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  He finished cleaning the prairie dogs before skinning the mountain lion and cutting off its head. Jennifer wouldn’t like it, but he needed the brains if he was to do a proper job tanning the hide.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  “We need to wait another day so I can get this hide tanned enough that it won’t rot on us before we get where we have to go.”

  Jennifer shrugged. “I don’t have anywhere to be, Mister Wolfe.”

  “I wanted to talk about that.” He kept his eyes on his work, cleaning the blood and meat from the underside of the mountain lion’s pelt. He used his knife as a scraper as well as a sharpened rock. “What do you want out of your life? I mean, what do you want to do when you grow up?”

  “What does anyone want to do?” she replied, sounding like an adult trapped in a twelve-year old’s body. “I hope that I can find someone and be together like my Ma and Pa were. They were happy. See, with us, before the bombs and after the bombs were about the same. I didn’t go to school out here. I was home-schooled. So nothing much changed besides we couldn’t get any groceries, like sugar and flour.”

  “I miss bread,” Wolfe said absentmindedly, thinking of the greasy truck stop burgers that always seemed to hit the spot. A few of them had good fries, even. There is a trick to frying them that not many mastered.

  “I don’t know what I want to do besides help you make it to your family, if you’ll let me tag along.”

  She kept up without complaint. If only he had a horse for them to ride, they’d get there in a third the time. But they didn’t have a horse.

  “Looks like it will just be the three of us,” he shared, not dwelling on what they did not have.

  “I’ll cook those prairie dogs, but they aren’t real dogs, are they?”

  Wolfe laughed and shook his head. “I wouldn’t eat a dog. A hot dog, maybe, but not someone like Buddy.”

  “I saw what you did to those men when they tried to take him.”

  Wolfe kept scraping and pulling the hide. He knew it would shrink with the tanning, but he had no way to keep it stretched.

  “We don’t need to think about those things. I won’t let anything happen to Buddy. Not if I can help it anyway.”

  “Or me?”

  “Or you.”

  “I have nowhere to go.” She looked at him as she worked their one frying pan over the fire, trying to get the greasy prairie dog meat to cook evenly. It sizzled as it slid back and forth across the pan. “If you’ll have me, I’ll stay with you and Buddy until you make it to see your Lurleen and JoJo. Tell me about JoJo.”

  Wolfe smiled even though a tear welled into his eye. It had been so long that the memories of his family were starting to fade. He could hear the little boy’s laughter. He could hear Lurleen running after him.

  “I spent all my time on the road so they could have a better life. Driving is something that I am good at. I was good at.” He pointed at his boots with the knife in his hand. “I missed out on a lot of his first two years. I was not there when the bombs fell.”

  He took a break from scraping the hide. Why was he baring his soul to a twelve-year old?

  “Sure, Miss Jennifer. I’ll adopt you and keep you safe. I think you’ll like my Lurleen.” Jim Wolfe spent the rest of the afternoon and evening talking about the one person that mattered most to him. The more he talked, the more she came back to life. And little JoJo. He could almost see him.

  The young girl would be a nice addition to his family. And Buddy, too.

  “One more day working this hide and tomorrow night, we’ll pass the checkpoint.”

  Wolfe disappeared into his own thoughts, wondering about many things. Had the mountain lion tracked them through the day? It looked like the same beast. How was he going to get through the checkpoint?

  He would improve his chances by taking a look after it was nice and dark.

  Chapter Sixty

  Wolfe slowly stuck his head over the top of a small dirt rise. The checkpoint was not more than a hundred yards away. It consisted of a small building with concrete blocks in front of it, as if someone was going to drive a semi into the building. He turned toward the Red Zone. Not a single light for as far as he could see.

  He wondered if these were set up after the bombs, when the new FEDCOM thought the wilders would come from the wasteland driving cobbled together vehicles sporting machineguns and flamethrowers. No one in the Red Zone had powered vehicles. A horse and buggy would not make much of a dent in their concrete.

