Nomad Redeemed

by Craig Martelle

  Soon, bitch, soon.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Terry ordered the Force to spread out, to be harder targets if the Wasteland settlers happened to be armed. He let Clyde slide to the ground to run alongside the horses. As they closed in on the buildings, Terry took one last look behind to make sure they wouldn’t get surprised by Marcus in the middle of a first contact.

  He couldn’t see anything. Char shook her head, confirming that the alpha wasn’t close.

  Terry raised a fist, calling a halt when they were fifty feet from what looked like a main building. It was one of seven, all perched on the bank of the South Platte. Cattle grazed on the other side of the river in a fenced enclosure that opened to a long stretch along the river with trees and grass. It looked like an oasis.

  The building’s door was thrown open and a man stepped out, brandishing a shotgun. “We have nothing for you here. Go away!” he bellowed as he tried to look menacing. He was older, walking with a heavy limp. His gnarled hands held the rusty weapon that probably hadn’t been fired in years.

  “We are no threat to you, good sir,” Terry called out, holding his hands up. “I think we may have something to offer you, though.” Clyde barked and ran toward the man, tail wagging.

  The old man watched the dog approach, then took a knee as Clyde made a new friend. “Been a while since I seen a dog. I’m Antioch Weathers. Who might you be?”

  Terry nodded to Char and they both dismounted while the others stayed back. “I’m Terry Henry Walton and this is Charumati,” Terry said, smiling as he approached, careful to not hold his rifle as he normally would. When Terry held out his hand, the old man took it, his dark skin contrasting with Terry’s well-tanned hands.

  Antioch looked at Char, surprised showing on his face. “My. Had I known there were people like you out there, I would have searched the Wastelands to my dying breath.”

  “I thank you, but we live in the foothills, outside of what used to be Boulder, and that’s what we’re here to offer you,” Char said smoothly. Antioch turned his head, ears perked up. He leaned into the doorway and yelled for everyone to come out.

  Young people of all ages, from small children to those in their early twenties, appeared one by one, coming out to stare at the newcomers. The last one out, wearing an apron and carrying a wooden spoon, looked to be Antioch’s wife as she took a position at his side, holding tightly to his arm.

  Terry started to laugh. Antioch’s eyes narrowed. Char turned to him as if he’d gone mad. The horses shifted while Clyde bounced from one person to the next, knocking over the smallest where the two began to wrestle.

  “I’m sorry. I saw that wooden spoon and thought of old Margie Rose, the kindest woman I’ve ever met. She lets Char and I stay with her in New Boulder. She carries a wooden spoon, too, and I’ve been on the wrong end of it, more than once.” Terry smiled broadly, disarmingly.

  “Me, too,” Char admitted.

  The old woman slapped Antioch. “Oh! My wife, Claire, and these are our children. Yes, you see it right. Twelve boys. Not a single young lady anywhere and here you are with two!” Claire reached up and smacked her husband on the head with her spoon. He winced and tried to get away, but she hung onto him.

  “What my husband meant to say is, welcome to our home. You said you could do something for us?” Claire asked.

  “We need people in New Boulder. We have greenhouses and fertile fields. We have a power plant that generates electricity using natural gas from a local well. We have one hundred thirty, one hundred forty people? But we are expanding and need more,” Terry claimed, talking animatedly with his hands as he delivered his best sales pitch.

  “Your cattle could form a new and incredible herd. Your experience with them and your willingness to work, judging by your calloused hands, will make you welcome additions. Our goal in coming into the Wastelands was to find other survivors and offer them the opportunity to move to New Boulder, help us rebuild civilization. We’ll show you the way there, if you’re interested.”

  Antioch turned to Claire, then back to Terry. “It’s been a hard year and they seem to keep getting harder. We used to have so many more cattle. This is all that’s left. Summers are hard here.” The old man hesitated and looked into the distance. “We’ll need to talk amongst ourselves, but it would be nice to sleep without sweating, eat something that I didn’t have to kill or grow myself, but we built all this, kept it going for the past twenty years. I’d hate to give it up on a fool’s quest.”

