Seeking Sanctuary (Walkers) (10 page)

             
Mason was hot on my heels as I finally managed to climb into the bunk.  His hands seemed to be everywhere and my breath was caught on several occasions before he  collapsed next to me, one arm slung across my sweaty stomach.

             
“I don't think I could survive another UFO sighting.”  I managed between breaths.

             
“You and me both.”  He panted.

             
He got us a bottle of water and we cooled down as we gazed out the window above us.  Stars twinkled in the night sky as the coyotes yipped in the distance and you could almost believe things were right with the world, no walkers or aliens or elephants roaming the mountains of Montana.  Almost.

                                                        Chapter 9

              We spent two days at that beautiful lake.  I was walking with just a slight limp while Ken was looking better.  If you can say the purple, reddish, blackish bruises on the edge of  greenish,  yellow is better.  We all fished and caught the biggest, prettiest rainbow trout you've ever seen and enjoyed fish prepared in every way imaginable.  It was after lunch the day before we left that Mandy yelled, “What's that?”  We hadn't heard her say it in a while but it still made us jump up and look wildly around, weapons ready.  Flynn had been sitting in one of the fishing chairs, leaning back on two legs when she yelled.  He fell back, the legs going out from under him causing him to hit his head.  Melody ran over to him to help him up as I stepped over him to see what the 'it' was.  I could see a dark blog in the distance but couldn't make out a form.

             
I found Kevin and Bobby on the top of the Dukemobile with binoculars looking that direction and waited for them to tell us.

             
“It looks like a buffalo, to me.”  Kevin said, as he continued to look.

             
“I think you might be right, Kevin.  I see several of them in that ravine,”  Bobby said as he leaned that direction.

             
“Buffalo?”  Duke said.

             
“Yeah, Bison or American Bison divided into two subspecies, plains and wood bison,” Lacy began, “but mostly known as the American Buffalo.”

             
“Oh God, someone stop her.”  Duke mumbled, as Lacy continued extolling the buffalo and it sub species.  I smiled as Randy walked her around the back of the medical van while she kept talking.  Her voice gradually subsided as we all watched the buffalo until we got tired of it then continued to clear the camp for the exit tomorrow.

             
Howard wandered in a little before sunset, looking all clean and spiffy.  “I was wondering if I might have you'alls attention for a minute?”  Samantha walked up beside him all clean and spiffy too and as Howard turned to her, she grasped his hand and smiled up at him. 

             
“Samantha here has honored me by saying she'd be my wife, so we thought we'd do it tonight if it's all the same to you all.  You're like family to me,”  he turned to Sam, “to us and we wanted you to witness this, if you don't mind.”

             
I'm not going to cry.  I'm not going to cry.

             
When we just stood there and smiled like idiots, he turned to her,  grasped her hands in his larger ones, pulled them to his chest and gazed into her eyes.

             
“When I met you I thought you was the prettiest little thing God ever put on this crazy planet.  I still think that.  You wrapped me up so tight I couldn't think for thinking of you and I knew almost from the git go that I wanted you next to me for the rest of my life.” Tears were rolling down her cheeks as she gazed lovingly into his eyes.  “I got the feeling you felt the same way, and I thought I had to be the luckiest sum bitch that ever walked the face of the earth.  When you said you'd marry me I thought we'd better get this done, cause I needed the other half of my heart next to me or I would surely die. That's the reason for getting married tonight, so I can have you next to me for the rest of my life cause I won't ever be able to live without you.  You have my heart, Sammy, and all my love is wrapped up in it.  It will always be yours and I promise to take damned good care of yours, forever and ever.  Amen.”  Then as he gently kissed her, I cried. Yeah, I know, I know.

             
We were all a little misty eyed as we congratulated the happy couple.  Sarah said if she'd known she'd have baked them a cake but they said it could wait.  Mason was eying me strangely and I knew what he was thinking.  Flynn had to get two stitches in his head from the fall from his chair so he was nursing a headache as Melody fussed over him.  I just shook my head.  The big, old, Army Ranger hurt his widdle head. We sat around until late watching the sky for UFO's and listened to the coyotes.

