The Last Pilgrims (24 page)

“She’s not my girlfriend, Piggy,” he scowled
as he walked by the two militiamen and approached Ruth.

“What are you doing here, Ruth?”

“Saving that guy’s life,” she said, pointing
at Marbus.

“I mean, why are you out here by yourself?
Why aren’t you at the ranch?”

“They took my father, and I’m going to find
them.”

“Ruth, you have to go back to the ranch.
We’re going to track them. If they can be found or caught, we’ll do
it. We’ll stay on them until we get your father back.”

Ruth rode by him and up onto the road.
“Somehow, I doubt it,” she said, a bit brusquely.

“Ruth, your father’s gone, but you still
have to follow the rules! I need you to go back to the ranch.”

“My father’s gone, there is a battle going
on, and my sister’s gone north. Under the circumstances, the old
rules no longer apply,” she said, softly.

“We’ll track them, Ruth, I promise.”

“You’ll track them with me,” she said
matter-of-factly.

Piggy was laughing uncontrollably by this
time as he helped Marbus locate his horse and finish securing the
body. “I thought you were a pacifist, girly!” he said, “Look what
you did to that housecat!”

Ruth dismounted and located her arrow that,
after passing through the lion, had embedded itself in the
embankment. Then she bent down and pulled Piggy’s knife out of the
side of the beast, which, by this time, had finally stopped
thrashing about. She wiped the blood off the knife on the cat’s
fur, handing the knife back to Piggy.

“Cats are not people, Piggy; and, by the
way, the cat was going for the body, not for Marbus. Before you
arrived, she was dragging the body up that embankment. She wasn’t
going to let you steal it.”

Timothy rubbed his black beard in his hands.
“That makes sense. I couldn’t figure out why a mountain lion, which
usually avoids people, would attack Marbus.”

“I’m just saying that what I just saw was
pretty violent!” Piggy said, his grin wide and jovial, “Aren’t you
supposed to just forgive the kitty and make nice with it?”

“You ridicule that about which you know
nothing,” she replied calmly. “Pacifism is not the easy and wide
road that violence is. My father ought not to be made fun of.”

“Oh,” Piggy retorted as he walked back
towards his own horse, “I have nothing but the highest respect for
your father. I’m just pointing out the… dynamics… of his daughter
wanting to join this posse after violently killing a lion in front
of our faces.” He looked at Ruth seriously, “If you ride with us,
dearie, we will kill many Aztlanis, and they will writhe and
wriggle as much as that cat when they are killed.”

“I’m not the saint that my father is, and
perhaps the road of pacifism is too narrow for me. I don’t know
yet. But
I am
going with you.”

Piggy bowed his head, “The more the merrier,
darlin’.”

As Marbus, clearly still shaken and
ashen-faced, rode off towards the Wall’s ranch, he tipped his hat
as he passed The Hood and Rob Fosse, who were riding to join the
posse.

Timothy saw Rob Fosse smile as he noticed
the dead lion on the road.

“I suppose you all made it a quarter of a
mile before you got hungry, and I further suppose the lass here is
going to cook this beast up for our supper? That is what I must
discern from this ridiculous scene.”

Timothy just shook his head as Piggy made a
‘zip-your-lip’ signal with his hand before rolling his eyes towards
Ruth. Tim figured that if Ruth was going to be riding with them,
she’d have to learn to handle herself with militia humor. However,
it seemed that she was up for the challenge, given that she’d
handled herself pretty well with Piggy.

He couldn’t help but be impressed with
Ruth’s killing of the lion, but he also knew that—although he could
not stop her from going with them—he would be made to answer to
Phillip, and probably Jonathan, for why he had let her join the
posse.

In the end, he supposed that she was safer
riding with some of the best fighters in the Ghost militia, away
from the ranch and the battle.

Hood had been sent because he was the best
tracker in the bunch. He guessed that Rob Fosse was there because
Phillip trusted him more than just about any other man in the
militia.

