by E A Lake
“Of course, I do. Something like that never leaves your thoughts. It grinds at me daily. The look on Walker’s face when they all laughed and spit at me. He was seven, for God’s sake. It took me months before I could look him in the eyes again.”
I noticed him nod; his lips slid from side to side.
“Never gonna happen. Not under Hulton’s watch, at least. We have people that keep an eye on you and that smart-mouthed friend of yours.”
“Sunshine. Her name is Sunshine,” I scolded him.
“Well, we keep an eye on your place. We see trouble coming, and we always know what’s down the road. Hulton sends me over.”
Unbeknownst to me, we had protectors. Of course, sometimes they showed up just in the nick of time, as in in the most recent attack.
“Do you know what we would have done to those people?” he asked.
I stared at him, my mouth hanging open.
“We would have hunted them down and killed every last one of them,” he replied without emotion. “We’d have killed every drifter, every piece of road scum we came across. They’d all be dead, and people would have known for miles around to never come back.”
His words shocked me. I had no idea that he had known about the attack or felt so strongly about preventing such things. I should have felt safe, but the chill in his voice caused me worry. These were not men to be fooled with.
To lighten the subject, after a lengthy quiet pause, I switched directions.
“Did you ever marry, Jeremy? Have any children?”
He frowned at the question. “Not a good world for that, I’m afraid. See, I’m a practical man. And I know this ain’t the place or time for kids.” He glanced at me. “Not saying you were wrong to have a couple. Just saying I won’t.”
“Are your parents still alive?” I thought it best to keep the questions flowing his way.
“Last I knew, they were. Haven’t been up that way in a while. Four years, maybe.” I noticed his grin. “I keep kinda busy doing Hulton’s work.”
“And how long have you been working for Mr. Hulton?” With a little conversation, the time was passing quickly.
“About twenty years, I suppose. A long time is all I know.”
“Did you think about staying with your parents?”
He shrugged, turning down another gravel path. “First few years, I did. But food got scarce, and I decided to strike out on my own, take some of the burden off my folks. I got something like six younger brothers and sisters… if any of them are still alive.”
Looking ahead, I noticed buildings on the horizon. “Is that Rigby?” I asked, pointing the same direction.
I saw his head go up, and he rose in the saddle. “That would be the shit hole we’re looking for.”
Something in his answer didn’t give me much hope. I prayed I’d have answers within the hour. But I had prayed that before, and never once had any of those requests been answered.
Chapter 35
Throughout the apocalypse—The Darkness, as others called it—I had been witness to many unpleasant sights.
I still remembered seeing my first dead person, sprawled out in a ditch as if cast aside from a group. I cried for hours; never had I thought of man’s callousness as that bad.
There were dead animals in my past. Half-eaten carcasses here and there with whatever flesh remained rotting and full of maggots. How many times, I wondered, had I considered taking a bite to quell an unending hunger?
Towns had been sacked and burned to the ground in my memory. One place, a name I couldn’t recall, looked as if a war had leveled it—at least, the wars I remembered seeing on television in the old days. The inhabitants, what remained of them, stared at Bradley and me with dead eyes as we crept through.
For all that I had seen, for all that I had experienced, nothing prepared me for what I’d find in Rigby.
“There must be some mistake,” I murmured as we rode into the place on its former main road. “This can’t be Rigby.”
Jeremy pointed at a sign on the side of the road, its crude hand-painted letters much faded by the years. Welcome to Rigby.
“The sign begs to differ,” he said, taking no pleasure from the way he sounded. “It’s everything I’ve ever heard. And worse.”
Sighing first, I gave the horse’s ribs my heels, spurring it forward. I saw neither people nor animals. Birds were even absent; no throaty songs greeted us. Just absolute, soul-crushing silence.
“Why would Brady have ever thought of coming here?” I asked, even if only to myself.
“I got no idea,” Jeremy answered. “None whatsoever.”
Rigby was a post town, meaning that it sprang up after whatever happened to the world some 20-plus years back. From the squalid looks of things, it was post-now as well.
Perhaps 10, maybe as many as 12 dwellings made up the place. Most were no more than mere shanties—bare wood, devoid of any paint or markings, with the exception of one tiny place that appeared to be covered with signs of old.
“Huh,” Jeremy snorted. “Cigarette and beer signs. I see one from the feed store down over in Leota from a while back.”
I listened for any sound, no matter how small, that might mean some form of life still existed here. But aside from the breeze working its way past the remnants of buildings, there was nothing to be heard.
Confusion twisted my mind. “I don’t understand,” I said as we dismounted our horses. “It doesn’t look like anyone ever lived here, much less was here last fall. Why would Brady come to a place like this?”
Peering in an opened door, Jeremy shook his head. “No idea. As far as I know, it’s been like this for a number of years. Two or three at least.”
That only made my head hurt. Nothing, absolutely nothing made sense in the situation. Brady claimed he knew a man that lived in Rigby that could make decent trades happen. This was Rigby. Where was Brady, where was this man, and where the devil was my daughter?
I refused to cry; there had to be a simple explanation.
