The Condemned (28 page)

It hadn’t been too hard to track her to the edge of the forest. It wasn’t the easiest thing
in the world
,
to hide the evidence of a big horse as it trampled undergrowth and cut a clear path through foliage that probably hadn’t been disturbed in years
,
and so he’d known he was heading in the right direction.

    
Not long after he left the cover of the trees
,
Amato spied something in the distance. It looked like civilisation of sorts and he guessed she would most likely have headed towards it.

    
Able to push the horse a little harder now that the terrain was a lot less treacherous; no more thick roots waiting to catch a hoof and trip them,
no more
hidden dips and holes covered by fallen leaves, he made good time in reaching the small town.

    
Town... o
k, if you could call it that. There wasn’t much here at all and he knew it wasn’t where she would be heading
,
but as he slowed the mare to a steady trot and cautiously circled the small grouping of buildings to get a better look
,
he saw enough to know that he had to at least check the place out.

    
Chances were there was more than one person riding a bay
gelding
,
but how many of them had come this way? The horse tethered to the water trough
,
outside the front of the bar
,
sure looked like the one Leci had taken. He was no equine expert but it looked like the same animal and he had to
go in for a closer look
. It seemed strange that she would be so careless as to essentially announce her presence like this
,
but if she was assuming she wouldn’t be followed he supposed there was no need for her to bother trying
,
it just
seemed sloppy. Still, he could hope th
at she’d fucked up and was here. I
t would make things a whole lot quicker, they could be back at the cabin in a few hours
,
and he had to admit that he was even kinda looking forward to it, having an excuse to ‘pu
nish’ her for being naughty... p
ull her over his knee and give her a good spanking...

    
Ok, he didn’t need an excuse
for that,
but still, it made things interesting.

Amato was grinning to himself as he brought the horse to a stop outside the tavern, alongside the one that looked very much like their second horse. He was almost certain it was the same animal
and he felt his mood improving at the prospect of finding her so quickly and easily.

    
He reined his in close to the trough and it lowered its head, slurping up mouthfuls of the filthy looking liquid thirstily as he hopped out of the saddle and surveyed the building in front of him. He knew how the horse felt.

    
A beer sounded pretty good right about now.

If she was inside he’d have a drink before they headed back. If not he’d wasted too much time already and needed to get back on the trail, find his girl and let her know she’d been very, very bad.

    
He pushed through the door and into the darkness within, stood in the entryway for a moment, waiting for his eyes to readjust from the glaring sunlight outside to the gloomy, dim interior of the bar.
When the place came into focus and the vague shadows began to look more like tables and chairs Amato scanned the bar. It was almost deserted which really wasn’t surprising
,
given that it wouldn’t even register on a map of any kind,
it
w
as probably about as well known
as the cabin.

    
A fat, bald guy at the other side of the bar was sprawled halfway across it, snoring loudly.
Taking advantage of the lack of supervision, the only other person in there had crept a
round and was helping themself
to a bottle of whisky.

    
The skinny figure was small,
the
blonde hair hung below the edge of the cap they wore. The blue shirt was tight fitting and the faded jeans were loose, baggy, held up by a makeshift belt that looked like some grey rag torn from a shirt or something.

    
Bingo?

    
Wow, that had been easier than he’d expected.

     
‘Alecia.’

     
‘Whoa! Fuck!’ The kid dropped the bottle, surprised at being caught and took off at a run, dodging behind the bartender who continued to snore, his slumber probably induced by his own wares, she headed for a side door.

    
Amato backed out of the entrance and sped around the building, catching the runaway as she hurled herself out into the daylight and straight into his arms. He held his prisoner by the upper arms, she kicked out at him and struggled ferociously.

     
‘Let me go Mister! I didn’t do nuthin! Lemme go!’

     
‘Fuck!’

    
Amato released the girl, pushing her back against the wall. She was stunned by the impact and stopped trying to get away. He reached out and ripped Leci’s cap from the girl’s head, already knowing it wasn’t her.

     
‘Fuck!’

    
He threw the cap at the kid, grabbed hold of her with one hand and punched the wall in frustration with the other, hissing air through his clenched jaw at the pain in his already bruised knuckles.

    
He needed to stop doing that, it hurt like a bitch.

     
‘I weren’t stealin’ it! Honest!’

     
‘Like fuck you weren’t, but I couldn’t give a shit about that kid.’ He eyed her up and down.

    
She had a similar build to Leci, was a bit smaller,
clearly younger. He
r
hair was shorter but the same muddy blonde colour. She was wearing the cookie shirt. It didn’t hug her curves like it did Alecia’s, the scrawny kid barely had anything to call a curve, but he hadn’t been able to tell that so well from the back. He was majorly pissed with himself for falling for something so simple
,
but he had to admire his girl for thinking of it.

