While everyone had wanted to go, John asked Ben, Lucy, and Journey to stay behind. Mike volunteered to stay behind as well when he confessed his inability to ride well and especially for long periods of time. John and Sam thought the warmer weather might provoke people to begin moving and John didn’t want to leave the camp unattended and with no one to defend their homestead.
Gina had put Gus on a long lead, and at first, he had pulled eager to be in front, but when he realized he was tethered to Sailor he settled down, content to walk beside.
John and Andy rode out front, Andy carried Gina’s binoculars to scan the distance. By the time they passed where Jakes egg ranch had been, John was beginning to grow concerned. The boys had taken to the paved road when it was available and tracking them became harder.
They stopped on the side of what used to be the interstate around noon. Haugan was not far in front of them, and it was where John had thought the boys were headed. The weather felt more like late spring than the beginning of winter. Gina handed out some of their pemmican for lunch.
When she opened the bag, she noticed a pleasant berry smell and was looking forward to trying it.
“John?” Gina held the bag out to him.
He pulled his head back as if to distance his nose from Gina’s outstretched hand, his lip curled up in distaste he growled, “Get that away from me. Is that all we brought to eat?”
“John, you haven’t even tasted it. Why don’t you at least try a bite? Then, if you don’t like it, you can go without until we stop for dinner.” She reached into the bag with a half sheet of paper towel and produced one of the small squares and held it toward him.
John almost yanked the square out of Gina’s hand. She didn’t take offense because she understood he was not himself. It was his son who had decided to run off to parts unknown, and she understood he was upset and worried.
John realized that Gina wasn’t going to give up, and sighed, “Women!” He put a corner to his mouth and bit off the smallest bit he could. He was prepared to spit it out in disgust when he chewed the small bite. A slow smile formed on his mouth as he tasted the bite. He took another bite and chewed. After he had swallowed, he said, “Dang! That’s nothing like the stuff that my mother made. This is almost as good as one of those fruit bars that Mary was always packing me for lunch.”
“Yeah,…who’d of known it could be that good. Right? I told you it was good and full of nourishment too.”
They sat and munched until John held his hand out for another. “I admit it was pretty darn good.” He waggled his fingers for another one.
“We’re not supposed to make a meal out of them. They’re to tide us over until we can cook.” But Gina saw how the pemmican had won them all over and wished Mary and Lucy could see their reactions. They still had more of the smoked meat and berries left along with some of the fat. She wished she had asked the women to just make it up until all of the fat was gone. Without refrigeration or the cold temperatures, the fat would probably go rancid before too long.
She had put an oversized saddle bag on Gus. One she had revamped years before. She and Journey had used them for camping when it was just the two of them, and they hadn’t needed the bigger pack saddle. She had joined the carry straps of two backpacks with rivets and added a simple cinch and D-ring to it. It was much lighter and easier to use, especially for Gus. When not in use, they stuffed it in the bottom of the panniers. For this trip, Gina had added some of the horse’s complete pellets in one side and MRE’s in the other. They had enough food for the four of them for three days. They each had their sleeping bags and personal gear in their own saddlebags and tied on their saddles.
“What’s the plan if we don’t find them in Haugan?”
Gina looked at John waiting for his response. John frowned and looked off down the roadway as if he hadn’t thought that they wouldn’t find the boys there.
“Where else could they have gone if not there?”
“Maybe, Matt is trying to find his Dad. Maybe that’s what this is all about.”
“But, his dad and Amanda are dead, so why would he…oh.”
“Yeah, we never told him about his father,” Sam said.
“Maybe we should have,” Gina said. “At least he wouldn’t have felt the need to go looking for him.”
“How far to Haugan?”
“Another ten or twelve miles. If we keep up the pace, maybe two or three hours.”
Andy came walking back from the top of the hill and heard what Sam had just said. “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. Once you start down the other side, the highway is gone. I found the boys tracks where they left the road. I found some horse dung, and it was cold.”
“So no telling how far in front of us they are. If they’ve been keeping a steady pace as we have, they could still be four or five hours in front of us.”
“I’m going to give Lucas a tanning like he’s never had before.” John spewed from between his clenched teeth. “And that Mathew, this is all his fault.”
Sam stood up and faced John. “No, you aren’t. I agree this isn’t one of his brightest ideas, but you keep telling him he’s no longer a boy and has a man’s responsibilities so what do you expect? Matt is his friend…his only friend.”
“And if we had told Matt about his Dad and Amanda, in the first place there would have been no need for him to go looking.”
“Gina, stay out of this. This is between my son and me.”
Sam raised his eyebrows in disbelief and stepped toward John. “Apologize! That’s uncalled for. She’s putting her life on the line to come with us to find them, and she’s right. We should have told him and let him have a chance to grieve. Right now, he thinks they’re somewhere between his ranch and Missoula.”
