The Last Pilgrims (33 page)

Fourth, the captors had been traveling hard
by day—obviously leaving late in the morning as the day got the
hottest—and quitting just as the cool desert night temperatures set
in. They were doing the opposite of what they ought to be doing. By
contrast, the posse had travelled by night, slept underground most
of the second day, and had only left Harmony around 4 hours before
sundown. Now, as the sun was beginning to set, they would plan on
travelling all night, but by the look of things, they would be upon
their prey sometime after midnight.

He had to admit, Aztlani soldiers were
stupid compared to the well-trained and well-ordered militia
forces. Aztlan won engagements only when they could present
superior numbers and could stumble into some element of surprise,
which almost never happened. Rollo attributed the epidemic of
stupidity and sloth among the Aztlani army to their comfortable and
consumptive upbringing, and their education in Aztlani schools.
They were relics of the time before the crash. Aztlan had learned
few lessons from the old world.

Now that he was knowledgeable of the means,
methods, and training regimen of the militia, he planned on raising
his own army once he received his barony in Central Texas. Who
knows? Maybe he would get strong enough and declare his own kingdom
in Texas! Defeating Aztlan would be easy enough, if only he had the
manpower to do it.

For now, he was stuck working for the King
of Aztlan, and he needed to figure out a way to do his duty without
being killed by the likes of Piggy.

They came upon the small town of Big Lake,
Texas at around two in the morning on the third day. Riding a ways
past Big Lake, they had abruptly lost the trail; so they had
doubled back. It was obvious that the kidnappers had chosen to
sleep the night away in Big Lake, and the posse had easily tracked
them to an abandoned motel outside of town.

After a long discussion, they had decided
against trying to take Jonathan as his captors slept. It was too
risky, and they much preferred to set up an ambush where they could
take out the kidnappers with less of a probability of hurting or
killing Jonathan Wall.

Riding westward, they identified the perfect
location for their ambush in the small ghost town of Texon, Texas.
It just so happened that, unbeknownst to probably just about
everyone who was not in the militia, Texon was a militia way
station, and the old man who lived there was the last resident of
the old town, and a long-time friend of Phillip himself.

Approaching Texon, after giving a strong
militia approach signal, they had been met there by the blind old
man named Oswald. Oswald maintained the town as a militia post for
outriders, and in exchange the militia regularly brought him food
and supplies. The old man was generally left alone by looters,
because they found him to be harmless and there was nothing
obvious
to steal from the ghost town.

In reality, Texon served a purpose not
completely unlike that of the Harmony facility, only Texon was not
an orphanage or a school. There were several hidden underground
storage units and root cellars in the town that were still used by
the militia outriders on a regular basis. In the early
20
^th
century, when Texon was a booming oil town, the
people were still smart enough to build root cellars under their
homes. The homes were collapsed or gone now, but many of the root
cellars remained.

Phillip and others had tried to convince
Oswald to move out of the town—they really didn’t need him there,
and hated to expose him to looter violence—but the old man
steadfastly rejected their offers. Texon was
his
town, and
he only planned to leave it upon his death.

Oswald fed them an early breakfast and gave
fodder and water to their horses. The old man had been fascinated
to meet Ruth, and had talked to her and asked her questions
throughout the short morning meal. The militia posse then posted
guards while, two at a time, they were permitted a few hours of
sleep. Hood had stayed behind at Big Lake to track the Aztlanis,
just in case, for some unknown reason, they did something
unexpected and avoided Texon completely.

They were not surprised, though, when the
kidnappers did not arrive until nearly noon. As they waited, Rollo
shook his head in disgust. The bums had probably slept until
mid-morning, wasting the cool traveling time altogether.

Ruth, Timothy, and the Claim boy had taken
up positions on the opposite side of the main street that ran into
the ghost town. Rollo, Piggy, and Rob Fosse had taken the main
attack position behind the old service station.

“How come you never took a wife, Rob Fosse?”
Piggy asked, smiling.

“Oh, no woman with any sense would have me,
Piggy! I’m way too beautiful, and they wouldn’t want to compete,”
Rob answered, smiling back.

