Chapter Ten.

Kathleen was exhausted. She was being pursued by her father’s men, and she was determined to pursue her fiancé to the end of the Earth. She had known it would be difficult. But she hadn’t expected just how difficult it would be. She had thought she was following the trail of the people that had taken her fiancé and his sister Patricia.

She had been dead wrong. It was horrifying. All along the river on her way north, she found shattered gates, toppled walls, and burned forts. And settlements littered with the bodies of men, boys, dogs, and horses. Between the forts she discovered the bodies of women, over a dozen women's bodies in the trail of wreckage she was following. Every naked body was covered in bruises, and had been bleeding from the crotch. Each of the poor women had been raped and abused.

She’d had to revise what she thought she knew. The group that had attacked the Steven’s farm wasn’t taking any male prisoners. They were slaughtering them and taking what women they could take alive. When she had realized that, she had wept with relief. That meant Michael was alive, and following the group that had most likely taken Pattie prisoner.

She was moving as fast as she could, but she’d made a miscalculation. Her horse and Henry the pack mule could graze. She could not. In order to travel at speed, she walked or jogged next to her horse, Margarita. When she could jog no longer, she would mount, and they would canter until it rested her enough to resume her jog.

She was burning an incredible amount of energy. She had travel rations in her packs, but they were hard tack, salted meat, cornmeal, and tallow bricks. They were supposed to be prepared together to make actual food. With her father’s men at her heels, she didn’t have time to stop and prepare actual meals. She’d had to choke down all the salt preserved meats. Now she was in the position of having nothing but rendered beef tallow with hard tack and corn meal and nothing to eat with it.

She barely had time to boil the river water before she transferred it to her (thankfully) large water skins. She was thankful for the abundance of the prickly pear cactus; it provided her with some edible forage.

With a rifle, she was one of the best shots in the Los Gatos territory. Kathleen had extraordinary eyesight. She could actually see the bullets flying if the conditions were right. She had the pistol she had stolen from Gabriel in the guardhouse, but she was only a passable shot with a pistol. Ammunition was scarce and pistols were only for self-defense.

She had learned the basics and had practiced shooting man sized targets at close distances. She was proficient enough to defend herself, but not enough to shoot jackrabbits or the small deer she occasionally saw at a distance. It was hard to sneak up on game whilst riding a horse with a mule in tow.

She was a damned fine hunter, but she didn’t have a rifle and her knowledge of trapping was heavy on theory but light on practical. It was her own damn fault too; she had never practiced much. And anyway, trapping wasn’t an option unless you spent some time in an area. Making a bow and arrows was in her skill-set, but she didn’t have the time or the tools to make one. It was frustrating on many levels.

And she was trying to make her way unnoticed. Shooting a pistol and missing her target two or three times wasn’t very damned sneaky. To top it off, she had a limited supply of ammunition. She saw fish jumping once in a while in the shallows of the river. She hadn’t even thought of fishing gear when she had made up her list of shit to steal from the Maclusky store-houses.

She reined her horse to a stop when she heard the faint sound of a gunshot coming from up-river. It sounded like a rifle, and it sounded like it came from a very long way off. She dismounted and worked her way as up a nearby tree as high as she safely could. Kathleen examined the landscape in sections, the way Josiaha had taught her. Even with her incredible eyesight, she could see nothing.

Nothing. Perhaps a quarter of an hour passed, and she saw no signs of people, nor heard any man-made sounds. She slithered out of the tree and mounted her horse, then started off at a trot that lasted for at least an hour. She stopped to rest the animals, watering them in a small protected cove. While the animals rested, she climbed as high as she could in another tree, this time looking south.

Searching for any sign of the men her father must have sent to bring her back. Seeing no sign of pursuit, she turned her attention northward. To the north, over the horizon, she noticed a faint wisp of white smoke. The smoke you might get from a fire you were going to cook with.

She considered. On the fourth day of her journey, she had run into two men who had been exploring the ruin of a walled compound. The men hadn’t been threatening. But they were adamant that she was doing something very dangerous. They had tried several times to get her off her horse and forget the idea of chasing the bandits. They had grown very insistent until she had pulled out her pistol and told them to fuck off. The older man had made a condescending comment about how she should “Put that away, you don’t look like a girl who could shoot a man.”

Without saying a word, she had looked right at him, turned her horse using her knees, raised her pistol and put a bullet through his hat. The older man had been wearing a beat-up hat tilted way back on his head. Kathleen was very pleased that she had shot his hat off the top of his head rather than the top of his head off the rest of his stupid fucking head.

And she had stayed seated on her horse, who had objected to the gunshot coming from her back. With her ears ringing, she waited until both men had gotten up off the ground. She had waved her pistol a little, shooing them off. The older man picked up his hat and the two of them had promptly fucked off.

She’d sneered. A well-fitted hat shouldn’t fall off your head when someone put a bullet through it. As she rode away, she’d considered what had just happened. Her heart was pounding, her hands were shaking, and she felt lightheaded. Maybe even a little sick to her stomach. By the end of the next hour, she had convinced herself that if push came to shove, she could and would shoot a man if he tried to keep her from finding Michael and Pattie. Or tried to harm her.

