She got up and walked over to check on the horses. They waited patiently and quietly while she napped, but she knew they must be hungry and probably thirsty too. They drank their fill from roadside puddles before they got here, but there were none of those here and she couldn’t take them to find any until Mitch returned. Lisa was thrilled at the recent acquisition of the horses. She’d loved to ride since the first time she tried it at her Uncle Brian’s place, and she’d begged her dad to get her a horse and he’d promised he would soon. She knew he would be happy that she had one now, and that he would love to ride with her. She’d named hers Arod after the horse Legolas rode, and like Amigo he was a good-natured and gentle saddle horse. She wanted to name the other two they had brought with them, but it made her sad thinking they had to trade them and they would never see them again after that, so she didn’t.
After assuring the horses that they would be leaving soon, Lisa crept through the woods to an opening in the bushes where she could look down the highway where Mitch had gone. It was as desolate as it had been when they arrived this morning, nothing moving, no sign of life to be seen among the broken down cars pushed to the shoulder with their windows smashed. Surely Mitch would be coming down that road soon. There was no reason for him to hang around long since all the trade goods other than the sample rifle were here with her. Could it be that they were showing him around? Letting him look at what they had available? Or was it possible that he’d met someone there he knew? Purvis was not that far from Brooklyn. Some of the people they’d known before might have made it here. At least she hoped so. She watched the road for a good twenty minutes and then crept back over to where the horses were.
“He’ll be back soon, guys,” she told them. “Mitch always does what he says he’s going to do. We’ll just have to wait a little longer.”
But a little longer brought no sign of Mitch. Lisa kept going back and forth to her vantage point overlooking the highway and each time it was the same as before. She was getting anxious as she ate some of the jerky from her saddlebag and noted the low angle of the sunlight filtering through the pines. It would be dark in two more hours. Why wasn’t Mitch back yet? It was hard to be patient when she could just ride down there to the town and see for herself, but she’d promised him she wouldn’t, and she wasn’t going to break that promise. Mitch knew what he was doing and she trusted his judgment when he said she mustn’t come looking for him.
The highway leading to Purvis was facing west, and she sat there watching the last red of the sunset fading into gray while looking desperately for the silhouette of Mitch riding back. But he did not, even as darkness fell and the temperature began to drop. Lisa knew she couldn’t build a fire this close to a road, as there was no telling who might come along during the night. She huddled in her blanket and tried to imagine what could have caused Mitch to stay so long. The nightmare imagery that was almost impossible to put from her mind was of him being shot as he rode into sight of the strangers that were waiting there. The more she thought about it, the more she feared it was true. Who would trust a stranger these days? And why should they? Bandits and murderers were everywhere, and anybody that still had a safe refuge would do all they could to defend it, just as she and the others had done at the Henley farm. She knew now that Mitch shouldn’t have taken such a chance. Trading post or not, the risk of people shooting first and asking questions later was just too great. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she shivered there in her blanket worrying about her brother. She had already lost her mom and dad, at least as far as she knew. She couldn’t bear to lose her only brother too. And what would she tell April? She knew April was in love with him, and he with her. It was obvious to everybody, even though they tried to hide it. As she sat there crying, Lisa knew this was going to be one of the longest nights of her life if Mitch didn’t show up soon.
Fourteen
MITCH STOOD PLANTED AT the entrance to the jail until Eddie, the one behind him with the rifle at his back, jabbed him hard in the ribs with the muzzle, forcing him to move forward across the threshold.
“You can’t just lock me up like a criminal. I haven’t broken any laws!” Mitch objected, though he already knew that these men couldn’t be reasoned with.
“I already told you, it’s standard procedure for dealing with armed strangers. Now get moving if you don’t want to be sitting in that cell nursing an ass whooping while you wait to see the sheriff!”
The office and processing area just inside the entranceway was bright and lit by sunlight from the windows. When the jailor opened the reinforced door leading to the cell block, Mitch was led down a dark corridor past rows of occupied cells, where the only daylight coming in was from a handful of tiny barred windows set into the concrete walls just below the level of the high ceiling. He tried not to glance at any of the inmates he was led past, and none seemed interested in the new arrival anyway. There was a somber feeling of hopelessness there, and Mitch wondered how long some of these people had been locked up and if they ever had a chance to get out for exercise and sunlight. Mitch had seen the inside of a jail before, when his dad took him to the one in their county where he carried the outlaws he’d arrested. That had been bad enough, but though cold and gray, it had been well lit with overhead fluorescent fixtures, while this place had the gloom of a medieval dungeon.
