Beyond the New Horizon (Book 3): Living on the Edge

by Conaway, Christine

  “It could cost us the lives of our friends and family. People we know are alive. You’re heading on some wild goose chase and have no idea if you are making an ill-advised trip for nothing. If you’re set on going, why not try and at least protect yourselves? Trust me; there are some seriously bad people out there.”

  Calvin’s face grew red listening to Gina, “Not everyone is bad! Sure, we saw people get killed, but we’ve never killed anybody, and I don’t intend to start now. If you guys cared so much for people, you’d be willing to do this for us, but seeing as you don’t, I guess we’ll just be on our way.”

  Gina held her hands up and walked away shaking her head, “Don’t let me influence you then.” She went and dropped down beside Willy. “He’s going to get them both killed with his attitude,” she said just loud enough for Willy to hear.

  “You can’t force them. I’ve met people like him before, and no good will come of them, you can be sure of that. I see Sam and Joe over there arguing with him, and all it’s going to do is make Calvin more determined not to take the guns. There are some people you can’t argue with nor make them see how foolish they’re being.”

  Willy was right. They sat and watched Sam and Joe argue with Calvin, until Calvin threw his hands in the air, grabbed his bike and climbed on. He peddled off down the driveway, not bothering to see if Betty followed him or not.

  Betty watched him go, and then picked her bike up, climbed on and straddling it between her knees; she adjusted her pack. “I’m sorry. He’s just worried about his family. He’s a good man.”

  “You don’t have to go. You could stay with us,” Sam told her.

  She sighed, “I have to go. I could never forgive myself if something happened to him.” She balanced the pedals to make it easier to push off when Sam walked over to her.

  He held his own Glock out to her, “Please, at least put this in your bag or pocket because you are going to have to defend yourself whether you want to or not. I’ll feel better knowing that you can. We all will.”

  Betty nodded and with some reluctance, took the gun. She opened the pack on her handlebars and slipped the gun inside. “Thanks.” She pushed off with one foot and followed Calvin who was already out of sight.

  “The fool is going to get them both killed.”

  “We did our best. You just can’t help someone who doesn't want it. Now that I think about it, Calvin disappeared when we had to fight those guys off just outside of Drexel.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. They’ve set their own destiny, and we have ours. We need to get saddled up and head back to camp before it gets dark, or Ben and Andy are going to come looking for us before too long.”

  “Jesse, how about you and Sierra bring the horses while Kenny and I drag our stuff out to the porch.”

  “What can I do to help?” Gina asked.

  Joe headed toward the house, “Nothing. Tammy probably has it all together. If I know her, she’s got it all ready to go as well as a lot of junk we have no room for. Be right back.”

  Sam, Gina, and Willy went to their horses, checked the bags of grain to make sure they were secure, tightened their saddles in preparation for leaving.

  When Jesse and Kenny led their horses from behind the shed, Gina saw there wasn’t a saddle between them. Other than there were two mares and two geldings, the four horses could have been stamped out with a cookie cutter so similar was their appearance. All bays, not well fed and all with only halters and lead ropes. Not one of the four has been shod, and all of them were in grave need of it.

  The first thing Willy did was to go over and start picking up their feet. He shook his head in disgust, “Blah, not a good foot among you.” He dropped the last one's foot, and it landed hard as if the horse didn’t have the energy to hold it up on its own. “Where did you get these guys? They all look like they should have been put out to pasture.”

  Kenny chuckled, “We like to think we saved their lives. They were in a pen at the feedlot, and if it hadn’t been that there were a couple of round bales in there with them, we might have been walking here. Some of the other animals didn’t fare as well, and the ones with the strength to walk, we turned loose. The ones too weak to move Joe disposed of. It’s hard to believe, but these were the best of the lot.”

  Gina studied the sorry looking horses, “See, what I don’t understand, is if food is in such short supply, why wouldn’t people check out places like the auction yard? I’m sure there had to be other farm animals as well, at least the animals would have gone to feeding someone rather than just starving to death.”

