He’d camped west of the city of Lovington on the first night, staying clear of the town’s bonfire glow, not wanting to invite questions or attack. He wasn’t sure where the Crew’s territory began, but he was taking no chances and was operating under the assumption that anyone he encountered would be a threat. He’d slept uneasily under the stars, unwilling to risk even a small fire for fear of drawing hostiles, the song of distant coyotes his lullaby as the night’s chill descended like arctic breath.
The next morning he’d pressed Tango until Lovington’s skyline was a speck on the horizon behind him, and then settled into a steady walk across the flat expanse, the big horse soldiering on without complaint. As he approached a rusting yellow sign announcing the New Mexico-Texas border, he calculated that he would have one more long day’s ride before he arrived in Lubbock. With a hundred miles under his belt, he was dog tired, and his heart went out to Tango, who was grazing without complaint near a rural well as Lucas sized up the location’s viability for a campsite. Situated at the end of a dirt road near the bones of a farm, the area was deserted, and as the wind blew from the east, carrying with it an all-pervasive red dust that invaded every crevice and cranny, he decided to make camp there. He again avoided a fire, dining on smoked jerky and water.
Lucas inspected the bullet wound on his arm and was relieved to see that it had healed. The new skin was pink and tender as a baby’s, but there was no sign of infection. He flexed his bicep and didn’t feel any pain, so that was one concern he could check off his list. Going into enemy territory on a suicide mission, he had plenty on his plate to mull over without his body betraying him. He waited until it was completely dark and then used the well water and a soiled shirt to clean the worst of the sweat and road dust from his body, his naked form pale as a ghost in the light of the rising moon.
The wind strengthened to a howl as the night wore on. Lucas snatched sleep when he could, but was awakened multiple times by tumbleweeds blowing by and the moan of sustained gusts through the bones of the farmhouse. When he packed his bedroll away just before sunrise, fatigue still wore heavily on him, and he again was overcome by a wave of misgiving. He’d chosen to put his life on the line based on a slim chance of success, violating every precept that had kept him alive through the post-collapse anarchy. In the crisp predawn luminescence, he shook his head in a kind of wonder at how crazy his actions were. Maybe it was a delayed response to Hal’s passing, or the loss of the ranch, or the death of an entire town’s good people, but if he kept making poor decisions, he’d join them in eternity sooner than later – and he wasn’t ready to shed his mortal coil quite yet.
The truth was that the idea of Shangri-La, of a sanctuary where the madness of the outside world was held at bay, had infected him, corroding his pragmatism and leaving something far more dangerous in its stead: hope. For years he’d avoided thinking of anything but the present, living day to day, never expecting to wake up the next. But now there was a chance of a better future than one of mere existence, and he’d drunk the Kool-Aid like it contained the antidote.
And since he was being completely honest with himself, there was also Sierra and Eve. The little girl had touched something he’d thought dead in his core, and for better or worse, he felt an unusual bond with her. As to Sierra, he understood that she was cunning in the way a survivor had to be, but she was also the first woman he’d seen in forever that had stirred his interest – and reached a part of him he’d believed had vanished forever with his wife’s death.
“I’m a weak man,” he whispered to Tango, who passed judgment with inscrutable eyes. “Ready for another day in hell?”
The horse stood motionless as Lucas climbed into the saddle, and by the time the sun rose, they were miles along the trail that stretched east to Lubbock, where he would hopefully find the answer to questions that he’d never known existed until a few days earlier.
Toward midday, as he was crossing a vast oil field dotted with rusting pumps, he spied a dust cloud straight ahead. He raised his binoculars and scanned the horizon until he could make out the source: a group of six horsemen, all heavily armed. Their plate carriers, assault rifles, and facial tattoos alerted Lucas that he was now in Crew country.
“Come on, Tango, let’s make tracks,” he said, dropping the glasses back against his chest and wheeling the horse around to the north. Lucas wasn’t interested in discovering how the Crew treated new arrivals into its territory – Sierra’s account had convinced him that was a pleasure best skipped. He urged the horse to a trot, just fast enough to put some distance between himself and the patrol but at a moderate enough pace that no dust was stirred up. After half an hour, the dust cloud passed behind him, the group riding hard for some unknown destination.
Lucas stopped and allowed Tango to take a breather. He watched the unending fields with his spyglasses until the dust was out of sight, and when he remounted the horse, any fatigue was gone, replaced by an adrenaline buzz from the near miss. If there were regular patrols from here on out, it would be slower going, and he’d need to be extra vigilant the remainder of the way to avoid discovery.
The dry scrub turned greener as he neared Lubbock, and he paused regularly so Tango could munch grass for ten minutes at a time while he relieved himself and stretched his legs. He began seeing signs of life as he drew closer to the city: smoke rising from chimneys and the occasional boom of a small-gauge shotgun as hunters bagged dinner. In one section, the sky was thick with partridges, and his mouth watered as he debated risking shooting one himself so he could dine on fare other than jerky. Ultimately, the risk wasn’t worth it, and he discarded the idea and continued on, stomach rumbling in protest.
