Rot & Ruin (26 page)

Tom put his hand on the farmer’s good shoulder. “Thanks, Leroy.”

Pain and sadness showed on the big man’s face. “I wish like hell I could go with you boys.”

“I know, Leroy. But do me a favor.”

“Call it.”

“You can still shoot, can’t you?”

“Only with a pistol, but, sure, I generally hit what I’m aiming at.”

“Then if Charlie comes back here and we
don’t
…” He let it hang.

“Oh, hell, son, you don’t even have to ask. That pink-eyed gangster sets foot in this town again, he’s dead.”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Strunk. “Hold on …”

Leroy wheeled on him. Strunk’s eyes came up to the middle of Leroy William’s broad chest. “You have something to say,
Captain
?” He loaded that last word with enough acid to eat through sun-baked concrete.

“Yes, I do,” Strunk said, not visibly deterred by the wall of pectoral muscles that seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon. “If Charlie Pink-eye or the Hammer comes back to Mountainside, then me and my men will arrest them. They’ll be properly arraigned on suspicion of murder, kidnapping, and a few hundred other charges I’ll figure out later, and they’ll stand a proper and legal trial.” Before anyone could reply, Strunk added, “Thing is, it’ll probably be hard as hell to find a jury of twelve totally
impartial
townsfolk. Jessie Riley had a lot more friends in town than Charlie ever did. Besides … there are only two crimes that carry a death sentence anymore. Murder and kidnapping.”

The meaning implied in his words hung burning like embers in the air. Tom and Leroy studied Strunk; Benny and Chong exchanged meaningful glances, eyebrows raised. Chong covertly drew a finger across his throat.

“No more talk,” said Tom. “We have a lot of miles to go, and they have a long lead.”

“So … let’s even things up,” said Strunk. He raised his hands and snapped his fingers, and immediately Deputy Gorman came toward them, leading the two horses by their reins. Benny could now see that both horses—an Appaloosa and a buckskin—were draped in coats made from tough, lightweight outdoor carpet. Strunk took the reins and handed one set to Tom and the other to Benny. Riding chaps made from durable carpet were hooked onto each saddle horn.

“The Appaloosa’s name is Chief; the buckskin is Apache. They’re fresh, fed, and fast,” he said. “Bring that girl home.”

Tom studied Strunk’s face for a long three-count, then nodded.

Dawn was a faint promise in the east. Two dozen guards with shotguns and torches met the brothers at the gate.

“My boys will go out as far as we can, Tom,” said Strunk. “We can help you get away, keep the zoms busy.”

“Thanks, Keith.” Then to Benny, Tom said, “You ready?”

“Yeah, but I feel like time’s flying.”

Tom gave him the first slice of smile he’d been able to dredge up all night. “They’re on foot.” He swung into the Appaloosa’s saddle. “Now we have a real chance.”

Benny scrambled up onto the buckskin’s saddle with less grace than his brother, with Chong pushing on his butt. He’d ridden before, but only ponies; this was a full-sized horse.

Strunk signaled to the gatekeepers to open up, and instantly all the guards ran out into the flat, open plain that stretched from the fence line to the foothills of the mountains.
There were at least fifty zoms in the fields, some standing still, others wandering endlessly back and forth. The guards broke left, and when they were a hundred yards from the gate, they began shooting into the air and waving torches. As if cued by some shared inner compulsion, the dead turned toward the noise and motion, their mouths dropping open. Even through the noise of the shotguns, Benny could hear the low, plaintive moans of endless hunger as the zoms began shuffling through the grass toward the guards.

“It’s clear!” Leroy said in a fierce whisper. “Go!
Go!
”

Tom and Benny kicked their horses into canters, and once they were outside the gate, they turned to the south and kicked harder. The horses were young and strong, and they galloped away, bearing the brothers toward the narrow pass in the mountains that led to the great Rot and Ruin. Benny was a poor horseman, and pain lanced through his hips, stomach, and legs with each running step the horse took. But that pain was necessary, because they had to move fast. And really, he thought as he set his teeth against the discomfort and set his mind on the distant mountains, what did
his
pain matter? The pain Nix must be feeling had to be a million times worse. With that thought burning in his mind, he ignored his pain and kicked his horse into a faster gallop.