  Antioch stood proudly, his family at his side.

  Terry’s plan was to funnel people back toward New Boulder, staying along the river and following the tracks and trail that the FDG had made on their way out. With Marcus following, did he want to send people right into him? Terry found himself wondering what the right answer was.

  “We’ll wait out here. Is there a place where we can water the horses?” A young man waved Terry around the western side of the house and pointed to a cut, where there was a gentle decline to the river. It was above where any of the cattle’s waste made its way into the South Platte River.

  Gerry led the way with the horses as James tapped his rifle while looking at Terry. The colonel shook his head and waved them away. There was no threat here. Lacy took the reins of Char’s horse and James took Terry’s.

  “What will Marcus do if he comes across this bunch as they’re making their way west?” Terry asked Char when they were alone.

  “I’d like to think that he’ll continue after us. We just need them to deliver the message to him, just like our people must have done in New Boulder. If he comes this far, he won’t be distracted by this family. They are no threat to him, but if he’s hungry, then they may lose a cow. Let’s say I hope he would go after a cow and not one of the children,” she whispered and made sure she wasn’t overheard.

  “We water and feed the horses, give Antioch and Claire directions, then we move on. No matter what we do after this, that family will get to meet Marcus. By being just ahead of him, he’ll have to keep coming. It doesn’t seem in his nature to give up, not now, not after coming all this way. We need to be close enough where he can’t delay, but far enough where he still has to work to get to us. I’m sorry, Char, but we’re going to have to fight him before we’re ready,” Terry said, looking at the ground.

  Char pulled Terry close and hugged him, resting her head on his shoulder. He breathed deeply of her hair, wondering how it always smelled like it did, even when traveling in the dust and dirt of the Wastelands.

  Someone cleared their throat. Terry and Char hurriedly stepped apart.

  “I wouldn’t let go of that one, either, if I was you, young man. I don’t blame you in the least. We’ll go, but we’d like you to come with us, show us the way,” Antioch offered, hope in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, but we simply cannot. We have a ways to go and there’s one other thing. There’s a man chasing us and we can’t let him catch us out here. When you see him, whether it is here or as you’re following the river west, tell him where we’ve gone, even if he doesn’t ask. Point him in our direction,” Terry replied.

  “I can’t say I’m too pleased with all that, not sure why you’d lead someone who’s chasing you straight to us. Maybe you can hook me up with one of those pop guns of yours,” Antioch said coldly.

  “These won’t matter with him. Don’t be a threat to him and he should leave you alone. He’s after her.” Terry pointed as he appealed to Antioch’s sense of male honor.

  “You look like a fighter, but you’re running from this guy. Why?”

  “We need to finish him where none of his followers can find his body,” Terry replied, curling his lip into a snarl.

  “Ha!” Antioch exclaimed and slapped the larger Terry Henry on the back as he returned to the house. Terry and Char followed as they wanted everyone in that family to understand clearly that they needed to send Marcus after Char.

  * * *

  Timmons stood on the terrazzo of
what used to be the Air Force Academy. He was surprised that most of the spires of the iconic chapel had survived the blasts and the years since. The rough marble of the areas around the chapel and the parade deck of the main courtyard between the dormitories was almost completely overgrown and now teemed with wildlife.

  Deer had always been prevalent on the old Academy grounds, but now, they seemed to have taken over. Timmons wondered where the predators had gone.

  The other predators, he thought, then nodded to the pack. They shed their clothes and changed into Werewolf form. They ran low, below the cover of the wall along the upper grounds. There were wide steps at either end that led to the former parade ground.

  Timmons watched, as if he were in a zoo.

