The Day After Never (Book 4): Retribution

by Russell Blake

  “Stay out of sight,” he cautioned. “I’m going after Nugget.”

  “We don’t know how long ago they took her.”

  “Those tracks look fresh.”

  She eyed him doubtfully. “Be careful. It’s not worth getting killed over a horse. We can always get another one.”

  “Tango can’t carry you to Alexandria, and we can’t take the chance that anyone has a decent horse to trade. If I can get Nugget back, that’s best.”

  Lucas rode off, following the tracks with Tango at a canter. Half an hour later he slowed, and Lucas spotted Nugget tied to a post by the ruins of a shack. Two boys, maybe ten or eleven, looked up at him in alarm from their position by the hovel’s entrance, and one of them pulled a pistol from his belt and stood.

  Lucas held his M4 aloft so they could see it. “Drop the gun. I don’t want to shoot anyone, but if I have to, I will. There’s no way you’ll get close with that thing, and I can hit you with my rifle no problem from here, so it’s a bad bet, kid.”

  The boys exchanged a worried look, and the one with the pistol reluctantly lowered it and tossed it on the ground.

  Lucas nodded. “Good thinking. Now keep your hands where I can see them.”

  He spurred Tango forward, his weapon pointed at the children, watching them closely as he neared in case one of them had another gun. When he was a dozen yards away, he dropped from the saddle, never taking his eyes off them, and approached. “Turn and put your hands on the wall so I can make sure you’re unarmed,” he instructed, and the boys did so, the smaller one visibly afraid. Lucas frisked them and then scooped up the pistol – a filthy Chinese .32 revolver. He thumbed the cylinder open and dumped two cartridges on the ground.

  “We didn’t mean no harm takin’ the horse,” the younger boy stammered. “We thought she was wild or somethin’.”

  “Shhh,” the older one hissed. “I tol’ you to keep it shut.”

  “You know they used to shoot horse thieves where I come from,” Lucas said.

  “Didn’t know she was yours,” the older boy tried.

  “You thought she might have locked herself in?”

  “Never know.”

  Lucas took in the boys’ emaciated frames, their ribs washboards beneath their filthy shirts. “Where are your folks?”

  “Don’t have any,” the older boy said.

  “Just you two?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  The younger one’s voice had a tremor. “You gonna shoot us?”

  “Got a good reason why I shouldn’t?” Lucas asked.

  “Bullets ain’t cheap,” the older one said. “Besides, there’s your horse. No harm done. We was just watchin’ her, keepin’ her safe, is all.”

  “That’s one way to look at it.” Lucas stepped back. “How long you been on your own?”

  “Maybe a year.”

  “What happened to your people?”

  “Our pa crossed the Crew.”

  “The Crew leave you alone?”

  “We stay outta sight when they come around.”

  “How often is that?”

  “Couple times a week. You can hear ’em from a mile away.”

  “When did they last come by?”

  “They was here yesterday shootin’ up the river.”

  Lucas nodded thoughtfully and glanced at Nugget before focusing on the boys. “All right. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to take my horse and leave. You’re going to stay where you are, and your lives are a gift from me to you. Which means you owe me. I catch you stealing horses again, I take the gift back. You read me?”

  The boys mumbled yesses and Lucas stifled a grin. He hastened to Nugget and untied the mare, and then led her to Tango and climbed into the saddle. The boys were still leaning against the wall when he rode around the bend, and he shook his head at the world he inhabited, where desperate children were forced to carry guns and described the murder of their father with the nonchalance of discussing the weather.

  When Lucas reached the field, Sierra emerged from the trees and came running. Lucas told her about the pair of ruffians who’d taken Nugget, and she was visibly relieved at the source of their temporary woes.

  “Hard to blame them, isn’t it?” she said.

  “I’d have done the same at their age.”

