After and Again (21 page)

  “What is—”

  “Shhhh, c’mon follow us,” Zack said, heading for the kitchen.

  “Why that’s a
wolf!
” the man exclaimed trying to follow Zack but giving Max a wide berth.

  “Don’t worry about him, c’mon,” Zack said.

  They entered the kitchen; Zack, then Max, the stranger from upstairs, and Tal bringing up the rear. Zack spied the only door in the large kitchen and headed for it. He opened the door which led to a small fenced area (probably to keep animals out of the refuse bin) and stepped out and then pushed through a gate in the fence.

He crouched low outside of the fence and put his arm around Max to keep him close. Tal and the man from the inn followed suit and crouched against the fence as well.                   

  The inn was the first building in town as you entered from the south side, and there was a small secondary road that branched off of the north/south road just before you reached the inn. The secondary road—just called The Lane by the residents of Auburn—ran around the backside of the inn and continued north, parallel with the north/south road, behind all of the businesses. This is where the better part of the town’s houses were.

  Zack looked left toward the houses and saw that there were more men forcing people from the houses and pushing them north up the road. He then admonished Max to stay put and crept around Tal and the other man to the corner of the building. He peeked around the corner and withdrew his head immediately. “There’s two riders at the road as you enter town,” he whispered. “Hey Mister, can you shoot a gun?”

  “No, I have never….please, what is happening?”

  “Men have come here to kill everyone in town,” Tal answered.”

  “Kill every—well we have to hide….”

  “No, we have to fight,” Zack said. He looked at the man but could barley make out his features in the dim morning glow. He could hear the terror in the man’s voice and thought that he would be of no help.

  “Look we could really use your help, but if you’d rather hide, you could make for that grove of trees over there,” Zack said, pointing at a spot roughly between where the riders were stationed and where the first house was.

  “Keep low, and be quiet,” Tal added. The man didn’t move for several moments, then stood and said;

  “I’m sorry,” and ran crouching toward the grove of trees.

  “Well, what do you think Tal?” Zack asked.

  “I think we oughta to help these folks if we can, you were right Zack.”

  “They must be taking them to one of the stables, those are the only building that I saw on that side of town that would hold everyone.” Just as Zack had spoken he smelled smoke. “They’re starting fire’s,” he added.

  “Okay Zack, listen….wait, look!” Tal was pointing to the house closest to them which now had smoke bellowing from the windows.” “Fella just run outa there with a torch blazin….must set fire to the places after they run the people out to make sure no one’s hidin’. I say we run out here into them trees where that other fella from upstairs went an’ creep behind them houses and get that son of a cur ‘fore he can torch any more of ‘em. Then we run the rest of the way north behind the places and see where they’re puttin folk.”

   Zack, Tal, and Max were behind the third house on the lane, by the back door, when the man with the torch entered from the front. They had watched him enter the second house and taken that opportunity to make for the trees. Once in the trees and sure that the men guarding the road hadn’t seen them they ran behind the houses to where they now stood.

  “I’ll sneak around the front, you an’ the wolf come through the back Okay?” I guess that we should try to take ‘im without shooting if we can,” Tal said.

  “Okay, Max seems to know who to go after, hopefully he’ll distract him and then one of us can clobber him.”

  “Alright, count to thirty and come on the run,” Tal said turning from the porch.

  Zack counted off and then opened the back door “C’mon Max.” he said and ran through the door into the dim house. He sprinted through a mud-room and into a kitchen and heard Tal shout from the next room. “Don’t you move, mister!” Zack was through the door and into a living area when Max pushed passed him and bit down on the man’s leg and started pulling him down. The man screamed and jammed the flaming torch—which he had already used to set the window drapes near the front door alight—into the wolf’s thigh. Max yelped and let go; Zack, who was closer to the man than Tal, strode forward taking the rifle by the barrel and swung it at the man’s head. There was a loud crack and the man fell to the floor.

  Zack examined Max’ thigh which was burned but not seriously. The room was rapidly filling with smoke, “we better get out of here, Zack,” Tal said.

  “What about him?” Zack asked, pointing to the man on the floor. Tal’s first thought was to just leave him, then he thought better of it and knelt in front of him. “He’s dead anyway,” Tal said, nearly choking on the smoke. Zack nodded, again feeling conflicted, and headed out the way he had come.

  The dawn was getting brighter and there was a great deal of commotion from the main road and even some gunshots. From the smoke it looked like a lot of buildings were burning on the opposite side of the road from the inn. Zack, Tal and Max had run past the backside of several more houses and stopped as they were nearing the far end of town. “It
is
the stable,” Zack said peering around the corner of the house. From where they were, maybe four hundred feet from the stable, he could clearly see one side and the rear of the building. There was a great deal of shouting and cries for help coming from the interior. The rear doors were boarded over. “Any ideas, Zack?” Tal asked.

  Desmond Trask was doing what he was born to do; he kicked the door right off of the hinges to Paulson’s Clothing and Seam and looked around with a predator’s eyes. There was no upper level and apparently no apartment within the building, just an open space with shelving and a small workstation in the corner. He turned to leave and movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He wheeled around in time to see a man running from behind some shelving to a door in the side of the building. Trask muttered, “stop” to himself, then shrugged and raised the Winchester, taking aim and shooting the man as he was trying to work the lock on the door. “I told you to stop.” Trask said before turning and leaving the building.

