The question was, where did they come from, and what did they want? And were they tracking Smith, or the woman and her child? Or all three of them?
Mary had stood up and walked over, and saw what he did. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know,” Smith said, and walked back to pick up his AR-10. He fine-tuned the scope on top of the rifle as he returned. “Are you armed?”
“Yes,” Mary said. She hurried over to her pack and opened it. She took out a Glock handgun—it looked like the one Peoples had been wielding last night—and rushed back. “I should have brought the rifle, too, but it was so heavy.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Smith said, though what he really wanted to say was, If I can’t shoot us out of here, one more rifle isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference.
The AR-10 was a sniper rifle, with a powerful optic designed specifically for long-distance shooting. It was the only reason Smith still carried it around. Everything else on him was for close-quarter combat.
Not that Smith was going to kill anyone this afternoon, if he could help it.
He held up the rifle and peered through the scope.
There were at least half a dozen men, and they were wearing boots, chaps, and dusters, and for all intents and purposes looked like cowboys. A few of them even wore Stetsons, though a couple had on ball caps. The only other thing that set them apart from the cowboys Smith had seen in Westerns were their rifles. They were the automatic variety.
He watched them for ten long seconds, more than enough time to know they were headed right for him and Mary. If he had any doubts about that—or wondered if they’d already spotted him previously—that vanished when one of them pointed right back at him.
He lowered the rifle. “They’re headed for us.”
“Are you sure?” Mary asked.
“They’ve been following our trail. Probably all the way from the camp last night.”
“Who are they?”
“Maybe you can tell me.” Smith walked back to his pack and brought out a pair of binoculars and handed it to her. “See if you recognize any of them.”
She looked through the field glasses for a few seconds, before lowering them. Given how quickly she’d done it, Smith already had his answer.
Mary confirmed it: “I’ve never seen them before.”
The riders were getting closer, their mounts sending thicker puffs of dust and dirt from the flat, hard earth into the air behind them. It looked like a giant sandstorm was headed right at Smith.
And maybe, he thought, that wasn’t too far from the truth.
“What are we going to do?” Mary asked.
Smith sighed, and thought, “We?” Since when did this become a “we” thing?
Six
“Should we run?” Mary asked.
“I don’t see what good that would do,” Smith said. “They’ve already seen us. And last time I checked, it’s nigh impossible to outrun a horse unless you’re an Olympic sprinter. And even then, you’d have to be Usain Bolt.”
“So what do we do? Do we just stand here and wait for them to reach us?”
“No. We’ll finish our breakfast first.”
“And then?’
“We’ll play it by ear.”
“That’s it.”
“That’s it.”
“I feel like we should be doing more.”
“Why? They’ll get here when they get here. Nothing’s going to change that. We’ll deal with them then. Besides, I’m still hungry. Aren’t you?”
“A little bit,” Mary said, if a bit reluctantly.
Smith walked back to where he’d left his deer jerky and finished his breakfast. Mary rejoined her son, but she sat down tentatively. If the boy had even noticed what was going on around him he hadn’t looked up from his food; the kid was too busy rooting around the aluminum can for more chunks of meat. Or whatever it was that they made SPAM out of. Smith had never been entirely sure.
Mary spent the next few minutes looking at Smith across the small space of their camp—she’d willingly gotten much closer since last night—and over in the direction of the approaching posse, because that was what it looked like to Smith. A posse, like something out of a Western. Even if Mary didn’t know where the group of riders were coming from, all she’d have to do was look for the cloud of dust. And then there was the low rumbling noise of their horse hooves pounding away against the flat land.
“You don’t think we should be doing something?” Mary finally asked.
“Like what?” Smith said as he took a sip from his canteen.
Water was hard to find out here—especially the drinkable variety—so he only drank what he needed to stay hydrated. Even when you could find them, water was also heavy as hell to carry around. He had two canteens in his pack and was glad he didn’t have to share with Mary and her son. They had their own supply courtesy of Peoples’s gang.
“I don’t know, but something,” Mary said.
“They’ll be here when they get here. When that happens, we’ll find out what they want.”
“They have guns.”
“So do we.”
That was technically true, not that Smith was really counting on Mary to have his back if something were to happen with the posse. (Never mind the kid.) She wasn’t exactly a stranger around weapons, something she’d proven last night when she obliterated Peoples’s face with his own AR. But shooting someone when they were down and had no way to fight back wasn’t the same as being reliable in a gunfight.
Besides, one of Smith’s rules was not to depend on other people to watch his back. It was a steadfast rule, one that had been developed—and proven correct—over the course of many disappointments. If you don’t depend on others, then they can’t disappoint you.
“Let me see the gun,” Smith said.
Mary took the Glock out of her pack and handed it to him. A Glock 17. It was a nice weapon, with a 17-round magazine capacity. The weapon was in reasonably good shape, so Peoples had taken care of it. Not that it had done him any good last night, but oh well, that wasn’t Smith’s problem.