  Sierra helped him with the saddle and bags, and by the time the sun was melting the ground fog away, they were riding west. Alexandria was a solid four days away, assuming no complications. The risk involved was an obvious one: they’d be riding through Crew territory the entire way and, because of the marshy terrain and lack of a map, would be forced to stay near established routes, which raised the risk of discovery.

  Clouds rolled across the sky as the morning transitioned into afternoon, and when the rain came, it did so with a vengeance, pelting them with drops the size of marbles. The horses drove forward through the deluge, and the trail grew treacherous as the downpour intensified, the mud sucking at their hooves and slowing their progress.

  When they broke camp for the night by a stream, the rain having finally abated, Lucas estimated that they’d covered no more than thirty miles. After stringing tripwires to alert them to intruders, he settled down with Sierra for the night, and he reckoned that this leg of their journey would be the hardest yet.

  “Didn’t get far as I’d like, but we’ll be there soon enough,” he said as she nuzzled his chest.

  “I can’t wait for you to meet Tim. You’ll like him,” she murmured, already half asleep.

  He didn’t give voice to the thought her comment spurred, namely that the life expectancy of a juvenile slave working the cane fields for the Crew was likely less than ideal, and not to get her hopes up.

  Because he knew from their ongoing discussion that if they didn’t find her boy, it would destroy her.

  And while he couldn’t shield her from that reality, he could delay the day of reckoning until it was unavoidable. That, at least, was within his power.

  Which was enough for now.

  Chapter 36

  Elliot hummed to himself as he worked on his computer, calculating the rate at which the hubs could produce and distribute a quantity of the vaccine sufficient to inoculate the surviving population of the country, when the lights dimmed alarmingly and his battery backup screeched like an angry bird. He quickly saved the data and was powering down when the lights went out, plunging his workspace into darkness.

  He felt in his lab coat and twisted a penlight on, and then made his way to the door. The pump fix that Craig had come up with had appeared to be stable with the loads the town was drawing – although the engineer had warned Elliot that it would only be fine until it wasn’t. Elliot hoped this was just a minor glitch. The weather had been getting colder with each day, and it was just a matter of time until the snow turned from an inconvenience to a matter of survival.

  Elliot pushed into the outer room and turned the flashlight off, enough sunlight streaming through the windows to be able to make out the furniture. He walked to the entrance and swung the door wide, bracing himself for the bite of cold he knew would assault him. A second later his expectations were rewarded by a blast of icy wind, and he was reminded again how quickly the moderate autumn could turn to winter.

  He fumbled in his pocket, removed a two-way radio, and transmitted a call to Craig. The engineer answered thirty seconds later.

  “This is Craig. Over.”

  “Power’s down. Over.”

  “Pump gave out. Over.”

  “How long until you can get it back up? Over.”

  “I’ll come by shortly. Over and out.”

  Elliot frowned. Craig taking time out from any repair didn’t portend well. When he showed up a half hour later, his face was long.

  “It’s not good. We lost the pump, as I said, but there’s no way to jury-rig it anymore. The seals blew. That’s it – game over,” he reported.

  “Surely we have material we can use, or we can bypass it and
put less load on the generator?”

  “No. These are specialty pumps – subject to extremely high heat and pressure. I can’t just cut up a crumbly tire or whatever and make seals – they won’t last five minutes. And as to bypassing it, I already tried that – it isn’t enough pressure to drive the turbine.”

  “Then what’s the solution?”

  He frowned. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Try me.”

  Craig explained the options, and when he finished, Elliot’s dejected expression mirrored his.

  “You were right. I don’t like it. But you think it’s possible?”

  “It’s our best shot.”

  Elliot nodded and waved to Arnold, who was walking with Duke and Aaron toward one of the nearby lodges. Arnold returned the gesture and the trio trudged to the community center, their breath steaming in the chill.

  “Lost power, I see,” Arnold said when he arrived.

  “Yes,” Elliot said. “Craig here says the only way we can get the juice flowing again is to go on a little expedition. I thought I’d enlist your help.”

