“I know. She saw what Mary and Rosemary were dealing with and offered to lend a hand.” Hubert paused. “Don’t worry. I’ll see to it that they make it out safely.”
They were interrupted by Hayden arriving with seven men on horseback, two of them leading a pair of horse-drawn carts for the weapons. Hayden nodded to Lucas and the mayor.
“How’s it coming?” the sheriff asked.
“We put out the word,” Hubert said. “Gave them half an hour to collect everything and meet us at the southern gate.”
“It’s probably going to take longer than that.”
“I know. We figured we would wait an hour. There’ll always be stragglers.”
“How did folks take the news?”
“About like you’d expect.”
“Not like you didn’t tell them that they’d be moving soon anyway,” Lucas said.
“Right. But this is so abrupt…”
Hayden introduced Lucas to the riders, most of whom were unimpressive in bearing and barely out of their teens. Lucas looked them up and down without comment and returned his attention to the mayor. “You telling the tent people you’re heading to Newport?”
Hubert scuffed the dirt at his feet. “We decided it’s best to keep that quiet. There are too many of them, and it would be impossible to cover our tracks with over a thousand people migrating down the coast.”
Lucas’s expression hardened. “Kind of a replay of your vaccine decision, isn’t it? That didn’t work out so well.”
“It was debated by the council. That was the consensus.”
“So what are they supposed to do? Are you even going to warn them about the Chinese?” Lucas demanded.
“Of course.”
“Then how are you going to stop them from following you?” Hayden asked.
“We’re going to forbid it. They can go elsewhere. But if they try to follow us, they’ll be shot.”
Lucas shook his head. “Only good news is that there’s no reason to try. Not like you’ve got a passel of resources they don’t, once you leave.”
“Most of them will probably drift toward Salem or up to Seattle,” Hubert said. “They know the river’s toxic, so there’s no reason to stay here much longer.”
“Bunch of parasites. Good riddance,” Hayden growled.
“One of those parasites helped get us into the base,” Lucas reminded him. “Might want to rethink your ideas about them.”
“That’s one out of a thousand. Most of ’em are scum. We don’t need a thousand scummy mouths to feed.”
“You doing a lot of that?” Lucas countered.
Hayden scowled. “What?”
“Feeding them? I got the impression they fended for themselves.”
Hayden looked at his men. “You know what I mean. This is going to be hard enough with just the townspeople to contend with.” His eyes drifted back to Lucas. “Besides. Most of ’em would just as soon slit our throats as spit, after finding out about the vaccine.”
Lucas finished with Ruby’s horse and moved to Tango. He swung up into the saddle and inspected the pair of carts. “You got plenty of rope? We’re going to have to haul the weapons up through the shaft, and the more we have, the faster it will go.”
“In my saddlebags,” Hayden said. “Mayor, are you sure you don’t want me to hang back and help you with the rest of the carts? We’ve got a lot to move.”
Hubert shook his head. “No. The weapons are more valuable long term than most of what we can bring from town. We’ll deal with it.”
Lucas glanced at the sheriff. “Clock’s ticking.”
“Yeah. I hear you.”
Lucas turned to the mayor and adjusted the M4 sling on his shoulder. “Tell Ruby I’ll meet up with you all on the road out of town. These are her animals. Mind them for her until she shows up.”
“I appreciate you doing this, Lucas,” Hubert said. “I mean that.”
Lucas’s mouth tightened and he checked the sky. The clouds that had darkened the horizon were moving steadily toward them, crowding out the late morning sun. “Looks like it could rain before too long.”
Hubert grunted in assent and followed his gaze. “It’s that time of year. That could work in our favor. It should erase our tracks.”
“You’re going to stick to the road, aren’t you?”
“Of course. But it’s covered with dirt and leaves – it will still be obvious we used it. But enough of a downpour will wash away any trace of our passage. At least it should.”
Lucas grunted. “That your only plan? Hope for a storm?”