Together the new posse rode west and stayed
on that westerly trek when the road turned south and became the
Bethany road. The kidnappers had wanted to avoid Bethany and any
substantial road traffic. As they moved westward, the road—once a
paved county road, but now more of a footpath—meandered slowly as
it ascended towards Jefford’s Creek.

The posse traveled with the usual Ghost
militia efficiency and speed. Every once in awhile, Hood would
dismount and examine the ground or the surrounding flora, and when
he did, the militia members would—without any orders given—spread
out and inspect the area. Tim and the other riders never rode too
close together, and, every mile or so, each one in turn would fall
back—without a word or a signal—and virtually disappear to the rear
to discern if they were being followed. If there was high ground
ahead, one of the men would usually break off and take a circuitous
route behind it, in order to make sure they didn’t ride into an
ambush.

Some short while after they crossed
Jefford’s Creek, they pulled up near an abandoned Vallensian farm
and went into the large hay barn. Hood immediately went up the
ladder into the hayloft and stood watch while the posse rested and
talked.

Tim looked at the faces of everyone in the
posse, and he could tell that, under the surface of their
experienced, professional faces, they were worried. The kidnappers
were making remarkably good time. If they were to get past San
Angelo, it would be difficult to catch them as they crossed the
badlands of the frontier. The good news, Piggy informed them, was
that, judging by the clues, Jonathan seemed unharmed. He doubted
that the kidnappers could move as fast as they were moving if the
Vallensian pastor was seriously injured.

Hood gave a whistle indicating that Marbus
Claim had caught up with them, and before long, the young militia
scout entered the barn.

As the young boy dismounted and joined the
group, Tim greeted him. As he shook his hand, he thanked him for
dealing with Morell so the rest of the team could begin the
search.

“Ah, here is our young friend
Carne de
Gato!
” Rob Fosse yelled from across the barn. He
over-emphasized the guttural ‘g’ in
gato
for comedic effect.
“That means ‘Cat Meat’, in case you don’t speak any
español
.” Rob smiled as he cut off a piece of sausage and
handed it to Marbus. “How does it feel to be rejected by a feline
in favor of a corpse, and then get saved by a lady?”

Piggy howled with laughter, and even Tim
found himself laughing at Rob, but he looked on in satisfaction as
Marbus—who didn’t talk much—just smiled and ate the sausage. As a
16-year-old militiaman, Marbus had learned that remaining silent
and smiling a lot was the best attitude to adopt. The older men
discovered that it was exponentially less fun ribbing him if they
never got any rise out of him. Timothy noted that Marbus Claim was
wise for his young years.

Ruth looked at him, ignoring the
good-natured ribbing that was going on around her. “How far ahead
of us are they?” she asked.

He walked over and sat next to her. “At
least four or five hours. We can’t stay here for very long… but the
rest is for the horses, not for the men. Usually, when we ride
scout, we can change horses regularly, but on this trip, these are
all we have. In this heat, not getting any rest could kill them and
then we would never find out where they took your father.”

“I understand,” she said, “but I need you to
be honest with me. What is the likelihood that we will catch
them?”

“Honestly? I’m sorry to say, but our chances
are not very good. We can follow them, and track them to wherever
they go. That is as good as we can do; but, if it helps… I do not
believe they will harm your father. At least, not for a long time.
He is too valuable to them.”

“Gareth said that he was safe, that they
wouldn’t harm him at all.”

“Things have changed, Ruth. Your father has
capitulated a bit in allowing the Vallenses to work with the
militia. His own son is now fighting.”

“My father will never fight, Tim… you know
that.”

“I know that, but Aztlan doesn’t. This means
that they are getting scared that your father will permit the
Vallenses to field an army.”

“But he won’t!” She clasped her hands in
frustration. “This can’t possibly help them,” she raised her voice.
“If anything, this will give David more control, and he’ll be the
one to lead the Vallenses into the war.”

“You can’t expect tyrants to be rational,”
Piggy said. All the joking had ceased, as everyone listened to what
was being said between Timothy and Ruth.

“There is something you need to know, Ruth,”
Rob Fosse said, becoming serious for the first time on the trip. “I
know Aztlan, and I’ve spent time spying in New Rome. I have some
insight that others may not have.”