  “How little?” Arnold asked.

  “There’s another geothermal plant about a hundred miles north of us,” Craig said. “It’s mothballed, but we should be able to cannibalize it for parts.”

  Arnold’s eyes widened. “A hundred miles? That could be a week each direction, depending on the terrain.”

  “It won’t be easy,” Craig agreed. “But it’s the only way. Either that, or plan on spending a long winter without power.”

  Elliot eyed his security chief and then shifted to the trader and his assistant. “So what do you say, gentlemen?”

  Duke blinked, reminding Elliot of a startled cave dweller exposed to a bright light. “What do you mean, what do we say?”

  “Are you up for an adventure?”

  Duke frowned. “You mean us?”

  Elliot nodded. “Arnold and Craig need backup. A hundred miles is a long way, and they can’t keep reasonable watches with less than four people, as we all know.”

  “Why us?” Aaron asked.

  “You’re both trail savvy and have been through your share of firefights,” Elliot said. “I don’t have a lot of people anymore I can say that about.”

  Duke eyed Elliot skeptically. The physician had approached him the prior week about setting up a trading post as a recruiting station for the new Shangri-La. Duke had punted, saying he needed to think about what he wanted to do now that he was a wealthy man. Elliot had agreed to wait as long as it took for his answer, the truth being that there was nobody else with Duke’s trading expertise who could do it, so he had no choice other than to be patient. “What do you think, Aaron? You in the mood for a ride?”

  Aaron met his gaze. “Hell, it was getting pretty boring around here with nobody shooting at us. Why not?”

  “When do you want to leave?” Arnold asked Craig.

  “Sooner we take off, sooner we’ll be back.”

  “I need half an hour to pack my kit,” Aaron said.

  “So meet back here in thirty minutes?” Craig asked.

  Arnold looked at the sky. “We probably have another four hours of light. Better use all of it we can.”

  The men departed and Elliot watched them go, the sanctuary’s future in their hands. Without power, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to continue his work on survival projections, which was his latest project now that the vaccine was in the field.

  The only troubling issue was that St. Louis hadn’t responded to any transmissions for well over a week. That was extremely unlike Darby, who was meticulous and prompt in all matters. Elliot had to assume the worst, which was why he was devoting his time to the scenarios where the virus couldn’t be stopped in the Midwest for another six months.

  With Darby off the playing field and his contacts exhausted, Elliot had no plan B to fall back on. That was a huge problem for a large chunk of the country if the virus flared up and began moving – a likelihood that was always at the front of his thoughts.

  Michael came jogging up, his expression annoyed. “Lost the power again, I see.”

  Elliot explained the situation, as well as the solution. Michael pursed his lips in displeasure. “No power, no radio. So if disaster strikes, we’ll have no forewarning.”

  “We can rig a few of the solar panels we scrounged. That should give us enough to operate the radio, at least during the day.”

  “Agreed. But it’s a bad situation if they don’t get the parts they need. Half the town will freeze to death with no power.”

  “Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but we can always hole up in the lodges with the hot springs. They emit more than adequate heat, and we should be able to run PVC pipes to the rooms and create some sort of passive radiation system.”

  “A hundred people all crammed into those lodges for four months?”

  “It’s not an elegant solution. But if freezing is the only other option, you’ll grow to love thy neighbor, I’m sure.”

  Michael studied the houses in the near distance, his face dark. “What do you think the odds are they can fix the plant?”

  Elliot frowned. “Right now I’d say you better start working on your social skills, because barring a miracle, we’re dead in the water without a paddle.”

  “But Craig was optimistic?”

  Elliot looked away. “He said that was the only option other than freezing. If you want to view that as optimism, you’re a better man than I.”

