Marshal stood up calmly and slowly. But not before wiping the carbon steel blade carefully on the dead woman’s jacket.
He looked to the sun, which had just appeared on the horizon, bringing warmth and light to the snow-covered landscape.
25
“You feeling better?” said Mandy.
Max nodded. His whole body had been stiff with cold, but a few hours by the fire, and some venison, had made him feel limber once again. Not that he wasn’t exhausted. They all were.
“You weren’t serious about going out alone, were you?”
Max shook his head. “No,” he said.
“Why’d you say that?”
“I was serious at the time,” said Max. “The cold must have gotten to me… the adrenaline from the fight. It’s better to wait until there’s daylight.”
Max was glad he hadn’t rushed out into the night looking for Jake and Rose. He still thought there could easily be more enemies out there. And, frankly, the probability that Jake and Rose had died was high.
“Good,” said Mandy. “Because you know it doesn’t make sense to go all cowboy and try to do everything yourself. You’ll just get killed. You’re the one who’s always advising caution, after all. It wouldn’t look very good if you got killed by not following your own advice.”
Max let out a brief, muted laugh. Then he fell into silence again. Mandy too. There was, after all, nothing funny about the situation. Jake and Rose were missing. Probably dead.
“It’s weird,” said Mandy, speaking slowly. “It’s almost like I’ve gotten used to this.”
“To what?”
“To people going missing, turning up dead.”
Max nodded. “It’s tough, but…”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Mandy, cutting him off. “We’ve got to keep going.”
Max laughed again. This time, it was more of a real laugh. “I guess I say that a lot?”
Mandy’s eyes twinkled. “Sometimes.”
They were sitting close together, away from the fire, facing north. Most of the others were sitting by the fire.
Their guns lay beside them. The sun was rising slowly, making everything once again seem possible, giving them hope when they’d had no hope before.
Mandy leaned in, her mouth approaching Max’s.
Max, for a moment, didn’t move. He just stared into Mandy’s eyes, which seemed to be sparkling. They were deep and beautiful. He hadn’t had much time to look into her eyes in the last weeks.
This was a rare moment, one that Max promised himself he’d remember in the future, once things got rough again. They always seemed to, chaos coming rumbling in like a freight train, disrupting all their carefully calculated plans and schemes.
Max leaned in, his lips meeting hers. They kept their eyes open. For some reason, it seemed more natural that way.
“Hey!” came a gruff voice.
It was John. His boots tread heavily across the ground.
Mandy pulled quickly away from Max, quickly becoming busy removing her cap and rearranging her hair, which was had been a permanent mess for the last week. That was fine with Max. He happened to like that look.
“What is it?” said Max, turning to his brother.
John looked angry. Max could tell just by the way he moved, the way he walked. Sure, it had been a lot of years since they’d spent time together, but people didn’t change that much. At least not their “tells,” and the way they expressed their emotions.
“I thought you were going to strike out on your own, hunt down Jake and Rose all by yourself?”
“I thought you didn’t want me to go,” said Max.
“He’s not going alone,” said Mandy. “He just told me.”
“That’s right,” said Max. “We need to go out in groups. I wasn’t thinking clearly before.”
“I’m not sure you’ve been thinking clearly for a while,” muttered John.
“What was that?” said Max.
“You heard me.”
Max stood up, facing his brother. He didn’t have time for this. Whatever was bothering John probably had more to do with him than it did with Max.
“There isn’t time for this,” said Max. “We’ve got to get going.”
“But there was plenty of time to sit around, waiting until dawn?”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“What I’m getting at is that I don’t think you’re such a great leader,” said John, his nostrils flaring, his eyebrows narrowing. “Every decision you’ve made…”
“Every decision he’s made has been the right one,” said Mandy, interrupting him and standing up beside Max.
Max put his hand up, gesturing to Mandy that that was enough.
“I don’t always make the right decisions,” said Max, speaking slowly. “Sometimes there aren’t any right decisions. And when I’ve been wrong, when I’m way off, at least I admit it. I was wrong to want to go after them myself. There, I said it.”
John didn’t seem to know what to say.
“Now that it’s light,” said Max, “we’re heading out. Mandy, we’ll go together. John, you take Cynthia. Everyone else will guard the camp. That is, if you’re up for it.”
He stared his brother right in the eyes. John didn’t blink.
Finally, John nodded. Whatever his problem with Max was, he was willing to recognize a plan that made sense.
“Good,” said Max. “We’ll head that way, cutting a wide arc. You two can take the other direction.” He pointed as he spoke. “Keep an eye out for footprints. And tell Georgia what’s going on.”
John nodded again. He was silent, but the anger was still on his face.
Max nodded to Mandy, and they set off, leaving John standing there.
They’d gotten ready a half hour ago, but they carried minimal gear with them. They had a rifle and handgun each and a small supply of extra food and water that they were able to fit into their parka pockets. Backpacks would only weight them down, making traversing the snow more difficult.
If things ever calmed down, Max had plans for making rudimentary snowshoes. For now, they were stuck slogging through the snow in their boots.
The temperature had risen. Not enough to melt the snow, but enough to feel significantly warmer than last night’s frigid temperatures. If he’d had to guess, Max would have said it was in the high twenties. Maybe thirty.
As they walked, Mandy kept glancing at Max.
“What is it?” said Max, finally.
“Aren’t you going to say anything about what happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“With your brother. With John.”
Max shrugged. “What’s there to say?”
“Aren’t you wondering why he was so upset?”
“That’s his business,” said Max.
Mandy huffed. “No wonder you two didn’t talk much after childhood.”
Max said nothing but he picked up the pace. His leg was, strangely, feeling better. Maybe it was the weather. His head, however, hadn’t stopped hurting since he’d fallen, and now the pain had developed into a throbbing, intense headache. He’d take that over something worse.
“Fine,” said Mandy, unprompted. “I’ll tell you.”
“It’s fine,” said Max. “I don’t need to know.”
“No, no, I can tell you want to know. It’s nothing you did, really. It’s just that he was trying so hard to find you. He thought you’d have it all figured out. You’re his brother, and he looks up to you. Basically it’s his own expectations meeting reality. And it’s not your fault, Max.”
“I didn’t think it was.”
“It’s that no one can conquer all this… madness… this chaos. The EMP changed everything. I guess he was trying to find a way back to his old life in a sense. By finding you.”