The Day After Never - Blood Honor (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller) (12 page)

Carl nodded. “They never learn. Probably the cartel out of Pecos got them.”

“God rest their souls,” Alan said, and all three men nodded.

Travelers would spy a promising dwelling lying vacant and take it over in the hopes of finding peace, only to be butchered by one of the armed criminal groups that viewed the area from the river south of Loving as their hunting ground. The group in Pecos, the nearest large town, was a Hispanic gang that called itself the Loco Cartel, especially savage in its raids. It left Duke alone, since his outpost served as a useful venue where its minions could trade their ill-gotten wares, but anyone else was fair game, and it demanded stiff tithes for protection, mainly from itself.

Lucas didn’t know anything about the settlers, but suspected they’d either bypassed Pecos and were unaware of the danger they faced from the cartel or were simply out of energy and had decided to take their chances squatting for a while before moving on. Either way, they’d learned firsthand that there was no place too remote for the cartel to extort, and if they hadn’t had anything to pay, the males had probably been killed and the woman enslaved and carted away – assuming they’d taken her alive. They probably had, as live females held barter value in the criminal underworld of the cities, whereas corpses were worthless.

The men skirted the ruined home, and the horses whinnied softly as they passed, as though sensing the death in the atmosphere. Nobody spoke; the scene was unremarkable, just as similar scenes played out on a daily basis in battlegrounds all over the world, whether in the Middle East or Ukraine or Africa, the end result always more crops for the grim reaper’s scythe.

Lucas had snatched some sleep in hour-long increments as the horses plodded along, and was more rested than he had a right to be by the time veins of crimson marbled the eastern sky. He stopped to check his compass and, after taking his bearings, pointed at the hills.

“Maybe five more hours’ ride,” he said, scanning the surroundings, and then raised his binoculars to his eyes and did a slow inspection of the horizon.

“See anything?” Alan asked.

“Nothing to see.”

“That’s good, right?” Alan persisted.

“Every day you draw breath is,” Lucas answered, and dropped the spyglasses back against his chest. He dismounted, removed the night vision scope from his M4, and packed it into its hard case before dropping it into one of the saddlebags, and then removed one of the five-gallon water jugs and set about watering Tango. The other men did the same and after twenty minutes were back in the saddle, pressing forward to where, hopefully, the little girl was still alive.

“People are fools trying to settle out here alone,” Carl said, obviously still thinking about the destroyed ranch house. “You’d think they’d have learned by now.”

“Everyone hopes that it’s getting better,” Lucas said with a shrug. “Price to find out you’re wrong is pretty steep.”

“So you don’t think it will ever improve?” Alan asked. “It has to. It can’t just stay…like this.”

“Oh, eventually it might. But if you know your history, the world’s always been a dangerous place. People forgot that, but it’s true. One of my ancestors died at the Alamo, fighting Mexicans. More Americans died in the Civil War than in any other. The U.S. has been at constant war in one place or another since WWII, but because none of them were fought on our soil, they were out of sight and mind. But if you lived in one of those countries, it was like this all the time, for the most part, I’d imagine. Warring groups taking what they wanted, killing indiscriminately, battling for turf, destroying rather than building. Some areas stayed like that for decades, even with no killer flu or global collapse. So do I think it will improve? Sure. Eventually. But eventually can be a long, long time, and my bet is that we won’t have learned anything when it does.”

“What do you mean?” Alan asked.

“We’re a selfish, brutal, venal species. Whenever there’s a disaster, we see that time and time again. Nothing’s changed. We’re still made of the same stuff we were when the Mongols were sweeping across Asia, or the barbarians were ravaging Europe, or our ancestors were slaughtering the Indians, or we were bombing Vietnam and its neighbors into the Stone Age.” Lucas spat to the side. “Think about what happened here. The power went off and a lot of us got sick and died. That’s it. But what really happened was that the darkness that’s always lurking just out of sight spotted weakness, and darkness always looks for any way to defeat light. Been that way since original sin.”

“Pretty pessimistic philosophy,” Carl observed.

“You seen anything to convince you I got it wrong?” Lucas asked.

“We aren’t that way in Loving. You and your grandpa aren’t. There’s plenty of good in the world. Not everyone’s bad.”

