“And you drove them on pavement that far? That’s insane. And inhumane.”
“We took them off road when we could,” Dave said. “But these days there are fences everywhere.”
The horse on the port side of the team, named Shiloh, favored his left rear leg.
Bold Eagle inspected the big horse’s joints. Poked and prodded to see if the horse gave any indication such actions hurt him in any way.
He lifted the leg to inspect the shoe.
It was still in good shape, still firmly attached.
It almost passed muster, but he noticed something odd about it.
He looked at Dave but said nothing.
He was onto him, and wanted Dave to know it.
He pulled a bone-handled knife from a sheathe tied around his waist with a leather strap and used it to pry the shoe away from the horse’s hoof.
From beneath the shoe he removed a pea-sized pebble.
With a sour look of disgust he tossed it at Dave and hit him in the chest.
“You think because we’re Indians we’re stupid?”
Chapter 3
Dave should have been angry. He should have felt rage.
Instead, he felt something akin to embarrassment.
Like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar.
Before Bold Eagle arrived on the scene he thought he had a fair chance of manipulating Dumb and Dumber into letting them pass.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
It didn’t help when Beth very loudly whispered to Sal, “I told you it wouldn’t work.”
Bold Eagle cocked his head at the girl and laughed.
“You should listen to your little girl,” he said to Dave. “She carries more wisdom than you do.”
Dave wasn’t sure he could argue that point.
The Indian went to the other horse, named Cody, and checked his lame leg.
He gave Dave the same look of disdain when he found a similar pebble beneath Cody’s shoe.
At least he didn’t throw it at Dave this time.
“What’s your story, man? Why would you cause such pain and misery to these noble animals?”
Dave sensed his natural charm would no longer work. And as outnumbered as he was, he was in no position to use bluster or try to get tough.
The only course of action remaining was honesty.
“We knew you were here. We were warned you would try to take our horses.
“We didn’t want to give them up.”
“So you thought if they were lame we wouldn’t want them? We’d let you keep them?”
“Something like that. Yes.”
“These aren’t the horses we’re looking for. They’re branded.”
Dave was confused.
“Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but… I was told you were taking all horses which came along.”
“No. But I should take them anyway to punish you for that awful pun.”
“Pun?”
“You hated to look a gift horse in the mouth…”
Dave’s face brightened. He hadn’t even realized what he said.
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Who told you we were stealing horses?”
“An old friend just west of here.”
“I am a Mescalaro Apache Indian, my friend. I do not steal from others.”
Now Dave was really confused.
“But I was told…”
“You were told bullshit!”
He looked at Beth and said, “I apologize for my language, little one.”
“It’s okay. But how come your men stopped us then?”
Beth wasn’t afraid of any man, even when it might be prudent.
Bold Eagle softened.
“We are not stealing horses as they come through. We are inspecting them, trying to recover horses stolen from the reservation. Horses that belong to the Indian.”
He turned back to Dave.
“Since the blackout the wild ponies have been disappearing from native lands. They’re being used by the white man for transportation, since vehicles are no longer working.
“We… the Indian tribes, have banded together to get them back, and to force the interlopers from our lands. It’s something we should have done hundreds of years ago.
“Before the white eyes came the Mexicans. They forced the weakest among us from our lands. They took more than their share of the buffalo, farmed the best lands. Placed their settlements along the mightiest rivers.
“Then they had the nerve to tell us we could not stay in their areas. That all the land belonged to them.
“That was enough to deal with. We had to fight for what was once ours.
“Then you white eyes came along and were even worse. At least the Mexicans never rounded us up and put us in prisons.”
Sal spoke for the first time.
“I thought they put you on reservations.”
“That’s what the white man called it. Any time you take living creatures and restrict where they can roam… tell them where they must live, it is a prison. It matters not what you call it.”
Dave said, “But how do you tell which horses are yours?”
“We do not brand horses. It causes them pain. Horses are noble creatures. We do not harm them unnecessarily.”
“Look,” Dave continued. “We’ve come a very long way. We have a very long way to go. I know you’re building an army and you’re collecting horses so you can do a housecleaning in Albuquerque.
“And that’s fine with me. It’s none of our business, really.
“All we’re seeking is safe passage.”
“Any man who would intentionally hurt a horse cannot be trusted.”
“Look, I can be trusted. I’m not lying to you. I’m not speaking with forked tongue.”
Bold Eagle moved closer to Dave. Placed his nose mere inches from Dave’s. Cocked his head and demanded, “Are you making fun of the way Indians talk, white man?”
“No, not at all… I…”
“You’ve seen too many western movies. Stop it with the forked tongue jive.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
“As far as safe passage, I’m still thinking about that. You have accused me and my people of being thieves. And you have abused creatures who are more noble and more deserving of respect than any white man I’ve ever met. Why in hell should I let you go on your way?”
