Or at least, a number of battles.
Jennifer sat down again and started pinging away at the target. She could hit an area smaller and more consistently than Wolfe, but not nearly as hard. She might not have enough power to kill a bird. Then again, they had thin skulls.
“Wait,” he told her. He crawled into the cab through the crushed windshield and dug around the glove compartment. He found an old manual, half-torn and a little soggy. “Here.”
Wolfe put two pages from the manual in front of her target.
“Now hit it.”
Her first five attempts bounced off. She huffed and glared at the paper.
Wolfe watched the determination creep onto her features. Her lips turned white while she clenched her jaw. She started taking deeper and deeper breaths. When she had the biggest she could hold, Jennifer let fly, sending the pellet wide. Her shoulders slumped with her failure. Wolfe smiled at her.
“You are close to perfect. Every time we stop, I want you to practice. Both of us hunting are better than one. It will keep us from starving.”
“Three of us,” she corrected, nodding toward the truck. Buddy was curled up in the shade under the rear bumper. “I will do my share, Mister Wolfe. I do not want to be a burden…” Her voice trailed off.
Wolfe knew where her mind had gone. She was back in the cabin with her parents. She frowned and blinked to keep the tears from coming.
“You had nothing to do with all that. Things happened that no one could control. Your parents were good people. You think kindly about them, Miss Jennifer.”
She nodded while sniffling.
Wolfe decided it was time to fix the truck. Duct tape would have worked well enough, but he did not have any. He crawled under the front end, avoiding the puddle of water with a touch of anti-freeze. Spring clamps held the hose in place, and he had it off in seconds. The outside rubber flaked away under his fingers.
Grumbling, he took the hose to the first semi’s engine compartment. He found nothing in good enough shape or small enough. The second truck, a Peterbilt, was more fruitful. He found a silicon hose that had been protected from the elements. It was limber but a little too big. He tested the original hose to see if it would fit inside the better hose.
He returned to the truck, where he sliced off two one-inch sections of the original hose. He used those as spacers and gaskets. He stretched the spring clamps as far as they would go before fitting the gasket and new hose. He sealed the end and looked for gaps, then manhandled the new hose to twist it into place on the engine block, leaving a kink in the middle. Nothing he did changed that. He clamped the second connection tightly and crawled out.
“One hundred miles,” he told the truck. “All we need is a hundred miles out of you, and we will be much obliged.”
Using a rag he found under the truck seat as a filter, Wolfe and Jennifer used their canteens to get water from the ditches to fill the radiator. When it was done, he twisted the radiator cap into place and brushed off his hands.
“We might have to take a little bit of a run at it,” he said, eyeing the narrow gap. They climbed in, and the truck slowly turned over until it started. It belched blue smoke before settling in. Wolfe turned it around and eased it toward the opening. Metal screeched as the truck touched the trailer on one side and the semi’s roof on the other. He backed out.
“Roll the window down and get in the back with Buddy. Hold him down.” Wolfe looked at the gap as if it were an enemy that needed to be defeated. “One hundred miles starts here.”
Jennifer did as she was asked, crawling over the console and into the back. She forced the big dog to the floor, where she covered him with her body. He whimpered in protest but only fought weakly. Wolfe’s rifle, bow, and gear were behind his seat, and the dog and the young girl filled the rest of the space.
Wolfe gunned the engine with his right foot on the gas pedal and his left on the brake. He lifted his left and the truck raced into the gap, impacting the wreckage with a horrible rending of metal and jerking to a halt. The rusted remains of the semis had wedged into both driver and passenger door frames. Wolfe tried to back up but could not. They were trapped.
“Can you get out?” Wolfe asked. Jennifer looked out one window and then the other.
“I cannot,” she finally answered.
“I need to come back there,” Wolfe told her. Buddy was already standing on the back seat, refusing to return to the floor. His hackles were up as he tried to figure out what was happening.
“Come on, Buddy. Give Mister Wolfe some space.” She pulled the big beast to the side, trying to look hopeful that it was enough.
Wolfe contorted his body until he was crouched over the console and twisted sideways between the two front seats. He kicked out, driving the back window into the bed of the truck, surprised it had come out in one piece.
“Our way out.” He gestured for Jennifer to climb through, and she made quick and easy work of it. Buddy pranced around the back seat, unwilling to try to fit through the space. Wolfe had had enough of it. He fought with the dog while trying to climb into the back seat. Once he forced Buddy’s head and front legs through, the rest followed. When the way was clear, Wolfe handed their gear through the opening, making sure there was nothing left behind before he squeezed his body through.
With a final sigh, he led the way through the wreckage and onto the clear road beyond.
Sometimes the world conspired against you, no matter how hard you tried to bend it to your will.
Chapter Five
They spent the rest of that day and the next walking in silence. As Wolfe had asked, Jennifer practiced with her blowgun.
On the third day, she bagged her first bird. Wolfe cooked it in their one pot with water and leeks to make a weak soup. Buddy caught himself a fish in a roadside stream, but despite Wolfe’s best efforts, he could not catch one to add to the pot.
