"Yeah, probably. Want me to go get them?"
Wayne sighed. "I guess. If you don't mind. Probably the only way we're going to get any work done around here."
"I'll make sure and wake them up nice and gentle," Rod offered. "Just like their mommies." There was something in his grin that foretold the young men were probably in for a rude awakening. Rod climbed onto his horse and galloped off.
Wayne was already working on the speech he was going to give the young men when Rod came tearing back into camp about five minutes later. He reined his horse to a stop outside the wall of cars but didn't dismount. His horse shifted and jerked its head, sensing the distress of its rider. Rod was trying to talk, babbling and shouting and sobbing all at the same time, none of it decipherable.
Wayne sprinted through the maze of cars to Rod's side. Other men were doing the same but Wayne reached him first, grabbing the bridle to steady the wild-eyed horse. "What is it?"
"Th-they're all d-dead," Rod stammered. "There's blood everywhere. Beat to death or something. Every damn one of them."
Wayne's own horse was saddled and waiting, his rifle hung from the saddle horn for a day of hunting. He launched himself onto the horse and tore off, not waiting to see if anyone followed. Rod was hot on his tail and others followed as word spread through the camp, some on horseback, some on foot. There was a sense of desperation, of a nightmarish inability to move fast enough to get where they needed to be.
Riding right up to the porch of the men's house, Wayne threw himself off the horse, rifle in hand, and sprinted the steps. As soon as he stepped inside the front door, the smell hit him and sent him reeling, staggering into the wall. It was the smell of a slaughterhouse. The smell of blood and death and cold flesh.
Even beyond the offensive smell, the appearance of the scene assaulted him. Battered and deformed faces, misshapen by the impact of a weapon. Open skulls, hair matted with brains and cerebral fluid. Shattered teeth and torn lips. These were people he knew. Friends and the children of friends. It was too much to bear.
Wayne staggered out the door and was heaving his guts out over the porch rail when Rod made it back to the house. He gathered Wayne's loose horse from the yard and tied it with his own to a bare redbud tree. More people were arriving now. Friends and families of the dead men. They rushed toward the house, toward people they knew and loved. Toward a scene they could not imagine and would never be able to forget.
Wayne tried to spare them. "No!" he yelled, rushing to block the door with his body, spittle and bile stringing from his lips. "You don't want to see this! Believe me, you don't."
His admonitions were ignored.
"Get the hell out of my way!" a man demanded, his wife behind him. They had a son in there. When Wayne didn't move fast enough, the enraged man shoved him into the wall and out of the way.
It only took them a second to discover the fate their son had met and to realize the truth of Wayne's pleas.
"Oh Lord no! No!" the man screamed from inside the house.
His wife's cries were an inconsolable wail of mourning, her words indecipherable to all but her maker. More people joined them in the house, crowding into the tiny room. They were torn between their desire to cradle their dead and their revulsion at the gory scene they beheld. How did one comprehend such savagery? How did one undo what had been done to these young men?
They couldn't.
People streamed by the spot where Wayne lay sagged against the wall, sick and defeated. He'd tried to protect his people. He'd tried to make good decisions.
As people fought their way into the house, others fought their way back out. They vomited and sobbed, wailed and lamented. The word Wayne heard the most was "why" and it was the word on the tip of his own tongue.
"Why?" he groaned. "Why?"
7
Conor's Compound
Jewell Ridge, Virginia
The day after Ricardo's visit, Conor and Barb saddled horses and rode off to the isolated river valley where Johnny Jacks, Pastor White, and Wayne's people resided. The morning started off in the thirties and Conor expected the temperature to reach into the low 40s by the warmest part of the day. Though there was still a lot of winter ahead of them, it had been mild so far with no big snows and only a few week-long rains. Temperatures had been above freezing most of the time.
