Beyond the New Horizon (Book 4): Dark Times

by Conaway, Christine

  “Why not make camp here? There’s water, and the brush is high enough for them to hide in if they had to. If that was one of Charlie’s horses we heard earlier, we may be closer to them than I thought. With all of the backtracking we’ve had to do, we could have gotten turned around some, but, unless they had to move, it doesn’t seem like they could be east of our position. It would mean that they have to be on the other side of that.” John pointed to the hill of rocks and trees, that crossed the gorge to the east. He laughed, “As near as I can remember, there never was a hill that lay in that direction.”

  John looked up and was surprised by the clean blue sky above them. There were no familiar trails of white they’d grown used to as the air traffic had multiplied with time. To the north, the smoke was still visible, but the rest of the sky was a clear cerulean blue.

  “What I would give to have an airplane about now. I’d like to have witnessed the changes in the landscape as they happened. By rights, we should all be dead from the subsequent destruction, and we’re not. Think about it, other than Sam and Gina getting burned by the hot water under the hayshed, the changes keep happening all around us, and so far we’ve been lucky enough to be in the right spot every time.”

  “That’s because it’s not our time. Trust me, when it is, nothing can stop it. That doesn’t mean we don’t take every precaution to find the best solution to our problems and right now, having women folk that are too tired to pay attention is our only problem, well, other than finding Charlie. Once we get them set up somewhere high, I’ll feel better about searching for Charlie and the kids.”

  “Okay, I agree. What if we follow this gorge to the base of that hill and find somewhere up there to set them up? At least they’d be able to see if someone was coming down this valley and either hide or defend themselves.”

  In agreement, they filled their bottles and put them in the bucket. With Mark carrying the larger bottles, they went back to the women. They explained what they intended to do and John caught the flash of relief on Mary’s face. He saw the fatigue, but only briefly. The past few days she had seemed to gather herself, and John saw the strong person she had been before the lights had gone out and the person who had shown so much strength when he’d been shot. With the loss of Nathan, she had been broken, but they’d talked and they both knew it may have been a blessing for him to die a peaceful death.

  They had never told anyone other than Journey that Nathan had been born with a congenital heart defect that couldn’t be repaired until he was healthy enough for surgery and then the chances were slim that it would be effective. The power outage had dashed any hopes they’d had for him living a long life. They knew weight loss and malnutrition were only the beginning of his demise. Mark had prayed with them and told both he and Mary, that sometimes the answer wasn’t what they wanted, but what was best for the recipient of the prayers. It seemed to be what Mary had needed to hear because she had shed her grief and while he still occasionally saw sadness, she wasn’t wallowing in it as he had expected.

  The climb to the top of the grade hadn’t been as easy as Mark and John thought, but they finally made it using pieces of the existing road when it was available to them. There were many parts where the roadway had sloughed off, and they had had to go around, but John finally reached a plateau where they could stop to rest.

  Once both of the horses and all of the people were standing on the safe ground, John had the chance to look around.

  “Dad, they were here! There are hoof prints and horse poop.”

  John had already determined that someone had been there before them, by the circle of stones, but Sherry was pointing to something in the grass along the roadway.

  Mark walked over to where Sherry stood and saw that she was right, “They were here, but no telling how long ago.” He found a short stick and broke the pile of manure up, “Maybe yesterday or early this morning. The outside of the pile is dry but not the inside of it.”

  “And from the size of the tracks, it has to be Charlie’s Percherons,” John agreed. He walked further around the bend in the roadway and saw the road ended much like the other slides they’d crossed, but with this one, unless they went up the side of the mountain, they wouldn’t find a way around it.

  “Oh my god! Dad, quick, come over here. There they are!” Sherry hollered with excitement, pointing down over the edge of the dirt apron. She cupped her hands and blew out the signal she had used previously. She watched at the horse being led by someone briefly halted and then disappeared into the trees.

  “Dad, that was Lucas. I know it was. Why didn’t he stop? He had to have heard me.”

  “Not necessarily. Remember how sound bounces around? Likely he may have heard something but not knowing we are in the area would never have expected it to be you. This does change our plans somewhat,” John said as he walked back to the fire ring, where Mark knelt in front of Matt’s foot.

  The cast he had made for Matt’s broken leg was tattered and broken. The climb up the mountain had not helped any, and it looked like Matt was going to get his wish to have it removed.

  “Are you going to take it off?” Matt asked. His grin told of how excited he was at the prospect.

  “I don’t see another answer. This is doing nothing to protect your leg. I’ll cut it off, but you are going to have to stay off it as much as you can. I can put an Ace bandage on for support, but I mean it, Matt. You need to protect it for at least another two weeks.”

  Matt nodded as John walked up, “I will. The way it’s pinching my foot now it hurts worse than when I broke it.”

  “Well, I guess once you remove it, it will have to be Mark and I who follow the trail Charlie left for us.”

  “No, I can go. I have my boot, Sherry said you guys brought it.”

