Nightwalker 4 Read online

  Jennifer was crying again. Or still. Wolfe almost felt like it himself. She was just a child, and she had been dealt a truly lousy hand.

  “Anywhere?” he repeated.

  Jennifer shook her head.

  “Nobody?”

  Another shake.

  Wolfe sighed. “The thing is, Jen, we can’t stay here, and I can’t leave you here by yourself. Wherever I go, I need to take you with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t live here, Jen. My home is in Florida, and I’m trying to get back there to my family. I…I have to believe that they are still alive, that they are there waiting for me to come and get them. So that’s what I am doing. And now it looks like you’ll be doing it with me. You and Buddy.”

  He hoped the mention of the dog would encourage Jennifer. Buddy had been by her side pretty much the whole day, sitting close or even leaning against her leg. Wolfe believed the dog could sense Jennifer’s pain and wanted to ease it as best he could.

  “Florida. That’s an awful long way from here.”

  “Yes, it is, Jen. I’ve been thinking…you might not like this, but it’s the best I can think of…the ground is too hard to dig a grave for your folks, and I won’t just close the door and walk away from them. The thing is, you should know what I intend to do. If you have objections, you have to say so. Now and at any time in the future. We can talk about anything you want. I’m the grown-up. I will decide. But I want you to tell me what you think about things. Okay?”

  She almost managed a smile. “Okay, Mr. Wolfe. But…you say we have to leave?”

  “Yes. We can’t stay here. We’ll pack up and move on first thing in the morning. Do you have a backpack? Like for school or something?”

  She nodded.

  “All right then. I want you to pack it with a few extra clothes. Nothing too heavy. Whatever you take, and it can’t be much, you’ll have to carry for something like two thousand miles. All right?”

  The girl nodded again.

  Wolfe patted her hands. “Make your choices. If you want to carry something to remember home by, that will be okay. Just remember that you’ll be carrying it on your back for two thousand miles.”

  He got up and poured a cup of herb tea for himself and another for Jennifer. Buddy pressed himself against Jennifer’s leg and whined very softly.

  Off to the side of the room, the two bodies lay as if for a wake.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Wolfe woke early, as was his habit. Jennifer was already awake. He wondered if she had been able to sleep at all during the night. The girl’s emotions were hers to wrestle and hopefully come to grips with. He would do his best, taking care of her as he could until he found a better home for her than he could offer as a man wandering the roads and a fugitive from misplaced justice.

  She sat on the edge of her bed, peering down at the floor, eyes unfocused and blank.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She nodded mutely.

  “Ready to go?”

  Jennifer waved a hand in the general direction of her backpack, which sat at the foot of her bed. It appeared to be plump and fully packed. “Do you want to look in it?” she asked without enthusiasm.

  “No. You have to live with whatever you have there. That’s entirely up to you, Jen.”

  “Do you want me to cook breakfast for us?” she asked, surprising him.

  Wolfe started to tell her that he was used to cooking and would do it. Then it occurred to him that it might be good for her to have some work to do to take her mind off her dead parents, still lying beneath a quilt in the room with them.

  “That would be nice, thank you,” he said.

  “What would you like, Mr. Wolfe?”

  “What I would like? Three eggs. Poached. With toast and bacon.” He smiled. “But I think I’ll have an elk steak instead.”

  Wolfe built the fire up while Jennifer cut their meat and put it in the skillet with a dollop of fat. Later, after they ate, Wolfe asked, “Are you all right with what I said yesterday?”

  “About…?”

  “The house. And your, um, parents.”

  She nodded. “I thought about it a lot. You’re right. It’s the best thing to do.”

  “All right then, Jen. Get your backpack. I think we’re ready to leave.”

  Jennifer was crying again but so very quietly that he had not noticed.

  “You go ahead then. I’ll join you in a moment,” he said.

  She crossed the room to her parents’ bed, bent down and pulled the quilt back so she could kiss each one of them gently on the forehead. Then she stood, turned and walked resolutely out the door.

  Wolfe did what had to be done inside then joined her by the shed.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  He took hold of Jennifer’s hand and stood with her for a moment, the heat from the blaze warming their faces and hands while their backs remained cold in the chill morning air.

  The house caught quickly, the weathered logs – cut and placed by Miles years before – dry and easily flammable. Within minutes it was fully engulfed, flames rising at least thirty feet.

  Wolfe was surprised at how little smoke the aged-dried logs gave off. That would come later, he thought, when the fire began to consume the bedding and other articles inside.

  It was fairly noisy, the fire crackling and popping to the point that he feared he might have left some live cartridges inside.

  He also feared that Jennifer would decide to rush in at the last moment, to give her parents another goodbye or to retrieve something she had forgotten. Instead she stood, mute and stone-faced while everything she had ever known – and everyone – went up in flames.

  Tears and snot ran down the little girl’s face. She made no effort to wipe them away nor did she try to hide them.

  After several minutes, when the flames burned their highest, Jennifer turned to Wolfe. “All right, Mr. Wolfe. I’m ready to go now.”

