Hell Follows After (Monster of the Apocalypse Saga) (13 page)

W
ith the scrap wagon being used to transport Company goods, Edge had some relief from the daily grind of continually training. Making sure his apprentice had something of value to do every day, Occam became more imaginative in his instruction. But still the young man had an overabundance of time on his hands.

His immediate reaction was to spend time with Jody, but she looked at him differently lately. At first she seemed glad to see him on the occasions he rode past on his appaloosa, but the more miles they made, the more days they left the accident behind, the more she seemed to distance herself from him. He did not know that the conversation Jody was having with Muffy had shined a light on him and his potential from her point of view. Jody had no intention of being one of several wives. It was better to sever ties early.

Hurt by the neglect and failing to understand the reason, Edge moved away and found other pursuits. Soon he was asking Occam to double up his training every other day so he could spend the odd days with the outriders. He and Cable renewed their friendship as though there had never been a lapse, and Cypress welcomed the personable young man into their circle.

One late evening, as Edge was getting ready to hit the sack, he was approached by someone he did not expect. Making his way back into camp after a short trip to relieve himself, a shadowed form stepped from behind the wagon.

“Pardon, young Edge, but a word, please, before you retire.” A deep, strong voice spoke softly.

Recognizing the Wagon Master immediately, Edge was surprised. Used to direct orders, if anything, he had no real experience with the man in conversation and wondered what he could want.

“Aye, Master, I be at your service, sir,” Edge answered politely. “What would you?”

“All of us here be of one concern, Mister Edge, and that be the completion of our journey in the best manner.” The man spoke as if he were afraid to be overheard, and Edge understood immediately that this was a private conversation. “The least injury to all is the worthiest goal, as you have heard me say in days past, but I have concerns of one in our company that holds sway over decisions he may make unwisely. We require a man of care, and he has shown some undue attraction to risk in my opinion.”

Suspecting that he knew where the Wagon Master was going, Edge offered nothing. He would not put a name to anyone of his own accord. It was the business of the Master to clarify his apprehension.

“I’ve watched you as any Master in command of a train watches those in his charge,” continued Till, “and your care of the animals you use has made me aware of the shortcomings, even greater, of the Company-employed man in charge of our own.”

Hearing this, Edge was confirmed in his understanding that Till was speaking of the Ox Master, Arc. He still kept silent, as he was unsure of what that had to do with him.

Knowing that Edge understood of whom he spoke, the leader of the caravan seemed suddenly uncomfortable. His sense of loyalty to another trained adult, a Master in his Trade, made him uneasy. Somehow it felt wrong to speak negatively of him.

“I have no desire to embarrass a Master in his Trade but would put the question to you,” he peered intently at Edge even though they were in shadow, “if you would consider discussing the upcoming obstacles with me prior to my consultation meetings? If it be possible to wring your thoughts, I might be better prepared to enforce my will, as I will have foreknowledge of possibilities.”

Tempted to deny himself worthy, since he was still a year from becoming a Master in his own right and almost a year now removed from training, Edge contemplated what Till was asking. All of the men on the train had experience with oxen, wagons, and loads, but he was the only one as far as he knew with the specific training to challenge the little ox man. He recognized the need but was uncomfortable with the request. Edge felt he had no right. Still, the man asking was surely thoughtful in the matter and was not taking the issue lightly.

“Aye, sir. I can do what I can. I shall ask my Master Occam first and make sure he be willing but then be at your beck.”

Offering his hand, the Wagon Master accepted Edge into his confidence. “You shall find that I have already spoken with your Master, young Edge, and he be agreeable. He suggested that your work will be managed to allow time to go forward with the scouts before any challenge be approached and that we will have opportunity to converse before each meeting.”

With nothing further to discuss, the big man smiled. His teeth winked in the moonlight within his sun baked face, and he spun about and retired to his own wagon, disappearing in the gloom.

The conversation had been unexpected, and Edge stood for several minutes looking in the direction where the man had vanished into the darkness. The amount of confidence the Wagon Master had expressed made him feel good, but the idea of questioning a man fully vested in his Trade made Edge queasy. This could help the train, or it could end badly. Arc may be small, mean, and without many friends due to his personality, but the Guild Association made him powerful. And a mean-spirited man under pressure could be vindictive.

Contact with Cy and Cable became a welcome duty as Edge was required to ride with them. Between the unslackened duties of his Smithy training and the new concerns of his clandestine task, the young traveler was too busy to see much of Jody, though she weighed on his mind more often than he expected.

Their brief flirtation had been severed, on one side by an increase in the requirements of time and on the other by a young woman learning the reality of what a man in Roseburg would expect of a woman.

The old road surface of Highway 80 rose to meet them, and the wagons trundled on through a spate of changing weather. The winds would blow hot from the west one day and then turn and blow from the east the next. Any rain they got was barely enough to wet the ground, and any clouds would appear suddenly and disappear quickly. When shadowed under clouds the temperature was tolerable, but as the clouds passed and the sun shone down, the heat sapped the moisture and life from those below. On those days that they were blessed with a tail wind, the air was so forceful that the members of the convoy cursed the elements. On the days spent in a headwind they remained silent as the force allied against them drew the strength from their bodies with its incessant pressure. Neither man nor ox had the energy to complain on days when the air drove at them from the front.

Small towns provided some respite from the tedium of the long trail. The occasional chance for trade broke the consistent plodding but not enough to make the journey tolerable.

The scouts riding to the north reported a human shadow. Nomadic peoples, the present native tribesmen, followed at a distance and made every attempt to stay invisible.

