Nomad Unleashed: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Terry Henry Walton Chronicles Book 3)

by Craig Martelle

  She married a Knight of the Round Table. She almost laughed, thinking next time he should introduce her as my lady, the chaste and Were, Charumati.

  “I’m Eli and these are my kids and their kids,” Terry looked at the three women and two men, all seemed to be thirty to forty years old. The children were ten to fifteen. Terry didn’t think too long about the children of my children bit.

  This was a hard world, yet he suppressed the urge to shiver.

  “Do you live around here?” Terry asked. The man looked skeptical.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I suspect we’ll be bringing a few more people and a herd of cattle through here in a few months’ time on our way to a place that’s a bit cooler with some infrastructure where we can start rebuilding civilization. We had good luck down south, but it’s getting too hot. The crops aren’t doing as well as they should. I guess you could say that we seek greener pastures.”

  “These cattle do pretty well on the grasses along the rivers and streams in this area, as long as we don’t go inland, away from the mountains. Nasty business out there in the dust bowl,” the old man said, leaning heavily on his staff and struggling to breathe. He had the other arm draped over the woman he called Cassandra.

  “Is the Tongue River still running, and what about the Missouri?” Terry asked.

  The old man started to say something but stopped and concentrated on breathing. The woman spoke. “Don’t know no Tongue River, but we been as far as the Mighty Mo and it is a right sight!”

  Terry grinned. They had found their way ahead.

  “Is there anything we can do for you?” he asked.

  The old man shook his head and then with panic in his eyes, he pointed and the ten kids ran to stand between the wolf pack that strolled from behind the nearest tumbled down house. Ted was with them and stopped the wolves from getting any closer.

  “They’re with us, don’t worry. I miss my dog,” Terry said to take the edge off the situation. The two women returned to the side of the old man while the three men stood tall, brandishing their walking sticks as if ready to fight.

  They had no idea, but Terry appreciated their bravery. He backed away from them. “This is Ted, and the wolves are his.”

  Ted snapped his fingers and ten wolves laid down as one, yellow eyes watching the cattle.

  “After all those fish? You can’t be hungry,” Terry scolded the pack. Ted looked appropriately chastened.

  “Sorry, mister, time to move on, you know, places to go, people to see,” Cassandra said, looking like she wanted to say more but the old man had a tight grip on her shoulder.

  The patriarch. His way or the highway.

  “We hope to see you when we return. We’d love to have you join us. There are about three hundred and fifty of us and a herd of cattle, something like fifty head, if I remember correctly, but nothing like these magnificent creatures!” Terry ended with a flair, trying to leave the old man feeling proud.

  But Eli gave nothing away. He turned without acknowledging Terry’s compliment and shuffled down the road, getting help from the two women as the children herded the cattle. The three other men maintained their defensive posture, twirling their staffs and backing away from Terry and Char. After twenty yards of walking backwards, they turned and jogged after their family.

  “That was pretty creepy,” Char said, watching the group leave.

  “I feel like I need a bath just from talking with them,” Terry added. Ted whistled and turned back toward the stream. The wolf pack disappeared after him.

  When Terry and Char returned, James, Lacy and Gerry had established a perimeter around the park, keeping the horses confined to one area while positioning themselves at three points across a broad front facing the street where the strangers had passed.

  “Stand down,” Terry told them. “A bunch of creepy people and longhorn cattle. The cattle, those things were impressive. They’re not half-starved like our herd. I hope they can join us, so we can integrate the longhorns with Claire and Antie’s herd. And if the people start acting weird, we’ll turn Mrs. Grimes loose on them!”

  They appreciated that joke because everyone had been on the wrong end of Mrs. Grimes at one point or another, except for Terry Henry Walton. He was her pet, her favorite. Even Char had gotten an ass-chewing because her jeans were too tight.

  “We leave at first light,” Terry told the group. He and Char returned to their blanket by the stream. James and Lacy left the park to get some privacy. Gerry stayed with his horses. Ted relaxed on the shore as the pack piled in around him.