“Not saying everyone’s bad. I’m saying we’re damaged goods, and any day we can show our mean side. Only way to keep it in check is to acknowledge it’s true and be on the lookout for it in ourselves.”

“The ones that burned that house down or attacked the woman are scum, Lucas. We both know that. Don’t lump everyone in with them. You do yourself a disservice.”

“They’re flesh and blood, too. Sure, they’re evil, but that same evil’s in all of us. You see that working in law enforcement.” Lucas didn’t say
real
law enforcement; he didn’t have to. “You arrest a teenage girl with a face like a saint for cooking her baby in the oven because she couldn’t handle it crying, you’ll see what I mean. You interrogate a young man who killed his parents for a lousy ten grand life insurance policy, you see how petty evil can be, how it looks pretty much like you or me. Clean up after a mass shooting, where a guy who was polite and went to church on Sundays decides to wipe the earth of a dozen of his fellows, and tell me about how good we are at heart.” Lucas paused. “We’re seeing how we truly are with this collapse. That’s all. The bad are winning. Darkness is winning. That’s what this is, nothing less. We built an artificial reality where everything seemed safe, but it was a lie. World’s never been safe, and it never will be. Just bad guys trying to dominate good ones. Old as the devil.”

Alan and Carl exchanged a look. “That was an inspiring sermon,” Carl said.

Lucas squinted at the rising sun. “He asked.”

“Yet you’re helping us. We’re all risking our lives to find a child,” Alan said.

“That’s the light, Deputy. That’s our hope for a better tomorrow. Like I said, we’re capable of extraordinary goodness. No question.”

“Then things could get better.”

“Oh, I expect, assuming the reactors don’t melt down. Anything’s possible. But if you think a bunch of faceless cheats in Washington are going to wave a magic wand, you’re nuts. They’re probably all dead. And if they aren’t, they’ve got to convince people like you and me to do the work, because they’ll never get their hands dirty. No, they’ll set up their admiralty courts and pass laws and rules the rest of us have to follow, and find ways to screw us out of the fruits of our labor, but they won’t risk their own skins. That’s not how it works. Not how it’s ever worked.” Lucas spat again.

Carl looked at Lucas for a long time. “Hard to believe you were ever a Ranger.”

Lucas pulled his reins tight and Tango stopped. Lucas stared daggers through Carl, and when he spoke, his tone could have cut glass. “Carl, you’re a decent enough sort, but you ever say anything like that again, you’ll be eating through a straw the rest of your life.”

Carl didn’t speak. Lucas snicked out of the corner of his mouth and Tango started walking again.

When Carl looked over at Alan, the younger man averted his eyes and busied himself with inspecting the blisters forming on his hands from the reins.

Chapter 15

The temperature rose as the morning sun ascended, and by the time the procession was near the gulch where Lucas had rescued the woman, all three men were sweating. Alan fiddled with his plate carrier, trying to adjust it so it was more comfortable.

“I hate this thing. It’s heavy and bulky,” he complained.

“It’s like a seatbelt. You’re happy for it when you need it,” Carl said, and looked to Lucas. “Yours looks more comfortable.”

“None of them are, but this one’s better than most. Each plate’s seven and a half pounds. The level IV composite plates will stop an armor-piercing round.”

“Ever have to test that theory?”

“Whole point’s avoiding that.”

Lucas held a finger to his lips and stopped, and Carl and Alan followed his lead, quizzical expressions on their faces. Lucas peered through his binoculars and then leaned toward them.

“Someone’s there. I see smoke.”

“That’s not good,” Alan said.

Lucas didn’t bother responding, preferring to dismount and walk Tango forward. Carl did the same, Alan bringing up the rear, and they made their way on foot, leading the horses until Lucas pointed to a shady spot beneath the spread of a tree. Lucas tied Tango’s reins to a branch and whispered to the others.

“Let’s see what we got down there. Keep out of sight, and watch for sentries.”

They set off toward the ridge that overlooked the gully, and ten minutes later were looking down at the site of the battle. Skeletons picked clean by buzzards and insects were stacked in a pile near the boulders where Lucas had rescued Sierra, and more than a dozen Raiders, their Mohawks as distinctive as war paint even at a distance, were sorting through the dead men’s belongings near a cooking fire – the source of the smoke Lucas had spotted from afar.

