The Search (24 page)

     “Well, I would venture a guess that most nudists stick to themselves.”

     “I think we have to consider another possibility. Maybe she’s being held against her will. Maybe the way they’re keeping her there is by taking away all her clothes so she can’t leave.”

     “No way. My Sarah would fight tooth and nail before she’d let anybody take her hostage. And the moment she was able to, she’d get away, naked or not. I mean, she could always cover herself with shrubbery or something well enough to get to the highway and ask for help.”

     As the truck finally ground to a halt a hundred yards from the caliche drive David said, “Well, since we don’t know what we’re dealing with, let’s be extra careful.”

     “Should we take weapons?”

     “No. Not yet. If we carry weapons in before we find out what’s going on, we’ll be viewed as hostile. If a gun battle starts, the woman will be in the middle of it, and whether she’s Sarah or somebody else, that would be a bad place to be. Let’s go forward and assess the situation. If it looks like we’ll need the guns, we can come back for them before we go in. Agreed?”

     The other men just looked at each other. They didn’t particularly like David’s logic, but at least part of what he said made sense.

     When they reached to end of the drive, Brad said, “Okay, we need to go in low from here. She’s in a field about a hundred yards from the drive. You’ll be able to see her over the top of the bushes about fifty yards from here.”

     Bryan held up his hand.

     “Let me go get a look at her first. If it’s Sarah, I’m not comfortable with her being on display in front of you guys while we find out what’s going on. I’ll call out to her by name. She’ll recognize my voice and know it’s safe to run to me.

     “If it’s not Sarah, I’ll come back and let you know and then we’ll decide where to go from there. Whether we want to just leave her in peace or try to contact her to ask if she’s seen Sarah.”

     He looked from man to man.

     “Okay?”

     “Okay. Just don’t go in and leave us back here if there’s any chance of shooting.”

     Bryan took the binoculars and stole up the driveway to a point about fifty or so yards away.

     The others said nothing, but watched as Bryan slowly rose, then put the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the horizon before him.

     For a couple of minutes, the other three men sat restless, wondering what was going on.

     Then Bryan returned to them, and said in a low voice, “I had a clear view of the garden. But she’s not there.”

Chapter 49

     John was always the planner, the strategist, in difficult situations. It was John who’d planned out the guerilla missions against the marauders who took over the compound by force three years before.

     It was John, with the help of Frank Woodard and Marty Haskins, who’d orchestrated the attacks on the city of Eden when it was overrun by outlaws and needed to be cleaned up.

     But John was dead now. Frank and Marty were on the far side of the county, on two different roads, knocking on doors in their ongoing search for Sarah.

     And Bryan, for all his honorable traits, was a hothead. Everyone in the camp knew it.

     Luckily, he knew it himself. And was man enough to admit it.

     Bryan looked to David.

     “If you let me take control of this, I’ll screw it up. I’ll go storming in there demanding to know where my Sarah is, and will probably shoot any man I might think have a gun. And if it turns out that it isn’t Sarah, it may be too late. I may already have ruined some lives. Tell me, David, how best to handle this.”

     David was a dentist by trade, and certainly not a tactician or an expert on military operations. He’d survived the assault on the compound and its eventual retaking, though, by keeping cool and using his head.

     In the battle of Eden, he did the same thing, and was able to help rid the town of some of the meanest men in central Texas.

     David wished John were still alive to take charge. But he knew that he was capable in John’s absence.

     He hoped he could solve the mystery about the unidentified woman with no one getting hurt. And he hoped that in the end, when they left the farm this day they’d be taking Sarah home with them.

     “Okay, first off, we don’t know what we’re up against, so we have to make a few assumptions. We have to assume that if there are women on the farm, that there may well be children as well. So we simply can’t go in with guns blazing and hope for the best.

     “Second, we cannot just assume that was Sarah that Brad and I saw earlier. Bryan, you’re right. If it was her, there was no logical reason she wouldn’t have just walked away, naked or not.

     “So unfortunately, that lessens the chances that it is Sarah. And it also greatly increases the importance that we can’t shoot first and ask questions later.

     “At the same time, we have to accept the possibility that it is Sarah, and that she’s being held in a way we don’t yet understand. Any men hostile enough to hold her against her will won’t have any problem with shooting us without provocation, or in the back as we leave. So we have to take precautions.

     “That means we will take our weapons, but we’ll be smart about it. It also means we need to be ready to fire, but hold off unless it looks like Sarah or one of us is in danger. Agreed?”

     He looked from one man to another. All three of them nodded.

     “Okay. Bryan, you and Brad are much better shots than I am. Bryan, you take point. Then me, then ‘Army guy,’ and Brad you follow up in the drag-ass position. Take positions thirty or forty yards apart so we’re not all bunched up if it turns ugly. Find a solid tree and take cover behind it. Not bushes. A tree.

     “I won’t be able to see anyone else, so I’ll wait five minutes to let you get into position. Train your weapons on the front of the house. That’s where I’ll approach it.

