Beyond the New Horizon (Book 4): Dark Times

by Conaway, Christine

  “Don’t overthink it, John. We did the right thing by leaving, and we’ll continue to do the right thing no matter what it is. Somehow, we’ll get down to the Joe with or without our stuff, but at least we’ll know where to find them.”

  They heard a muffled noise in the brush and John grabbed his rifle. Stunned by who stepped out from between the bushes, John laid it on the ground when the man waved a pistol at Maggie's head. His arm was holding her off the ground as if she was a rag doll. Across her ashen face was the red imprint of a hand which said he had stopped her from warning them. Tears ran unchecked down Maggie's cheeks, but the anger on her face said they may be tears of rage and not sorrow or pain. Her heels drummed against the man’s legs and he shifted her weight as if she weighed nothing. He gave her a one armed shake and tucked her against his side, so her feet kicking the air uselessly.

  “Knock it off!” he hissed at her, without taking his eyes from John.

  Maggie continued to struggle and bent her head down. When she raised her head, her teeth were clamped on the fleshy part of the guy's hand, between his thumb and forefinger. He screamed and flung her away from him. Her teeth snapped as they were dragged from his flesh. As she hit the ground, his foot caught her in the middle, and he forcefully lifted her off the dirt with his kick. She landed with a grunt and lay where she fell.

  John jumped up to go to her, and the man waved the gun his direction.

  “Don’t even move.”

  Chapter Six

  “Lady if I were you, I’d sit right down there before someone gets hurt. Doggone I knew I heard something earlier, but Silas didn’t believe me. He went on some wild goose chase after some kids on horses.”

  John looked up and saw Mary standing with her Glock pointed at the man. “Mary, do as he says. I’m sure he doesn’t mean us any harm. Put the gun down.” It was then that John realized he didn’t see Evelyn. He looked at Mark who almost imperceptively shook his head.

  “That’s right lady, put it down or…” He dropped his gun hand and stared blankly around as if not realizing he had a hole right between his eyes. He toppled over landing half on top of Maggie, still clutching his gun.

  Evelyn stepped out from behind the tree she’d hidden behind when she’d seen him holding Maggie hostage. There hadn’t been enough time for her to call out a warning, and she had reacted without thought. Evelyn slid her Ruger back into her waist holster and ran to Maggie who was beginning to stir. She pulled the girl away from the man’s body.

  Maggie’s eyes opened, and she jerked herself from Evelyn’s grip, rolled over and gasped when she saw his hand resting inches from her face. She grabbed the man’s pistol from his fingers. Then she crawled to him and began to rifle through his pockets.

  “Maggie, stop that. What are you doing? Leave him be! He can’t hurt you anymore,” John snapped.

  “John…Watch,” Mark told him.

  She produced two extra magazines which she stuffed in her pockets. The Glock was too big to fit her small hand, but holding it close to her body she pushed the safety on.

  Mark nodded in approval. He had suspected that Evelyn had been giving the girl some instruction against John’s advice, but Evie had insisted to him that all of the kids and especially the girls needed to be able to defend themselves.

  Maggie stuffed the gun in the front of her pants and stood up, “I tried to warn you, but he said he’d just shoot everyone if I made a sound. I was hoping he would make some noise and you would hear him.”

  “It’s okay. It’s all over now, but I think we need to move. You all right?”

  Maggie nodded, as she pulled her sweatshirt down over the bulk of the gun.

  “Grab your bags and come on then,” John hissed. “There’s no way they could have missed the sound of that.”

  They grabbed the bags from where they’d been left and with Mark leading the way, they ran back down the trail the way they’d come in. The roadway wasn’t as easy to navigate as when they had brought the tractors through, rocks littered the road, and in places, tree trunks crossed it. They ran until one of them bent over with cramps, rested for a few minutes and ran again. When they came to the branch in the road, they had previously bypassed John took it. He scoured the road for signs of footprints and finding none, they went up it. John didn’t know where it went and right then didn’t care. Around the first bend, he waved them to a stop.

