She choked down her rage and let it pass. For now. But she would remember this man and she would kill him if her father didn’t get to him first. She would enjoy the looks on their faces. She would enjoy seeing the awareness of how they’d misjudged her. They would wish they’d never seen the likes of her.
With their most pressing needs taken care of, Barb and JoAnn were ushered to join the group of other women. While there were no fences, the women were basically corralled in the center of the men and horses. They were forced to the ground and several water bottles were distributed. Barb wasn't pleased with drinking water of unknown purity that had been passed between several unfamiliar mouths but she saw no choice. She gritted her teeth and took several swallows, reminding herself this was about surviving, about keeping herself strong to fight when the time was right.
Predictably, the group lunched on smoked beef.
"Where do you think those other son of a bitches are?" asked the man who was slicing and distributing chunks of beef.
A different man, compact and muscular, probably someone who worked with his hands in his previous life, shook his head. Barb had heard him addressed as Lester. "Who the hell knows? They had a little work ahead of them and they were probably in no big hurry to catch up with us. I’m sure it’s a lot more peaceful riding along without a care in the world. I don't know if I'd expect them before dinnertime.”
A different man, taller and with unkempt hair, walked over with a canteen and stood beside Lester. It was the one called Top Cat, which she thought to be a pretty stupid name.
"At the next intersection there’s a huge distribution warehouse for one of those superstore chains. It’s fucking enormous. Probably the biggest building in this part of the state."
"You want us to check it out?" Lester asked.
Top Cat shook his head. "Not you. I’m making you responsible for these women. Put two men on it and two pack horses. I’m sure the place is looted and torn all to hell but there’s probably stuff we can use back at the farm."
"Most of the horses got loads on them now," Lester replied. "Those asshats we left cutting up that steer kept the only empty pack horses we had."
Top Cat spoke as if he was getting frustrated, as if he were tired of having to explain every little detail to people who weren’t bright enough to tie their own shoes. "Before we set out again, shift the loads to free up two horses. Most of the food is probably gone from the warehouse but if they come out with a couple of sacks of toothpaste, toothbrushes, tampons, and soap I'll be happy. We got guns and food under control but we need more of the basic shit we can’t make right now."
"Sure wish we had a couple of trucks," Lester complained.
"Yeah, you and every other sore-assed son of a bitch on this ride."
Barb listened intently. Barb hoped her father had caught up with the two men who were left behind at the restaurant. She hoped the real reason for their delay was that he’d killed them and left them for the buzzards. Nothing would give her more pleasure than knowing her father was somewhere back there, killing everyone who lagged behind.
The ladies were prompted to make sure they had all personal business taken care of before they mounted their horses again. “Ain’t going to be no more stops until we camp for the night,” Top Cat announced.
The kidnappers repeated the process of placing each woman back onto a horse and tying a leg to a stirrup. Each time they did this it fueled Barb's fire. She wasn't one to suffer indignities without returning the pain tenfold and she was stockpiling her anger for the moment she had an opportunity. She remembered the face of every cruel man who had strapped her to the saddle. She remembered the face of every slobbering perv who groped her under the guise of helping her remount. They would all pay.
The entourage headed north and Barb imagined from a distance they must look like a group of settlers from the old days. That image dissolved when she took into account their setting, which included modern buildings, abandoned vehicles, and paved highways. Another less obvious difference would be those earlier folks were accustomed to the saddle and this slow mode of travel. For modern folk, travel on horseback was archaic and cruelly slow.
Barb, in particular, was a woman used to being on the go. She worked hard physically each day and worked out diligently. She trained in her martial arts, lifted weights, and did a variety of functional fitness activities to keep her sharp. Accustomed to that level of activity, she found it tortuous to be strapped to the back of a horse and had to find mental diversions to keep from going insane. It was a tool taught to her by her father, specifically for passing time during tough endeavors.
One of those first games was creating names for each of her kidnappers. To that, she added a fictional backstory she knew would anger and embarrass them were they privy to it. There was the man she referred to as Potato Man, named for his tanned skin and shapeless form. She imagined him to be the product of the union between two slow-witted and shapeless people who were too closely related.
Another she referred to as Dinosaur Arms, because he reminded her of the T-Rex with its short and useless forearms. She imagined him to be secretly saving money in an old coffee can to have the longer arms of a corpse grafted onto his own, hoping he might one day be able to zip up his own pants without awkward contortions.
There was Hair Bear, whom she imagined to be the offspring of an extremely hairy and unattractive woman. Barb decided she could only have produced such an unattractive child by engaging in a bestial relationship with a mangy bear. There was Bugs Bunny, named for his buck teeth and incessant chatter, and MacGyver, named for an old TV show character because he always seemed to have whatever anyone needed in his bottomless pockets.
Barb's childlike distraction served its purpose and she’d nearly gone through all the men when she noticed something taking place within the group. A man from further back in the group rode ahead and spoke to Top Cat. After a brief exchange, he peeled away and another rider, leading two pack horses, fell in behind him. These must be the two men heading to check out the distribution warehouse.
