8

As they prepared for departure, Kevin watched Marsh embrace his son and say, “The enclave knows my worth. They’ll soon know yours. You wait. The elders will invite you back.”

Caleb started to climb into the wagon, only to be halted by Kevin’s mother. Abigail pointed down the empty road leading east. “The people out there want to either condemn you as some especially evil spawn or refashion you into a component of their next power grab. This is your talent and your life. Hard as it is to look beyond your current distress, I suggest now is the time for you to start deciding what you want to do with your gifts.”

Caleb nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

Abigail revealed a rare smile. “Does it, now.”

“Yes ma’am. It does. And I’ll treat your words as a parting gift.”

“That’s good, young man,” Abigail replied. “For that is how they were intended.”

Kevin noticed that Caleb’s father stood back a ways with his arms crossed, observing everything. Kevin liked how his mother’s words both calmed Caleb and forged a deeper bond with Marsh. He knew any number of such clans—he’d eaten at the table of many, slept in their barns, and managed to save quite a few when they lost everything to the militia’s onslaught.

Abigail walked over to where Kevin stood beside the second wagon. “The time for regret is over,” she said to him. “You may not indulge this any longer. I forbid it.”

Kevin did not know how to respond. His mother was using her classroom voice, loud enough to carry. He sensed she intended all of them to hear and obey.

“Your safety depends upon focusing fully on what lies ahead. Tell me you understand.”

“Yes ma’am.” He watched as both Marsh and Caleb nodded slow agreement.

“Pay close attention. Heroes of past ages held one quality lost to the mists of time, but vital to your future. They managed to lift themselves beyond the fractured moment and see the bigger picture, the higher purpose.” She let that sink in a moment, then continued, “What if everything you have lost, everything you count as error, was in truth meant to prepare you for what lies ahead? What if you were required to lose it all in order to gain something far greater?”

Kevin blinked. This was his mother’s innate ability, he knew. To rock other people’s worlds, shake foundations and assumptions. Grant a new perspective to the old and fearsome and tawdry.

Kevin embraced his mother, slender and strong as a saber. She watched him climb into the wagon seat, then lifted her hand in farewell, a somewhat formal gesture that in the soft grey light seemed proper. “Your father would be so proud of you.”

As he gripped the reins, he heard Caleb’s father say, “Ma’am, I consider your and your son’s arrival to be a gift from above.”

Kevin took the lead wagon with Caleb guiding the second. Zeke followed on horseback behind. The road ahead was empty except for squirrels and a pair of foxes and a lone wild pig that trotted out of the undergrowth, snorted a challenge, then scuttled away. Weeds and young saplings ate into the highway’s edges. Moss covered much of the crumbling asphalt and muffled the hooves and softened the rumbling wheels.

The afternoon shadows began gathering. The wagons creaked and rolled. This portion of the road was so lightly traveled there was little threat from brigands. The township’s border was ninety miles ahead, two and a half days’ hard ride. Closer to Charlotte Township, especially with the refugees pouring south, they would have to be more careful. Now they rode in silence, Kevin’s rifle propped easy on the seat beside him. They made good time.

Toward dusk they entered the region Kevin knew well. The final test all trainees faced was to be given a blank map and assigned an unknown district. They were ordered to make a detailed assessment and report back in a week. Sheriff Ferguson sent the trainees off with the same message he used to address the deputies at every gathering: Survivors survive. This particular stretch of road had formed the boundary point for Kevin’s own test district.

Kevin pulled up in the middle of the road and turned around. “There’s an abandoned homestead up ahead with a sweet-water well. We could stop there.”

“Sounds good. Zeke?”

Zeke’s only response was to rise high in his saddle. He shifted slowly back and forth, moving his entire upper body, like he was sniffing the wind. It was Kevin’s first chance to study the guy. Zeke reminded him of the Charlotte gangs. Ferret-faced with a gaze tight and hard. Solitary by nature, and fast. In his former position Kevin would probably have brought Zeke in for questioning.

Caleb asked softly, “You got something?”

“Maybe,” Zeke replied. It was the first word Kevin had heard him speak.

Zeke leapt down and was gone. Silent and swift as the wind.

Caleb stepped down, stretched his back, then lashed Zeke’s reins to the wagon’s rear gate. Kevin continued to study the forest where Zeke had disappeared. Caleb said, “He does that.”