  Willy shook his head in disgust, “Because it’s easier to take what others have. I saw too much of it in St. Regis. There's a hidden society there that no one ever sees. They hide all day and come out like the bats at night. They think no one knows they’re still in town, but Glen and I saw them every single night. They would go through people’s houses and take whatever they needed, and I have no problem there, but I did have a problem when they would fight over every little thing. There was no such thing as helping each other or uniting for a common cause. Until I met you guys, I had lost faith in people.”

  “Well, as you can see by those horses’ feet, we might need you as much as you need us. Now, if we’re ready, let’s get out of here,” Gina said and climbed on her horse.

  Sam had been looking at the horses too and signaled Gina with his eyes, “I think Tammy should ride with me and Sierra should ride with Gina. Those four don’t look capable of carrying one person, let alone two.”

  “I guess we could leave them and walk,” Kenny said.

  “Oh hell no! They’ll be fine. It was my way of saying they look pathetic. At least they don’t have to pack saddles as well as you guys.

  “Sam had already noticed that two of them are mares and when I looked at their teeth, I noticed other than some neglect in their feet; they don’t appear old. We are hoping to get a stud colt out of one of our pregnant mares, so we will never run short of horses.”

  Gina removed her foot from her stirrup and held her hand down to Sierra. With the girl seated behind her and giving the gelding a chance to adjust to the weight of two people, they set off down the drive. Gina’s horse seemed to be a little spooked by having two people on him, and she had to keep a firm rein until she realized what the problem was.

  “Sierra, try to keep your legs out of his flanks and don’t grip with them. We’re sending him mixed signals right now.”

  Sierra laughed and relaxed her legs, “Sorry. I’m not used to riding double, and it’s natural instinct that makes me want to hold on with my legs.”

  Immediately the horse settled down and walked quietly. Gina knew it wasn’t their combined weight that had upset him, but the extra pair of legs. She thought that she and Sierra didn't add up to her original weight before the apocalypse. Pretty soon, she was going to have to get Willy to break out his sewing machine and cut her pants down to her new size or invest in a different belt or make sure she had a supply of binder twine.

  At the end of the road, Sam stopped and looked off to where they’d seen the campfire smoke on the trip in. It didn’t take but a second for him to pick it out against the sky. “I wonder what those people are thinking. Guess they don’t know or maybe they don’t care how visible their smoke is.”

  “I’m reading your mind, and no we don’t have the time to school them on proper procedure regarding campfires. If we don’t show up soon, Andy or Ben will come looking and we don’t want that.”

  “Well, I had no intention of going over there, so I guess you read me wrong. I was more worried about whoever it is, not caring if someone saw it.”

  He turned west, and they followed the river back to where they had to cross and giving the horses a brief drink they headed for the ranch. Gina rode behind Sam, her eyes continually scanned their surroundings, looking for anything out of place, and knowing that Willy and Sam were doing the same. A group their size could be misconstrued if someone didn’t know it was
them and they sure didn’t want to get shot at by Andy or Ben. Their numbers had grown considerably, and they could look imposing to the two men.

  “Hey Sam?” she waited for him to stop or at least turn in his saddle. “Why don’t you and Willy put yourselves out front and make sure that Ben and Andy know it’s us?”

  “Good plan,” he said, and with a nod at Willy the two rode off at a jog. When Sam had slowed and turned to hear her, Gina couldn’t help but notice the way that Tammy clung to Sam and the flash of white teeth she gave Gina. Gina thought that maybe the girl had changed her alliance from Joe to Sam or she just liked to stir the pot.

  “Just don’t get too comfortable,” Gina thought.

  Gina had watched the four new horses and decided they couldn’t have jogged if they had to. All four of them already looked exhausted, and stumbled frequently, and Gina wondered how they could continue riding them. They obviously needed feed and their feet trimmed.

