“Everyone’s fine, including the boy.” Amy stopped cleaning the counter to look back at him. “The Judge’s dead.”
“I know. I shot him.”
The doctor grinned. “I figured that.”
“What happened after?”
“The others packed up and left in the morning. They took as much as they could carry with them. The ranch, as far as I know, is empty; all the horses are gone. Roger and his people showed up later. Everyone who’s still here, wants to be here.”
“Including you,” Smith said, swinging his legs off the cot to test his body. Just moving should have hurt, but it didn’t. He wondered what kind of painkillers Amy had given him and if she had more available.
“Including me,” Amy said, nodding.
“The ranch…”
“What about it?”
“There was a ghoul there.”
“There was more than a ghoul in that place.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know the exact number, but more than one. That place draws nightcrawlers every now and then. No one knows why. They just seem to find their way there. Sometimes more than one at a time.”
No kidding, Smith thought, rubbing his legs to get the blood flowing again.
“Mary and Aaron are staying too, by the way,” Amy said.
Smith looked up at her. “They’re staying?”
“Looks like it. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You staying, too?”
Smith shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“They seem to like you.”
“Do they?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Is it?”
Smith smiled. “Of course.”
“Ah,” the doctor said, but Smith didn’t think she was convinced. “Lay back down. It’ll be a few more days before you’re ready to walk around Gaffney on your own power.”
“Sure thing, Doc,” Smith said, and did just that, lying back down.
“Doc?” a voice said from the front of the clinic, on the other side of the curtain that separated the areas. “You around here, Doc?”
“Back here,” Amy said.
“We could use some help.”
“I’ll be right there.” Amy walked across the room, but not before glancing in Smith’s direction. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“Where would I go?” Smith said.
Amy stopped at the curtain and looked over at him again. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Did what?”
“Kill the Judge.”
“Which part’s tripping you up?”
“You shot him.”
“And?”
“That’s all it took? A guy with a gun is all it took to end a man like the Judge’s hold over Gaffney?”
“Why? Did you think it’d take more than that?”
She shrugged. “Sort of.”
“That’s all it usually takes, Doc. A guy with a gun. I just happen to be that guy this time.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Doc?” a voice called from the other side of the curtain.
“Coming,” Amy said, before leaving Smith alone in the back of the clinic. “What happened?” he heard Amy ask someone.
“We were at the ranch, cleaning the place out, when she fell off her horse; might have broken her hand,” a familiar female voice said. It sounded like Gramps, but Smith couldn’t be sure.
Smith sat back up, then climbed off the cot and looked around. It took him about twenty seconds longer than it should have to find his clothes, piled up on a counter at the back of the room. They weren’t the same ones he’d worn when he confronted the Judge; Smith knew that because they weren’t covered in blood. But they were men’s clothes and his size. He didn’t think Amy would bother trying to find new clothes for him, so it was probably Mary.
Mary…
He thought about her as he pulled the clothes on, doing his best not to make a sound as his side began to ache. He kept expecting Amy to return and chastise him, but she was apparently too busy with her new patients. Smith was pretty sure one of them was Gramps from the sound of the voice.
“How did she fall?” Amy was asking.
“I guess she’s not good at riding,” the person who may or may not have been Gramps said.
“I guess not,” Amy said.
Smith searched for and found bottles of painkillers in a cabinet. He pocketed a couple and picked up his gun belt and cinched it tight. That was a mistake, and he grimaced slightly from the pain. He found a go-bag in a closet and filled it with bandages, bottles of water, and some bread and sausages in a box with the word Doc written on the lid. Amy’s lunch, maybe.
Mine, now.
He opened the back door and slipped out, and blinked underneath the harsh sunlight. He could see and hear people on the street to his left, so Smith turned right and moved through the back alleys of Gaffney. He was familiar with the turns, having taken them previously. They looked slightly different in the daylight, but it wasn’t too hard to find the edge of town.
Smith thought about Mary and Aaron, and why he was leaving them behind. Mary, especially. He’d liked kissing her, liked having someone beside him as he recuperated from his wounds. And she was one hell of a beautiful woman. He could have done much worse, that was for goddamn sure.
So why was he leaving her? Was it the boy? Was it the idea of having an instant family that was making him run? Or was it just the commitment that was needed? Was he terrified of having someone depending on him? Of having to constantly worry about another life—or two—besides his own?
Then he thought about Blake, and the reasons were as plain as day.
He was almost out of Gaffney when he saw a pair of horses tied to a streetlight, outside some kind of convention hall. Smith could hear voices coming from inside the big building but couldn’t see the speakers.
One of the horses looked familiar. It was the same Chestnut he’d ridden into town one night ago. The animal looked up and snickered as he walked toward it.
“You miss me?” Smith asked.
The horse looked away and shuffled its feet.
Guess not, Smith thought as he untied the horse from the streetlight, then walked it out of town.
He climbed into the saddle about ten yards later, then turned the Chestnut north.
“Ever been to Canada?” he asked the animal.
The horse didn’t reply but did respond when he tapped its flanks with his boots. It quickly picked up pace and was in a full trot out of Gaffney a few seconds later, apparently just as anxious to get the hell out of town and back into the open countryside as him.
Then they were in the fields, with nothing between them and whatever was out there but clear blue skies and wide-open grass. The road was visible to his left, but Smith angled the Chestnut away from it.
His body ached and his wounds throbbed, but he closed his eyes and sucked in the clean air.
Smith smiled and rode on.
After The Purge, AKA John Smith Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 48