Mitch was led all the way to the end of the corridor, to the last cell on his left, which was even darker than the others. The jailor unlocked it with his key and slammed the door shut behind him after Eddie shoved Mitch inside. The three men then turned and walked out without another word, and realizing it wouldn’t do any good, Mitch said nothing else either. This was just utterly unbelievable. Locked up like a criminal! His entire world had changed yet again in the space of less than an hour.
He looked at the sparse fixtures within the cell, noting that the bunk consisted of only a filthy-looking, bare mattress, with no linens and no pillow. There was a sink and a nasty toilet that had no seat or lid, and that was it; just concrete walls and a floor, with steel bars in front caging him like an animal. He had ridden here with the full knowledge that his approach might get him shot by some over-zealous lookout, but the prospect of becoming a prisoner had never crossed his mind. To Mitch, getting shot would have been preferable, unless they let him out of here soon. Losing his freedom was always his biggest fear, and just having to attend school had seemed like a prison sentence most of the time. Mitch was born to be wild, to roam the forests and river bottoms like the primeval hunter he’d become. Now he was trapped and caged, and even before the three men who’d put him were out of the cellblock, his heart was racing in near panic as he began pacing his tiny enclosure.
Aside from the horror of confinement after so much time spent living free in the woods, Mitch was worried about his little sister waiting back there alone with the horses. Would she do as he said and stay put without coming to look for him? He thought so, but he could only imagine what would be going through her mind as the day went on by and turned to night without his return. He’d told her to go back to their camp on Black Creek if he wasn’t back by tomorrow, and he wanted to believe she would. But there was also the chance that the men who’d locked him up would send a party out to look for the guns and horses Mitch said he had. The only hope he had that they wouldn’t was that they didn’t believe anything else he said, so maybe they thought he was lying about that as well.
If Lisa did do as he told her, it would still be a dangerous journey for her to make alone. She would have to stay on the road at least as far as Brooklyn because of the horses, and she would have to travel only at night as they did coming here to have a chance of making it. And when she arrived, April would be frantic with worry after hearing that he hadn’t returned from the town. Mitch wondered what they would all do when the news sank in. He hoped they wouldn’t come looking for him, but he knew they probably would. There was so much to worry about it would drive him crazy if he let it. He knew he had to try and relax
and hope those men were telling the truth about letting him see this sheriff they spoke of. If the man were really away hunting, maybe he would be back tomorrow and if Mitch could see him, maybe he could convince him to believe his story and let him go. It was going to suck to spend even one night in this hellhole, but he knew he had to deal with it one way or another.
The long hours of afternoon seemed to drag by interminably, without any break in the monotony other than the occasional outcry of another prisoner on the block. No one came to bring them any food, and Mitch concluded that he’d arrived after the last mealtime, which might be only once a day. When night finally came, the cellblock he was locked in truly became a dungeon. In his corner cell it was so dark he couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face, but he knew every square inch of the tiny space by now and still he paced the floor, stopping only when he was so exhausted he could not go on. At least it was too dark to see the nasty mattress he had to lie on. He fell asleep listening to the hopeless mutterings and moans of his fellow prisoners he couldn’t see, many of them undoubtedly half-starved or suffering from untreated wounds.
* * *
Lisa Henley wasn’t sleepy because she had napped enough during the day and she was too worried about her brother to be tired. It was a cold night though, and there was little she could do other than sit in the dark with her back against a tree, wrapped in her blanket. Every hour or so, she got up and crept back down to the edge of the road, where she stood in silence, looking and listening for any signs of Mitch, or anything else moving in the night. Each time there was nothing but the occasional scream of a distant owl. The night seemed to take forever to pass, but finally, dawn came again and she eagerly awaited the sun that would bring warmth into the forest again.
Mitch had not returned and she didn’t know what she was going to do. She wanted to go and find out why, but she already knew something had gone wrong, and probably right after he got there. There was simply no reason at all she could think of that he would stay there in Purvis overnight without coming back for her or at least coming back for the trade guns and horses and to tell her what he was doing. By now the horses really needed water and she was going to have to lead them back down the road at least as far as the last puddles she’d seen, about a half a mile back to the east. Then she had to decide whether it would be best to wait there another day or head back to camp immediately to tell the others he was missing.
Before leaving with the horses, she placed Mitch’s unstrung bow and quiver of arrows on the ground near the tree where he’d hung them before leaving. Beside them she laid their father’s AR-15 and the two extra magazines he carried with it. Then she covered it all with pine straw and leaves to hide the weapons from anyone who might happen to wander through there by chance. Mitch would find them, of course, because he was an expert tracker and when he came back here, if he ever did, he would examine the ground carefully to read the sign that would tell him where she went. If she had to go all the way back to the camp without seeing him first, the last thing she wanted to do was take his weapons, especially his beloved bow. If he never returned, she would know where to get them eventually, but she didn’t even want to think about that.
