The Last Pilgrims (29 page)

Sometimes cars and trucks would drive by at
extremely high speeds and, in a few cases, the robbers would run
out into the roadway and try to shoot out the windshields or the
tires. Occasionally they succeeded.

She could not believe how quickly the world
had descended into sheer barbarism, murder, and treachery. She
supposed that if she had really been paying attention, she would
not have been surprised.

One large group decided to make the hunting
easier by making a roadblock. Whenever a vehicle approached, the
bandits would shoot at the car and its occupants, then rob them of
whatever they could find that was valuable. Some type of predator
instinct prevented them from stealing the vehicles that still
worked. They knew that they would become prey once they decided to
get behind the wheel and drive.

As darkness approached, in the twilight, the
bandits built large fires near the access roads of the Interstate,
and they cooked up whatever food and delicacies they had stolen
from their prey. She determined that the fires would benefit her
and help her to cross the highway, because they would destroy the
night vision of those who were feasting around them.

She waited until the entire group was seated
around the fires, and, checking to make sure that there were no
other people around, she started her sprint across the highway, a
distance that she later learned was longer than a football field.
Her mind raced as fast as she ran and, at one point, she thought
that maybe she wasn’t going to make it. She feared that she’d have
to stop to lie down and rest in the median, but the urge to live
and to get to Jonathan and the Vallenses overrode her fears.
Huffing and gasping for breath, she made it to the south side of
the Interstate, and, slipping over the barbed wire fence, she
disappeared into the trees—glad to be invisible again in the
darkness.
Maybe I am like a gazelle on the Serengeti
, she
thought.

Back in the hayloft, she recruited the huge
militiaman the Ghost soldiers called The Mountain, but whom she
just called by his name—Rollo—to help her carry two recently
deceased men to the newly inaugurated militia graveyard. She
struggled with the weight, but Rollo was able to carry most of the
load as they hauled the bodies to their final resting place. In the
graveyard, eight militia warriors dug holes in the hard ground with
picks and shovels, carving out graves in which to bury men who had
been their friends and brethren.

Rollo seemed to be emotionally unaffected,
but he was particularly quiet as they went about their dark
task.

“The floodwaters carried away another 25 or
so who died at the base of the dam… so at least we don’t have to
dig holes for them,” he said.

“It would be nice if we could find them and
give them a decent burial,” she replied softly.

“Dead is dead, Miss Ana. When you’re dead,
it doesn’t really matter if you were one of the 300 down that hill
over there who we shoved into a mass grave, or one of our friends
here who we bury respectfully and individually.”

“I think there is a difference, Rollo. Those
men were here to kill innocent people that only wanted to live in
peace. These men died trying to defend them. There is a
difference.”

“I’m not sure the mother or father back in
Aztlan who won’t be seeing their son again will appreciate that
difference,” he replied, looking down at one of the graves.

She turned to go back to the barn, then
stopped and looked back at Rollo. “All of these men chose to
fight—which is against our way as Vallenses—but I do believe that
there is a difference, Rollo. There is a great divide between good
and bad, and wrong and right.” She turned again and walked back up
the hill.

An hour later, walking into Prince Gareth’s
room to change his dressings, she noticed that he was at the end of
his bed, doubled over. He barely registered her presence and his
face was completely disfigured with pain. He ground his teeth into
the heavy woolen blanket he had put into his mouth to keep himself
from screaming.

She was able to push him backwards onto the
bed, and he let out an almost animal groan as he pulled his legs up
to his chest and writhed on the bed.

“What’s wrong?” she shouted to him, holding
him by his shoulders and trying to get him to look at her.

“He… brought me a drink… medicine… told… me…
to… drink.” As he struggled with words, the pain must have become
too intense because he passed out.

Poison
. Someone had poisoned Prince
Gareth. It seemed inconceivable. Who could have done this?
What
to do?