Twilight arrived with swarms of flies and mosquitoes, and he spent the final half hour of daylight swatting at them like a man possessed. When darkness fell, the high plain glowed in the distance from the lights of Lubbock, and he recalled Sierra’s description of the wind farms the Crew had harnessed for power.
Because of the town’s size, it was unlikely the entire perimeter was guarded, so to enter the city, he’d just need to avoid the obvious outposts and find a way in someplace secluded. Once there he would find the hospital; and then the difficult part of the operation would begin. He’d reconnoiter the grounds and get a sense of what he was up against – how alert the guards were, where they were stationed – and then search for Jacob after midnight, when most would be asleep.
What he would do if the man’s quarters were empty was another matter; one that had haunted him on the journey east. If the scientist had been killed, they had no options – they’d be destined to run from constant pursuit until the inevitable day their luck ran out. The thought made his stomach muscles tighten to the point where they were sore, and he willed himself calm. He patted Tango, preferring to focus on the immediate future rather than speculate on what would soon be obvious.
“We can do this, boy,” he said, unsure whether he was talking to Tango or himself. He gazed through his binoculars at the amber radiance, faint silhouettes of buildings framed against the glow, and then coaxed the horse on, the final five or so miles likely to be the most treacherous.
Chapter 33
Cano studied the stucco walls of the hotel room where he was convalescing. The stained surface had bubbled in places where water had leaked through the roof in one of the area’s infrequent storms, forming patterns strangely similar to a collage of stylized human faces. He blinked away the vision, his good eye roaming the baseboards that rodents had chewed much of away. He could hear them at night, their tiny feet scrambling across the linoleum floor, and for the first few days he’d been unable to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, the conviction that they were going to dine on him while he was defenseless consuming his thoughts.
He was better now; his wounds had scabbed over, and his strength was returning by the day. He’d avoided reporting his state to Magnus for fear of his injuries being interpreted as an early failure on his part. Cano knew the pr
ice for disappointing the great one, and he’d seen no reason to give Houston an update, preferring to allow them to think he was still in the field, on the quarry’s tail.
The doctor had warned him not to push it, and Cano had reluctantly obeyed the instruction, there being no obvious trail to follow. He’d sent out a party to circle the crest from which he’d been ambushed and look for tracks, but had little hope that they would find anything significant. With him out of commission for almost a week, the trail would have gone cold, and the woman could easily be in Canada by now.
The thought wasn’t a pleasant one. Magnus wouldn’t be pleased, and he wouldn’t care about the details. He’d made that clear.
Cano’s plan was to recuperate another few days and then get back into the saddle and resume the hunt. His head was now clear, and he’d grown accustomed to the blindness on his left side. Physically he was healing remarkably fast, but mentally he was still shaken, and he gave the wall another sidelong glance, from where the faces seemed to be mocking him.
“Another couple of days,” he muttered.
The worst part of his self-imposed bed rest was that he was going stir-crazy. Cano was a man of action, and he didn’t do well on his back, waiting. He had a strong urge to suit up in his plate carrier and ride out despite the doctor’s warning, but he resisted it, there being no place to go. He closed his eye and willed himself to rest, knowing that every hour of recuperation would pay dividends later.
Outside, his men were playing cards, laughing and swearing as the level of their bottles sank and their luck changed. Inertia was also bad for them, Cano knew – left to their own devices, they would quickly lose their edge, and soon the fights would start.
He needed to get back into the field.
“Soon,” he whispered. “Soon.”
~ ~ ~
Duke spied motion in the darkness and hit the switch for the floodlights, his AR-15 in hand as the compound’s periphery lit up for two hundred yards in all directions. Doug was approaching on the main trail and waved to signal his presence. Duke looked through the telescope and then leaned back to take a swig of water and extinguish the lights, the rider identified.
Doug waited outside as Duke opened the gate. He dismounted and walked his horse through, and after tying him to a hitching post by the water trough, gave Duke an abridged report on his recruiting effort.
“Not many able-bodied men around in a mind to leave what they got to come to work, Duke. Word’s spread about Loving and Pecos, and it’s got people on edge.”
“There’s got to be somebody. Don’t want to keep having to do four-hour stretches. Like death by a thousand cuts, once you get to be my age.”
“I hear you. Maybe we’ll have more luck tomorrow.” Doug hesitated. “I did stop by Slim’s place. They ain’t seen him.”
Duke set his rifle down. “Kind of weird, dontcha think?”
“He was glad to be rid of the ranch. Can’t see him excited to return.”
“Wonder where he went off to?”
“No tellin’. Boy always had a restless streak, long as I known him. A real mustang when he got it in his head.”
“Not many places to get to, though, are there?”
“Sometimes even nowhere’s better than where you are.”
“And he didn’t mention anything to you about wanting to leave before he skedaddled?”
“Not a word.”
“Go on in and grab some chow. Aaron caught some fish. Still on the stove.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Duke watched him make his way to the main building, and his brow creased with mounting worry. Was it possible Slim had gone to the Locos and sold them out? He hadn’t seemed like the type, but what did Duke really know about him? And where else could he have gone? It wasn’t like West Texas was a hotbed of opportunity waiting for a young man with big expectations to come along.