She was wary about getting out into the open highway this close to town, so she pushed through the woods on foot, leading the three horses in a single file string until she was closer to where she remembered seeing water. Thankfully, it was before the Interstate, with its creepy, exposed lanes and all those derelict cars and trucks. She was nervous every minute while the horses stood there drinking by the side of the road, but still there was no sign of people and when they had their fill, she led them back into the roadside woods and tied them off. She wanted to go back to the place she’d been waiting one last time, just to make sure before going on across the Interstate and heading back to Brooklyn.
She stayed there most of the morning, watching the highway from the same vantage point where she’d waited yesterday and still there was nothing. Mitch didn’t return and it was looking more and more like he wasn’t going to. The fear she felt for him was a crushing weight that made her feel like collapsing to the ground, but she knew she had to pull herself together and be strong. She couldn’t help him alone, but she could get back to the camp as quickly and possible and tell the others. Otherwise, they would assume something happened to both of them. After one last look down the highway to the west, she turned and made her way back to the horses.
Lisa knew it would be better to wait until dark to travel, but the trip here from Brooklyn had taken her and Mitch two nights. If she left now, at mid day, she felt she could make it there by the following morning. She would stop by Mr. Holloway’s camp and tell him what happened, because if Mitch did come back from the town after she left, he would also stop there to see if the old man had seen her.
Crossing the Interstate with the three horses was the scariest part of the journey, because she felt so exposed and vulnerable with such long sight lines in either direction. Once she had passed that dreaded obstacle without incident though, she began to feel more at ease riding along the narrow county roads that made up the rest of the route. At least there she would not be spotted at a great distance, and the woods on both sides that reached almost to the shoulders of the road made for a ready escape route.
She had her Ruger .22 hunting rifle that she preferred above all others, but one of the loaded AK-47s was also close at hand in case she encountered trouble and needed its greater range and power. It was surprising really that all these roads were so deserted, but like Mitch had said, the farms and homes along them had already been looted and burned. There was nothing left to defend, and those that had tried were already dead. Maybe some of them had gone to Purvis or a similar town or refuge, but from what she’d seen since the blackout, Lisa figured more had perished than not.
She rode on, backtracking their route from two nights ago, and soon she was riding in darkness again, stopping only for short breaks to rest the horses and relieve the unaccustomed fatigue of hours in the saddle. Dawn found her at the crossing of Highway 49, just west of where Mr. Holloway was camping on the bank of the creek. She dismounted and stood scanning the roadway for several minutes; relieved to have completed what she was sure was the most dangerous leg of the journey.
Fifteen
MITCH WAS AWAKE WELL before daylight, jolted out of restless sleep by a nightmare of the events of the previous day. Opening his eyes in the pitch-black darkness of the jail cell, he took several deep breaths to calm his body and nerves before sitting upright on the bunk. He had no idea what time it was or how long he’d slept. That he did at all was simply due to the exhaustion of traveling through two nights in a row, with only a short nap yesterday morning before he rode into town. Thinking of that last ride brought to mind his sister, and he wondered what she was doing and what she must be thinking by now. He hoped she realized he had encountered trouble and that she was already on her way back to the safety of the camp. He didn’t think that Bailey fellow believed his story about having more horses and guns to trade, so maybe he wouldn’t bother going out looking for them.
Mitch stretched and walked the three steps to the bars at the front of his cell, grabbing them with frustration and squeezing until he was shaking all over with fury. There was no escape from this concrete and steel cage. He’d dismissed that thought after a quick inspection within minutes of the door slamming shut behind him. His only hope was that they would let him out, but when might that be? Mitch didn’t know how he would endure the interminable waiting. If that sheriff really was off hunting, almost anything could cause a delay of an extra day or even several.
His mind drifted back to the cozy, rustic lean-to they had built deep in the forest, and he pictured April’s face as she sat there, staring into the flames of the campfire with Kimberly asleep in her arms. He pulled at the bars until his shoulders felt like they would dislocate as he thought of how badly he wanted to be there with her. She wouldn’t know anything was wro
ng yet. At this point, he and Lisa were not overdue, and he could imagine the group sitting there chatting about the things the two of them might see on their journey, and what they might bring back with them on the packhorses. April would be worried a little anyway, just because he was away; that was a given. But she had faith in him and believed in his abilities enough to trust that he would return. Now, she was going to be devastated if Lisa arrived without him, telling them he had gone to the town and she hadn’t seen him since. Mitch let go of the bars and turned to kick the adjacent wall to vent his rage. It did nothing but knock him off balance, almost causing him to fall as he stumbled in the dark to the opposite side of the cell. An angry voice from across the corridor reminded him that he was not alone here, no matter how much it seemed like it in the dark.
Darkness After Series (Book 4): The Savage Darkness Page 9