The warehouse was right beside the road. Barb assumed a nearby exit would probably lead them to the front entrance. Horses didn’t need roads and they didn’t need exits. The men rode over the shoulder of the road and cut their way through a fence with bolt cutters. They slipped through the opening and were gone into tall, golden weeds. She hoped this was an indication the ride for the day was nearly over but that was not the case. One of the men asked Top Cat when they were stopping and he said they’d ride until sunset, which was a ways off.
Not far past where the men cut through the fence, Top Cat pulled a similar move. He guided his horse down over a gentle embankment, rode through some tall weeds, and joined a secondary road running parallel to the highway. For the first time, Barb felt a rush of panic. If her father was indeed back there, he might easily miss the signs of their turn and continue travelling on the highway. If he did that, there was no telling how far he might go before realizing his mistake. He may never rediscover their trail.
Her mind raced, trying to find something she could drop, something he might recognize as belonging to her. She had a few useless things in her pocket and she tried reaching for them but could not shove her zip tied hands inside them. She had a belt her dad might recognize but she didn’t know if she could pull it off without drawing attention. She only had seconds to figure something out. The herd of horses was moving closer to the shoulder and, once there, anything she dropped would be lost in the tall weeds.
Then she remembered her necklace.
It was her mother’s and it was one of the few things Barb had that belonged to her. Her father had only given it to her when he decided she’d gotten old enough to take care of it. The idea of tossing it to the ground clawed at her soul, yet her father would understand. He would want her to take this chance. If he were here, he would tell her the necklace held no value if she was not alive to wear it.
She feigned a swipe at her neck,
as if she’d been bitten by an insect. It was not so dramatic as to draw everyone’s attention, but would appear legitimate to anyone looking at her. While her hand was on her neck, she clutched the gold chain around her neck and casually broke it loose from her neck. She had one second to glance down and take a last look at the gold shamrock charm with its inlaid diamond. She committed it to memory in case she never saw it again.
She dropped her hand and let the chain slip through her fingers, watching from the corner of her eye to see it hit the ground and did not snag on anything. It hurt her to let it go but she had to look at it like a resource. It was like a gun, a bullet, a lighter, or any other tool.
Barb hoped her father caught up with them soon. She craved nothing more than the moment he cut her loose and she was unleashed on her kidnappers. She thirsted for the moment she saw fear in their eyes, for the moment just before the blackness of death fell over them like a shadow. Growing up without a mother had made her different and she knew it by this point in her life. Despite the things her father had done in his life, despite the violent acts he had committed, she sometimes felt he was too soft and encumbered by a morality she didn't feel. She would not hesitate to kill all of these men when the time came. She would spill rivers of blood and she would be fine with it.
16
From an isolated stand of deep green hemlocks, Ragus saw the pair of riders with their pack horses split from the main group of kidnappers. The horse he had randomly chosen back at the restaurant was a quiet, well-disciplined mount who made no unnecessary noise and sat patiently when Ragus stilled him. It was the one blessing he'd been given on this journey, that he, through no exercise of knowledge or understanding of horses, had chosen one that did not work against him, making an already difficult mission even harder.
Choosing to follow the two men instead of the larger group was an easy decision. While Barb remained with the larger group, Ragus had no hope of wresting her from their grip. There were too many men, too many guns. He hoped Conor would join him at some point and take over this mission. He was certainly better suited for it. Yet what if he didn’t show up? What if Barb’s rescue depended entirely on his own efforts?
In either regard, Ragus needed to whittle down the numbers some, a much easier feat when he took them on in small groups. He had successfully taken down two men already and felt certain that with a similar approach he could take down two more. Over time, should they continue to allow men to wander off in smaller groups, perhaps he could kill enough of him that he could swoop into the larger group like a Sioux brave and drop the remainder of them.
He wasn’t too concerned about allowing the larger group to proceed without him. He didn’t expect they would go much farther. They’d already demonstrated they liked to travel during daylight. He expected another hour or two was all they had left before they’d stop for the night. He could easily close that distance in half the time should he push his horse to a decent trot.
He followed the two riders and their pack horses once the coast was clear. There was no doubt where they were going with the distribution warehouse clearly in sight of the road. There wasn’t anything else anywhere nearby. When he found a secluded spot, Ragus tied his horse to the branches of a low willow oak and proceeded on foot. He carried his go bag and the suppressed Henry rifle. Conor had impressed upon him the necessity of always having the bag with him just in case his plans went to shit and he had to run for it.
At the edge of the parking lot, he laid in a weedy ditch and watched the riders circle the warehouse. At first he thought they were looking for a door, then eventually realized they were trying to make sure no one lived there, which might be a reasonable assumption. If a group could defend it, this warehouse full of domestic goodies would definitely be a nice play for weathering this storm until the power came back on and the gas began flowing again.
