Gone to Ground (27 page)

31

James O’Reilly lay on his bunk, listening to the s
oft breathing of his three new roommates and wishing he was elsewhere. Two rooms elsewhere to be exact.

The soft sound of the front door opening and closing followed by a second door opening and closing told him that Maggie had come in and gone to bed. He knew the next few days were going to be hard on her. Hard on everyone for that matter.

Raising his right arm and laying it across his eyes, he thought again about the wisdom of making a stand there at Hideaway. They could still saddle the horses tomorrow morning and make a run for it. If they were lucky, they might make it out of the area before the seekers arrived. The problem was, though, that if they hadn’t gone far enough before the seekers started circling, they would be sitting ducks out in the washes and flats of the open range. Four of them might have been able to manage it. With eight, it was virtually impossible. In the caves their heat signatures wouldn’t be picked up, nor would they themselves be seen.

How long did they have?

Not long if he knew Rickards. Of course, as he told Maggie, there was a slight chance that he’d removed the children’s chips before anyone got a fix on them. That would be the best case scenario. If that were the case, they could take extra precautions for a few weeks, then return to life as normal, or what passed as normal these days.

It was almost certain that Maggie’s computer had been tagged, but since no one would connect Maggie with him unless the chips were located, it could easily slip by without anyone taking immediate action, especially if things were busy elsewhere. A wry smile twisted his lips. With Christina, Alysa and the boys missing and their connection to him, he was sure that things were extremely busy elsewhere. Rickards was no fool, though, and if they had picked up on the kids’ chips heading in this direction, the computer signal, whether or not it belonged to a known fugitive, would be seen as significant.

He didn’t dare count on best case scenarios. Rose colored glasses would do nothing but get them captured or killed. He was relatively certain that seekers would be the first signal that someone knew where they were. However, should they be taken by surprise in this canyon, there would be very little possibility of making it to the caves and hiding undetected.

How long?

If Enforcers had arrived in Wikieup immediately after O’Reilly and the children left, they would still need to send out seekers to determine which direction the fugitives had gone. They hadn’t seen or heard any seekers while riding, and even at night he’d sat up, standing guard, listening for the tell-tale whine of the drones’ propulsion systems. It hadn’t materialized. That should mean that Rickards was still at least three days behind them.

Should mean.

He knew Rickards too well to underestimate him. No, the best move would be to assume that within the next week Enforcers would descend upon this canyon in numbers that would do the invasion at Normandy proud.

Well, maybe not quite that many. The Laughlin APZ didn’t have that kind of resources. But just as O’Reilly wasn’t underestimating Rickards, he was equally sure that Rickards wouldn’t underestimate him. If the captain believed that the kids had met up with O’Reilly, Rickards would stop at nothing to recapture them, and he would bring the manpower to do it.

A soft sigh and a murmur came from across the room. It sounded like the upper bunk. Was that Nick? Or Ryan? Hell, he couldn’t tell the two apart and he knew they got a huge kick out of his continual mistakes.

O’Reilly made a fist with his right hand and brought it down to his side, hitting the mattress beside him with a soft thump. He’d been so careful since Sarah and Kay-Tee died to keep everyone at arm’s length. How in the hell could he suddenly find himself in charge of the well being of seven other lives? God sure had a sense of humor.

It didn’t really matter at this point whether he
wanted
to be responsible for other lives. He was, and he had to do his best for them.

Tomorrow morning they would need to split up in groups and prepare for a siege. The children should be put to work carrying more supplies to the caves. Maggie, Mark and he had put up enough to last for a week or more, but there were eight now, assuming he made it to the caves at all. The collapsible water containers he’d brought back from Wikieup would have to be filled and stored. More food would need to be carried, more bedding, more everything.

Meanwhile, he, and maybe Mark and Alysa, would need to take the extra horses and cattle and drive them up to the east pasture. He thought about simply opening the end gate and letting the animals drift out on their own, but quickly dismissed that thought. It would probably take them too long to move since the grazing was still good down here in the canyon bottom. A large collection of horses and cattle would be a sure sign to anyone monitoring the seekers that people were about, even if the machines didn’t pick up the people themselves.

We’ll have to take some of those water proof tarps,
O’Reilly thought.
If we saddle all the animals, once we get to the top pasture, we can unsaddle and wrap the tack in the tarps and leave it under some brush or make a rock cairn. That way when Rickards comes, it will look more like we’ve made a run for it.
Being turned out and not milked will probably cause Lizzie to start drying up, depending on how long we have to leave them there, but there’s no help for it. A milking cow with no calf would be a dead give away to anyone trying to figure out if we’re here or not.
O’Reilly sighed. Maggie wasn’t going to like giving up the milk supply until Lizzie calved again, but she’d like living in the APZ even less.

While all this was going on, Maggie could be working in the house to make it look as though no one was living there. It wouldn’t be easy. No dust would be a huge giveaway. Dust was a way of life on an Arizona ranch.

