Nightwalker 6 Read online

  “How far have you walked after the bombs?”

  “No farther than half this.” Billy Ray replied. “But we drove this way twice a week before our truck died.”

  Wolfe had the map Bessie had given him. It did not have enough detail to be of much use, but it told him he was on the right roads and going in the right direction. They were on the south side of a river heading toward the Ozark National Forest. He was staying as far away from big cities and military bases as he could to avoid the radiation and FEDCOM. He knew which was more deadly. At least he could feel the radiation before it hurt him.

  The terrain started to change. There was plenty of swamp, but tree-covered hills lined the view to the south.

  “The Ouachita Forest.” Billy Ray pointed to the trees before turning back to wave at the fast-moving body of water beyond the flooded fields to the north. “And that used to be the Arkansas River.”

  “Used to be?” Wolfe did not think rivers changed.

  “It does not look anything like what I grew up with. It’s not the Arkansas I know.”

  Wolfe studied the river briefly, the water highway the gators had traveled and were probably still infesting. “We will need to go around Little Rock. Do you know a way?”

  “Been a while since I been to Little Rock. We do not like big cities.”

  Wolfe pulled out his map. He figured they were following state highway 154 and it would turn into 113, but all roads led to Little Rock.

  “Looks like we might have to go through the city. We can do that at night. I will guide us.”

  “Are you sure you can see all right?” Mary Lou asked.

  “I see better at night.” Wolfe left it at that. Jennifer removed her pack and started gathering dry wood. Their guests were able to sit down. They had moved as much as they could for the day. Wolfe felt sorry for them. He wondered why he had been given the gift of great strength and not hardworking folks like this couple.

  Maybe it was to protect people like this and youth like Jennifer.

  “I am going to find us something to eat,” Wolfe declared before setting off at a slow run, putting distance between himself and the camp. When he could, he turned south and headed for the hills. With any luck, he’d run across bigger game like deer, or maybe a wild boar. Get more than a single meal’s worth of meat.

  As he forced his way through the heavy brush alongside the road, he saw what he’d hoped for—pig tracks. Looked like a big number of animals. Wolfe kept his bow over his pack, opting for the rifle. His entire focus was on following their potential dinner. Finally, his luck was improving.

  Chapter Eight

  The drove of pigs headed from one pit to the next in the general direction of the forested hillside. He expected they would turn and stick to the lowlands, so he stalked rather than chased, rifle up and ready in case he needed to take a shot. His thumb rested gently on the selection lever to flip the weapon off safe. His trigger finger rested outside the trigger guard as an added precaution. He knew how to handle a weapon, even though he had not been formally trained. He’d paid attention when people talked and watched what they did.

  And that was why he trusted Billy Ray and Mary Lou. As long as Buddy was by Jennifer’s side, she was safe if Wolfe was wrong. But he was not. He had started to read people better, looking at them with a more skeptical eye.

  Buddy would have been a good addition to the hunt, but Wolfe did not have time to go back for the dog. Wolfe pressed on, tracking, watching, listening. He started to jog, wondering if the scent had run cold, but the tracks were fresh and sharp in the dirt, just like his.

  He stopped and stood up straight. He was upwind. Wolfe sprinted up the hillside to the ridge and kept running, parallel to the drove. He ran as fast as he could for at least a mile before drifting down the hill and slowing. He checked the undergrowth and dirt beneath. No sign of the drove’s passage.

  The strong odor of the pigs finally reached him, now that he was downwind. They were close. He cocked an ear; grunts and snorts sounded in the distance. Wolfe picked the best vantage point over open ground between him and the drove, then leaned around a tree, rifle barrel braced, and waited.

  The first pig ran two steps into the open and froze. Others appeared behind it, forcing their way through the brush. Wolfe grinned. It had been a while since he’d had fresh meat that wasn’t wild and greasy. Miss Bessie was a great cook, but there was something to fresh livestock cooked over an open fire.