“And what about you, Mountain?” Piggy asked,
looking at him. “Are you too beautiful to take a wife?”

“I’m married to my job; besides, I don’t
have time right now; maybe someday, after I retire from the
militia.”

“I never heard of anyone retiring from the
militia. Even this old man Oswald is militia down to his bones,”
Piggy said.

“You’d be surprised,” was all Rollo said in
response.

Piggy turned back to him and replied with
almost a frightening calm on his face and in his voice, “Oh, I’m
never surprised, Mountain.”

A cold chill went down his spine as, just
for the briefest moment, he wondered if Piggy had figured out what
was happening. But he let it pass. There was no way even Piggy
could know what had happened back at the Wall ranch. The cold calm
disappeared from Piggy’s face as he looked back up the road. “Maybe
after you retire, you’ll become rich and famous, and you’ll have a
job for ol’ Piggy!”

Rollo squinted his eyes at Piggy. What the
devil is he up to? Probably nothing. Probably just an overactive
imagination on my part.

Rob Fosse was laughing by this time, as he
glanced up at the sun in order to gauge the time. “They should be
along at any time now. Even Aztlani soldiers can’t be this
stupid.”

Piggy chuckled. “It’s not always stupidity.
You’d be surprised at what mental mistakes even intelligent men
make when they’re out of tune with the reality that surrounds them…
right, Mountain?”

“As per usual, I have no idea what you are
even talking about, Piggy,” he answered, the sweat starting to roll
down his face in waves.

“Yeah, Piggy,” Rob Fosse said. “What are you
talking about? What is it to be in tune with the reality that
surrounds us?”

“It’s Piggy’s Way,” he said
matter-of-factly. “Piggy doesn’t do things artificially, or against
the invisible but palpable flow of nature, honor, and good sense.
Piggy’s Way is kind of like my militia version of Occam’s Razor.”
Piggy spun a knife heedlessly on the palm of his hand. “Occam’s
Razor suggests that
, when faced with competing
hypotheses that are equal in other respects, you are usually safer
to choose the one that makes the fewest new assumptions. Piggy’s
Way suggest that there is an ebb and flow that is reality, and that
it generally does not pay to be in constant struggle with the
primal nature of things. Piggy’s Way also often involves speaking
of oneself in the third person.”

“How, then, can Piggy be in
conflict and war against Aztlan?” Rollo asked, smirking. “Isn’t
Aztlan the ‘nature of things’ right now?”

“You misunderstand Piggy’s
Way, Mountain. Piggy’s Way does not assume that there is no
struggle against evil, or sin, or greed. That is actually our most
primal struggle, and we ought to engage in it heartily. If you go
back far enough, there was no such conflict; and so the Garden of
Eden establishes good and right
before
such things as treason, sin, or
death entered in.” Piggy stopped spinning the knife and used it to
point off to the northwest, before continuing. “Aztlan… at least as
it stands today, is in conflict with good and right, and therefore
Piggy’s Way is to be in conflict with Aztlan. It’s really quite
elementary.”

Rob Fosse stared at Piggy, shaking
his head. “Staggering. Truly staggering, Piggy. I have no idea what
you just said, but… but… I think I love you!”

Both Piggy and Rob broke down
laughing at that, as Rollo just stared at them, trying to mask his
disgust at their levity.

Just as their laughter began to
die down, they saw in the distance the outline of the kidnapper’s
party as they approached the outskirts of Texon.

The three men, through years
of training and practice, instantly snapped into readiness mode.
Rollo crept stealthily along a low wall that ran from the service
station to an old partially collapsed building that he could not
identify. He continued to move slowly and quietly as Jonathan Wall
and his captors approached the old man Oswald, who had walked out
to meet them. Still worried about Piggy, he glanced warily over his
shoulder and saw the militiaman at the corner of the service
station, focused on what was going on out front.

