Forager (9781771275606) (15 page)

Block after block, Fred and I skulked through town. We saw
no one. Still, Josh’s threat to tell his father worried me. Maybe
pointing a gun at him hadn’t been smart, b
ut it was the only thing that had come to mind. I smiled, calm
enough
now to
savor it. For the first time ever,
I’d
bullied him. The fact that he thought I was Sawyer
dampened the effect, but my smile never faltered.

My heels twitched, but I resisted the urge to gallop to
safety.

It probably didn’t take any longer than normal, but it felt
like a century before Fred and I reached the outskirts of town. My
thighs were killing me, but we were still close enough for a search
party to find us. I couldn’t stop yet.

Fred followed the faded yellow stripe down the middle of the
asphalt road. Out here, beyond the town and all its buildings and
trees, the scant moonlight allowed me to see the road ahead for
perhaps a quarter of a mile. Not that there was anything to look
at. The dark road and the cornfields that rose up on either side
numbed my brain.

We’d just passed a crossroad, and I wanted to do one more mile
before we stopped. Out here, outside of town, I could figure on
every crossroad marking off another mile, which meant getting to
the next one. It would be farther than any search party would come.
In sympathy for the horse, I stopped and climbed off. My legs hurt,
but a soft snort from Fred told me she appreciated my weight being
off her back.

Holding her reins, I continued walking. After about a hundred
yards, my legs were protesting. My butt hurt, and a headache
covered the back of my skull. I kept going. One stride after
another I continued, and Fred followed.

To put my mind off the pain in my legs, I thought about why
the Governor made it illegal for anyone but Foragers to search
outside of town. Everyone said it was because of the Scavengers,
but I wondered if it was more to do with keeping the towns under
each mayor’s thumb. A short while later, we arrived at a gravel
crossroad. A run-down farmhouse stood on one corner, a tree growing
through its roof. No chance of spending the night there.

Turning east onto a dirt lane, we walked up a hill. A few
trees bordered the road here and there, and the dim outline of
fence posts led on into the distance. A few night sounds punctuated
the quiet, but the loudest noise was the
crunch, crunch
of gravel under Fred’s
hooves

I kept an eye out for a house or barn where Fred and I could
spend the night in comfort. What we found a quarter of a mile
further on was completely unexpected and completely perfect, or so
I first thought.

I had no name for the type of house. There was a small patio,
a front door, and beside it three narrow windows. The rest of the
house was built into a hill that served as a roof. Large metal
outbuildings, big enough to hold a combine, flanked it. Despite my
fatigue, the sight of those outbuildings had my blood pumping.
Sleep would have to wait.

Fred and I went up the gravel drive and headed straight for a
small concrete pad between the house and shed. There was a pipe
sticking up out of the pad with a handle on the end. It looked
exactly like the water pump kids played with in the town
park.

I pulled the handle and the sound of water gurgling in the
pipes was soon followed by a torrent of water splattering the
concrete pad, myself, and Fred. Lowering the handle to slow the
stream, I cupped my hands, and leaned over for a drink.

Spitting, spluttering, coughing, and gagging, I choked the
water from my mouth and throat. A sickly-sweet metallic taste
accompanied small pieces of gunk that stuck to my
tongue.

In the daylight, I’d have noticed the brownish-orange of the
water. I’d seen water that color when I first moved from my
parents’ house into the RV. The tap on the side of our house hadn’t
been used in years. After I’d hooked the garden hose up, it took a
bit for the pipes to clear of rust and for clean water to flow
through.

Moving Fred back a few steps, I opened the tap so that the
water was once again gushing at full force.
Letting it run, I counted to one hundred. This time the water
tasted fresh and clean,
washing the awful taste of rust out my
mouth.

I filled Fred’s nosebag with water, and rather than use the
leather strap to attach it over her head, I held it in my hands.
She drank easily from the bag, and before she was done I refilled
it twice. She seemed sated, but I didn’t know her, or any horse,
well enough to know for sure.

I walked Fred to the patio and attached an extra length of
rope to the long lead on her bridle, tying her to a built-in grill.
The tall and plentiful grass around the house offered her a place
to graze. Now I was ready to see what was in those big
sheds.

Their big, wide doors slid to either side on a track. When
opened, they would be more than wide enough to drive a combine
through. I tried pushing them apart, but only managed to produce a
small rattling. It was a padlock. It was too dark to see much of
it, but when I held it to test the mechanism, it was heavy and
sturdy.

