Beyond the New Horizon (Book 4): Dark Times

by Conaway, Christine

  “Why give them that much time? What if something goes wrong?”

  “That’s exactly why we’re giving them the time. You should know by now that things happen. They’ll be fine. If the wagons are gone, they’ll return quicker, but ten days is what they agreed on.”

  Lucas shrugged, he didn’t agree with the time frame, but he hoped they’d be back sooner. Ten days was a long time to retrace their steps back to the tractors. There wasn’t much they could bring back on the horses and he knew they were low on diesel and the tractors would bring the bad guys right to them if they had the diesel to make the whole trip. With a sigh that clearly expressed his displeasure, Lucas trained his eyes on Matt and the others.

  He and his mother watched and waited until the kids had run across the open ground one at a time and were safely inside the opening before they continued down the hill. With Jinx in tow, Lucas hurried across the open space while Mary used a branch and rubbed out the horse's tracks as best she could.

  When Lucas pulled Jinx around between two of the bushes used for disguising the entrance, he met the forward end of Matt’s rifle.

  “Dammit Lucas! I could have shot you sneaking in like that. I thought you were one of those men.”

  “We saw them and didn’t see any horses with them so you should have known it was us. Who else would be coming in here with a horse in tow?”

  “I don’t know, but we need to figure out some sort of code or something.”

  “What we need is someone to be standing guard outside so they can see who is coming in. What good is stopping someone once they’ve already found the entrance?”

  Matt shrugged, “I don’t know, but I guess you’re right. You saw those guys? I suppose that means you saw us too.”

  “It does,” said Mary as she pushed her way past Jinx. “We saw you guys out there with no means of protection. What were you thinking Matt?”

  “We had no way of knowing those guys were going to be coming through, it’s not like we did it on purpose. We all forgot.”

  Mary shook her head, “That’s why I thought we stressed how important it was to be armed at all times. What had you planned if they’d seen you? Were you going to throw rocks at them?”

  “We would have run, I guess. I don’t know.”

  “Well, it’s time we came up with a plan then because those guys or others just like them will be back. I’m not sure that we don’t need to know where they are going to or coming from, but that’s going to have to wait until John gets back. For now, we stay hidden and no one goes outside of the entrance.”

  “Except to water the trees and bushes you guys planted, which was an ingenious idea by the way. Good thinking,” Lucas told him.

  “Of course it was, but it wasn’t my idea. Abby and Sherry came up with it. My only suggestion was the type of bushes and trees they were going to use, and that is why we were out front in the first place.”

  “Any watering we do will have to be done after dark. For now, let’s get this horse unloaded and turned out with Sham before they start screaming for each other.” Mary took the lead line from Lucas, “Why don’t you stay here with Matt and come up with some ideas on how we can improve our security.”

  Before Mary could lead Jinx away, the sounds of gunshots stopped her. “Oh my God…what now?” Mary held the lead line out, “Matt, take the horse to the field. Lucas, you come with me.”

  “Do you want me to come back out here?”

  “Not unless the guns get a lot closer than they are.”

  Mary and Lucas stayed in the shelter of their trees and waited for the gunfire to come closer and when it didn’t they sat and leaned against the wall.

  Lucas watched his Mom and wondered at the change in her. She seemed more like the mother from the cabin. He knew she was still sad part of the time, he’d seen it on her face several times, but it had taken him a while to identify the look. To Lucas, it seemed like she was lost in her thoughts and several times he’d had to repeat himself when asking her something. It was then that he thought she was thinking about Nathan. Lucas hadn’t known Nathan at all as a brother and had never interacted with him, mostly because he spent so much of his time in the hospital and sleeping when he was home. His Dad had told him and Sherry that Nathan was ill and wasn’t doing well. They had never identified exactly what Nathan’s problems were, just that he was sickly. He’d talked to Sherry about his feelings for Nathan and was surprised to learn that she had felt the same way. She hadn’t the opportunity to know him any more than Lucas had. It felt like something that had happened to someone they didn’t know, but they both still felt sad, because it had happened to their family.

  He was surprised when out of the darkness he felt his Mom’s hand reach over and take his. She squeezed his fingers, “Don’t try and overthink it,” she said quietly. “It was something that happened, and it’s sad, but Dad and I knew from the beginning it would be risky. We had him only for a short time, and I miss him, but I still have you and Sherry to think of, and I’m sorry if it felt like I was pushing you both away for a time.”

  “We didn’t think that. Not really. We both felt bad because we didn’t get the chance to know him, but maybe this is easier for us. How did you know what I was thinking about?”

  “I felt it. It’s not often you sit for so long without saying anything. I figured it was either Nathan or our present situation, so I took a chance and just got lucky I suppose.”

  “Mom? Are you afraid? I try and tell myself I’m not, but I am most of the time.”

  “I would be more worried if you weren’t. Some day it’s going to be you, Matt and the girls who have to carry on. I don’t know that there will be anything left to build on, but I hope so. I guess we won’t know until more time has passed. If those men who came through are an example of what’s left of society, then I don’t know how any of us can survive. It will be good when your father and the men get back. Hopefully, they can recover Marks radio equipment, and he can get it set up.”