             
The next day Mason grabbed me from behind and whispered in my ear, “I was gonna see if you'd marry me last night after Howard and Samantha but there was no way in hell I could've topped what he said.  I figured I'd wait for another time, when what I had to say would sound better  Still, it was a grand speech.”

             
“Yeah, it was.  But you don't have to make a speech to me, Flathead.  I know you love me like the American Buffalo loves the tall grass.” I said, as I waved my hand in the direction the tall grass was growing.

             
He laughed like I knew he would and nuzzled my neck.  “Yes,” he said, “I surely do.”   I leaned back against him and just enjoyed the moment before Riley, my cousin in law, yelled, “Wagons Ho!”

             
We laughed, climbed into the truck and began heading west towards Great Falls.  Most of the way was blacktop but in order to avoid  the city itself we took the gravel roads just east of there towards the Missouri River, hoping to cross it at Ulm.  We wanted to get to Highway 200 so we could skirt Glacier National Park to Kalispell in Northwest Montana.  It used to be a six hour trip but with the new world population of walkers and weirdos we figured it would probably take most of the day and part of tomorrow. 

             
Ken had found an old real estate brochure listing a large piece of land near Kalispell for sale, boasting sweet, well water, several ranch houses and wind turbines.  Self supporting it said and we were very interested.  I hadn't thought of using real estate listings before so I'm glad someone did.  The pictures looked great and if it was the same in real life, then we'd found our new home.  I was anxious to see it.

             
We ended up on dirt roads again.  This meant we were being dusted  pretty good.  We had to slow down because we kept falling back from each other.  That put us so far behind each other that at times we were out of sight.  We were down to a crawl by the time I saw the flashes in the distance.  We stopped while we discussed what it could mean.  Mason, Clint and Riley decided to check it out while we fixed lunch and monitored the kids.

             
Curiosity finally got the better of me after an hour so I climbed into the crows nest on the top of the Dukemobile to see what the fuss was about. 

             
“It looks like a big party going on out there.”  Kevin said, as he peered through the spotting scope.  “Lots of people moving around in a one spot.”  I grabbed a set of glasses myself,  looked and he was right, it did look like a party was going on.  As soon as I thought it, I could hear the music. I frowned as I watched the guys sneak up on them.  Then I watched as they crept back to their truck.  I met them at Lacy's RV to hear the results.

             
“We are not, in no way, shape or form going that direction.  There is a traffic jam from hell on the bridge and a couple of hundred walkers.  Some fool had a solar powered radio playing a music disk.  It is sitting on top of a RV and the walkers can't get to it.  A person could learn to hate Taylor Swift's, 'We're Never Getting Back Together' after listening to it for a straight year.  We have to find another way across that river.”  He took the map Lacy handed him and spread it out on the hood of the truck. It didn't look good.

             
The only place to cross the river other than Great Falls was Ulm and Cascade before you hit Helena and we so did not want to go to Helena.  The horde of walkers waiting there would be impossible to get through.  The only other place was east of Great Falls, and we really didn't want to go east. Ft. Benton had a nice place but you crossed the river into downtown there too.  There was a ferry at a place called Carter between Great Falls and Ft. Benton but that meant more backtracking, again.  So we would keep our fingers crossed for Cascade and send the tow truck with the big, old, nasty looking snow plow on the front, in first.

             
Taylor Swift sang us on our way as we drove another bunch of boring, dust chocking miles to Cascade.  Mason and the boys once again went in to scout the area, returning to tell us the bridge looked clear. Howard and Sam in the tow truck was positioned in front of us then we fueled up everyone, unhooked the fuel tanker which was almost empty anyway and crossed the river that had once been a lifeline for all the people living nearby but which had suddenly become a major pain in our butts.  We just wanted to get across the damned thing.

