Gone to Ground (5 page)

“The thing is this. Three can make it here probably as easily as two, especially since only one of those three, me, knows exactly what’s involved with living on a camp in the middle of nowhere. And, as far as ‘fringe benefits’ are concerned, I don’t take nothing from a woman that she don’t want to give.” He held up his hand as he saw Maggie start to interrupt again. “I’ll take the third room, and I’ll teach you and your boy what’s involved in making a living out here. If it doesn’t work out, then we’ll figure out how else things can be arranged.” His voice grew deeper and more serious. “But, I warn you, I don’t intend to leave, and considering how things are going out in the ‘civilized’ world, I think making things work here with me is your best option.”

He stopped talking, and watched Maggie evaluate her options. He could tell from the expressions that flitted across her face that she didn’t like the corner she found herself in, but that she also didn’t see an easy way out. Finally she took a deep breath, and looked at him again.

“Fine,” she said in a cold sarcastic voice. “We accept your most gracious offer...”

He choked on a surprise burst of laughter, a sound he hadn’t heard from his throat in, what, years? God, she had guts this one.

“As I said,” she continued, bestowing on him a glare fit to char the meat off an elephant, “We accept your offer, on the condition that we’re equal partners in this undertaking, and all decisions are made between the two of us. Mark and I are not your slaves to boss about.”

He frowned, “There are a lot of things you don’t know about life out here, things may need to be done and you wouldn’t realize the importance of them...”

“Equal partners,” she maintained firmly. “You seem like an intelligent, well spoken man, even if you are impressed with yourself a bit much.” Again he felt the uprush of that unexpected laughter.

“I figure you can explain to me the importance of any actions that need to be taken. And I, being a moderately well educated woman, even if, as you say, completely lacking in survival skills, a point I’ll debate with you later, will listen to you and make my judgement.

Dazed by this last convoluted argument, O’Reilly agreed to the partnership, wondering at the same time how he’d lost control of the situation. He wasn’t used to losing his position of power when dealing with others. Sarah had been the only one who could run circles around him that thoroughly, and this woman certainly wasn’t his sweet, quiet Sarah.

After agreeing to the formation of the new partnership, O’Reilly excused himself from the table, stating his intention of gathering his belongings and letting Mark know that he could come back to the house. On his way out to the barn he smiled to himself suddenly. Judging from tonight’s encounter, the first battle of wits might, in some lights, be considered a draw, though he wasn’t quite positive about that. It seemed the next few months would get more interesting than he’d originally figured.

7

The next morning the loud banging of pots and pans startled Maggie fr
om a deep, troubled sleep, where navy uniformed Enforcers were marching her into a cell and interrogating her while holding a chicken over her head. Dragging herself from bed she opened the door of her room to find O’Reilly pouring milk though a clean piece of cheesecloth into several large containers. Mark was at the kitchen table stirring what appeared to be batter of some type, and Jack and Gypsy, the two dogs, appeared to be in a quandary over which human could be the most expected to produce spills needing to be cleaned up.

Upon hearing her door open, O’Reilly glanced in her direction, looking her up and down as she stood framed in the doorway, wearing the old Minnie Mouse pajamas that Mike had bought her as a joke the last time they went to Disney Land. “I’ve just got this thing about mice, I guess” he’d laughed when he’d presented them to her. “Squeak, squeak,” she’d answered him.

When she and Mark had packed to run away, she just couldn’t stand to leave the silly things behind. She had to leave so many other mementoes. Though, when she thought about it, Mark was the best memento of her husband that she could possibly have.

Pulling herself back to the here and now, she returned O’Reilly’s look, seeing him for the first time dressed in boots, jeans, and a blue work shirt covering a white t-shirt. He’d found a bunch of worn clothes in storage in the empty bunk room last night and helped himself. He told Maggie that frequently cowboys would leave things like this at the camp so that if someone got stuck here in a storm they would have dry clothes to wear. The pantry was also left provisioned with a week’s or month’s worth of dry goods for the same reason.

Yawning and rubbing her hands over her sleep tousled hair to cover her discomfort at O’Reilly’s scrutiny, Maggie asked, “What time is it?”

O’Reilly looked back down at the bucket in his hands. “5:30 or thereabouts, as if it makes a difference,” he replied. “The cow’s milked, calf’s fed. Mark here is getting breakfast ready so you’ve got around fifteen minutes to get dressed before food’s on the table.”

Maggie bristled at his offhand approach, but she caught his meaning. He didn’t intend to give orders as though she worked for him, but he made it clear that a cowboy’s life started early in the day. It probably irked him that he had to restrain his comments since he was obviously a man accustomed to giving orders.