  He caught up with Locke and Olsen as they were getting ready to enter a house across the street from the clothing shop. Locke raised the spiked club that he was carrying and kicked open the door. The report was like thunder and Locke flew backward out of the doorway in a spray of blood, landing on his back in the weeds. Trask shoved Olsen out of the way just as another shot was fired. Then he laid down the Winchester and crawled on the ground to where Locke was lying, making choked gurgling noises. He gripped Locke’s ankle and dragged him out of view of the doorway, then leaned over close to the dying man’s face. “I’m really sorry about this, partner, I always liked you,” Trask said, picking up Locke like he weighed nothing and then held the man in front of him like a shield. He walked up beside the door just out of sight and called out, “Hey in the house! I’m coming in!” Turning into the doorway he rushed forward, the muzzle flash from the next shot came from dead ahead, and hit Locke. He heaved Locke’s body forward and it hit the man with the gun, knocking him down. Trask moved forward with catlike speed and kicked the shotgun away before reaching down and grabbing the old man by the neck and lifting him off of the floor.

  “Olsen!” Trask shouted. “Get in here!” Frank Olsen walked to the front door from where he had been hiding near the corner of the house. “Go find me some lamp oil, or a couple of lamps….make sure there’s no one else here while you’re at it.” Olsen walked through the room past Locke’s bloody corpse and down a hallway.

  “Now you sir, please sit down,” Trask said to the old man, and flung him onto a small sofa that sat against a wall. He picked up the shotgun and examined it. “This is a fine weapon sir, do you have anymore ammunition for it?”

  “You go to hell!” the old man spat.

  “Yes yes, if such a place exists, I will surely go there someday. But my question still stands, and if you do not answer me with the truth, I will squeeze your head until your eyeballs pop out.”

  “Then you better get to squeezin you dung heap maggot, cause I ain’t tellin you squat!” the old man’s look was defiant.

  “Rrrrrrraaaaagggggghhhh!” Trask swung the shotgun breaking a hole in the wood-paneled wall. “Olsen!”

Olsen came running into the room with a single oil lamp in his hand. “Dump the oil on that old hardcase.”

Olsen hesitated, “Do it NOW!” Trask screamed, reaching into his pocket and bringing forth a small handful of wooden matches. He was shaking with rage, dropping the handful of valuable matches on the floor. He bent and picked one up, “Now Olsen!” Frank Olsen did as he was told and upended the lamp over the still defiant looking old man’s head. Trask struck the match and said, “Here’s your hell old man.” And tossed the match.

  Ben Grayson wondered why most of the buildings on the east side of town weren’t burning yet. Wallace better not have stopped for a turn with some girl, he thought. He had heard gunshots, just as he had predicted, but they sounded like they were from the west side. It sure would be a lot easier if The Man in Charge didn’t keep all of the guns and ammunition that they found either locked up or for his personal guard and the guards at the rip. “It’s like fighting with a hand tied behind your back,” he mumbled to himself. These thoughts went through his head as he marched a family up the road toward the stable….except for the girl, she was headed for the cage, and then The Crack. He really didn’t like all of the murder; and burning people alive was Trask’s idea, but the chance to live forever? Hell, it was worth doing some things that were a little distasteful.

  “They probably have the cage-wagon that they put the women in right outside of town, and Emily is probably in it….maybe even right at the end town, because it was dark when they got here and they wouldn’t have been worried about anyone seeing it,” Zack said, still crouched down at the corner of the house where he could see the stable.

  “What about the folks in there?” Tal asked from behind him, “half the towns on fire an’ I expect they’ll be lighting up that place ‘fore too long. How ‘bout I try and run up that way behind the last couple houses and take a look at what’s happening at the end of town?”

  “I could go, I probably run faster than you….no offense.”

  “Yea but Max would just follow you an’ that white fur sticks out like a sore thumb, better I go.”

  “Okay, make it quick….be careful Tal.”

  Tal took off northward behind the houses, keeping low. It was fully light now and as he passed the stable there were several times where he was completely exposed. The smoke from all of the burning buildings was thick and cloying; Tal hoped that it also obscured him a little.

  There was a pretty good sized corral just passed the rear of the stable, with some shade trees growing near the fence—he made for those. Crouched behind one of the large oaks he had a clear view of the road, and the wagon with the cage was there.

Zack caught movement at his peripheral and raised the rifle the instant before he realized it was Tal. He lowered the weapon and watched for anyone that might spot the man running. Tal made it back without being seen and explained what he saw: “You were right, the wagon with the cage attached is right at the end of town, an’ full from the looks. There was two men at the wagon and half a dozen more milling around the front of the stable….I think they’re about done here.”

  “Okay,” Zack said, licking his lips and squinting into the smoke, “lets try and get to that house right behind the stable—wait! Do you see that ladder lying up against that building right in front of us?”

  “Uhhh, no….oh, yep.”

  “Do you think that it’s tall enough to get to the roof?”

  “Of the stable?” Tal asked, sounding doubtful.

  “No, of the building that it’s lying next to.”

  “Sure, looks like it.”

  “Okay, why don’t you take the rifle, and give me the shotgun….how many bullets to you have for it?” Zack asked.

  “The box is back at the inn, but there’s nine in the gun.”

  “Alright, I have the six-shooter as well….” Zack said, “why don’t you climb up on the roof of that building, and give me a minute or two and then just start shooting. I’ll try and let the people in the stable out of the back—”

Just then the screams and pleas from the stable turned to panicked hysteria. “They must have lit the barn!” Tal exclaimed in a loud whisper.

  “Here,” Zack said, holding out the rifle to Tal, who traded it for the shotgun. “Oh and here.” he added, stripping off his pack and rummaging through it for a moment before producing a box of ammunition for the rifle. Tal reached out and grabbed Zack’s upper arm tightly.

  “Whatever happens here, I have been proud to know you an’ be your friend, Zack.”

  Zack fought back tears at the older man’s heart felt earnestness. “Same here, Tal,” he said.

  Desmond Trask stood in front of the stable with a torch in one hand while he pounded on the stable doors with his other. “Hello in there!” he shouted. “You folks want out?” The pleading voices from inside intensified.