Gone to Ground (28 page)

33

With every step, the jug of water felt like it added five more pounds. Of course, Christina thought, if the two-gallon jug weighed about seventeen pounds to begin with, and it added five pounds every step, she’d be carrying well over a thousand pounds by now, which was impossible. Still, the container seemed like it was unbelievably heavy, even though when she’d started it hadn’t seemed so bad.

Christina stopped and set down the large plastic bottle, then with hands on hips took several deep breaths. She tilted her head back, trying to catch the breeze to cool her hot, sweat soaked face. Everyone had been hard at it since early that morning, one day after arriving at Hideaway. Moving, carrying, hiding, O’Reilly and the woman, Maggie Langton, had been in a frenzy of activity. Christina was sure it was because of her, her brothers and Alysa. From all indications, O’Reilly, Maggie, Mark and Lindy had been living here quite comfortably - well maybe not comfortably but safely - with no concerns of being found. Until Christina and her group arrived, of course.

A twinge of guilt washed through her, quickly suppressed. It wasn’t her fault that everyone was in danger. No one could expect her to stay at the APZ, with the exception of the Enforcers, of course. How was she supposed to know that the chips that were implanted in everybody’s wrists actually enabled the residents to be tracked if they ran away?

Not that anyone seemed to blame her. Maggie was kind, telling her she was glad they were there. Mark was just a neat kid, a lot like her brothers. There was something bothering him that no one talked about, but just like everyone else, he’d probably been through a lot in the last few months. Lindy was a sweetie, although Christina had never had much use for little kids. You couldn’t talk with them, really.

At Wikieup, when O’Reilly told them about the micro chips, and how those little chunks of silicon would enable the Enforcers to find them if the software was working, he seemed concerned, but not angry that they came. When they told him about their escape, he actually appeared pretty impressed that they had managed to outwit the authorities and make it all the way to Wikieup on their own. He certainly didn’t act like he blamed her or the others for putting him in danger.

Her fault or not, though, things seemed to be quickly entering siege mode.

“Hey, Christy, are you coming?” Nick and Ryan were walking ahead of her, both holding a handle on a water jug, carrying it between them. Nick had turned back and was looking at her expectantly.

“Yeah, I’m coming.” Christina took in a deep breath then bent to pick up her vessel again and started trudging through the long grass after the boys.

It had been so nice to sleep in a bed last night, instead of on the ground. Then, this morning after being woken at an unbearably early hour by a psychotic rooster they called Houdini, everyone was told to pack their blankets and carry them to the caves. O’Reilly explained that they would be spending the next few days or weeks sleeping in the caves in case the Enforcers had been able to trace Christina and her group to Wikieup and decided to send out seekers over land to determine if they’d gone in this direction.

Just a precaution, he said. No need to worry. Besides, it would be good practice.

Yeah, right.

Christina understood, but she was sure going to miss that old creaky bed tonight.

Then there was that look that passed between O’Reilly and Maggie, and Mark’s obvious discomfort. While O’Reilly was telling them the reason for the temporary move, Mark started to speak, but a sharp look from O’Reilly and a sudden move from Maggie caused him to lapse into silence. Something was going on there, but she wasn’t sure what, and it made her uncomfortable.

It really didn’t matter, however, what the actual reason for the move was, Christina decided. It was the results that counted, and the results of the move were that Alysa and Mark were assigned to help O’Reilly shift the cattle and horses up the canyon and to the east pasture. Christina, Ryan and Nick were set to work carrying water, food, bedding and other supplies to the caves. Maggie, after showing them the way to the caverns, was busy in the house, trying hard to make it look as though no one had been there for awhile.

If it was just a precaution, it sure was an elaborate one.

34

For nine months out of the
year you can’t get enough rain to put out a cigarette,
Rickards thought morosely, watching the clouds build to the east as they had every afternoon for the past two days. The towering thunderheads portended another afternoon of impotence, just as much as it foretold another afternoon of rain.

They’d hit one of those periods during the monsoons where the rain had been exceptionally heavy and widespread. A rain gauge they found in a yard in Wikieup measured nearly three inches yesterday alone, turning the small forest service and ranch roads around the town into a soupy mess. The steep forest service road that would take them to the top of the rim was especially hard hit. On top of that, it appeared that lightning struck their seeker, making it impossible for them to keep track of what was happening in the canyon until they could get there.