He handed the gun back to her. “You know how to use that? I mean, really know how to use that? Anyone can pull a trigger.”
“Yes,” Mary said, taking the pistol back. “Tom made sure I knew how to shoot guns. But I can’t do it the way you do it.”
“The way I do it?”
“You didn’t even aim when you fired yours last night.”
“Why do you say that? You think I got lucky?”
“No, but, I didn’t see you aim.”
“There’s a lot of ways to aim a gun. You don’t always have to straighten your arm and peek down the sights.”
“Tom never taught me any other way but that.”
Smith shrugged. “It’s a skill not many people have.”
“Can you teach me?”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Why would you want to learn? It’s not something you can show off at parties. It’s a skill that’s meant for only one purpose: to put an end to someone’s life. I don’t draw my gun unless that’s exactly what I’m going to do. If you learn anything from me, it should be that. Don’t show your gun unless you’re going to kill someone.”
Mary nodded and looked down at the weapon in her hands. Smith wasn’t sure if she really understood what he’d said. Most people didn’t, so why would she be an exception?
He glanced over as the sounds of horse hooves increased noticeably. The posse was getting closer, and Smith could see the clouds they were generating getting bigger as they rose higher in the air.
“They’re almost here,” he said.
Mary looked over. “So we just see what they want?”
“Yes,” Smith said, even though he had a feeling he already knew.
Mary had put the Glock into her jacket pocket and kept it there, along with her right hand. Smith almost smiled. He hadn’t told her to do that, but he was going to suggest it.
“Stay to my right, and don’t do anything until I do,” Smith said.
Mary nodded and stood up. She put a hand over Aaron’s head, and the boy glanced up. “Stay here, okay? Don’t go anywhere. Mr. Smith and I are going to go talk to some people.”
Aaron nodded, not that Smith really thought he understood anything. As far as Smith knew, the kid still hadn’t noticed the approaching riders. Aaron all but confirmed that when he went back to digging for more SPAM with his all-purpose eating utensil.
Smith walked over to the edge of the outcrop with Mary and watched as the posse drew nearer. He had counted six before, and still did now. He left the AR-10 leaning against a nearby boulder, within easy enough reach.
“Still just six,” Smith said.
“‘Still?’” Mary said. “That’s four more than us, Mr. Smith.”
“Just remember what I told you: Don’t do anything until I do.”
Mary nodded, even as she adjusted her stance. Smith had a mental flash of Mary in an old Wild West town getting ready for a showdown with her Glock, hidden in her jacket pocket, her finger on the trigger.
It was kind of cheating, but hey, whoever said there was anything fair in a gunfight?
They didn’t have to wait long for the riders to finally reach them. The men—and they were all men—spread out as they neared the outcrop, giving Smith a good look at all six of them.
He picked out the leader right away: He was in the middle and had stayed there even as the others fanned out around him. Early fifties, gray hair visible along the temples underneath his wide-brimmed hat, which looked as if it’d seen more than a few winters, summers, and every other seasons in-between. He wore a gun belt like the rest, but instead of a semiautomatic, there was a revolver in the holster. That just further increased Smith’s image of the man as a sheriff leading a posse.
The question was: What was this posse after? Because you don’t put together a posse unless you were hunting down criminals.
The others were less interesting. They all looked like they knew their way around horses, though, and not a single one seemed awkward in their saddle. Besides their gun belts—they all wore one, though of different varieties—three carried automatic rifles in scabbards along their mounts while the other two favored pump-action shotguns.
They stopped about twenty yards from where Smith and Mary waited for them. The leader stood up slightly in his saddle to get a look at Aaron in the background, decided the kid was no threat, before settling his eyes on the two adults.
Then they fell on Smith, and stayed there. “You got a name?”
“Yes,” Smith said.
The man waited for Smith to continue, and when he didn’t, flashed something that almost looked like a smirk. “And what would that be?”
“You first,” Smith said.
“Fair enough. My name’s Hobson. These are my men. You don’t need me to name all of them, do you?”
“Up to you.”
“So what’s yours?”
“Smith.”
“Smith what?”
“John Smith.”
A man with red hair, wearing a Nebraska Cornhusker ball cap, chortled even as he leaned forward in his saddle. “John Smith, huh?”
“That’s right,” Smith said. “You got a problem with that?”
“You couldn’t have come up with a more believable fake name?”
“I’m not that creative.”
“Apparently.”
“That’s enough, Travis,” Hobson said. He focused on Smith. “You were involved in some shooting last night, Smith?”
“Are you asking or telling me?” Smith said.
“Asking. We found a body missing its entire face—hell, most of its head—at a campsite south from here. You know anything about that?”
Smith caught Mary shifting her stance slightly next to him. She had remained very quiet throughout the brief conversation between Smith and the riders, and this was the first time she even reacted. He didn’t blame her, considering that Hobson was clearly talking about Peoples.