  Federal Command. Dictators worse than anything outside the Clear Area, a title that meant they were the sole authority. They were making Wolfe’s life hell. All because of the corrupt Major Henkin and the damn Alston brothers. The most vile creatures borne from the radioactive ashes of the war.

  Maybe it was different on this side of Colorado heading toward Kansas. Maybe they hadn’t gotten the alert. Maybe his new hair color would protect him.

  He shook off his thoughts and studied the checkpoint. No one went through while he watched. Half the night he waited while the two soldiers did everything they could to keep themselves awake.

  As he was getting ready to return to Jennifer and Buddy, he heard a truck’s diesel engine revving in the distance. He waited and sure enough, the military truck came over a rise farther in the Clear Area. It approached without being in a hurry and stopped by the checkpoint. Two soldiers got out while the driver yelled something obscene from the cab, making everyone laugh. They stood in front of the headlights which gave Wolfe a chance to get closer. None of them wore the night vision goggles that seemed to be so plentiful back in Idaho.

  Wolfe crouched and moved forward, sticking to the depressions between the rolling landscape. When he was only twenty yards beside the checkpoint, he ducked into a culvert and listened.

  The four made small talk while the driver listened to music blasting out from the cab of the truck.

  Little things that people took for granted. Waylon Jennings. Wolfe listened to the old classic. He liked it and let it make him feel good, like it used to.

  After a few minutes, the two who had been standing guard waved and climbed into the back of the truck.

  The first thing the two new guards did was make a fire and start an old-fashioned percolator coffee pot boiling. They sat around the fire without a care in the world, their M16 rifles slung forgotten over their backs. The pair continued joking as Wolfe disappeared back into the night.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Without a word, Jennifer packed her small back pack. Wolfe draped the mountain lion cloak over the pack and her in case it started to rain. The dry of eastern Colorado could benefit. The river ran steady, but was lower than usual, if the marks on the shore were anything to go by.

  Night had settled and the two stepped onto the road. Jennifer stayed close, between Wolfe and Buddy because she couldn’t see like the man or the dog.

  Wolfe guided them forward, walked slowly but steadily. He wasn’t in a hurry to his own funeral. There was no need to alarm the guards.

  And every step was one step closer to Florida. “I think you’ll like Florida, Miss Jennifer. It’s nothing like here. We don’t get any snow at all down there. Sun, sand, and bugs. Don’t go too close to the swamps because of the snakes and alligators, but they are easy enough to avoid once you’ve learned a thing or two.”

  He spoke in a low voice, knowing that it would carry, to alert the guards that they were coming without being alarming.

  “I look forward to it,” Jennifer said and started to skip. Wolfe smiled to himself and steered her away from a pothole as they continued their journey down the middle of the highway 50.

  Fifty yards from the checkpoint, the guards finally flipped a switch on a blindingly bright light. Wolfe fumbled for his welding goggles, pulling them over his face. He saw sunspots while his eyes felt like they had been burned by a torch.

  He blinked quickly to clear the white and the pain while his eyes watered. He froze in place while Jennifer t
ook one more step, stopping when he didn’t come with her.

  “Are you okay?” her voice was innocent with a hint of fear. He could sense her other hand tangled deep within Buddy’s heavy neck hair.

  “I will be fine. Let me get my night lights working again.” His joke was lost on her. The gray haze that was what he saw of a bright world through his goggles started to appear. He blinked a few more times and started walking again. He waved his free arm.

  “Ho!” he called, although he had already been seen. He did not know about the spotlight or the electricity to power it. His visit the previous night had not been complete.

  The guards had their rifles in their arms and were pointing them at Wolfe and the girl.

  “Don’t get many visitors this way?” Wolfe asked. “We are just passing through, if that’s alright, sir?”

  “It’s not alright. Stand up and be counted!” one guard yelled. The other snickered and slung his weapon.