“Maybe he meant a man near Rigby,” I stated, trying to sound more sure of myself than I was. “I know we didn’t see much on the way here, but maybe some other direction?”
Along with Jeremy, I surveyed the surrounding area. Except for a few trees and the horizon, only one shelter remained. Perhaps a mile or two south and west, it was my only remaining hope.
“What do you think?” I asked, pointing at the only building in sight.
I felt him take my shoulders and turn me to face him. There I found the steely eyes of a realist.
“I think Brady was a piece of horse shit,” he stated in an angry tone. “I always thought he was nothing more than a con man. Still feel that way. I think he took your little girl and ran off with some other woman. I bet by now he’s sitting fat and happy a hundred miles from here. That’s what I think.”
His candor hit as if he’d slapped me with a gloved hand. These were the same words that Sunshine spoke when pressed. I knew they weren’t rehearsed. Those two despised one another.
“But if you want to go check out that farmstead in the distance,” he continued. “I’ll go with you. And I hope we find Brady and your girl there. I really do. Just don’t get your hopes up, though.”
At that moment, my hopes were all but gone, swept away on the breeze—just like the world of old.
Chapter 36
We walked our horses whatever distance it was to the farm. I needed to get my legs back under me after what I’d found in that desolate place, a name I refused to utter ever again.
A full breath was hard to come by. I fought back tears and frustration and feelings of helplessness. If I had to guess, Jeremy’s downturned face told me he felt bad for me.
Was I a dreamer? Even in a world as dreamless as ours had become? I had expected to find signs of life in Rigby. I cursed myself for even thinking the name. At the very least, I’d expected to find some sort of person who could point me in the direction of my loved ones. Instead, all I fou
nd was abject emptiness.
As we came closer, I began to see signs of life, perhaps hope. A single white goat, a few scraggly chickens, even smoke coming from the disintegrating chimney. My heart beat a little faster when I spied a small child playing in the dirt outside the front door. Here, I’d find my answers. I just felt it.
We cautiously approached the child. “Hello, little girl,” I said in my sweetest voice. “Are your parents around?”
The ragamuffin stared up at us with a dirt-stained face. At first, I was afraid she didn’t understand the common tongue. Perhaps these were remnants of an Amish or Mennonite community that only spoke German.
“Where’s your ma and pa, kid?” Jeremy demanded.
“I’m a boy,” he answered, slurring most of his words. “My mom’s inside.” He rose and turned toward the open door. “Mom, people here.”
The footsteps inside came closer. When she stopped, I was face to face with a woman who was probably my age but looked 100 years old. I wondered if I was staring in a mirror for a moment.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a listless tone.
Probably not, I thought.
Our hostess studied us carefully after I asked if she had seen Brady and Sasha last fall. I described both of them in as much detail as I could recall, down to the red handkerchief I had tied around Sasha’s neck. I wanted her to have protection against the dust they’d encounter on their trip.
“Don’t see much of folks out here,” she answered, coughing and spitting before us. She didn’t sound healthy. “Not with the fever and all that killed off all of Rigby. The last survivor died this past spring. Old man Hegel. He was a tough old coot.”
Moving closer to the woman, but not too close, I searched her eyes. “A man, taller, maybe a few inches taller than my friend here. And a little girl, five, but she probably looked younger. They would have come by right before harvest time.”
Her head shook as she tried to give me a smile. “Don’t sound like anyone I seen lately. There’ve been a couple single men, mostly stragglers. Usually looking for food and water. But I don’t have much of either. The pump’s giving out, and we’re about to eat the last of our chickens.”
Mr. Lasky, Jeremy, pushed forward. “You got any stores nearby? Maybe some place that will give you credit?”
His question seemed strange to me. This woman had nothing; anyone could tell that. Still, I saw her eyes light up.
“There’s an Amish place about five miles south of here,” she answered, sounding as if she were about to laugh. “But I don’t have enough strength to walk there and back. And I don’t have much to trade, I’m afraid. It’s down there where the one road comes in and three go out south of it.”
Glancing back at me, Mr. Lasky nodded. “Trident.”
“That’s the place,” the woman said with renewed vigor. “People have said before that those folks are a benevolent bunch. I just don’t have any neighbors to help me get there.”
Jeremy turned to me. “We need to take a ride down to Trident. Maybe they’ll have heard of Brady.”
I was open to any suggestion he had. Anything that might help me find my missing family.
Reaching out, I touched the woman’s rail-thin arm. “Thank you for your help.”
She smiled, and I noticed for the first time she didn’t have any teeth. “I’m afraid I wasn’t much help, sweetie.”
But she was. I knew Brady hadn’t come to Rigby, as he had planned. But maybe, just maybe, Trident held the answers I so desperately sought.
Chapter 37
On a crumbling blacktop road just north of what had to be Trident, we found the Amish store. This one even had a name—other than The Amish Store, which ours was called.
Bontrager’s was a bustling scene of activity. There had to be 40 buggies parked around the plain white steel-sided building. Much like our store, bushes decorated the front walk, their plumage of green brightening the world.
Inside, we found the store to be packed. No fewer than 60 people, mostly Amish, milled about. As Jeremy and I made our entrance, the place went deathly still.
