TEOTWAWKI: Beacon's Story (11 page)

Back outside he slung his rifle over his back and, being quite so as not to awaken Old Bill, carefully climbed up the ladder on the back of his trailer and walked silently across the trailer's roof. He exchanged waves with the guard in the tower then he put the knotted rope's loop around the top of one of the logs and dropped the other end over the wall on the outside of the fort. When he'd climbed down the other side, he tossed the rope end back up over into the stockade so it would land behind the trailer and picked his way out through the ankle high barbed wire tanglefoot trip wires surrounding the stockade.

The tanglefoot traps consisted of nothing more than fore stakes sticking about eighteen inches above the ground in a square about six by six feet with a single strand of barbed wire going around the outside of them on top forming a square. Two more strands of barbed wire crisscrossed the square Xing it out. The barbed wire tanglefoot kept attackers from going prone to shoot and slowed walking so attackers made easy targets while allowing goats and sheep to graze keeping the area at the foot of the fort clear of grass and bushes.

Weaving between vegetable gardens with his head on a swivel he detected no danger so as he exited the last of the chicken wire protected private garden plots so he took out after the kid using a plainsman's walk. He didn't want the guard to think he was hurrying. No use starting rumors.

The spoor wasn't easy to follow in the moonlight, but the limping kid had followed the trail led up from Maggie's pile of bones at the base of the valley so Beacon concentrated on looking for sign that the kid had stepped off the beaten path. The trail stayed mostly within the tree line which was why Beacon hadn't spotted the kid coming up the valley in the shadow of the trees despite the silence of the windless night.

As the trail began worming its way deeper into the forest at the base of the mountain Beacon felt a sudden rising of the hairs on the back of his neck. Some sight, sound or scent so subtle his conscious mind hadn't registered it was telling his subconscious he was in imminent danger. He knew better than to ignore that warning, he froze.

He could detect no hint of danger but knew something was amiss. He was in shadow, but he needed cover or at least concealment. Very slowly, moving each foot a few inches at a time, he backed into the deeper shadow between two young pine trees and waited.

Eventually he thought he detected the sound of breathing coming from under a young pine tree just up the trail to his right front but he couldn't see anyone because of the darkness and the branches which hung down almost to the ground.

Then he heard someone hurrying up his back trail. It was a man with a pistol in one hand and a dog on a rope in the other. The dog was pulling him along as it sniffed the ground. Beacon silently edged behind one of the Christmas tree sized pine trees.

The dog came even with the tree and stopped looking directly at Beacon. The man raised his pistol, pointing it at Beacon's tree. "Come on out Gail I know you're there!" Beacon didn't move hoping the guy was bluffing.

"Come on, Gail, we both know you want to do it so quit playing hard to get." The pistol hadn't wavered from Beacon's tree. "Look, one way or another we're gunn'a do it!"

The pine tree's branches weren't cover, they wouldn't stop a bullet, but they were concealment combining with the darkness to conceal Beacon from the man's view. At this range even a barrage of shots from the twenty-two couldn't guarantee to keep the guy from pulling the trigger and Beacon's pistol was on his hip under his coat. Drawing it would have created too much movement and sound to go unnoticed by the man.

Beacon began to sink slowly and silently to one knee hoping he could get low enough so a shot would go over his head.

"You can come out now and we'll do it nice and easy or I'll put a bullet in your leg and then we'll still do it only one of us will be doing it with a bullet in her leg."

"So much for ducking," Beacon thought.

If the guy shot it was likely he'd at least nick Beacon. The guy pushed the gun out in front of him. It was pointed right at Beacon.

There was a tremendous explosion.

The guy screamed dropping his gun and the rope as he turned and fled down the trail holding his side. At the sound of the shot the dog took off straight ahead. Beacon made a diving grab for the rope as the dog ran past.

"Here Bobo!" an anxious female voice called from under the big pine ahead. The dog whined and tried to go to the voice. "Let go of my dog or I'll shoot you!" It was a bluff the other short pine tree was between them. She couldn't see Beacon and at that longer range Beacon was willing to bet on a miss if he stayed low. Still, caution and common sense said it'd be better if she didn't shoot at all.

Beacon believed she'd shoot but wanted to show his good intentions. "Sure and here's a little peace offering for the two of you." Beacon pulled a small sack of pemmican from an inner coat pocket and tied it to the rope before releasing the dog.

The dog went straight to her. "What's this?" the voice sounded suspicious.

"Pemmican, it's Indian food or Mountain Man food depending on how you look at it."

The girl may have been suspicious but Bobo wasn't. He heard her exclaim "Bobo no!" then saw the dog run out onto the trail with a piece of pemmican in its mouth. As the dog gulped it down she said, "If that's poisoned I'll kill you!"

"Not poisoned and there's more where that came from, how's your foot?"

"None of your business!" but the words were spoken around a mouthful of pemmican.

Taking that as a sign of acceptance Beacon said, "I'm going to check Romeo's back trail, hold your fire."

He waited a second and when she didn't object he stepped out onto the trail and policed up the man's pistol as he followed the blood trail a few dozen yards into the trees.

Aside from his curiosity about the pair Beacon wanted to know if they were alone or part of a group. If a group, how large and how well were they armed?

Returning he announced, "Good hit, the way he's bleeding he won't get far before he bleeds out."

The dark space under the pine tree was silent.

