Author: Tom Abrahams
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/tom-abrahams/page,4,508577-the_traveler_01-03_home_canyon_wall.html
“It does,” she purred. “Hurry back.”
“Will do. Send me the text. Love you.”
“Love you.”
Marcus knew these were the salad days.
CHAPTER 5
OCTOBER 13, 2037, 10:15 AM
SCOURGE +5 YEARS
EAST OF RISING STAR, TEXAS
“They’re coming back,” Battle insisted. “From what you’ve told me about these guys, they’re not for letting bygones be bygones. They sent a search party to find you and your son. They’re not going to look the other way at losing three of their men.”
He drove the spade into the dry Texas dirt and shoveled out another load, making the hole another couple of inches deeper. Lola stood behind him, her arms folded across her chest.
“You’re only making my point for me,” she whined.
“How so?” Battle grunted mid-dig. He was a machine, standing in the hole he’d been digging for the last two hours. They were on the back edge of his acreage, hidden behind a cluster of mesquite. He stopped to grab a swig of water from a large bottle and wiped his forehead with the back of his gloved hand.
“If they’re coming back, we shouldn’t be here. We should run. And if we should run, we should go find my son. I can’t do it without you. I’m hurt. I don’t have the strength or the ability to kill people, so…”
Battle blinked against the sweat in his eyes and turned back to his job, stabbing the dirt with the shovel, pulling up the dirt, and tossing it to the edge of the hole. Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss.
“Are you listening to me?” Lola leaned forward to press her point. “We shouldn’t stay.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Stab. Pull. Toss. “This is my home.” Stab. Pull. Toss. “I’m alive because I stayed here. I’d be dead if I left.” Stab. Pull. Toss.
“My son will die if you don’t.”
Battle stopped and planted the spade in the dirt at his feet. “I understand that’s a possibility. But you have to understand something. You are not my responsibility. My responsibility to others died with the Scourge. Like I said, you can stay a week or so, until you can walk, and then you have to go.”
“You’re really kicking me out? Throwing me to those—those wolves?”
“I saved you from the wolves.”
“Not if you’re kicking me out. Not if you’re refusing to help me find my son.”
Battle used the handle of the shovel as leverage to step from the hole. He moved a step from Lola and stuck a gloved finger in her face.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he jabbed. “I almost shot you on sight last night. Maybe I should have. The longer you’re here, the more danger I face. You have to understand, the world of compassion and helping thy neighbor died with two-thirds of the world’s population. I’m a nice guy. But I don’t have a death wish.”
Lola’s arms were locked at her sides, her hands balled into tight fists. “If you’re not going to help me, you might as well have pulled that trigger. I’d just as soon be dead than live in a world where even a nice guy has lost his humanity.”
She limped back toward the gate at the back fence. Battle watched her huff off for a beat before returning to work.
Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss.
“This is exactly why I stay to myself,” he mumbled to himself. “Exactly why. I should have killed her. I wouldn’t have known any different.”
In the months after the Scourge had ravaged his family and countless others, Battle considered assimilation. He thought about inviting others to stay with him, to form a survival cooperative. He’d clear more land, expand the farming capabilities of his acreage, and indoctrinate up to a half dozen people into his way of thinking and doing.
He prayed about it. He did the mathematical calculations. Ultimately, he decided against it.
There was no way to vet the people he’d invite. Since returning from war and retiring from the military, he’d chosen to live a Spartan life.
His job had allowed him to live anywhere. He and Sylvia had bought property in the middle of nowhere, and when she was seven months pregnant, they’d moved from base housing at Fort Hood to their land near County Road 133 in Eastland County, Texas. The closest town was Rising Star, less than two square miles in size with a population of seven-hundred sixty-two.
“We don’t have any neighbors,” Sylvia had said, standing in the middle of the fifty acres with both hands on her belly. “And we barely have any trees.”
“I can plant some. I’ll put them all over the place. They’ll be good cover.”
“Neighbors?”
“Trees.”
“What about neighbors?”
“We don’t want any. That’s the whole point of this.”
Sylvia hadn’t loved it. She’d missed her army wives and weekly margarita nights. Marcus traveled too much, and she was alone at least a half dozen nights every month. But she’d willingly given up civilization to have her man with her most of the time, in whatever circumstances.
They’d lived in a large Winnebago for close to two years while Marcus oversaw construction of the main house, the barn, and the garage. Aside from a week in Eastland Memorial Hospital when their son was born and one weekend a month in an Abilene hotel, they’d survived in close quarters.
“It’s better than sleeping in a bunker,” he’d frequently said.
“But not better than a latrine,” she’d frequently replied.
Sylvia had been a saint of a woman. What woman wasn’t when she supported the man she loved? For all the nights he was half a world away, she’d take him and their baby cuddled together in a twenty-five-by-seven-foot home on wheels.
A couple of nearby farmers stopped by during the construction. They were busybodies, nothing more. Neither offered help nor friendship.
One woman from a church in Abilene had brought a peach pie a week after they finished construction. Sylvia had met her at Bible Hardware and had opened up to her about their plans.
