15
Well now, will you just get a load of this.” Sheriff Gus Ferguson rode a fresh horse and wore a clean uniform only moderately stained by the road. He crossed the creek and eased his way through the cluster of refugees on the checkpoint’s other side, all without taking his eyes off the sergeant. “Looks like a lynching to me.”
“Go on about your business,” the sergeant snarled.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” The sheriff was a broad man, in sound shape for his years. He reined up and eased himself out of the saddle. “This isn’t Charlotte Township. And that’s the only place your kind are allowed to indiscriminately use the whip.”
The sergeant’s whip flickered angrily as the sheriff slipped past him. “You touch that boy and I’ll bury you.”
“No you won’t.” Ferguson unsheathed his knife and asked, “What’s your name again, son?”
“Hold still.” He cut the ropes binding his arms, then his legs. Caleb was instantly attacked by a weakness so severe he toppled to the earth. “You all right, Caleb?”
“Yes sir.” His teeth chattered so hard he bit off fragments of each word. “Just a little weak is all.”
“Climb on up into your rig, now.”
The bullwhip coiled and writhed. “Step away from that boy.”
A rifle shot echoed down from the eastern slope, and dust exploded by the sergeant’s leg. He jerked back so fast he tripped and fell down. Which was good, because the first shot was followed by a second, this one from farther along the hillside. It struck the wagon right beside where the sergeant’s head had been.
The sheriff was clearly taken aback by the second shot. He searched the high ground, then turned and surveyed the surroundings. “Where’s your other driver, Caleb?”
“H-he took off, sir.”
The sergeant scrambled to his feet. “Call off your men!”
“Absolutely, Sergeant. I’ll most certainly do that.” Ferguson climbed into the saddle and pulled his horse around to where it led the wagon forward. “It’ll be my distinct pleasure. Soon as you lot pack up your gear and head on back to where you belong. Let’s go, Caleb.”
“You can’t take us all!”
“Don’t need to. All I need to take is you. And I will. Now haul up that barrier or my shooter will plant one in your belly.”
They climbed slowly out of the valley. The sheriff let Caleb and his rig set the pace. Caleb fought down wave after nauseous wave. He didn’t feel brave. His residual terror was a stain on the day.
They crested the eastern side and rode through unkempt meadows. As they left the roadblock farther behind, Caleb’s sense of distress returned full force. At first he wondered if perhaps it was a rising tide of remorse over yet another foolish deed. But he quickly discounted the notion. Something out there was very wrong.
Ferguson whistled and pointed Caleb toward a grove of ancient oaks. When they pulled up, the sheriff asked, “What got into you back there?”
Caleb climbed down, walked around to the rear of the wagon, and pulled out a fresh shirt. “He was going to take half my goods.”
Ferguson’s weathered grin exposed a silver tooth. “Man’s got you ready for the lash, and all you can think about is your shine.”
“Our product could feed the enclave through a bad winter, if need be. And set us up a new source of income for hard times to come.”
“Well, you got spunk. I’ll give you that.”
“Thank you for your help back there, sir.”
“Don’t mention it.” He pointed to where Zeke emerged from the woodlands. “Here’s your buddy. And I got a friend out somewheres . . . Here she comes.”
The woman rode a dappled grey and carried a rifle across the front of her saddle. “I don’t see anyone following.”
“Caleb, Zeke, meet Hester Lear.”
“Thank you for your shooting, Miss Lear,” Caleb said.
“Hester will do.” She swiveled her right leg free and dropped to the ground. “And I missed.”
Caleb started to thank Zeke, then realized his friend was watching Hester with a stunned expression. The gun dangled from his left hand, forgotten.
Ferguson caught it too and suppressed a grin. “You both did just fine back there.”
Hester was a small woman but looked immensely fit. Her skin was honeyed and silky-smooth. Her almond eyes were pushed to a slant by pronounced cheekbones. Her raven hair was cut tight to her head. She was attractive in a dark, feral way. Caleb thought she would probably be both very dangerous and hard to take down.
She asked Zeke, “You fired that second shot?”
He blinked, shook himself, and said weakly, “I missed too.”
“Firing at a downward angle will do that.”
Caleb asked the woman, “You’re a deputy?”
“I used to serve with the Charlotte militia. But I quit.”
Ferguson said, “I offered Hester a position as deputy, but apparently she’d prefer to work on her own terms now.”
“I have a problem with the militia’s brand of authority,” she said. “I hate them, and now they hate me. Or at least Hollis does. Kevin helped find me a place among the Overpass private security guards. I owe him. Which is why I’m out here saving your hide.”
Caleb pointed along the eastern road. “Kevin said he’d meet us at the Highwayman’s Tavern.”
“That’s about a mile farther on,” Hester said. She was a tad shorter than Zeke but still managed to spring into the saddle one-handed. “Let’s get moving.”
Caleb stopped midway back to the rig. Halted as firmly as if a fist had slammed into him from the sky.
Zeke demanded, “What is it?”
Zeke moved up beside him. “So it wasn’t the checkpoint after all.”
“No.”
Hester said, “Time’s a-wasting, gentlemen.”
Zeke glanced over, worried, then turned back. “Can you say where?”
Caleb made a mess of climbing onto the wagon seat. He was still weakened from the close call before. Now his legs threatened to collapse under his own weight. He steadied himself on the hand brake and turned. Searching. “It’s something terrible.”
Ferguson stepped closer. “What’s going on here?”
“Quiet,” Zeke snapped. “Caleb, is it Maddie?”
“No!” For the first time, in the first instant, he knew with utter certainty. “It’s Kevin.”
Hester kneed her horse over close to the wagon. “What are you saying?”
Zeke propped the rifle on the wheel and sprang up beside Caleb. “Where is he?”
“I don’t . . .” He finished the circle and started again. He wanted to weep from the dread certainty. “I think he’s dead.”
Ferguson yelled, “What’s going on here, mister?”
Zeke seized Caleb’s arm. “Tell me where!”
Caleb followed the shred of sensation, the lurking pain beyond the horizon. He pointed south. “There!”