  Chapter 37

  The trip to Alexandria took the full four days Lucas had feared it would, though fortunately had been uneventful other than dodging a Crew patrol as they neared the city late in the morning. The contingent of riders had been large compared to what they’d seen at the Mississippi River: ten men armed to the teeth, with prison ink visible on their faces and shaved heads. Lucas had heard their horses before they appeared around a bend and taken evasive action, hiding behind a grove of trees, his and Sierra’s rifles at the ready as the riders flew past in a blur.

  Now they were on the outskirts of Alexandria, headed toward the rum factory grounds. They’d met an old woman selling fruit by a hovel on one of the secondary roads, who’d directed them to the sugar cane fields adjacent to the plant. She’d pointed to a plume of smoke corkscrewing into the sky and said it was from the factory’s smokestack, and then cautioned them to stay clear of the place unless they wanted an express ticket to the promised land. Lucas had nodded solemnly at the warning and rewarded her with a round of 9mm, and she’d seemed delighted with the exchange.

  When they were near the edge of the first cane field, they dismounted in the brush and tied the horses to a low-hanging branch before making their way toward its edge. The sugar cane stood tall in the sun, planted in long rows that seemed to go on forever. In the distance was the factory, a dull gray sheet metal structure with only a few broken windows at the second-story level and a ground floor consisting of loading docks and pedestrian entries that were bleeding rust.

  “The fields are huge,” Sierra whispered as they crept to a promising tree to climb and use as a vantage point.

  “It’s a big area. Rum must use up a lot of sugar cane.”

  “How many acres would you guess it is?”

  “Maybe…fifty, at least? Could be more.”

  They scaled the tree, and through his binoculars Lucas surveyed the field, where he could see gunmen on horseback with wide straw hats along the edge of the cane, watching the workers in the rows, some of whom were chopping with machetes while others were tilling at the roots. He counted six guards in all, and when he was satisfied there were none on foot, handed the glasses to Sierra so she could look for her son.

  It was a humid day, and the sky was a gray sheet, the heat cloying with no breeze. Sierra gazed intently through the binoculars in silence as Lucas contented himself with keeping watch with his M4 in hand. Now that they had arrived, the magnitude of the challenge was obvious, and Lucas had no
t the faintest inkling as to how they would free her son in the unlikely event they actually found him.

  The morning dragged on with no progress, and Lucas proposed that they skirt the field and find another location from which to observe the workers.

  “It’s a big area, Sierra. If he’s not in these nearer groups, he might be at the other end. See the riders over there?”

  She nodded silently and Lucas felt his heart lurch at the expression on her face. While not defeated, the odds of finding her boy were hitting home, and her eyes told the story of the stark realization.

  They edged two hundred yards further along the perimeter and climbed another tree, this one lower, and Sierra went to work with the spyglasses again. After a tedious hour, Lucas was going to suggest a different vantage point when Sierra gasped and nearly lost her balance. She grabbed his arm with her free hand to steady herself and whispered, her voice tight, “I think I see him!”

  Lucas didn’t say anything. She continued peering at the field and then nodded slowly.

  “It’s him. He’s bigger now, and his face has changed some, but I’d recognize him anywhere. He’s alive, Lucas. Tim’s alive, and he’s down there.”

  Lucas’s face was impassive. “Where, exactly, and what’s he wearing? Describe him.”

  “He’s got brown hair, like mine, cut short, and he’s wearing a brown long-sleeve man’s shirt with the sleeves half rolled up, and canvas pants, both hanging off him. He’s working a hoe, it looks like. About a hundred yards down that second row – the guard’s three rows away from him.”

  “Give me the glasses,” Lucas said.

  She took another long look through the binoculars and then did as he requested, pointing at the spot she’d called out. “See? There are about twenty kids there.”

  “I see them. But most of them are dressed the same, Sierra. It’s kind of hard to tell them apart.”

  “Brown hair, brown shirt. Dark brown. Button up, open most of the way. You can see his chest. He’s rail thin.”

  Lucas scanned the boys, all of them emaciated. “How far down the line?”