Joshua (Book 2): Traveler (2 page)

“I’m not kidding. Look at him. That kid can go anywhere. He can walk right into places the rest of us couldn’t shoot our way in. He makes all of our jobs easier ... sometimes too easy.” Robert addressed his men, “Right guys?” and they all wholeheartedly agreed, giving the boy an even louder cheer and slaps on his back.

“Just look at that face.” Rob continued to stare at the child, “I tell you that kid can talk anybody into anything. It’s a shame he has to grow up.”

James didn’t know how much of what he heard was true or not. The boy wasn’t much to look at, that was for sure. Nicky was just a skinny little kid with a mop of dark blond hair and pale blue eyes, to James he looked exactly like the youngest son on that home improvement show.

As they were finishing their plates, the conversation got around to James again. Robert addressed him with that friendly voice, “James, earlier you said you already had a hot meal today. Where did you get it?”

“I ... uh ... I made it myself.”

“Really? What’d you have? How’d you make it?”

The boy gazed around, trying to think up an answer, “I ... uh ... well ...”

“James, you really should stop lying. You’re no good at it.”

“I’m not lying.”

“When we picked you up you didn’t have a thing on you except one can of condensed chicken noodle soup. You don’t even have a pot to put it in. How did you heat a meal?”

“I ... uh ...”

“Come on, James, we’ve played fair with you. We did exactly what we said we were going to do. We brought you here, fed you, treated you like a friend. We deserve the whole truth. There’s something you’re not telling us. What is it?”

“I promised not to tell.”

“It has something to do with that town you just passed through when we found you. Doesn’t it?”

“I promised.”

“Do you know why we picked you up? Why we picked you up right there?”

“No.”

“We came through that same town two days before you did. We searched it pretty good but didn’t find a thing. We certainly didn’t find anyone living there. But you know what happened just as we were leaving?”

“What?”

“We smelled food. We couldn’t track down exactly from where but we could smell someone cooking food in that town. So you know what we decided to do?”

“No, what?” The boy was becoming nervous now.

“We just kept walking, like we didn’t know nothing, like we didn’t know someone was there hiding in that town. Once we left we set up this camp to hide ourselves, and watch. We set up teams on both ends of town. What do you think we were watching for?”

“I don’t know.”

“We were watching for someone to come out of that town, and that someone was you.”

“No, it wasn’t me.”

“Come on, James, like I said, you’re not a good liar. We watched you go into town last night and come out again this morning. You’ve got food stored away there, don’t you? You’ve probably got a nice little place, maybe in a basement somewhere, topped off with food and supplies. But every once in a while you’ve got to come up for air, maybe to go out foraging for more stuff, or maybe just to keep yourself from going nuts.”

“No!”

He could now hear the ire growing in Robert’s tone, “This isn’t fair, James. It’s not fair you’re holding out on us. We fed you, and I want you to know the offer we made was real. We want you to join us. We want you as a friend. But you’ve been lying all along. You didn’t want to be friends with us. You just wanted to take from us ... but you didn’t want to share what you have.”

“No!” The boy looked around at all those angry faces staring at him, lit by the fire, and then back to Robert who was now standing over him.

“You never did want to be friends with us. You just wanted to use us!”

“No! It wasn’t me, I wouldn’t do that to you guys; it was the Whitmans! It wasn’t my food! It was theirs!”

Rob sat down again, curiously the anger now gone as quick as it came, “Who’s the Whitmans?”

“I promised.”

“Come on, James, just tell us.”

“I promised I would never tell.”

“If you’re really our friend, you will tell us. Come on.”

“I can’t.”

“Come on, James ...”

After a few more moments of all those stares weighing heavy on him, the boy’s resolve was at long last gone, “Mark and Sarah Whitman.”

“They live in that town?”

“Yeah ...” The boy wouldn’t look at him, instead staring at the ground.

“Where exactly do they live?”

“At Chestnut and Main, there’s an old brick building on the corner. It’s three stories tall and there was a pharmacy on the first floor, and there were apartments above that.”