“Not a lot of ways I can think of to hide the tracks of a whole town.”
Lucas decided to let it go. “Remember to tell Ruby.”
“I will.” Hubert tried a smile, which more resembled a grimace. “Good luck. We need those weapons.”
“We’ll get them,” Hayden assured him. “Or as many as will fit up the shaft.”
The sheriff looked to Lucas. “Ready?”
“For the last ten minutes. I was waiting on you boys.”
“Then lead the way.”
Chapter 3
Jeb and Mary watched as Caleb exited the herb shop. Jeb’s expression was dark; Mary’s brow furrowed. She looked around the small room and squeezed Jeb’s hand. Caleb had delivered the bad news of the approaching ship and the need to evacuate Astoria immediately and then was off to the next person on his list, leaving them to pack what they could in the short amount of time remaining.
“Jeb, you empty these jars into plastic bags and make sure they get into our saddlebags,” she said, her voice tight. “I’ll prepare some travel gear and put it out back by the stable. You lead the horses to the meeting spot, and we’ll rendezvous there.”
Jeb blinked in surprise. “Why? Where are you going?”
“I need to get over to the hospital and fetch Rosemary. I can fill our bags with clothes in just a few minutes. It will take too long for me to do the herbs.”
“She’s over there again?”
Mary nodded grimly. “They’ve been overwhelmed since the attack and need everyone they can get.”
“Bad timing,” Jeb observed.
“Another test,” she agreed. “Get to work. We don’t have a lot of leeway.”
Jeb moved to one of the counters and took out a jumbo box of sealable bags. With a final glance at Mary, he began removing herb jars and setting them beside the box. Mary hurried to the door that led to the rear of the shop and mounted the stairs to their living area above, where she quickly and efficiently folded her eight hand-sewn dresses and fit them into the bottom of a duffle bag, and then began with Jeb’s things. Five minutes later, she’d emptied their chest of drawers. She took a calming breath as she studied the room, mentally rejecting item after item as unworthy of saving, and then made her way to Rosemary’s room and repeated the process, pausing only to frown at a stub of eyeliner pencil and a worn plastic compact containing plum-colored blush before slipping the forbidden makeup into one of her daughter’s socks, her lips pursed in disapproval.
Finished, she did a final inspection of the bathroom and gathered their hygiene products, and then carried the bags containing all their earthly belongings to the living room, where she paused by her sewing table and packed her needles, thread, and scissors. She finished in the kitchen with the cutlery and silverware she’d collected, and hauled everything down the rear stairs to the shed Jed had built to house their three horses and a small makeshift cart fashioned from a series of planks and a pair of bicycle tires attached to a long axle.
Mary set the bags down beside the cart and saddled up her and Rosemary’s horses, leaving Jeb to attach the cart’s two poles to his animal’s saddle with an ingenious system of straps and supports he’d devised to haul firewood for their wood-burning stove. Satisfied that she’d done all she could, she returned to the shop and stuck her head through the door. Jeb was halfway through the jars, and he looked up from where he was carefully pouring the contents of a conta
iner into a ziplock bag.
“I put everything by the cart. I’m taking our horses. Are you about done?” she asked.
“Couple more minutes.”
“Okay. I’ll see you at the southern gate.”
“Be careful.”
“Just hurry up.”
Mary hastened to the stable and led the horses out into the gray afternoon light. She mounted up and took off at a trot toward the hospital, Rosemary’s mare at her side. Everywhere along the typically quiet street there was frenzied activity as the town’s residents rushed to salvage what they could, saddling animals, stuffing saddlebags with treasures, toting bags of provisions and jugs of water. A few of her neighbors offered a wave as she rode past, but for the most part everyone was otherwise occupied, the mayor’s deadline forcing them to speed through a process they’d believed they had a week to complete.