  Gina saw one of their men even before Sam or Willy, or at least they didn’t acknowledge him until Gina waved. Sam reined up when Andy jumped from the oak tree with a big grin on his face and waved. Only then, did Sam see him.

  When they drew closer, Gina saw the ladder leaned against the tree so Andy could sit up in the branches and wondered why they hadn’t loaded it. She wasn’t sure right then what they would need a ladder for, but thought it would come in handy somewhere down the line.

  Sam was pointing at it when she and Sierra rode up. “You packed that all the way up here so that you could pack it back?’

  “In case you didn’t know it, there is a bunch camped over past Minnakers, and we didn’t want them sneaking up on us. So yeah, I carried it up. What better view of our surroundings than from up there.” He pointed up in the tree, “Course it would have been nice to have the binoculars.” Without another word or waiting for introductions, he hooked his arm through the rungs and started back to camp.

  “He’s got a point about the binoculars. We should leave them in camp or maybe figure out where to get another set,” Gina said.

  “What? Give up my opera glasses?”

  Gina rolled her eyes and nudged her horse forward. Sierra giggled and held on. “For some reason that sounded ongoing.”

  “It is, but that’s a story for down the road.”

  Chapter Fifteen; Play on words

  When they reached the trailer, Gina was surprised to see that someone had expertly covered the load on the wagon and all of the horses were tied in various places munching on hay. Looking at the ones they had collected from Minnakers, she realized how lucky they were to have gotten them when they had, or they could have lost the bunch of them to whoever is camped there. Looking from the four sales yard mounts to the ones they had collected, she wondered if it might not be a better idea to exchange some of them out. There were at least three that could be ridden if Sam was right. She, Sam and Willy hadn’t had any problems with their mounts, and she thought all of the rest could be ridable with the exception the two pregnant mares. They both looked ready to drop their foals at any time.

  Once the introductions were over, Willy went and got a funny looking open tool box from under the wagon seat. He carried it and set it beside the first of the boy's horses and went to work.

  “You might want to wait until we get where we’re going before you go tackling that chore,” Sam told him as he walked over.

  Bent over at his waist with a front foot held between his knees, Willy looked up. Sweat was already beading on his forehead. “If I don’t take care of the worst of them now these horses won’t make the trip. Look at this, it’s ready to snap right off, and when it does, this horse won’t be walking anywhere.” Willy wiggled the broken toe section of one of the mare's hooves. “At least I can trim it up and run a rasp over it, so maybe we can get some growth before it snaps off.”

  Sam bent over for a closer look, “Damn, it’s too bad those shoes you brought are buried somewhere in the wagon. It looks like this little girl would benefit from having a set thrown on her fronts at least.”

  Willy pulled a hoof knife out of the box and set to work trimming up the frog of her foot.

  Sam sniffed, and wrinkled his nose, “Thrush?”

  “Yup, there’s another tool box that looks like this one under the seat of the wagon. There’s a tall white plastic bottle. Bring it here.”

  Sam went to the wagon and found the tool box. He quickly read the labels, “Kopertox?” Sam hollered as he pulled the bottle free.

  “That’s it.”

  When Sam set the bottle down beside Willy’s shoeing box, he had to admit the mare’s foot looked a hundred percent different than it had before. He realized how important it might be to teach one or both boys the art of shoeing. If something were to happen to Willy, they had no one to care for the horse's feet.

  “I was just thinking…”

  Willy dropped the foot he was working on with a thud and stood up. He used his forearm and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I would be done considerably faster without an audience. Every time you say something to me, I have to stop and think, and it interrupts my thought process.”