She had a good amount of activated charcoal
in the tannery, which also served as a pharmacy and dispensary, so
she ran out of the house and down the stone walk towards her
workplace.

Coming around the corner near the icehouse,
she could see David and Phillip, who were both mounted, near the
drive by the front of the house. She shouted to them, and they both
turned toward her. However, before she could say anything, she
heard two sharp reports—akin to gunshots—and she saw both David and
Phillip—one at a time—fall backwards off their horses. Men were
shouting and running towards them, and she could see the shape of a
man as he leapt onto a horse by the hay barn.

She froze for a moment, not knowing exactly
what to do. It seemed that several of the militiamen had already
gotten to David and Phillip, so she finally made up her mind and
ducked into the tannery, grabbing a small crock, which she knew
contained the activated charcoal.

Running back to the springhouse, she could
see that the militiamen had placed David and Phillip on stretchers,
and they were rushing them into the house. Wally was running out to
meet them. She’d have to help them once she was finished trying to
save Gareth.

She reached into the ice-cold water of the
springhouse and fished out a quart jar of milk. With the milk and
charcoal in hand, she rushed back into the house and into Gareth’s
room.

Her mind struggled to process the
information, and she almost dropped both of her jars when she
discovered that Prince Gareth of Aztlan wasn’t in his bed. He was
gone.

She was not at all surprised that she didn’t
feel that tired. Her adrenaline had been pumping regularly for the
last several hours, and though she was highly on edge for the
moment, she knew that when and if she finally did get to sleep, she
was going to crash hard.

From the shadows, hidden in the darkness,
Ruth watched intently as Piggy confronted the looter gang, and as
the group of thieves—groggy from sleep—began to slowly surround the
lone militia warrior. Piggy had dismounted, and his horse had
retreated at his command.

Piggy, contrary to his name, was not fat at
all, but like almost all of the Ghost militiamen he was wiry and
very muscular. He was of medium height and build; his hair was
black and curly, and a bit long beneath his hat; and he had a
striking personal presence, even when he was silent. His beard was
dark and full and complemented his impressive face. He was
confident, maybe even brash or arrogant, and he never seemed to
doubt himself even in the slightest.

Piggy raised his empty hands in a peaceful
way, showing to the looters that they really needed to remain calm.
His attempt made the looters more confused and suspicious, but
seemed to keep them from being able to immediately decide to attack
him.

“Everyone just take it easy and throw down
your weapons,” Piggy said with a playful look in his eyes. “It’s
possible that you all might make it out of here alive if you don’t
do anything colossally stupid… well… all except that guy,” he said,
pointing his finger at the biggest man of the looter gang, “because
that guy has no hope. He’s already dead, but the rest of you can
still make it if you play it smart.”

She sensed a very slight movement to her
right and she looked and saw The Hood slowly and silently draw back
his bow and take aim.

“I’m being very serious here,” Piggy
continued, as the group of looters circled carefully around him
like a pack of hyenas surrounding a lone lion. “That guy right
there is already dead, but the rest of you can save your own lives
by just calmly putting down all of your weapons. Believe me, you
want to do this Piggy’s way!”

The large looter that Piggy had identified
as a dead man straightened up a bit, and Ruth could see a mask of
confusion on his face. “Why do you keep saying I’m dead? What’s
going on here? Who are you?”

“Shut up corpse! I’m talking to these other
folks who can still save themselves. Quit being so selfish and shut
your filthy trap because there’s no hope for you.”

“What… what are you talking about?” the
looter asked, with a tremor in his voice that genuinely sounded
like worry.

“Ok,” Piggy replied, keeping his hands out
and facing down, each slowly moving up and down in a calming
motion, “the rest of you forget about the dead guy. Don’t listen to
him and just don’t do anything stupid. I’m going to show you
something you’ll really want to see. In fact, it is amazing and I
promise you have never seen it before.”