  The pack slinked down the steps and disappeared into the overgrowth on both sides of the massive park-like area. The Werewolves converged and charged. Deer bolted in all directions, some into the attacking predators, some away. Each of his people found a mark, some running for longer than others after their prey, but none of them were denied.

  Timmons became a Werewolf and with his paws on the top of the wall, he looked down at the pack, now scattered around the area and feasting on their kills.

  Every single day, he regretted leaving Marcus alive. He’d told them that when Marcus found them, he’d kill one or two as an example to the others, but they couldn’t do it, even though Marcus had gone off the rails a long time before.

  Timmons was living on borrowed time. He would be the first to die if Marcus found them.

  “I can’t live my life in fear!” he howled at the old parade deck. Then began talking to himself as he strolled to find some venison to dine on. “We eat and then let’s find us a place to stay. It looks like it could take a while to explore here. I wonder if the old labs have anything worthwhile left. It’s been a while since I brewed anything fun.”

  Timmons had been an engineer in the before time, but he liked playing with the chemicals, especially when they could make explosives. Merrit had been a chemist. Between the two of them, Timmons had high hopes they could make something that would be entertaining. Maybe it was time for the chapel’s spires to come down.

  Or time to build something that could kill a Werewolf, because Timmons couldn’t beat Marcus all by himself. A little help in the form of the terrorist-favorite, homemade explosive TATP?

  Well, shit. That could make all the difference.

  * * *

  After having a good dinner of beef and green beans, Terry gave Antioch and Claire the directions to New Boulder. Along with the others, Terry thanked the couple for the meal, gave his regards, and ordered the members of the FDG to mount up.

  They waved goodbye in appreciation of a good, home-cooked meal, then headed east, following the river’s course.

  Terry spurred his horse to a gallop and off they went.

  “We need to make up some ground,” he said into the wind. Clyde lay across his lap, whining in discomfort.

  “I know,” Char answered, leaning into the horse’s neck as it ran. For thirty minutes he let the horses run, then he slowed them to a walk, then another thirty minutes of running.

  Geronimo puked during the second run, but he didn’t complain.

  James wondered about the hurry. They had yet to do any training, and he wondered if they’d ever get to it.

  Lacy kept her eye on James while Devlin just tried to stay upright in the saddle. It was a motley group, but the best one that Terry could cobble together. Each had their own skill, but he wondered if they’d get a chance to demonstrate what they were good at. Two mechanically-inclined, but there were no towns out here, no place to set a mechanical trap.

  Terry had hoped they’d corner the great Werewolf and with a trap or two, hurt him badly enough that Char could finish him.

  “We’re going to have to do it the hard way,” Terry said out loud during the short interval the horses were walking.

  “I’m sorry, I must have missed the plan that wasn’t the hard way,” Char said humorlessly.

  “It was a long shot, but I was hoping to sucker Marcus into a small town where we’d be able to trap him, injure him as much as possible. I have a couple bullets which have silver rubbed on them, my silvered knife, and now my bullwhip, but I don’t expect him to stand still while I take aim or run through my weapons. So I’m going to have to get real close and unload on him. I know that hope is a lousy plan, but I hope that distracts him enough for you to take him out,” Terry stated.

  “TH, always so chivalrous. What if I don’t want your protection, my big, tough human?”

  Terry looked at her sideways. “You have to be kidding! My goal is to survive, all of us live to see tomorrow. We fight him however we can. I just wanted to put our options on the table, that’s all. And I can’t think of anything else. No matter what, my mind keeps coming back to Marcus.”

  “It’s supposed to. He’s the alpha, and that’s how alphas like it. He has you right where he wants you, afraid and running for your life,” Char told him.

  “Maybe that’s what we’ve been doing wrong,” Terry started, his mind racing anew. “We could have trapped him in that first place we stopped outside of New Boulder. Why wouldn’t that have worked? Because I fixed in my mind that we needed to drag him way the hell out into this god-forsaken fucking waste of a land.”

