by Thomas Locke
8
As they prepared for departure, Kevin watched Marsh embrace his son and say, “The enclave knows my worth. They’ll soon know yours. You wait. The elders will invite you back.”
Caleb started to climb into the wagon, only to be halted by Kevin’s mother. Abigail pointed down the empty road leading east. “The people out there want to either condemn you as some especially evil spawn or refashion you into a component of their next power grab. This is your talent and your life. Hard as it is to look beyond your current distress, I suggest now is the time for you to start deciding what you want to do with your gifts.”
Caleb nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”
Abigail revealed a rare smile. “Does it, now.”
“Yes ma’am. It does. And I’ll treat your words as a parting gift.”
“That’s good, young man,” Abigail replied. “For that is how they were intended.”
Kevin noticed that Caleb’s father stood back a ways with his arms crossed, observing everything. Kevin liked how his mother’s words both calmed Caleb and forged a deeper bond with Marsh. He knew any number of such clans—he’d eaten at the table of many, slept in their barns, and managed to save quite a few when they lost everything to the militia’s onslaught.
Abigail walked over to where Kevin stood beside the second wagon. “The time for regret is over,” she said to him. “You may not indulge this any longer. I forbid it.”
Kevin did not know how to respond. His mother was using her classroom voice, loud enough to carry. He sensed she intended all of them to hear and obey.
“Your safety depends upon focusing fully on what lies ahead. Tell me you understand.”
“Yes ma’am.” He watched as both Marsh and Caleb nodded slow agreement.
“Pay close attention. Heroes of past ages held one quality lost to the mists of time, but vital to your future. They managed to lift themselves beyond the fractured moment and see the bigger picture, the higher purpose.” She let that sink in a moment, then continued, “What if everything you have lost, everything you count as error, was in truth meant to prepare you for what lies ahead? What if you were required to lose it all in order to gain something far greater?”
Kevin blinked. This was his mother’s innate ability, he knew. To rock other people’s worlds, shake foundations and assumptions. Grant a new perspective to the old and fearsome and tawdry.
Kevin embraced his mother, slender and strong as a saber. She watched him climb into the wagon seat, then lifted her hand in farewell, a somewhat formal gesture that in the soft grey light seemed proper. “Your father would be so proud of you.”
As he gripped the reins, he heard Caleb’s father say, “Ma’am, I consider your and your son’s arrival to be a gift from above.”
Kevin took the lead wagon with Caleb guiding the second. Zeke followed on horseback behind. The road ahead was empty except for squirrels and a pair of foxes and a lone wild pig that trotted out of the undergrowth, snorted a challenge, then scuttled away. Weeds and young saplings ate into the highway’s edges. Moss covered much of the crumbling asphalt and muffled the hooves and softened the rumbling wheels.
The afternoon shadows began gathering. The wagons creaked and rolled. This portion of the road was so lightly traveled there was little threat from brigands. The township’s border was ninety miles ahead, two and a half days’ hard ride. Closer to Charlotte Township, especially with the refugees pouring south, they would have to be more careful. Now they rode in silence, Kevin’s rifle propped easy on the seat beside him. They made good time.
Toward dusk they entered the region Kevin knew well. The final test all trainees faced was to be given a blank map and assigned an unknown district. They were ordered to make a detailed assessment and report back in a week. Sheriff Ferguson sent the trainees off with the same message he used to address the deputies at every gathering: Survivors survive. This particular stretch of road had formed the boundary point for Kevin’s own test district.
Kevin pulled up in the middle of the road and turned around. “There’s an abandoned homestead up ahead with a sweet-water well. We could stop there.”
“Sounds good. Zeke?”
Zeke’s only response was to rise high in his saddle. He shifted slowly back and forth, moving his entire upper body, like he was sniffing the wind. It was Kevin’s first chance to study the guy. Zeke reminded him of the Charlotte gangs. Ferret-faced with a gaze tight and hard. Solitary by nature, and fast. In his former position Kevin would probably have brought Zeke in for questioning.