"How'd he know your name?"

"Before The Blowup he was a neighbor, and an unwanted suitor. I don't know how long he's been a peeping Tom. After The Blowup he started getting persistent. Then a few days ago, after my dad was killed, he kidnapped Bobo and threatened to kill her if I didn't submit to him."

"Sounds like Lothario was a real class act," Beacon said sarcastically.

"I told him he'd never find me without Bobo and took off running. He had a gun and I didn't, so I ran and hoped he'd use Bobo to track me instead of shooting her," there was a sob in her voice, "I couldn't think of anything else to do."

"Sounds like you've a head on your shoulders that was one smart move, he couldn't shoot you to get what he wanted and needed the dog to track you" Beacon said sitting down beside her tree.

"Then yesterday I found a dead man with this gun and I started cleaning the pistol so I could kill him. I took out the bullets and then started getting the rust out of the barrel with twigs and sticks."

"Sounds like you came up with a good plan, you almost got me."

"Oh I wouldn't have shot you! I was going to let you pass, but then you disappeared and I didn't know what to do."

"No plan survives first contact." Beacon intoned.

"What?"

"It's an old military maxim. It means no matter how carefully you plan and prepare people are going to do something unexpected and unplanned for. In this case Bobo sensed me and almost kept Lothario from walking right into your ambush."

Gail seemed surprised he answered her question but held her ground, "Maxim smacksome my plan worked in spite of your interference!"

"If you want to come out from under that tree we can walk back to the fort and see if they'll accept you into the group."

"Why should they?"

"Good question, got any skills, tools or talents?"

"Uh, no," then suspiciously, "what kind of talents?"

"Well you obviously don't have any horses, cows, pigs, furs or food to trade so it would have to be something they don't already have enough of like weaving if you had a loom or being a doctor or nurse or something like that."

"No, nothing like that, I haven't eaten in three days." She said coming out and handing him the empty pemmican bag as she sat beside him. But he noticed she kept her pistol in the hand away from him and pointed in his direction.

Beacon replaced the empty bag in his coat pocket and pulling another bag from a different pocket he gave her a bag of jerky to chew on while he wrapped a rabbit skin he used as an Ascot on cold nights, fur side in, around her foot and tied it up around her ankle with a strip of rawhide.

"I'm a country girl. I can fish my shoe out of your creek and go home. I'll be safe there alone, I don't need anybody!"

"Want'a trade guns for a minute?"

She hesitated, "Why?"

"I want to see what kind of cannon you have there it just about blew my ears off."

He held out the S&W "Bodyguard AirWeight" in .38 Special that Lothario had dropped butt first.

She took it and handed him a huge revolver. It was a .44 magnum "Dirty Harry" revolver with a six inch barrel covered in rust. It didn't look safe to shoot.

Even in the moonlight she could see the look on his face. "He'd been dead a long time."

Beacon unloaded five live rounds and the empty hull from the cylinder. With a lot of oil, steel wool and elbow grease the gun could probably be salvaged.

He stood up and held out his hand hoping she wouldn't notice he hadn't given her gun back, "Let's go get warm."

She stood up on her own grabbing Bobo's rope as she stepped out onto the trail. He figured she would be all of five feet tall in cowboy boots, but she had on just one sneaker.

"Why should I go with you?"

"To get some hot food and maybe a shoe or two, then we'll see if we can talk Maggie into letting you stay."

"I lost my shoe in that stream below your fort. Why wouldn't she want me to stay?"

"Well for one thing you're with me and Maggie doesn't like me. For another unless you have a talent, skill or resource The Settlement needs she'd have good reason to reject you as just another mouth to feed and we're gunn'a be short on food until spring."

"It's almost spring now and …"

"Still, unless you have something The Settlement needs there's no reason to let you stay. Heck, being with me is the only way you'll get in the gate, but we're going to have to find something you can do to justify feeding you."

"I'm not marrying anybody for food!"

"No, no you're not. I didn't say you would, and besides that's why Maggie and Coven of Crones has to pass on newcomers. Too many women were willing to trade sex for a billet so it's now the old ladies who have the final say on admitting newbie's.

Trying to change the subject Beacon asked, "What's a nice girl like you doing being chased around the mountains by a lecherous young man?"

"Larry the Lizard, that's the guy I shot back there, was just an annoyance before The Blowup. His parents were in the city when it happened. They never returned and he kept showing up after that. I'd have run him off, but I felt sorry for him until I caught him peeking in my bedroom window one night. Then I did run him off."

She finished the last of the jerky and handed the bag back to him.

"Then two days ago I left at dawn to set up a trap line over on beaver creek. The country is too rough for horses so I left Poky with dad. I didn't get back 'til dusk. Looters had hit while I was gone. They killed Dad and Poky." Her voice tightened as she added after a pause, "They ate him!"

Cannibalism hadn't been unheard of after The Blowup but Beacon had been rejoicing the new found knowledge that she was a trapper. That would count towards an invite to join The Settlement. Without thinking he blurted out, "They ate your dad?"

"No," she sobbed, "they ate Poky!"

"Poky?" Beacon asked dumbly.

"Poky the Pony he's … he was my horse I've had him since I was eight. When I got back they were just laying there. And the bastards had cut out huge hunks out of Poky."

"Oh." Beacon was still trying to get back up to speed on what she'd been talking about before he got sidetracked by her trapping remark.