Gone to Ground

by Cheryl Taylor

  “Definitely the boogey man variety.” Maggie answered with conviction. “A big, bad boogey man with slimy green skin, bulging bloodshot eyes and severe halitosis.”

  “Let’s have it. Boogey men with bad breath are my speciality.”

  “While you were gone Emily had her calf.”

  “Yeah, I know. I saw them out in the pasture. I would have thought that information only ranked at the level of a two-inch tall boogey man with hiccups, if that.”

  “No that’s not what you needed to know, though I will say that if you’re gone the next time a cow needs a midwife, you better not come back, extra children or not!”

  Maggie paused, considering her words. “The problem is that Emily had some difficulties, and I sent Mark to see if there was any information on delivering calves in any of the books we found here. He couldn’t find anything, but I’d left my computer out on the table and he thought he’d log onto the Internet and find information that way.”

  The smile that had been resting on O’Reilly’s face disappeared as he realized what was coming.

  “He couldn’t log on. The web required an authentication code. He thought it was my security code, since that’s the computer I always used for work, and he came out to ask me the password. I shut down the computer as soon as I realized what happened. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes and it was nearly four days ago, but there it is. Christina may have led the Enforcers to Wikieup, but I may have led them directly to the canyon.”

  Both grew silent as O’Reilly apparently processed the information. Finally, after a few minutes so quiet that Maggie began to squirm, O’Reilly let out a huge sigh and said, “You’re right. A big boogey man with halitosis and probably lethal levels of flatulence as well.

  “It’s possible that the computer wasn’t able to be accurately traced in that amount of time.” O’Reilly seemed to consider the options. “But in a worse case scenario, they now know you’re out here somewhere, and Rickards isn’t fool enough to believe that the kids heading this direction, as well as an unauthorized computer from the middle of nowhere are unrelated.”

  “Do we need to run?”

  “You say it’s been four days since the computer?”

  Maggie nodded.

  “And it’s been three days since I met up with the kids in Wikieup. I’m afraid that if they’re coming, they’ll be close by now. If we’re out moving across the empty lands - a group of eight - there’s no way we’ll go undiscovered.

  “No, I think the only option right now is to make sure the caves are provisioned and get ready to hide. If they’re coming I don’t think we have much time.”

  All the warmth seemed to have been sucked out of the evening air, and Maggie shivered.

  O’Reilly started to push himself to his feet. “It’s getting late Maggie. We’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow. I’m off to bed. I only hope my new roomies don’t snore.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder, then suddenly leaned forward and brushed her cheek with his lips. “Don’t worry. We’ll get it all worked out. But I think we might wait a day or two before beginning your addition.” Finishing getting to his feet, O’Reilly went into the house and closed the door quietly behind him.

  Left alone in front of the house, Maggie hugged her legs to her chest and rested her chin on top of her knees; wishing she weren’t alone, that O’Reilly had stayed out with her. She was scared. She wasn’t ashamed to admit it. After everything she’d been through in the last year, she couldn’t ever remember being so scared.

  It was going to happen, then. They were going to have to fight to survive. Not just the elements, but people, too. She remembered back to the night O’Reilly told her about what was happening in the APZ; when he’d made her promise that if they came for him, she’d take Mark and Lindy and hide in the caves, and let him be taken. That they wouldn’t let her live. That Lindy might be the only one that would come out of a direct confrontation alive because of her young age. Now there were four others that would die with them. Four others depending on them for safety.

  She put hand to her cheek, where O’Reilly had kissed her. She felt a well of conflicting emotions bubbling up inside her, threatening to overwhelm and incapacitate her in the flood; fear, confusion, annoyance (plenty of that), frustration (even more of that, damn O’Reilly), mixed in with an unexpected amount of happiness and even love. It was an unpalatable mixture and it churned her inside like a blender.

  Heaving in a huge sigh that caused Jack, who was laying nearby, to leap to his feet on the alert for what ever danger had crept up on him unawares, Maggie pushed herself to her feet and turned to head inside and to bed.

  I hope all three of them do snore. Loudly.

  30

  Where the hell are they?

  Rickards stood in the middle of Highway 93 near the front of his jeep, looking around at the empty buildings of Wikieup. Other than a few furtive dogs, sliding in and out between the buildings, as well as an impressive variety of bird life, there was no indication that Wikieup was anything but a ghost town.

  “Captain, there’s no sign

  of the children or of O’Reilly,” Harlan approached from the south, where he and a group of other Enforcers had been conducting a door to door search of the town. “The team is continuing to look, but I feel fairly certain that there is no one in the town at this time. There are signs, however, that someone recently broke into many of the stores and cleared out the shelves of dry goods. It’s impossible to tell if it’s the people we’re after or another band of ghosts, but I have trouble believing in coincidences.”

  “So do I, Deputy Harlan. But, if they’re not here, then, where are they?” Rickards suppressed a tremor of annoyance at the man’s officious tone.

  “I’d pin my bet on the computer signal from northeast of here. That’s wide open country, very rough, covered with canyons and washes, but there are a few ranches and camps scattered about. From what I’ve heard about O’Reilly, I’d guess that he chose one of them as his headquarters. Probably the most out of the way one he could find. It’s too bad that we couldn’t get here sooner and catch them before they went to ground.”