The National Weather Service, one of the few national organizations that was on the priority list for the government to keep up and running, reported a hurricane had ventured across the Gulf of California, punching up a massive load of moisture before making landfall in northwestern Mexico. That moisture was quickly funneled into a trough between a high pressure system parked over the four corners area, and the low perched off Baja California.

Results: huge amounts of rain in a short amount of time for much of the Southwest.

Yeah, tell me about it
, thought Rickards as he’d read the weather reports earlier that day.

The only sun on the horizon, so to speak, was that the weather gurus were now predicting a drying period, beginning tomorrow while the highs and lows were busy readjusting themselves. With good luck, he should finally be able to get the full team to the canyon by the end of the day after tomorrow. Hopefully the rain had done its job on the fugitives as well, and they were holed up and completely unsuspecting.

He
had
been able to get scouts out today, but the brief radio contact they’d been able to achieve indicated that the going was slow and arduous. Even the ATVs liberated from several homes in the area had bogged down several times. The scouts had only managed to travel half of the distance to the canyon the seekers found, winding up spending the night at a small ranch camp, identified on the maps as Eagle Camp. Maybe tomorrow they’d be able to complete the journey. Depending on how much rain fell today.

The scouts had discovered two trucks and stock trailers, loaded with supplies a few miles from town near the base of the steep rim escarpment lining much of the east side of Highway 93. Rickards was convinced that O’Reilly, having scavenged the stores for essential supplies, had stored them in the trailers and moved them out of town so that the annihilation teams wouldn’t discover and confiscate them. With the trailers safely out of town, he would be able to come back and collect the goods at his convenience.

The discovery of the supply trailers parked along the road to Adobe Canyon convinced Rickards that his team was on the right trail, and that they would find what they were seeking in that small, secluded valley.

We’ve got to get eyes in that canyon.

Where the hell is the desert we’re supposed to be living in?
Lately Rickards felt as if all of Arizona had been transported to some tropical island. Feeling a sharp sting, he slapped at a mosquito feasting off the blood in his neck.

Damned rain
, he thought as he stared at the building storm clouds.

35

We’re ready
, thought Maggie, hands on h
ips as she surveyed the front room of the little house. It didn’t exactly look the way it had when she and Mark had arrived several months ago. Only time would achieve that charming dilapidated, abandoned look that had greeted their eyes upon first surveying their new abode.  However, the house no longer appeared as though people had been living there in the past week or so.

Hopefully when they get here, if they get here, they’ll think we hit the road as soon as we realized that the computer was traced.
Maggie grimaced, remembering Mark’s recent withdrawal. In spite of her assurances that everything would be okay, and that sooner or later this situation would have arisen, especially with the arrival of the other children, Mark seemed to be trapped in a well of self blame.

O’Reilly had also tried to talk with him while driving the horses and cattle out to the east pasture yesterday morning. He told Maggie later that during the entire ride up, and the long walk back he’d attempted to break through Mark’s self imposed shell, feeling as though he was beating at a brick wall with a feather.

Then, just as they were at the gate to the home pasture, Mark turned to him and said, “It’s okay, O’Reilly. Honest. You don’t need to lie to me to save my feelings. I know that getting on that computer is what’s causing all this. They could have only traced the others as far as Wikieup. I brought them straight here. I understand that. There’s no way I could have known the computer was dangerous. It was an accident, but that doesn’t change anything. I just wish everyone would stop pretending that it didn’t happen.” With that, Mark turned and walked across the pasture, leaving a stunned O’Reilly standing in the gateway, hands hanging at his sides, feeling helpless.

As O’Reilly described the encounter to Maggie later, she could still see some of that feeling of helplessness lurking in his eyes, vying with an expression that Maggie could only describe as admiration.

He shook his head, then looked her straight in the eye. That moment was frozen in Maggie’s memory, like a snapshot taken at a key moment in time. It was yesterday evening. The children and dogs were all bedded down in the cave and Maggie and O’Reilly had ventured back out to the main entrance to watch the evening rain and lightning show.

