Maggie untied the pack horse, and handed the rope up to O’Reilly who then dallied it around his saddle horn. He nudged his horse in the sides with his spurs, and his small pack train started off, heading for the two-rut trail leading down the canyon and calling back over his should, “I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
“Drive careful,” came Maggie’s reply, surprising a laugh out of him and lightening his mood as he headed away from Hideaway.
It took five hours of hot, sweaty riding, but finally O’Reilly began to see increasing signs of habitation. He’d headed for the S Lazy V headquarters, instead of the remote ranch house Maggie had in mind when she came up with the chicken collecting idea. That house was easily a day and a half’s ride with a pack train. The S Lazy V was closer, though not as close as Eagle Camp, and he was familiar with the route. He’d go to Eagle Camp another day, he decided. Just now he didn’t feel he could deal with any more visitations from the past.
The journey to the caves had stirred up many memories he’d have preferred to leave buried, but it couldn’t be helped. Yesterday, with Mark’s and Maggie’s assistance, he’d shifted as many supplies as they could spare into the small cave in preparation for its possible use, even though Maggie obviously still wasn’t totally sold on the idea. Mark, on the other hand, was all for creating a secret hideaway.
The land out of the canyon varied between dried grasses, clumps of yucca and the occasional thick standing of shaggy bark and alligator juniper. At times the land rolled gently, then suddenly, without warning, a rock escarpment would thrust it way out of the surrounding hills. As he drew closer to the S Lazy V headquarters, the two-rut track he’d been following joined another track and then another, each appearing more and more like a real road. In the distance he could see the tops of the large elms that grew around the barns and outbuildings of the ranch, and then the top of the barn itself. There were no signs of human activity and he breathed a sigh of relief, tempered by a pang of sorrow. As much as he didn’t want to try to explain his presence on the ranch, he also felt grief that Tompkins, the man who’d given his dad a job, his parents a place to live, and he and his brother the best place to grow up he could imagine, was gone. This ranch had been in Tompkins’ family for five generations, and the odds of that continuing on to the sixth were slim indeed.
As O’Reilly drew closer to the cluster of buildings, a small herd of horses ran up out of a pasture on his right, their tails high in the air, snorting. Sun glinted off their red, brown and yellow coats, white markings flashing brightly. This band was made up of about ten mares, their foals, and one of the ranch’s stallions. If he remembered right, there would be at least one more group in another pasture, further to the east.
Looking toward the barn he dreaded seeing other horses, and maybe cattle, lying dead in the pens that surrounded the compound. When he didn’t see any sign of carcasses, or the buzzards that would feed off of them, he felt a knot of tension loosen. He hadn’t realized how much apprehension he’d built up knowing that any animals that had been left in the pens and corrals would have long since run out of food and water if they hadn’t been able to escape. Apparently whoever had been living here at the headquarters had freed the horses and any cattle before either dying or heading into the APZs. He didn’t know which to hope for, though he knew which was most likely.
He glanced up toward a small hill a short distance from the compound. That was the family’s cemetery. It was there that Tompkins’ ancestors were laid to rest, and it was there that Tompkins would want to be if he had died. O’Reilly didn’t think he wanted to go up to see if there was a new headstone, or several. He was tired of dealing with death.
Riding into the barnyard he was met with silence, broken only by the sounds of birds and the gentle rustle of the wind in the elms. No horses nickered, no cattle lowed, no dogs barked. Dismounting, he tied Ace, his gelding, to the nearby hitching post, then proceeded to disconnect his pack train, tying each of these horses in their turn to the long log rail. He figured if necessary, he could collect some of the other horses from the pasture to act as pack animals for the trip home, that is if he could find saddles, or pack saddles for them. Any extra horses brought back could then be turned out in the upper pastures and caught and used as needed.
