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Get Out of Denver (Denver Burning Book 1)

Page 11

by Algor X. Dennison


  “We must have done miles and miles already today,” Carrie remarked over a brief lunch of jerky and granola. “How much farther do you think we have to go?”

  McLean got out his map and compared their position to the location of his ranch. “Well, we’ve been taking it pretty easy, actually. Yesterday we only covered about eight miles with all that winding around. Today we’ve already done six so far, but that only puts us twelve miles on come sundown. At this rate it could be five more days to the ranch.”

  He let that sink in. Five wasn’t a big number, but it suddenly seemed like a long time to them. A lot of riding, a lot of camping. None of them had been on a wilderness trip that long in many years.

  “I’m hoping that we can gradually speed up, now that we know what we’re doing with the horses. We ought to be able to do twenty miles a day easy. On straight, level ground thirty or forty would be doable, more if we were in a hurry. But on these trails twenty would be fine with me. We have to find our way past these hills and mountains, and the last thing we want is to break a leg, so we have to go real slow at the steep and rocky parts.”

  Carrie patted her horse’s neck. “I take back what I said. These mountains are huge!”

  “It’s a serious journey,” McLean agreed. “Hopefully we’ll get out of this rocky, twisting country and into some more open meadows and wider canyons.”

  “Well, let’s get going then,” JD said, swinging himself back up into the saddle. “I like camping as much as the next guy, but I’d just as soon get to the ranch and know where we stand. I have a feeling there’s a lot of work waiting for us there.”

  They took fewer breaks that afternoon and pushed on until almost sunset. They were in the deep mountain country now, intentionally far from any major roads or popular cabin valleys. Steep cliffs rose around them, with pines covering every hillside that wasn’t bare rock. By the dying sun’s orange glow they set up another camp site by a little stagnant pond at the head of a wide, empty valley.

  Dinner that night was quieter. The group put most of their energy into the little tasks required to keep the horses and themselves in good shape. They went to bed without much conversation, each of them inwardly daunted at the situation they found themselves in. Out here, even a small accident or misstep could be dangerous. There was no one to call for help, no one to rely on but each other. A serious injury would slow them down for days, and a small scrape could get infected and cause a lot of trouble, on either them or the horses.

  The next morning they broke camp and hit the trail again after McLean reviewed the route on the map.

  “This wilderness is downright daunting when you’re on foot,” DJ said, eyeing the distant end of the valley ahead of them. It was wreathed in mist which obscured the area for now but would soon burn off. “What I’d give for a nice, straight highway right now.”

  McLean nodded. “We only did about eleven miles yesterday. This is slow going. I thought the horses would speed us up substantially. In the open they would, but on these narrow, winding mountain trails we almost might as well be on foot.”

  “Well, why don’t we head toward two-eighty-five?” DJ asked. “We’re probably, what, four miles north of it now? If we could get onto it we’d probably be able to get twenty miles west by nightfall.”

  “Only if it’s empty,” JD chipped in. “Otherwise we’d have a lot of people to deal with, maybe worse. Remember the soldiers we saw.”

  “I know,” DJ said. “But they were following the freeway. That’s far to the north of us. Anyway, this wears on me. I’ve never done any backpacking before like you guys.”

  “Neither have I, DJ,” Carrie told him. “I thought I was in good shape, but I am getting pretty sore and we’re only two days in. And not just saddle-sore. My face is getting chapped from the wind and sun, and my legs hurt.”

  “Oh. Well, I meant more mentally,” DJ replied. “But I hear you about the chapping.”

  “Anybody know any good trail songs?” JD asked. “That ought to help your state of mind. How about--”

  “This isn’t The Sound of Music,” McLean broke in. “If you burst into song and somebody comes after us, we’re leaving you behind for bait.”

  “Come on, you wouldn’t let him play his harmonica,” Carrie protested. “Now we can’t sing either? Maybe you need some candy to sweeten your mood.”