  “Set up for what? To find out there’s no one else left?”

  “Don’t be silly Lucas, of course there's going to be other people. We have to think positive.”

  “Yeah, people like those guys today? People like those guys that were shooting a while ago? People like the ones in Haugan that Matt and I saw. People we’re going to have to kill? I’m not sure I want to be here if it’s what we have to do every day for the rest of our lives. Mom, I wanted to go to school. I wanted to be a vet, you know that. How could someone who didn’t even know us, destroy everything?”

  Mary sighed, “I don’t have an explanation to give you. We don’t know who did this or why, but I guess some people don’t need a reason. Now, I think we should wait until after your Dad sets up the radio and finds out what's going on before you go getting upset.”

  “I’m not upset! I’m pissed. I hate that someone whose life probably ended when they pushed the button destroyed any chance that some of us had to have a life. Instead, we have to act like freaking pioneers, and we have to start over. You tell me which of us here knows how to make toilet paper, or how to build a phone or anything.” Lucas felt his mother’s arm go around him and realized it would be his undoing. Unable to hold back he let his grief out while she murmured words of comfort like she had when he was much younger.

  “Mom, I’m just a kid…” he sobbed.

  Mary let him sob it out until he got it out of his system. When he finally quit crying, she told him, “You were a kid. Now I think you have passed into adulthood. It may not be what we all wanted for you, or have anything to do with vet school, but it is what it is. It’s up to you where you go from here. We can sit here and wallow and have one giant pity party, or we can sit here until next spring and then go see what's out there. If I were your age again, that’s what I would want to do. I would want to know the who, what, and why of our existence.”

  Lucas sniffed and wiped his face on the front of his shirt and sat up. He was waiting for embarrassme
nt to take hold and was surprised when it didn’t. For as weak as he’d been a few minutes ago, he felt cleansed and stronger. It was like he poured all of his fears out along with his tears. “Thanks Mom. I guess I needed that. I’m just so afraid all of the time of letting everyone down, and with Dad treating me like a stranger the past few months, I honestly felt I should leave. That’s part of the reason I went with Matt. Sometimes, I don’t know where I fit in. Dad treats me like a child, but how do you go back to being just a kid after taking someone else's life and having your own threatened? I’m not sure if I’m still a kid or a man.”

  Mary laughed softly, “You think we’re not all worried about the same thing? It doesn’t matter hold old you are or how brave everyone else thinks you are,” Mary put her hand on Lucas’s chest, “what you have inside of you, in here, that’s what makes you brave. Knowing when and where to pick your battles is what makes you a man. I would say you will see a difference in your father soon. You and he are very much alike in many aspects. He’s so afraid of losing us, I think he does try to push us away, but you have to remember, this is all new for him too. I believe that we're all doing the best we can do, under the circumstances.”

  “I just hate to think we’re going to spend the rest of our lives in hiding. If there are others out there who believe like we do, we should find them and either go to them or have them come to us.”

  “Well, finding the radio is the first step. Maybe you might want to learn from Mark how to use it, and I’m sure that you guys will be making forays out because we need supplies to get through the first winter. I don’t know what it’s going to bring but if it’s anything like Mark’s friend in Australia said, we’re going to need every resource we can gather to get through it.”

  “Have you noticed the change in temperature or is that just me? We didn’t have winter, and spring and summer seemed to be all rolled into one, but today it felt colder than a week ago, and if our seasons are reversed, we should be getting hotter, not cooler.”

  “I wonder when they’re going to quit shooting. Just when I think it’s going to end, they start up again.”

  “You don’t think that’s Dad, do you?”

  “No I don’t, or at least I hope not. They don’t have enough ammunition to have lasted this long. I think your Dad, Charlie, and Mark have found the wagon and are busy trying to take as much as they can. I have faith that they would have avoided a confrontation at all cost. Now, why don’t you go get something to eat and send two of the others out here so I can come and eat. After we’ve all eaten, we’ll come out here and have a family meeting. We need to make plans for the next few days and prepare ourselves for whatever is coming.”

  Lucas climbed to his feet, “I love you Mom.” He turned and made his way toward the light on the other side. He was surprised when he had blurted out that he loved his mother because he realized he probably hadn’t told her in years how he felt about her.

  Chapter Eleven

  When the shooting started, Charlie, John, and Mark had hustled the horses into the trees. At first, they hadn’t known if someone had been shooting at them or not. When nothing happened, they began to see that the shots were being fired from too far away for it to affect them.

  “Well, we can wait them out, or we can try to find our way up the hill from here.”

  Charlie and Mark looked at the slope behind them, “I don’t see any way we can ask the horses to climb that. Hell, it’ll be all we can do to get up there on foot.”

  “Charlie’s right John. You seem to forget we’re not as young and spry as we used to be. I think we should wait and let them either run out of ammo or kill each other off. There’s no telling how close to us they are, but I feel confident we could still stay on the valley floor at least until we can find a way up. I find it hard to believe that all of the roads are gone.”