He unsaddled Ace first, then removed pack saddles from three of the other five horses, two horses having come equipped with only halters. Finally, he turned the animals out one at a time into the large turn-out attached to the barn. Checking the water tank and finding it low, he turned the faucet, hoping that it was still connected to the windmill system as it was when he was a kid. When the fresh water gushed out, splashing into the tank, he blew out a relieved breath. At least he wouldn’t have to haul water.
The eerie silence played on his mind and he determined to get what he needed and get out of this place as quickly as possible. Silence was much easier to take out in the middle of the rangeland, where silence was expected. Here it was like a sliver in your hand, a constant irritation, never completely leaving you alone.
He walked into the large open barn, noticing the alfalfa hay stacked inside.
Plenty of feed, he thought, No way to get it to the animals unless we move up here and that’s not going to happen any time soon. He shook his head. The abundance was something to keep in mind for the future, though, should next winter become severe enough to drive them out of the canyon.
Using his pocket knife, he opened a bale of hay and tossed several green leafy flakes over the half wall of the run in connected to the pen where his horses were milling around. After drinking their fill, they wandered into the barn at the sound of the hay thumping into the feeder. There was some jockeying for position as they determined who was the boss, then they settled down to eat. Leaning on the half wall, O’Reilly watched them a few minutes, loath to begin what he was here to do. He found himself wishing that Maggie and Mark were with him and wondered what they were up to back in Hideaway.
Damn, he thought, not two months ago in the APZ I was wishing I could get away from people. I wanted to be done with them, their bickering and complaining, and the scheming of those people in charge. Now here I am, missing one of the most irritating women I’ve ever met and a know nothing kid. There is something seriously wrong with me. Got to be.
Finally, taking a deep breath and shoring up his resolve he turned away from the quietly eating horses and into the dark, dusty shadows of the barn. Walking into the tack room he found saddles, bridles and pack saddles. Again good. He’d brought several of the horses with only halters, hoping to find proper pack saddles and panniers in the barn. He was glad he wouldn’t wind up improvising packs on the way home. Coming without the proper equipment was a gamble, but one that had paid off. Hopefully the rest of his bets would pay off as well.
Once he determined that all the tack he needed was in the tack room, he walked back out into the sunlit barnyard and headed for the chicken coop on the far side of the hard packed dirt yard, near some small outbuildings. He could see that the door was open allowing the birds free run. Luckily for him, however, some of the chickens had stayed close to home, pecking around in the dust, clucking and squawking to themselves. It was a miracle, he thought, that the entire flock hadn’t fallen prey to coyotes and hawks.
A sobering thought flitted though his mind, reminding him that maybe the reason the chickens had survived was because there was so much abundant food elsewhere; horses and cattle trapped without water, humans who didn’t make it to medical help in time. These predators weren’t picky. Quickly quashing those mental images, he turned his mind toward the problem of conducting a chicken roundup.
If he could find some grain and scatter it back in the coop, he thought, he would be able to capture enough of the stupid birds to take back to the Hideaway. He grimaced at the thought of the five hour ride with a basket of complaining chickens tied to a horse behind him and briefly considered telling Maggie that there hadn’t been any fowl in sight, not a one. He
didn’t like chickens much, but Maggie was right when she said that the eggs and meat would be a welcomed and valuable addition to their diet.
Of course, he figured, probably after the ride home I’ll never want to eat a chicken or touch an egg again. Actually, he thought, he might get fed up and feed them all to the coyotes before he ever got home. Maybe he should look for ear plugs when he was in one of the houses. That, or spices for fixing roast chicken.
Luck was shining on O’Reilly’s head, because inside the door to the coop, he found a fifty-five gallon drum half filled with chicken feed which he scooped out and scattered on the dirt floor of the enclosure. From all corners of the barnyard chickens came at a run, kicking up dust and squawking like a bunch of school kids, reminding him all over again why he didn’t like the noisy things. Then he laughed. Twenty minutes ago he had been fussing over the silence, now he was fussing over the noise. Guess there was no pleasing him, just as his mother sometimes said.