It seemed to Dave that honor and respect were very important to Bold Eagle.
“Um… because it’s not the way of the Red Man to slaughter innocent people who are merely trying to pass through their land?”
The comment caught Bold Eagle off guard. He wasn’t expecting a statement so bold, or so true.
“Damn it, white eyes! How can I kill you after such a brilliant observation?”
Chapter 4
The Indian approached Dave not in anger, but rather out of curiosity.
“How did you come to be here, in Albuquerque, when it’s getting ready to erupt in bloody warfare?”
“I told you. We’re heading to Kansas City to reunite with our family.”
“Is your family in good health?”
“Yes. As far as I know. They were when I last saw them.”
“Then why did you leave them to come to these dangerous lands? It’s the duty of a man to stay with his family. To protect them from harm.”
“We were separated when the power went out. I’ve been traveling since then to get everyone together again.”
“I see.
“I’m still on the fence about you, white man. You still strike me as shady. But you also strike me as a good father. And if it’s true what you say… that you’ve traveled across many miles to reunite your family, there must be great love between you.”
He turned to Beth.
“What about you, young one? Do you wish to see your family again?”
“Yes sir.”
“Do you think your father is strong enough and brave enough to take you to them?”
“Of course. H
e’s my daddy. He’s my hero.”
Bold Eagle handed Dave the pebble he removed from the second horse.
“What’s this for?”
“I will grant you your safe passage, under one condition.”
“And what is that?”
“You have abused two very noble creatures. They are the ancestors of the wild mustangs my people once rode into battle. As such they are to be respected and revered.
“To you they are horses. To me they are symbols of greatness. And they did not deserve to be abused.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Being sorry is not enough. For your safe passage you must understand what you did to them. You must understand by feeling what they felt.
“You must do to yourself what you did to them.”
“What? How?”
“Remove your shoe. Place the pebble beneath your heel.
“I will walk with you for a mile or so.
“At the end of that mile you will understand the misery you afforded these majestic animals. Perhaps you’ll think twice before you perform such a stupid stunt again.”
Little Beth, bless her heart, tried to come to her father’s defense.
“But… but Mister Bold Eagle, it wasn’t even his idea. It was…”
Dave held his hand up to quiet her.
As much as he appreciated her efforts, this was on him. For the Indian was right. He could have stopped the horses from suffering. He could have insisted there must be another way.
Instead, he took the easy way out.
He deserved to pay penance.
“I’ve got this, honey,” he told Beth. “He’s right. I got this.”
Bold Eagle smiled and said, “Good for you.”
Dave kicked the sneaker from his right foot and, as instructed, placed the pebble in its heel.
As he was putting it back on Bold Eagle bent over and picked up another pebble. It was the first one, the one he took from Shiloh’s hoof.
The one he hit Dave in the chest with earlier.
He went to one knee and untied the buckskin boot on his left foot.
He placed the pebble inside his own boot and put it back on.
Dave didn’t understand, and wanted to.
“But why?”
“It is one of the ways of the Red Man. Something you could never understand.
“My ancestors would never ask one of their braves to suffer unless they were willing to suffer with them.
“How else can I determine when you’ve paid your debt?”
He looked up to Sal and said, “You may drive your team. My men will move out of your way. We will follow behind you.”
Sal didn’t have to be told twice.
Dave was an old hand by now in dealing with threats on the road. He’d been beaten up in Blanco, Texas, shot at in Kansas City, threatened with beheading in Albuquerque and waylaid on a lonely highway outside of Barstow.
Sal, on the other hand, wasn’t used to dealing with angry men with guns.
As long as one didn’t count the beating he received at the hands of Dave himself.
But they’d gotten past that.
He started his team forward and, as Bold Eagle promised, the rag tag bunch of Indians blocking their way parted.
When the rig passed them by, Dave and Bold Eagle fell into step behind it.
“What about your horse?” Dave inquired.
“He is a good and faithful friend,” the Indian replied. “He will go where I go.”
Sure enough, the pony looked up from where he was eating grass on the side of the highway and watched as the rig rolled along. When it was a hundred yards away he galloped to catch up, and followed Bold Eagle by a respectable distance.
Dave winced with each step he took, but tried to put on a brave face.
It was just as much for Beth as for Bold Eagle.
To Bold Eagle’s credit, he never made a face.
It struck Dave he was one of the toughest men he’d ever met.
It was a shame they hadn’t met under different circumstances.
Dave was fairly certain he’d have called the man a friend.
Chapter 5
The area around Ely, Kansas was some of the prettiest rolling woodlands in the country.
On a farm just east of the tiny town, a wheat field was left unattended for the third year in a row. Here and there wheat stalks grew wild, as did the hay in an adjacent field.