  “Well, we sure haven’t come across any. But, when Lucas, Abby and I were sitting up there wondering which way to go when the road ended, that hillside lay behind us.” Charlie pointed to their left as they were facing it. “We could see the glow in the sky coming just to the left of it, so, I would almost bet that if we were to go up this valley another mile, we would find a natural gorge between those two hills. I can’t say how good it would be, but it’s better than trying to climb that.”

  “I agree,” said Mark. “I’d just as soon take my chances than having to climb that thing. Besides that, if we can find another way up it, it will be our way down too.”

  “Okay. I guess I was just feeling you guys out. I wasn’t looking forward to scaling that either. Now what do we do? Wait those guys out or go?”

  “It doesn’t sound that close to me. The way sound travels in these hills it’s hard to say, but I think we should use their noise as cover and skedaddle.”

  One at a time, John and Charlie used the fallen tree trunk that Mark had been sitting on to get up on the two draught horses. Mark had it easy mounting Red, being the only horse with a saddle. Keeping close to the trees when they could, they set off with John in the lead. They picked their way through the brush and trees and just when John thought they were making progress, the moon decided to duck behind a layer of clouds robbing them of its light, and making it impossible to continue.

  John reined up. They sat in silence and listened to the sounds of sporadic gunshots and realized they had been riding for over half an hour and they weren’t getting any closer to the action. Either the battle was moving west, or the sound had been severely distorted by the mountains, and they weren’t as close as they’d thought.

  With a turn of his head, John and looked up through the trees. The brief cloud cover the previous night had hidden the angry red, but the night sky had still pulsated with the red glow, somehow looking more ominous than in the day time. Tonight's clouds sat dark without the glow. John wasn’t sure whether to be afraid or relieved.

  “This is the first night we’ve actually had moonlight, or rather a sky with cloud cover and not that ominous red glow. I wonder if it means the volcano is done acting up?”

  “Either done or building up for the big one,” Charlie said following John’s gaze up at the sky. “I guess we should settle in for the night and head out at daylight.”

  “At least whoever it was has quit shooting, and I guess that could be good or bad depending which end of it you were on,” Mark said as he pulled the saddle from Red’s back.

  Charlie took a length of rope from Marks saddle and strung it between two trees for him to tie his horses to. High lining was the best method of tying them so they could munch on whatever grass was available without being turned loose. Mark had Red on a long lead line and let the horse graze while he walked along with it. He didn’t stray far enough away that he couldn’t hear what was going on.

  “I think we need a better plan of attack than what we’re doing. We can’t just wander around hoping we’re going to find the wagons. We know for a fact that the road they are on dead-ended where we parked them. Hell, they could already be gone for all we know. If some of those guys went looking for their friend we can kiss our things goodbye.”

  “Then why are we even out here? Seems to me like our time would be better spent getting ready for winter,” Charlie said as he sat at the base of a tree.

  “I’d really like to get my radio,” Mark piped in. “It would be good to listen in and see how bad conditions are elsewhere.”

  “Come on Mark…you going to plug it into what? A current bush? Seems to me that without power, that radio ain’t no damn good,” Charlie said and rolled his eyes at John. The twinkle was in his eyes, but Mark couldn’t see it from where he stood.

  John slowly shook his head, because he was sure that Charlie was leading Mark on. “Shit disturber,” he muttered for Charlie’s ears.

  “It’s not my base station. I got a little mobile Kenwood TM-V71A Transceiver just before the power went out. I hadn’t taken it out of the box yet. I ordered a suitcase solar charger too and in one of those boxes of
mine is two deep cycle marine batteries. That should be enough to run it.”

  “You mean if we can find the trailers and everything is still there,” John intervened. “I can think of a few other things that I would deem as important as that radio.”

  Mark seemed to bristle at John’s words. Frowning, he asked, “And what would you consider as important as finding out what’s going on?”

  John wiped the lower portion of his face with one hand and with his chin resting in his palm, he tapped a finger on his cheek, “Well, let me see. Mary’s canner, jars, and lids, a half barrel of beans and another of rice, any canned food that didn’t get broken. How’s that for a start?”

  Mark stood up and began to pace, “But the information could be valuable too…”

  Charlie butted in, “You can’t survive on information. Myself, I’d sure rather eat than know what’s going on somewhere else.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong…well not wrong but…”

  When it looked like the argument was going to get out of hand, John interrupted. He held his hand up to stop both men from talking, “If there’s any way to do it, we’ll get the food and then the less necessary items. If nothing else, we can hide whatever we can’t carry the first trip.”

  John’s plan seemed to mollify Mark, and he tied Red to a young pine tree, walked back to where he’d stood the saddle on end and untied the roll of blankets.

  The temperature hadn’t dropped low enough to worry about being cold, so a fire wasn’t necessary for warmth and with no fresh food to cook it wasn’t needed for that either. John handed out a chunk of pemmican and a strip of jerky to the other two men and grabbed one of the blankets.

  Charlie stood the first watch and moved Red when the grass around the tree was eaten. He moved the high line for his two when they could no longer reach the grass. They had cleaned the small lower limbs of the trees and any brush they could reach. When his eyes grew heavy, he woke Mark and Charlie took the blanket, wrapped it around himself and lay down.