Beyond the New Horizon

by Christine Conaway

  Sam climbed out and stood looking down over the valley, with his hands on his hips inspecting the damage below.

  A good distance from where the remains of the house sat and encapsulated by pine and bare trees, Gina could make out what she thought might be the roof of the hay shed. It didn’t appear as if anything had burned there, and with the slope of the land, she wondered if anyone had found it or could have seen it from the house or the highway.

  She and Ben went to stand by Sam. Most of the green metal roof was still intact, and as they could tell, three of the four walls were standing. The metal sagged toward the front of the house as if the fire had been hot enough to melt it, but somehow, the log walls had refused to fall.

  “My great grandparents built the first room before my grandfather was born. Since then, everyone has made additions or changes, but the one room cabin has always been a part of it. You can still see the original wall inside of it. The one with the fireplace. Every one of the rocks it was built from, came from somewhere on this property and carried by my great grandparents. Mary is right. There’s a lot of history right there.”

  “You can still rebuild it. Can’t you?” She didn’t know if they would still want to rebuild being as close to the highway as it was. While there wasn’t any traffic right then, when people began moving out of the cities there could be.

  “No. I think we’re done here. Once winter is over, it will be time to move on. We need to find something more secluded than this if we want to survive.”

  “What’s wrong with where we are right now? It seems to be far enough away from any towns to be safe.”

  Gina had been thinking the same thing, but was glad that Ben had been the one to say it, when she saw the look that Sam gave him.

  Frowning, Sam stared at Ben, “We’re not that far from civilization up here. Spokane is less than a hundred miles and another two hundred fifty, and you have Seattle. You travel a hundred-twenty miles east, and you have Missoula.”

  Ben grinned as if Sam had just proven his point for him, “There you go, that’s over three hundred miles to a city of any population.”

  Sam shook his head, “You don’t seem to get it. Spokane and the surrounding areas have…probably a half million people. At least half of them, I’d wager, have never grown so much as a potted plant let alone a garden. Hell, I’d say that a quarter of those don’t cook for themselves because they don’t know how to cook. Where do you think they’re going to find food when the stores have run out? When they can’t order in, or go to their favorite restaurant? Let me ask you this, why did you take your daughter and run? Why did you come this direction? Why did you bother to leave at all?”

  Ben stood, blinking. His mouth dropped open as he processed Sam’s words. “To get away…” he said slowly. “I wanted to get someplace we could hole up until this was over. I hoped we could make it all the way to Montana before the storm hit, but we didn’t make it.”

  “I get it. You think the people from Seattle will head east and when they run into the people going west, they’ll all head this direction?”

  “Exactly! That’s my point. Sooner or later people are going to remember that food comes from farms and ranches. Oh sure, you can bet your ass some will turn to the government and go running to the FEMA camps, but what happens when they run out of food? They can’t even grow anything this time of year.”

  Ben held both of his hands out in front of himself, “Okay…I got it. But, what can we do? How much more secluded do we have to be and for how long? I get the hunting thing, but we can’t survive on meat alone. The kids need vegetables and Mary needs some good nutrition to feed that baby.”

  Gina listened to the two men arguing. She had wondered what they were going to eat. Ben had said their supply of food had been moved already, but their two or three months had been reduced to a month at the most with the extra mouths to feed. One of the other nurses had introduced Journey and herself to freeze dried and dehydrated food when she had learned of their camping adventures. She had overheard Journey complaining about Gus to another aide. They couldn’t have carried enough food for the two women for an extended pack trip without using the mule to carry it all.

  “We buy from Patriot Supply and Wise Foods, for our camping provisions. It’s better than the MRE’s my husband got and most of it is pretty good,” the woman had told her.