Job description: Low pay, hot weather, no moisture and plenty of dust. Obsessive-compulsive neatnicks need not apply.

Of course, being the monsoon season, the dust was not as prominent as it usually was. For this short time every year most ranch wives traded dust for mud. O’Reilly never thought that he’d miss the dust.

Maggie didn’t need to make it look as though no one had been there in the past fifty years, though. Only that the fugitives were no longer in residence. If she could get everything essential hidden somewhere, that would add to the impression that they had bolted, realizing that someone would be looking for the kids.

Taking a deep breath, O’Reilly rolled onto his left side. Starting tomorrow night, they’d all better camp out in the caves, just in case Rickards decided to make a surprise nighttime or dawn attack. O’Reilly closed his eyes, and concentrated on slowing his breathing. He might as well enjoy the last night sleeping in a bed that he was likely to see for awhile.

From across the room, one of the boys began to snore.

The night air was peaceful, a light breeze playing hide and seek between the walls of the cany
on and the outbuildings. Soft lunar light splashed the camp with silver. The windmill creaked into motion, then stopped. In the pasture the horses and cattle grazed quietly.

Gradually a high pitched whine built, causing several of the horses to twitch their ears, one tossing his mane and swishing his tail in annoyance. One of the cows lifted her head, a mouthful of grass hanging unchewed as she looked toward the sky. In the hen house Houdini ruffled his feathers and, confused about the time of day, emitted a crow, creating a rustle among the hens.

The whine swelled, then just as suddenly as it came, it began to recede. The cattle and horses returned to their moonlit grazing. In the hen house, silence returned. At the main house there was no indication from the humans that anything had changed.

The wayward wind again picked up and died, picked up and died. Everything once again was peaceful.

32

“We’ve got them! I think we’ve got them!” A young deputy, whose name Rickards couldn’t remember
, threw open the door to the van and was beckoning the captain over from where he was sitting with the rest of the team, drinking coffee.

Large panel LED lights operating off the oversized solar charged batteries stored in the jeeps surrounded the cluster of vehicles, drawing millions of small bugs to their deaths while illuminating the camping area set up on the edge of town. There had been some talk of taking over beds in some of the abandoned houses, but most of the men felt uncomfortable with that situation. In the end, everyone decided to stay together as a group, setting up tents and sleeping bags in the middle of the highway.

In lieu of a campfire, a small propane stove provided a hot meal and coffee for the team of ten officers.
A campfire would have been nice,
thought Rickards wistfully,
but try finding dry fire wood in the desert during the monsoon season.

Fortunately for his team, Wikieup seemed nearly untouched by scavenger teams, ghosts, annihilation teams or any of the other groups of people who might have appropriated everything left on the shelves at the time of the disease and concentration. It was obvious that someone had been in the stores recently, presumably O’Reilly, but he’d left everything more or less intact, taking only what he needed to live in the wilderness.

At least that’s what Rickards assumed. There did seem to be a lot of things missing for just O’Reilly and the four children, but the stores in no way resembled the trash pits usually left behind by early looters or later bands of ghosts.

At the deputy’s shout, a flood of adrenaline shot through Rickards’ system.
I’ve got him
, he thought.
Finally I’ve got the slippery son of a bitch.
Rising hastily to his feet, Rickards walked swiftly over to the van that was acting as the mobile tech station. Inside the young deputy -
Martin, no Martinez,
thought Rickards - was sitting at a computer screen, busily typing on his keyboard.

Climbing in and taking a seat in the second chair, Rickards looked over Martinez’ shoulder, studying the screen. The night vision sensors on the seekers rendered the landscape in shades of blue and gray, giving it an otherworldly aura. Rickards had some experience in translating the ghostly scene sent by the seekers into real life, but he saw nothing in the view in front of him that made him think the fugitives were anywhere near.

“What have we got here, Martinez?”

“Seeker 2 has just passed over an area approximately forty-three miles to the northeast of here. It’s a deep canyon with a wide area containing some buildings and a small stream. Probably a ranch camp. Here, let me roll back the footage.” Martinez tapped a few keys on the keyboard and the picture on the screen abruptly changed, showing the land unraveling underneath the seeker as it moved along. A digital readout in the upper left corner indicated that the seeker had passed over this terrain only a short time before.

Abruptly the land dropped away as the seeker floated out over what appeared to be a deep canyon or wash. The seeker dropped altitude, maintaining its programmed height of sixty feet.

A number of fuzzy blue-gray blips appeared in the phosphorescent blue-gray landscape. The resolution of the cameras in the seekers wasn’t perfect, but he could swear that these blips were livestock, not people.

“Are those cows?”

“Yes, sir, and horses. See, there and there?” Martinez indicated several blips that had a definite equine appearance as opposed to the bovine aspect of the other blips. Rickards squinted his eyes, trying to see if he was missing anything.