Chong climbed to the top of the tower and watched as Benny’s horse dwindled to a small black dot against the bloodred dawn, then vanished altogether.

31

T
HEY RODE HARD ALL MORNING, PUSHING THE HORSES TO THE EDGE OF
endurance. Several times the thunder of their hooves attracted zoms, but all horses shied away from zoms and were trained to alert their riders. Besides, the shuffling zoms could not catch up to the fast mounts, and even if they did, the carpet coats each horse wore kept the animals safe while Tom and Benny used their swords to chop the monsters down.

It was all terrifying to Benny, but the dread of what could be happening to Nix was far worse, and he ground his teeth together and kept pace with Tom.

At first, in the coolness of dawn, the horses could manage the grueling pace, but as the sun rose, the temperature soared, and the horses began blowing and wheezing. Foam flecked their mouths, and under the lightweight carpet coats, their flanks were streaked with sweat. Finally Tom slowed their pace to a walk and then dismounted. Chief, the big Appaloosa, almost visibly sighed in relief.

“What are you doing?” demanded Benny. “We have to keep going.”

“If we keep this pace, we’ll kill these animals and then
where will we be? We have to give them some water and then walk them for a while. Then they’ll be ready for another run.”

It was maddening to Benny, but he knew Tom was right. He slid from Apache’s saddle, secretly grateful, because his legs felt like they were stretched out of shape. With every step it felt like there was sandpaper on the inside of his pants. Riding ponies around town was no kind of preparation for riding a big horse. His hips felt like his thighs had been forcibly unscrewed, and after all the awkward bouncing in the saddle, he was pretty sure there was no chance he’d ever father children. He tried not to squeak when he spoke.

They took a bowl from Tom’s pack, filled it from one of the canteens, and let the horses drink. Then they walked on, the horses following along as the sun became an inferno overhead.

On foot it was easier to follow the trail, too. At first the footprints were easy to spot, since they ran in a line from the gate into the foothills, but the higher they climbed, the more obscure the prints became. At one point Tom dropped prostrate on the hard ground, and peered sideways at some marks that didn’t look like they were anything at all—at least not to Benny. Tom kept frowning and squinting and grunting.

Benny stared at him, annoyed. He was exhausted from total lack of sleep, and flies were threatening to pick him up and carry him off. And every time the wind blew through the trees, he swore he could hear Nix calling out to him.

“Are you actually doing anything down there?” Benny asked.

“No,” Tom muttered. “I’m just screwing around to piss you off.”

Benny gave that a minute, then said, “Sorry.”

Tom said, “I’m looking at the footprints to see if there’s a clear direction.”

Footprints?
Benny thought. All he could see was dried mud and bare patches of rock. He looked from the ground, off into the direction they had been following; a twisted course through empty foothills that wandered south by southeast. The heavy rains of the previous night had soaked all of the ground, and Tom had been able to follow the foot trails leading from Mountainside. But as the morning wore on, Tom became less certain.

Tom got to his feet and slapped dust from his clothes. Even after the rains, the top dirt had dried to powder in a matter of hours.

“What’s wrong?” Benny asked.

“Here’s the problem,” Tom said. “The rain last night was really heavy, and it came down too fast for the soil to absorb it all, which means that there was runoff. This pass was probably like a small river for a while, with all the water coming down these slopes. Whoever passed this way came through just after the storm, but while there was still some runoff, and that runoff smeared the boot prints pretty thoroughly.”

“What’s that mean for us?”

Tom took a hefty swig of his canteen. “This isn’t just an accident, either. Charlie’s one slick, sneaky son of a gun. So far he’s doubled back on his trail three times, used brush to try and wipe out his tracks, crossed water, and now has deliberately gone out of his way to cross hardpan, because this kind of terrain doesn’t hold a print very long or very well.”

“So are we catching up or chasing our butts out here?”

“Little of both.” Tom was smiling when he said it.

“So you didn’t lose the trail?”

“Sure, I lost it. Several times … but every time he shakes us off his trail, it’s just where you think it’ll be again. Charlie has no respect for anyone’s intelligence other than his own. He must think Captain Strunk is after him.”

“Isn’t the captain smart?”

