They left the four men lashed to the trees but took their belts and boots and weapons and horses. Kevin assumed it would take the men a day or more to work free. Since they were weakened by the blows, weaponless, and barefoot, there was no telling how long the journey might take them.
They tied the four additional horses to their wagons and headed east. They traveled in silence, the loudest sounds coming from the wagons’ creaking wheels and the clop of horses along the broken asphalt trail.
Four hours later, they took the turnoff toward a meadow bordered on three sides by heavy forest. A creek ran along the far end, with several cold fire pits scattered along its length. While they hobbled the horses and let them off to graze, Caleb asked, “What will we do with these extra horses?”
“Tomorrow,” Kevin replied, as weary as he’d ever been.
They slept in shifts. When Kevin roused, it was late afternoon and the camp was empty. As he washed and shaved in the creek, Zeke returned to the clearing, dumped a load of fresh kindling, and began building a fire.
Kevin asked, “Where’s Caleb?”
Zeke pointed toward the forest. “Off gathering roots. His ma taught him everything she knows, and she knows more than anybody in the enclave. She’s been sick for a while now. Caleb’s taking it hard.”
It was the most Kevin had ever heard the guy speak. “I’ve never seen anybody move like you do. I’m glad you’re on our side.”
Zeke kept on breaking twigs and fashioning a tent of the kindling. “You ever killed a man?”
“Twice. Firefights. Used my rifle once, my pistol the other time.”
Zeke knelt and blew into the kindling until it finally caught fire. He settled back, his dark gaze on the flames. “I didn’t feel anything, striking those men and leaving them like that. I just did what needed doing.” He pointed at the quail sectioned and waiting in the pan. “I expect if it came down to killing somebody, I wouldn’t feel anything more than when I took the birds.”
Kevin recalled sitting with Gus and a couple of the other senior officers after his first shoot-out. The closeness of death had drawn them together in a way he had never known before. “My old boss, he talked about people like you.”
“What’d he say?”
“You sure you want to hear?”
“Tell me.”
“Gus said they made the best killers. The problem was how to control them, keep them from going dark. He meant—”
“I know what he meant. Did he say how?”
Kevin nodded. The act of remembering his old life was painful. “Partner up with somebody you trust. Someone who’s got a solid grip on right and wrong. Accept that you’re gifted to be a warrior, and accept the responsibility that your gift brings.”
“Your sheriff sounds like a wise man.” Zeke slowly fed the fire, then pulled out a coffeepot and filled it from Kevin’s bucket. He opened two sacks, ladled in a handful of coffee and half as much sugar. “It’s not just this. I watch people in love sometimes. I just don’t get it.”
“Give it time.”
Zeke shrugged and set the pot on the flat stone beside the fire. Caleb returned then, carrying a bundle of herbs. As he washed them in the bucket, Zeke offered, “Caleb’s got women everywhere.”
“Now that’s just a load of old bullwhacky.”
“You wait,” Zeke said. “We’ll show up at that place you said . . .”
“Overpass.”
“There’ll be this sweet little thing come running up. ‘Oh, Caleb, I missed you so. Give me a kiss.’”
“You want to eat your dinner spiced with wet ashes,” Caleb said, “you just keep on.”
When they’d finished eating, they broke camp with the ease of three men who’d been traveling together for years. They doubled up the horses tied to the wagon gates, harnessed the others, then pulled down the trail a ways. Kevin went back and swept the camp like he had the clearing. There was no reason he could give for taking such care, but it seemed like the right thing, and the others did not complain.
They rode another fifteen miles and had the road to themselves. The moon cast a silver net over the moss and weeds that flecked the highway’s surface, giving it a complimentary sheen. Finally Kevin called a halt and walked back to say, “About five miles ahead, there’s an old homestead the scallywags took over. It’s been empty since Gus and some deputies drove them off. We should hold up here until daylight.”
“Fine by me,” Caleb replied. “I never thought I could get so tired just sitting on a wagon and letting horses do the work.”
Kevin led them onto a clearing he had used before. They ate a cold meal and Kevin offered to take first watch. But when Caleb was snoring softly, Zeke rose from his bedroll and joined Kevin on the wagon seat. They sat in silence for a time, easy with each other and the night.
Abruptly Zeke tensed and cocked his head. A few minutes passed. Then he relaxed.
Kevin asked, “What was it?”
“Deer.”
He had heard nothing. “How far out can you go?”
“Depends.”
“Say horses were coming this way.”
“Not enough detail,” Zeke replied. “Are they shoed, riding hard or ambling along, what terrain. All that matters.”
“Four horses that are shoed and saddled,” Kevin said. “Riding the road at an easy pace. If we were back at the camp with the well, would you hear them out on the road?”
Zeke was nothing but a vague silhouette in the starlight. “A lot farther. Especially if they’re jawing, like those four were.”
“Is it your ears?”
“I . . . Some of it is. But there’s . . . I don’t know how to describe it. I sense things.”
“The deputy who taught me trail craft, he spent all his life tracking. Fugitives, feral beasts, it was all the same to him. He once told me the best trackers could taste the wind and say who had tasted it before them.”
Zeke shifted around. “Can I meet him?”
“He’s gone now.” Kevin’s memory carried a bitter taint. “Hollis shot him. Claimed it was an accident.”
“Did he . . .” Zeke turned back to the night. “Did he feel anything?”
Kevin took his time answering. He knew this absence of guilt really bothered Zeke. He wished his mother was with them. She would have known how to help heal with words. Which pushed him to say, “You remember what Abigail told me before she and Marsh headed out?”
Zeke cocked his head again, only this time it was with the effort of recollection. “About you working toward a higher cause.”
“What if the same is true about you? What if you’re made the way you are to fulfill a purpose? What if you’re made to do what we can’t? Because I’ve got to tell you, I can’t imagine a time when a warrior is needed more than now.”
Zeke took his time digesting that. Then he said, “I think maybe I’ll stretch out for a while.”
Zeke settled into his bedroll and soon was breathing deep. Kevin returned his attention to the night. For the first time since he’d left Charlotte Township, his heart was not eaten by the acid of bitter regret.