  “I have to go back,” he panted. “Just to the junction to cover our tracks.” He set his pack down and jogged back the way they’d come. At the junction, John realized the tracks weren’t as visible as he’d thought they would be, but he used a tree branch to muffle whatever footprints he saw. Then he took great pains to make it look as if they’d continued on the same trail by running down it and carefully coming back and running down it again. He hoped no one would notice all of the tracks were made by the same boots, but he hoped if whoever it was who would be looking for them, was running, they might not take the time to inspect each track. It could buy them some time.

  He carefully ran back up the trail. Mark was sitting with his arm around Evelyn holding her close, and John was surprised when she looked up at him. He thought she was daring him to find fault with what she had done. Evelyn had always been a quiet woman, and he’d heard people say that all she cared about were her crocheting and church and had been compared to a door-mouse more than once. The pink sponge rollers she wore in her hair were legendary, and she would have carried the vision forward until this day. The look of cold steel in her eyes when she’d pulled the trigger would have changed everyone in their churches minds about Evelyn being a door-mouse. Today she proved she was a force to be reckoned with. What had surprised John is that she didn’t collapse in a heap of tears or show any regret. She had held her ground until she saw him fall, and the expression on her face when she looked at John, was that she had mentally spit on the fallen man.

  Whatever was going through Evelyn’s mind at that moment, was enough to show John, the proper attitude to get them through this mess. He saw that he needed to drop his ideas that everything would be okay and that everyone they met wasn’t a bad guy and instill some of her grit and Sam’s approach to the people they met. He was tired of being afraid for his family, and he realized that his way of thinking was going to get them all killed.

  Mary surprised him when she walked to stand behind Evelyn and Mark. She looked like Evelyn’s actions had lit a spark under Mary and the old Mary, with her courage and spirit, had been revived. He now wondered if it had been there all along, but she had kept it well hidden from him.

  John sighed and nodded his head, “This is it then. Today I realize what is involved in our staying alive. Sam is right, and I guess I never wanted to believe it, but everyone, until they prove differently is a bad guy.”

  Mark nodded, and John realized that he was the problem. Mark had subtly been trying to tell him, and Sam had expressed it loudly but it had taken Evelyn to open his eyes.

  “Now, we have some choices to make. Mark, at one time I heard you say that you wished we’d never left the ranch, does that still hold true?”

  Mark grinned, “I didn’t think you were listening. But now, I’ve had a change of heart. I’m more afraid of that volcano burying us in molten rock than I’m afraid of being out here. Our problem here is that we have no defendable position. We’re like fish out of water, floundering around with nowhere to go. The Saint Joe was a very good idea, but I guess others saw it as a safe haven as well and if these guys are an example of the people there, we should rethink it. The question is, where do we go from here?”

  “Whoo woot, whoo woot!”

  “What the hell is that?” John whispered. He picked up his bag and dragged it further back in the brush. He waved Mary over, and when he turned to wave at Maggie, she was grinning. “Maggie! Come over here.”

  Mark and Evelyn had moved into the brush beside Mary and crouched down. Maggie stood and cupped her hands over her mouth and blowing through her thum
b area, she made the same noise they had just heard.

  “Whoo woot, whoo woot, whoo woot.” She grinned at the adults and came over, but continued looking back behind them. “It’s Matt and Sherry. They’ve found us.”

  A few minutes later they turned as they heard a twig snap behind them and Matt stood within twenty feet of them with Sherry standing behind him.

  “Oh my God, you made it back. We were so worried about the two of you,” Mary rushed to Sherry and wrapped her arms around her. She reached out and touched Matt’s shoulder as if making sure he wasn’t a figment of her imagination.

  “When we ran into that bunch of men, we weren’t sure of making it back as well, but we led them on a merry chase for a while. They’re probably still trying to figure out where we went. Because you’re here and not with the tractors, I assume there was a problem?”

