virus, others a domestic uprising. Gus and I were betting on a natural disaster…”
“Like a flare,” Bianca said softly.
“Yeah. Statistically, some scientists were predicting a one in eight chance that we could have a major solar event that would knock out the power grid, but no one wanted to hear that. The news media did a terrible job of reporting it, and people were preoccupied with living their lives.” Gus stood and placed two more pieces of wood on the fire.
“We couldn’t guess the exact nature of the crisis. So instead, we decided the best plan was to be somewhat mobile, have a shelter that could be concealed, and have several locations so we wouldn’t be depending on the resources in one area.”
Shelby nodded and began to jot down notes.
“We start the vehicles once a month to make sure the gas is still good—”
“But it won’t be. Not for long.”
“We brought enough to top them off and added stabilizer. Should be good for five years. We park the RVs on parking mats made of rubber. They provide a barrier between the wheels and the ground to reduce the chance of rot. We also clean the tires with soap and water and keep them covered.”
“You thought this thing out,” Shelby said.
“As much as anyone can. Some things we’ve had to learn as we go.”
Max couldn’t resist. “Anyone in your group named Micah?”
Gus had taken a sip from his water jug, and he nearly spit it into the fire. “As in Micah five?”
Max glanced at Shelby, then Gabe, and then back at Gus. “Yeah.”
“We did have.” Hauk’s expression turned suddenly grave. “The Remnant spent a few weeks with us back in…”
“December,” Laurel said. “After the nuke went off to the east.”
TWENTY-ONE
Nuke? As in nuclear bomb?” Patrick hunched forward, though he was still holding Bianca’s hand.
“The same.” Hauk glanced at Gus.
Everyone began talking at once then, and Max had to hold up his hand to quiet them so he could hear what Gus was trying to say.
�
�The blast site was in Fort Worth, or maybe Dallas, as near as we can figure. We haven’t seen anyone from the east at all, so we’re assuming that the blast radius was fairly wide.”
“The governor heard rumors of that,” Gabe said. “I’d hoped they were exaggerated.”
“Nope. We sealed the windows with duct tape and stayed inside for the better part of two weeks. I even have a Geiger counter, and I’d go out to check periodically. Never registered anything, so I guess the fallout went east.”
Shelby’s pen was frozen above her paper, and Max knew without asking that she wasn’t thinking about the buildings in the Fort Worth Stockyard or the Kimball Art Museum. She was thinking of the millions of people who called the area home.
“So the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex is…gone?” Bianca’s voice trembled. “They had a combined population of…”
“Seven million.” Max swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, reached for Shelby’s free hand, and prayed that what they were hearing wasn’t true.
“We haven’t seen or heard of anyone who survived it, and I keep my ear to the ground.” Gus leaned forward and ran his gaze over their group. “As far as your asking about the Remnant, they seemed to be good people. Laurel is right. They arrived about three weeks after the blast. They had come from Abilene and were taking some old folks north, hoping to find care for them there.”
“I’m not sure those places still exist,” Max said.
“Yeah. We told them the same thing, but they’d heard a rumor…”
“That’s mostly what we get here,” Laurel said. “People chasing rumors.”
“I know one thing that isn’t a rumor.” Gabe sat up straighter, and Max knew they were down to the business part of the meeting. “Tell us about Hugo.”
“Hugo’s a thug. Before the flare, he would have been arrested and imprisoned. But once the municipalities collapsed, he grew bolder. Now folks are scared.”
“What folks?” Patrick asked.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed there are still farmers, especially on the back roads. Anyone on a major highway frontage pulled up and left. But the people with more rural farms, they stayed—or they tried to.”
“He’s harassing them too?” Max asked.
“He harasses whomever he wants, takes what he finds whether he needs it or not.” Hauk scratched at his sideburns.
“Why hasn’t someone stopped him?” Gabe leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Why haven’t you stopped him?”
“Mainly because of the children.” Laurel didn’t even blink when Gabe turned his gaze on her. “If it were only us, then perhaps we would have, but we have to think of the children.”
“And Hugo doesn’t like an armed and organized opponent, so we’re fairly safe from him,” Gus said. “He prefers the innocent or the unsuspecting. I guess with you all, he simply couldn’t resist the shiny toy you were driving.”
“I still can’t believe you had a Hummer.” Hauk patted his wife’s hand and stood to stretch his legs. He walked closer to the fire, studied it a moment, and then turned to look at them. “Where were you all headed before your run-in with Hugo?”
Gabe explained about their search for the federal government without supplying too many details.
“And you think they’re in Kansas?” Gus’s amused smile had returned. “Why would you think that?”
Max shrugged, noticed everyone else in his group had done the same, and nearly laughed. It seemed strange to find something funny after hearing about the devastation to the east. But he couldn’t change that. All he could do was try to find their way north, try to find help for Carter and answers for Governor Reed.
Gabe cleared his throat. “What about Wichita Falls?”
Max jerked his head left, surprised at the sudden change in topic.
“What about it?” Hauk asked.
“Who’s running the place? What’s it like?”
“You won’t get across into Oklahoma there. The highway is closed and blocked to the north of town.”