  He again took her by the hand and led her away. Toward the south.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Wolfe stopped at the concrete strip that had been US 50. He stood there for a moment, then began to laugh.

  “Mr. Wolfe? What is it, sir?” Jennifer asked, looking more than a little nervous to be in the custody of a grown-up who she barely knew.

  “Me, Jen. I’m laughing at myself. Do you know what I just did?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I stopped and looked both ways. Didn’t want to be run over by passing traffic.” He laughed again. “Force of long habit, although I don’t suppose there has been a car or a truck on this road in the past couple years.” He looked down at the girl. “Being raised up in the mountains where there wasn’t so much traffic anyway I don’t suppose you were taught that quite so strongly.”

  “No, sir. I was always able to hear if there was something on the road.” She smiled. “But I looked out for bears and snakes and stuff the way you look out for cars.”

  Wolfe motioned for her to follow and stepped out onto the pavement. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s go see if there’s anyone left in what used to be Canon City.”

  They followed the highway, already beginning to frost heave, past the road to Royal Gorge and down into the Arkansas River valley where Canon City lay.

  And there Wolfe got the biggest surprise yet on his journey home.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  “Welcome, folks.” The speaker was smiling and pleasant, holding his hand out to Wolfe to shake. “Welcome to Canon, the biggest little city in the Red Zone. My name is Charles. What are yours?”

  Wolfe blinked. He was not accustomed to this sort of welcome. Not since the war turned his world upside-down.

  He introduced Jennifer and himself and was pleased when Charles said, “We have a number of young people who should be about your age, Jennifer. You might enjoy getting to know some of them.

  “And you, Jim. I see you’re carrying a rifle and a bow. You would fit right in with our hunters.
” He smiled. “We’ve become a hunter-gatherer society, at least for the time being. In the meantime we’re trying to grow grain crops close to the river.

  “It’s the river that sustains us. Once there was no more electricity to operate the well pumps, people naturally gravitated toward live water. And that we have in abundance. We are still trying to work out our irrigation needs. In the meantime we haul water with horse power and hand water our crops. But don’t worry. It will all come together in due time.”

  “How many folks do you have here now?” Wolfe asked.

  “Understand, now, we haven’t taken a census to give an exact number, but I would think our population to be in the neighborhood of forty thousand.”

  “I’m amazed you can feed that many,” Wolfe said.

  “Oh, it is touch-and-go at times. And people come, stay a while, then wander on elsewhere. Ours is a very fluid population. Which is part of the reason our farming hasn’t progressed any quicker than it has. We lack the consistent manpower that farming requires. But we make do. Hunting, fishing, everything going into a communal pot.

  “You should understand that, Jim. There is no private property here. If you choose to stay, and I hope you will, you must agree to that condition. Otherwise we will wish you well but tell you good-bye. Do you understand that?”

  Wolfe nodded. He understood. He was not so sure he wanted to stay for any length of time under those conditions. But he understood.

  “Come now,” Charles said. “You’ve been traveling. You must be hungry.” He motioned for Wolfe and Jennifer to follow and led the way into town.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Just as the good folks back in Baggs had, communal living here led to a local school cafeteria being pressed into service as the dining hall. Or in this case, due to the large population, several school cafeterias.

  Wolfe and Jennifer were taken to what had been an elementary school and led inside to the kitchen and dining hall where they were given cups of an herbal tea – Lord knew what went into the stuff, but it tasted bitter but not too bad – and a steel tray with some soggy greens – dandelion? – and a piece of meat that looked like a chicken leg and thigh.

  “It’s rabbit,” Charles said. “Technically speaking I suppose it is really hare, but we call it rabbit. We run strings of snare lines around our grain fields to keep the rabbits from coming in and eating all the sprouting young plants. Dual purpose, you see. Food for our people and crop protection too.”

  Charles waved away a woman who brought him tea. “Hot water for me, Margaret. Thank you.” He settled into a chair across the table from Wolfe and Jennifer and said, “Jennifer, if you decide to stay here with the other young people, one of your jobs will probably be to walk a snare line first thing in the morning to collect any rabbits the snares have caught.”

  Judging by the expression on Jennifer’s face, Wolfe suspected that would be a chore that was not to her liking. And he noticed she did not show much enthusiasm for the meat on her tray, preferring to concentrate instead on the greens.

  Unlike his young companion, Wolfe thoroughly enjoyed the rabbit. It was good meat, clean and fine-grained. The drawback to eating rabbit was that the meat contained virtually no fat. A steady diet of rabbit would not sustain a body.

  Buddy did not seem to mind it, though. Jennifer slipped her rabbit quarter to him. The big dog ate it bones and all.

  “I hope you have no objection,” Charles said, “but our transient quarters here are in the old territorial prison.”

  “Territorial?” Wolfe said.

  Charles laughed. “Yes, it is that old. It was turned into a museum a long time ago and hadn’t been in active service for I don’t know how long.”

  “It’s interesting,” Jennifer said. “Our class took a tour there once upon a time.”

