Strikers (22 page)

When he looks up and sees me, his pace increases and I feel like our time here has just come to an end. The idea panics me a little, like I’m losing my home or something, which is stupid because this has been nothing more than a place to rest. A place to let Maddix heal and figure out our next move. But that doesn’t change the way I feel.

“Pack up,” I call up to the others before taking off to meet Jovan.

He hands me one of the containers as soon as I get to him. His face is tense so there’s no question the news is bad.

“Is it the same guys?” I ask. For me, and especially for Cassi, that would be the worst-case scenario.

With a shake of his head, Jovan catches his breath. He’s sweaty and his dark hair is plastered to his forehead, the golden glints buried by the wetness. Wide streaks of sweat mark the front and back of his t-shirt, and he’s got new scratches from brush and vines covering his arms. It’s clear he ran the whole way back.

“Worse,” he gasps, then hands me the other heavy container and leans over, bracing his hands on his knees. After a few loud swallows and rasping breaths, he looks up at me. “It’s my Dad’s foreman, Creedy. He’s got one guy with him I don’t know but he’s rough-looking, like those guys at the settlement.”

I’m not entirely sure what to make of that other than the obvious, that those men may have been tracking us for this Creedy person. But Jovan’s face when he said that name displayed more than just recognition. It was fear and loathing, maybe even hatred. It’s the way I might feel about some of the soldiers, the ones who don’t think much of those like me and are a little too eager to show it with their nightsticks.

“So, your father sent someone to get you back. The sign we saw didn’t leave any doubt he wanted you back,” I say, hefting the heavy containers and walking toward the building.

Jovan catches up with me and takes one of the containers back, trying to meet my eyes. When I don’t bite, he places a restraining hand on my arm to stop me. He glances quickly at the partially open bay door and says, “Wait.”

He wants only me to hear this, which means it’s for sure going to be bad. I nod for him to talk.

“Creedy is
not
a good guy.” The way he says it communicates many things. The way his eyes move over me tells me what kind of bad he means.

“Oh,” I say.

“Yeah, exactly. There’s a reason my father sent Creedy and not one of the others. He can take care of business my father needs taken care of and doesn’t mind how dirty that business is. I’m sure you and Cassi would be a part of that deal, especially if Jordan was right and they are planning on killing everyone except me to keep my secret.”

“Oh,” I breathe, understanding now what he means and why his face is so pale underneath the red of exertion.

“I heard metal banging so I just went a little way down the stream. They’re north of the old road but still close to it. Creedy was mad because one of the horses had gone lame from a stone in its shoe or maybe thrown a shoe. I know his voice, so I went closer to be sure. There’s no mistake who it is. The other guy was hammering on a shoe over a rock and I got a look at him. Scruffy, like those others. I listened for a few minutes and it looks like they’re going to make camp there and do their searching on foot so the horse can recover.”

“How many horses do they have?” I ask.

“Four, but one of them looks like it got burned here,” he says and waves a hand down the back of his head, like he’s describing the mane of a horse.

“So, definitely the same guys,” I say.

He nods and we stand there for a moment, both of us thinking hard. Cassi interrupts us by coming to the bay door. She eyes us, purses her lips in understanding and asks, “How long do we have?”

I shake my head and she lets her hands fall to slap the side of her legs, as if she were already tired. “I’ll get everyone ready. I can try to cover up our signs, but the smell is going to give us away.”

She’s right and I could kick myself for letting us get so comfortable. The smell of a fire is unmistakable, even after several days. Scattering the evidence won’t help us much, but it might at least confuse them as to how long we stayed.

“Gather up all the ash and such and scatter it in the brush,” I say, then think twice. “Better yet, scatter a little bit in a lot of places.”

She disappears back inside and I turn back to Jovan. His color has returned but he looks like he’s ready to bolt. Like he just wants us to take off running as fast as we can. That scares me more than what he said.

“We need to go,” he urges.

“We need to make sure we don’t give them information if they find this place after we’re gone. Like the fact that Maddix is wounded and will need rest and might slow us down. That kind of information.”

He closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, calming himself. Then he gives me a pained smile, “You’re right. But let’s do it fast.”

There will be no boiling this water now, but we might be able to later. And I’m not about to risk being unable to find some nearby when the time comes when we can safely stop. We need at least one container’s worth plus the canteens we’ve already filled with safe water. I have an idea about how to use what we can’t bring.

Inside the building, everyone is busy, even Maddix. He packs what pitiful belongings we still have, even shaking out the burlap bags stuffed with dead grass we’ve been using for pillows. Connor has a bundle of brush I tied together and used as a broom to keep dirt away from Maddix’s leg. Now he’s using it to methodically sweep away our footprints from deeper inside the building, where we’d explored for anything useful. Cassi is nowhere to be seen and there are only a few dark chunks to show where our fire has burned.

I dribble out the water over the areas where the fire was and where we’ve been sleeping and use the broom to smooth it so that it looks like just another place where the rain came in. It’s not entirely convincing, but sprinkling the dried grass from our erstwhile pillows helps.

It’s the best we can do and when we jump down, carefully helping Maddix so that his wound doesn’t re-open, we all stand in front of the opening for a long moment. Even though I’m looking to see if there is anything to give evidence of our few days in residence, I’m also saying goodbye. When will I sleep so comfortably and safely again? When will I wake up to the sweet and somehow joyous sound of birdsong above my head again?

Jovan is fidgeting, leaning from one leg to the other and looming behind me like a big nervous ball of energy. Even Maddix, our least capable member at the moment, seems antsy. He keeps testing his leg and I can see from the corner of my eye how he sets his face against the discomfort, his blackened eyes making him look a bit like a raccoon.

“Which way, Jovan?” I ask.

He looks like he’s going to uncoil like a spring. He points northeast and says, “We’ve got to get well north of them and then go straight east. As fast as we can.”

I’m sure that no one meant to make Maddix feel uncomfortable, but I notice that all of us send a glance his way. He sees it and says, “I’m good. I’ll keep up. I just need to warm up the muscles.”

We start out, but we’re not making good time. It’s a rougher start than it should be. It isn’t Maddix slowing us down, it’s us slowing down to make sure Maddix doesn’t have a problem. Between Connor, Cassi and I pulling brush to the side, pointing out roots that might trip him up and asking if he’s okay, we barely get a mile away in that first hour.

Jovan runs out of patience about the same time one of us asks Maddix if his leg is bleeding for the dozenth time. He stops so abruptly that Cassi smacks into his back and yelps. “He won’t be fine if Creedy catches up with us. He’s fine now, though, so let’s keep moving.”

His tone is harsh and makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. He’s really afraid. Our eyes meet and his are pleading, asking for me to help him out. It won’t help any of the others to know what sort of person this Creedy is. Too much fear can paralyze.

“Come on, let’s go. The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll get where we’re going,” I say, and move into the green world around us.

It’s so late it’s early again and we’ve found no place to hole up. We’ve walked at a hard pace through the whole day and into the night, trying to get some distance between us and the place where we were. Maddix is dragging, his breath coming in hard wheezes, and his nose started trickling blood an hour ago. Jovan took off a few times during the day, snaking his way south to check our progress while we rested, but so far he’s got nothing specific to report.

We took a short rest of just a couple of hours in the afternoon, but pressed on even though Maddix really needed more time. The forest here is thick and hard to get through and our pace has slowed over the past hours. We’re all tripping over the roots and branches that litter the ground and I finally have to force the issue.

“We have to stop! Maddix can’t keep on. And there’s no reason to keep trying to go through the night in this forest. There’s not enough light!” My whisper is harsh and probably a little too loud, but the trees dampen sound and I have to get through to Jovan.

In this land of endless forests, there’s no longer any need to travel at night. You’d have to be relatively close to someone to see them. In a way, that makes me feel better, but on the other side of that coin, it means that I won’t see anyone coming after me until they’re close either.