  “Your men, or rather one of the men found us. We thought he was going to shoot Maggie, but Evelyn killed him instead, and so we ran. We’re not equipped to fight a group of men at this time, so we thought it was providential to move. Unfortunately, we couldn’t start the tractors to move them, so we’re on our own here.”

  “Do you think they already found them then?”

  “If they came looking for their friend they probably did. They couldn’t have missed the sound of the gunshot.”

  “Mark, we heard it too, but the way that it echoed from every direction, they may not have known where it came from. We didn’t know until we saw John.”

  “You saw me? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “We didn’t want to surprise you and get ourselves shot.”

  “Where are the horses?”

  “Back there,” Sherry told them. “We tied them up, but doesn’t anyone want to know what we found?”

  Mark looked up expectantly, “A way through?”

  Matt interrupted, “Maybe something better than that. We didn’t see a way down, but we saw the cows from up on a hill. Or at least we thought they were your cows. Sherry was pretty sure when we saw an old brindle cow.”

  “It was her Dad, I know it was. She still had last year’s calf with her and the one from the year before and maybe a new one too. The only problem is, we didn’t see any way to get down to them. At least not without going by those men. Matt and I listened to them for quite a while last night, and we think they have a camp set up down by the river.”

  “Right where we need to go unless we can find a way around them and that would mean that we need to go that way.” Matt pointed to the east.

  “Mark, I think we need to go back to the wagons and get the pack saddles on these horses. We can load up whatever we can fit in them. I think there's a lot we could still use back there. We only had enough time to grab the basics.”

  “I was wondering what we were going to use for sleeping. Anyone have a pencil?” Mark laughed when he realized how insane that sounded, but if they went back, he thought they needed to have a list of specific things to get.

  “I do,” Evelyn said and pulled a short piece of a pencil from her pocket along with some folded notebook paper. “I was trying to write down how to make bread and other things from scratch.”

  Mary told her, “But as long as we have you, we don’t need the recipe. Surely you could teach us all.”

  “I was thinking more of the young people. We’re not going to be around forever, and someone needs to know how.”

  Evelyn’s words had a sobering effect on all of them. “We have so much knowledge we need to pass to the kids, so they don’t have to figure it out on their own. Like tanning hides and baking and canning and preserving food without a refrigerator or freezer. Making clothes, even. They need to know all of these things, and I plan on teaching all of them once we get settled. You men can teach them to survive by defending themselves and hunting and fishing, but I can teach them how to cook what they catch, preserve it and clothe themselves.”

  John stood up, “We can work on that later, right now we need to get what we can. Matt, how about you and I go back? I don’t want to leave the women alone so Mark should stay here.”

  Matt got up from where he’d sat on the ground and looked down at his feet, “I would, but first I need Mark to cut this dang cast off. It’s hard to sneak anywhere with it on.”

  Mark shook his head, “Can’t do it. It hasn’t been on long enough to heal, and I don’t have the supplies to make another.”

  “I’ll go. I can do anything that Matt can.”

  John looked at his daughter, and frowned, when had she grown so tall. The determination on her face said she believed he was going to deny her, but John realized he needed someone to go with him and with Matt out of the running, it only left her or one of the women. He nodded, “Okay.”

  Sherry hugged her mother and went to stand beside John. Matt took his rifle off of his shoulder and handed it to her. “I want it back when you’re done with it, and I expect you to hand it over to me.” Without looking at John or Mary for their reaction, he leaned down and kissed Sherry on her cheek and hugged her. His face was bright red when he turned away. “Be safe,” he mumbled and went to sit beside Mark.

  The four of them watched John and Sherry slip into the brush. As soon as they were out of sight, Matt said, “A sister. That’s all that was, and she knows it. I just don’t want you guys to get the wrong idea. I care for her like I would a sister if I had one.”