  Timmons went back to fishing. It brought him peace and happiness. For the first time in a long time, he reconciled himself with who he was.

  ***

  Sue sniffed the trail they were following. She walked to one side, then the other. Clyde stuck his big dog nose right where Sue wanted to be, so she pushed him away. He sniffed the ground, but was watching her to see what she was going to do. The air was cooler that high, but the altitude was starting to get to them.

  “He came this way, didn’t he, boy?” Sue asked the dog, who wagged his tail happily.

  Sue knew exactly why Billy had run. After the engineer’s death and Felicity’s declaration of hatred, he snapped. Sue didn’t judge Billy for getting angry with the engineer. The old man was nearly unhinged over stupid crap. He wouldn’t listen. Billy had a whole town counting on him and he’d always coddled the engineer and the mechanic, but for the move, those two were simply two more old men walking. Now that they were both gone, they wouldn’t even be that. He had to be torn over losing their experience, but not having to carry them all the way to Chicago.

  Char had taken Timmons with her because she didn’t trust him. Sue was now running the administration and logistics. Merrit and Shonna were in the power plant and Adams and Xandrie were hunting, bringing in a deer or elk every single day. Depending on how much longer the power plant lasted, Sue suggested that they start smoking the meat or making it into jerky, a ton of jerky wouldn’t be enough, but they couldn’t carry any more than that.

  The human settlement was dependent on Werewolves to survive. When they perched on that outcropping years ago, she would have never thought that they, like Char, would become integral members of the town called New Boulder.

  “Humans are beneath us, aren’t they, Clyde?” she asked as she stood and decided to continue following the trail. She jogged slowly, dropping to her hands and knees every hundred yards to make sure she still had the scent. Clyde started braying and took off.

  Sue looked at the trees, marked her spot, and ran after Clyde.

  She hated to admit it, but the dog’s nose was better than hers when she was in human form.

  ***

  They rode north out of Sheridan until they crossed a substantial river. Terry checked a sign that had fallen a long time before. “Tongue River.”

  He took the remains of a road that seemed to follow the river to the northeast. “Next stop, the Mighty Mo,” Terry called over his shoulder as he led the group forward.

  The water flowed quickly. It was clear and clean, cool even, like the stream where they’d fished the day before.

  “Damn!” Terry exclaimed. “I should have kept my fishing spear. I think fish is on the menu for the foreseeable future if that stream is a sample of what may lie ahead.”

  Timmons whistled to catch Terry’s attention, then waved his stump. Tied to the man’s saddle were the three willow saplings, the one carved into a fish spear and the other two that were ready to take its place should the first one break. Terry gave him the thumbs up.

  The grass grew well because the water was plentiful and countered the effect of the heat. They had good grazing and turned the horses loose at regular intervals. The wolf pack did their best to clear the numerous rabbits that lived along the river. Ted laughed as he watched the wolves in constant hunting mode as they moved in a line abreast, flushing game before them and killing it with reckless abandon.
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  That was the day’s entertainment, as the trip had smoothed greatly due to the presence of unlimited fresh water, edible plants, and game. Terry hadn’t realized how much stress he carried when those three things were not a given.

  It was as Char had said. He thought of himself as the world’s savior, the protector of all mankind.

  When he relieved himself of that burden, he was free to think at a completely different level.

  “Where do you hide something that looks like a lot of other things?” Terry asked Char out of the blue.

  “In plain sight,” she replied.

  “Bensenville.” She shrugged and shook her head. She had no idea what he was talking about. “The Mini Coopers. The portable nuclear generators. There is a huge classification yard for rolling stock, for rail cars, in Bensenville. The mini modular nuclear generators, I call them the Mini Cooper, they will be hidden there among a bunch of tankers. They look a little like a tanker, but they’ll be a lot bigger. Your average joe won’t know what they are and they don’t have anything worth taking on the outside and no one can get into them without codes and stuff.”

