Beyond the New Horizon (Book 4): Dark Times

by Conaway, Christine

  Ignoring Jerry, Caleb focused on John,“Wheres those tractors you guys was using? We heard you a mile away, and thought we were hearing things.”

  “We lost them in the landslide. All we have is what we salvaged and could carry with us,” Mark answered.

  The first man seemed to be considering Marks words. “Where’s the rest of you? Pretty sure the kids we were chasing were part of your bunch.”

  Mark looked at John, his eyes pleading for him not to say anything. He saw that John realized the same thing that he had. These men didn’t have the kids, “Kids? Nope. There’s just the two horses and us.”

  “So them kids ain’t with you?” He looked at his friend, “We need to tell Silas them kids could be trouble and part of a bigger force. If they ain’t part of these…no tellin’ who else is out here, or maybe they were some of those winter people?”

  Caleb pointed at John, “You get up and get those horses. Don’t do anything crazy or these guys die. Go with him Jerry, see he don’t get any stupid ideas.”

  John climbed to his feet and exchanged looks with Mary. With her eyes, she told him where the girls and Matt were. John could already see that Matt and Sherry’s rifles were gone and both of them were carrying handguns, and he wondered what they were waiting for. As much as he hated the idea of the kids having to shoot someone, he wished they’d hurry up.

  Jerry pushed John from behind as soon as they went into the bushes. He glanced back over his shoulder and didn’t see the guy. Puzzled, he stopped walking waiting for the guy to push him again. When he didn’t, John turned to see why. Matt was standing over Jerry who was lying on the ground, his blood pumping from the man’s neck with every beat of his heart. John saw the knife that Sam had given the boy hanging from his limp fingers.

  “Matt! Over here,” John hissed, loud enough for only Matt to hear him. When Matt just stood and stared down at the guy who was no longer alive, John went to him and pulled him by his arm. “Where are the girls?”

  “BANG!” The sound of a gunshot startled Matt into action, he turned and ran back the way he’d come from. John ran back to the clearing expecting to find one of them dead. Instead, he found Sherry standing over her mother, holding on to her. He thought that she was comforting Mary until he realized that Mary was whispering to the girl. Mark was by the other man, searching through his pockets. He had already removed the handgun from his holster, and the rifle lay in the dirt. John used his foot to move it out of reach.

  “Sherry? Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay Dad. That pig had his hands all over Mom. Sherry began to remove the gray duct tape from her mother’s hands. As soon as she was free, she went to Evelyn and did the same thing. Matt and Maggie came out of the bushes.

  “We need to go now. If they have anyone else close, someone is going to get curious as to who fired the shot. Matt, get the horses. Where are the pack saddles?”

  Matt pointed, “With the horses. We were getting them ready to go when these guys showed up. That’s why they didn’t see us. I sat in the bushes waiting to see what they were going to do and then waited for an opportunity. I figured when you and that guy went to find the horses was as good a time as I was going to get.

  “You probably saved all of our lives with your quick thinking. Now we better get out of here.”

  “Come on Sherry you can help me,” Matt said. He hadn’t known what to expect from John and what he heard, made him wonder about the changes in the man. He hadn’t known before hand what Sherry was going to do but wasn’t surprised by her actions. She had wanted to shoot both of the men as soon as they’d seen them and Matt wasn’t sure why he hadn’t, but he’d been worried there were others in the area and hadn’t wanted to draw attention to their location. Now, he agreed with John, and they needed to go.

  Sherry looked at her dad for confirmation, and at his nod, she followed Matt. John watched them walk away and wondered where Sherry had found the strength to do what she’d done. The look on her face when she stood holding the rifle was not an expression he had ever seen her wear before, but finding his gaze on her, she had softened and had turned from a warrior back to his daughter again in the space of a heartbeat. He wanted to hug her and tell her it was okay, but he knew how empty his words would be because he realized that it wasn’t okay, and wasn’t going to be for a long time to come. They would have to fight and claw for every forward step they took.