  “Everything else is pretty much filled,” Charles said, “but if you decide to live here we’ll try to find something better for you.”

  When they were done eating, Charles stood. He said, “Grab your things. I’ll take you over to the prison and see if we can’t get you a room…or a cell…to stay in tonight.”

  Once again Wolfe and Jennifer trailed along behind their host as he led them out of the school and up a tree shaded street.

  Chapter Fifty

  The prison – or museum – was located at the western edge of town. An elderly man wearing a large nametag that said ‘warden’ led them to a rock walled cell.

  “You don’t have to worry about that door,” he told them. “The lock hasn’t worked in years. And if it did, I don’t know where we would find the key. If you folks don’t mind, I’ve put both you and your daughter in the same cell. It’s not that we’re so crowded, but I think a family should be together. Is that all right?”

  “It’s fine, thanks,” Wolfe said. Jennifer remained silent.

  When the warden had gone to tend to his duties, whatever they might have been, Wolfe and Jennifer both stripped off their backpacks and dropped them onto the double-decker bunks in the cold, musty cell.

  “Top bunk for you, Jen,” he said.

  “Good. I like a top bunk.” She sighed. “At home I used to wish I had a top bunk. And a little brother to sleep in it. Sometimes I would even pretend.”

  “It must have been lonely there,” Wolfe offered.

  “Oh, I didn’t mind it,” she said. Then gave him a half-hearted smile. “Most of the time.”

  “What do you think about Canon?” he asked.

  “It seems nice. Except for the part about the rabbits. I mean, I know where meat comes from. But rabbits are so cute and soft and furry. I don’t want to hurt them.” She giggled. “I think if I had to walk that snare line I’d just turn loose any rabbits that I caught.”

  “And go hungry?”

  She shrugged.

  “I don’t know about you,” Wolfe said, “but I could use a nap.” He experimented inside the cell with his goggles on and without them. There was just enough light in the cell to make the goggles necessary, even though he was more comfortable without them.

  Jennifer climbed onto the top bunk and lay down. Wolfe stretched out in the bunk beneath hers. The mattress was thin and a little too hard, but compared with sleeping on the ground it was the height of comfort.

  Buddy seemed comfortable enough on the stone floor, curling into a ball at the head of the bed.

  “G’night, kiddo.”

  “It isn’t night, Mr. Wolfe.”

  “Close enough for me. Now go to sleep.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Wolfe slept for only a few hours and woke up feeling refreshed but hungry. He guessed hunger was a normal condition here. No wonder they invited him to stay and become a community hunter.

  He sat up and adjusted the goggles covering his eyes, then stood and looked at Jennifer. She was sleeping soundly and looked like she would stay that way for some time.

  Wolfe motioned for Buddy to join him and quietly let himself out of the cell and on to the outside, pausing so Buddy could do his business on an overgrown bit of yard, then with the dog at his side walked into town.

  The Arkansas River ran fast and deep through the town. Half a dozen or more men were on its banks fishing with cast nets but seldom with much success, at least none that he observed in the few minutes he stood there watching.

  In town several buildings that had been stores were now put into service of another sort. Several were devoted to manufacturing, working mostly in wood. In one he was delighted to see a group of ladies making arrows. They even looked like good ones. Wolfe stepped inside.

  Here the ladies were using wooden dowels for arrow shafts and pine tar to glue split feathers in place. Farther back in the large room, other women were cutting arrow heads out of the steel in old “tin” cans and sharpening them.

  “What would I have to do to get some of these arrows?” he asked the nearest woman, a thin lady with gray hair and pale eyes. His own supply of arrows was dwindling. He had enough to almost fill
his bow-mounted quiver with nothing in reserve.

  “You hunt?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The woman inclined her head toward a barrel that sat near the front window. “Pick through those. Any of ’em looks good to you, mister, you’re welcome to take them. Take as many as you like.”

  “What would they cost?” he asked.

  She gave him a sharp look. “You must be new here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We don’t use money here. No point in it these days. It’s all share and share alike.” She paused to push her hair back off her face. “Like I said, mister. Take what you can use and welcome.”

  “Now that is an offer I can’t pass up,” Wolfe said with a smile. “Thank you.”

  He headed for that barrel, Buddy walking close at his side.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The arrows were not of uniform quality. Many of them had shafts that were too slender, too weak, for the power of his bow. A few, only a very few, were poorly made. He did, however, find some that he could use. He had two empty slots on his bow-mounted quiver. He took a pair of the best to fill those spots and selected an even dozen more to keep in reserve.

  “Is this all right? I don’t want to be greedy, but I like what you ladies are doing here,” he told the gray-haired woman.

  “I told you to take as many as you like,” she said, smiling. “I meant it. You can see we have plenty stockpiled there.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Wolfe took his bundle of arrows and walked back to the prison. The bunk where Jennifer had been sleeping was empty so he sat on the edge of his bunk with the bow in his lap and his backpack on the floor by his feet. Buddy sat nearby.