She navigated past an overturned cart with a pair of men heaving to right it and slowed in passing. Normally she would have stopped to offer help, but she didn’t have the luxury of time and instead averted her eyes as she rode by, guilt creasing her forehead. Was this the new normal, she wondered, where everyone was too self-involved to offer a helping hand? The abrupt departure from Astoria was worrisome on a number of levels, and not only because they were being uprooted from their homes and preparing to journey into the unknown. Many of the bonds that had been forged since the collapse were based on proximity, and Mary couldn’t help but feel that might all change in a new location.
She pushed the troublesome thoughts from her mind as she passed the hulk of what had once been the largest grocery store in town. It now lay in ruins, a half-burned shell that had fallen victim to one of the fires that had plagued the town over the years. So much had changed since she’d been a little girl, playing in the adjacent park with the bay in the near distance, its slate surface calm on summer afternoons. Nothing was the same since the collapse. Her parents had been casualties of the virus, leaving her with a loyal but simple husband and an adolescent daughter destined to grow up in a dismal future.
Mary sympathized with Rosemary’s plight. She was a beautiful, spirited young woman who’d blossomed into a beauty, seemingly in defiance of the bleak reality. When Mary had been her daughter’s age, she’d had aspirations of leaving the town, of going to university, of crafting a different life from that of her parents. But circumstances had required she remain in Astoria to help her father after a car accident had disabled her mother. Her fantasies of a life in a big city as a botany professor or even a doctor had faded into an adulthood of clumsy overtures from locals she’d despised in high school, coarse boys with rough hands and greasy smiles whose idea of romance involved a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and the backseat of their junker.
Jeb had been the best of a limited lot. After several years of what she’d considered wild living and rebellion, Mary had settled down with him, her dreams now limited to starting a family and pursuing her interest in plants. Her sister had scandalized the family when she’d gotten pregnant out of wedlock, the father a boy from the wrong side of town who’d wound up in jail for trafficking in stolen car parts and growing marijuana, leaving her to raise their son, Ray, on her own. Mary had helped as best she could, although Jeb had disapproved of her sister’s irresponsible ways, which he’d made clear. When Mary had given birth to Rosemary, it had been a mixed blessing, the delivery a difficult one that had left her unable to have more children. Jeb had accepted the doctor’s verdict with stoic calm, reasoning that it was all part of God’s mysterious plan.
Barking from her right jarred her from her thoughts, and she glanced over at a fearsome-looking pit bull with a wedge head and a shark smile who was straining at a chain in the front yard of a run-down house. She knew the dog was actually a butterball when approached, who delighted in creating a ruckus at any opportunity to relieve his boredom.
“Bailey, hush up. Where’s your old man?” she said, looking over the darkened windows of the home. A figure inside waved at the sound of her voice, and Bailey’s barking shifted to happy yelps as he recognized Mary. She slowed and shaded her brow as she called toward the house, “You about ready to move out, Glenn?”
A man’s head poked from an open window, a baseball cap topping a bearded head. “Just about. You?”
“On my way to get Rosemary. You taking Bailey?”
“Of course. I’d sooner leave one of my legs behind than my boy.”
“That’s good. We’ll see you at the checkpoint.”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
~ ~ ~
Ray watched the activity at the southern gate from a discreet distance, wary of the armed guards standing behind their sandbagged barricade. The mayor had made an appearance five minutes earlier and announced that the townspeople were vacating Astoria because of an approaching Chinese invasion force, and that it was every man for himself – his advice being to get clear of the area while they could, but not to try to follow the townspeople.
“What are we supposed to do?” a squatter had called out. “Ain’t got no horses.”
“That’s not my problem. If I were you, I’d make for somewhere inland. The coast isn’t safe,” the mayor had said.
“Just like that? We’re supposed to up and leave?” The man paused and turned to his companion. “It’s a trick.”