  He had thought they could just set up home somewhere else and leave the fighting to those that wanted to engage in that sort of behavior, but he saw it was going to have to be their method of conduct if they wanted to survive. He wondered who this Silas was and where they’d set up, but quickly came to a conclusion, that his family would need to avoid these others unless they were prepared to fight for the little they had managed to salvage. John was reminded of a saying his grandmother used to use frequently, “Sometimes you have to take two steps back for every step forward.” He saw how right she was.

  They had begun with the supplies and equipment to set themselves up well in another place, and now they had been reduced to the bare necessities and barely enough of those to survive a month let alone the rest of their lives.

  “You ready John?” Mark stood in front of the group of people who John now called family. Matt and Sherry each had a horse and Mary and Evelyn both had their rifles hung from their shoulders. They all reminded him of a scene from a movie he’d seen once about the first settlers, where everyone carried a gun prepared to defend themselves.

  He shook his head and wondered how they were going to survive. With a sigh, he nodded. When he turned to lead the way down the mountain top, he heard a groan and turned to the man that Sherry had shot. He walked over and rolled the man over using his foot. The front of his clothing was soaked in fresh blood, and John felt sure it was a killing injury. The man’s eyes glared at him, and John felt an intense rage. His first instinct was to finish him, but he couldn’t bring himself to. The guy would be dead long before they got halfway down the hill and that was good enough for John. He used his foot and rolled the guy back over, so he didn’t have to look at him. With a wave at the others, he started down the trail that he and Mark had made.

  “I thought I killed him,” Sherry whispered to Matt. They had stopped for a short break for Mark to check out Clyde. He’d taken a wrong step and had slid down the slope on his side, ripping one of the hard panniers off. The horse had fought to stay upright but with the sharp incline and loose footing it had been impossible for Matt to keep a hold of him without being pulled down with the horse and he’d let go of the lead line. When they’d reached the horse, he was back on his feet resting the toe of his right leg on the ground.

  They waited in silence for Marks verdict. When he set the foot back on the ground and stood up the look on his face, said it wouldn’t be good.

  “Pulled tendon would be my guess. You can see the swelling already. There’s no way he can continue without doing further damage.”

  John walked over to the horse he had had since it was foaled and stood rubbing him between the eyes. “It’s not broke though, right?”

  “I don’t think so. We could take the pack saddle off and carry the stuff ourselves and lead him a little way and see how he does or we can set him free, and maybe he’ll follow along at his own pace.”

  John nodded and began to pull the pack saddle from the horse. He knew it was just a horse, but over the years Clyde had taken him many miles and given him pleasure just riding him. He was thankful that Mark hadn’t found a break because the humane thing to do then would be to put him down. John thought that shooting the horse would have been harder than dispatching the guys at his neighbors had been. Clyde pushed his muzzle into John’s shoulder as if giving him reassurance that he would be okay and John smelled the familiar horse breath that he’d grown used to and returned the gesture with a scratch under the horse's jaw.

  They took everything from the one good pannier, and while John studied the situation on
how they could turn it into a human pack, the girls and Matt gathered the things from the broken pannier that were spread down the hillside.

  Mary and Evelyn, sorted the things into two piles, the necessities and the things they could do without, while Matt and Mark emptied out the pack saddle on the other horse.

  The two piles grew as they sorted, while John watched their back trail until Mark said, “We can load all of the extra guns and ammunition onto the gelding and the canned food and some of the cast iron. I wonder if we shouldn’t hide the things we can’t take with us and maybe there’s a chance we could come back for them later?”

  John nodded, “Let’s do it. I’d like to get off this mountain today if we can.”

  Chapter Eight

  Lucas, done reading the short letter let his hands still clutching the paper, sink to his lap and looked at Abby, “I was really starting to like your dad, but I didn’t think he had the time of day for me. We hardly ever talked.”