  “Where is Bensenville?” Char asked.

  “Sorry. Just south of O’Hare airport. We won’t have any jet traffic so we’ll be able to hear ourselves think.” Terry looked smug.

  “How did you come up with Bensenville?” she asked.

  “Stuff I read, finally I was able to fit it all together. They were traveling through Chicago during the fall. No one is going to leave a nuke sitting out in the open.” He looked around, “They have no time and resources are failing. What do you do?” He nodded towards the East. “North Chicago, Waukegan, and O’Hare. I wonder if anyone survived out there. Even if ninety-nine point nine percent of everyone died, in a town Chicago’s size, that leaves something like twenty-five thousand people. That’s a lot of people.”

  “How would they survive?” Char was surprised, but the math made sense. There had to be big numbers of survivors out there, but where were they? Cancun had people, but it was isolated. With the heat, she wondered if a place like Florida had become a vast wasteland of fetid mostly dried out swamps.

  Maybe someday they’d find out. It would be easy if they could hop aboard Akio’s pod and fly around, checking things out.

  “What would it take to get a ride in the Pod?” Char asked.

  “A shit sandwich from which we are unable to extricate ourselves.” Terry looked at her shifting in the saddle and trying to get comfortable.

  “Ain’t that a pisser,” she replied.

  “I’m with you. We want a ride in the pod, but we don’t want to be in the situation to rate one.” Terry sighed. “We’ll ride our horses and be happy about it. When we bring the townspeople, we’ll all be walking, and that will be a whole new level of suck.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Mark was lost. Not completely, because he could still see one of the higher peaks, but he had no idea where the outcropping was. He’d lost Sue and Clyde hours before and had given up hope of finding them.

  He didn’t want to return empty-handed, but he was afraid that he would have to do exactly that. “Spread out. We’re going home, and on the way, we need to find the rally point and find the others.”

  None of his people were sure which way to go. They were in a valley between hills, trees surrounding them. Mark noted the nearest peak, thought about where it was when looking at it from the town, and then chose an angle to take them back.

  They headed uphill, then down then uphill again. After an hour of hiking, they climbed a rock-strewn rise to get a look over top of the trees. From there, Mark turned slowly in a circle.

  “Not a fucking thing,” he said. “We’re lost.”

  Most of the others were transplants to New Boulder. Mark had lived there his entire life, but he hadn’t spent much time in the mountains. He was embarrassed.

  “We backtrack. Jazzy, take point and get us back to where we were,” Mark ordered. The young man called Jazzy was black, average size, but with a fire in his eyes and determination in his soul.

  The colonel had personally selected the young man, just like he’d personally approved each of the others.

  “Yes, sir,” Jazzy replied, climbing down the rocks first to orient himself. Six men walking through pine needles and bushes left a distinct trail. Jazzy was confident that he could get them back. “Let me take point, about fifty feet up. It’s easier to see the trail looking back, so I’ll need to double check and I can’t have you herd of buffalo messing it up!”

  “I resemble that remark!” Blackbeard answered. He was the smallest of the group, but with Hank plowing through everything, they left a robust trail, though Hank didn’t walk in a straight line. He ambled all over the place, like a puppy running outside for the first time. “Come on, Hank, we’re not supposed to leave a buffalo trail. You can do that, can’t you, buddy?”

  The cub was almost twice what Blackie weighed. He dashed to the side and Blackie started to run after him, but Mark stopped him.

  “If anyone can get back on his own, it’s the bear. Now stay together. Lead on, Private!” Mark called.

  ***

  Sue looked at the late afternoon sun. Clyde lapped from a mountain stream trickling through the rocks. She sniffed the area, but no longer needed to follow the scent. She sensed a single human not far away.

  “Billy!” she yelled. The dog’s ears perked up. “Come on, Clyde. I’ve had about enough of this.”

  “Billy, I see where you are. I’m coming up there to drag your dumb ass back home!” Sue bellowed, storming up the hill as she made a frontal assault on the rocky facing of a hill where nature had carved a small cave.