  “Seeing as you’re seventeen and she’s only coming thirteen, what did you think that we thought?” Mary asked, but her smile gave her away.

  Matt flushed and laughed nervously, “I wanted to be clear, so there was no misunderstanding anywhere.”

  “Relax Matt, Sherry already told me that you might have a tiny thing for Abby, but I’m guessing that you’ll get some competition from Lucas. Besides that, you’re all too young to be thinking seriously about one person. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

  Matt frowned at Mary, “Are there other girls somewhere out there who are just waiting to be rescued by a couple of handsome gentlemen on white horses?”

  They all laughed quietly because Matt had stated the obvious. The chance for any of the young people to meet members of the opposite sex was probably going to be few and far between.

  *****

  John was pleased with the way that Sherry conducted herself on the way back to the wagons. She walked as quietly as he did and if she had to speak, it was only to his ears. They led the two horses to minimize the noise. Before they got too close, John had Sherry hold both horses while he went ahead. The wagons were untouched other than someone had dumped one of the plastic totes off the back of Marks. Yarn and material were scattered around as if someone had kicked it around. John checked for the keys and mentally kicked himself when he didn’t find either one. How stupid are we? Taking them should have been our first thought and action.

  He found the hard sided panniers and the soft ones used for Gus and dragged both sets with the framework back along the trail. When he got to where Sherry was, John had her lead the horses further into the brush. “Can you tack them both up? I need to go find the keys, but I think I know where they are.”

  She nodded, eager to help, “Yes. Do you want me to take them and start loading them too?”

  “No. Stay here until I come back. We’re going to carry things here so we can keep the horses hidden.”

  John saw his gelding raise his head up and his ears twitch forward. John placed his hand on the buckskins muzzle to stop him from whinnying. John wondered if he had seen something or smelled another horse. He wondered if maybe Sam and the others were getting close. “Better keep an eye on him. We don’t need his noise attracting unwanted attention. I’ll be right back.”

  Sherry nodded and placed her hand where her dad’s had been and rubbed. Clyde forgot about what he had seen or smelled and rubbed his head on Sherry almost pushing her over with enthusiasm. When Clyde threw his head up, she grabbed his lead and pulled his head back to her. She heard someone co
ming through the brush and sank down to her knees. Her Dad had been gone for a while, and she expected him back, but she didn’t think that he would be moving as fast as whoever she was hearing. She felt Clyde draw in a breath and grabbed his muzzle. A brief muffled whinny escaped before she stopped him completely. He pulled back on the lead as a large white-tailed deer crashed out of the brush and froze in front of them. His brown eyes were huge, as surprised to see them as they were by him. His tail twitched in alarm, and with one giant leap he bounded off away from them another leap, and he had disappeared. Sherry let her breath out unaware that she had been holding it.

  “Hey, are you okay?” John whispered.

  Sherry jumped, which frightened Clyde again. “Oh, my God Dad! A big deer just scared the crap out of me. I thought we were being over run.”

  “Really? A deer? I guess that’s some good news then. I was beginning to think all of the wild-life had disappeared. The other good news is, I found these.” He opened his fist to show two sets of keys. “Now, I’m going to go get some of the things on the list.”

  “Daddy, don’t forget Matt’s other boot. It’s in the front corner of Mark’s trailer.”

  He waved that he’d heard her and disappeared. “Please hurry back…” She told him but knew that he couldn’t have heard her.

  Sherry thought about what she’d said to her father and realized that in times past, he would have reprimanded her for the way she had spoken, but he hadn’t said anything. Maybe he hadn’t noticed or heard exactly what she had said. Sherry decided to be proactive and be prepared when he came back.

  He returned fifteen or so minutes later as she was doing up the girth on Clyde. Without asking she had put the hard-sided boxes on John’s big gelding and he nodded his approval. He dumped the plastic container out on the ground and left again. She didn’t look to see what he’d brought, she just loaded it into the first box.