             
We got the kids and animals belted in pretty good, belted ourselves in, said a prayer and took off.  Howard roared across the bridge and made a left at the first intersection.  The sound of the engines must of awakened most of the walkers cause we started to see them after we turned onto the road after the bridge.  Howard hit a couple, sending them flying like rag dolls to land with sickening thuds on cars and in yards.  We continued on to the interstate where it was a wild ride to make a sharp, right hand turn.  Then a few cars were kicked to the side as we plowed through them, onto the interstate then back the way we had come to make another turn onto rock road that would take us to Hwy 200.  Finally we were back on safe ground and headed where we wanted to go. 

             
The way we wanted to go evidently was on another dusty road.  It was flat land, covered in green with Square Butte to our left.  It looked like a mountain that God had cut the top off of.  It was called that because it was flat as a pancake on top.  It looked odd sitting out in the middle of all that flat land but further to the west were the Rocky Mountains still covered in snow.  We found a place on the road with trees around it and decided to stop there for something to eat before continuing on.  We never knew what the conditions ahead were so we took our rest where we felt the safest.  The boys once again climbed on top of the observation deck of the Dukemobile to watch for trouble, Abby taking them their food.  I think Abby and Andy had something going on and I worried about it.  They needed to have the 'sex' talk since they were both 13 or 14 but I didn't want to be the one to do it.  I'd better talk to Sarah or Mercy and see what they thought.

             
I was chewing on that thought when Lacy asked if I knew where Sally was.  Sally was six years old and precocious.  We seemed to be constantly looking for her.  She could disappear right in front of you she was so good.  I sighed and got up to help look and when we didn't find her right away all hell broke loose.  Andy yelled that he saw movement in an area near Castle Butte then we heard her scream.  I took off at a dead run, grabbing my gun off the table.  Heading in the direction of the scream, I heard feet running behind me.  Andy ran past me, his fifteen year old long legs eating up the ground.  He tossed me the walkie talkie as he flew past me, not missing a step.  The ground was pretty flat but dotted with sage brush so you jumped over it or ran around it.  That took a lot of air, or maybe I was just getting old.  No wait...that wasn't it.  I lost sight of Andy quickly and that scared me bad enough that it spurred me on faster.

             
I saw a rock wall ahead of me and started to slow when I caught sight of the opening to the left of it.  So being me, I hit the wall, bounced to the left and around the corner. That was gonna hurt later.  It did slow me down but another scream got me going again and when I rounded the next corner, open air met me.  I managed to grab onto a scrub tree growing seemingly from the rock and held on as my momentum swung me around the tree to land on a ledge on the other side.  While I was relearning to breathe, I held onto that tree for dear life, panting like a puppy.   I held my hand to the stitch in my side, and my forehead plastered against the warm bark of the tree as I tried to calm down.  I hated heights.

             
“JD.”

             
“My God!”  I jumped so bad that I almost slipped.  Looking to my left, I saw  Andy lying flat on his stomach as he grasped Sally's tee shirt.  She was hanging over the side of the cliff, and looked to be unconscious.  I couldn't see her face as her head hung limp with the rest of her body.  Beneath her was about 100 feet of air before the rocks below.  Shit!

             
“JD, she's getting heavy.  Do you think you could give me a hand?”  Andy whispered.  He had his other hand wrapped around a protruding rock a few inches above his head while his body lay flat on the ledge, his other arm hanging over the edge hanging onto Sally while she dangled in his grip.  I couldn't see any way to reach her without laying on top of him and letting go of the tree at the moment wasn't going to be possible.  I'd have to get around the tree to the ledge on the other side before I could help him.

             
“How the hell did you get over there and catch her at the same time?  Never mind, don't answer that. I'll have to get back on the other side of this tree, then maybe I can drag you back to me.”

             
“Whatever, you're gonna do, do it soon.  She wakes up, and I won't be able to hold onto her. She's afraid of heights.”  I knew how that felt.

             
“Okay, give me a sec, I'm not fond of them myself.”  The only place to put the walkie talkie was in my pants waist band.  I finally managed to get my fingers to let go of the tree, as I turned and inched my way around it to firmer ground on the other side.  I heard Sally moan and knew we'd run out of time.