Waiting until every visible chicken entered the coop, he shut and latched the door. Looking in, he was able to count somewhere around ten hens and three roosters. The damn things wouldn’t hold still long enough for a good count, but however many there were, it should make Maggie happy if he managed to get them back to her without either ringing their necks, or killing himself.
Finally, with all outside chores done, and having procrastinated as long as possible, O’Reilly turned to face the nearest of the three ranch houses, one of the two meant for the families of the hired hands. The owner’s house, a larger redwood and granite affair, was further away, just visible on the side of a nearby hill.
The best plan of action, he thought, was to head for the closest house, go through it from top to bottom and collect all the items needed near the front. Maggie had given him a “shopping list” of things she felt she needed. Like I’m running out to the grocery store, he snorted. But he’d better keep an eye out for those things to keep her happy.
After one house had been thoroughly scoured, he’d move to the next, then the next. Once he was finished with all three, he’d know how many horses he’d need to carry all the supplies, or whether he’d have to cache some things to retrieve later. If he could complete clearing all the houses that afternoon, he planned to saddle the horses, load the provisions, gather the chickens, throw them on the last horse in line, as far away from him as possible, and head back home. The abandoned ranch filled him with an ill defined dread, and he didn’t want to spend the night there if at all possible.
He felt a little start at the thought of Hideaway as “home.” No place had been “home” for an awful long time, and he wasn’t sure if he liked thinking that way now. Home implied a place where you had roots, where you wanted to stay. In this case, though, home was a primitive building at the bottom of a canyon. Hidden, but still vulnerable to attack, and housing an exceptionally stubborn woman and her son.
Home is where the heart is, indeed, he snorted.
The back door to the first house was weathered brown wood, blending well with the graying green paint. When he tried the knob, it opened easily. He wasn’t surprised that the door was unlocked. Often this far out in the country people left their doors unlocked much of the time. You never knew when someone might need shelter from bad weather, and the next time it might be you needing to shelter somewhere else. When he was a kid, his parents had never locked their doors. However, with the encroachment of city people further and further into the rural landscape, some of their city habits, good and bad, were bound to come with them.
Years ago he’d nearly died laughing when a friend of Sarah’s came to visit at their home far out in the country. After getting out of her car, the woman had flicked the electronic lock button on her key ring. The whoop-whoop of the car’s locking and alarm system was so out of place in the country that it seemed to come from another planet. He’d badly wanted to ask her if she was concerned that a jackrabbit with a submachine gun was considering stealing her Camero, but one look from Sarah had squashed that question in his throat.
Of course, the city people did bring more crime with them, and looking back at how things had turned out, maybe that woman wasn’t too far off the mark when she’d engaged her car’s security system.
Opening the door, O’Reilly stepped into a mud room that opened into a small kitchen. Green and white linoleum covered the floors, spotted here and there with colorful hand braided throw rugs. The sun shone through bright yellow curtains hanging in the windows, giving the kitchen a warm golden glow. A wooden table with two chairs was tucked into one corner, while on the sideboard sat two coffee mugs, waiting to be washed. The entire atmosphere gave him the eerie feeling that the residents of the house were merely out of the room and would be back momentarily. A closer look, however, revealed a layer of dust had coated everything with at least two month’s worth of accumulation. No one had been in this room for quite awhile.
O’Reilly headed for the pantry and began gathering the goods that he would need to take back to Hideaway with him. Fortunately for him, it appeared that the residents had made a trip into town shortly before being forced, either by disease or authority, to leave the home. He found a twenty pound bag of flour, and one of sugar, both unopened. A ten pound bag of cornmeal, as well as a container of a generic brand of shortening; some yeast; a large, mostly full sack of rice; and two five pound bags of potatoes, beginning to go to seed, were also added to his stash.
In a plastic grocery bag he found under the sink he placed bottles of spices, salt and pepper, as well as any other small items he thought might be useful. He didn’t bother to look in the refrigerator. Since the power had been out, anything in there would have turned long ago.