  Sam turned and walked away, “Cantankerous old man,” he muttered. He saw the others sitting at the fire-pit and wondered what held their interest. He wanted to talk to them about his idea of having Willy teach the boys to shoe, or at least how to trim them. Sam was pretty sure they would be using the horses as their primary source of transportation for a long time to come. They could go out and find fuel in underground tanks or siphon from abandoned vehicles, but it had been over four months, and without fuel stabilizers added to it, the fuel would start going bad after the first year. Carburetors would shellac as the fuel evaporated without use, and especially after sitting for long periods of time.

  Everyone fell silent as Sam approached the group, “So, were you talking about me?”

  Gina rolled her eyes and wagged her head, “Contrary to what you may think; this isn’t about you. I was telling Ben and Andy about the smoke over at Minnaker’s.”

  “Which we already knew, and both of us think we need to either stand a guard or move out this afternoon. We’ve still got four or five hours of daylight, and it wouldn’t hurt my feelings any, to put some distance between us and whoever is over there.”

  “Before we get all gung-ho about moving, we need to figure out how we’re going to transport the chickens and the goats.”

  “While you were out goofing off this morning, Ben and I finished one of your projects.” Andy pointed behind Sam, “Have a look at that.”

  Sam turned to see what Andy was pointing at and walked toward the contraption they had brought back in Willy’s wagon. Gina had refused to leave it behind in St. Regis. Sam hadn’t seen the need for it with the buggy and wagon, but now he did. They had extended the bed on the wheeled travois, built a frame, raised the sides up to four feet and enclosed it with the chicken wire. The shafts were supported by two rounds of uncut firewood, leveling the cart out. The billy had been tied to a fir tree close by, and Sam wondered who had braved the stink of him to get the halter on.

  “You’re not going to keep the billy inside that. One swoop of his horns and he’ll destroy it.” Sam looked inside and saw the nanny and two kids lying in the hay covered bottom. The chickens were busy pecking for grain that someone had poured on top of the hay.

  “We don’t intend on putting him in there. It’s for the nanny, the two kids, and the chickens. See the pole for the chickens to roost on?” Lucy had come over to him to defend Andy and Ben’s creation and pointed out the benefits for the animals. “We figured the billy would either stay with us or not, but I’m betting he likes his family well enough to follow along.”

  “If Lucas hadn’t of insisted we bring him, he wouldn’t be here right now. Nasty smelling thing!”

  Lucy chuckled, “Well, she must like him. She’s got two kids of his.”

  “Oh my God Lucy, is that a play on words?”

  The
startled expression on Lucy’s face said that it hadn’t been an intended pun, but she saw the humor in it. Her laughter rang out loud and clear, and Sam realized he had never heard her laugh like that before. For some reason, hearing her, made him happy and Sam laughed too.

  And then it hit him. Sam realized that in spite of everything that had happened to him and the others the past four months, he was happy. Not overjoyed by their situation, but content with everything they had accomplished. Their numbers had grown, they had a plan, and enough resources to survive and start over in another location. Somehow, being forced back to the basics, his life seemed easier if having to defend his self and others could be considered easier, reverting to the times of his great grandparents was not only a smattering of nostalgia but fulfilling as well. Instead of sitting at a bar, or in front of a television or playing with your cell phone all night, they sat around a campfire and actually talked. To Sam it seemed more genuine, they were all living their lives, not wasting them with electronics. You looked at the face of the person you were talking to and not holding a phone between your chin and shoulder talking to them, while you did some other task.

  “Hello?” Gina waved her hand in front of his face, “Are you there?”

  Sam realized that Lucy was gone and he had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed her leaving. He looked toward the fire pit where the others had been sitting to find no one there.

  “Where is everyone?”

  Gina pointed down below, and when he looked, he saw them putting halters on their horses. Willy must have finished with the horses’ feet, because the four were tied to the same tree munching on hay.

  “We decided that we’d like to leave even if we only get a couple of miles between here and where ever we stop. The mountain Gods are restless, and the geyser hasn’t gone off since yesterday. Journey and Andy think it might be getting ready to erupt and if what happened before is any example, I’d rather be away from here too.”