“Yes, I remember the drug store, we searched it real well. It was burned out and the stairs to the second floor were destroyed too. They’d completely collapsed. Are you saying they live above it?”

“Yes, the first two floors are trashed, they live on the third floor.”

“So how do they get in and out?”

“They have a rope ladder they lower from a window down to the ground.”

“This is hard to believe. How did you ever find them?”

“I didn’t; they found me. I was searching that pharmacy too and as I was leaving Sarah yelled out. I guess she felt sorry for me. I probably looked pretty pathetic; I hadn’t eaten in three days. They dropped the ladder and let me climb up. They searched me for weapons, though, I’m sure that was Mark’s idea. They gave me a meal and let me sleep there last night. This morning they fed me again but said they couldn’t help me no more. They said I had to go. They gave me that soup and made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone about them. When I made that promise I thought I could keep it.”

“It’s okay, James, you tried.”

“You’re going to rob them, aren’t you?”

“Yes, we are. Does that bother you?”

“Yes ...”

“Have you ever stolen from people, James?”

“Yes ... but I never hurt anyone.”

“Taking their food, that’s not hurting them?”

“You know what I meant. You’re going to hurt them.” The boy continued to gaze at his frayed tennis shoes, the tears coming again.

“James, look at me ...” Robert waited until the boy grudgingly stared up at him, “I want you to know we’re not going to hurt them, unless they try to hurt us. It’s one of our codes.”

“Codes?”

“We have codes we live by, James. When we join this group, we take an oath; if you decide to join us, you’ll take it too. One of our codes is that we never hurt anyone if we don’t have to. Unless your friends decide to fight us, I promise you they won’t be hurt.”

“You promise.”

“I promise ... so tell me all you know about them.”

“I don’t know anything else.”

“Sure you do, you probably don’t even know how much you do know. You’re sure it was just the two of them? How long were you there?”

“I was there over twelve hours. I didn’t see or hear anyone else the whole time. I’m sure it was just them.”

“Do they have some kind of alarm, or maybe a dog? Do they have any kind of animal that might warn them?”

“No, I don’t remember any animals, or alarms.”

“Do they have guns?”

“Yes ... Mister Whitman had three I could see.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know anything about guns.”

“Come on, James, describe them to me.”

“Well, the one he carried around with him most of the time was a shotgun ... I’m pretty sure of that. He kept calling it his ‘twelve gauge.’ He had a handgun too, in a holster on his belt. I didn’t get a good look at it though.”

“Was it a pistol or revolver?”

“A revolver, maybe, he never took it out.”

“You said there was a third gun, what was it?”

“Another long gun, maybe a rifle, maybe another shotgun, I don’t know. He had it standing in the corner next to the window facing Main Street.”

“You don’t know what it was?”

“It must have been a rifle because I think I remember it had a scope on it.”

“Okay, James, is there anything else you remember, any other kind of weapons like knives, or maybe a bow and arrows? Did they have any kind of booby traps on the windows or doors? Did they have a lot of food?”

“I saw some kitchen knives, but nothing else, no traps either. They had plenty of food though. Their kitchen cabinets and counters are crammed full, their closets too. Lots of store bought canned stuff and home canned to boot, you know, in those glass jars with a metal lid. It makes me hungry thinking of it all. I was so disappointed when they only gave me that one can of soup. I thought they were going to give me a whole lot more.”

“Okay, James, you’ve done good. Hasn’t he, guys?”

James felt a little bit better when everyone agreed and gathered around to give him a few pats on the back.

Robert sat there in the dappled light of the fire and thought about it a moment, then he turned to John Alton. “Alton, I want you to do some reconnaissance. Pick two guys and head out early in the morning. I want you there before the sun comes up. Watch the place all day and come back tomorrow night and give us a report.”

Without delay Alton stood up and looked around, “We’re going have to leave early if we’re going to get there and find a good observation spot all before sunrise. D’Cruz ... Cornwell, you’re with me. Get some sleep, we’ll be getting up at three hundred hours.”