Caleb asked softly, “You got something?”
“Maybe,” Zeke replied. It was the first word Kevin had heard him speak.
Zeke leapt down and was gone. Silent and swift as the wind.
Caleb stepped down, stretched his back, then lashed Zeke’s reins to the wagon’s rear gate. Kevin continued to study the forest where Zeke had disappeared. Caleb said, “He does that.”
The trail leading to the homestead was a good deal rougher than the last time Kevin had been up here. There was nothing left of the cabin except crumbling foundations rimming a cellar. The well was an ancient thing, lined in river stone and very deep. There were any number of such abandoned farms, lost to bandits or transformed into fortified inns catering to scallywags. The deputies marked them all.
Kevin retrieved a leather bucket and long rope from their hiding place beneath the cellar overhang. Together he and Caleb unharnessed the horses. There were seven in all—four pulling the two wagons and three with saddles. The saddle horses served as backup in case of a thrown shoe or lameness. They also signified wealth.
Kevin watched Caleb curry the horses, his features as grim as they were exhausted. Kevin asked, “Still nothing from the woman?”
“No.”
“And this has never happened before?”
“No. Even when she’s been silent, I could sense her there. Now . . .” He pulled a sack of oats and feed bags from the second wagon. “She screamed and it woke me up. It didn’t feel like pain. More like . . .”
“You have that connection with anyone else?”
“I told you. This is all Maddie’s doing.”
“So you heard her scream, but she wasn’t in pain.”
“More like she panicked. And then everything went quiet.” He gave a visible shudder at the memory, then asked, “What am I supposed to do?”
Kevin gave the answer he thought Gus would have offered. “Gather intelligence. And when you have enough to make a decent plan, you act.”
The shadows were lengthening by the time they’d finished with the horses and set up camp. Zeke still had not returned. Kevin gathered kindling while Caleb foraged. Around the time Kevin had the fire burning, Caleb returned with a double handful of spring tubers, field onions, and wild sage. He washed them in the bucket, pulled the iron pan and sack of victuals from the wagon, and settled down beside Kevin.
Kevin asked, “Where’s your pal?”
“Scouting. Zeke will be back.”
“You don’t mind him skipping out on work?”
Caleb seemed genuinely amused by the question. “First of all, this wasn’t work.”
“Making camp, then. What do you mean, scouting?”
Caleb pulled a side of smoked pork from the bag, sliced bits into the mix of greens, then set it on a stone to heat. “You’ll see.”
Their meal had just begun to sizzle when Zeke returned. Kevin considered himself very alert, and still the guy’s abrupt appearance startled him. Zeke made no sound.
He was shocked even more when Zeke hefted the bucket and drenched the fire. He kept pouring until rivulets of ash streamed around the rim stones. He then poured the remnants into the pan. When there was neither smoke from the fire nor a smell from their meal, he said, “We’re being tracked.”
Caleb rose to his feet. “Harshaw?”
“Him and the three strangers. And they’re armed.”
“But Pa took their guns.”
“They got more from somewhere.”
Kevin asked, “Where are they now?”
“Five miles back, going slow.”
“Waiting for dark,” Caleb said.
“Did they send out a scout?” Kevin asked.
“No.”
Which could only mean one thing, as far as Kevin could see. “They know about this place.”
“That’s my thinking,” Zeke said.
“Who is this Harshaw fellow?”
“Leader of a Catawba hill clan,” Caleb replied. “A bad man.”
Now it was Kevin’s turn to smile. “You really think you know what a bad man is?”
Caleb and Zeke studied him intently. Kevin liked how neither of them felt any need to challenge his words. It drew from him a faintly unwelcome stirring. He was not ready to like them yet.
Zeke took a sack from his shoulder and dumped four quail on the ground. “We can dress these while we decide what to do.”
