“No sign. I think we’re safe,” I lied.
She had enough on her plate. She didn’t need to deal with the fact that we had no idea whether Randall was coming after us or not.
Behind me, I could hear Marlon breathing heavily, and wondered momentarily if we should perhaps switch jobs. Carrying Sarah wasn’t an easy task—something I knew all too well—and carrying her across ice, while worrying that he or she might go through, had to be absolute hell.
But I didn’t want to stop for long enough to make the exchange, so I didn’t say anything. Instead, I grasped Angie closer to me and pressed forward, sliding her as much as I could and taking as much pressure as possible off her injured leg. We were halfway across the river, now. With luck, five more minutes would see us on the other bank.
And then I could get her into the litter I’d had Joe carry across for me, so that she could rest while I towed her back through the woods that led to Marlon’s house—and, I hoped, some momentary safety.
19
We had the townspeople gathered together on the other side of the river within ten minutes of my group getting there, and in fifteen more we were within the embrace of the forest on that side, every last one of us under cover of the spreading branches. True, those branches were mostly free of foliage now, but that didn’t negate the fact that we were literally in amongst the trees, our figures and movement hidden by the close-set trunks. The woods were very dense, here, and though it would make traveling trickier, it would also provide us much better cover from prying eyes.
Eyes like those of Randall and his men.
Marlon and I were standing at the back of the group, our eyes on where we could now see the town, looking for that very man. And so far, I didn’t see any movement within the buildings. I definitely didn’t see any lookouts or guards outside of the town.
“What the hell are they doing in there, sleeping?” I asked quietly.
“Could be,” Marlon said slowly, frowning. “Though it doesn’t seem like Randall to fall asleep on the job, so to speak. He knows we have his weapons. He knows we’re moving. And I just don’t see him letting us go easily.”
I frowned as well. I didn’t know Randall as well as Marlon did, obviously, and definitely not as well as Bob and the rest of the town did, but I had to agree with Marlon. We were talking about a man who had literally followed us ten miles through the forest, trying to kidnap my wife—or kill us for having taken her from him. I still hadn’t figured out which he’d actually been trying to accomplish, by the end.
Either way, he didn’t seem like the sort of man who just let things go. Particularly when he’d evidently been dreaming of them for months.
“Is it a trap?” I asked, my mind running through the possibilities. “They must know that we can’t survive in the wilds. Not at this time of year. They have to realize that we’ve got to get the people to some sort of shelter, before they freeze to death or starve—or both. And the most likely shelter is town itself. Do you suppose they’re trying to… act like they’ve gone, in the hope that we’ll come back? So they can just take us all out right there, where it all started?”
Marlon was quiet for a long moment, thinking about it, and I was already poking holes in my own statement by the time he spoke again. “Randall knows me well enough to know that I would never take them back there without an assurance that he was gone. And I don’t think he knows you well, but I do think he’s probably built up a healthy respect for your… capabilities in the past few days.”
This statement was accompanied by what I thought was probably a wry smile, and I smiled to myself as well.
“If he hasn’t, he’s a fool,” I answered quietly. “And honestly, I don’t care what he’s doing in there. We have to find the people shelter, and we have to do it now. I don’t think the town is an option right now. Not when we don’t know what he’s doing. And that means that our best move is still your estate.”
There was another long pause from Marlon, and this time I actually looked at him, wondering what the hell was up. Was he actually considering going back into town? Actually thinking about leading the people back over there when we’d just spent all that time crossing the ice?
Because it seemed like actual lunacy to me. Yes, at some point it would make sense to get the people back to their homes, but right now it was a suicide mission, plain and simple.
When I saw his face, though, all I could see was the blank mask of his thoughts. He was staring intently at the town—but he also wasn’t letting his ideas show on his face. He was as blank as any person could possibly be.
As blank any spy might have been when someone was trying to get top-secret information out of them.
The moment I opened my mouth to ask what he was thinking, though, he snapped out of it and his face returned to its normal status of movement. He turned to me and shook his head.
“We’ll have to get back in there eventually. And soon. But right now, we can’t risk it. You’re right; the only option is my estate. Let’s get the people moving now, before Randall figures out what we’ve done and finds a way to come after us.”
He turned and made his way back toward the large group of townspeople before I could answer him, leaving me with yet another question about what his history was and who he’d been in his previous life. The time was coming when I was going to start demanding answers to those questions. And I was starting to realize that the time for that was going to be soon.
Because I didn’t think we could go much further until I knew exactly what Marlon knew. And how we could use it.
We let the people sit and eat some breakfast before we started them on the march—with the appropriate precautions of lookouts around the entire group. Randall might not believe in having people watch out for the borders of the town, but I knew we couldn’t run that risk. We were in the middle of the forest, and couldn’t tell what might show up.
It might be Randall and some of his goons. Or it might be bears, wolves, or—if we were really unlucky—cougars. So yeah, we couldn’t afford to let our guards down. Not for one minute.
I sent five of the men into the woods with guns and protein bars, and then turned toward the crowd left in the forest. Many of them were women and children, though there were men scattered around here and there in the group. Most of the men had gathered naturally around the edges, their eyes on the forest, their hands tense on their weapons.
It was amazing how little time it took for them to revert back to what I considered to be their natural instincts for protecting their people. These men weren’t military men. Hell, they weren’t even law enforcement. But since I woke up in the forest, I’d been noticing them going out of their way to help the weaker in the group, to make sure that everyone had enough to eat and was keeping up with the rest of the townspeople. If men were attached to families, then they were naturally more concerned with the members of their immediate group, but even the single men had taken to picking up children when necessary and helping women who were struggling with packs that were too heavy for them.
It was heartening to see. And I knew it was also going to get a lot tougher as this day went on. Because we were going to go from sitting around, or moving in short bursts, to a move that extended for many hours, and across many miles. It was going to be hard on anyone with any health concerns—including the many elderly town members—and on anyone with young children, or a lot to carry.