Feral Nation Series Box Set 2 [Books 4-6]

by Williams, Scott B.

  “It’s probably best to use the main trail once we get to here,” Eric pointed, as the men crouched around the national forest map Nantan had spread out on the ground before them the next morning. “The approach to the cabin from that direction isn’t obvious, but I’m well familiar with it now, and we’ll only have to use the trail for a few miles before we turn off again.”

  “And we’ll pass this militia camp where you got the information about where to find Aaron and your daughter?” Nantan asked.

  “Yes. It’s not far off the trail. They set up there so they could intercept any travelers using that route.”

  “And you’re sure you left none of them alive?” It was Luke who asked. He was the best tracker and woodsman on the security force, according to Nantan. Ethan and Aaron had agreed, when they learned he was going.

  “Positive, but you’re welcome to have a look around. It isn’t far out of our way at all, and you may find something useful.”

  “We’ll see it on the way back from the cabin,” Nantan said, looking at Luke. “Let’s go there first because we don’t want to keep Eric’s wife and friends waiting any longer than necessary.”

  Another day of hard traveling took them to the trail intersection Eric had pointed out on the map. Luke went ahead on point and the rest of them spread out at considerable distance along the path to lessen the chances of the group running into an ambush. It was already late in the afternoon and Eric was unsure if they’d reach the place they would turn off for the descent to the cabin before dark, but then everything changed when they all caught up to Luke. He had dismounted from his horse and was busy studying the ground along the trail and down the slope on the east side.

  “What is it?” Nantan asked.

  “One horse, and one person, likely a woman, followed the trail to this point from the north, and then turned off and headed down that slope.”

  Eric and the others dismounted, but Luke waved them back until he was finished studying the sign he found in the snow and in the muddy places in the sunlight where it had melted. Hearing what Luke said, he thought he had a pretty good idea of what it all meant.

  “Dammit, Shauna!” He muttered under his breath. “I should have known you wouldn’t be able to wait!”

  “Two days ago,” Eric heard Luke say to Nantan.

  “Are you sure it was just one woman and a horse?” Eric was trying to make sense of it. Would Shauna leave alone, without Jonathan and Vicky? If so, then why was she walking instead of riding. He knew Jonathan couldn’t walk out on his own at this point, and that even if Vicky and Shauna were walking, they would have to take a horse for him, but with so many horses available, why would any of them walk? And why was there only one set of footprints? None of it added up… unless either Vicky or Shauna was riding on the same horse with Jonathan…

  “Only one woman and one horse,” Luke assured him.

  “And you’re certain it was two days ago? That’s long enough that they could be far away by now.”

  “Yes, give or take a few hours. Here, look at this.”

  Eric wasn’t a tracker, but he understood when Luke pointed out and explained the clues he used to deduce the time frame. “Then we need to get to the cabin as soon as possible and see if Jonathan and Vicky are there,” he said. “Shauna may well have taken off on her own. Once we know, do you think it will be possible to track her?”

  “Sure, unless she hits a road somewhere and stays on the pavement.”

  “Maybe you’ll find more sign between here and the cabin that will tell you more.”

  “If it is there, I will find it,” Luke assured him.

  Eric followed close behind him as Luke backtracked along the trail. Eric didn’t have to tell him where the turn-off point was, because Luke found the prints from the woman and horse where they exited the drainage. A short distance down, he found something else.

  “They camped here; built a fire. And yes, there was someone else with the woman. A man. Look at this:”

  Eric saw the pile of coals and partially burned wood in a narrow slot between two boulders. And the footprints Luke was staring at.

  “You said your friend, Jonathan was injured. See here? You can tell where he used a stick or staff of some kind to help him walk.”

  “Yeah, Bob made him crutches. Are you still sure the other woman wasn’t with them?”

  “Only one woman and one man so far. You were right, the injured man must be riding the horse while she is walking and leading it. But he dismounted here, of course, because they camped.”

  “That’s another thing that doesn’t make any sense at all. Why would they camp so close to the cabin if they were leaving? It’s just a short hike down from here, and they could have easily made many more miles after their last night there. We’d better hurry on down there. It’ll be dark soon. Hopefully, we’ll get the rest of our answers when we get there.”

  Eric knew something was wrong even before they reached the clearing where the cabin stood, and his companions sensed it too. For one thing, it was too quiet down there, and though they didn’t see any smoke wafting up out of the drainage from a fireplace, there was a distinctive smell of a recent burn, but no evidence of a forest fire that he could see. Eric signaled to the others to wait, while he went on ahead. If either Vicky or Shauna were still there, he didn’t want to surprise them with the sudden emergence of a band of strangers. But when he reached the area through which he knew he could normally see the cabin through the trees, he could tell that it was gone!