Caleb asked, “What’s to decide? We break camp and make tracks.”
“Think about what we’re facing. Three strangers not from the enclave, hunting us with Harshaw, who wants to string you up.”
Kevin said, “Describe the trio.”
“Bearded and dirty. One of them has flame-red hair and a cast to his left eye,” Zeke said. “The oldest has a scar running across his forehead. And he—”
“Has a streak of white running down the center of his beard that’s split by another scar,” Kevin finished for him. “The third one is the youngest and is missing two fingers from his left hand. The Greers, father and two sons. Bounty hunters. Hollis uses them for his dirty work.”
Caleb said, “I’ve heard that name, Hollis.”
“Captain Hollis is the head of the Charlotte militia.” Kevin felt a tightening in his gut. “He has spies among the Overpass deputies.”
“So they came looking for you and your ma, then Harshaw told them about Caleb’s gift.” Zeke nodded. “Makes sense.”
“When the mayor confronted me about our work on the railroad, he used the threat to force me to round up . . .”
“Specials,” Caleb said.
Kevin nodded. “Zeke is right. We can’t move forward with these men on our tail.”
“So what do we do?”
Kevin understood now why the hunter had been watching him. “What we have to.”
9
In the fading light of dusk, Zeke led them back to a point where the highway turned sharply to the right. There had once been a second road leading north, but it was now reduced to gravel and weeds. The fork was bordered by a deep culvert where crumbling cement formed a ledge. They could perch out of sight from the road but rise up and have a clear line of sight. They settled into position, then shared a cold meal of dried fruit and a sack of Carolina peanuts and a skin of well water. Soon the earth at their feet was littered with shells.
Kevin said, “As a kid I hated peanuts. Couldn’t even stand the smell. Abigail says it’s because the winter I turned three, the crops failed and we survived for the entire winter on peanut soup.”
“I remember my folks talking about that.” Caleb was seated next to Kevin with Zeke on his other side. “You’re twenty-five?”
“That’s right. You?”
“Just gone twenty-one. Me and Zeke both. I thought you were older.”
“I get that a lot.”
“How long have you been a deputy?”
“Eight years. I lied about my age. Abigail convinced Gus to take me on.”
“Is that a city thing, calling your mother by her first name?”
“No. It’s an Abigail thing.”
“Your mother is something. Where’s your pa?”
“Dead. Shot in the line of duty. I was nine. The sheriff was his partner. Gus helped raise me.”
Caleb started to ask something, then stayed quiet.
Kevin said, “Go ahead, speak your mind.”
“It’s none of my business. I was just wondering what the sheriff told you before he rode off.”
Kevin thought back to the old man’s parting words. “He reminded me of the three elements of proper law enforcement. Protect the innocent, uphold the law, and survive.”
“Do you have a girl?”
“I did. She broke off our engagement about a year back.” He looked around Caleb to where Zeke crouched with his head canted slightly. Listening. “What is it?”
In response, Zeke rose and slipped away.
Kevin had heard nothing. “How does he do that?”
“It’s his gift.”
“And those quail. Four birds without a snare or bow or gun?”
“I asked him once. He said he catches them napping.”
Zeke appeared on the road in front of them. “Here they come.”
Kevin hefted his weapons and scrambled from the culvert. He whispered to Caleb, “You know what to do?”
In reply, Caleb lifted the shotgun they’d taken from one of the strangers and cocked both hammers. “I’ll be ready.”
Kevin and Zeke slipped to opposite sides of the road. Kevin gripped his knife in one hand and a crudely fashioned club in the other. He breathed through his mouth, listening intently. A springtime night surrounded him. A nightjar chuckled, an owl hooted, and the leaves to his left rustled with a passing animal, probably a stoat. A few crickets sang. What little wind there was died off. The loudest sound was the hammering of his heart. The minutes dragged.