Once they finished eating, Jennifer cleaned the pot in the stream. The water ran crystal clear, the sound of its passing leaving a certain calm in its wake. Birds sang from the trees overhead.
Jennifer dropped another bird, a big one.
Wolfe did not caution her about killing too many. Tomorrow they would move on, but today, they were still hungry. He nodded to her as she started to clean her kill using a small pocketknife.
He heard a rustle in the bushes, a sound that was different from the other sounds. Wolfe’s head snapped around, and he brought the rifle barrel up to follow his line of sight. He studied the bushes, still moving despite a lack of wind.
“Over here, Miss Jennifer,” Wolfe whispered. She hurried toward him, calling to Buddy as she went. A small, furry black head appeared, looking up at the strangers before falling into the swollen and fast-moving stream. A second bear cub followed the first into the water. The mother roared her displeasure as she tore out half the bushes to splash in after the mischievous youths. She snapped her jaws at the humans before swimming downstream to rescue her offspring.
Wolfe watched the bear through the rifle sights, following her as she swam away. Jennifer put her hand on his arm and pulled the barrel down.
“I will get better, so we do not have to kill a mother or her babies.”
“I would not, Miss Jennifer. She was safe as long as she stayed over there.”
Jennifer started to laugh. “The cubs fell in the water.”
“And Mom was not happy about that,” Wolfe added with a smile. “It is a universal thing. My Lurleen…” Wolfe hung his head. “I hope you get to meet her someday, and your little brother JoJo.”
“We will.” The young girl wrapped her arms around Wolfe and hugged him. He patted her back as he watched the stream. The soft whisper of the running water and the innocence of bird song returned. “I can sleep now, and we will walk at night, Mister Wolfe, to make it easier on you.”
“I appreciate that, little lady, but it is not necessary. We will be okay. We’ll walk now and rest later.”
Jennifer nodded, picke
d up her pack, and got ready to go.
Wolfe checked his bow, kicking himself for not cutting a pipe from the semi to use as a backup blowgun. Maybe he didn’t need to. The copper tubing from a house worked best. He would stick to that.
He thumbed through the magazines for his rifle, bouncing them against his hand to make sure the rounds within were seated primer-first. It was a trick the old veteran had shown him in Ashland to reduce the chance of a bullet hanging up, resulting in a misfeed and jamming the rifle. If he was aiming to shoot something, he could not risk the rifle not firing.
Wolfe put the magazines back into his pack and carried the rifle loosely in his hands. He could not put his finger on why he was delaying, but felt like he was dragging his feet. Jennifer looked impatient, and Buddy had already started ahead.
“We are not getting closer by standing here,” he said more to himself than the girl. She started, and he caught up quickly, to walk side by side as they usually did. She tried to increase her stride to walk faster, but she still took almost twice as many steps as Wolfe.
And always without complaint. Buddy dove into the brush ahead and yelped in pain. Wolfe and Jennifer started to run.
Chapter Six
Wolfe leaped over the bush, landing clean on the other side, to find a raccoon engaged in mortal combat with the big dog. Buddy had recovered his senses and snapped at the raccoon, which stood on its hind legs, parrying with its paws as it tried to bite the dog’s nose a second time. Blood and a tear marked a future scar that would mar Buddy’s nose.
Wolfe thought about the ways he could kill the raccoon and decided quickest was best. He stepped aside and fired once from a range of one foot, and the back half of the raccoon’s head disappeared in a red and white mist. The coon fell over, flopped twice, and stilled. Jennifer wrapped herself around the big dog to keep him from running off with their kill.
“What does it taste like?” Jennifer grunted as she continued to struggle with her friend. Wolfe picked the raccoon up by the tail and held it high, out of the dog’s reach.
“Settle down. You will get your share when the time is right,” Wolfe told Buddy. “I don’t rightly know. I expect it will be greasy, but if we rinse it well, we could have ourselves a good meal.”
Wolfe was right. Between a choice of thinly watered soup with an ounce or two of a small finch or raccoon roasted on a spit, Wolfe knew exactly what he preferred. They were not disappointed with the result. They finally had a meal where they could eat their fill. Buddy dined on the less savory bits but seemed happy with his lot in life, despite the scab across his nose.
The big dog’s ears perked up, and he started to growl. Jennifer froze since he was looking at something behind her. Wolfe stood, motioning for her stay down.
A man and a woman pushed through the low bushes and stood there, not making eye contact. The man had a filthy old hat that he held with both hands. His skin was sucked tight against his bones, with little muscle in between. The woman looked the same. Wolfe could not guess their ages. These two had lived a hard life and were starving.
“We would be honored if you joined us,” Wolfe offered.
“I-I-I don’t know what to say, Mister,” the man stammered.
“Call me Jim.” Wolfe moved aside to give the people room. Jennifer wrapped her hand in the dog’s neck fur to calm him down. He settled quickly when Jennifer moved off the log to give them room to sit. They looked hungrily at the raccoon. Wolfe cleaned his knife off in the fire and handed it over hilt-first. “Where did you come from?”