  “You told Billy Spires that you were going to look for people. You told Margie Rose that you wanted her to live in peace. Maybe you’re trying to do too much, keep your word to too many different people,” she offered.

  What Char told him rang true. When he returned to humanity, he committed his entire being to saving them. Every minute of his day was spent in that pursuit. Sawyer Brown was an inconvenience that Terry was well-equipped to deal with. Marcus, on the other hand, represented the horrors of the WWDE, the helplessness of a world spinning out of control.

  His inability to save his family.

  So he took Char and ran, justifying it in his own mind as the right thing to do to save the people of New Boulder.

  He stopped his horse, signaling to the others to halt. He nudged his horse next to Char’s so he could face her. “When did you know?” he asked.

  “When did I know what?” she whispered.

  “All of it,” he added cryptically.

  “When you kicked Clyde off the bed to be closer to me.” She smiled at him, her purple eyes sparkling.

  “What? Clyde? You based your perception of our relationship entirely on Clyde?” Terry turned his head sideways, not unlike the dog that pranced around the horses, happy for the respite.

  “You love that dog.” She smiled.

  Terry leaned close. “I do,” he answered softly, before leaning back and shouting. “Now, what do you say we go kill us a fucking alpha? Come on, Clyde!”

  Terry spurred his horse forward, turned in a tight circle to face east, then waved his arm over his head. With her ears flattened against her head, Terry’s mare bolted forward, sending dust clouds into her wake as the others raced to catch up.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Mark and Boris rode north, past the power plant and into the ruins of suburb after suburb. They saw the charcoal mark on the ground where Terry and his people had turned toward Longmont. The two continued along the remains of that highway until it crossed the South Platte River.

  Another mark on the ground pointed in a new direction.

  Mark and Boris dismounted, tying their horses to an old light pole. They saw the hoof prints as the eight horses entered the dirt of the mostly dry river bed. That was only partly what Mark was looking for.

  He didn’t find any human footprints, only those of massive paws which seemed bigger than the hoof prints.

  “What do you make of these?” Mark asked. Boris looked closely, moving from one to the next. He jumped between them, trying to get an idea how big the animal was.

  “This can’t be a dog. A bear, maybe?” Boris suggested

  Mark shook his head. Bear
s had five toes and a pronounced claw at the tip of each. This was the paw of a canine. “I think it’s a wolf, but I’ve never seen anything this size before.” Mark stomped around, torn over what to do as indecision gripped him.

  “Fucking whore!” Mark yelled.

  Boris jumped, looking around as if they were getting ambushed. He looked down the sights of his rifle as he scanned the nearby buildings.

  “Hey! What if that thing is nearby? Fuck, man! Don’t call down the thunder just ‘cause you’re pissed,” Boris said, one hand out trying to calm the corporal.

  “We have to follow them, but we can’t. We have to go back, but we shouldn’t,” Mark argued with himself.

  “If it helps, I don’t see any human footprints. We need to take that information back. That man is running around somewhere out here, but I don’t see where he’s following them,” Boris said, shining the light on what Mark was missing.

  “Holy shit! We have to go back, but let’s run up the river for a while, see if he jumped in at a different spot, but then we have to tell Billy.” Mark ran up the riverbank, untied his horse, and jumped into the saddle. He navigated the riverbank while Boris was still trying to mount his ride.

  He hurried after Mark, trying to look at every building window, behind every mound of dirt for the boogeyman who was out there somewhere. And then there was a massive beast, large as a horse and running after their people. But, it was Terry Henry Walton on the other end of that chase.

  Maybe you don’t want to catch up to them, Boris thought. He suddenly heard a noise and studied the landscape to try and figure out what the sound was and where it came from. Mark pushed forward, oblivious to everything else except the tracks.

  Who’s hunting whom? Boris asked himself.

  * * *

  Marcus continued to run, feeling strong after eating the buffalo calf. His rage consumed him, and he ran, hard, taking few breaks to drink and cool down.