The trail leading to the homestead was a good deal rougher than the last time Kevin had been up here. There was nothing left of the cabin except crumbling foundations rimming a cellar. The well was an ancient thing, lined in river stone and very deep. There were any number of such abandoned farms, lost to bandits or transformed into fortified inns catering to scallywags. The deputies marked them all.

Kevin retrieved a leather bucket and long rope from their hiding place beneath the cellar overhang. Together he and Caleb unharnessed the horses. There were seven in all—four pulling the two wagons and three with saddles. The saddle horses served as backup in case of a thrown shoe or lameness. They also signified wealth.

Kevin watched Caleb curry the horses, his features as grim as they were exhausted. Kevin asked, “Still nothing from the woman?”

“No.”

“And this has never happened before?”

“No. Even when she’s been silent, I could sense her there. Now . . .” He pulled a sack of oats and feed bags from the second wagon. “She screamed and it woke me up. It didn’t feel like pain. More like . . .”

“You have that connection with anyone else?”

“I told you. This is all Maddie’s doing.”

“So you heard her scream, but she wasn’t in pain.”

“More like she panicked. And then everything went quiet.” He gave a visible shudder at the memory, then asked, “What am I supposed to do?”

Kevin gave the answer he thought Gus would have offered. “Gather intelligence. And when you have enough to make a decent plan, you act.”

The shadows were lengthening by the time they’d finished with the horses and set up camp. Zeke still had not returned. Kevin gathered kindling while Caleb foraged. Around the time Kevin had the fire burning, Caleb returned with a double handful of spring tubers, field onions, and wild sage. He washed them in the bucket, pulled the iron pan and sack of victuals from the wagon, and settled down beside Kevin.

Kevin asked, “Where’s your pal?”

“Scouting. Zeke will be back.”

“You don’t mind him skipping out on work?”

Caleb seemed genuinely amused by the question. “First of all, this wasn’t work.”

“Making camp, then. What do you mean, scouting?”

Caleb pulled a side of smoked pork from the bag, sliced bits into the mix of greens, then set it on a stone to heat. “You’ll see.”

Their meal had just begun to sizzle when Zeke returned. Kevin considered himself very alert, and still the guy’s abrupt appearance startled him. Zeke made no sound.

He was shocked even more when Zeke hefted the bucket and drenched the fire. He kept pouring until rivulets of ash streamed around the rim stones. He then poured the remnants into the pan. When there was neither smoke from the fire nor a smell from their meal, he said, “We’re being tracked.”

Caleb rose to his feet. “Harshaw?”

“Him and the three strangers. And they’re armed.”

“But Pa took their guns.”

“They got more from somewhere.”

Kevin asked, “Where are they now?”

“Five miles back, going slow.”

“Waiting for dark,” Caleb said.

“Did they send out a scout?” Kevin asked.

“No.”

Which could only mean one thing, as far as Kevin could see. “They know about this place.”

“That’s my thinking,” Zeke said.

“Who is this Harshaw fellow?”

“Leader of a Catawba hill clan,” Caleb replied. “A bad man.”

Now it was Kevin’s turn to smile. “You really think you know what a bad man is?”

Caleb and Zeke studied him intently. Kevin liked how neither of them felt any need to challenge his words. It drew from him a faintly unwelcome stirring. He was not ready to like them yet.

Zeke took a sack from his shoulder and dumped four quail on the ground. “We can dress these while we decide what to do.”

Caleb asked, “What’s to decide? We break camp and make tracks.”

“Think about what we’re facing. Three strangers not from the enclave, hunting us with Harshaw, who wants to string you up.”

Kevin said, “Describe the trio.”

“Bearded and dirty. One of them has flame-red hair and a cast to his left eye,” Zeke said. “The oldest has a scar running across his forehead. And he—”

“Has a streak of white running down the center of his beard that’s split by another scar,” Kevin finished for him. “The third one is the youngest and is missing two fingers from his left hand. The Greers, father and two sons. Bounty hunters. Hollis uses them for his dirty work.”

Caleb said, “I’ve heard that name, Hollis.”

“Captain Hollis is the head of the Charlotte militia.” Kevin felt a tightening in his gut. “He has spies among the Overpass deputies.”

“So they came looking for you and your ma, then Harshaw told them about Caleb’s gift.” Zeke nodded. “Makes sense.”

“When the mayor confronted me about our work on the railroad, he used the threat to force me to round up . . .”

“Specials,” Caleb said.

Kevin nodded. “Zeke is right. We can’t move forward with these men on our tail.”

“So what do we do?”

Kevin understood now why the hunter had been watching him. “What we have to.”