  “Hey, I’m not trying to be the bad guy,” McLean said. “I’m not even the leader here, I’m just the only one of us who…” He stopped himself before he said something that would alienate him from the others. “Anyway, you’re all adults. Sing if you must, but let’s try to stay focused on our goal.”

  Nobody wanted to sing anymore, but Carrie rode up alongside McLean and handed him a piece of hard candy from her pack. She smiled at him, and he took it with a grunt. It did raise his spirits a little, but they drooped again when it began to rain.

  The clouds had been slowly moving in all morning, but they closed around the mountains and grew dark and heavy quickly. The rain was soft at first but became a steady drumming on the hoods of the riders’ jackets, and then larger drops started splashing off the horses’ necks and soaking everything. Parts of the trail where they had to get past large rocks became trickier than before, and DJ’s horse slipped dangerously on one.

  McLean called for a halt when they got to a fork in the trail. A sign for hikers and mountain bikers pointed the way south to a trailhead. “This is the closest we’ll get to the highway. We could go south here and scope out the road, see if it’s safe and will allow us to travel easier. Otherwise we have to head northwest for a way, up over that pass there.”

  They all stared through the drizzling rain and fog to the mountain pass a few miles on. It was several hundred feet higher and the pass itself was completely obscured by clouds.

  “I’m definitely for the highway,” DJ said. “If we could go faster and safer on the road, we could be out of this mess by sundown. I’m not looking forward to camping in the rain up here.”

  “I vote we check out the highway, too,” Carrie said. “If it doesn’t work out, we can always backtrack.”

  “Well, we can as long as we aren’t killed by desperate people on the road,” JD said ominously. “Or followed back this way.”

  “And it would set us back several miles, uphill on the way back,” McLean added. “But if the road is clear, we could make a lot better time. DJ’s horse would appreciate it; I think it’s the least sure-footed of them.”

  “Hey, don’t sugar-coat it. I’m a terrible rider,” DJ confessed. “I don’t want to take the whole group down with me. If you think we should stick to the trail, I’ll follow.”

  Carrie shook her head. “No, let’s go down to the highway. I think it’s worth it. What’s the risk? There are four of us, and we have horses and guns. I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

  “Okay,” McLean said. “Let’s get down there quickly, and see how it looks. It’s about two miles south. When we get close, no singing or unnecessary talking. We don’t know what we’ll find on the road.”

  They turned off and followed the southward trail down a series of hills and ravines. They had to be careful in steep spots, but the going was easier than the steady climb they had made all day, and within an hour they neared the highway. There was no sound of cars to tell them how close it was, but on a crest in the trail that gave them a view over the treetops below they glimpsed part of the paved road curving away around the mountain.

  “We’ll leave our horses by that cluster of pines,” McLean told the others. “Go check it out on foot, silently, then come back for the horses if we’re all clear.” He asked DJ and JD to stay with the horses. JD half-jokingly grumbled that McLean just wanted his own alone time with Carrie, and McLean let it slide because he didn’t want to discuss his real reasons: JD was unpredictable and loud, and he didn’t know how DJ would handle it if they had to turn back and retrace their steps.

  McLean and Carrie, taking only their
guns and a pair of binoculars, headed down the trail together on foot. It was a relief to be off the horses and free of backpack straps. McLean noticed that Carrie’s Gore-Tex jacket was making a swishing sound as she moved, and showed her how to carry herself more quietly. They were soon out of site of the others, and got some relief from the rain under evergreen boughs that criss-crossed over the trail.

  Before they got even close to the road, however, they heard a gunshot. Immediately they froze, and McLean pulled his hood off to hear better. Another shot followed, and this one was accompanied by a yell and a scream. The sounds came from the valley ahead where the highway lay, not back up the trail. There was a pause, and then one more shot rang out.

  They waited breathlessly for a several minutes. No more sounds came from the highway down below, which was almost entirely obscured from their view by trees. Down the trail behind them JD came scrambling over the mud and rocks, stopping when he spotted them.