“Can I help you?” a short older man with a snow-white beard asked. He looked friendly enough. At least he was smiling.
Jeremy took the lead. “Need to see the man or woman in charge,” he announced in a confident voice.
“That would be me,” the man answered.
Stepping closer, Jeremy urged me forward with the waggle of his head.
“We’re looking for information on some travelers that may have come through here last fall,” Jeremy continued. “But first I got a couple things I need to take care of.”
The man’s smile faded slightly, and he gave Jeremy his full attention.
“You ever heard of Rickard Hulton?”
The man’s eyes flashed wider for a second. “Everyone’s heard of Hulton. Biggest operation anywhere near here.”
Jeremy stepped closer. “Well, I’m Hulton’s main man, Lasky. I got a job for you. And Mr. Hulton will cover the cost, no matter what that might be.”
I, too, leaned in. This was going to be interesting.
The store’s proprietor, Mr. Ewald Bontrager, studied his meticulous notes. Scribbling a few words here and there, he glanced at my friend for the day.
“And you say Mr. Hulton will cover this all?” he asked of Mr. Lasky.
Jeremy pointed at the list. “A half wagon of food and supplies should get her through for a while. Oh, and send a new sandpoint and pump head along. Hers is about to give out, she claims.”
Mr. Bontrager noted the last request with a nod and more scribbles. I assumed he wrote in German because none of the words made any sense to me.
“You take the bill up to the Amish store west of Hulton’s place,” Jeremy continued. “They’ll settle up with you, and he’ll settle up with them. You said you traded with them some, right?”
Looking at me, the old man grinned. “Yeah, we trade a lot with one another. As long as what you say is true, there won’t be any problems.”
Jeremy leaned on the counter, close to the man’s face. “I speak for Hulton, and Hulton’s word is gold up there. Got it?”
“Good as gold—understood, Mr. Lasky.”
Jeremy peeked at me. “Now, we’re looking for a tall thin bald man and a little girl that might have come through here last fall, looking for a man to make a trade with. That sound familiar?”
My heart raced as Mr. Bontrager’s lips pursed. “I’ll have to ask the wife. I was laid up for a bit at the end of last growing season with a bad back.” He grinned. “Guess an old man can’t do as much as he thinks he can anymore.”
I pushed forward. “Where can we find your wife, sir?”
Stroking my hand, he attempted to quell my anxiety. “She’s right next door, watching the grandkids. Let’s go see her.”
Yes, let’s do just that.
Stroking her wrinkled chin, Mrs. Bontrager considered my questions. “Tall and bald with a full beard, you say?”
Yes, that was exactly what I had said, three times over.
“And a little girl with long dark hair?” Her repeated questions, statements I had made loud and clear, caused me frustration.
“Anyone like that last fall, ma’am?” Jeremy politely inquired. He was certainly calmer than I was.
“Judith!” she shouted. “Come in here, please.”
In the doorway, a plain, thin woman appeared. Her sour face made me believe she didn’t like something in the woman’s tone.
“I was just in the next room, Mother,” she said in a thick Germanic accent. “There is no need to shout.”
“You were listening in, most likely,” Mrs. Bontrager retorted. “That isn’t very polite of you.”
Her hard soles sounded heavy against the floor as she approached.
“There was a man from up that way last fall,” Judith replied. “Just before the harvest. And he had a little girl with him. But she had short hair, not long.”
The in
formation confused me. If it was Brady, why had he cut Sasha’s hair? Of course, there was the chance it wasn’t them at all.
“And he was with a younger woman,” Judith continued. Her voice cut through me as if I had somehow sinned against her personally. “They were headed for central Iowa, he claimed. Some eighty miles south of here.”
None of this made sense. Was it Brady or not? Did he have another woman or not?
“Did they use any names?” Jeremy inquired. “Something like Brady or Mr. Turner?”
The woman’s head shook wildly. “No. He said his name was Andersen, with an e. He was quite emphatic about it. He and his wife, Mrs. Andersen, were in a hurry to get back to her parents’ farm before the snows. They were just looking for food… handouts actually.”
It was him… them, maybe. But it couldn’t be; Brady would have never betrayed me like that. Not after all we’d been through together.
“What about the little girl?” Jeremy asked, a little quieter than before.
Judith’s face went sour. “She was a whiny child. She looked young, but I knew she was five or six. She could speak plainly enough.”
Judith moved closer to her mother, still facing me. “She asked when she could see her mother again. But the man told her that her momma had died. The woman with them was her new mother.”
I felt myself begin to tremble. It couldn’t be them; he could never do that to me.
“That seemed to quiet her, but she wasn’t happy. She continued to whine the whole time they ate.” Judith’s head shook at the recollection of the events. “At one point, the new mother had to slap the girl to get her to be quiet. She was constantly interrupting the adults.”
While that seemed to please Judith, I felt an invisible hand strike my face.
“I looked at the little girl’s hair at one point while they were eating,” Judith stated. “I felt kind of bad for her, then. These people were so poor it seemed as if they’d had to cut it with a sheep shear or something dull. There’s all kinds left in this world. They weren’t the kind that had any pride, though—none at all, I tell you.”