Jovan’s jaw clenches in the little bit of moonlight that leaks through the trees, but he acquiesces when I make it clear I’m not going another step by helping Maddix to the ground and settling him against a tree.

He draws the line at lighting a fire, even though we need one for boiling the water. Even if we decided to risk drinking it without boiling it first, it would be foolish to use it on Maddix’s leg, which needs tending.

The night is a restless one, punctuated by one or another of us jerking up from our sleep at every noise, half expecting to be pounced on by pursuers. It’s not a really reasonable expectation and I think most of us realize that. At least I do. We didn’t have a fire because Jovan said—and I believed him because it’s what I would do—that he thought they would try to gain a vantage point to look for the light of a fire.

Other than that, the night is not a time to worry about them tracking us. They have horses and horses need rest. Horses also make noise and don’t do well in heavy brush like the kind we’ve made a point of traveling through. And this wilderness is far larger than anything I could ever have imagined.

I know, or at least my mind knows, that far south of Bailar the lands of Texas are green and lush, but it’s one thing to know it or see a photo and another thing entirely to be immersed in it. The perspective changes when you’re pushing away reaching branches and dealing with thorny vines that seem intent on snagging clothing and skin with every step you take.

Creedy will be no different from us in that regard if what Jovan says is true. He’s from the flat and open lands we call home, so that’s what he’ll be used to. Plus, he works as a foreman for a rich rancher and is used to seeing the world from the top of a horse.

The wild-card is the man he’s with. When he was able to, Jovan pulled up next to me for a quiet talk while we walked. He told me that he thought the men who had found us, and the one remaining with Creedy, were local “talent,” probably motor mules, hired specifically because they are familiar with this territory.

It was true that the ones who found us spoke in a strange accent and the man speaking with Creedy spoke the same way according to Jovan. That’s bad, but now he’s just as encumbered with horses as Creedy is. In the end, what does it matter who Creedy is with so long as we stay well off their path and do nothing to draw them to us?

I wake up for watch confused and in a foul mood from my poor sleep, but Jovan raises my spirits immediately by presenting an unlit, but perfectly constructed, fire pit. Somehow he’s managed to find enough big stones in this wild area to create a tall enough light break. When I look up, I see the moon is gone and the sky is deep black. A flashlight buried under a burlap sack gives out a weak light.

It’s enough light to see my grin, apparently. His white teeth flash right back at me and he hands me a flint so I can do the honors. Without the waxing moon to highlight the rising smoke and a tall ring of rock to block the light, we have a small window of relative safety.

“We call this the dead time,” he says as we watch the small fire take hold, our eyes drawn to the glow.

“Why?” I ask. It’s sort of a ghoulish name and I shiver, not entirely from the chill in the air.

“Because in the couple of hours before dawn, even animals go to sleep. It’s the quietest time of the night. Creedy knows that, too,” he says quietly.

“So he won’t be looking for us?”

He breathes a quiet laugh and sets our pot on the tripod, his face turning a golden color by the small light of the fire. “I didn’t say that, but he’s more likely to sleep now thinking this is about the time of night we’d let a fire go out. It’s a risk, but a lesser one.”

The fire feels so good on my night chilled skin that I’d like to curl up against the rocks surrounding it and just absorb what I can, but I’m awake because I’m supposed to be on watch and the firelight, even as small as it is, is ruining my night vision. Jovan has a good handle on the water situation, so I empty the canteen closest to me in a few loud gulps. When I toss it to him, he gives me a look and says, “Greedy.” The smile lets me know he doesn’t mean it.

“I’m going to head out a little, get up one of those trees if I can,” I say and stand up. Even just standing up and putting those few feet of distance between my hands and the fire lets the chill back in.

Jovan turns a little to the side, showing me scuffs and dirt-darkened pant legs. “Be careful. They aren’t easy to climb.”

I can’t tell Jovan it’s because he’s just too tall, but it’s true. Cassi, Connor and I practiced on them while at the building and found it easier than climbing fences or the sides of buildings. On those we’ve got only chipped concrete and windowsills for hand and foot holds. The trees offer more paths up.