  Journey had ordered a free 72-hour food supply so they could taste the stuff before committing to a 30 day or bigger order. As soon as the package had shown up, they tried everything that came in the order. They agreed it wasn’t something they would eat if there were other options, but it would work for camping and packing. Gina found a site who would allow them to order entrees only, and promptly ordered a half dozen buckets. They found powder eggs on another site, and through the internet they discovered there was so much to be found right on the shelves of their local grocery stores.

  They had stored some of their long term storage food in the horse trailer and packed the panniers on Gus with what they thought they would need for their trip. Once Lucy had decided to join them, they just added a few more mylar pouches of food, and they were good to go.

  When Journey seemed to be getting carried away with the amount of things she was buying on the internet, Gina had begged her to stop. Their garage shelving was stacked to the rafters with totes and buckets of long term food.

  “I’m buying it while it’s on sale,” Journey had proclaimed. “Besides, it’s not like it will go bad or anything.” She had grinned at Gina, “When the shit hits the fan, at least we will eat.”

  “I wonder who’s eating it now?” Gina asked herself.

  “What’s that?”

  Gina realized she had spoken out loud, “Nothing. I was just thinking of what we left behind.”

  “Whatever it is, chances are it won’t be there now, so just forget about it. Let’s get on down there and see if we can salvage anything.”

  “Sure, but how are we getting down there? Is there another road or something? I don’t remember seeing one when we rode past here.”

  Sam grinned and before she could say another word he had made a left hand turn off of the road. The trail from the road to the pasture below them was little more than a cattle or deer trail. It was all Sam could do to keep their progress slow enough to avoid the trees and rocks.

  At one point the trailer hung up on a boulder leaving the jeep dangling from it. Using a limb as a fulcrum, Ben lifted the axle up and over the rock that held them and let gravity do the rest.

  Sam swiveled the steering wheel from side to side trying to keep the front end aimed down the hillside.

  “Hold on!” he screamed at Gina.

  He didn’t have to say it twice, Gina held on to the dash for dear life. She didn’t know whether to ride it to the bottom or jump. She thought about jumping until she saw the trailer behind them and knew it would probably run her over.

  Sam tried to find the best terrain to the bottom, but with the weight of the trailer pushing them and no brakes on it, they were picking up speed down the hill. The trailer shoved and bounced its way down behind them. At one time Gina was sure they were airborne.

  They landed and hit something with a resounding “crack” jarring her hard enough she bit the inside of her cheek. The taste of warm liquid iron in her mouth confirmed the bite. Her head was snapped back as they bounced off another rock. It was all Gina could do to hold on to the grab bar on the dash.

  At last, there was silence broken only by their rapid breathing. Gina leaned out the open door and spit a mixture of saliva and blood onto the ground.

  With Ben’s help, Gina climbed out, ran around the front of the jeep where Sam was standing and slugged him as hard as she could hit. “You asshole! You could have killed both of us!”

  Gina turned and stomped to the base of a tree and flung herself down. Her hands were shaking, and she cradled the one she’d hit Sam with, loosely in her lap. To make matters worse, Sam and Ben were having a g
ood laugh and she suspected it was at her expense. The truth of it was, her reaction had been just that, a reaction to the fear she’d felt sliding uncontrollably down the hill.

  Looking at the plowed furrow, didn’t appear to be as long as the ride down the hill had seemed. Gina shook her head, confused. She wondered how they were supposed to get back up the incline once the trailer was loaded if they were still both operable. The trip down had proven the jeep was no match for the heavier stock trailer.

  Resting against her tree, away from the two vehicles, Gina watched the two men. They walked around, hands on hips, pointing at various parts and shaking their heads. She saw Sam wiping the edge of his mouth on his sleeve, and hoped his fat lip would be a reminder of what he had almost done.

  Sam dropped to his knees and peered under the jeep, probably checking for any damage, while Ben tried pulling the fender away from the front edge of the tire. It appeared as if the jeep had been bent in the middle, the seat area sat higher than the front or back end. Gina thought she remembered exactly when it had happened.

  With her knees propped up, Gina rested her forearms on them and stared out across the pasture.