Kevin tried to tell himself it was just another takedown. He had been involved in dozens. Hundreds. Only this wasn’t an arrest, and he wasn’t a deputy. Nothing was the same.
His mind drummed with rising doubts. What was he doing, putting his life in the hands of two young men from a backcountry enclave? And for what? His mother was gone. Had he saved her from the mayor just so she’d be expelled from an enclave that didn’t value her, and when he wasn’t there to protect her? And what about him sitting here, hiding in the weeds? He was outside the law, and what he was about to do would put him utterly beyond . . .
His mind shot back to the immediate moment when Zeke hissed.
A few breaths, then he heard the soft plod of hooves. They came into view soon after, four on horseback. Which meant they felt safe enough to ride grouped together, no scout walking the trail, no outrider, nobody walking ahead to draw fire.
He heard one man grumble, “You said it was right up here.”
“Soon,” the man in the lead position said. “Hush your jawing.”
“You been saying the old homestead is round the next bend for two hours.”
“And now I’m telling you to shut up. I never did meet a man who loved to complain—”
The lead man’s comment was cut off when Caleb leapt from the culvert, screamed at the top of his lungs, and shot off the first barrel right in front of the horse’s face.
As they’d hoped, all four horses reared.
Zeke did as Kevin had instructed, going for the last man, keeping him from bolting. Kevin started for the senior Greer, then changed course when his son managed to clear his rifle from the saddle holster despite the rearing horse. The rifle was on Greer’s opposite side, so Kevin did the only thing he could think of. He slammed the knife into the bounty hunter’s thigh, all the way down to the hilt. The man screamed as high as a woman. Kevin used the knife to haul Greer out of the saddle. The knife came free as the bounty hunter tumbled to the road. Kevin slammed the club into his skull. Then he spun about, looking for his next target.
It was over.
Two of the riders were down and inert, with Zeke standing over them. The lead rider was the only one still in his saddle. The long streak of white in his beard and the scar across his forehead shone dark in the moonlight. He stared at the shotgun Caleb had jabbed in his gut and said, “It ain’t right, threatening a man with his own piece.”
“Get down,” Kevin said. “Slow and easy.”
The bounty hunter did as he was ordered. He glared at Kevin. “I know you.”
>
“And I know you,” Kevin said. “You’re Jack Greer.”
Greer shot a stream of tobacco juice at Kevin’s boot. “And I’m talking to a dead’un.”
10
The one called Harshaw woke up and instantly started cursing, so Zeke stuffed a rag into his mouth and tied it in place. They hauled the four men back to a clearing some dozen or so paces off the road, then lashed the four to trees using the Greers’ own rope. Kevin sat on a rotting log while Caleb lit a lantern they found in one pack and Zeke tested all the bonds. The older son, the one Kevin had knifed and struck, moaned softly but did not wake up. The other son remained limp, his breathing shallow.
Kevin tried to steel himself against what was coming. But the night’s events seemed scripted to him, right down to the revulsion in his gut. He told his new friends, “I know these three. Matter of fact, I arrested them. Twice.”
“And both times the militia’s sprung us.” Old Man Greer sneered. “What do you think is gonna happen when Hollis hears about this?”
Caleb set the lantern on a stump between them and the captives. “What did you arrest them for?”
“Mostly they prey on refugees. They hunt out the pretty women—the younger, the better. Feed them to the hotels the militia run. Least, they’re called hotels.”
Old Man Greer wrestled with his bonds. “Boy, you are looking at trouble you can’t even . . .”
Zeke darted in from beyond the lantern’s reach, a swift dancing motion. The old man sagged against his ropes.
Kevin asked, “Did you kill him?”
Zeke moved back far enough to mask his response from the captives. His blade was clean.
But Harshaw did not know this. He started huffing hard against his gag. His eyes looked ready to pop right out of his head. Kevin walked over and squatted down. His knife rested on the man’s thigh. “I’m going to give you the same choice I gave the bounty hunter. Nod if you understand me.”