  “My dad is kind of cool. He says he always uses his inner radar to judge people and he always gives everyone a fair shot until they prove otherwise. That’s why we left that group of people in Mullan. He said his radar was screaming for us to run, and that’s when we met Gina, Lucy, and Journey. He said for a couple of city girls, they seemed to know which end was up. I didn’t understand then what he meant, but I do now.”

  “Here, put this away somewhere you won’t lose it.” Lucas handed the refolded note to Abby and watched as she put it inside her shirt. “I wonder what Charlie found down there? It almost looks like there’s a passageway or a cave between those two rock formations.”

  “How can you tell? To me, they look like one giant wall of boulders.”

  “Naw, if you look closely at the base where they come together you can see where there’s a dark spot. Of course, it could be just a depression in the rock, but I bet it’s an entrance to a cave or something. Come on, I’ll show you.” He stood up and held his hand out to Abby ready to help her to her feet.

  Abby took his hand, and Lucas pulled her to her feet. Dusting off her pants she followed him to the edge. He stood close and used his finger to point out the darker shadow at the base of the rocks, “See where the shadow is? It looks almost black, but I think there’s something there.”

  Abby followed Lucas’s arm and drew a mental line from the end of his finger to the rock wall below. “Darn Lucas, you have better eyes than I do.” She saw a flash of light through the brush, “but I do see water of some kind down there. Maybe that’s why the cows are there.”

  “Someone could sneak up on you two, and you wouldn’t know it until it was too late,” Charlie said, making both of them jump. Lucas had his Glock in his hand before he turned around.

  Charlie held both of his hands up in defense, “Whoa. Don’t point that thing unless you know what you’re aiming it at.”

  “I’m pointing it at someone who was trying to scare the crap out of us and besides that,” he tapped his finger on the outside of the trigger guard, “I recognized your wheezing as soon as you hit the top of the trail.”

  “It’s not wheezing, it’s called being out of breath. The climb back up was something else, but there’s a place just over half way down, where we can safely stop for the night.”

  It didn’t take long to load their gear on the horses, and with each of them leading a horse, they started down. Charlie led the way as he’d already been down and knew where he was going. They came to one spot where they needed to turn back to the east that was especially dangerous, and Jack stumbled and slid off the edge. He scrambled to keep his feet under himself and plowed furrows in the newly exposed dirt and rock. Charlie turned his head loose to keep himself from being dragged down the hill too.

  Jack finally stopped sliding and looked back up at them. He whinnied at Walker who returned the call. “You guys can see my tracks, go down that way, and I’ll just follow Jack.” Charlie saw them start off and slid on his butt down to where Jack waited. It didn’t take long for Lucas and Abby to catch up with him. He had already checked out all four of Jack’s legs and determined that other than Jacks hurt pride for being clumsy, he hadn’t injured himself.

  When they got to a wider ledge than they been following, they stopped to rest. “Going down is quite a bit faster than my climb back up there, but I don’t remember another spot as wide as this to stop for the night. There’s still a couple of hours of daylight that I sure hate to waste. What do you guys think? Should we try to make the bottom?”

  “Is that like a test question?” Lucas had thought that Charlie was the boss, him being the oldest and an adult.

  Charlie frowned, “Why would it be? You two have an opinion as well as I do. It was just an idea, but I am worried about not getting down before we lose the light completely.”

  “I’m good for continuing. How much further is it to the bottom?”

  “Well, if we cut out some of the switchbacks when we can, it’ll be faster, but if we stick to the trail, it will take longer. Maybe a mile, maybe two. It’s hard to tell how fast we can make it.”

  “What if they come back for us and we’re not there? Won’t they be worried?”

  “Abby, if they do make it back this quickly, and there are no more quakes, they’ll be able to see where we went. John did say a week or two, so I expect we’ll find them before they find us. It’s going to take them a while with the tractors, and they’ll have to walk back because I suspect they will run out of diesel before they get there is my guess.”

  “What did you see down there? Were you close to the rocks at all?”