Finally satisfied the warehouse appeared to be unoccupied, the riders completed their circumnavigation and returned to Ragus’ view just as he was steeling himself to go looking for them. They tied their horses off to a yellow traffic bollard and conferred, making the decision one man would go in alone initially while the other watched the horses.
Ragus confirmed the Henry rifle was topped off with rounds and eased the action back to double check there was a round in the chamber. He gave the suppressor a quick twist to make sure it had not loosened during the travels of the day. Returning his gaze to the warehouse, he realized approaching the entrance was not going to be an easy proposition. Distances in open spaces like parking lots could be misleading. They could take longer to traverse than you thought, leaving you exposed and vulnerable.
The distribution center was a warehouse for shipping goods to superstore locations and was not a retail location itself. Instead of being set up with landscaped parking lots and grassy islands, the building was surrounded by vast stretches of pavement where semi-trucks could easily access the dozens of loading docks lining the side walls of the building.
Ragus worked his way around to the side of the building so he was blocked from the sentry’s view. There were a few scattered cars in the parking lot, perhaps belonging to employees who had run out of fuel or travelers who had become stranded and thought this might be a safe place to leave a car. Those cars offered the only concealment in the otherwise barren lot. Scared of being discovered, the hundred yards between Ragus and the store looked more like a hundred miles.
Careful to keep his steps silent, he moved from car to car, always trying to keep one between him and the building. He ran out of cars when he got closer to the building and had to bolt for it, flattening himself against the side of the structure. He slipped around the corner to move along the front, using a line of overgrown hedges as concealment. He moved hedge to hedge, not hurrying. He focused on smooth movements and quiet steps. Stealth over speed. He gradually closed the distance between himself and the front door, turning one hundred and fifty feet into eighty, then to sixty, closer and closer.
Ragus checked the sentry’s location from each position and monitored his activity. For a while, the man clutched his rifle and vigilantly scanned his surroundings. But as the riders’ presence went unchallenged, the sentry relaxed. He rolled a cigarette from a pouch of Drum tobacco and smoked it with his rifle dangling casually from his shoulder. He’d quickly gone from alert to bored.
The presence of the other man, somewhere in the immense warehouse, concerned Ragus. He wanted to take out the sentry in front of him but he didn’t want to be heard. There was a closed door between the outside man and the inside man. It would muffle some of the sound. The inside man could also be hundreds of feet away, wandering the rows of shelves, unable to see or hear anything that took place out front but Ragus didn’t know that. Conor had impressed upon him the importance of trying to think situations out like he did in wrestling. If you make a particular move, what will the other guy do? Conor said it was like playing chess, but Ragus didn’t know shit about chess. Wrestling he understood.
There were several floor-to-ceiling windows beside the sentry that looked into the lobby and reception area of the warehouse. There were perhaps even a couple of more closed doors between the sentry and the man wandering the interior of the warehouse. He just didn’t know. Ragus had a pack of subsonic .22 ammunition in his pack and he wished he’d taken the time to reload with it. While the suppressor was helpful, it worked much more efficiently with the subsonic rounds.
He weighed the options, wondering if he could un-chamber what he had in the rifle now and switch it to a subsonic, but there was too much movement involved. That movement, the mechanical sounds of unloading the weapon, digging the ammo from his pack, all might draw attention. It was just too big a risk to take. He needed to go for it before he was spotted. He needed to take the kill. The sentry was distracted by his smoke break but when that was over, there was no telling what he would decide to do. Ragus might lose his shot.
Not breaking the contour of the bush that concealed him, Rag
us slowly extended the rifle through the dense branches. He drew the hammer back and got on the scope. The man was facing away from him now, lost in his thoughts and the enjoyment of his tobacco. Ragus lay the crosshairs on a cervical vertebra. He talked himself up. He could make the shot because of squirrel hunting. He knew his capabilities, and what the rifle could do.
There was still something inside him that made him hesitate to pull the trigger on a person. Sure, he’d done it already, but it wasn’t easy. Maybe it should never be easy. He reminded himself of the thing that made this killing acceptable. That made it necessary.
This man kidnapped one of the only people left who cares about you and shows you any kindness. You know you'll never forgive yourself if she's injured or killed. You know there's no choice. This has to be done.
Part of his brain was ready to offer more encouragement. Part of his brain was waiting for that encouragement. Another part had already heard everything it needed to hear. That part took the lead, squeezed the trigger, and the rifle cracked. The projectile poked a hole exactly where it was intended to. The man stiffened and arched, his arms flying upward in a gesture of supplication while his rifle clattered to the ground. Then he toppled over, arching and gesticulating. Trying to shout. Trying to put words to his wonder at what happened to him. Trying to understand he was dying.
Ragus realized he was holding his breath and he gasped, starving for air. His heart pounded and his synapses fired. He was in the fight now. Part of him wanted to bolt upright and enter the building, stalking and killing the other man. Another part of him, trained by Conor, knew better than to put himself at risk like that. He forced himself to sit there and breathe, not taking any action until he calmed down since that option was available to him.
The Mad Mick: Book One of The Mad Mick Series Page 11