He pulled Sham to a stop when he crested a low hill and looked down over Mark Savage’s small farm. There were no lights on, and he hadn’t expected there to be but was surprised when he could see a thin wisp of smoke rising up from the chimney. Not only was the house still there, but it looked like at least one of the Savages was as well. With the light of the moon and stars, Sam could see where Mark Savage had used something to mound up the snow in his yard. To Sam, it looked out of place piled high behind his shop.
Mark and Evelyn were not only the clergy of their small church, but Mark had gone into the service as a medic and retired a Navy seal. He was the person who was everyone’s go-to guy if they needed a hand with anything. He was also a ham radio operator, which both he and John had forgotten about, and he was also a prepper of sorts. He believed that someday the shit really was going to hit the fan, but he had also believed it would be because of a failure in the monetary system, or the government would default, causing the next great depression. Which to Sam seemed like the same thing.
He sat for a few minutes more and turned Sham back the way he had come. He saw nothing to indicate the Savages were anything but home and safe.
When he got back to where the trail angled off, he found the rest of them sitting huddled on their horses. John was just remounting his horse.
Sam quickly told them what he had observed, and once again they rode off with John in the lead. It was less than a mile to where Sam thought they had to be going.
When they were close, Sam rode on ahead as he had before, but this time he went alone. Coming up on a small rise, Sam could see the glow of a fire before he reached the top. He stopped, got off and tied Sham to a tree limb. He was sure, with the bare trees around, he and Sham would show up sitting at the top of the hill. Wading through the knee deep snow, Sam hunkered over and shuffled to stand behind a tree trunk.
The one good thing about the silence, any noise would travel to whoever was listening and right then it was Sam. He heard what sounded like drunken laughter and howls. He couldn’t tell if they were cries of pain or just someone having a good time. Men’s voices carried across the snow, sounding like they were right in front of him.
He sat and watched for several minutes and wished he had some sort of visual aid to help him see what was going on down there. He could see where a house had once stood by the fresh black scar in the snow as well as a skeleton of timbers on one end.
Someone or something had burned the house almost to the ground. The shed door hung open, but without light, Sam couldn’t see inside.
Taking a deep breath, he could smell burning meat and something else he couldn’t name. There looked to be a half-dozen men cavorting around the fire. They pushed someone back and forth between them as if playing some kind of football using a person as the ball.
Sam watched for a good half an hour. As near as he could tell, they were using the shed as their shelter and the guys finally tired of their game of shove football, dragged whoever they’d been using inside the shed. Three men went in, and Sam waited until two came back out. They used each other for support and staggered to the fire and sat.
Sam wondered where they had found alcohol because, by their actions, he was pretty sure the men were all drunk. When the third hadn’t come out after fifteen or so minutes, Sam determined that they were probably using the shed to sleep in.
While he waited, Sam racked his brain trying to remember who this place currently belonged to. He knew it was a rental property owned by someone in Billings, but the renters changed often. Sam thought it was because people from the city would move in thinking they wanted the solitude of country living and finding that being out in the middle of nowhere with the nearest big town a hundred miles away, was more seclusion than they had bargained for.
He couldn’t remember if the house was even occupied at the moment, but John would know. John made a point of keeping track of everyone and everything that went on in the area.
He watched for a few more minutes and when he realized how cold he was getting, decided it was long enough. The men were either passed out in the few chairs available, or had chosen to sleep in the slush around the fire. The man who had entered the shed had never come back out, so Sam assumed he slept in there.
As soon as he got back to where the others waited, Sam told John what he’d found and the conditions he’d found them in. “There’s no doubt in my mind that these are the guys who killed the cows.”
“How do you want to approach this?”
“I didn’t see any signs of a guard, but I hate to just wander on in not knowing.”
“Well, it’s too darn cold just sitting up here. So we should head on down and see what’s what. If it didn’t go against everything I believe in, I would just pick them off from up here.”
“I thought the same thing when I was watching them, but what if those aren’t the guys? What if they’re the guys who actually live there and have already done our job for us?”
“Did you see any women down there? A heavy-set blonde woman and I think they have a daughter too. Moved in last July from California, if I remember right. Writers or something like that.”
Sam shook his head, “Nope. They were all males as near as I could tell. Course, I was only going by their attire.”
“Well, we’re not getting any warmer standing here. Let's get this over with.”
“So we just ride on down there?” Sam didn’t understand how John wanted to proceed, but like John said they were all cold, and they still had the ride home.
“You, me, Ben and Andy will go down first. If they aren’t our guys, then fine. No harm was done, but if they are, there’s no point in letting them see our numbers and they can back us up from here in the brush.”
Sam turned to lead Sham behind the group, “We are leaving the horses here…right?”
“Yup. They are too valuable to risk getting one of them shot.”
Sam explained the layout to everyone and said how he would like everyone to spread out along the tree line. He felt they would still have a good visual on the men and they would all be able to see their own people well enough to not shoot them by mistake.
