During that time, their wounds healed, or most did, the exception being a man who developed a massive infection and begged the slavers to kill him, a chore that Mrs. Voss handled personally. Lora knew she was Luther Voss’s mother by that time and, having seen in her action, had plenty of reason to fear the son.
The mercenaries weren’t spared either. A sniper killed one of them. It could have been an old grudge, a case of mistaken identity, or target practice. Whatever it was, it gave the slaves a reason to rejoice, albeit very quietly, as they ate their dinners that night.
The other event of note, insofar as Lora was concerned, was the night that Mrs. Voss sent for her. It wasn’t a first. About two dozen slaves had been interviewed by then, although nobody could say why they had been chosen over all the rest.
So, based on the accounts Lora had heard from the others, she knew what to expect, which was a series of questions focused on her work experience. That wasn’t too scary, although any exposure to Mrs. Voss came with some risk, so Lora had butterflies in her stomach as she was ushered into a tent large enough to sleep six people.
It was like stepping into another world. A neatly made cot sat against the left wall. A small stove and a pair of matching trunks occupied the other. And there, placed at the center of the room, was the folding desk that Lora had heard about. It was made of highly polished wood and equipped with brass fittings, and the top was covered with green baize. There were three objects on the desk, and they were aligned with military precision. The collection included a pearl-handled Colt .45, a beautifully made fountain pen, and a leather-bound notebook. Behind the desk, seated on a folding chair, was Mrs. Voss. Her eyes were dark. “State your full name.”
“Lora Larsy.”
The pen made a scritching sound as it moved across the page. The eyes came up again. “You’re the one with the little girl.”
“No.”
“No, ma’am.”
“No, ma’am,” Lora said. “That’s Sissy. But I carry her daughter sometimes.”
A hanging lamp threw a monstrous shadow onto the wall as Mrs. Voss made a note. “But, if memory serves me correctly, you can read.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s rare these days,” Mrs. Voss commented. “But the ability to puzzle out a few words is not the same thing as being able to read a book. Let’s see how good you are.”
So saying, the older woman opened a drawer, removed a book, and handed it over. Lora looked at it. The title was Atlas Shrugged, and it had been written by an author named Ayn Rand. “Open it,” Mrs. Voss said. “Open it and read to me.”
So Lora opened the book and read the first paragraph her eye fell on. “‘Her leg, sculptured by the tight sheen of the stocking, its long line running straight, over an arched instep, to the tip of a foot in a high-heeled pump, had a feminine elegance that seemed out of place in the dusty train car and oddly incongruous with the rest of her. She wore a battered camel’s hair coat that had been expensive, wrapped shapelessly about her slender, nervous body.’”
Lora looked up. “Good,” Mrs. Voss said approvingly as she took the book back. “Very good. Who taught you to read?”
“My father,” Lora replied. The answer was partially true and allowed her to omit any mention of the Sanctuary.
“We’ll be in Star Valley the day after tomorrow,” Mrs. Voss said. “That’s where the Voss family farms are located. Work hard, behave yourself, and who knows? My son needs overseers who can read and write. And they live quite comfortably. Keep that in mind. Dismissed.”
The city of Jackson appeared to be empty of life as the column passed by it and continued south. The lead merc was carrying a blue flag with a yellow “V” on it by then, and the effect was quite noticeable. People came out of roadside inns to stare. Slower traffic pulled over to let the column pass, and men touched their hat brims as Mrs. Voss rode by. The typical response was an infintesimal nod of acknowledgment, but there were times when she would address such a person by name, or even paused to chat.
But on more than one occasion Lora saw bystanders make rude gestures when they thought they could get away with it, so she sensed that a lot of the respect Mrs. Voss received was based on fear rather than affection.
And that was evident as the column entered the fortified town of Alpine without being required to pay the toll posted just outside town: “One Bullet per Person.” That’s what the sign said, but not for Mrs. Voss, who rode through the gate as if it wasn’t even there.
Not only that, but Buck Benton, the unelected mayor of Alpine, hurried out to greet Mrs. Voss in the friendliest possible way and proceeded to invite her to dinner. There were no such pleasantries for the slaves, of course, but they were allowed to bed down inside a city-owned warehouse, and that amounted to a luxury after so many nights in the open.
They rose early the next morning, ate a meal of steaming-hot porridge, and set off. It wasn’t long before they passed a well-maintained sign that said, “Welcome to Star Valley, the home of Voss Farms.”
It was silly, Lora knew that, since a slave is a slave. But the prospect of arriving at the column’s final destination filled her with a sense of dread, because once there, she sensed there would be no escape, nothing to look forward to each day but the next meal and a chance to rest at night.
Like it or not, the march took her through Etna, Thayne, and Turner, so that by the time the orange-red sun was hanging low in the sky, the column had arrived in the hamlet of Grover, which, according to one of the mercs, was located north of the larger and much more populous town of Afton.
The countryside was mostly open, surrounded by low-lying hills, and still home to pockets of shadowed snow. Clusters of trees dotted the verdant landscape, and cattle could be seen grazing in some of the fields. But what caught Lora’s eye were the greenhouses. There were hundreds of the glassed-in structures all laid out in tidy rows, and as the column turned left off the highway and passed beneath a sign that read, “VOSS FARMS, STATION 2,” she understood how the Voss family had been able to prosper in spite of the long, snowy winters. They, like the residents of the Sanctuary, grew their crops indoors—and on an enormous scale.
An arrow-straight road led between the well-kept hothouses toward a defensive wall and an open gate. Lora could see what she assumed to be slaves coming and going from the greenhouses and noticed that none of them were looking her way. Why was that? Because looking was frowned on? Because the sight would make them feel uncomfortable? Or because such sights were so commonplace they weren’t worth taking notice of?
The questions went unanswered as Mrs. Voss led the column through the gate and into the compound beyond. And there, directly in front of them, stood a large man with a shaved head. He bowed to Mrs. Voss and said, “It’s good to see you, ma’am… We missed you.”
But like the rest of the slaves, Lora was only marginally aware of the man, the two-story house in the background, and the outbuildings all around. Their eyes were focused on the wooden platform behind the bald man, the gibbet mounted on top of it, and the corpse that dangled there. They were home.
Chapter Nine
Crow claimed that the raid on the food caravan was a partial success because the gang had been able to kill half a dozen mercenaries. But, given the cost, no one believed it. And that included Crow, judging by how withdrawn he was.
For his part, Tre had given the raid quite a bit of thought and had arrived at two conclusions. The first was that an L-shaped ambush would have been more effective. Had some of the gang been positioned behind the fallen trees, firing straight into the column, they might have been able to trap the mercenaries in a killing zone.