She nodded her understanding and stepped back into her room, closing the door behind her. Searching for jeans and a shirt, Maggie thought ruefully that she and Mark had been under the belief that they’d been working hard, but apparently they’d been slacking off by rancher’s standards, rising late, dawdling through the chores without a set schedule. Apparently they were about to be indoctrinated into the agricultural lifestyle good and proper, and she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about it.

Less than ten minutes later Maggie reemerged from her room, clothed and brushed, to find Mark at the stove while O’Reilly instructed him with moderate success how to flip the pancakes without throwing them on the floor or into the fire.

Mark looked back at his mother as she passed through the room on the way to the outer door, heading for the outhouse. The ten-year-old grinned and waved his spatula at her.

“Breakfast in five minutes. If you’re late I’ll feed it to the dogs,” he called. The two dogs sitting at a respectful distance with tongues lolling and eyes avid indicated that the threat might be more than idle.

“No worries, kiddo, unless I fall in, in which case I don’t care about the pancakes, just bring a rope,” Maggie joked back as she opened the front door and stepped out into the fresh morning air.

Later, after enjoying a breakfast of pancakes with fresh butter and drizzled in honey that O’Reilly fished out of one of his packs, Maggie and O’Reilly headed outside to begin the day’s labor, while Mark settled in to work on his school assignments. When O’Reilly heard about the morning’s plans for Mark, he looked curiously at Maggie, but chose not to make any comments regarding the issue. Maggie caught the look, but refused to justify herself at that time.

On the way to the barn O’Reilly insisted that one of the first things that needed to be taken care of was to trim the feet of Maggie’s four horses.“I’m stuck in a bit of a dilemma here,” O’Reilly confided. “These horses have never had to make it out in the rocks, so their feet are soft. They depend on their shoes. The problem is that we don’t have a supply of shoes any longer, so these horses are going to have to get used to going barefoot.”

“What’s wrong with that?” questioned Maggie.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that,” O’Reilly said, matter of factly, “It’s just that they’re going to be awfully sore footed for awhile. Think about when you were a kid and it finally warmed up in the spring so that you could go without shoes. How did it feel?”

Maggie winced at the memory. “Does that mean they can’t be ridden?” she questioned.

“They can be ridden, but at the beginning they won’t be able to be ridden much.” At Maggie’s worried look O’Reilly went on to assure her, “It’s okay, their feet will toughen up just like yours did, but it will take awhile; months or more, before they’re really rock footed.” O’Reilly nodded to emphasize what he was saying. “Also, we’ll be able to save the shoes we do have, so that if there’s an emergency and we have to take them out for longer, I can slap a set of shoes on for the trip, then pull them off again when we’re done. We’ll get more use out of them that way.”

“Okay,” agreed Maggie, still not sure. “But what about your horses?”

“I caught these horses up off a ranch near Laughlin after I left the APZ. They’d been running out on the range and weren’t shod already. Their feet will be fine as long as I keep knocking off any long bits. They’re used to making it in the rocks out here. Not like your horses. They’re city horses and have never had to make a living in a spot where the feed isn’t brought to them.” He looked out of the corner of his eye at Maggie, “Sort of like some people I know.”

“Alright, enough of the city slicker comments,” she growled. “Show me what needs to be done.”

For the remainder of the morning O’Reilly worked on the horses’ feet, carefully trimming away the excess growth and returning the hooves to the proper balance using tools found stashed in the barn. Fortunately, he said, it appeared that the horses had been trimmed not too long before the disease struck and their owners died. Their feet were long, but they weren’t nearly as bad as they could have been.

Maggie was nervous about having her primary means of transportation, and more importantly escape, put in an ‘out of commission’ status. However, she realized that if the horses weren’t cared for properly, they wouldn’t be available if and when the proverbial cow poop hit the fan. She watched carefully all the moves O’Reilly made, asking questions the entire time. Her journalistic background made her a voracious seeker of information, and in this case the information could be vitally important to her survival. By the fourth horse, she demanded to try it for herself.

“You’re sure?” O’Reilly asked dubiously, sweat beaded his arms and matted his dark red hair to his head. He wiped his face on the sleeve of his t-shirt. “It’s not an easy job for a city sli... uh, I mean, novice.” He grinned. The smile looked more natural than those that came before, and less like someone with a face full of botox or the victim of abnormal muscle contractions.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Maggie stated with a determined set to her face, and a stubborn tone to her voice. “You were right when you said Mark and I didn’t have the skills we needed to live out here for an extended period. Hopefully it won’t be that long,” O’Reilly gave her a puzzled look, “but we need to be prepared for anything.”