     
‘The girl who gave you the clothes and the horse kid, what did you give her?’

     
‘Huh?’

    
Her confusion was more because of the unexpected line of questioning rather than because she didn’t know what he was talking about. It took her a few seconds to realise that this crazy looking dude wasn’t interested in the bottle she’d been swipin’ from her old man. She relaxed visibly.

    
If this guy wasn’t gonna tell her Pa what she’d been up to then maybe she could avoid a nasty beatin’. All she had to do was keep him sweet, give him what he wanted.

     
‘The girl... Um... She wanted a horse, and my clothes. I traded Pa’s nag with her. Good deal, did you see what she gave me for it? It’s a fucking good pony, reckon the old man’ll be pleased?’

    
She looked frightened
,
but
at the same time eager to please, a desperation in her eyes that told him she spent her entire life trying to stay on her father’s good side but not
usually managing very well. Amato felt a flicker of sympathy for the girl and he relaxed his grip on her arm, keeping hold of her
,
in case she tried to run again
,
but not putting such bruising force into it. She was just some poor kid who’s dad took out his anger on her with his fists.

     
‘What clothes did you give her? What’s she wearin’ now?’

The girl looked at him as though she thought he was mad. He gave her an impatient shake.

     
‘Ok! Ok! Um... I swapped her for my cap, hers was in better shape, mine was full of holes but she didn’t care. It’s a red one. Well, it’s got some red patches on it, it’s mostly dirt coloured I s’pose.’

    
He nodded.

     
‘What else?’

    
The girl’s curiosity got the better of her and she suddenly looked more interested than afraid.

     
‘What’d she do Mister? Why you chasin’ her? She killed someone?’

     
‘No, but she’s going to if I don’t find her soon. Now tell me what the fuck she’s wearing!’

     
‘Alright, alright... Eesh, calm down. I gave her my tank top, it’s like a muddy green, got some holes in it and one of the straps broke, I had to tie it back together so it kinda hangs lopsided now. Looked worse on her than it does on me cos she had bigger tits than I do, and my camo pants. One of the
legs is ripped off at the knee. It got a hole in it sometime y’know? And I just sorta dug at it an’ dug at it until the hole was mostly all the way around and I pulled the leg off. She liked em cos they had a belt on though, didn’t care how stupid the legs was.

‘
Oh, she wanted my knife too. Just a little one, made me give it as part trade for the horse. She wouldn’t swap her shoes though. I wanted them badly too, hers didn’t have no holes in em. Bitch wouldn’t give me her jacket either. Was a real nice one and it was way too big for her. I thought she was gonna hit me when I tried taking it off her. Was the shoes I wanted most though, looked real comfy.’

    
She looked down forlornly at the ragged excuse she was wearing on her feet. They were little more than thin straps of material wrapped around her dirty bare feet.

     
‘Say, can I have yours mister?’

     
‘Can you fuck. And for the record, a fucking gnat’s got bigger tits than you do
,
Sweetheart. What colour is the horse you gave her?’

    
She pouted sulkily, sticking out her bottom lip, either upset by his refusal to give her his shoes
,
or pissed at his comment regarding her lack of cleavage. For a moment she looked as though she might respond by clamming up and not telling him what he wanted to know but she soon changed her mind when he unslung the rifle and pointed it at her face.

     
‘Fuck... Fuck! Grey! It was a grey old nag! Don’t shoot me mister!’ She held her hands up protectively in front of her and he put the weapon away. Taking the opportunity
,
the kid ducked under his arm and fled. He didn’t try to stop her, he’d gotten everything useful out of her.

    
Well, almost everything.

     
‘Hey, kid!’

She stopped and turned around when he yelled, watching him cautiously but obviously relatively sure she was a safe enough distance from him now.

     
‘Which way did she go?’

    
The girl smirked, stuck her middle finger up at him
,
and disappeared around the corner of another building.

Amato swore and kicked at the ground, swirling up a cloud of dust around him.

The only benefit he could see to this whole farce was that she had downgraded her ride and he might be able to gain a bit of ground on her.

    
Fuck, he hadn’t even asked
when
she’d been here.

    
He thought about chasing after the kid, forcing her to answer a few more of his questions but decided against it. The time he’d waste doing that could mean the difference between life and death to Alecia and he wasn’t going to risk it.

The best he could do was
try and think how she would, or, how he thought she would, and just trust that he was heading along
the right sort of line.
She was looking for civilisation, she’d follow whatever there was that looked vaguely manmade.

    
Saddling up again
,
Amato followed what remained of a dirt beaten track that maybe once had been able to be called a road.

She suspected he might be following her and she was trying to throw him off
, that much was clear
, but he didn’t think she’d go out of her way to do it. She would be hoping that the time she’d gained with this little stunt would be enough.

    
He was praying that it wouldn’t.

Chapter 26