  “Go away,” Billy shouted back, his voice muffled by the inside. Sue didn’t hesitate. She walked in as Clyde ran past and up to the small man, greeting him and ignoring the fact that Billy didn’t like him. “I’m not going back.”

  “Like fuck!” Sue screamed, odd for her as she didn’t usually swear. “You walk, or I carry your dead carcass over my shoulder. Either way, you’re going home, you selfish little shit.”

  Billy thought her yellow eyes were glowing in the semi-darkness of his shelter.

  “Are you going to turn into a Werewolf and eat me?” he asked. Sue had wondered if he had known.

  “Werewolves don’t eat people,” she said coldly. “Well, most of the time. Marcus was a bastard. No. I’m not going to eat you, and I’m not even going to kill you. I’m going to drag you back and let Felicity take care of that.”

  Billy was sitting on a low rock. He brought his knees to his chest and hugged them, rocking in the semi-darkness. He didn’t reply.

  “You are such a dumbass,” Sue said, throwing her hands down in disgust. “Well?”

  “Well what?” Billy replied, continuing to rock.

  “The people of that town need you, every bit as much as they need Terry Henry Walton, as much as they need the engineer, the farmers, and yes, even us, a bunch of Werewolves just trying to get by. And you need them, too, Billy. Do you really want Marcie to grow up without a dad? Maybe Merrit or Adams will horn in on some of that action. Felicity is a right fine piece of ass!”

  “Hey!” Billy yelled, standing up and sticking his chest out. Sue pushed him back down. Anger flared behind his eyes.

  “So you do care? Come on, now. Everyone’s waiting,” Sue said, taking two steps. When Billy didn’t follow, she stormed back, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him out of the small cave. When they reached the entrance, she launched him down the hill. He landed face first in the rocks and gravel, sliding and rolling to the bottom of the incline. She slid down the hill after him, while Clyde ran out and fell down the hill, scrabbling for purchase as he rolled and bounced, finally crashing into Billy at the bottom.

  Sue laughed as the two untangled themselves. Clyde shook, no worse the wear. Billy clutched one arm that carried an ugly scrape. He looked to be in pain.

  “I don’t care,” she
told him. “Go!” She pointed. He clutched his arm and started walking, slowly.

  “Faster!” she encouraged. Looking around, she found a stick that she hoped to use as a combination walking stick and Billy-beater. It failed on the first blow across the backs of his legs. He stopped and glared at her.

  “I’m not dicking around, Billy. You are going home and tonight. The last thing I want is to sleep out here, so I’m not, which means you’re not, because I’m not returning without you. I’m afraid you are out of choices, since I’ve made all the decisions for you. Ahh, here we are!”

  Sue snapped a lower branch using her Werewolf strength, cleaning the small twigs from it by running her hand down its length. A normal human’s hand would have been torn up, but not Sue’s. She tested it with a baseball swing against the trunk. It bounced off nicely.

  “I think I said to get walking. The question isn’t whether you get home or not, it is how many welts you will have when you get there.” Sue’s eyes lit up as she hefted her motivation tool and shook it at Billy.

  ***

  “Where in the hell did they go?” Jim asked Ivan. He shrugged in response. They’d been waiting on the outcropping for hours, wondering if the others would show up. “What do we do?”

  “I don’t know,” Ivan answered. He looked at the town far below. It seemed peaceful from here. It was peaceful. Before long, they’d be stuck out there. His eyes looked to the burnt orange of the Wastelands.

  “We leave a message and return to the barracks. Then we bring the rest of the platoon out here tomorrow, search for the searchers, and continue searching for Billy,” Ivan said.

  Jim took one last look around. “Let’s spread out, a hundred feet apart and listen, maybe even shout for them, give them something to key on.”

  Ivan nodded and that was what they did. The six men formed a long arc around the rally point and stood still, carefully listening for sounds of the other Force members.