It was the kind of winter where folks could get a lot of outside work done in reasonable comfort, which was a blessing considering the state of the world. Grazing animals could find grass, the fish would occasionally bite, and deer were moving rather than bedding down. The mild conditions didn't mean it was going to stay that way all winter though. Sometimes those mild winters with temperatures hovering just below freezing could bring devastating storms with feet of heavy, wet snow. Storms like that made it difficult to get anything done.
The sun was warm and the ride to Johnny's was pleasant. This time of year, with the foliage gone, new vistas opened up around them. Views previously blocked by dense leaves were available now, allowing the riders to see the country in a way they often couldn't. Of course, most of that view consisted of nothing more than mountains, hardwood forests, and the occasional distant coal mine. Sometimes they saw deer or one of the elk the state had introduced to the region.
When they reached Johnny's house they found the Jacks family standing in silence around their corral. Johnny threw them a subdued wave of greeting but immediately turned back to the enclosure, distracted and not his normal jovial self. Barb, more used to the mood of the family since she'd been living with them, immediately sensed something was wrong. She slid off her horse and tied it off to a corral panel.
"What's wrong?" she asked. Before they could even answer, she saw it too. The horse in the corral, which had been standing with its foot aloft as they pulled up, tried to take a step. It staggered as it did so, flinching at the pain.
"It must have stepped in a groundhog hole," Jason Jacks replied. "I found him in the pasture this morning. Can't support his weight."
"What can you do?" Barb asked. "Can you fix it somehow?"
Johnny gave a bitter shake of his head. "No. I don't have enough hay and grain to feed him right now even if I could set the leg. If he can't be out there foraging for himself, he'll slowly starve to death."
"Is he one of yours or one that somebody gave you?" Conor asked, stepping up and leaning onto the corral.
"He's a rescue," Johnny said. "But a fine animal. Fortunately, the owners gave him up before he was too far gone. Sometimes people won't admit defeat until the animal is nothing but skin and bones. The people who owned this one knew where things were headed so they took action before it got bad."
"Good for them," Barb said.
"So you're going to have to shoot him?" Conor asked.
Johnny nodded, mouth hard set, staring at the crippled animal. It was obviously a task he didn't relish.
"I'll do it for you, my friend," Conor offered. "I take no pleasure in it, but I don't have the obvious emotional attachment to the beast that you do."
Johnny nodded somberly, staring at the animal. "I'd appreciate that, Conor. We were just talking about who was going to do it and there's not a soul in the house with the stomach to pull the trigger."
"Not to be insensitive," Conor continued, "but have you—"
"The meat," Johnny finished. "I know. There's no point wasting it."
"Exactly my point," Conor said. "I've never butchered anything of that size but I supposed I could quarter it."
"It's probably a thousand-pound horse," Johnny said. "At least half of that is salvageable meat."
"We can help with the butchering," Jason said. "It's taking a horse's life that we have a hard time with. If you'll drop it for us, we can tie it to a team and drag it off into the field to clean. We'll help you gut it and quarter it."
"No one here would have a taste for it," Johnny said. "I'm sure there are people who could use it though. That's too much meat to waste in hard times."
"We were going to run by Wayne's today," Barb said. "If you'd lend us a packhorse for the day we could deliver some to Wayne and to Pastor White."
"Then we best get on with it," Conor said. "The days are short and we have a lot of work ahead of us."
Johnny and Jason went inside to find skinning knives and some plastic to wrap the meat in. While they were gone, Conor did what had to be done with a single shot. The horse dropped and died, its suffering over. At the sound of the shot, Johnny and Jason returned with their supplies. Johnny tied the horse off with a long rope and used two of his own animals to drag it away from the house. The gut pile would draw scavengers so there was no use bringing them any closer.
They performed the grim work without much discussion. Johnny took the lead, having butchered many a steer in his life on the farm. In less than an hour, they'd loaded Conor and Barb's horses and a packhorse named Bob with large cuts of meat.
"When we return the horse, I need to talk with you, Johnny," Conor said as they led the horses back toward the house.
"Sounds serious," Johnny replied.