  “AC/DC! Nice one, Hank.” The second guard motioned for Wolfe to put his arms in the air. Jennifer threw hers into the air, too, but when Buddy started to growl, she dropped her arms and wrapped them around the big dog’s neck. She whispered into his oversized furry ear, and he stopped growling.

  “Come closer where we can get a good look,” the first guard ordered, the barrel of his rifle pointed at Wolfe’s chest.

  “We came here peaceful like. No need to point guns.”

  “What’s that on your shoulder? Peaceful men don’t carry an armory!” The second guard pointed at the bow and AR15 over Wolfe’s shoulder.

  “Have you been out there?” Wolfe pointed with his chin over his shoulder toward the soulless land behind him. “Only fools travel unarmed out there. Just yesterday we killed a mountain lion. It was him or us. Go on, Jennifer, show him your pelt.”

  The girl turned in a circle to show the guards.

  “That’s one big cat. He was out there? Less than a day away?”

  “Yes, sir,” Wolfe confirmed. He kept his breathing slow and steady. He could smell the coffee. “Do you have coffee?”

  “Not for you,” the first guard said, finally pointing the barrel toward the ground. He kept his finger on the trigger and that bothered Wolfe. They were one heartbeat from the man squeezing a .223 round in their direction. An accident would kill him just as dead. Wolfe watched the man closely.

  “Just a thought. Been a long time. Maybe there is something I can trade you for?”

  “You have nothing I want, but since you’re coming out of the Hot Zone, you’ll need to leave your contaminated contraband here.”

  “If you have one of those detectors, you’ll see that nothing we have is radioactive.”

  “They said we didn’t need one of those contraptions down here. They been using ‘em like crazy up north, though.”

  “Does that mean you aren’t worried about radiation down this way?”

  “Are you stupid, mister? We worry about radiation all the time. You ever see what it does to people?”

  “Then why don’t you have a Geiger counter?”

  “Because no one ever comes through this checkpoint. How dense are you?” the first soldier asked.

  Wolfe positioned himself in front of Jennifer and Buddy as the dog had started to growl again. He finally put his hands down.

  “Too many blows to the head. Look at those goggles!”

  “Can we pass?” Wolfe looked at the soldier still holding his rifle.

  “We’re going to have to confiscate that rifle.”

  Wolfe sized up the two soldiers, just in case he needed to act. The one with the rifle pointed at his feet would be the most dangerous. He would have to kill him first, if it came to that. The other one would never be able to unsling his M16 before Wolfe could get to him.

  He did not want to leave his rifle, but with the bow and a full load of arrows, he would be able to keep them fed.

  “I would prefer not to leave it behind. What is it going to take to continue on my way with what little we have?”

  “Can’t let you go on with a hot rifle.”

  “I guess. I don’t want trouble. We are on our way to Florida, that’s it. Our home is back there. We got caught on this side during the war and are finally able to make a go of getting home. I need this rifle. I promise not to fire it in FEDCOM territory. I’ll save that for the Hot Zones.”

  The second guard motioned for Wolfe to hand it over.

  Wolfe slipped the pack off his back and removed the rifle. He looked at it for a moment, then shrugged. He punched the button and caught the magazine as it fell. He pulled the charging handle to the rear and caught the ejected .223 round. He plugged that into the magazine. He handed both the rifle and the magazine to the second solder.

  “You gents have a fine evening.” Wolfe waved for the young girl to walk around the men. She took one step before the first soldier’s rifle came up.

  “And her.”

  Wolfe clenched his jaw. He had not wanted to get into a fight, but the fights always seemed to find him. He held his hands up and nodded. He crouched to talk with the youngster.

  “It’s going to be alright Miss Jennifer,” he said softly. “These nice men will take care of you.”

  She started to shake, thinking Wolfe had betrayed her. He took hold of her shoulders and shook her, manhandling her to place her in front of the two men. They looked at her as men shouldn’t look at children. Wolfe used the distraction to take a sidestep, too quick for the eyes to follow and ripped the rifle from the first soldier’s hand. He turned the rifle into a club and hit the man so hard the stock of the weapon cracked when it smashed across the man’s face.