  The hogs looked like they had escaped from a farm, having pinkish skin without the tusks of a wild boar. He took aim, trying to pick a mid-sized animal, but stopped when a massive beast ripped a small tree out of the ground as it rushed into the opening, running like an Australian Shepherd corralling the herd. This boar had tusks, and it made Wolfe rethink his guess. Maybe wild boars had mixed with the domestic livestock to create this drove.

  As the boar forced the pigs back into the brush, Wolfe decided he had to take the shot, even if it wasn’t the best. He aimed and fired at the first hog that turned sideways. With the shot, the stampede started, the big beast racing after the others, leaving the dead animal behind. Wolfe listened for a moment, and then slung his rifle and pulled his knife. He walked across the opening, counting fifty paces to his target. It was one of the easier shots he had taken. Still, he hunted only for food.

  There was no sport in this. After making sure the pig was dead, he made the first cut to gut it and make it easier to carry. Plus he had no wish to leave a pile of refuse near their camp. Nothing would draw gators more quickly.

  The boar stormed from the brush, making a beeline for Wolfe, who was unbalanced on his knees. He tried to lunge aside, but the boar was on him too quickly. He rolled backward, reaching for the tusks to keep them from driving into his body. He pushed the slavering jaws away from him as the heavy creature danced and skittered, trying to get free from Wolfe’s iron grip.

  Wolfe had no leverage. Every time he tried to twist the head to flop the beast on its side, it pulled him off balance. He struggled on his knees, unable to rise. The standoff lasted just shy of forever in Wolfe’s mind. His rifle clattered off the bow across his back. The knife was lost near the dead pig. Hand to tusk, they fought, neither gaining an advantage over the other.

  Despite Wolfe’s immense strength, his arms started to tire. He was holding them out where he had little leverage, and the muscles on his arms bulged with the effort. Wolfe leaned forward to find purchase with his toes. The boar pulled back—only an inch, but it was enough. Wolfe pushed forward, his body straightened, and he came upright. He growled into the boar’s face, its beady eyes flaring in its hatred.

  Wolfe tried to get around the thing’s head, but it moved with him, trying to use its superior bodyweight to its advantage. A new dance began. Wolfe kept his feet moving, darting glances to make sure that none of the others from the drove were coming in from behind. He heard the snorts over the grunts of the boar in his face. He yanked the head sideways to put the beast between him and where he’d last seen the others.

  Sure enough, they were there, coming back slowly and watching the fight. Wolfe pushed and then pulled the boar toward him, unbalancing the creature as it fought him. He rolled to his back, and with a mighty heave, pulled the boar over him. Using his legs, he lifted the boar into the air. Wolfe hung onto the tusks, twisting as the boar landed on its back. With a final lunge, he was over the boar’s throat and able to leverage his considerable strength into a twist that broke the hog’s neck.

  It shuddered and laid still.

  Wolfe’s chest heaved as he tried to draw air into it. He fumbled with the rifle that had surprisingly stayed over his shoulder during the fight, pulled it around, and fired into the air. The drove ran off. He fired again, despite how precious every single round was, then fell to his knees and panted like a dog. Two dead animals, and he wouldn’t let any of it go to waste.

  Chapter Nine

  Buddy was the first to see Wolfe dragging the massive carcass down the
road. He barked and ran toward him. Jennifer followed. Billy Ray and Mary Lou watched from where they sat on an old section of guardrail.

  “Mister Wolfe!” Jennifer cried as she clapped and skipped up to him. Buddy barked and nipped at the carcasses.

  “Your dog will have to wait. Get the fire going. We have some work to do if we are going to preserve all this meat.”

  Jennifer clapped again and called to Buddy, but he was taken by the bloody carcasses, one inside the other. He started to bite at bloody skin, and the young girl had to wrestle him free. Wolfe kicked at the dog to drive him away, earning a glare from his adopted daughter.

  “I was only trying to shoo him away,” Wolfe meekly offered. She dragged the dog away, which was surprising since Buddy was stronger than the girl.

