Legion of Despair: Book Three in The Borrowed World Series (30 page)

“None taken,” Lloyd said, patting his friend on the shoulder. Outside, the sky was lightening. This long night would soon be over. “If you can tolerate my absence, I’ll let the others know that the reaper found you distasteful and sent you back.”

Buddy smiled again and closed his eyes. Lloyd slipped from the room and was back in a moment with Ariel, Ellen, and Jim. Ariel approached Buddy slowly. She’d always been timid around illness and injury. She reached out a hand and patted Buddy on the forearm.

“Thank you, Buddy,” she said. “You saved me.”

Buddy opened his eyes and looked toward the little girl. It required a surprising amount of effort to maintain focus on her. He gave her a smile. “If I had let those coyotes eat you, who would make me pies and cobblers?”

Ariel grinned. “Would you like me to make you one today?”

“More than anything in the world,” Buddy replied.

Ariel grabbed her mother’s hand. “Let’s go, Mommy. We have to make a pie.”

“Ariel, it’s 5 a.m.,” Ellen said. “You’re going to have to wait just a little bit. Mommy needs to wake up and have some coffee first.”

“You can drink coffee while I peel apples,” Ariel said, pulling her mother from the room.

Jim approached the bed and laid his hand on Buddy’s shoulder. “You’ll need to take it easy,” he said. “You lost a lot of blood and you’ll be weak until it’s replenished. There might be some damage to the muscle, too, and that will have to repair itself.”

Buddy nodded and closed his eyes. He was getting tired already. “Make sure that banjo player doesn’t rob me blind while I’m laid up,” Buddy said. “Musicians are a shady lot.”

“You better be nice to him,” Jim said. “You’ll need his help while you’re recuperating.”

“Maybe you can make a rickshaw out of a wheelbarrow and let him pull me around,” Buddy whispered. “I’d like that.”

Lloyd shook his head. “Even near death the old coot can’t be nice,” he said.

A silence fell over the room.

Jim cleared his throat. “I know you need to rest, Buddy, but I want you to know that I can’t even begin to thank you enough for what you did.”

A tear leaked from Buddy’s closed eyes. “I didn’t do it for you,” Buddy said. “I did it because I was a dad once and it’s what dads do.”

“You’re still a dad,” Jim said, his voice cracking and his own eyes filling with tears. “I see it in you every day. Nothing changes that.”

“Maybe, but I managed to save your girl when I couldn’t save my own,” Buddy said.

“I owe you,” Jim said. “I owe you a lot.”

Buddy waved him off with a hand he could barely control. “I need to rest,” he said. “We’ll talk later. Right now, I’m tired as a groundhog in hard dirt.”

*

Jim sat on the back porch, drinking a cup of coffee and watching the sunrise. While he was pleased that Buddy was alive, the whole experience with the coyotes had shaken him. His biggest fear on the long walk home from Richmond was that something might happen to his family before he could get home to protect them. When he got home, he knew things wouldn’t be easy but at least his family would be protected. He would be there to defend them against all attackers. They would be safe.

That was not to be the case.

He was there when the coyotes attacked and his presence hadn’t changed a damn thing. Had it not been for Buddy’s intervention, Ariel might have died. Buddy had prevented that through guts and sheer luck. It left Jim with the painful awareness that if his family wasn’t safe with him here, then there was no chance of them ever really being safe at all. That thought both hurt and terrified him.

At the beginning of this national crisis, he’d convinced himself that the only way he’d make it home from Richmond alive was to become as hardened as the worst of men. He felt like his grandfather was whispering a reminder in his ear the whole way home, reminding him that the world he found himself in now was not a place for the soft and considerate, for the delicate of heart. It was a world where you had to kill those who would try to kill you, where you had to make hard decisions about who lived and who died, and where you had to be selfish to keep those you loved alive. If he had to kill a hungry thief, he’d do it. If he had to drive off hungry beggars at gunpoint, he’d do it. If he had to dig discreet graves every week to keep his family alive, he’d do it. All without a second thought.

Weeks ago Jim would have handled last night differently. He would probably have flipped out to a degree. He’d never handled stress well, but he was adapting because this world required it. Surviving was about more than food and firepower. Jim was learning every day that it was about mindset too. It was about putting your feelings aside and doing those things that had to be done.

Later, he would get Gary and they would finish putting up those gates on the road. Jim knew they would not be enough. The world would press at them, wanting their livestock, their fields, their supplies, or whatever it was that they had and the world wanted. The gates were just a symbolic gesture, really. Several times recently, Jim had heard sounds that he thought might be drones, like the one he and Lloyd had seen in the superstore parking lot in town. What good was a gate against a drone?

More than anything, the gates were a symbol of people pushed to the edge. Gary had been displaced from his home and found a new one. He would not want to leave again, unless his family was able to return to their real homes.

Jim sat, watching the day emerge. He was making his stand too. He’d fought to get back to his home and family. He’d killed for it, and he would not be leaving, no matter what came at them.

About the Author

Franklin Horton lives and writes in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. He attended Virginia Intermont College and Virginia Commonwealth University. In his spare time he pursues outdoor adventures with his wife and two children. His interests include camping, kayaking, backpacking, mountain biking, and shooting. Feel free to contact him by email at [email protected].

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