At about three in the afternoon, they arrived at an intersection where roads came in from the east and west. There were some run-down buildings, some snow-humped cars, and a lot of tracks, all headed south. “It looks as if people are coming together for some reason,” Ed Dero observed. “I wonder what it is?”
Lora and Dero were walking side by side at that point, talking about his favorite subject, hydroponics. As the rest of the group came to a halt, they did too. A leadership conference followed but soon came to the obvious conclusion. The leavers couldn’t go back and didn’t have enough provisions to stay where they were, so all they could do was keep going and hope for the best.
As the group followed the tracks south, Lora was stunned by the vast sweep of the cloud-strewn sky, the snow-covered fields that seemed to stretch forever, and the arrow-straight road that ran all the way to the southern horizon. There was comfort in knowing that they could see trouble coming from a long way off. The final hours of the afternoon passed pleasantly, and by the time they arrived in what had once been a small hamlet, the dimly seen sun was low in the western sky. Nix called a halt, and after a quick look around, it was agreed that they would hole up in what had once been a post office.
The concrete-block building had been occupied recently, judging from the hot embers in the old-fashioned potbellied stove, an amenity that was too heavy to steal. It sat in the corner of a large room with a counter and storage area in the back.
As darkness fell, the leavers settled in, made their meals, and prepared for bed. Once Lora’s sleeping bag was laid out, she made a mug of hot tea and took it out back, where a semicircle of plastic chairs was waiting. The fact that no one had bothered to take them was a testimonial to how common lawn furniture was—and how many people had perished since the war.
Lora sat down, took a sip of tea, and savored the peace and quiet. Earlier in the day she had been struck by how vast the world was. Now, as she began to contemplate the future, she wondered what it would hold. That was a new experience. Inside the Sanctuary children took tests, were told what they would be good at, and were assigned to those occupations. They claimed it was a scientific way to make sure that all the citizens were happy, but Lora had doubts. Were the people who held the most desirable jobs the best qualified to do so? Or had they been selected for political reasons? Take Matt, for example. He smoked weed and he was slated for an administrative post—or had been. Would his father’s death put an end to that?
Lora was considering that possibility when she heard the muted pop-pop-pop of what might have been gunfire. And she wasn’t the only one. Fry materialized out of the darkness. He was standing in the spill of light from the open door. “Did you hear that?”
Lora looked up at him. “It could have been gunfire. Off thata way.”
Fry nodded and disappeared inside. A bustle of activity followed as people with guns appeared and took up defensive positions around the building. All the leavers were on edge after that, but there were no further noises and the night passed without incident.
Once daylight came, Fry and two other men went out to take a look around. When they came back, it was with disturbing news. Judging from all the hoofprints, a party of up to thirty riders had circled the hamlet during the night. But why?
That question was the subject of considerable debate. Should they continue to travel south, which would take them in the direction of the gunfire heard the night before, or should they remain where they were? The problem was that they didn’t have enough food to hole up in the post office. After much dithering, the decision was made to resume the march, a course of action Lora understood but was worried about.
So they ate, packed, and hit the road. As they had the day before, they made good progress, but there were no lighthearted conversations or friendly snowball fights today. The air felt clammy, and a thick layer of mist clung to the ground, making it impossible to see for more than five hundred yards. Thirty minutes into the march, Lyn Cho pointed to the east. “Look! Riders!”
“And there are more to the west,” Hobbs added.
“Okay, close it up!” Fry ordered, and they did. Not that Lora thought it would do much good if the horsemen attacked them. They had the advantage, so why not use it? Were they friendly? No, it seemed logical to believe that friendly people would come over and identify themselves.
All the leavers had were questions with no answers—until they came to the steel bridge. There was nothing special about it except for the bodies hanging from the superstructure, two male and one female. It looked as though all three had been shot. And there, waiting at the other end of the span, were three riders. They were dressed in a combination of regular clothing and crudely sewn animal skins. All were heavily armed, and the one in the middle was wearing a football helmet decorated with a set of antlers.
“Look!” Dero exclaimed. “They’re closing in on us!” and Lora saw that he was correct. Both columns of outriders had turned in on them and were approaching the highway. There was no avenue of escape—or that was what Lora though until Fry raised his assault weapon and fired. The bullets hit horses and men alike. Animals screamed and fell in a welter of blood. They were still in the process of dying when Fry waved the others forward. “Follow me!”
They did, shuffling on snowshoes, as the man with the antlers tried to rise. Fry shot him again. “Take cover behind the horses!”
Most of the leavers did so as the horsemen at the north end of the bridge came together into a single mob and trotted onto the bridge. Tom Jager, though, was standing with his weapon raised. “Kill them!” he shouted, and fired his shotgun. It was the first time he had done so, but the enemy was so close he couldn’t miss. A charge of double-aught buck caught a horse in the face and neck. The animal screamed piteously and reared up. That was when the rest of the leavers fired a ragged volley, and bullets tore into the horse’s belly. It went down, taking its rider with it.
A member of the horde fired a pistol in response. The heavy slug hit Jager in the chest and threw him to the ground. Lora was frightened but knew the enemy had to be stopped. She elbowed her way over to the body, struggled to free Jager’s semiauto pistol, and held it in both hands. A man wearing a wolf skull on top of his head was hiding behind a dead horse. She aimed the weapon at him and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
The safety! The man with the wolf skull saw her and brought his rifle around. Lora felt a stab of fear as she thumbed the safety. Then she knew the pistol was ready to fire, so she did. Nine times.
The first bullet struck sparks off the bridge deck. The second hit the horse. The third struck the man’s rifle, which spoiled his aim. He was in the process of recovering from the jolt when a slug nicked his left ear, another passed through his throat, and the rest went wide. His hands came up in a futile attempt to stop the blood, then fell away as he lost consciousness.
As Lora was just starting to process that when Lou Martinez shouted a warning. “They’re attacking from behind!”
She turned to look, saw that Martinez was correct, and wondered how many bullets she had left. A large group of horsemen was thundering in from the south, but as a leaver fired at them, Lora noticed that the men on the north side of the bridge were backing away. “Don’t shoot!” she shouted. “They’re friends.”
That wasn’t necessarily true, of course, but Lora figured it was, and she feared what would happen if the leavers attacked potential allies. Fortunately her father had reached the same conclusion and ordered the group to stop shooting—and a good thing too, because as the riders from the south arrived, they passed between the leavers and took off after the barbarians.