That was the one and only time she’d come by the place, though they had seen her every once in a while on Sunday mornings. Her name was Marge.
It was by design that Marcus had no friends or trusted neighbors before the Scourge. As such, he had none after it. The prospect of trying to trust people during desperate times had been too daunting and unpredictable for the skeptical soldier to risk.
Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss.
Battle stood elbow deep in the five-foot-long hole. He reckoned it was big enough for the task and climbed his way out. A few feet from the hole he grabbed the hand grips on a wheelbarrow and heaved it forward. The front brace creaked its disapproval of the weight, as did Battle’s knees. He slogged forward to the edge of the hole.
Rather than dumping the contents into the hole, he grabbed each of the men by their legs and dragged them over the edge, rolling them into what would be their collective grave.
All three of them, one on top of the other, heaped into the hole. They were starting to stiffen, which made the task tougher. Once they were inside, he said a prayer for them and began the burial process.
Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss.
“You prayed for their souls?” Lola had returned. She was leaning up against a thirty-year-old oak without any foliage. “Why would you do that?”
Battle stopped shoveling and let out a sigh. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“They tried to kill you.”
“All the more reason I should pray for them.”
She pursed her lips and used her back to push herself from the tree before taking several steps toward Battle. “You still believe?”
“In what?”
“God?”
Battle laughed. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
She wiped her reddened nose with the back of her hand. Her eyes were swollen. “Why would you?”
“God tries us,” Battle said. “He challenges us. He hurts. He lifts us up. To me, God is neve
r more present than in the darkness. I don’t need God’s strength when everything is good. I need it when I’m faced with a bunch of dudes from the Cartel coming to my house wanting to hurt me.”
Battle turned back to look at the bodies half covered in dirt at the bottom of the hole. Tangled together, their limbs were indistinguishable from one another. The men had had mothers and fathers, maybe siblings and spouses. It was possible they even had kids. The Scourge had affected them too. They did what they had to do to survive, just as he had done. Though there was no excuse for enslaving a woman and her son, Battle wasn’t judging them for that. He killed them because he had to kill them. Only God would judge them for why they made the decisions they’d made, just as He would someday judge Battle.
“You were crying?”
Lola nodded.
Battle looked at her for a moment and then turned back to the shovel. He adjusted the gloves on his hands, pulling them tight on his fingers, and dug into the shrinking pile of dirt and roots at the edge of the hole. Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss.
“How can you have mercy on their souls and not mine?”
Battle ignored her at first. He wanted to finish the job. Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss.
“Bat,” she repeated more loudly, “can you have mercy on their souls and not mine?”
Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss. Stab. Pull. Toss.
“Hold on a second.” Battle drove the shovel into the dirt and walked over to his guest. His chest was heaving up and down, his pulse quickened, as much by the challenge of the work as the challenge from Lola.
“You pray for them,” she said, “but you’ll kick me out and let me die. Let my son die.”
Battle wondered why she was pushing. Did she sense a weakness? Was she trying to manipulate his faith? He knew she was desperate. He’d be desperate too. He couldn’t relent. He couldn’t go on a fool’s mission, abandoning his home in the hopes of finding a boy who may not even be alive.
“It isn’t like that,” he said through a clenched jaw. “You can’t judge me for how I live my life. You can’t make assumptions about why I do what I do. If you don’t like it, you can leave now. I’ve broken every rule I’ve made for myself by letting you live, by letting you stay. If you keep pushing me, I will break. And I’ll send you back into the wilderness with nothing.”
Lola didn’t argue with him. She didn’t pout or turn back to the house. She dropped to her knees, there in the leaves and dirt, and clasped her hands in prayer. She asked God for help. She asked He keep her son safe. She asked He help her navigate the road ahead. She asked He protect her host, despite his obstinacy.
By the time she rose from her knees, Battle was finished burying the dead. He had one hand around the shovel and the other placed on Lola’s back, leading her toward the house.
“I need your help,” he said. “We have to prepare for the possibility of an attack. Prayer can only do so much.”
***
OCTOBER 13, 2037, 10:46 AM
SCOURGE +5 YEARS
ABILENE, TEXAS
Queho hopped from his horse, landing on his good foot first. He adjusted his hat, slid his sunglasses up his nose, and loosely looped the reins over a waist-high wooden post outside the Cartel’s Abilene headquarters.
“Hurry up,” he called to Salomon Pico. “We got stuff to do.” He stepped onto the cement curb under the large green awning in front of the building. His club foot ached, as it did every day, as he pushed his way through the double glass doors. He didn’t acknowledge either of the grunts standing guard at the entrance.
“You don’t look good, Sal,” one of the guards said to Pico.
Pico stepped slowly onto the curb. “Don’t ask.”
“Where’s everybody else?” the other guard asked.
Pico waved him off and followed Queho with a push through the entrance. “Don’t ask.”
Pico walked into the dimly lit building, thankful for the blast of cold air greeting him. Smoky and stale, the HQ resembled a saloon as much as it did the place where the Cartel ran much of Central Texas. He found Queho off to the right, joining a group of cowboy-hatted posse bosses, but kept his distance until Queho called him over.