“You know something,” O’Reilly said, a rueful expression on his face, “When my wife and daughter died, I would have given anything for someone to face the truth the way Mark did.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Maggie protested. She looked at O’Reilly with a startled look on her face. Other than the one mention of a daughter weeks ago, O’Reilly had never talked about a family, other than that of his childhood.

“Maybe, maybe not. Mark’s thinking he’s pretty much given us all up, and he’s not fool enough to believe that we’ve made all these precautions even though there’s no danger. No, I’m pretty sure that Mark’s aware that lives may be at stake, including yours. He’s dealing with it, and not letting it cripple him, and I envy him that strength. He’s struggling, sure, but he’ll figure things out.”

O’Reilly took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then blew it out.

“It’s not that I personally caused Sarah’s and Kay-Tee’s deaths, but it was because of me that they were on that road at that time.”

“You mean they didn’t die from the disease?” Maggie was surprised. So much death had happened recently due to the virus that she’d never considered that his briefly mentioned daughter, and never mentioned wife, had died in any other manner.

“No. It was a car accident. Four years ago. Drunk driver ran them off the road on that steep part of I-17 between Cordes Junction and Phoenix.”

“I’m so sorry,” Maggie said. She stared at him, watching the different expressions flit across his face.

“The worst part is that they were only driving home that night because of me. Sarah had taken Kay-Tee down to see her mother on New Years. I was supposed to go, but wound up taking an extra shift that day. Sarah wasn’t very happy about it, but she didn’t complain. She never complained.” O’Reilly paused, staring out at the rain.

“Sarah planned on staying the night at her mother’s, but I asked her to come home instead. She agreed, and because of that she and Kay-Tee were on the road at the same time as the drunken bastard who ran them off.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Maggie protested, reaching toward O’Reilly’s hand.

“You’re right, I couldn’t have known, but the fact was that I did put them on the road at that time. It was an accident. Nothing more. But having everyone constantly tell me it wasn’t my fault ate at me. It made me hold tighter to the idea that it was my fault. Mark’s right. It’s easier if people don’t deny things. You just face up to your share of responsibility, no more, and move on.” O’Reilly gave a little, humorless laugh.

The two of them sat in silence, watching the rain ebb as the storm moved off to the east.

Now, as Maggie thought back to last night, and the flood of emotions she saw washing through O’Reilly as he recounted the tragedy of his wife’s and daughter’s deaths, she thought she began to understand the toll that the current situation was taking on him. If he felt that he let his wife and daughter down; if somewhere inside himself he still felt as though he caused their deaths, as he apparently still did, then that guilt had almost certainly shaped his reaction to having other lives dependent on him now.

O’Reilly’s initial aloofness made sense, too. It wasn’t, as she’d first thought, that he’d resented being thrust into the role of babysitter for a bunch of greenhorns. From the way he’d described his earlier life, he’d done a pretty good job of isolating himself from anyone whom he might care about, and who might care about him. It must have been overwhelming, not to mention frustrating, to suddenly find himself in charge of seven other lives. It also explained a lot about why he’d left Christina behind, in spite of the way he felt about the APZs.

Maggie shook her head as she turned her back on the empty little house and walked out, carefully closing the door behind her. The challenge, as she saw it, would be to make sure that O’Reilly didn’t sacrifice himself needlessly because he was afraid of letting someone else down. Her stomach turned at the thought of O’Reilly captured... killed.

The irony of the situation suddenly hit her, causing her to stop short. Here was someone fighting for all he was worth to keep from opening himself to anyone lest he be hurt, or cause hurt, again, and he’d told her most of his secrets. Yet, she couldn’t remember a time where she’d bared her soul to him about her past.

Granted, she thought wryly, resuming her walk to the barn, her past hadn’t been nearly as exciting as his, apparently. Downright boring, when you thought about it. But still, she’d been guarding her memories of Mike carefully, never discussing her loss with O’Reilly as he’d told her about his. Maybe it was because since running into the ranch lands, she’d been busy just trying to keep Mark and herself alive. Maybe there were other reasons.

She snorted. 
Fine pair O’Reilly and I are,
she thought.
When all this is done, and we’ve lived through it, he and I will have to have a serious talk. All the skeletons out of the closets and the ghosts banished.
A smile flitted across her face as she realized that she was already thinking of the future, as though the battle had already been fought and won.

Maggie headed on, humming as she went, a bounce in her step.