“We live over yonder in a shack on the edge of a lake, but we have lost most everything. The storms were bad this season, and the house flooded. Almost took us with it. Mary Lou and I barely escaped with our lives. The water drained out, but nothing was left. We are pretty far out here. We have not been able to recover anything to help us hunt or fish. We have had to live off scavenging these past two months.”
“You seen the rain, Mister Jim?” the woman, Mary Lou, asked.
He shook his head. “We were out west.” Jennifer cleaned her pocketknife and offered it to the woman.
“Please.” Wolfe gestured toward the remainder of the raccoon. He almost felt guilty about having eaten the choicest meats first. Almost. He’d had no idea they were going to have to share with anyone other than the dog, and that beast would eat anything. He made sure Jennifer got the best of it, despite her efforts to give them to him. Keep up his strength, she had said almost as if she were becoming his guardian, instead of the other way around.
The two started tentatively, but then ravaged the remainder. A twenty-pound raccoon had fed four people and a big dog, but there was nothing left over.
“Can you tell me if there are any FEDCOMs in the area?” Wolfe asked.
“Who?” The man’s question gave him the answer.
“They were the folks who took over the government after there was no government. After the bombs fell.”
The man finished chewing and swallowed. “Bombs? Is that what happened? There was too much madness out on the road, so we stayed away. No one came to our place. And then one day, there was no one left. Our truck was dead, so we walked as far as we could, but there was nobody. We were out here all alone. That was fine, kinda how we liked it, but then we could not go to town for everything. We’ve been doing with what we could grow, hunt, or catch for the past few years. Until the floods, that is. Now we got nothin’.”
“There is no United States left. There are Red Zones, Clear Areas, and Federal Command. Red Zones still have some radioactivity, but not too much. The Clear Areas are usually infested with soldiers from FEDCOM. The soldiers are a bunch of no-good thugs.”
The man and woman nodded slowly, transfixed by Wolfe’s words. They stared at the welding goggles on his face.
“The bombs. Damaged my eyes,” he said before they could ask.
“Not our issue, Mister. We are sorry for intruding, but…” The woman let her question trail off.
Jennifer looked at Wolfe, her big eyes appealing.
“Do you want to come with us?” Wolfe asked, not turning to the couple but holding Jennifer’s gaze. She smiled and nodded.
He felt like he should have been more assertive, but these people were going to die without his help. Dirt-poor would have been a step up.
“Are you serious?” The two held hands, eyes brightening. “We promise we will not be a burden. Don’t we, Billy Ray?”
He nodded vigorously.
Wolfe contemplated his future. They would slow him down. Their shoes had holes so big he wondered why they did not go barefoot. They were in no shape to walk twenty-five miles a day. Then again, he only had to get them to the next settlement.
Chapter Seven
Billy Ray and Mary Lou returned to their shack, promising they would be back at first light. Wolfe made sure they knew he would leave without them if they were late.
Wolfe put on his goggles before he started the fire to heat up a tin of water for a cup of coffee. It had become a guilty pleasure because of the instant packets they had acquired from FEDCOM storage at the compound. The townsfolk had wanted him to have them. He paced himself, keeping it to one cup a day. Jennifer knew to leave him to his thoughts while he savored the brew.
She led Buddy into the brush to take care of business while Wolfe eased into the morning. He’d been on the road for so long that he could leave in ten seconds or ten minutes. He preferred working up to it since he found it hard to take that first step each day. The closer he got to Florida, the more he hesitated.
The more he found himself leaning on Jennifer. What if she was the only family he had left?
He already treated her that way, protecting her as much as she would allow.
If his wife and son lived, he would find them. If they didn’t, he would be firm in his belief that they had gone quickly. There was no in-between, not in his mind. But until he was sure, his purpose was to get home, helping as many people as he could along the way.
When Jennifer returned, Billy Ray and Mary Lou were with her.
Wolfe nodded to them. “Have you seen any gators?” Wolfe asked.
The woman’s smile disappeared, and the man scowled. “They started showing up about a year ago, and they came in droves.”
“Do you know why?” Wolfe pressed.
Billy Ray continued. “I think the Mississippi Delta flooded and sent the swamps north. The gators had nowhere to go. They are not open-water creatures.”
“We will just have to steer clear of the water, then,” Wolfe declared matter-of-factly. “Shall we?”
Wolfe did not wait. He wrapped an arm around Jennifer’s shoulders on top of her pack, and they headed down the road at a good clip. Billy Ray and Mary Lou did their best to keep up, but one meal did not give them enough strength. They soon started to fall back.
“Keep going. We will catch up,” Billy Ray offered.
“No.” Wolfe’s hair was growing out, and the roots were white. When he shook his head, it looked like silver minnows flashing through muddy water. “I think it’s better if we stay in a group. Just in case.”
“Mister Wolfe will protect you. It is what he does,” Jennifer clarified. “You should feel safe.”
They continued at a slower and slower pace until they were barely crawling. Jennifer bagged a couple of small birds on the way, and Wolfe beamed with pride.
It was not enough food for four people. He took out his bow and arrow and told them to stop and start setting up camp, even though it was only early afternoon. Wolfe needed them to rebuild their strength before he could push them any harder. He estimated that they had only covered ten miles that day.
Nightwalker 6 Page 2