“Huh? Oh, sure. … But Strunk’s not a tracker. Charlie’s confusing the trail for someone who doesn’t know the same tricks. Maybe he’d play it differently if he knew another bounty hunter was tracking him.”

“Are you sure he doesn’t?” Benny said, and for a moment Tom’s smile flickered.

Tom looked at his brother for a second, pursed his lips, and then turned in a slow circle, re-examining the trails. “We have three possible routes through these hills that are safe. And by that I mean that the zoms have been pretty well cleared out. This pass has become a kind of trade route, and the armed guards the traders use usually go through here and chop down any of the dead they find. They’re quiet about it, too, so as not to draw more zoms into the area. Follow me?”

Benny nodded.

“So the footprints we’re seeing here are almost certainly human. Question is whether these are older prints that were mostly, but not entirely, erased by runoff, or prints left by men moving fast but not carrying heavy loads. The last of the runoff blurred the edges and in this area here, the topsoil is thinner, because we’re coming to some rocky areas.”

“Okay, but if people came through here recently, then it
has
to be Charlie and the Hammer, right?”

Tom didn’t answer right away. “What bothers me most about it is that I’m not seeing small footprints.”

“Nix’s?”

He nodded. “We saw her prints earlier, but I haven’t seen one in the last hour. Not one.”

“What if one of them’s carrying her?”

Tom considered. “If the ground was softer, we could make that call, because one of the male footprints would be deeper. You might be right, but I’m not sure, because the footprints I’m seeing here look like they’re from several different pairs of shoes.”

“More than Charlie and the Hammer?”

“Yes.”

“The Mekong brothers?”

“Could be them, which means we’re hunting four men rather than two.” Tom started to say something else, but stopped himself. Benny caught it, though.

“What?”

“There are a couple of other options, Benny, and we have to be ready for them.”

“What are they?”

“The option I like is that Nix somehow escaped. If that’s the case, her trail could have split off at any time. If she’s free, let’s hope she continues to head for high ground instead of trying to go back to town.”

“Because there aren’t as many zoms high up, right?”

“That, and higher up, there’s always the chance of finding food and shelter. There are some monks out here. If she runs into one of them, she’ll be fine. They’ll take care of her and get word to me.”

“What’s the other option? The one you
don’t
like.”

Tom met his eyes. “There are a lot of places out here to hide a body, Benny.”

There was nothing Benny wanted to say to that. On some superstitious level, he felt that to respond to it would be to increase the chances that it might be possible, and he could not allow that thought to take hold in either his heart or head. Nix’s notebook was still in his back pocket, and he touched it like it was a talisman, to ward off any evil possibility.

His throat was so dry that his voice was a dusty croak. “So what do we do now? What
can
we do?”

“If I was Charlie and I wanted to lay low … I’d either head for the trader’s compound on the eastern slopes, or …” He frowned.

“Or what?”

“Gameland.”

“Do you have any idea where the new location is?”

“No. But there’s an old fire access road that we can use to cut across country to a spot where they’d have to pass no matter where they’re going. It’s a pass through to areas that have more or less been cleared of zoms, and it’s the route all travelers take.”

As they walked, Tom said, “I never finished my story about how I found the Lost Girl. We’ll talk about it more at length later, but just in case we have to try and find Gameland, there are some things you should know. After finding the human that Lilah had killed, I was able to pick up her trail. It took about four days, but I finally tracked her to one of the mountains not too far from here. There was a ranger station up on stilts, built high on the mountain, and I climbed that and used my binoculars to scan the whole area. I guess I was up
there for two or three hours when I saw her. She walked out from under some trees and stood in a clearing for a couple of minutes, eating an ear of raw corn. She was dressed like she was on the Zombie Card. Not the one you have, but the earlier one.”

“Earlier one? What do you mean? I have nearly the whole set. …”

Tom shook his head. “You don’t understand, Benny, but the Zombie Cards weren’t intended for kids to collect. That came later, when the printers wanted to make some extra ration bucks. No, the original purpose of them was so that bounty hunters could carry pictures of the dead that had been reliably sighted, so that people could reach out to arrange for closure.” Still holding Chief’s reins, Tom reached into his pack, pulled out a soft leather pouch, and handed it to Benny.