  Eric held his weapon at ready and crept closer, using the natural cover as much as possible until he was near enough to see the details. The sight that met his eyes instantly brought to mind that recent day when he and Keith and Bart had likewise discovered Keith’s house burned to the ground. Bob Barham’s cabin was destroyed, and for a moment, Eric didn’t rule out the possibility that it was some accident that perhaps explained the reason they found those foot and hoof prints leading away from here. But then he circled around through the trees for a closer look before stepping out into the open, and that’s when he could see that the barn was also burned down, and none of the horses were in sight. He studied the scene from concealment for several minutes, and then turned and waved to Luke and the other Apaches to come ahead. Eric wanted Luke to check the area first, before any sign that he might find there was disturbed, and so they waited while he went ahead of them, taking Wolf, their second most experienced tracker with him.

  The two of them checked the rubble first to be sure there were no human or animal remains among what was left of the cabin and barn, and then scoured the ground all around, looking for evidence to complete the story.

  “There were many men here, Eric.” Luke said, when he waved Eric over, pointing out the obvious boot prints. “Ten at least, maybe more. It’s hard to be sure when there’s so many, and they were all over the property.”

  Eric moved closer to the blackened rubble. “How long ago?”

  “Two, maybe three days. I’m guessing it was just before the woman and the horse made those tracks out of here.”

  “So, they escaped whoever did this. But we don’t know if they all did. We’ve got to find out where these men came from, and where they went!” Eric scanned the clearing around the cabin site, and then his eyes fell on something down there in the lower meadow out front and stopped. It was Bob Barham’s grave marker that Eric had erected himself, but at the base of it was something that hadn’t been there before. He asked Luke to come with him and then headed directly to it. It was a small cairn of rocks about two feet tall, carefully arranged for stability and with purpose, but why? Eric crouched down in front of it, examining the smooth stones that must have been collected from the nearby creek, and that’s when he noticed a bit of something plastic under one of them; just the corner of a plastic bag. Eric began moving the stones aside until it was uncovered, and he could see it was definitely a bag, and that the top had been tied in a knot to close it. He could feel something i
nside and he tore it open to take out a folded piece of a map. At first, he thought there might be a route or something marked on the map, but seeing nothing there, he turned it over and found Vicky’s note on the back.

  Eric read the message through twice, taking in what it said as he knelt there beside the grave marker. Men that may have been soldiers had come here, and they had taken Shauna and all but one of the horses away. They had also taken all of the guns and supplies and then set the fires that burned the cabin and barn. Vicky and Jonathan had escaped because they hadn’t been there when the men arrived, and they had Tucker because they had taken him with them that morning because of Jonathan’s broken leg. The part of the note that Eric kept reading over again was the last part that said the two of them had followed after the men only to find the other horses shot dead and a trail that ended where vehicle tracks began. Vicky had sketched a rough map to the place, down the creek and then right on a gravel road to another turn off. She said they had returned here and found a small survival cache Bob had left nearby, and with that and Tucker, the two of them had left to make their way to the Jicarilla reservation, in hopes of finding Eric there.

  “Dammit!” Eric cursed as he got to his feet, the note in his hand. Lucas and Nantan and the others were all gathered around him by now, anxious to hear what the message said. “The footprints you saw were Vicky’s. She was leading an Appaloosa gelding called Tucker, and my friend Jonathan was riding him because he still can’t walk. And my ex-wife has been taken away by the men that were here. Vicky and Jonathan saw it happen and saw them take everything from the cabin before they burned it. She counted thirteen of them, but there may be more. They followed them, hoping to find a way to rescue Shauna, but they had trucks hidden near a road down in the valley and from there, they drove away. I can find the place where they had them parked.” Eric held up the sketch Vicky drew at the bottom of her note. “When Vicky and Jonathan saw that they couldn’t help Shauna, they decided to try and make it to the reservation to tell me. All of you should go on back there as well. Maybe you can catch up with them along the way. I appreciate your help getting here, but I’ll continue alone from here and see what I can find.”

  “No way are we letting you do that alone, brother. Without Luke, I doubt you’d be able to find them, and even if you did, you’d be far outnumbered. Wolf will track the girl and the young man and escort them safely back to the reservation once he catches up to them. Their trail should be easy to follow, and they are moving slow. Besides, he knows where they are headed. The rest of us will go with you. Luke will be our tracker, and all of us will have your back when we find those bastards who took your wife.”

  “We don’t know that they aren’t soldiers,” Eric said. “But if they are, they are a disgrace to the uniform. Vicky said they shot all the horses once they got the guns and other goods loaded into their trucks.”

  “Then let’s go to that place at first light in the morning and see if we can determine what they did after that. We’ll camp here now, and Wolf will go in the morning too when we leave.”

  Eleven

  IT WAS A LONG night for Eric, as he was impatient to get going to find Shauna’s last known location that Vicky had described. He would have preferred to go ahead and travel there in the dark, despite the cold, but Luke had persuaded him otherwise, saying they might miss something along the trail that could prove to be valuable information. Luke wanted to arrive there in daylight, with time to scour the area for clues before the rest of them converged on it. Eric was grateful for Vicky’s note and all the information it contained, but it was really bad news to learn that the men had switched to vehicles such a short distance away. Vicky and Jonathan couldn’t follow beyond that point, and Eric doubted Luke could either. But the Apache tracker said it wasn’t necessarily a lost cause.