She urgently needed food. Her clothes were fitting loose, and she hadn’t exactly been plump to start with. All things considered, she didn’t have a choice. The only way for her to get food would be through bartering. She had several things in her stores she could trade, since this was something she had considered before she had set out.

She had three pounds of high quality black gunpowder in two sealed ceramic pots. Two pounds of lead, two pounds of decent quality iron nails, a dozen well-made needles and a generous amount of flax thread. Thirty yards of yarn, thirty yards of hemp line, a half-pound of good clean beeswax. Four ounces of powerful cannabis and two pounds of small iron scraps she had stolen from the blacksmith’s shop.

She would approach like a sneak thief and assess the situation. One or two people was an acceptable amount of risk, any more than that, and she could not watch her back. She briefly considered just robbing the hunter, then quickly discarded that thought. While she was prepared to kill someone in self-defense, murder was off the table at this point. Murder was something she would worry about when she finally found her quarry. The tremendous feeling of relief she experienced was surprising once she decided that.

That was worrying. Her judgment was already pretty unreliable. She was only getting a few hours of sleep a day. Night time was far too dangerous to be asleep unless you had a guard or walls to protect you from the night walkers. She got what little sleep she did in the saddle during daylight hours, and it was nowhere near enough. She was regretting not bringing her beloved dog Jackson along. Her food problems would have been three times worse if she had brought her dog along, but now she was kicking herself for leaving him.

Three times during her pursuit, she’d needed to go out of her way to avoid a Night Walker herd. Once, when the sky was overcast and the wind was blowing, she had blundered into a herd and barely escaped with her life.

She had re-learned valuable lessons. The disgusting things were not very smart. They could only react to things. They couldn’t think or strategize, and they reeked of rot and decay, so they were effortlessly evaded if the wind was in your favor. The things didn’t move swiftly, but they wouldn’t cease coming until you destroyed every one of them or the sun came up. If you could reach an elevated position, such as a pile of boulders or a tree, you could beat their heads in. Her tomahawk never left her person. Well made, the head being knapped from obsidian that had come all the way from Silver City to the west. Unlike its ancestral form, hers had a handle that was the length of her outstretched arm in order to keep her out of grabbing range. The weapon was more akin to an axe than a tomahawk, but it was much lighter. Not useful for trying to kill people, but for whacking Night Walkers right in their fucking heads, it was superb. And it was silent. A gunshot in the night would attract any walkers for miles.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

***

Once again, she pushed the horse and the mule. She felt bad for the two. Moving at this speed was hard on both of them. But that wisp of smoke on the horizon moved closer as the sun moved across the sky.

***

She was getting close. The wind shifted, and she could smell meat being smoked. Her mouth watered uncontrollably. Both the animals had a nose bag filled with feed on their face. That would stop any noises they might make. Her stomach tied itself into a knot.

Between her lack of sleep and her low blood sugar, the need to make contact overwhelmed her. She was doing her best sneaking when a noise came from her left and straight up ruined her day.

There came a loud metallic click, the sound made when someone cocked a gun.

A mans voice came from somewhere to her left. “Señorita, como puedo ayudarte?”

Fuck.

Kathleen had dismounted and was leading the animals while she focused on moving stealthily. She let go of the reins and raised her hands, scanning the area for the person who spoke. She couldn’t find any trace of another human being. Kathleen was close to panic. She spotted the owner of the voice.

He was about her height. He was about her age. Brown skin, black hair, and brown eyes. High cheekbones. His left cheek had a long, thin white scar across it. His face was expressionless. His clothing blended in with the foliage. He was almost invisible in the New Mexico Olive tree. He had a rifle pointed straight at her face. The hole in the end of the barrel was fucking huge.

Her mouth took over, she had no control over it. She started babbling. “Señor, no quiero lastimar a nadie, tengo hambre. Puedo cambiar por comida. No soy una amenaza para ti. Please don’t kill me, señor, I’m just hungry.”

Fear paralyzed her. She was completely at the stranger's mercy.

The young man stared at her. The seconds dragged on. He lowered the rifle and de-cocked it. His eyes never leaving hers, he motioned with his left hand, beckoning. Nervously, Kathleen followed him to his camp. She discreetly looked around. Clearly a provisional camp, even if his horse had been unsaddled. She saw no sign of a companion. The fire was set up under a rack made of wood. Surrounded by a deer hide and a large cloth wind break around it. The Hide was from a sizable deer. Keeping the smoke under a bit of control. Wet mesquite covered the hot coals.

The young man beckoned her toward the fire. Kathleen approached and the smell of smoked meat overpowered her. And to her supreme embarrassment, she started sobbing. The young man watched her. Making no comment or gesture that might have been judgmental, he took a strip of meat from the rack and put it in a skillet.

He looked over his shoulder and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t has much else.”