“This is ranch land, Martinez. One would expect to see horses and cattle. What makes you think the fugitives are nearby?”

“The location for one thing. There’s a high concentration of livestock in this one area in conjunction with buildings... See, there,” Martinez pointed to a large shape in the background. “That’s a barn and that’s a windmill over there,” the deputy indicated another tall stick-like shape that had a barely discernable set of blades at the top, spinning slowly in what appeared to be a gentle breeze.

Rickards studied the pictures. The blue-gray landscape showed the buildings and the livestock that Martinez indicated, beyond doubt. What he still wasn’t sure of was why that meant that the runaways were hiding nearby. The last thing he wanted was to send his team on a wild goose chase while the fugitives made good their escape from another direction.

“Surely there are ranches scattered all over this land. Why should it be unusual to find them?” Rickards queried, continuing to study the landscape as it slowly passed on the camera feed.

“We sent the seeker around the perimeter of the area and found fences with gates closed. It’s been months since everyone either died or was concentrated. Even if this area has good grazing, it wouldn’t have supported this number of horses and cattle for that long, and you can see that there is still plenty of grass.”

Rickards leaned forward, looking closely and indeed he could see that there was plenty of growth of some type. A vantage point sixty feet in the air made it difficult to tell exactly what kind it was. Martinez, realizing the captain’s difficulty, tapped a few keys, causing the scene to zoom in closer giving Rickards a sudden feeling of vertigo. The tall grass growing in the pasture became instantly visible, though he wasn’t sure if he’d have known what it was if Martinez hadn’t pointed it out.

“Any sign of human habitation?”

“Other than the structures, which were obviously there before the reorganization, we’re not seeing any humans.”

“Well, then...” Rickards started, a frown creasing his face.

Martinez hurried on, interrupting his superior in his haste to clarify his statement. “We did, however, find a large overhang in the cliff wall. It’s coming up in the video feed in a second.” Martinez paused, staring intently at the screen. “There, you see.” He pointed at a large dark area staining the bottom of the monitor.

Examining the undefined shape in front of him Rickards could only take Martinez’ word that it was an overhang in the cliff wall.

Martinez continued, tracing the shape with his finger and pointing to minute smaller light areas within the general darkness. “We think there is a structure built under this overhang, using it as walls and roof, similar to the Anasazi and Sinagua cliff dwellings. We can’t get any heat signatures from inside, but that could be due to the thickness of the walls if it’s made of adobe or rock and the people are at the back. It’s hard to tell, but it is late, and anyone living here might be asleep.”

Martinez stopped and looked expectantly at Rickards.

Rickards continued to study the screen, silently pondering his choices. If he sent the team out to this remote canyon and found nothing but cows, he could miss his chance to apprehend O’Reilly. However, the reverse was also true. If he failed to send the team, and it was O’Reilly hiding out in this camp, he could be giving him the chance he needed to make good his escape. Even with the seekers it would be a miracle if O’Reilly could be tracked for more than a short distance. O’Reilly knew how to avoid the seekers, and how to take them out if the chance arose. Rickards team didn’t have enough seekers to continually send ones out just to be destroyed.

Finally, taking a deep breath, Rickards turned to Martinez. “Tomorrow, if the roads are dry enough, we head for this canyon... what’s it’s name?”

“The maps say it’s a place called ‘Adobe Canyon.”

“We head for Adobe Canyon as soon as possible. Use this time to plan our route. Understand? And just in case this isn’t O’Reilly, maintain the current search pattern. At least for the next few hours.”

“Yes, sir.” Martinez nodded assent and turned back to his screen and began furiously tapping on the keyboard and scribbling notes on a nearby pad of paper.

Rickards pushed himself out of his chair and stepped down out of the van. The other Enforcers seated in the circle became silent as they realized that Rickards had returned. They watched him expectantly as he studied each of them in turn.

“Everyone needs to turn in,” Rickards stated, holding up his hand to forestall the questions that began to erupt from the deputies.

“The seekers have found a site that looks probable. If the roads are decent we will head out in the morning, first light.” Thunder rumbled again in the distance, causing everyone to look northeast in the direction of the storm. Rickards grimaced. “If the roads are impassable for vehicles, we will send out scouts on foot and proceed as soon as we get the all clear. Understood?”

The team nodded, a few of the men voicing their approval and understanding.

“Good. Hit the sack then. Be ready to move at first light.”

As the men began to pick up their things and head for their assigned tents, Rickards turned away and strode beyond the reach of the lights. Standing in the darkened road, studying the barely discernable landscape, lit intermittently by the moon as it passed from behind the clouds, he contemplated the next day’s activity.

If all goes well, by this time tomorrow I could have O’Reilly in custody
, Rickards thought.
We take him by surprise, trap him in the canyon and finish it one way or the other. He’s only got four kids for back up and we’ve got an entire team, so it should be a piece of cake.

A persistent niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach made him doubt that it would be that easy.