“We’ll find another way across then. What I’m asking is, do they have any type of law in place? What do they do with thieves? With murderers?”
“It’s not pretty.” Laurel clasped the cross pendant she wore on a long chain. “Hauk and I went there together a month ago, hoping to find supplies, thinking they’d be less wary of a man and woman approaching the town blockade.”
“And what did you find?”
“A few supplies—at astronomical prices. We managed to buy some fresh fruit for the children. It had been brought in from the southwest, maybe Arizona.”
“Wichita Falls exists both as a town and as a trading center. They’ve been able to do that because they use extreme measures to protect their people and their borders.”
“What type of extreme measures?” Max asked, his lawyer brain suddenly wide awake.
“You’ll see indications if you approach from the west, south, or east. At each point where you can enter the town, signs warn that the penalty for stealing or killing is death.”
“You’ll also see the bodies.” Hauk moved back next to his wife. “They like to leave them hanging as a deterrent to others.”
Max dropped his head into his hands. Wild West justice—no trials, no jury. Just swiftly delivered consequences. A lawyer’s worst nightmare.
“Can the authorities be trusted?” Gabe asked.
Max had no idea where he was going with this line of questioning. The litigator in him wanted to call out, “Irrelevant,” but he held his tongue and waited.
“Trusted?” Hauk shook his head. “They’re not in collusion with Hugo, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“And you can show me on a map where Hugo is?”
“I can show you where his camp is. He’s not always there.”
“Good.” Gabe stood. “How many men does he have with him?”
“Six, usually.” Hauk stared at the fire. “Hugo you’ve met. He has the X in a circle tattooed on his forehead. His top two compatriots have just the X. They haven’t achieved full membership in his gang yet.”
“What about the other three?” Patrick asked.
“That’s where it gets complicated.” Hauk looked to Gus, who took up the story.
“Hugo kidnaps kids and forces them to do his dirty work. If they won’t do it, he goes back to kill their family. The kids aren’t there because they want to be, but over time some of them get addicted to the power.”
“The two guys with the X.”
“Yeah, there was even a girl a few months back. We only saw her once and from a distance. She either died in one of their skirmishes or ran away. Hard to say.”
Hauk ran a hand up and down his face. “I assume you’re thinking of some type of retribution, but if so, then you need to fully consider the situation. It’s not as black and white as you might think. The three younger kids—the ones with no tattoo at all on their forehead—are being forced to do these things by Hugo. They might still be guilty…”
“But they’ve also been coerced,” Max said.
“What are you thinking about doing, Gabe?” Now Bianca stood, walked over to him, and stared up into his face. “What are you suggesting that we do?”
“I’m going to get my Hummer back. If you’d rather stay here—”
“No. We’ll go with you.” Shelby stuffed her pad and pen into her pack. “We can’t exactly walk to Kansas.”
“I’m in.” Patrick was grinning ear to ear. No doubt he would have followed Hugo from the moment of the ambush if it hadn’t been for the rest of them.
“Wait.” Max wondered if he was the only one thinking straight in this group. “We’re going to waltz over to Hugo’s and take back our vehicles and go on our merry way?”
“No. We’re going to take back our vehicles, and then we’re turning Hugo over to the Wichita Falls authorities.”
TWENTY-TWO
Carter resisted the urge to grumble when his mom shook him awake the next morning—if morning
was what you wanted to call it. His watch said 3:30, and it was still plenty dark.
“Remind me why we’re up this early.” But even as he said it, he remembered about Hugo and losing their vehicles and Gabe’s plan. He remembered Fort Worth. He thought he had adjusted to the way things were. He no longer woke expecting to grab his phone and check Twitter or text a friend. This was an entirely different level of messed up, though. All those people—gone.
“Miles to cover, amigo. Miles to cover.” Bianca mussed his hair as she walked by on the way to the campfire coffee that Carter could smell from where he lay in his borrowed bedroll—his was still in the Hummer. With Hugo.
“You good?” his mom asked.
“Yeah. Sure.”
He struggled out of his bag, checked his glucose levels, and then dialed in the correct dosage of insulin. Crazy that he could do that sitting in the dark and holding a small flashlight between his teeth, but there you had it. Their life was officially bizarre. He let his mind drift back to High Fields and prayed that Georgia and Roy were okay. He guessed it was a prayer. Mostly, he kept it inside his head and aimed it toward the sky, hoping someone was up there.
Carter and God had an on-again, off-again relationship. He clearly remembered praying when he thought he was going to die in the creek running along the east border of High Fields, his leg broken, bad guys on his tail, and his glucose skyrocketing. He’d mumbled the best foxhole prayer ever, and God had heard. Or maybe it wasn’t his day to die.
Sometimes he could believe, when he looked up at the stars scattered across the sky or watched a buck with a giant spread and thoughtful eyes. Other times, like when they’d come across the bodies in the gas station, he had a harder time. What kind of God allowed the people who had murdered whole families to continue to exist?
Spiritually, his thoughts were a knot of questions.
He’d mentioned it once to Max, who had assured him that God could handle his doubts and his questions—whatever that meant.
“How’s the arm?” he asked Lanh, who had also sat up and was now gingerly moving his shoulder through a few slow rotations Gabe had shown him.
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