"It is serious but not in a bad way. It's nothing for you to worry over."
"Well, stop by when you're done and we'll have at it."
Conor and Barb left the Jacks' place and headed for their next stop, Pastor White's camp near his church at Hell Creek. Conor hadn't intended to stop at the camp since there were lingering hard feelings between Barb and the pastor. Hopefully, his broken jaw was healed by now.
As usual, the pastor had a contingent of armed men posted alongside the road near his camp. A few months ago they'd had nothing more than hunting rifles, but they'd kept some of the weapons they'd captured in the fight against The Bond. Conor had no issue with it. In fact, he'd encouraged it. Having well-armed neighbors improved the security of everyone in the community.
The men on the road knew Conor and Barb by this point, and while they demonstrated less of the attitude that had marked their early interactions, they were not friendly. Seeing the rowdy Irishman and his daughter usually meant trouble.
"What you need?" The speaker was a ruddy man with a scraggly red beard and crudely shorn hair.
"I'd like to speak to the pastor a moment," Conor said.
"I'm not sure he's taking guests," the man replied. "The spirit took him and he's preaching."
Conor sighed and nudged his horse, brushing the man out of the way and plodding into the camp. "I'm not sure why you people insist on being assholes. I'm here with good intentions."
The men protested but Conor paid them no mind. The ruddy man insisted on following him into camp, while the remainder of the guards stuck to their posts by the road. Conor rode up to a tent-like structure made of heavy yellow mining tarps stretched across ropes, poles, and a picnic shelter. From inside, he could see Pastor White in the midst of a fire-and-brimstone sermon. In the short time he'd known the man, Conor had learned that he was prone to bouts of spontaneous preaching. The least little thing could set him off.
"Wait here," Conor told Barb, sliding off his horse.
"I ain't sure you should go in there," the ruddy man said, maintaining a safe distance between him and the newcomers. He'd seen what they were capable of and wanted no part of it. He'd been there when Barb nearly spun the pastor's jaw round to the backside of his head.
Conor again paid the man no mind, throwing back a loose flap and heading inside. Barb looked at the guard and shrugged as if to say "He's the Mad Mick. What can you do?"
The interior of the crude tent was dim, lit by candles and lanterns. There was the smell of smoke and unwashed bodies. A few woodstoves with cobbled-together chimneys of odd pipe heated the structure. It was not a cozy scene but bordered on hallucinatory with the odd yellow light and the barrage of smells. On top of it, the pastor was skipping around and hollering in his sing-song Pentecostal invective. Throughout the chamber, hands were raised in prayer, then lowered, fingers fluttering as they fell. All eyes were closed, necks loose, heads cocked in religious ecstasy. Wherever the pastor was in his mind, in his soul, his people were there with him.
At Conor's arrival, there was a disturbance in the atmosphere. He didn't know if it was the change in light brought about by him raising the flap or the surge of cold air that followed him in. Something changed though. The people knew there was a stranger among them and the cries of "Amen!", the raised hands and fluttering fingers, slowly came to a stop.
Eyes closed in the fervor of his work, the pastor was the last to notice. He opened his eyes only when the supportive calls of his congregation didn't appear where they should have.
What Conor saw in Pastor White's eyes fortunately didn't reach his lips. He sensed that it was on the tip of the preacher's tongue to point out that his words had obviously invoked evil into their midst. That somehow his passion and fervor had summoned this demon to their holy place and now it was up to Pastor White to make an example of him, to preach him back to Hell.
Yet if those were indeed his thoughts, they remained in Pastor White's head. Although the pastor could never like a man such as Conor Maguire, he could respect him. Even if his heart, his slate of deeds, was questionable. Even if his daughter had the audacity to strike a man of God.
"To what do we owe this pleasure?" the pastor asked, his words slithering over his tongue like a snake over a rock.