  A flash of light caught her attention, but before she could say anything, Ben dropped to the ground.

  “Gun!” she finally managed to scream, before scrambling around the trunk of the pine tree.

  Chapter nineteen…………The lady in red

  Sam, already kneeling on the ground, flopped down and belly crawled to Ben. Ben had his hands covering his face, but Gina could see the blood leaking from between his fingers. The fact that he was moving at all was a good sign.

  Ben used his sleeve and wiped his face off and nodded at Sam. He said something and Sam nodded. On their bellies, they both crawled to the rear of the trailer.

  Sam inspected Ben’s head and must have decided it didn’t need his attention and looked to the pine tree Gina was hiding behind. Meeting her eyes, he mimicked shooting a gun.

  Confused by his actions, she pointed across the field. “It came from somewhere out there,” she said just loud enough to be heard.

  He shook his head, “Where’s your rifle?”

  Gina started to reach behind herself and remembered it was in the jeep, leaning against her seat. She’d had to remove it when she was sitting in the seat. She pointed to the Jeep.

  Sam shook his head, and as if remembering he didn’t have his either because he’d been driving, he shrugged. He disappeared from her view. Gina couldn’t decide if it was safer where she was or if she needed to get to the trailer with the men. Before her decision was fully formed, movement caught her eye. She thought she saw the red of someone's shirt or jacket coming through the cottonwood trees over by the creek, that ran between them and the house.

  She waved her hand to signal Ben, and pointed at her eyes and then in the direction she’d seen movement. He nodded and ducked back behind the trailer out of sight. The pasture was an open field dotted with small groups of trees with a thick growth of evergreens surrounding it. Tall yellowed grass would hide whoever was coming their way. Then she saw them. They weren’t coming through the field at all, but around the tree line. The red shirt she had seen had to have been a decoy because she didn’t see the red on any of the three people ducking through the lodgepole pines.

  Gina couldn’t see Ben or Sam to warn them with a hand signal, and the people were close enough to hear her if she called out. But maybe it didn’t matter if they heard or not, she had to warn them of the approaching danger coming up behind them. She looked to the creek and saw the red shirt moving their way as well, probably hoping to keep their attention on him.

  “Sam!” she hissed, “Behind you, three people in the trees.”

  Gina sagged back behind her tree when Sam and Ben scooted around to her side of the trailer.

  Sam looked at her, pointed and sat back against the trailer. She couldn’t read the expression on his face.

  It wasn’t one she had seen as of yet and had no idea what it meant. Gina thought maybe he wanted her to move. She looked back to see what her options were, and standing right behind her was a fourth man she hadn’t seen. Gina was looking up both barrels of a shotgun. She had been so worried about the guys sneaking up on the men, she hadn’t heard the man who had crept up on her.

  “Just put both of your hands in the air,” he said while jabbing the barrel at her.

  Gina did as he asked, and now she understood the look on Sam’s face. He had been terrified for her.

  Chapter twenty…………If looks could kill

  Sitting cross-legged leaning against the side of the trailer, with their hands clasped behind their necks, there didn’t seem to be a good ending in sight. None of the four men, nor the woman looked like you would expect killers to look, yet there they were. The man wearing the red plaid shirt, held a gun on them, swinging it from person to person, while they discussed what they were going to do.

  Gina had tried to catch his eye, but he was obviously not interested…he leered at her instead, looking everywhere but her face.

  “We have to kill them. If we don’t, they’ll just keep coming back.” It was the female of the bunch, and she seemed to be the one in charge. At one time, she may have been just a woman on a business trip or possibly out shopping for the day. Her blouse had once been white, and her gray slacks pressed. The men’s boots on her feet and the camouflage jacket didn’t blend with her expensive haircut, not the pearls still around her neck.