  Wolfe continued dragging the big boar with the mid-size pig shoved inside the body cavity to make it easier to move them. When he arrived at the camp, he was glad of it.

  “You know how to butcher a hog?” Wolfe asked.

  “That I do, Mister Jim,” Billy Ray replied, eyes sparkling with new life. “And Mary Lou is not bad with a blade and cutting board, either.”

  Wolfe flipped his knife around, offering it handle-first. Jennifer did the same with her pocketknife.

  “Get us some thin pieces to cook now, and then we can start smoking the rest. It could take a while, but I like the thought of having enough to eat for more than just today.”

  Billy Ray and Mary Lou set to work with the most energy they had displayed since Wolfe met them. They nodded vigorously in agreement. Food was a powerful motivator, and they finally had more than they could eat.

  Wolfe ate enough to satisfy himself before lying down to sleep. Someone would have to tend the fire, staying up through the night to smoke the hundreds of pounds of meat. Wolfe volunteered for the late shift. The others turned to the butchering and building an ad hoc smoker.

  Wolfe did not know how they were going to carry all the meat, but he knew they would. It had been a good day, even though they had only covered ten miles. They were closer to Bradenton than when they started the day, and now they did not have to worry where their next meal would come from.

  With food came strength, and with the drove of hogs, there was hope that the world was not entirely lost.

  Chapter Ten

  It was almost a week before they were ready to go, but Billy Ray and Mary Lou had probably each gained five pounds. Their skin looked healthy, and their eyes were bright. Wolfe wondered how many people had suffered being malnourished in the aftermath of the war. It would have torn his heart out to see. What he saw two years later grated on his soul. Survival of the fittest.

  It was hard on those who were not the fittest but were still trying to survive. Like the people of Ashland. Wolfe smiled to himself, thinking about them. He said a quick prayer that FEDCOM never tried to move back in, but if they did, the people would fight back. In his mind, that was what was needed more than the tyrants who filled Federal Command’s ranks—decent people making a go at life without being preyed upon.

  Just like Billy Ray and Mary Lou.

  With the boar’s hide hardened by the smoke and wood runners, they had built a sled on which the remaining meat could be towed. Wolfe wrapped the scavenged rope lead around his chest so he could haul the load. As long as they stayed on good road, he would be able to keep up the pace, still walking faster than the couple who was returning to health.

  “Is he getting fat?” Wolfe asked.

  Jennifer’s eyes shot wide at the implication. “Not my Buddy!”

  Wolfe was not so sure. The big dog was perfectly happy, eating his fill and sleeping until he was hungry again. Being on the road was good for him. Wolfe did not argue with Jennifer, but she glanced at the dog repeatedly, trying to gauge his new proportions.

  “Maybe,” she conceded.

  They walked without talking since the wood scraping across the road surface made too much noise. They covered fifteen miles that day. According to a sign still standing by the side of the road, they had made it more than halfway to Little Rock.

  “What do you think we will see when we get to the city?”

  “How big is a big city?” Jennifer asked. She had led a sheltered life.

  “Probably bigger than any place you have ever been before. It is bigger than Canon City, where they tried to put us in the fields to work. Before the bombs, Little Rock was about twenty or thirty times as large, I think.”

  “Where they wanted to eat Buddy.” Jennifer scowled before she scratched the big dog’s ears. His tongue fell from his mouth as he smiled at the attention.

  “And that,” Wolfe replied.

  “Somebody wanted to eat your dog? I do not think I have ever been that hungry.” Mary Lou made the statement to calm the young girl. Wolfe had his welding goggles to cover his eyes as he turned to the woman, but hers said she was lying. She had been that hungry.

  Wolfe did not want to dwell on it. “What do you know about Little Rock?”

  “I expect it is a mite different now,” Billy Ray replied. “It was always the big city, but with good ol’ country music playing in every store. Too many people for our taste, but good Southern hospitality, for what that is worth.”

  “No reason to think any different now. We give them the benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise.”

  “You are a good man, Mister Wolfe,” Mary Lou stated.