  “Yes, too bad indeed,” Rickards growled, anger and frustration over the delay clouding his features as surely as the monsoon storms obscured the nearby mountains.

  In spite of Rickards’ intention of heading to Wikieup the afternoon they picked up the children’s signal, things hadn’t moved quite so quickly. Their primary problem had been transportation.

  All of the vehicles assigned to the Enforcers, the fire department, and the medical department were kept in the same lot to streamline and carefully monitor supplies of gasoline, diesel and oil. When Rickards had radioed to the transportation yard, he was told that a shipment of gasoline had been diverted by a band of ghosts on I-40 outside of the Albuquerque APZ. Until a replacement shipment arrived, the entire Laughlin APZ would be running on fumes and under no circumstances was the transportation director about to let Rickards take a bunch of gas guzzling vehicles off into the backwoods of Arizona on a wild goose chase. Or words to that effect.

  Rickards demanded. He threatened. He yelled. He even tried to cajole, something with which he had no skill, and which was frightening to watch, but to no avail. He found that Loveless, the grumpy fifty-something mechanic in charge of the motor pool lived up to his name and adamantly refused to hand over the keys. Rickards considered holding him at gun point. However, he realized that any vehicles released in such a manner still would have no fuel, and that such behavior would almost certainly mean his immediate removal from the Enforcers, followed by long term incarceration. Since neither would further his aim, he stopped short of such an action.

  Ultimately it took two days before the replacement shipment of fuel arrived at the APZ and his team was able to secure enough vehicles to head after the children. During this enforced down time, the team researched the area to which they were heading, and tiptoed around Rickards.


  Now they were in Wikieup, the small and only bump on Highway 93. Reference books identified 93 as what used to be Arizona’s deadliest road. Now, after extensive renovations, it was simply a long road through the middle of some very rough country covered with brush and boulders. Regardless of all the information the books held, the one thing they didn’t say was where the quarry was. All Rickards knew was that they were no where in sight.

  “Have the techies back in Laughlin been able to pin down where the computer signal was coming from any closer than when we left?”

  “No, sir,” answered Harlan. “They’d need the computer to try and log back on to do that, and unfortunately that hasn’t happened. Attempts to initiate a reverse log on have been unsuccessful as well. However, based on the coordinates that they gave us before leaving the APZ, we’re looking at this area here.” Using a red marker, Harlan indicated a large square northeast of their present location, somewhere in the box between Highways 93 and 89 and south of I-40. “I suggest we send out the seekers to these coordinates and see what we get. We can monitor the signal on the mobile station here, then if they pick up something, we’ll know where to head.”

  “Sounds like a good plan, Harlan,” Rickards said, nodding. “Get them in the air right away.

  Harlan nodded and turned starting back toward the truck carrying four long range seekers. Stopping suddenly, he turned back to Rickards.

  “Sir, there’s another thing we’re going to have to consider, even if we do find them.”

  “What’s that, Harlan?”

  “This time of year the roads in this area can be pretty bad. It’s very possible that we won’t be able to move the vehicles in, even with four-wheel drive, until the rains let up a bit. I’ve seen some of these remote ranches and camps socked in for several days or more during a wet summer or winter. It doesn’t take long for the roads to dry if we hit a few days where the monsoon holds off, but going in when it’s wet could be a disaster.”

  “Just find them, Harlan. We’ll worry about the roads when we know where we’re going.” Rickards looked stormier than the skies. “I want those seekers up in the air within a half hour. The good news is that if we can’t get in, they can’t get out, so right now we just need them found.”

  “Yes, sir.” Harlan hurried to the truck to relay his orders.

  Rickards stood looking around the deserted town, as the thunder rumbled and the first large drops of rain began to fall.

  Where the hell are they?

  31

  James O’Reilly lay on his bunk, listening to the soft breathing of his three new roommates and wishing he was elsewhere. Two rooms elsewhere to be exact.

  The soft sound of the front door opening and closing followed by a second door opening and closing told him that Maggie had come in and gone to bed. He knew the next few days were going to be hard on her. Hard on everyone for that matter.

  Raising his right arm and laying it across his eyes, he thought again about the wisdom of making a stand there at Hideaway. They could still saddle the horses tomorrow morning and make a run for it. If they were lucky, they might make it out of the area before the seekers arrived. The problem was, though, that if they hadn’t gone far enough before the seekers started circling, they would be sitting ducks out in the washes and flats of the open range. Four of them might have been able to manage it. With eight, it was virtually impossible. In the caves their heat signatures wouldn’t be picked up, nor would they themselves be seen.

  How long did they have?

  Not long if he knew Rickards. Of course, as he told Maggie, there was a slight chance that he’d removed the children’s chips before anyone got a fix on them. That would be the best case scenario. If that were the case, they could take extra precautions for a few weeks, then return to life as normal, or what passed as normal these days.