     “I’ll approach the house unarmed. I’ll leave my weapon at my position where I can get back to it if I need to, but I’m still hoping this is a family of friendlies, and it wouldn’t be right to scare the hell out of them if we don’t need to.

     “Hopefully I can talk to them and if Sarah’s there they’ll bring her out and wish her well. If anything else happens, we’ll just wing it and try to take out the bad guys before they get us.

     “Any questions?”

     There were none.

     “Okay. Let’s head out. And make sure you’re chambered and your safeties are off. That extra three seconds may make the difference in whether you go home tonight.”

Chapter 50

     Bryan crept up the driveway, crouching low to the ground. David waited until he was out of sight around a bend, then whispered to Bryan Too.

     “I’m going to take a position just inside the woods directly across from the front door. You take yours on this side of it. If you can see me you’ve gone too far.”

     Bryan Too nodded. Although he was a soldier, he’d never seen combat. He was nervous, but David saw no fear in his eyes. Only the determination of a good man on a vitally important mission. And although David didn’t know him personally, he did know Bryan. And Bryan spoke highly of the man. And that was good enough for him.

     David set out.

     Bryan Too waited until he was out of sight and followed. He was lucky in that he found an ancient oak, split into a fork about shoulder high. Each of the forked trunks was easily a foot thick, and he could easily rest his rifle in the tree’s crook. It was a prefect shooter’s nest, and an adversary would have to be a hell of a shot to take Bryan Too out.

     But he, like the others, hoped this didn’t turn into a shooting war.

     David said he’d wait for five minutes, but it seemed an eternity.

     Finally, he left his rifle and handgun behind his cover position and moved into the clearing between the woods and the house.

     Totally unarmed, he was a sitting duck and he knew it. But it was important that he not appear shady or afraid. So with hands held high, he strode confidently to a position forty yards from the house.

     It was closer than he wanted to be. But he had to be close enough to be heard from within the house to avoid having to go any further. If shooting broke out, he’d have to rely on his comrades giving him cover while he made his way back to his firing position.

     “Hello in the house,” he shouted.

     There was no response.

     After ten seconds he tried again.

     “Hello in the house!”

     This time the curtains in the living room window were pulled back.

     David was being watched. He hoped it wasn’t through the scope of a rifle.

     The front door opened, and Nathan Martel, a mountain of a man, walked out onto the porch.

     In his hands he cradled an AR-15 rifle.

     “What do you want?”

     David could sense the sheer meanness in the man’s voice, and began to wonder if he’d made a dreadful mistake.

     “My name is David. I am unarmed and come in peace. I mean you no harm…”

     Martel interrupted him.

     “I didn’t ask you your God-damned name! I asked you what in the hell you’re doing on my property!”

     “I am looking for a woman. Her name is Sarah. She was in the forest not far from here and lost her way. She is injured and may have gone looking for help. I’m asking everyone in the area whether they’ve seen her.”

     “I ain’t seen your damn woman. Hell, I ain’t seen a woman in months.”

     David knew it was a lie but wasn’t about to call the man on it.

     He continued, “She’s about five three with brown hair, and a lot of good people are broken hearted that she’s missing. If she happens along, would you help her get home?”

     “Is there a reward if I bring her back?”

     David was caught off guard by the question, but recovered quickly.

     “Of course. We will make it worth your while, certainly.”

     “What do you have to trade?”

     “We have livestock. Cattle and hogs and chickens. And we have seeds. I noticed your garden. It looks good. You must put a lot of work into it. But I’ll bet we have seeds you could use. Coffee beans, berry and watermelon seeds…”

     Martel interrupted him again.

     “Bullshit. There ain’t no cattle anymore, except what the Army’s got locked up behind high fences in San Antonio.”

     “No, sir. That’s not true. When the Army came for our stock we made a deal with them. We gave them half in exchange for their word they’d take no more. So far they’ve kept their word.”

     David knew he’d catch hell from some of the people in the compound for giving away that information. But if this man had Sarah and was willing to trade her for livestock, it was imperative he believe the livestock existed.

     While David and the big man were negotiating, Bryan kept one eye on Martel’s gun and the other on the house.

     He saw, in an upstairs window, a curtain being drawn back and a woman’s face appear.

     The face was badly bruised and the hair was up. But the face was unmistakable.

     He’d kissed it a thousand times.

     It was his sweet Sarah.

     She peered out with some curiosity, but mostly she looked frightened and worried.

     She was in fear for her life, Bryan knew.

     He fought, with every fiber of his being, the urge to stand up and start firing bullets into the body of the big man.

     Only two things held him back. First was knowing that his friend David would likely be one of the first to die. And second was he didn’t know the situation in the house. There was in all likelihood at least one other man, holding a gun on Sarah and threatening to shoot her if things got ugly.

     For once, Bryan kept a cool head.

     For once his brain overruled his heart and told him he had no choice.

     Martel was toying with David now.