  “He is the best!” Jennifer agreed, continuing to ruffle the dog’s fur. “Maybe he is a little fat…”

  “Wolfe?” Billy Ray wondered.

  “Buddy.” Jennifer laughed. She ran ahead, and the dog chased her. Wolfe pulled harder, not wanting her to get too far away.

  The others hurried after him. Buddy stopped and his hackles went up as he faced the brush on the side of the road. Wolfe dropped the rope and started to run.

  Chapter Eleven

  A shotgun barrel poked out from behind a tree, wavering between the young girl and the dog. Jennifer held Buddy back, but she looked ready to let him go.

  “Put it down or die,” Wolfe called before he had his rifle ready. A heavy-set man stepped through the bush and onto the road. He kept his shotgun barrel up as he maneuvered to put Jennifer between him and Wolfe.

  “You can call me Jim,” Wolfe said casually, keeping his barrel up. “No need for anyone to die today.”

  “Well, Jim. I don’t know you from Adam. You bring this group and an angry wolf and expect me to stand idle?”

  “We are on our way to Little Rock, and last I saw, this is a public road.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Then you need to talk to your maintenance crew because they are sleeping on the job.” Wolfe sidestepped to clear his aim.

  “Fair enough,” the man replied, relaxing and moving the shotgun to the crook of his arm. “Name’s Walton. Not one of those Waltons, even though this is Arkansas.”

  Wolfe hesitated. The man smiled.

  “In this day and age, a man has to protect himself. Shoot first, ask questions later. It is a dangerous time to be alive.” He cracked his shotgun to show it was empty.

  Wolfe shouldered his weapon. “One should not play dangerous games during dangerous times,” he cautioned. “My rifle is not empty.”

  The sound of wood scraping on pavement announced Billy Ray’s and Mary Lou’s arrival. They each had a hand wrapped in the rope as they struggled to drag the sled.

  “Whatcha got there?” Walton asked.

  “We don’t share with no poacher!” Billy Ray shouted.

  They all turned to look at him. Wolfe studied him to see if he was okay.

  “If that is food, I am good. I have some livestock. If I had any shotgun shells, I would have as many rabbits as I could shoot. They play hell with my garden.”

  “Maybe we can do something about that. Do you have any thin wire to use as a snare?”

  “I reckon.”

  “It is all in the knot,” Wolfe explained. “Once throug
h and caught, the snare has to cinch tight and stay.”

  The man shrugged. “I could use a little help, but I can pay with vegetables to go with your meat. Is that smoked?”

  “Pork,” Wolfe answered.

  “That herd has been running through here, but it is led by a monster. Nothing I could do about them.”

  “You do not have to worry about that anymore.” Wolfe tapped his rifle.

  “I did not find any bullet holes. That carcass was clean, but it did have a broken neck,” Billy Ray offered.

  Wolfe hid his expression behind his welding goggles.

  “How does a man break the neck of a beast like that?” Walton asked.

  No one answered. Jennifer finally turned Buddy loose. The dog raced ahead, jaws wide, and ripped the shotgun out of Walton’s hands. The man almost fell in his rush to get away from the German Shepherd mix and backed away, hands raised in surrender.

  “Buddy!” Jennifer picked up the shotgun and handed it to him. She looked at the big man. “He does not like guns pointed at him, and neither do I.”

  Wolfe smiled at the brief tongue-lashing.

  “I am sorry. You are decent people. It is not common nowadays.”

  “Maybe you can explain that to us over dinner,” Wolfe suggested.

  Chapter Twelve

  Walton lived in a two-story farmhouse. When they went inside, the upstairs was closed off. He found it easier to heat with the woodstove. A dozen head of cattle wandered around the pasture out back. A garden along the side of the house had expanded multiple times and spread toward the river across an overgrown field to the north.

  Walton had plenty of telephone wire, although such things served no purpose any longer. Wolfe pulled the wire from the wall, yanking and tugging until he had a good twenty feet.

  Walton took them outside to pick a few vegetables and look at where to set up snares.