Hay which would likely never be harvested again, for the cattle which once filled the farm’s north pasture had all been slaughtered.
Just after the blackout the Dykes brothers had read the writing on the wall.
The worldwide catastrophe they’d prepared for for years was finally upon them, and the world would never be the same again.
In the new world, one couldn’t buy meat from the supermarket shelves. One couldn’t even drive into town.
Not anymore.
Growing one’s own livestock was in itself a liability. For there would always be men without scruples who longed for meat and didn’t have any.
And who’d have no qualms about taking it at the end of a gun.
They’d kicked around the idea of trying to keep the farm running, and of using the bunker as a place to run to as a last resort.
But word got around about a massive prison break from the Fort Leavenworth Military Prison to their north and east.
Escaped convicts were on the loose and were turning up all over the state.
Men who were desperate not to be captured.
Desperate not to go back to prison.
The brothers thought themselves strong enough to fend off attacks, either from the escaped cons or from other bands of marauders known to be in the area.
But in any battle, there would be casualties.
And they couldn’t bring themselves to risk the lives of their loved ones.
They made a difficult decision to abandon the farm.
They transferred eighty sacks of wheat from the barn to the bunker they’d buried on the east end of the farm.
Then forty sacks of dried corn.
They slaughtered their livestock.
Every cow, pig and chicken.
Some of the meat was frozen and stored in the four large chest freezers inside the bunker.
The rest was turned into jerky or canned.
The brothers retreated into their bunker and settled in for the long haul. They were confident in knowing their bunker, protected by buried mines and a fortified-concrete pillbox, would keep them safe until the convicts and other marauders were dead or out of the area.
Of course they were wrong, for in the new world there was no such thing as a guarantee.
Now, more than a year after the first EMPs bombarded the earth, the farm was slowly being turned back over to Mother Nature.
Similarly, the clearing beneath which their bunker was buried was a shambles.
High grass made it difficult to peer out of the pillbox, as the brothers were no longer around to give it its quarterly treatment of herbicide.
Deep ruts from the tracks of a Caterpillar bulldozer still scarred the earth, running from the dozer parked in the center of the clearing and leading up to the pillbox.
The ruts were pockmarked by the personnel mines which had exploded beneath the tracks. The tracks themselves had scoffed at the explosions, but the earth around them had yielded to the blasts.
The reinforced concrete bunker, while still intact, had suffered some damage from the dozer’s massive blade. Left behind were a massive scar, a pile of broken concrete and exposed rebar, twisted and rusting and telling a tale of a great battle.
Just outside the bunker, the pillbox remained in shambles.
Blood still covered its walls, though it had turned from a bright red to a sickly brown color.
Brain matter and tiny pieces of flesh still clung to the walls, though by now they were dried to the point even the flies ignored them.
The most visible pieces of t
he carnage, the pieces of the bodies that’d once protected this place, were gone now.
They’d been dragged into the woods to rot by the same men who backed the dozer away from the bunker and back into the clearing.
The pillbox was a mess but was still usable.
Yet it wasn’t used.
The bunker was now under control of a madman named Manson, who saw no need for it. He was confident in the belief no one else would dare try to liberate his prize.
He’d personally disabled the dozer so it could never run again, by removing the oil plug and then running the engine until it seized.
Once the grass grew high enough to start blocking the pillbox’s firing ports the observation structure was worthless to him.
He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why the grass didn’t grow high around the pillbox when the brothers ran it. And why it did now.
But then again, he wasn’t a farmer.
And he wasn’t a smart man.
Not smart enough, anyway, to realize there’s always a way in, if someone wants in bad enough.
No, Manson didn’t worry about threats from the outside.
He only worried about threats from his own men.
For he was not well liked.
And he was paranoid to boot.
Maybe paranoid is the wrong word.
It’s said that one is only paranoid if nobody is after him. If anyone is after him he is, instead, forward-thinking.
It’s also said to the victor goes the spoils.
And he was enjoying the spoils immensely.
The booze, the women, the food and the security that came to them when they stole the bunker from its previous occupants.
But he enjoyed his spoils with one eye open, and wisely so.
Chapter 6
Robert Santos hadn’t liked Manson from the beginning.
He couldn’t understand why some of the other men looked up to Manson. Not at all.
To Santos, Manson was nothing but a thug who was good with a wrench. He’d made a living in “the world,” meaning life before he went to prison, as a mechanic for the United States Army.
So he could repair vehicles. So what? That didn’t make him a leader of men.
At least not in Robert Santos’ mind.
He also feared Manson because he was afraid of what Manson might do if he found out Santos’ deepest and darkest secret.
A Stunning Betrayal: Alone: Book 9 Page 2