  “Mathew, no you can’t. What part of taking it easy don’t you understand? I mean sitting around without putting weight on it. You can fix up a place to keep watch over the camp, but please, unless you want to rebreak it, stay off of it.”

  Sherry and Maggie sat on the edge of the wide spot looking down on the valley below. They were watching for any sign of Charlie or the kids. Sherry knew she had seen Lucas’s horse, but it was apparent that he hadn’t heard her whistle. She wished she’d learned to use her fingers to whistle like Lucas had. He would have heard it for sure. Whenever he whistled, he hurt everyone’s ears.

  Making use of the fire ring, Mark built a small fire and Mary set their biggest pot on the wood. Filling it with water from the bottles. The rest of the full ones were dumped into the bucket so they could use some of the boiling water to sterilize the rest of the empty bottles. Evelyn used the first bottle of clean water to prepare three of the MRE’s from Sam’s supplies. John had made the freeze dried, and MRE’s his first priority when packing the pack saddles, with the beans and rice next on his list. They only had the basics for seasoning, but he had included what they had. They could wear the same clothes forever if they had to, but until they felt safe enough to hunt and grow their own food, they needed to make use of the ready to eat meals.

  Mark and John both reached for one when Evelyn told them that dinner was ready, “John you’ll have to share that with Mary, and the girls will share the last one. From this day on, we will be on short rations. We have no idea when we can hunt or grow food. Mary and I were talking, and we think that we’ve already missed the growing season, or at least most of it, so we’re not going to use the precious few seeds we have this late in the year.”

  “BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!”

  John and Mark both jumped to their feet. They had no idea where the shots had come from, but as loud as they were, they couldn’t have been far away.

  “Get in the bushes,” John told them quietly.

  Chapter Seven

  Mark kicked dirt over the coals and followed John down the slope. Matt untied the horses and gave one each to Mary and Sherry. He pointed to the only thick brush around. For the most part, it was short bushes and fallen tree
s. The few standing trees available to hide them were over the berm. Going behind the branches of the fallen fir and spruce trees seemed to be the best option. He hobbled along trying to follow Mark’s orders when all he wanted to do was to grab the horses and women and run to a safe place. He had to wait a reasonable amount of time before they could think of leaving the area.

  He stopped to help Sherry when the hard panniers on Clyde got caught up in a tree limb. The horse must have felt the panic from the people and when the branch got caught between the pannier, and its side and panicked. Clyde reared up. While Sherry talked to Clyde trying to soothe him, Matt managed to pull the branch free. They followed after Evelyn, Mary and Maggie. As soon as they were safely hidden, Matt cautioned the women to remain quiet and worked his way back to the clearing. Staying low in the brush, he panned the clearing with his AR. With the safety off he kept his trigger finger to the side of the trigger guard, ready to defend them. From his ride with Sherry, he knew who to look for or at least he had the idea to watch for the green uniforms.

  Nothing moved, and no one showed up in the clearing for as long as Matt waited. After a couple of hours, he was beginning to worry that something had happened to John and Mark. He hadn’t thought they would be gone long unless they’d run into some kind of trouble, but when they’d left, there had been no time-line set, so Matt worked his way back to the women.

  He made sure that Evelyn saw him before he crept out of the foliage. The barrel on Evelyn’s shotgun looked big enough to put a good sized hole in him if she had wanted to. Mary and Maggie were lying together against a tree trunk asleep, but Evelyn and Sherry were facing opposite directions wide awake. Evelyn said something to Sherry and waved him forward.

  As he sat down beside her, Evelyn asked him, “Any sign of John or Mark?”

  “None,” he whispered, “But I’m sure we would have heard if they had troubles.”

  The sun was setting and still no sign of the two men. When Mary woke up, she wanted to go and find them, but between Matt and Evelyn, they talked her out of it. Matt was sure that if the two returned after dark, they would make their presence known before coming too close.

  *****

  Mark followed John down the hillside, staying as concealed as they could. John had found the horses tracks and pointing them out to Mark, they’d decided to see where they went. They had seen no sign of anyone but the tracks in the dirt. A couple of places that were particularly steep, they could see where at least one of them had slid down the hill before stopping. There was no visible roadway other than bits of gravel that could have been a road at one time.

  “How far are we going to follow this trail? It’s going to be dark soon, and the women will probably be worried by now.”

  John stopped walking, holding onto a branch to keep from sliding down the hill, “I hadn’t intended on coming this far, but I guess we should go back. Tomorrow we’ll come back down. I’m pretty sure this is the way that Charlie came.”

  “I sure wouldn’t want to stumble across them in the dark. They’re liable to shoot first and ask questions later.”

  John chuckled softly, “If Lucas is following Sam’s guidance you’re probably right. Let’s go back.”

  They had come further than either of them realized, and the climb back to the top was going to be completed long after it was completely dark. When John lost the trail for the second time, they decided to wait until morning.

  “There will be hell to pay come morning. I sure hope they found a safe place to spend the night.”

  “You don’t give them enough credit John. To be on the safe side, I told Evie to make sure they sleep in shifts if we didn’t get back before dark. I have every confidence that Matt will have the situation well in hand.”