  It was almost certain that Maggie’s computer had been tagged, but since no one would connect Maggie with him unless the chips were located, it could easily slip by without anyone taking immediate action, especially if things were busy elsewhere. A wry smile twisted his lips. With Christina, Alysa and the boys missing and their connection to him, he was sure that things were extremely busy elsewhere. Rickards was no fool, though, and if they had picked up on the kids’ chips heading in this direction, the computer signal, whether or not it belonged to a known fugitive, would be seen as significant.

  He didn’t dare count on best case scenarios. Rose colored glasses would do nothing but get them captured or killed. He was relatively certain that seekers would be the first signal that someone knew where they were. However, should they be taken by surprise in this canyon, there would be very little possibility of making it to the caves and hiding undetected.

  How long?

  If Enforcers had arrived in Wikieup immediately after O’Reilly and the children left, they would still need to send out seekers to determine which direction the fugitives had gone. They hadn’t seen or heard any seekers while riding, and even at night he’d sat up, standing guard, listening for the tell-tale whine of the drones’ propulsion systems. It hadn’t materialized. That should mean that Rickards was still at least three days behind them.

  Should mean.

  He knew Rickards too well to underestimate him. No, the best move would be to assume that within the next week Enforcers would descend upon this canyon in numbers that would do the invasion at Normandy proud.

  Well, maybe not quite that many. The Laughlin APZ didn’t have that kind of resources. But just as O’Reilly wasn’t underestimating Rickards, he was equally sure that Rickards wouldn’t underestimate him. If the captain believed that the kids had met up with O’Reilly, Rickards would stop at nothing to recapture them, and he would bring the manpower to do it.

  A soft sigh and a murmur came from across the room. It sounded like the upper bunk. Was that Nick? Or Ryan? Hell, he couldn’t tell the two apart and he knew they got a huge kick out of his continual mistakes.

  O’Reilly made a fist with his right hand and brought it down to his side, hitting the mattress beside him with a soft thump. He’d been so careful since Sarah and Kay-Tee died to keep everyone at arm’s length. How in the hell could he suddenly find himself in charge of the well being of seven other lives? God sure had a sense of humor.

  It didn’t really matter at this point whether he wanted to be responsible for other lives. He was, and he had to do his best for them.

  Tomorrow morning they would need to split up in groups and prepare for a siege. The children should be put to work carrying more supplies to the caves. Maggie, Mark and he had put up enough to last for a week or more, but there were eight now, assuming he made it to the caves at all. The collapsible water containers he’d brought back from Wikieup would have to be filled and stored. More food would need to be carried, more bedding, more everything.

  Meanwhile, he, and maybe Mark and Alysa, would need to take the extra horses and cattle and drive them up to the east pasture. He thought about simply opening the end gate and letting the animals drift out on their own, but quickly dismissed that thought. It would probably take them too long to move since the grazing was still good down here in the canyon bottom. A large collection of horses and cattle would be a sure sign to anyone monitoring the seekers that people were about, even if the machines didn’t pick up the people themselves.

  We’ll have to take some of those water proof tarps, O’Reilly thought. If we saddle all the animals, once we get to the top pasture, we can unsaddle and wrap the tack in the tarps and leave it under some brush or make a rock cairn. That way when Rickards comes, it will look more like we’ve made a run for it. Being turned out and not milked will probably cause Lizzie to start drying up, depending on how long we have to leave them there, but there’s no help for it. A milking cow with no calf would be a dead give away to anyone trying to figure out if we’re here or not. O’Reilly sighed. Maggie wasn’t going to like giving up the milk supply until Lizzie calved again, but she’d like living in the APZ
even less.

  While all this was going on, Maggie could be working in the house to make it look as though no one was living there. It wouldn’t be easy. No dust would be a huge giveaway. Dust was a way of life on an Arizona ranch.

  Job description: Low pay, hot weather, no moisture and plenty of dust. Obsessive-compulsive neatnicks need not apply.

  Of course, being the monsoon season, the dust was not as prominent as it usually was. For this short time every year most ranch wives traded dust for mud. O’Reilly never thought that he’d miss the dust.

  Maggie didn’t need to make it look as though no one had been there in the past fifty years, though. Only that the fugitives were no longer in residence. If she could get everything essential hidden somewhere, that would add to the impression that they had bolted, realizing that someone would be looking for the kids.

  Taking a deep breath, O’Reilly rolled onto his left side. Starting tomorrow night, they’d all better camp out in the caves, just in case Rickards decided to make a surprise nighttime or dawn attack. O’Reilly closed his eyes, and concentrated on slowing his breathing. He might as well enjoy the last night sleeping in a bed that he was likely to see for awhile.

  From across the room, one of the boys began to snore.

  The night air was peaceful, a light breeze playing hide and seek between the walls of the cany

  on and the outbuildings. Soft lunar light splashed the camp with silver. The windmill creaked into motion, then stopped. In the pasture the horses and cattle grazed quietly.

  Gradually a high pitched whine built, causing several of the horses to twitch their ears, one tossing his mane and swishing his tail in annoyance. One of the cows lifted her head, a mouthful of grass hanging unchewed as she looked toward the sky. In the hen house Houdini ruffled his feathers and, confused about the time of day, emitted a crow, creating a rustle among the hens.