Queho shifted in the high-back wooden chair. He was one of five posse bosses sitting at the round table, along with an area captain named Cyrus Skinner. He wore a white hat and was blowing smoke from his nose, a cigarette hanging from his thick lower lip.
“Tell them what you told me,” Queho instructed.
“Which part?” Pico asked.
Queho looked around the table and locked his eyes on Skinner, who sat across from him. “The part about Mad Max.”
Pico shrugged and shrank against the eyes of the bosses. He swallowed hard.
“Tell us about Mad Max,” Skinner growled. His voice was a deep gravel pit. “This single man who killed three of our brothers.”
“I-I-I never s-s-saw him up close,” Pico stuttered. “It was dark. But I saw his shadow. He was fast and strong. He shot straight.”
“You never saw him?”
Pico shrugged again. “Like I said, boss, it was dark. I only caught a glimpse of him.”
“And you’re sure it was only one man?” asked Queho. “You told me you were sure.”
“I’m sure.”
Skinner took another long drag, the smoke circling his hat. “How is it we didn’t know about this man?” His eyes moved from Pico to sweep the table. “We’ve been in control of this area for more than three years, ever since the US got out of Texas. How did we not find this man and take care of him a long time ago?”
The brown hats shook back and forth. The men wearing them had no answer for their captain.
Skinner took another long, slow drag and then slammed his fist on the table. His face contorted with anger and his lips curled. “WHY DID WE NOT KNOW ABOUT HIM?!”
All the bosses but Queho buried their heads behind their brown hats. None of them had an answer. Queho, though, looked Skinner in the eyes.
Pico took a step back from the table, partially hiding in the shadow cast by an overhead beam.
“We got about two hundred seventy thousand square miles to look after, Skin, and a good quarter of that falls under your command,” he drawled. “I ain’t gonna apologize for missin’ one badass dude in the middle of nowhere on some backward county road.”
Skinner flexed his fist and stared at the back of his hand as he spoke. “I hear you, Queho. But there’s no excuse for losing three men to one badass dude. Especially when we were trying to wrangle a woman and her kid after they escaped right out from under our noses.”
“You got a point. I think the question now ain’t what we did or didn’t do, it’s what we do now. We got the boy back. Now we need to go get the woman and erase the badass Mad Max.”
Skinner popped another cigarette between his lips and lit it. He sucked his chest full and held it before exhaling. “What’s your idea?”
“Let’s hit him fast. Big firepower. A lot of men.”
“How many men?”
Queho looked around at the other posse bosses. As he met their eyes, one by one they looked away. His lips wormed into a smile. They were gutless.
“I’ll start with every posse boss at this table,” he said. “And I’ll take four of their men.”
“Twenty men?” Skinner took the cigarette between two fingers and flicked the ash onto the floor. “That it?”
Queho shook his head. “No. I’m going too. And I’m taking Pico. He knows where the place is and knows the rough layout.”
Skinner nodded and let the cigarette droop from his lip. “That makes sense. Pico, what do you think?”
Pico looked at Skinner. “I think—”
“I don’t care what you think,” Skinner cut in. “You’re going.”
Pico slipped back into the shadow, digging his hands deeper into his pockets.
“Thanks, Skin.” Queho chuckled. “Pico knows he�
��s needed. He knows he doesn’t have a choice.”
“What else do you need?” Skinner puffed.
“I’ll give you a list.” Queho pushed back from the table and stood. He shot a look at each of the other bosses. “I’m in charge,” he said to nobody in particular.
“When are you going?” Skinner raised one eyebrow higher than the other. “You said you wanted to hit him fast.”
“Tonight,” Queho said. “We go tonight.”
CHAPTER 6
OCTOBER 2, 2032, 2:00 AM
SCOURGE +/- 0 DAYS
EAST OF RISING STAR, TEXAS
Sylvia couldn’t sleep, which meant Marcus couldn’t sleep. The bedroom television was turned to cable news.
“…appears to have begun in Iranian refugee camps. The pneumonia is believed to come from a deadly bacterial strain scientists have isolated to Yersinia pestis. It’s airborne, spreads rapidly, and can kill its host within forty-eight hours in extreme conditions. Reporter John Mubarak brings us the latest from a camp north of the Iran-Turkmenistan border near the city of Ashbagat.”
“Do we have to watch this?” Marcus was bleary-eyed, having spent much of the previous week finishing the fence line security system. He’d worked twenty hours a day, testing and retesting. He buried his head under a pillow.
“This is important,” Sylvia said, aiming the remote at the television to increase the volume. “They’re saying it’s like a plague.”
“…journey through the mountains of northeastern Iran to reach this camp was challenge enough for the thousands who braved it,” said the reporter. “Now that they’re here, they’re facing a graver danger in this tent city with close quarters. A deadly disease international doctors have nicknamed the Scourge is ravaging those at their most vulnerable.”
Marcus adjusted his pillow so he could see the screen. “The Scourge? That’s a little dramatic, isn’t it?”
“For the world’s biggest prepper, I’d figure you for taking this as dramatically as it’s being presented.”
“I’m not saying it’s not bad, I’m saying the name of the illness is over the top.”