  The men, all between twenty-something and sixty seemed to be under her spell as if they were roosters, or possibly bulls all vying for her attention. Probably they knew things were not going to get any better and they each wanted to have the woman’s favors. They jockeyed for position around her, each offering to do her bidding.

  “I could just finish them right here,” the businessman with the shotgun told the group. At one time he would have been well dressed, but like the woman he had added a button up sweater and a blue ski jacket over the top of his suit, and his once shiny wingtips were now mud covered as well as the bottoms of his pant legs. Scraggly whiskers covered his face, and at one point he must have broken his nose. It sat off-kilter on his face, and a rim of dried brown blood circled his nostril, overshadowed by two black eyes that had already begun to change from purple and gray to yellow and green.

  He seemed to be trying the hardest to impress the woman. However, the look of dread on his face when he met Gina’s gaze, said differently. The man was as afraid as Gina that he would actually have to kill them.

  The way the barrel of the shotgun bounced from one to the other, Gina worried about him the most. Moving the gun around with his finger resting on the trigger, it could go off at any time. One of them could die, even if it was by accident.

  “Well, I think we should at least keep the woman.”

  “He’s right. We find one more, and we’ll all have one.”

  The woman looked distressed at hearing she was about to lose her man harem, disagreed. “No! We kill all of them. Once we get set up somewhere, then we can find more women. This one is bad news.”

  Bad news? Did she see something in her that she hadn’t seen in herself? Gina didn’t understand how the woman could see her as a threat and she needed to change the woman’s mind, Gina saw her chance, “No! Please help me? I’m being held against my will. If you don’t, they’re going to kill me too.”

  Gina felt Sam pull his body away from her’s and hoped he understood what she was doing. She managed to work up some moisture in her eyes as she implored the man in the red shirt. If she could divide them, it could up their odds of survival.

  The woman glared at Gina, the disbelief on her face said she didn’t believe Gina at all. “You expect us to fall for that?

  Gina forced tears from her eyes, “They’ve already killed my husband.” She allowed a sob to escape. “Please help me. I’m begging you to take me with you. I’ll do anything, just please help me.”

  All three men
were looking at the woman. She seemed torn, because she had no way to tell if Gina was being honest or not. “Find some rope and tie her up then. We’ll see how she feels about joining us when the men are dead.”

  The red shirt guy grinned at her, and Gina wanted to puke. He wiggled the barrel of his gun to indicate she should move away.

  Gina crawled away from Sam and Ben as if she couldn’t wait to be away from them. At the feet of the guy with the gun, she collapsed onto her belly and rolled over. “Tie me up if you have to, but you won’t regret saving me.”

  When her hands came up, she held her 357 in them. She saw the guy swing the barrel of the shotgun at her and rolled. It was all she could do to get out of his line of fire. The shotgun went off, and Gina was still moving. She didn’t feel any pain. She turned and pulled the trigger, saw the man fall. She saw Ben on the ground with one of the other men and Sam tackled the other. The woman lay in a pool of blood, her face missing. Gina fell to her knees and vomited until she had nothing left.

  When she felt a hand on her shoulder, she hung her head. Her gun was still in her hand covered in vomit.

  “It’s over,” Sam said. “They aren’t going to hurt anyone else.”

  Gina was still trying to get her mind away from the woman. Somehow, maybe when she shot the man with the shotgun he had reacted and pulled the trigger. The woman had been the recipient of the pellets.

  Gina sat up on her heels and looked up at Sam. “They were really going to kill you…I had to shoot him.”

  “You had me believing you were changing sides. That was good thinking.” He offered his hand to Gina and helped her to the tree she had been hiding behind earlier. She heard two quick shots and Ben joined them.

  “They’re gone,” Ben said and sagged down beside Gina. His face had lost all color, with a sheen of sweat covering it.

  Gina sank closer to the tree trunk and closed her eyes. They had just killed four people. She had killed one of them herself and couldn’t get her mind around it. She, who had dedicated her life to saving lives had purposefully taken one.