Ruth watched as Piggy slowly raised his left
hand in a fist, as if he were holding an imaginary bow. He then
pantomimed pulling an imaginary arrow from his quiver, and he went
through the motions of loading the invisible arrow onto the
invisible string. He then drew back the arrow and pointed it at the
large looter, who raised his hands as if, for some reason, he
thought that the imaginary weapon was real.

“Calm… calm… calm,” Piggy said softly, as he
reassured the rest of the looters, and after a few seconds pause,
he smiled and released the non-existent arrow. A slight sound of
air splitting and a real arrow hit the looter right in the heart,
and he fell over backwards.

The rest of the looters froze in place, and
could not at all get their minds around what had just happened.
After what seemed to Ruth like an eternity, a clumsy and stupid
looking looter went for his sword, and this ignited a frenetic
burst of motion as each of the remaining looters went for their own
weapons. Just as they began to move, Piggy, lightning fast, drew
out throwing knives and as he spun in effortless and artistic
motion around the circle, the knives just seemed to find their
targets—usually the heart or the throat. Simultaneously, arrows
pierced the air, and looters were falling in every direction.

In only seconds, the ballet was finished,
and all of the looters were either dead or dying. Piggy stood in
the middle of the circle of dead men, still slightly crouched down,
and holding a knife back and close to his right ear.

“I told you idiots to remain calm,” he said
with mock dismay and disappointment, “this was totally
unnecessary!”

Ruth and the rest of the posse approached
slowly from out of the shadows, each with their weapons at the
ready. When it became obvious that there were no more immediate
threats, they each lowered their weapons and walked closer to
Piggy.

“I don’t know,” she said, confused, “why…
why did you kill that big man first? Why kill him at all?”

Piggy looked at her sadly and took a deep
breath, before pointing at a heap of what had looked to her like
clothing and blankets on the ground, lying just outside of the
looters sleeping circle. From where she stood, she could now see
what looked like two Vallensian woman’s headcoverings exposed
beneath the blanket.

She let out a gasp as she ran over to the
heap and pulled back the blanket. What she saw caused her to fall
backwards in shock and horror. Timothy caught her as she plunged
backwards, and she turned into his waiting arms, sobbing. The two
Vallensian women were dead, and obviously had been tortured and
probably raped as well. The most appalling thing about the
condition of the women was that their assailants had left on their
prayer coverings—perhaps as a joke or as a statement of disdain
against the faith of the plain women.

After taking a few minutes to get over the
traumatic sight of the dead women, she stood up shakily and with
Timothy’s help she walked slowly back towards the group.

“They haven’t been dead long,” Piggy said,
looking at her. “If we had gotten here maybe a few hours ago, we
might have saved them.” He paused again. “That guy,” he said,
pointing at the first and largest looter, “still had blood stains
on his knuckles. That’s why I picked him out to die first. I knew
that Hood would know what to do. It wasn’t just for drama, Ruth. I
wanted them to feel terror, just like those women did. I guess you
could call it revenge, but I call it justice.” He looked back at
Ruth, “I told you if you came on this adventure, there’d be plenty
of killing.”

“These other people weren’t innocent,”
Timothy told her, “they were just as guilty as the guy with blood
on his hands. Piggy played it so that they would draw their weapons
first. He knew we’d all have his back. But still I’d have to say
that that was a phenomenal feat of knife throwing, Piggy.”

Piggy was walking around the circle, pulling
knives from dead looters. “This is why we never stop training,
gentlemen… and lady.”

The posse did a thorough inspection of the
area to see if there were any other surviving hostages. There
weren’t, so they gathered together what looted food and materials
they could carry, along with most of the weapons, and bound them
into blankets that they strapped to their horses.

They wordlessly began preparing a site to
bury the Vallensian women, and took turns digging in the graves
with their fold-up camp shovels while Ruth wrapped up the women’s
bodies and cleaned up their faces. She didn’t know them, but she
felt like they were a part of her family. After the burial, they
gathered together and Ruth quoted a psalm to them from memory, as
they all bowed their heads.