  McLean gestured for him to go back to the horses, that he and Carrie would go to the road to investigate. JD nodded and retreated back up the trail.

  McLean continued cautiously down toward the highway, rifle in hand. Carrie followed. When they came to a final ridge that overlooked the canyon floor, they left the trail and picked their way carefully through the bushes to a vantage point above the road. Getting down on his belly and motioning for Carrie to do likewise, McLean crawled to an outcropping of rock and peered over the edge, making sure that only his head was visible and that it was close enough to the rocks to avoid sticking out.

  He could only see parts of the roadway through the trees and boulders that covered the hillside that led from their position to where the asphalt began. But the view was enough. He didn’t even need the binoculars he had brought to know that they could not travel this route. He held up his hand behind him to warn Carrie to stay back.

  On the shoulder of the roadway under some trees, a small group of rough-looking men were standing around a body on the ground. They carried guns, and one of them was going through the pockets of their victim. It was pretty clear what had happened moments before.

  In the bushes on the far side of the road, something terrible was being done to another victim, silently and uninterrupted. In the center of the highway a large man stood with a shotgun at his shoulder, talking to a woman in black leather who also carried a gun.

  Several people were moving up the road farther on, slinking quickly away from the scene. McLean could see a child among that group. He spotted two more such groups along the road. Pulling out his binoculars, he could see that they were not in good shape. Most didn’t even have rain-proof or warm clothing. One had a bike that the gunmen had allowed past, but he was walking it because it had a flat tire. Another carried a single box of cereal, all that he’d been allowed to keep from a shopping cart of supplies that he had wheeled all the way from Denver, only to lose it to the gunmen.

  A shout drew McLean’s attention to the part of the road coming from Denver. A young couple had been spotted approaching the curve the gunmen were occupying, but had turned around and fled. “Go after them!” the shotgun man called to his cronies by the dead body. “See what they got on them!” Two of them took off down the road with their guns raised, hooting and hollering.

  McLean lowered his binoculars and let out a long breath. Then he saw Carrie next to him, staring down at the scene below with an expression of tight horror on her face.

  “What are they doing to that poor…” she whispered, trailing off with a shudder. Her eyes strayed to McLean’s rifle. “Shoot them, McLean!” she mouthed, nudging him in the side. “Do something! We can’t let them do that to these people.”

  McLean shook his head and his mouth puckered in bitter pain. “Can’t. There are at least eight of them down there. If they see or hear us, we’re all dead. Let’s go.” Silently, he backed away from the edge of the rocks and, keeping low, moved back through the bushes and up the hill through the trees.

  Minutes later they were back at the horses. McLean quietly told the others what they’d seen, and they gathered themselves for the long, hard slog back up the trail to the mountain pass.

  The rain came down even harder.

  Chapter 11 : Thief in the Night

  Day four of their journey brought the riders near the Keystone ski resort. McLean was confident it would be abandoned, but still wanted to avoid roads, so they kept to the forested hills until they had to cross the Blue River Valley. Here they stopped to scope out the area with binoculars. They didn’t see any traffic near the highway, although they could be reasonably sure that there were inhabited cabins in the area.

  While they were stopped, Carrie suddenly shushed JD and DJ, who were bickering about who could construct a better survival bow and arrows. “Do you hear that?”

  They all listened. Gradually a distant buzz, very faint, resolved itself into the sound of an aircraft. McLean scanned the skies with his binoculars but couldn’t see anything.

  “It’s got to be pretty high up,” DJ said.

  “There! I see it,” JD pointed. A tiny speck was moving overhead, far above the white clouds that were scudding by on the wind.

  McLean focused on it. “It’s not a military jet… but it doesn’t look like a passenger liner either. What is that thing?” He passed the binoculars around to the others.