“People in Aztlan fear your father more than
they fear Phillip. The Vallenses aren’t anywhere near as
frightening to Aztlan with David or anyone else leading them. Your
father carries a moral authority that scares the hell out of the
King and the Duke. Listen, the Crown Prince is a good man, but he’s
a dreamer. Even he fails to see that the conflict between Aztlan
and the Vallenses is not really about land or strategic
considerations. It is about power. All power is religious, it is
sacred, and—most of all—it is coercive. Your father has power that
he refuses to accept or wield, and that scares the King more than
ten-thousand Ghost militia warriors at his gates. Aztlan would fear
your father if he were alone in the wilderness with no one to lead.
That, you can believe.”

“My father is a peaceful and loving man! Why
can’t they just leave us alone?” Ruth asked.

“Why can’t the sun rise in the west and set
in the east?” Piggy replied. “The King of Aztlan hates the
Vallenses because they exist, and he fears Jonathan because he is
the conscience of the Vallenses.”

Tim looked at Ruth and nodded his head.
“Ruth,” he stood up and walked towards his horse, “we are soldiers
here, and we don’t trouble ourselves with ‘why’ very much. I
understand your reasons for wanting to ride with us, but it’s
important that you stop trying to impute reason, logic, and
right-thinking to the people we are fighting. It’ll slow you down,
and it might get you killed.”

As they mounted their horses, Marbus finally
spoke up and informed them all that the battle of the Penateka Dam
was under way. He didn’t have any details, but when he left the
ranch, the word had come from the east that hostilities had
commenced.

It was about an hour before sundown when
they left the Vallensian barn, and about five hours later, sometime
around two in the morning, they began to approach the burned out
ruins of San Angelo.

The posse resisted their usual and
instinctual practice of skirting the town. Tim knew that they
needed information, which meant that they would need to question
anyone they came across. Even at this time of the morning, there
was still the occasional trophy hunter, hauling away anything that
might still be salvageable from the wreckage left in the town.

Rob Fosse and Piggy questioned a few men
with wagons they encountered on the road, but didn’t learn anything
useful.

Tim saw an old highway sign that announced
that they were on ‘Highway 67’, but that didn’t mean much to him.
He just wondered why the sign hadn’t been taken away sometime
during the past 20 years. Being a militia rider, you saw strange
things.

They turned south towards the Concho River,
and approached what had been the old downtown area. There, he was
surprised to see so many buildings that, although they were
crumbling and collapsing, had not been fully pillaged for the very
nicely squared stones that made up the edifices. Rob Fosse told him
that some of the buildings were almost 200 years old.

In the moonlight, they could just make out a
man rushing away from them into the shadows, and Piggy was off
after him before an order could be given. Not ten minutes later,
Piggy rode up alone and gave his report.

“It was an
oldling
. And I mean an
old oldling
. That guy was probably here when those buildings
were still under construction. I suppose he lives here, but somehow
escaped the fires. I gave him some sausage, and once he warmed up
to me, he told me that he saw ten ‘bad men’ ride out to the
southwest, towards the Twin Buttes reservoir. That’s not a mile
from Harmony. We’re going that way anyway.”

Tim turned to Marbus, “You want to ride
scout on this one? Or would you rather Hood go?”

“I don’t know the area as well as Hood does,
and I’ve only been to Harmony once. Maybe he should go.”

Without a word, Hood galloped off to the
southwest, and the rest of the posse rode down to the Concho River
to water and rest the horses.

After about an hour, Marbus signaled, and, a
few moments later, Hood galloped back up to the group and
dismounted.

“What does it look like?” Tim asked.

“The old man was right. They made camp near
the reservoir. They look like trouble. Jonathan is not with them,
and they don’t look to be officially linked to Aztlan, but these
guys are bad news. From the looks of it, they are a pack of looters
and killers. They are there on purpose, but I don’t know what they
are up to.”

“How smart are they?”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe a two.”

“Nice. Armaments?”