He followed the thought through to its conclusion: if Slim had done as he feared, the trading post was toast. It would just be a matter of time before the cartel rode in and flattened it for lying to them about the woman – and worse yet, not alerting them when there was still time to catch her.
It wouldn’t be about picking up her trail, although he was sure they’d delight in torturing him to learn whatever he knew. It would be revenge, pure and simple, brought to him by the same forgiving folks that had slaughtered an entire town without hesitation.
Duke didn’t back down from a fight, but he wasn’t delusional and understood that if the cartel came loaded for bear, his defenses would fall and they’d prevail. His usefulness as a trading conduit wouldn’t save him from their wrath – especially not that of the tattooed demon who’d searched his place. No, if Slim had sold them down the river, Duke was already on borrowed time.
So the question was, did he feel lucky?
He looked around the compound. Duke had a hideaway up in the mountains where he could lie low for a while. Near a stream flush with fat bass, far from prying eyes. He could get most of his high-value items into the wagon and leave at first light; tell the boys he was headed for greener pastures. Aaron would probably accompany him. Doug, likely not. Which was fine. He didn’t know the man all that well, anyway, and wouldn’t miss him.
“Nothin’ lasts forever,” he murmured, eyeing the building and already running an inventory of what would stay and what would go. That the outpost would be looted was a given, but there was only so much damage that could be done to cinder block and dirt. He’d miss the solar and considered how many of the panels he could fit in the wagon.
He glanced at the time. Another hour, and then it would be Aaron’s watch.
Duke would break the news to him then.
Doug, he’d tell in the morning. He didn’t want to take the chance of a mutiny.
That this stage of his life was over didn’t bother him as much as he would have imagined, but then again, he’d always been resilient.
He’d radio the kook up north and see if he could get hold of him before he left. No way was he going to take the chance of being overheard before that. Of course, the chances that the man was monitoring the airwaves twenty-four seven were slim and none, but he had to at least try. And he’d have to phrase things carefully so an eavesdropper from the cartel wouldn’t understand the warning he was giving, or it could do more harm than good.
Composing it would require some thought.
Duke sighed as he looked out into the darkness. At least he had plenty of time to do so.
Chapter 34
Lubbock at night was a study in contradictions. As Lucas rode into town unchallenged, he passed groups of indigents gathered around fires, their skeletal forms bent by premature aging from the ravages of hunger and disease and dressed in little more than rags. Their gaunt faces watched him in silent misery as he guided Tango along the streets. At one of the fires he spotted the unmistakable carcass of a skinned dog roasting on a spit, and hot bile rose in his throat. The stench of sewage and rot greeted every step further into the city, which appeared to be a nightmare vision of privation – until he neared the town center.
There, where the Crew occupied most of the better buildings, electric lights burned brightly. Groups of gang members cruised the streets, well fed and radiating danger, and many of those he saw were apparently drunk, high, or both. He skirted everyone, sticking to deserted streets as he wended his way toward the medical center campus, which he could see on the far edge of the city, its multistory towers dark against the star-filled sky, its outline familiar to him from a prior visit with his wife.
If stopped by anyone, Lucas would pretend to be a trader looking for a watering hole – a likely enough cover, Lubbock being a reasonable hub for those wishing to travel west. Magnus, like any of the other regional warlords, needed commerce to keep his population of de facto slaves prosperous enough to afford whatever the Crew was selling – chiefly protection, drugs, clean water, and electricity. Trading accomplished that. Unlike small strongholds like
Pecos or Artesia, larger towns had porous borders too large to guard, so rather than attempt to impede entry and exit, the gang profited from it indirectly, taking a bite of every transaction via a tax on the outposts, and then downriver from sales of its wares to the residents. The end result left the population with just enough trading wealth to be willing to continue working while the Crew took most of the juice.
Not so much unlike the pre-collapse governments, Lucas reasoned. Most had been originally set up to provide services to the populace – in the case of the United States, to build roads, deliver mail, defend against attack, and the like – but had morphed into tyrannical rulers that sucked the marrow from the citizenry, ruled it with a set of laws the elite members of society didn’t follow, quelled rebellion with a police state that would have been the envy of industrialists at the turn of the century executing union organizers on behalf of the corporations, and generally drained the prosperity of the nation via hundreds of hidden taxes…in addition to one on income.
Magnus had simply removed the pretense of free will from the equation. He supplied the same services of protection and punishment, taxed the survivors for his efforts, and fleeced them of most of their earnings over time with the threat of force while delivering as little as possible. He’d stepped into the gap left by state and federal entities and imposed his own kind of order that recognized no rights he couldn’t dispense with at will, and the inhabitants of his territory had tolerated it – anything to survive.
Lucas was drawn out of his musings by the sound of hooves pounding down one of the adjacent streets. A cry was answered by two shots and then laughter, followed by the clip-clop of horses moving away. He didn’t need to investigate what had happened to understand: one of the unfortunates had crossed the Crew and had paid the ultimate price. Nobody else would have dared discharge a weapon in Lubbock with so many of the gang there; ergo it had to be them, enforcing their rule with a bullet.
The Day After Never (Book 2): Purgatory Road Page 17