Within the confines of the wagon, Muffy was getting worse. Headaches came over her, sometimes rising slowly from beneath her damaged ear and sometimes sudden and so intense that she would vomit. Jody wondered why the vomit looked so intensely dark brown. It did not seem normal.

Whenever he could, Occam would trade places with Jody so he could stay close to his wife. The strain of his concern was telling on the big man. He lost weight, and a haggard, grey color came into his complexion. He silently blamed Arc for his wife’s infirmity, and several people noticed malicious glances coming from the Smithy and directed at the Ox Master. The normally jocular and forgiving man became morose and brooding.

Perhaps as a result of the animosity, but perhaps out of an innocent concern, Arc’s young wife came calling. Rarely seen, Olivia appeared and introduced herself. A small basket, finely woven and filled with wild berries gathered from a creek bottom she had discovered extended from her trembling hand. She appeared to be shy, but it was really terror she was hiding. Her foray into the community was against the wishes of her husband, and it became clear she was terrified he would find out.

Jody noticed the long sleeves, so unusual in this warm weather, and a fading bruise in the hairline behind her neck. There were some scars from old injuries that would be hard to explain as well, including a finger twisted and healed crookedly. Jody made a special effort to be kind, and the young woman absorbed it as though parched.

Clandestine meetings became part of their routine. Though Olivia never voiced her anxiety, both women understood the situation and recognized that understanding in each other. Muffy, so ill inside the wagon, would have no opportunity to create a problem for Olivia with her controlling husband, but Jody was very careful to be sure that Arc remained unaware of their contact.

What no one realized, due to the loss of medical knowledge and expertise in the last two hundred years, was that Muffy was going to die. There was no good result possible. The chain that had struck her so fiercely across the side of her head had caused temporomandibular joint dysfunction syndrome, the clicking and catch in her jaw as she spoke or ate. But that was the least of her problems. The vertigo she experienced was a clue to where the real problem lay. With the long defunct technology of an MRI, she would have been diagnosed properly with a chronic subdural hematoma. Blood vessels beneath the bones of her skull had been bruised and ruptured in the temporal lobe of her brain. They were bleeding and healing, then rupturing and bleeding again into her skull, ever so slowly increasing the pressure on her brain.

One morning, Muffy did not wake up. Though she looked healthy with a rosy flush to her cheek and a calm beauty to her face, she never would again. Occam held her hand for the next three days as Jody walked alongside the team.

All the members of the wagon train marveled at Occam’s devotion, and they wept with him as he buried his wife alongside the trail. Only Jody and Edge noticed the cold gleam in his eye. They knew there was a rage to be satisfied.

Several men, well hidden behind the crest of a nearby hill, watched the burial. Their ponies were down slope and out of sight, and the only indication of their presence was the tops of their heads among the groundcover. They went unseen.

One of the men hugging the ground considered the scene below him with special interest. He was contemplating an approach to the wagons traveling through his territory. Word traveled among the tribes, usually faster than the plodding pace of the oxen, and he knew that the party was engaged in a trade mission to the area of the old capitol city of Colorado.

Highly educated by the standards of the time, Shinto Bluehawk had spent several winters in Boulder, rising to a professorship at the college. The school of learning, and in particular the philosophy and psychology departments, were of interest to the native man descended from northern European peasants and Lakota royalty. Because of his studies, he had a special understanding of the play unfolding below.

Watching the preparation of the body from his hidden vantage, he had watched the big man wash and wrap it in fresh linen. The care taken and the sudden breaks brought on by emotion gave Bluehawk confidence that the woman was being cared for by her husband. He had already had the suspicion that the man was caring for a loved one in the back of the wagon as it traveled. He noticed those who were involved with the man in his travels taking care of him without his notice and so understood the relationships.

One puzzled him. The young woman who was obviously the victim of beatings stood apart, but her body language was loud that she was a part of the caregivers. She shared a wagon with a small, dark, and moody man that was certainly her abuser. He was away during the funeral, having gone ahead with some others. Bluehawk knew the big man burying his woman had a vendetta against the abusive man. Both of the young people traveling in the wagon train with him, one his assistant and the other a caregiver to the now deceased woman, understood there was danger. The Wagon Master kept inspecting the newly widowed man closely, and surely it was out of suspicion for his state of mind. It was plain that they were friends, and the leader of the train was concerned.

Making his decision, Bluehawk determined to wait a few more days before approaching. Only a couple of horizons away, his joining the party would wait that long.

Riding at a pace that ate up ground, Arc wasted no time. He checked the condition of the roadbed and the overpasses within the next two days’ journey and found them to be as expected. Most of the raised stretches of highway would be fine, but the overpasses were in dangerous condition and would be bypassed using the old exits and entrances to the highway. The winters were harsh in Wyoming, and the elevated roadbeds over the exits were in no condition for travel.

Any excuse to avoid the funeral was welcome, even to those Arc rode with. Although Muffy had been universally well liked, funerals were dismal affairs, and any man was glad to have an excuse for avoiding them. Even those who would have attended gladly to show a proper respect were relieved to be shanghaied away.

As the leggy horse below him covered ground, Arc filled his thoughts with musings of what the future held. He knew that Occam blamed him for Muffy’s injury and would now hold an animosity over her death. This whole journey had been a debacle. Even before the accident on Parley’s Summit, the loss of several animals in the Salt Flats was blamed on Arc. Now he had come to suspect that the Wagon Master was spying on him and questioning his expertise behind his back. Watching as the young droog, Edge, had been given time to ride ahead with the outriders and then made efforts to appear innocent as he sought out Till for quiet conversations intended to be secret, Arc made his own suppositions. In his mind that left no one who was not an enemy. He could trust no one with the possible exception of his wife. She was firmly under his control and too afraid to be otherwise. He would see to that.