  “The good thing is that it’s only been three days. There may not be much sign at all, but what there is will mostly still be there.”

  Those three short days were enough to change everything though, and it made Eric sick to think he’d been so close to getting here on time. He’d traveled fast and arrived at the reservation as soon as humanly possible, given the conditions and the business he had to take care of along the way, but then he’d made a big mistake with the way he entered Jicarilla land. His arrest and interrogation had cost him as many days as that, while Megan was already there all along. If not for that unnecessary delay, he might have made it back here sooner, but in hindsight, he realized now he should have simply brought Shauna, Vicky and Jonathan with him. He’d expected to face her fury over that when he arrived here, but now he was facing something far worse: the reality that she was missing and maybe even dead because of what he’d done. Eric didn’t want to think about what might have happened to her since she’d been taken, and the truth was that he might never know. He was grateful for the help he was getting from Luke, but still skeptical they would find much beyond what Vicky had already discovered.

  He had a final word with Wolf at dawn before the man left, giving him a message for Jonathan and Vicky, and wishing him luck. Wolf was confident he’d be able to find them and that he’d catch up to them long before they reached the reservation, especially since Vicky was on foot. Wolf took one of the extra horses they’d brought with them so that the three of them could all ride when he found them, and he told Eric and the others that they would be waiting at the reservation until they returned. As he rode away, Luke was already making his way down the creek on the trail of the raiders, and Eric and Nantan followed behind, along with the remaining two men of their party, Tommy and Red.

  They worked their way through the forested creek basin on foot, leading their horses and stopping occasionally when Luke found something of interest that he wanted to investigate closer. When they reached the road where Vicky said the men had turned north, Luke and Eric went on ahead while the others brought up the rear from a sufficient distance to react in case they encountered anyone on the road. All was quiet that morning though, at least until they came to the dead-end turn off that Vicky had mapped out in her sketch and heard the noise of a large flock of crows.

  “They’ve come for the feast,” Luke said, as they rode down the narrow two track and saw dozens of the black birds flying into the nearby trees, annoyed at the human interruption. Other scavengers had gotten to the dead horses as well, Eric saw, and Luke pointed out large coyote tracks when they dismounted. The tracker’s real interest though, was in the tire tread marks he found around the turnabout and leading to and from the road.

  “Can you tell how many vehicles they had?” Eric asked.

  “At least three, maybe four. All light trucks or maybe SUVs. Mud-grip or semi-off-road tires. I can’t tell the brand without something to compare them to, but I can remember what they look like if we find more tread marks like this where we’re going next.”

  “And where is that?” Eric asked. “How are we supposed to know where in the hell to go next now that we know they left here using roads? There may be some tracks on the gravel, but eventually this road will come out on pavement. And then there’ll be nothing.”

  “True, but at least we know they came in on the gravel and went back out the same way. We’ll study the maps we have, and see where it crosses the next road, and then go there and have a look around.”

  Eric couldn’t argue with that as a logical step, but it still wasn’t much to go on. After determining from the map that the gravel road came to a T-intersection with a bigger road several miles to the north, they plotted a cross-country route that would take them there directly and with little chance of being seen. When they reached a ridge overlooking this junction, they saw that the other road was indeed paved, and Eric’s doubts were reinforced. But Luke told them to give him a few minutes while he went down alone on foot to see if he could find any clues to tell him which way the trucks had turned. It had to be either east or west, as there were no other options.

  “Definitely west,” he said when he rej
oined them. One of the trucks cut the corner just enough to make clear marks in the gravel that it came that way either going out or coming in. I didn’t find any sign like that indicating any of them cut to the eastbound side. But they are on pavement now, so this is where the tire tracks end.”

  “And there’s nothing we can do, other than maybe follow the paved road west and hope we get lucky? They could be clear across the state by now, or beyond.”

  “Yes, they could. But there’s also the possibility that we’ll find another road they turned off on. Or that they’ll come back this way and we’ll see them when they do.”

  Eric knew either was a long shot, but what else was he to do? He had to make every effort he could to find Shauna, or else he’d never convince Megan to leave the country with him. Of course, he didn’t want to leave Megan’s mom behind anyway, for any reason. The only way he would even consider doing that was if he knew for a fact she was dead, and he knew he probably wouldn’t know until he found the men who’d taken her away.

  “We can follow the edge of this plateau for a few miles,” Nantan said, pointing to the map he’d unfolded again while they talked. “From up there we should be able to see any traffic that passes through the valley on that road.”

  “At least until it starts climbing again at this pass,” Eric was looking at a series of switchbacks indicating the route farther west.

  “For that part, we’d best wait for dark.”

  By midafternoon, they’d gone as far as they could without having to use the road again. They dismounted on the south slope close to where it began climbing out of the valley, and then took a break and rested the horses as they waited for darkness. It was an hour later, while they were quietly eating, before getting ready to move out again, that they heard the sound of approaching vehicles coming through the valley from the east.