  “He hasn’t made too many wise decisions of late. If Sam and Gina hadn’t gone after them, who knows what would have happened. Matt and Lucas could have gotten themselves killed.”

  “You’re not being very fair. Didn’t Sam say they were on their way back when he found them? You know yourself they didn’t set out to get themselves in trouble, and if Sam had told Matt about his father to begin with, they might never have left. I can’t say that I blame him for wanting to know.”

  “I know. I just keep thinking what could have happened. This…whatever happened has already taken a toll on us, and I don’t think I could stand to lose anyone else.”

  “Speaking about that, how are you feeling?”

  John looked surprised, but he knew immediately what Mark was asking. He’d thought someone would have asked sooner and had already prepared his answer, “I’m fine. I didn’t have to go back for a year, so they must have felt confident they got it all.”

  Mark nodded, “Good enough. I guess we don’t have many options if it does come back. It’s out of our hands now.”

  “What do you mean by we? Seems to me like I’m the one who has the problem.”

  “That’s true John, but if something happens to you, we all lose. Now, we can sit here the rest of the night debating semantics or one of us can get some sleep.”

  “I’m sure I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to.”

  “Well, good then. I can sleep while you stand the first watch.” Mark watched the flash of annoyance that crossed John’s face and wondered when John would begin to believe there were bad people out there. He found it hard to believe that John had dispatched those men at the neighbors but according to Sam, he had. “Maybe that’s still the problem then,” Mark thought, “He can’t put it behind him and get on with his life.”

  John sat in silence and watched the pulsating red glow in the sky. Had the radiance been shades of green and gold he would have thought it was from the northern lights. He and Mary had spent hours parked on the shoulder of the road fascinated by the Aurora Borealis on their only vacation to Alaska. The sky had seemed alive with the changing patterns and shapes made up of glowing dust in the atmosphere. He remembered how cold it had been and more than once questioned Mary what they were doing in Alaska during the harsh winter months. She had laughed and told him it was to experience something new and he had informed her that had he wanted to be cold he could have stayed home and experienced it there.

  A stick snapped nearby, and John froze. He prayed that Mark didn’t start coughing or snoring until John saw what was coming their way. Even though the sky was lit in shades of red, it didn’t lend itself well for seeing. The moon was nowhere in sight, and the stars seemed a million miles away. It was as dark as John could ever remember it being. He waited for the sound to repeat itself and relaxed after a time when it didn’t. With the turmoil the trees and landscape were in, it could have been nothing more than a broken branch falling. “Or it might be someone trying to sneak up on us,” he thought.

  John was just starting to nod off when Mark woke up, “Why didn’t you wake me up sooner?

  “I didn’t start getting sleepy until a few minutes ago, but seeing as you’re awake now, let’s go.”

  Two hours later they got back to the clearing. It was almost full daylight, and their families had hidden well. They had even taken the time to dismember the fire ring and scatter the ashes.

  John and Mark stood for several minutes looking over the edge of the bluff to the valley down below, waiting for someone to notice their arrival. They talked in normal voices with the thought that one of the five would hear them and not take them for invaders.

  Mark grabbed John’s arm when they both heard sounds in the brush. Loud noises that sounded like sticks breaking, sounds that someone wasn’t trying to hide. They heard a horse nicker and another answer. Mark released his grip and faced the bush behind them, anticipating greeting their family. When no one showed themselves Mark frowned, “We’re back…” he said, dragging the words out just like he’d heard in a movie long ago. They waited several minutes with no one showing themselves.

  Mark started toward the bush when out stepped a man, with the barrel of a rifle leading the way, and it was pointed directly
at Mark. Mark stopped and felt John bump him.

  “Sorry…I was just…aw shit,” John breathed out.

  “Figured you’d be back as soon as it got light. Drop the guns and put em up,” the man laughed and showed his brown, un-brushed teeth. “I always wanted to say that”.

  Even from a distance, they could smell him. He wore an old red baseball cap with bushy hair sticking out around the bottom edge. A pair of what looked like skiing goggles rested above the visor. It was hard to tell where his hair ended and his scruffy beard began. The man’s clothes didn’t fit, and they could probably have remained upright on their own if he ever took them off. His blue eyes glared at John.

  “Where’s my wife and the others? If you’ve…”

  The man silenced him with a threatening wave of his rifle. His finger was inside the trigger guard, and John was afraid the guy would shoot him.

  “Yeah yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that line so many times that I’m shaking in my boots. If you’ve hurt her, I’m going to kill you, Is that how it goes? Both of you sit down on the ground and cross your legs. Jerry, leave those women alone and get your ass over here.”

  A man who must have been Jerry came stumbling out of the brush, pushing Mary and Evelyn ahead of him. Other than missing the goggles and he wore a boony cap replacing the ball cap, they could have been twins. Mis-matched dirty clothing and he appeared to be missing a few front teeth.

  “Caleb, these two old ones both say they can cook, so maybe we should take them. I’m getting tired of the crap those guys cook, and their horses will come in handy too.”