John heard the steel in Sam’s voice, and it must have had some effect on his thinking. His shoulders sank as if he realized how bad his words had sounded. His eyes met Gina’s, “I am sorry. I know you have a stake in this too, and I appreciate your coming to help find him…them.” He looked from her to Sam and then Andy, “You guys too. The fact of the matter is, I’m not sure what to do if we don’t find them in Haugan. We can’t leave the homestead long enough to go all the way to Missoula, but I keep thinking we’ll run into them around the next corner.” When he was done speaking, he dropped his head, clearly shaken by his own words.
There was a good possibility they wouldn’t catch up to the boys that day or maybe not even the next, but Gina knew eventually they would. She only hoped the circumstances would not be a situation where the boys had bitten off more than they were capable of handling. She thought of Amanda and then the woman that she had shot and the bodies laying in the gully behind Sam’s old house, and the group of men that Ben had thought to form an alliance with. Gina was afraid that outside of their valley, the world had made changes that would be hard for even a well-seasoned soldier could handle, let alone two young men who would trust anyone.
Chapter Eighteen
They didn’t find the boys that day, nor the next. Andy had been right when he said the road was gone. They’d had to get off and lead the horses down the steep slope of the mountain side. The only good thing was the boys had been on foot leading their horses too. At one point, they saw where one of the horses had slid off an exceptionally narrow ledge, and the other had followed it down to a wider area. By the tracks in the fresh dirt, they could see where they boys had taken the time to inspect whichever horse had slipped.
“It looks like the horse is okay, at least it’s up and walking.”
“It was the jenny that fell,” Gina told them. “Look at the shape of the prints. I’ve been wondering why they brought the jenny with them at all. If they wanted a pack animal, why not bring one of the horses?”
“Oh, my God! I think I know the answer to that.”
Sam, John, and Gina turned on the trail to look at Andy. They waited for him to speak. His cheeks had grown pale as if he didn’t like where his thoughts were leading.<
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“The day before yesterday, Luca asked me about the penalty for horse theft. I had no idea where his question came from, so I told him they still hung horse thieves in Montana and Idaho.”
“So, maybe he thought with Carlos gone, no one owned the jenny? Or maybe the penalty was different for donkeys?”
Andy groaned, “Oh man. I feel like I should have questioned him further, but the way it came out of the blue, I never gave it another thought.”
“I want to know why my son would have left in the first place and where he thought they were going they would need to have a pack animal and why they thought they were going to be gone long enough to need one. They didn’t bring much with them to need an animal to carry it.”
“Damn! I can see I need to keep my thoughts to myself. This is on me again, or maybe Ben and I.”
“This isn’t on you Andy. Unless you told the boys to go. I think Matt is going to find his Dad like I said before and Lucas is going along as his friend.”
“Gina, it might be. Or, at least it has something to do with what Ben and I were talking about. It was all part of the same conversation about horse thieves. We were talking about going scavenging come spring, and the need to make some kind of saddle bags for all of the saddles so we could transport whatever we found back home. Ben mentioned that we might need to see about getting a couple more pack animals or building some kind of a wagon the horses could pull.”
“You mean stealing, don’t you? We haven’t dropped low enough to take from other people yet.”
“No one is talking about taking anything. We were simply having a conversation about what we needed to do to survive. Think about it John, how many people do you expect will survive the winter? I’m not talking about people starving. I’m talking about people who are medication dependant, a trip-and-fall accident, no antibiotics, and then add gunshot wounds with no medical care…how many are going to die?”
John frowned, a conflict of emotions crossed his face. His hands were fists at his side, his whole body tense. He turned and stormed away.
“He’s upset. Not from anything you just said, but because he knows it’s true. He’s not ready to admit we’ll have to do some scavenging before this is over.”
“It’s not going to be over for a very long time. If the guys who Ben joined with are any example of our new society or the ones we met on our first trip to the ranch, I think we’re in trouble. People are scared and react without thinking. They don’t know or care about what you’ve gone through, only how it’s affected them. Some of them have found themselves in uncharted territory. What would any of us done under the same set of circumstances.”
Gina laughed, but it held none of her usual good humor, “You see before you one of those people who has found themselves in a similar situation. You guys are all from around here. You’re on familiar ground, if you will.”
Sam interrupted, “You could have gotten Lucy killed if I hadn’t been there.”
Journey, Lucy and I were not, but I have no doubt we would have survived, and with luck, we would not have killed unnecessarily to do it. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t have defended ourselves if we had to, but we wouldn’t have gone out looking for trouble.”
“I don’t think it’s about looking for conflict. I think it will be more about trouble finding you. Look what happened with Lucy.”
“According to Lucy, it was Journey they wanted and settled for her, but you’re right. We wouldn’t have had the knowledge or nor skills to have found her on our own.”
John came walking back after an hour. His demeanor had changed in that he was not as tense nor was his jaw clenched and his hands hung loosely at his side. When he saw they sat relaxing, he dropped to the ground, keeping his feet on the downhill side of the slope. The horses were all tied with their heads uphill.
“I guess I owe you all an apology. That was not only ignorant on my part but totally unnecessary. I understand why Lucas went with Matt. I just wish they had have come to one of us first. We would have had to tell Matt about his father, but we could have withheld the circumstances surrounding his death.” John sighed and let his head drop back against the tree he leaned on, and let his eyes close, “I just wish they’d come to one of us.”