There were a few nervous chuckles following his words. Sam looked at each of them, “I mean it. Know where you are shooting, if it comes down to a firefight. Lucas, Matt…I guess everyone, don’t think about it or second guess yourself. If it means saving one of our own, use a center mass shot. Lucas, don’t try anything fancy.”
John, Sam, Andy, and Ben walked down the hill making enough noise to be heard if they had posted a guard that Sam hadn’t seen.
It turned out that Sam was right. The men were too drunk to even notice a few extra people walking into their midst. John stood looking at the half eaten hind quarters from one of his cows. The men hadn’t even bothered to cut it up, but simply laid the pieces of meat directly on the wood. Two hindquarters had settled down into the ashes still smoldering, almost burnt beyond recognition, and from the looks of them, the men hadn’t even removed the hide before placing them on the fire. Bits and pieces of meat lay smoking in the ashes at the edge of the fire along with some of the long bones from the meat they had eaten.
John, trying to maintain his calm looked around waiting to see if anyone would notice them. Empty whiskey bottles lay scattered around the fire.
John drew in a breath and slowly released it. He turned away and went to a man leaning against the hind quarter of one of his cows. He nudged the guy with his foot. “Who’s in charge here?”
The guy turned bleary eyes up to John, and held one finger up as if to say, “that would be me.” The front of the guy’s clothing was blood soaked and with the uncooked hind-quarter propping him up, it pretty much clinched it for John. He clenched his jaw and heard his pulse hammering inside his head. His hand hovered over his Glock, prepared for anything.
The guy closed one eye and peered up at John and grinned, “I know you,” he slobbered out. He belched wetly, and John stepped back
to keep from getting vomit on his boots. The man wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his coat, “We was going to come back and see you tomorrow,” he slobbered. His eyes drooped shut, but somehow in his drunken stupor, he managed to get one open. “Them was mighty fine cows you got there. Saw some fine women folk too.” He belched again and flopped over on his side, right in the middle of the pool of vomit.
Sam walked up then and bent over, peering at the drunken man, “And I know you too.”
“There’s not one of them making any sense, at least none that I could wake up,” Ben said as he came over to them. “This their leader?”
John sighed and nodded, “He says he is, but who knows.”
“Oh geez…” Ben said and pulled his rifle around in front of himself. “I know who this is.”
“It seems like we all do.”
“His name is Steve.” Ben looked at Sam, “He’s the guy I told you about, from down at the old store. The one Abby and I joined up with and then fled from when I found out what he was like.”
Ben looked around at the other men, “I know a couple more of these guys too. They’re all bad. Now, I wish I had killed them before I left.”
Sam walked around the group of drunken men. Rolling then over to see their faces better. Then as if remembering something hurried to the shed. He’d recognized Steve too. He was one of the men who had kidnapped Lucy.
He knew if the man inside were awake and not passed out from drink, he would already know they were there. He had pegged the guy who had taken Lucy as a coward up on the hill, and for him to be associated with the bunch, Ben had told him about, didn't come as a surprise.
He stood to the side of the doorway and quickly took a peek. He thought about what he’d seen. He turned away from the fire for his eyes to adjust and peeked again to be sure. Sam, pulled his head back and leaned against the wall for support, his heart pounding. He pulled his 45 from under his arm, checked the safety and extended it in front of him. In a two-handed stance, he stepped into the doorway.
The man didn’t move, his pants were down around his knees, and he lay on top of a naked body. The shed smelled of vomit and excrement. As soon as Sam’s eyes had fully adjusted to the lack of light, he saw the woman’s arms were tied to D-rings on the wall. Her hands hung limply, fingernails ripped off or broken. She had put up a fight and was maybe the reason she was cuffed.
Sam moved to the man and rolled him to the side. Sam’s eyes burned from the acrid stench of ammonia. With his body off of the woman, Sam could see she wasn’t a fully developed woman at all, but a young girl. Through the tears in his eyes, he saw the woman. She had been rolled off the mattress, discarded against the back wall. Her tender white skin was marred by burns and small cuts, which covered her naked body from head to foot. Her wrists had grooves worn into her flesh as is she had done nothing but struggle against her bindings until she had finally given up and died. Someone had cut her loose, and like old baggage, rolled her out of the way, replacing her with the girl.
Sam closed his eyes, and every ounce of air in his lungs escaped in a rush. When he opened them, he saw the look of horror on the younger girls face. She had died screaming. He reached past the man and touched her. Her leg was ice cold. Sam determined she had been dead for a while. Turning his face away, he checked the discarded woman to be sure. He didn’t turn her over, nor look at her face. Her daughters face, would be forever in his dreams.
Sam reached down and buried his fingers in the drunken man’s hair and began to pull. He dragged him, pants down out the doorway and deposited him in the snow.
Whether the pain from being dragged by his hair or the freezing cold snow on his bare buttocks the man rolled over and tried to get to his knees, mumbling incoherently the whole time.
Sam waited for him to get his hands and knees under him and kicked him to the ground. He still had his 45 in his hand and pointed it at the man’s head. Before he could pull the trigger, John screamed at him.
“Sam! No!”