  “Its wings are really long… hang on, it’s banking slightly,” DJ said, spinning the focus knob. “Whoa! It has no cockpit!”

  McLean grabbed the binoculars again. “What do you mean, no cockpit? Hey, you’re right, just a smooth gray lobe in front. No other windows or markings, either. At least not that I can make out at this distance.”

  “Gotta be a drone,” DJ said. The others looked at him.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” McLean said. “A surveillance drone, probably. Because I don’t see any armaments on it. You think it’s seen us?”

  “Too late to hide now,” DJ said. “If we scramble for cover the movement will be easier to spot. Everybody stay still until it’s well past us. Of course, if it has infrared cameras then it’s already seen us and there’s nowhere we can hide.”

  The drone continued on its way, flying over the mountains toward Denver. Within minutes it was out of sight.

  “What does that mean?” JD asked. “Was it a U.S. plane?”

  “I’m pretty sure it was,” DJ said. “Although some other countries probably have them too. Somebody’s still fielding aircraft, anyway.”

  “Or it was just out of the EMP radius somehow, and is flying blind until it runs out of fuel?” McLean mused.

  “No way could it still be up there after four days,” JD said. “It would have had to refuel at least a couple times, or have been launched recently. Gosh dang, what if it’s Chinese? What if we’ve been invaded?”

  McLean rolled his eyes. “Knock it off with the China stuff, will you, JD? You’re going to end up shooting DJ just because he looks Asian. Until we see foreign soldiers in uniform actually shooting at us, I forbid you to point your gun at anyone.”

  JD grunted, and they moved out after making sure the coast was clear. To avoid the freeway, they traveled south of the resort town of Breckenridge and came around to the west again, camping that night in the mountains due east of Aspen. There were some people on mountain bikes making their way up highway 9 toward the cabins communities near the resorts, but they were easily avoided.

  The wanderers turned south again the following morning and spent most of the fifth day of their journey meandering between the huge mountain slopes that made up this part of the Rockies. In a car they could have gotten through all this in a few hours, or passed over it in minutes with a plane. But having to chart a course over and around every rock, hump, and canyon made it agonizingly slow.

  They were just stopping for the night, pulling their packs off the horses and searching for a good spot for the fire, when they heard a rifle shot. JD went prone, and DJ ducked behind his horse.

  McLean
and Carrie froze where they were, listening. The sun was down behind the mountains already and the sky was darkening rapidly. They couldn’t see a threat, and although the sound of the shot echoed around the valley they were in, it hadn’t sounded terribly close. It was muffled, as if there were a ridge or a forest in between them and the shooter.

  “Let’s move on,” McLean said, speaking low so that only his companions would hear. “We can’t stay here tonight. Guns out, walk the horses for the first mile to keep our noise down. Except for you, DJ. But walk your horse slowly.”

  They quickly slung their packs back on the saddle and headed farther down the valley, looking all around. McLean and JD carried their rifles in their hands.

  “I wish I had some night vision goggles,” JD remarked. “My skin crawls. I’m sure we’re being watched.”

  “If they haven’t shot at us yet, they either can’t or don’t intend to,” McLean said. “If they saw or heard us, they’re probably just waiting for us to go. Let’s oblige them. We don’t need to meet whoever that was, and they obviously don’t want to meet us.”

  “What if it was just a hunter?” DJ asked. “Somebody shooting their dinner? We don’t know that they’re hostile.”

  “That’s right,” McLean answered. “But the reason we’re alive while many in Denver are not is because we don’t take chances. The fewer people we meet out here, the better. There will be time later for making connections. When we can do it from a position of power.”

  They continued on well past dark, until they were satisfied that they had left the shooter far behind. When they finally stopped, it was cold and they couldn’t find any water, so they just tied the horses up in some trees. The horses weren’t very comfortable in this place, whinnying and snorting as if they were ready to keep moving on. But everyone was tired and wanted to save their strength for daylight, when they could make much better time on the trail.

 

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