Hubert shrugged. “That’s what we’re doing. We don’t know what the Chinese want, but we’re not sticking around to find out. If you feel like trying your luck, that’s up to you. Again – we don’t want any trouble, but we’ll be leaving sentries along our route, and anyone trying to follow us will be shot.”
“What gives you the right to tell us where we can and can’t go?” a woman screamed from Ray’s left. “This land belongs to all of us.”
The mayor’s smile was ugly. “That may be, but you try to track us and you’ll wind up with a bullet for your reward. I’d get a move on if I were you. Ship’s on its way.”
The mayor disappeared behind the safety of the gate to jeers and curses, and Ray was turning away when the barrier creaked open and Lucas and Hayden led a procession of riders along the road, rifles in hand, obviously ready for trouble. Ray considered calling out to them, but he was too far to be heard over the hum of the agitated crowd, and instead resolved to wait for Jeb and Mary to show themselves. In spite of Ray’s strained relationship with her husband, Mary and Rosemary were family, and there was no way they would turn him away. He’d stuffed Donald’s horse’s saddlebags to capacity; the leather pouches were already bulging from his most valuable weapons and stores of ammo, and he was ready for whatever the future threw at him. He’d debated following Lucas and offering to help with whatever he was up to, but had decided to stay and attach himself to the townspeople. His survival odds were far higher there than with a trail hound like Lucas and a sheriff who barely tolerated him.
“They’re just trying to scare us off,” one of the men near him said. “This is bull. I’m not falling for it.”
“You’re probably right. Some kind of game,” another agreed.
“Why don’t you find a high spot and see if you can spot this ship he was talking about?” Ray suggested.
“That’s what they want us to do. Isn’t it obvious? They want us to clear out.”
Ray didn’t argue. There was nothing in it for him to warn them any more clearly than they already had been, and unlike the mayor, he didn’t have the benefit of armed guards to protect him from the crowd’s wrath. People were odd when desperate and afraid, and Ray knew better than to risk being a martyr. If they were too lazy to go check for themselves, it wasn’t his problem.
“Live and let live,” he whispered under his breath, and turned to lead his newly acquired horse someplace less crowded, the prattle of his fellow squatters of little interest.
He settled in beneath a tree, tied his horse to a low-hanging branch, and slid his Confederate infantry cap forward, watching the preparations at the gate with interest, aware that th
e mayor’s warning was anything but a trick.
Chapter 4
“How are we going to get the carts up that trail? It’s tough enough to even walk a horse up it,” Hayden said, pulling even with Lucas as they crossed the bridge leading to the hills that concealed the underground base.
“There has to be another way up. We can have a couple of your men scout out the area while we’re removing the weapons.”
“What if that’s the only route?” Hayden persisted.
“Then it’ll be a long afternoon of carrying stuff down the hill to the carts.”
Lucas had been mulling over the problem as he’d ridden south, preferring not to engage in any conversation as he studied their surroundings. He supposed the approaching ship might take longer than he’d originally estimated to unload any men – the mouth of the bay hadn’t been dredged in six years, and silt had likely built up to where the ship would run aground if it tried to enter. That left it having to anchor along the coast and offload its force there, where the heavy surf and rough seas created by the approaching storm would make it difficult, if not impossible. But he didn’t want to share his thinking with the sheriff, who he could sense was looking for any excuse to foist the task of retrieving the weapons off on someone else, the most likely someone being Lucas.
“You think we’re making a mistake leaving like this? Overreacting?” Hayden asked.
“Don’t see any other choice, do you?”
They cleared the bridge and turned off the road, picking their way along the riverbank until they reached the sailboats. Hayden’s men considered the trail that led up into the hills with skeptical frowns, and Hayden shook his head.
“Gonna be hard to get a cart up that,” one of the men observed.
Lucas nodded. “We’ll leave them here for now. If we can’t find an easier way back, we’ll bring what we can down on the horses and load it here.”
“That sounds like double the work,” the man complained.
The Day After Never - Perdition (Book 6) Page 2