  Wolfe kept moving. The other soldier was trying to bring up the AR-15, but dropped the magazine while trying to stuff it into the rifle. He bent down and Wolfe kicked him so hard that it nearly took the man’s head off. The snapping of his neckbones told the story of his death.

  Wolfe returned to the first soldier to pick him up by his head and finish him with a twist and jerk.

  “We have about two hours to be a long ways away from here.”

  Jennifer stared dumbly at the carnage that Wolfe had wrought in the space of only a few heartbeats.

  “I’ll be needing this more than you,” Wolfe told the dead man before he picked up his AR-15, slapped the magazine home, and chambered a round. He pulled the FEDCOM issued M16 off the man’s shoulder and handed it to Jennifer.

  “I’m sorry, Mister Wolfe,” she apologized, tears glistening in her eyes. “I thought you were going to leave me.”

  “Miss Jennifer,” he shook his head. “I keep my promises. I told you that you were family. I wouldn’t hand Buddy over to the scum at Canon City, and I sure as hell won’t be handing you over to the scum of FEDCOM.”

  She took the rifle, unsure what to do with it.

  “Protect yourself. I’ll teach you how to handle it once we’re out there.” He pointed south, into the rolling flatlands, not east along the road.

  “Maybe they’ll think these two got in a fight and killed each other?” she offered.

  “Then we’ll have to put the rifle back.”

  She did not hesitate to lay it across the man.

  “But not here. If they got into a fight, it would be by the fire.” Wolfe looked the area over. He went into the shack and shut off the floodlight, happy to be able to remove his goggles. He went to the fire and poured himself a cup of coffee. He took a sip. It wasn’t much better than motor oil, complete with grounds, but it was the best coffee he had had in ages.

  Jennifer tried to drag one of the soldiers, but Wolfe called to her to stop.

  “Get the rifle and gear. I will move the men.”

  They arranged them near the fire. Wolfe took the one man’s boot and stomped it hard across the other’s throat. He picked up a rock and crushed the skull of the man with the damaged face.

  He arranged the evidence as best he could and waved to Jennifer. There were two ration packs on a bench near the fir
e.

  She reached for them but he stopped her.

  “Leave them. If we take anything that they are supposed to have, FEDCOM will know. For once, they never saw us. They can’t be on the lookout for someone they don’t know exists.”

  Jennifer took one last look at the ration packs. She scratched buddy behind his ears. When she looked back up, her eyes were clear and her face set.

  “Lead the way, Mister Wolfe.”

  About the Author

  Frank Roderus wrote his first story—it was a western—when he was five. It was really awful, as might be expected, but his mother kept that typed and spell-checked short story tucked away until the day she died.

  Later, Frank became a newspaper reporter, thinking that books are written by authors which he most assuredly was not. He kept trying to write though, and eventually did it wrong enough to learn how to get it right. That first sale, a young adult novel published by Independence Press, was more than thirty years and a good many books ago.

  As a journalist, the Colorado Press Association awarded Frank Roderus their highest award, the Sweepstakes Award, for the best news story of 1980, and the Western Writers of America has twice named Frank recipient of their prestigious Spur Award.

  Frank passed away at age 73 in December 2015.

  Notes - Craig Martelle

  Written April 19, 2019

  Thank you for reading this far! You have my sincere appreciation for sticking with us and reading our stories.

  The fourth Nightwalker has come to a close! I hope you didn’t notice where Frank left off and I picked up the story. If you did, I hope that you were okay with it. I write in a different style, but am trying to flex to better follow Frank.

  I have four more stories in mind should we want to follow Jim Wolfe on his trek home. I have a rough outline done on Nightwalker 5. He’ll be going through a massive Clear Area and that’s where he’ll find out what’s really going on. At least in that one enclave.