Sam opened his mouth trying to tell John, but no words would come out. He finally stammered, “The shed.”
“What’s going on here,” his words slurred and drawn out, the man on the ground began to struggle to his knees.
Sam stood with his 45 pointed directly at him. He wavered between the guy’s two eyes.
Recognition must have made it in as far as his brain when the guy’s mouth dropped open in surprise. He looked back over his shoulder at the doorway. “I can explain,” he mumbled. Either the cold or fright had sobered him up enough to realize he was in big trouble. He looked around wildly, drool flying out from his mouth, but he saw no one coming to his defense.
He looked up at Sam, “I can explain. Let me pull my pants up, and we can talk about this man to man.”
Sam realized if he ground his teeth any tighter, he was liable to snap one or two off and relaxed his jaws.
“Don’t even fucking move. Or I will do what I should have the first time.”
The man’s head dropped to his chest, and he began to cry, “I can explain,” he blubbered.
John ran into the shed and was out in seconds, falling to his knees and vomiting. When Ben went to go past him, he grabbed his pant leg, “Don’t,” was all he could say before another wave of nausea hit him.
Ben backed up to stand by Mike. Ben quickly told Mike about his time with the gang and what he should have finished before he’d left.
John finally got to his feet and pulled Sam aside, using his hand to force Sam’s gun down. He nodded at Ben, “Keep your eye on him for a minute. If he so much as moves wrong, shoot him.”
“It seems this man has a history with all of us. I don’t know about the rest of these guys, but they’re with him so I would call that guilty by association. No one walks away today but us.”
Sam nodded and remained quiet. All he could think of was that woman could easily have been Lucy or any of their women or their girls could have been that girl.
John went and crouched down in front of the only man awake enough to talk to and stayed that way for several long moments. He nodded and shook his head as he asked questions and listened.
He stood up without warning, pulled his 9mil from the holster at his side and shot the man. He turned and walked to the next man who stirred with the gunshot. When Sam and Ben came to help, after seeing John’s intentions, John stopped and faced them.
“Let this be only on one of us. One life or six it won’t matter to me. I know I am doing the right thing and I’m content to let God be my judge.”
John walked down the line of drunken men and dispatched them each with a single bullet. He seemed to deflate after the last one. His gun, barely hanging from the tips of his fingers and slump shoulders portrayed exactly how he felt.
There was a Jack Danial's box laying on its side, the necks of two full bottles sticking out. John walked to it and retrieved them sliding one into each of his side pockets. He stood and sighed deeply. He had recognized the man who had declared himself the leader. He had met him in Hogan several times in the past when they had been returning from Missoula. They had always made a point of stopping at the big log restaurant for lunch.
The guy had asked about work and John, always willing to give everyone a chance had told him several times to stop at the ranch. The man had never shown up, and John considered him to be only talking about finding work, never actually doing any.
“Now what? We just going to leave them lying here for the wolves?”
Sam grabbed a gas can and shook it. There was still gasoline in it, and he hoped it was enough to do the trick.
He took the can inside the shed and set it down. Sam cut the girls hands loose, pulled the older woman up on the mattress beside her and covered them both with a dirty blanket. He sloshed the rest of the gasoline from the can all over their makeshift funeral pyre and stepped out the door. From the fire, he pulled a burning piece of wood and threw it into the open doorway. The gas caught with a loud whoosh and the buildin
g began to burn.
“What about these guys?” Mike asked.
John and Sam both looked around and spoke together, “Leave em.”
Ben and Mike nodded in agreement.
“They don’t deserve any more than this. Let the wolves have them.” Sam told the other men.
John turned and as if he carried a ton on his shoulders began to walk back up the slope away from the fire. He hoped he could live with the memory of what they had done. He knew the girl’s eyes would haunt his sleep for a very long time.
Sam, Mike, and Andy followed him up the hill. A God awful sound came from the other side of the fire, and Sam turned and jogged back. He found Gertie, Gus and Sherry’s mare and the gelding tied to trees away from the fire.
All four animals hides were drenched in frozen blood with beef quarters complete with a hoof and hair still hanging off of Gertie and the mare. It appeared the guys hadn’t even unloaded the animals.
Gus was stretched out as far as he could get, pulling away from the tree he was tied too. His halter was almost over his ears. Sam was sure that Gus would have been loose without any help, given enough time, but Sam was also sure that he wouldn’t have left Gertie.
It took some talking on his part, but he was finally able to get Gus to relax and put some slack in the line. Sam put his halter back where it belonged and untied all four. As if anxious to flee their circumstances, they willingly followed him back up the hill.
Sam had debated himself on whether to cut the quarters off and leave them. He decided they could use the meat and to leave it would have made him as wasteful as the thieves.
Chapter Thirteen
Early the next morning, Sam talked with John, and they decided that Sam would go to the Savage’s and see what, if anything, they knew and take them over two of the hindquarters. Mary bottled up some of their goat milk along with a sample of the cheese that she and Lucy had made.
Beyond the New Horizon (Book 2): Desperate Times Page 17