Two long hours later Maggie had finally completed her horse’s front feet to O’Reilly’s demanding standards and was dripping with enough sweat to rise the ocean’s level at least two inches. O’Reilly was taking it easy on a nearby boulder in the shade,
enjoying the view,
she thought sarcastically. She slowly straightened to a standing position, flexing her blistered hands and rolling her shoulders. Breathing heavily, she wiped her sweaty face with the back of one dirty forearm, then massaged her sore back. Her hair, darkened with sweat, felt as though it was glued to her head.

“People actually do this for a living?” she asked in incredulous tones. “What
are
they, masochists?”

“Don’t worry,” O’Reilly said, hiding a smile. “You only have two more feet to go. At this rate you’ll be done by midnight.”

“You, my friend, are a sadist,” Maggie stated with conviction. “And I am a complete fool for asking to be subjected to this torture. When all of this is over, I will never look at a horse’s foot again. They can look elsewhere for their pedicures.”

“You’re thinking that this situation won’t last long?” O’Reilly asked in an offhand manner, causing Maggie to glance quickly in his direction. He was still sitting on his boulder, but he no longer appeared relaxed. Instead of looking at her, he seemed busy studying the lines and creases of his darkly tanned hands.

“Well, how long can it last?” she replied, studying his bent form. “Sooner or later the government will get their act back together. People aren’t going to put up with this concentration and APZ crap for long. They’re going to want to get back to their lives. At the most a year, maybe a year and a half.”

“Mmmm,” he gave a non-committal answer and continued to examine his cuticles.

Maggie tilted her head, looking at him intently. “I don’t get you. You left the APZ and left the Enforcers, and you haven’t given me a reason. What are you hiding?”

Every muscle in O’Reilly’s body telegraphed his discomfort at this interrogation and Maggie began to wonder if their newly formed partnership would stand the strain of the tension without ripping asunder.

Finally, after a long silence O’Reilly looked up and met Maggie’s eyes. “I had my reasons for leaving the APZ and the Enforcers, and those reasons are something that we’re going to have to talk about sooner or later. I realize that. It’s just that right now I’m trying to make sense of them in my own mind, and I don’t know how to explain them to someone else so that they seem rational.”

“You’ve got to understand how much trouble I have accepting that,” Maggie countered.

“Yeah, I know it sounds shaky,” he sighed. His dark brown eyes took on a distant expression. “It’s just the way it is. The thing is this, though. I want you to think about what direction the government, and the world as a whole, has been heading for the past twenty or thirty years, and do you really think that now that the authorities have total control over a completely demoralized population, they’re going to willingly give up that control any time soon?”

Maggie’s look sharpened, her brow furrowed as she considered the scenario he presented and her journalistic sixth sense began to send out a clamourous ringing of warning bells. “You’re saying that they’re going to try and... what, develop a world where people only live in designated areas, under supervision and control? I can’t see how that would ever work,” Maggie stated adamantly, though even as she said it, a small voice in her mind spoke to the truth of the plan.

O’Reilly looked up at her, studying her intently.

“Global warming has been a concern of all the world’s governments for quite awhile now, even though many say it isn’t true. What’s one of the chief causes of global warming? People. People and all the things that people make and drive and are probably unwilling to give up. People and their wasteful habits and their refusal to take the environment seriously.

“Now answer this question, what would be the best thing to happen to the environment? Reduce the number of people. Well, mother nature took care of that problem.” A fleeting look crossed O’Reilly’s face, more a flicker in his eyes, so quick that Maggie almost missed it. “Now our administration, with it’s loudly proclaimed green agenda, is considering taking up where mother nature left off.” O’Reilly’s agitation was growing extreme. He rose from his boulder as if pulled upright by an electric current.

“Oh, come on.” It was Maggie’s turn to become agitated. “Do you really think that people are going to let the government get away with this? You can’t be serious.” Yet still the warning bells rang in the back of her mind.

The pressure was finally too much for O’Reilly. “Who do you think has been running this country for the past couple of decades, lady? Politicians and lawyers, that’s who. People have been giving up their responsibility for a long time now, and if you think that those politicians and lawyers wouldn’t make this type of decision, will give up the control they have now, think again. They’ve been making these type of decisions on smaller scale for a long time now.” O’Reilly spun on his heel and stalked away toward the creek.

Maggie was left sanding there, stunned, with no company but a half trimmed horse that was beginning to look impatient, a small black and white calf, and two sleeping dogs. Her mind was a whirl of ideas. Part of her kept denying O’Reilly’s statement, but there was a small niggling part of her that said there was truth in his words.

She stood on the bare, dusty ground, looking at the stream where O’Reilly stood facing the running water, head bowed. After a few minutes of hesitation Maggie began to walk over toward him, wondering what she would say when she got there. As she approached him, he turned and the torment in his eyes was as obvious as a slap in the face. She faltered and stopped.