Feeling better, Rollo began
to crawl again. He was hoping to be able to reach a spot where he
could take a shot with his bow at Jonathan, and hopefully he could
hit Rob Fosse too. If he could pull it off, it could still be
explained away as “friendly fire.” After all, things like that
happen in battle all of the time. If he could not take out Rob
Fosse without it looking too suspicious, he would bide his time in
killing Phillip’s best friend. Perhaps he could get Rob in his
sleep, before high-tailing it to New Rome to claim his
prize.

He finally reached an
upright portion of the wall that stood about 48 inches high, and he
steadied himself against it, waiting on a signal from Piggy or Rob
Fosse that they were to open fire. He turned around again to look
at Piggy.
Man, that guy has me
freaked out!
But Piggy was still in the
ready mode as Oswald spoke loudly to the leader of the kidnappers
about water.

Rollo pulled an arrow out of
his quiver and placed it onto the bow string. He peaked around the
edge of the wall to see if he could get a good shot at Jonathan,
and just as he pulled back he felt a heavy thump on the back of his
head… and before he could register surprise, the lights went
out.

Being shot by someone you have cared for and
fought with can be more traumatic than the carnal damage caused by
a bullet tearing through flesh and muscle. Spies are an integral
part of warfare, and he, of all people, was fully aware of that
fact, having engaged and utilized spies both in New Rome and in El
Paso. Still, one never gets used to treachery and disloyalty,
especially when it happens within one’s closest circle. He looked
down at the dressings on his wound.
Getting shot is bad
too.

It had all happened so fast. He saw
Rollo—the man he thought was his friend—raise the pistol and fire,
and it seemed to him in that moment that time slowed down to a
snail’s pace. Although it happened in milliseconds, he seemed to be
frozen in place. There was the crack of the first shot and David
falling backwards off of his horse; then, The Mountain pointing the
pistol at him. He was unable to react quickly enough and the second
shot tore through his right side, unhorsing him as well. He hit the
ground next to David.

He lay there stunned for a few seconds. Then
he reached over to try to check on David, pulling himself up in
order to try to help. The first shot had struck Jonathan’s son
directly in the center of the chest, probably taking out a good
portion of his heart. David Wall was dead.

He lay down on David, and then he felt
himself being lifted up onto a stretcher and hurried into the
house. He was trying to give commands as his clothes were being cut
off of him, but all he could remember saying at the time was…
“Rollo… It was Rollo… Rollo did it.”

Gareth was there, shouting orders and
probing the wound, calling for alcohol for disinfectant and for
some tools. The last thing he remembered before he passed out was
seeing Ana enter. She scanned the room, noting that Phillip was
being worked on, and that David Wall was completely covered with a
blanket. The recognition that he was dead seemed to wash over her
like a tidal wave of dread and sorrow. Next, her eyes fixed on the
Crown Prince, and she screamed “Gareth!” at the top of her lungs,
before dropping some jars and crocks that she had been holding and
slumping in a dead faint to the floor. He was trying to get up to
help her when the edges of his vision went to gray… and then
everything went to black.

He must have been out for quite some time
because when he came to, he was lying on a cot with a pillow under
his head and a cool, wet towel on his forehead. He could hear
voices, and after some concentration and effort, he was able to
make out what they were saying through the fog. Everything didn’t
make sense to him at the time, but Gareth was telling Ana why he
wasn’t dead.

“When Rollo came in with the tea, he said
that you had ordered him to bring it to me,” Gareth explained.

“I did no such thing!” Ana replied,
obviously very frustrated and upset.

“I didn’t know what to think, but I was
suspicious. You had never done that before. I looked at the tea,
and it seemed as if Rollo was very tense, and his jaw was clinched
in a way that made me sense that something was wrong. And here is
the clincher… you may not have a good grasp of such things, but, as
royalty, I was raised with the ever-present threat of poisoning.
From a small child I was taught to always be careful and suspicious
of food and drink brought by someone when the situation is strange
or unnatural. Also, we were taught how many of the most popular and
notorious poisons smell. The tell-tale smell of dead mouse coming
from that tea made it both unpalatable, and a candidate for
poison—particularly hemlock.”