“Yeah, I know something about that,” Smith said.
Again, Hobson waited for Smith to continue, and when he didn’t, the “sheriff” said, “And?”
“And what?”
“What happened to him?”
“He was a motherfucker, and he got what deserved. So what?”
Hobson seemed to sit up straighter in his saddle as if trying to get a better look at Smith. The others fidgeted slightly in theirs.
All except the redhead named Travis, who actually let out a small chuckle.
Smith concluded right then and there that he didn’t like the redhead. The man had what people back on Black Tide used to call squirrely eyes. And if Smith had learned anything in his life, it’s that you couldn’t trust someone with squirrely eyes.
“Any reason why?” Hobson finally said.
“I just told you,” Smith said. “He got what was coming. What’s it to you?”
“Well, this is our area. We take killings seriously around here.”
“He a friend of yours or something?”
“No. We don’t know him from Adam. But he was still killed in our jurisdiction, and we want to know why.”
“I already told you.”
“Saying he was a motherfucker isn’t enough justification, I’m afraid.”
“It is to me.”
“Unfortunately, your word isn’t law around here.”
“Is that right? Then whose is?”
“The Judge’s.”
“And who is the Judge?”
“The Judge is the Judge,” Hobson said, as if that should explain everything.
It didn’t. At least, not to Smith.
He said, “I don’t know any Judge. But that’s not a surprise; we’re not from around here.”
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” Hobson said.
“It is when you don’t give a damn.”
Again, the man named Travis chuckled.
“Something funny to you?” Smith asked him.
“You,” Travis said.
“What’s so funny about me?”
“The fact that you’re standing there, acting like a tough guy, when there’s six of us and just two of you.”
“There may be six of you, but I have ten rounds in my gun,” Smith said. “Seems to me like I’m ahead.”
Again, Travis chuckled. He seemed to do that a lot, though whether they were genuine or just an attempt to act tough was debatable. Smith was leaning toward the latter.
Travis sat two horses to Hobson’s right, with a thin man in a striped shirt between them. The man to the immediate right of Travis wore a similar but way more faded Cornhuskers cap and was about the same age. He looked bored, like he’d rather be anywhere else.
The two on the left of Hobson had remained quiet throughout the whole thing. An older man in his forties sat immediately to Hobson’s left while a much younger man—the youngest by far, he couldn’t have been older than twenty, if that—finished out the line of six riders. The youngster kept looking at Mary and Aaron, still somewhere in the background, and seemed preoccupied with mother and son and not much else.
As far as he could tell, Smith had three immediate targets: Hobson, Travis, and the older man.
Hobson, because he was the clear leader, and once you took out the leader, most, if not all, of the rest usually fell apart. The forty-something guy, because he was very composed and wouldn’t be startled by the sudden burst of violence.
And Travis, because, well, Smith just didn’t like the man very much right now.
“You need to come with us back to Gaffney,” Hobson was saying. “It’s not far from here. Once we get everything cleared up, you’ll be free to go.”<
br />
“I don’t think so,” Smith said.
“That’s not a suggestion. That’s an order.”
“Whose order?”
“Mine, by authority granted to me by the Judge.”
“And I’m telling you, I don’t recognize your authority or this Judge of yours.”
“Listen, mister. There’s no need for bloodshed. But you have to come back with us to face what you done. Either you do it willingly, or we’ll take you back by force.”
“He raped me,” Mary said.
She hadn’t said anything until now, and the sound of her voice clearly surprised Hobson and the rest. Even Travis, who finally seemed to notice her for the first time.
“What was that, ma’am?” Hobson asked.
“The man whose body you found,” Mary said. “He raped me. He and two others. They kidnapped me and my son, and killed people in our group. If it wasn’t for Mr. Smith, God knows what else they would have done to us.”
Hobson squinted at Mary for a moment before refocusing on Smith. “Is this true?”
“Yeah,” Smith said.
“Why the hell didn’t you say this before?”
“I don’t have to justify myself to you.”
“Goddammit, mister,” Hobson said. “This could have gone bad when it didn’t have to. You realize that?”
“I don’t see how.”
“You don’t see how? Are you kidding me?”
“Not at all,” Smith said. “If it’d gotten bad, all that would have happened was I’d have six horses that I didn’t have before.”
Seven
When it was over—and it was over when Hobson climbed off his horse to talk to Mary, then with Aaron. Not that the boy could suddenly say anything, but Hobson seemed to see the same things that Smith had when he looked Mary in the eyes. In fact, he even might have seen more when he talked to her son. Things that Smith might have missed, or maybe he just didn’t know what to look for. Smith wasn’t a father or a brother, and he assumed Hobson was either one of those things, or both.
Mary walked over to where Smith stood, her hands now outside her jacket pocket. From the expression on her face, Smith already guessed what was going to happen next.
After The Purge, AKA John Smith Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 19
