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Boyd has no choice but to swallow down the acid of anger that keeps creeping up his throat. They’ve traveled over two hundred miles and still haven’t caught up with his brother and the girl. Marco and Pete have lost faith in him and he can hear the disrespect in their tones every time they speak to him now. What should have been a triumphant day turned into one headache after another. Already miserable from an uncomfortable night spent out in the desert with only a tarp to protect them from the bugs and constantly blowing sand, they were then forced to sit around waiting for the buggy to charge up. They had finally started up again when not two hours into the journey, a tire blew out. It was then that Marco started making noise about returning to town with Pete agreeing with him.
Boyd shut them down even though he was ready to quit too. The problem they didn’t see was, what then? They could return to town and live off of what they’d looted from the other residents but what would they do once it all ran out? With the ration stations closing, there would be nothing coming into the town and most of the people would either leave or die. He needed to look to the future and the only future he could see was going north and finding a way over that wall. The only way over the wall was money which led him right back to the girl.
He looks around at the passing landscape of...nothing. There’s nothing out here for her to run to. She has to be going to one of her grandfather’s claims for gold. She, like everyone else, has no hope of making it down here in the south so she must have a plan to get the funds to go north. There could be no other reason for her to take a kid out in this desert that he could think of. It had to be to get gold and he hadn’t come this far to give up on it now.
Pete interrupts his thoughts from the back seat. “Boss, we only have enough water for a few more days. If we don’t find them by tonight, we’ll have no choice but to turn back.”
A growl of frustration escapes Boyd and he barks back, “Then we cut back on how much we drink. We are NOT going back until we find that girl!”
Marco takes his eyes off the way ahead and sends him a look of disbelief. “You can’t be serious! Listen, I know you want revenge for what she and your brother did but it’s not worth dying over!”
The contempt in his voice has Boyd’s anger reaching a boiling point. “Stop the buggy!” When Marco ignores him and keeps driving, Boyd pulls the gun from his waistband and holds it to his head.
“STOP...THE...BUGGY!”
Marco slams on the brakes causing all of them to lurch forward. Once they come to a stop, Boyd orders them out.
“Let’s talk about dying out here or back in the town because if we don’t find that girl, that’s what we’re facing!” He shook his head and spit at their feet at the dumb looks on their faces.
“What do you think’s going to happen once we run out of rations back home? The stations are closed for good so what we got back there is it. Once it’s gone, there’s not going to be anyone around to take more from. We have no choice but to go north and I don’t know about you two but I’m not going to be anyone’s slave! I’m getting over that damn wall to the good life no matter what it takes.” He takes a heaving breath and waves his gun to the east. “She came out here for a reason and the only reason I can come up with is to go to her grandfather’s claims for the gold he used to mine. We NEED that GOLD! So I’m going to keep after her until I catch up, even if it takes every damn drop of water we have to do it!” He waves the gun back to point at them.
“You two are either with me or you can walk back. You decide right here, right now!”
Pete and Marco share a look but both nod in agreement. Marco holds up a hand.
“We’re with you, Boss! Neither one of us wants to go to the labor camps. You’re right, the gold is the key. We just forgot about it, that’s all!”
Boyd lets out a long-suffering sigh at being saddled with these two idiots but nods his head and waves them back into the buggy, catching the looks of concerned relief that the two share. He trudges back around the front end to the passenger door when Pete calls out.
“Hey! What’s that?”
Boyd looks up at where Pete’s standing in the back seat, staring off into the distance with a hand shading his eyes. He climbs into the buggy and stands on the seat to get a look at what his man has spotted and starts to grin. For the first time on this journey, the landscape has changed. He can’t make out exactly what it is but it looks like there’s movement out there. Even if it’s not the girl and his brother, it might be someone who saw them. He grins at his men.
“Let’s go. It’s hunting time!”