“That could have bred more problems than we have now. How would Matt have taken the fact we already knew about his father and hadn’t said a word about it?”
Andy shook his head, “It’s better we never say anything to him. I think it’s better for him to wonder than to find out how he died and telling him so long after the fact could be the catalyst to force him away from us. Nope, I think we should never mention this again. Ever!”
“I agree with Andy. Now, how much farther to Haugan and what are we going to do if the boys aren’t there? What if they head on to Missoula?”
“I don’t know,” John said.
“Well, I know this is probably not what you want to hear John, but I think you and Andy should go back.”
Andy was already nodding in agreement, “I for one think we should too. It pains me to think of not finding Matt and Lucas, but we’re also creating a security risk for the camp.”
John sat up and wiped his hands over his face ending the act by massaging his temples. He groaned, and confessed, “I admit that sleeping on the ground this past two nights has not been pleasant and sitting in the saddle all day hasn’t left me in the best of moods, as you know. But the idea of Lucas and Matt being out here alone doesn’t weigh as heavy, as knowing the others are back there without the four of us. At times, I feel like I’m being forced to choose between them and the boys.”
“They do have Ben, Lucy, and Mary who know how to defend themselves. The others…I wouldn’t count on for much. As long as I’ve known Journey, she has never fired on anything more than paper targets, and I overheard Mike and Janice talking, and they don’t want any part of guns or having to defend themselves.”
Sam nodded, “Mike basically told me the same thing. They don’t believe it’ll ever come down to having to defend our home against anyone. When I asked him how much value he put on their lives, he couldn’t answer. I swear I wanted to come unglued on the guy, but I restrained myself. I don’t understand his way of thinking, but once they leave, it will be his problem and not ours.”
“So, you’re really going to let them go when the time comes? What about what we said about taking them there?”
“Gina, if the time comes and they still want to leave and if we happen to be going that direction, I’ll let them come along. But, as for making any special trips just to get them to Butte, that’s not going to happen. As far as I’m concerned, right now we’ve already wasted enough resources on them if they don’t plan to stay and help.”
“That’s kind of cold, but I agree. If he wants to leave, I won’t stop them, and we’ll give them whatever we can to help them on their way. What I don’t plan on giving is any of our firearms, but maybe I’ll help Mike find some of their own.”
“This is using up too much of our time worrying about it right now. Let’s at least get down the mountain before it’s too dark to see. I for one don’t want to cripple my horse or Gus riding in this shit after dark.”
“Agreed. Let’s mount up.” John stood, untied his horse, led him down to a flatter area and climbed on. He settled himself in his saddle and rode off.
Single file they followed John down the hill. Gina rode last because of Gus. They finally reached a creek that Sam said was probably the same one that was on the south side of the freeway. They followed it until they came to a small meadow. John was sure that it wasn’t far to the truck scale area just before the Haugan exit. What had been an hour and a half drive by car had taken them three days to cover the same distance by horse. Had the highway been passable, they could have made the ride in a day. With the open maw where the roadway used to be, they had been forced to make their own trail.
They had lost the boys tracks when they had come to a fresh ravine in the hillside.
They were able to track the new rocks and fresh dirt that had slid down the hillside, opening a new crevasse. While the ravine wasn’t more than ten feet deep, the width was more than fifty feet of raw open dirt and rock.
They gathered on the west side, uncertain how to get around it. They would be putting their horses in jeopardy should they try to cross. When John had got off his gelding to test the ground, he had started an avalanche of rock eroding more of the dirt away. White-faced, he threw himself backward, John scooted on his butt using his feet to push himself up the embankment. Sam reached down and grabbed the back of John’s jacket and physically hauled him to higher ground.
The ground trembled, rocks and brush began to move down the slope widening the chasm as they watched. Gina turned and ran back the way they had come pulling Sailor and Gus up away from the slide. Back on firm ground, she watched Sam struggle to pull Sham up the eroding slope. The big horse floundered trying to get his feet under himself. His eyes open wide with fright, nostrils flared and front feet digging into the loose rock and debris that tried to pull him down. The horse gave one final lunge, scrambling with his back feet and finally, all four feet were back on solid ground for the present. Sam immediately turned and ran up the incline, away from the loose dirt, rock and tree debris that flowed like water down the hillside uprooting trees and bushes as it went.
John, right behind Sam, turned his horse loose when he lost his footing. The gelding raced up the hill toward Gina and Sam, while John tumbled into the mess of rock and dirt. He bounced off a tree as it went past him and reached for one of the branches. He was running to keep his feet from being trapped in the loose dirt and threw his body onto the tree trunk, riding the moving missile another thirty feet before it came to a stop, wedged tight against an old growth fir.
Sam handed his reins to Gina and with no regard for his own safety, ran back down the hill toward John leaping over half-buried trees and rock. Gina held her breath until Sam landed safely beside John. She saw him help John to a sitting position and looked around for Andy.
Beyond the New Horizon (Book 2): Desperate Times Page 23