After that the group broke up and started making their beds, except for McCain who had the first watch.

Robert was making his own bed when he noticed the boy still sitting by the fire, watching everyone else getting comfortable for the night. “James, you don’t have a sleeping bag, do you? Not even a blanket?”

“No ... a couple stole mine about two weeks ago. They stole my good pair of shoes too. Don’t worry about me though, it’s not so cold, I’ll just sit here by the fire.”

Rob went right to a large two-wheeled cart there at the edge of their camp. It was an odd-looking thing filled to the top with all the pilfered valuables they had stolen through the years. Affixed to the back was a large plastic drum that held the group’s water supply and strapped along each side were two long stout poles. James would later discover they were there so the men could carry it on their shoulders when the terrain was bad, or if they needed to move in a hurry.

He rummaged through it a few moments then quickly returned with something under his arm. “James, here’s a sleeping bag. It’s not much to look at, but it will keep you warm. I want you to have it ...”

“For tonight?”

“No, you can keep it. I want you to have this whether you stay with us or not.”

With a smile, James lay out next to his new friend, kicked off his dirty shoes and settled in too. Just as he was falling asleep a nudge to his side woke him again.

“James, I forgot to tell you something. You remember when we came here this afternoon and there were those trip wires we had to step over?”

“Yes ...”

“You don’t know where they are, and you’ll never see them in the dark. You probably don’t know what to look for anyway. If you’ve got to piss later just go in that open area right over there. Don’t go anywhere near the trees; we’ve got so many trip wires around us you’re bound to set one off.”

Later in the morning the boy woke again, and now he had to go. He looked around in the dim light from the dying fire. Martinelli was on guard now, sitting there watching him, and Alton and his men were long gone. He thought about getting up and relieving himself but just couldn’t, instead deciding to wait for daylight and go behind a tree. James lay there wide awake the rest of the morning, holding his urine until the sun came up.

That next day they waited for their team to return but still had many things to do. McCain, Peavey, and Rudd went out to observe a nearby road. Many of their best leads would come from refugees they caught wandering the highways.

The rest stayed in camp as there was work here too. Checking their traps and regular maintenance on the weapons, cooking, even their guest found he had some chores of his own as it was only his first meal that was free.

James spent most of the day boiling water he had to haul from a nearby stream. Making thirty gallons of sanitized water was quite a job when he could only carry five gallons at a time.

By dark the men started returning; Martinelli was cooking and had them all a hot meal ready as McCain and his guys walked into camp. McCain said, “The pickings were thin today.” About ten minutes behind him Alton and his men came wandering in. After they were all fed, Alton pulled a tablet out and everyone encircled him there by the fire.

“Okay, Boss, this is how it looks. First, James’s intel was right on the money.”

James found himself the recipient of a few more friendly pats on the back.

Alton began pointing out features on the handmade maps on his pad, “It took us to nearly daylight to find some good observation spots, but we did find some. I hid in an old flower shop, right here,” he pointed it out with his pen, “on the other side of Main, about twenty-five meters north and east of the drugstore. It’s probably the best observation spot near the building. I had D’Cruz set up down the street on the west side. I sent Cornwell the other way, one block south and east so he could watch the back of the building.”

Alton continued to point landmarks out on his map and then Rob interrupted as he handed him a fresh cup of freeze dried coffee. “Were you able to confirm what James told us, it’s only the two of them?”

“I would have to agree with that. We were there thirteen hours and the two of them were all we heard or saw. If there’s anyone else they must be in a coma because we didn’t hear one other peep.”

“Okay, tell us about the layout.”

“It’s just like James said. They’re in that old brick three story on the corner and they’re dug in real good.”

“How many ways in?”

“There’s two windows each facing north and west. As far as I could determine they are the only way in ... or out. The south and east sides of the building have no windows at all. That east side has another building next door and a narrow alley between them.”

“Could we climb to the windows from the roof of that building?”

“No, it’s only one story tall and it just can’t be done.”