Lucas studied the Raiders for a moment and then shifted his focus to the caves that peppered the sides of the canyon. Carl and Alan waited patiently until he pulled himself back from the crest and turned to them.

“Too many to take on.”

“We have the element of surprise. We could ambush them and neutralize them all before they knew what hit them,” Carl said.

“Maybe. Maybe not. All you need are a few to escape the first salvo and take cover behind those rocks, and then we’re at a stalemate – they could hold out for hours, and the numbers aren’t in our favor. Especially if there are more out there.”

Alan shook his head. “If we each take four or five, we could do it.”

Lucas regarded the younger man. “You been in many firefights?”

A flush of color rose in Alan’s cheeks. “I’m just saying we could take them.”

“It’s rarely like what you think,” Lucas advised. “A smart man avoids confrontation, doesn’t look for it. Besides, the more shooting, the more likely we draw other unfriendlies. I’d rather not chance it.”

“Then what do you suggest?” Carl asked.

“We need a diversion.”

“With no shooting? How do you see that working?”

Lucas thought for a moment. “You ever fired a crossbow?”

Carl nodded. “Sure. For hunting. Half the town uses the same three bows.”

“If we could get right on top of them, we could hit one with a bolt, and that would draw the rest of them after us.”

Carl nodded slowly. “And then what?”

“We lead them on a chase, get them out of the area. Look for, and hopefully find, the girl – and then rendezvous at a prearranged point later.”

“I take it you’ve got a crossbow?”

“In my saddlebag. I use it in the field for game.”

“Alan and I will lead them away. You hunt for the girl,” Carl said.

“We need more of a plan than that,” Lucas said.

Carl studied Lucas’s face. “How well you know this area?”

“Well enough.”

“Where would you lead them to lose them?”

“There’s a bunch of ravines a mile or so north. What I’d do is have Alan wait there for you to lead them to him, and then pick them off as they ride by. They won’t be able to take cover easily on horseback. Your rifles auto or single-shot?”

“Auto,” Alan said.

“Got plenty of ammo?”

“Enough.”

“They’ll have a hell of a time finding their way back up out of the gulch there, so you’ll have a good head start on them. Make sure you go slow enough so you don’t lose them,” Lucas said.

“Don’t want to get back shot.”

Lucas nodded. “Let’s go pick a spot.”

An hour later they were back at the trees, talking in low tones. Alan shook hands with Lucas and Carl, and rode off. Carl accompanied Lucas to the rise, and then Lucas continued along the crest, out of sight of the party below. Carl would shoot one or two of the Raiders with the crossbow and then leave a dust trail for them to chase. Hopefully, seeing their companions fall, they would all take off after him, leaving the gully for Lucas to search.

It was far from a perfect plan, but few ever were. Both Carl and Alan knew that they had the more dangerous part of the job, but neither complained, preferring to focus on their mission. Lucas had warned them that when it all happened, it would go faster than they expected, so to be prepared and calm. Now it was out of his hands.

He peeked over the crest and eyed the Raiders. They were loud and boisterous, untroubled by their surroundings, at the top of the food chain out here in their element. Nobody would be stupid enough to attack an armed party of their ilk, so they had no reason to fear a threat.

That was about to change.

Chapter 16

The Raiders were chortling as they amused themselves playing soccer with one of the corpses’ skulls. The men were disappointed that most of the weapons were gone, but there was sufficient booty to keep them happy, and after packing up later they would go in search of greener pastures. After the attack, a surviving member of the original ambush party had ridden back to their stronghold and reported back on the carnage, and led them to the site the prior day so they could collect what they could before the scene was picked completely clean by opportunists.

“Goooooooalllll!!!” one of the Raiders screamed in triumph as the skull skittered between his adversary’s legs, and then let out a whoop, arms extended overhead in victory. The exclamation was cut off when the feathered shaft of a quarrel materialized in the center of the Raider’s chest. He sputtered and grabbed the shaft before slowly sinking to his knees, a trickle of blood drooling from the corner of his mouth.