  Charlie shook his head, “Nope. I didn’t reach the bottom. I only went far enough to see there was a bottom. Grass, some trees, brush, rocks and maybe a creek. It looks like you would expect a valley floor to look like with a few minor changes, but we shouldn’t have any trouble getting around. Be just slow going is all.”

  Charlie was right, but by the time they realized they couldn’t make it all the way down it was too late to stop. With the crest of the mountain behind them, they didn’t have the weird red glow for guidance.They used the braille method for reaching the valley floor. Exhausted, They pulled the bags and boxes off the horses and collapsed after tethering them to trees.

  Birds chirping woke Lucas, and he sat up looking around. He had heard the occasional one during their travels, but his ears felt the onslaught of continuous whistles and chirps. He smiled at the sound and wondered if this was where all of the birds had congregated. Charlie must have tried staying up and keeping an eye on their surroundings, but Lucas could see that Charlie's chin sat firmly on his chest, and the ‘Judge’ still in his hand. Abby was curled up beside him, he would like to have awakened her to hear the birds sing, but Lucas thought she needed the rest. After gently moving her hand onto her own stomach and off of his leg Lucas slowly moved away from her.

  He moved about a hundred feet away and sat down with his back against a boulder and opened his mind up to the sounds around him. He closed his eyes and listened. After several minutes, Lucas was able to hear the swish and tinkle of moving water, the wings of a pheasant in flight and the soft whisper of the wind rattling the leaves. Opening his eyes, he rose and walked back to their resting spot. He found one of the orange buckets and set off to the south, the direction he’d heard the sounds of the stream.

  Standing on the shallow bank, he saw it was clear enough to see the pebbles on the bottom and the flash of the sun on a silver side. Lucas smiled, and in his mind, he saw a rainbow trout. Kneeling down he scooped up a handful of the water and smelled it and then tasted it. Only a taste because he knew that no matter how clean it looked, you couldn’t see the living bacteria. It tasted sweet to his parched mouth, but he refrained from drinking more than a taste until he’d boiled it. The stream had well-defined banks and he wondered if it might not be a tributary of the St. Joes River. Looking around, Lucas wondered how this valley could appear so undisturbed when the mountains had all undergone such radical cha
nges.

  He couldn’t see it through the brush, but he knew the rock wall was across from where he stood. Anticipating exploring it later, Lucas filled the bucket and walked back to find Charlie and Abby fixing a small fire.

  “We were beginning to think we’d have to send out a search party,” Charlie told him.

  Lucas looked up and realized the sun no longer sat on the horizon and realized he’d been gone longer than he’d intended. “Sorry. I found water for the horses and us.”

  “Instead of giving them that, why don’t the two of you just lead them to it. One of them will drink more than that puny bucket full.”

  Looking down at his wet pants leg, Lucas saw that he now carried a half bucket and not the full one that he’d started out with. “Half bucket full,” he said and set it by the ring of rocks.

  “So, did you see anything notable out there?”

  Lucas was excited to tell Charlie about the fish and the trees and birds, but when Charlie saw that Lucas had a lot to tell by the look of excitement on his face he held up both hands, “Whoa! How about watering those horses and then you can tell me.”

  “Okay.” He grinned at Abby and untied Walker and then Jack, leaving Abby to bring Jinx. She was a little intimidated by the two big horses, and that was all right with Lucas because he loved them. All three horses drank long and deep, and now Lucas could see where the half bucket of water would have been laughable. When Walker finally lifted his head, water dripping off his chin, Lucas figured he had probably drunk at least ten gallons. Even Jinx seemed to take forever getting his fill.

  “What has you so happy this morning?”

  Lucas looked at Abby and frowned, “Don’t you hear it?”

  Abby listened and closed her eyes. Soon a smile spread across her face, and Lucas knew that she did hear. She nodded and opened her eyes.

  “I never thought I would hear those sounds ever again. Maybe this is where all of the birds came to escape. It almost seems like a different world down here.”