Kathleen got herself under control. “I have food that goes well with this.” She hurried over to Henry, the very friendly and agreeable mule, and rummaged around in the large packs strapped to his sides. She approached the man and showed him what she had. His eyes lit up, and his face transformed from reserved to a huge grin. Now that his face wasn’t hidden behind a rifle, he was rather good looking. He had dimples on his cheeks.

“Ha! Well, I have maybe some onions; some chili peppers and a squash that I was saving! Sit!” He pulled the meat from the pan, set it on a small wooden cutting board, and then opened a sack and pulled out some onions. He started cutting them up with a well-used knife, then placed a piece of a tallow into the pan. Then tossed in the onions with herbs. He opened a small sack full of salt. He was smiling as he prepared the meal and humming a tune she didn’t recognize.

That was a good sign. Anyone that enjoyed cooking for a stranger had to be a decent person. Or maybe she was just fucking starving. Her hand wasn’t touching the pistol, but its presence at her waist was comforting. She examined him. He had a nice smile, a narrow face and was clean shaven. Thin eyebrows. His clothes hung loosely on him. He had slimmed down recently.

“My name is Alejandro. What is your name, señorita?”

“Kathleen.”

“Why are you alone out here?”

Kathleen stared at him. Uncertain how this would play out. Would this man try to stop her from chasing Michael and Pattie? “I’m following the people that left that trail.”

“So am I. They killed my family and stole my little sister. I’m going to follow them, find them, and kill them.” He went back to humming his little tune.

This surprised Kathleen. The man was pretty matter of fact about his intention to kill people. Then again, some people needed killing. And she was going to do the same damned thing when she caught up with them. She just hadn’t voiced that to a complete stranger. That just didn’t seem like a thing you just said to people. Maybe his grief had driven him mad?

“You have nothing to say, señorita?”

“Me too. They attacked my fiancé’s farm, stole his sister and he is chasing them. I’m going to find them.”

“You know they kill the men when they attack?

She answered fiercely, “We did not find his body in the ruins. I followed his tracks and found a nasty-looking man with a broken neck. That dead bastard got on the wrong horse and paid for it. And even if Michael is dead, I will not let them keep Pattie.”

He was cutting up some squash. “I saw you yesterday. You looked like you were asleep in the saddle. That is very dangerous. It’s a good way to breaking your bones. You can die from that.”

“I know. Is there someone else with you?”

“I am alone.”

“That is a lot of meat. Can we trade for it some of it?”

He had poured some water into a small cast-iron pot and placed it next to the coals. “Would you start another fire, ¿por favor?”

As she gathered up dried grasses, twigs, and branches, she could hear him chopping something on his cutting board.

He said, “My papa always told me never to trade on an empty stomach. It puts you at someone else’s mercy.”

He laughed when he heard her stomach growl. She scowled. She arranged the tinder and wood in preparation, then pulled her hatchet from her saddlebags and eyed some of the bigger branches. He flinched at the sound when she used her camp hatchet to cut some of the dried wood he had gathered.

“That is a nice hatchet. Is that a things you would trade for?”

“I may be starving, but I won’t trade a steel hatchet for a small deer. Are you out of your mind””

He laughed again and handed her the small pot. “Sorry, that was very dumb to asking. Here, take this and set it on fire.”

Kathleen stared at him for a moment. She said “I have a spit to hang it from.”

He nodded his head, then started humming again as he went back to whatever magic he was making. She had a severe pain in her stomach, which growled again.

She went back into her supplies and came out with a couple of nopales and a sack of cornmeal. She showed the supplies to him. Once again, he broke out into a smile. He scooped out a tin cup full of the sack’s contents, and motioned for her to put the pads on the cutting board.

He mixed left over fat from the meat and onions into the cornmeal. He began talking, “I saw you this morning, standing out against the sky. And in less than a day, you are here sharing food with me. While looking like you are almost starving. Why are you moving so quickly?”

“I have to catch those men.”

“How long have you been following them?”

“Five, no, six days. I think.”

He turned back to the meat smoking rack, pulled another piece off and threw it in the frying pan, along with the piece he had removed earlier. The smell was driving her crazy. After a few minutes, he pulled one piece of meat out, laid it on the wooden board, and let it sit for a few minutes. He then sliced it up, stabbed a piece with his knife and placed it in a shallow, light metal bowl, salted it a bit and handed it to her.

“Here, we’ll eat when the squash is done. But this will getting us started.”

Kathleen didn’t hesitate, grabbing it and putting it in her mouth. Ignoring the heat on her fingertips and on her tongue, she devoured the meat. Delicious. Heavenly. Or maybe she was fucking starving. She didn’t care. He stabbed a piece of meat with his knife and they munched away in companionable silence. The squash was done, so he cut up the first piece of meat and threw it back into the pan. Next, with the onions, the broken up and cooked hard tack and the corn meal fritters. The nopales and the green chili peppers went straight on top of the coals.

Where had he gotten garlic? She was drooling again.