Coffee, he said to himself. Where do these people keep the damned coffee. He figured his life wouldn’t be worth spit if he didn’t come back with at least some form of caffeine, so he felt a huge sense of relief when he finally located two plastic containers of ground coffee under the sink and reverently added them to growing heap, along with a box of tea, a bottle of dish soap and another of laundry detergent that he found nearby.
Leaving the kitchen, he headed for one of several closed doors on the far side of the living room. Opening the first door he reached, he found himself in a bathroom where he helped himself to the towels in the linen cabinet, as well as those hanging on the towel holders. He also picked up the soap and toothpaste. Eventually they would have to make due with homemade, but there was no sense in letting this go to waste.
After taking these items back to his pile in the kitchen, he returned to the next door in line, finding himself in a bedroom. He gathered the blankets from the bed, as well as some that were folded neatly onto a shelf in the closet. These he also took back to the kitchen and his growing stash.
As quickly as possible he finished going through the last bedroom, managing to find some jeans and shirts that would fit him, as well as more blankets and sheets. Then he returned to the kitchen for the final time and carried his treasure trove out into the yard to await loading onto the horses.
Glancing at the sun, he realized that there was no way he was going to gather everything, pack and head back before dark. The feeling of dread intensified and he briefly considered heading out into one of the nearby pastures and camping there for the night. The thought was discarded quickly, since the time wasted going out, setting up camp, then returning in the morning could be used more wisely.
I’m not staying in one of those empty houses, though, he thought. I’ll just bunk down in the barn with the horses. These buildings give me the creeps.
Hurrying to get done before dark, he moved on to the second house. As before, he headed for the back door, walking into a mud room and kitchen that was a twin to the first. This house was also neat and well cared for, though there was an undefinable odor permeating the building, reminding him of a septic tank that needed pumping. It was similar though not quite the same; faint but irritating nonetheless.
Duplicating his search
pattern from the first house, he moved through the kitchen, gathering supplies, then ventured out into the living room.
As he stood, hand on the door knob to the bathroom, he heard it. Thump, whump. Followed by a high thin cry from the bedroom furthest from the bath.
What was that?
Turning toward the distant bedroom, hand reaching for the gun at his hip, he called out.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
Receiving no answer, O’Reilly began to walk toward the far door, drawing his weapon as he went. Quietly he approached the door, holding the pistol in his right hand, he reached out with his left and turned the knob. In an abrupt movement designed to take any attacker off guard, he quickly swung the door open, bringing the gun to bear on the room, quickly scanning for any assailants.
The smell struck him first, like a solid wall; a putrid stench of human waste and illness. A split second later his eyes registered the sight of a form lying on the bed underneath a thin sheet, other blankets tangled and kicked into a pile at the foot of the bed and on the floor.
She might have been pretty once, but it was hard to tell. Her facial bones jutted out under her skin, reminding him of a piece of paper mache where someone had laid tissue paper over a sharp frame. Her brown hair was matted with sweat and tangled on the pillow.
Her eyes were closed and at first he thought she was dead, until he heard her deep raspy breathing, slow and irregular. Holstering his weapon, he softly approached the bed, watching the still form as he came closer.
Apparently this was a late victim of the flu that had ravaged the world’s population. Most people who had fallen victim, had done so early on in the onslaught. However, the disease moved in waves, and some who had managed to avoid contagion during the first or second wave, fell victim later on. It appeared this woman was one of those. Either she had been able to remain isolated here on the ranch, or more likely, she was a ghost who had run when the order for concentration came, carrying the disease with her. From her appearance, he would never know. Most people who made it to this stage of the illness never recovered, even with extensive medical intervention, none of which was available here. Unfortunately he had seen an uncountable number of people in this condition during his last months as a sheriff’s deputy, prior to the reorganization and his rebirth as an Enforcer.
Gone to Ground Page 10