"Good morning, Pastor. I was coming by Johnny Jacks' place this morning and he had a horse that had gone lame. We put it down and butchered it. They didn't want the meat so we figured it was only fair to split it between you folks and Wayne's group at the firehouse. If you've got no compunction about eating horse, there's probably two hundred and fifty pounds of meat there."
"Horse?" the pastor asked. It was no revulsion, more a test of the words on his tongue.
Conor nodded. "You'll not be able to tell it from beef, I promise you that. It's good high-quality meat and I'm sure your folks need it."
The pastor nodded. "We'll take it, Brother Maguire. It's much appreciated."
Conor wasn't sure what to think of the Brother Maguire designation. He wasn't so naive as to think a delivery of horse meat would so elevate him in the pastor's eyes. He walked out of the tent, the pastor behind him. Immediately the rest of those who'd been listening to the pastor's spontaneous oration got to their feet and followed. As Conor scanned the faces, it wasn't revulsion he saw but a desperate hunger. They were eating regularly, they were getting by, but they were far from prosperous. He could see it in their eyes, in the fit of their clothes, and in their sallow cheeks. Those were the faces of people living off squirrels, possums, mud turtles, and the occasional deer. They needed the fat the horse meat would offer.
The pastor directed several of the men to assist and Conor helped them with the wrapped cuts of meat. In their desperation, Conor saw a hunger to take all the meat he had with him, but no one asked. They understood that half the meat was promised to others, folks having just as hard a time as they were.
"We thank you kindly," the pastor said.
There was a murmur of assent from his folks, smiles and nods.
Conor returned their smiles with a grin. "We'll be going then. We have a long day ahead of us."
8
The Firehouse
The Dismal River Valley
For the first time in months there was no guard on the main road leading to Wayne's firehouse camp. For most of the colder months there'd been someone stationed along the road, just far enough out that someone approaching couldn't see the firehouse from the roadblock. They kept a burn barrel there and a small fire to warm the sentries. The barrel was there, holding nothing but ashes.
In tandem, the selector switches on the M4 rifles Conor and Barb carried were flicked from the Safe to the Fire position.
"Great minds think alike, eh?" Barb commented.
"Step wary, my daughter."
Conor nudged his horse forward. Barb fell in behind him, staying to the left of Conor. They advanced slowly to keep their noise a
s low as possible, but they heard the murmur of voices even before they turned the bend in the road and came within sight of the camp. These were not voices rising in alarm, but in industry, united in a task.
When the camp came into sight, Conor could not immediately tell what was going on. Wayne's people had built a perimeter wall around their camp with disabled cars not long after they moved in. Getting to the firehouse itself required weaving through a maze of junk cars so it was impossible to rush the gate and force entry into the secure area. There were people everywhere now, both inside the secure perimeter and out. Tarps were spread on the ground, small stacks of gear and clothing laid out neatly.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think they were packing to leave," Conor mumbled.
Barb made her weapon safe and shifted in the saddle. "That's certainly what it looks like."
They continued toward the camp and the people began to take notice of them. Everyone knew Barb and Conor by this point and they weren't met with the same suspicion as they had been at the pastor's camp. Folks here had worked with them, fought with them, and bled with them.
"Dad!" Barb hissed.
Conor turned his attention from the firehouse to his daughter. Barb was pointing to a grassy strip along the river. Six fresh mounds of earth. Six crosses.
They dismounted and tied their horses off away from the area where people were working. By the time they were done and walking toward camp, Wayne was making his way toward them. He stared at the ground as he walked, burdened in a way they'd never seen before.
"What happened, Wayne?" Conor asked. "Are those graves?"
Wayne's eyes were filled with pain and confusion. "We lost some people last night. Some fine young men. Buried them this morning."
"What the hell?” Conor shook his head in disbelief. “How?"
Wayne swallowed. "Six of our young men were staying in a house up the road to give us more space for families in the firehouse. They didn't show up for work detail this morning so we went to check on them. Found they'd all been killed last night. Beaten to death."
Punching Tickets: Book Five in The Mad Mick Series Page 5