I walked over to the building on the right, but had no more
luck there. Dejected, I scuffed my way back over to the house and
tried the front door. The padlocks on the big steel buildings
should have warned me—it too was locked.

Rushing back to Fred, I searched the saddlebags for a pry
bar. Thanks to Josh, I possessed the skill to slip the lock.
Finding one
, I hurried back to the door and tried it the way
Josh showed me. The door stayed shut and locked.
Trying a few more times didn’t help. Either I was
doing something wrong, or this was a different kind of
lock.

I almost hurled the bar through one of the windows. What
stopped me was the glass. Even out here in the
country
, breaking what I couldn’t replace
wasn’t justified. Beaten, I sat by the front door. I’d hoped for a
bed, or a couch to sleep on, but it wasn’t to be. With a resigned
sigh, my eyelids drifted closed.

The sunrise woke me. At first it was just a small arc of dull
yellow light, but it quickly grew larger in both size and
intensity. I tried to rise, only to find my lower legs were numb.
Rolling to my knees, the pain in my thighs erupted like a
blacksmith’s hammer hitting hot steel.

Moaning in pain, I lay on the patio.
Rising to my feet a little later, after my calves had stopped
stinging, I was forced to look down from the new pain of a crick in
my neck. The useless pry bar lay where it had fallen.
I shook my head and
mumbled, “Uh, uh, give me jolts, put a bullet in me, I don’t care.
I ain’t bending over.”

I stumbled past the patio to the pump. The handle was heavier
than it had been the night before. It took two tries to get it up
and the water running. This time, I checked the water before I
drank. Sure enough, the water came out a dirty, reddish brown. It
cleared almost immediately, and the water ran clean and cool.
Cupping my hands under the tap, I splashed my face.

As the refreshing drops ran off, the skin on my cheeks was
tight where dirt still clung. I repeated the soaking several more
times, and then stooped over the tap to get a drink. My back and
thighs protested, but either I was getting used to the pain or my
stiff muscles were loosening.

Remembering that Fred would
also need a drink, I started for the grill.
Fred was gone.

Why had I expected something to actually go right?

Turning in a full circle, I saw the house buried in the side
of the hill, the two large outbuildings, the pump on its concrete
slab, the gravel drive leading to the road, trees in the distance,
and a barbwire fence, but no sign of Fred.

“
Fred!” I yelled.

There was no response. What had I been expecting? A whinny and
for her to come running?

A dread built in me. It was the guilt of a broken trust.
Sawyer let me use Fred in the good faith that I would take care of
her and bring her safely back. I needed to find her.

I walked between the earth-covered house and the large shed to
my right. I turned to the east, and sure enough, head down and
contently munching away in a field of clover was Sawyer’s horse.
Relief flowed through me, erasing all the guilt and despair. It was
enough to make me run to Fred.

I got three steps. It would have been four, but my thighs
screamed in protest. I was almost sure they yelled, “Oh no you
don’t!” as I pitched forward. Luckily thick, soft grass caught
me.

Crawling to my feet, I thought,
okay, let’s try walking.
One slow step at a
time I reached Fred. I gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder and
slowly led her back around front.

We strolled to where the propane grill stood up out of the
concrete patio. The extra rope was still securely tied to its
base.
Grabbing it, and letting it flow
through my hand, Fred and I walked off the distance to where it
ended.

I expected that Fred chewed it or broken it,
but she couldn’t be blamed for what I found, nor
could the rope.
My knot tying skills, however, needed work. The knot still
made its lump in the rope, it just wasn’t holding
anything.

With a jerk of her head, Fred pulled the lead out of my other
hand. She broke into a trot and disappeared back behind the
shed.

“
Get back here!” I yelled.

She didn’t listen.

I’m sure she was quiet content to eat clover all day, but I
couldn’t chance her running off. There was plenty of good grass by
the grill, so it wasn’t like I was starving her. With a sigh, I
went around the shed and retrieved her.

That was when I saw the back door of the house. It hadn’t
occurred to me that a house built into the side of a hill would
even have a back door, but the small hill the house rested in
sloped down, leaving a perfect access for a rear entry. I was glad
nobody was around to see how dumb I looked this morning—except
Fred, and I was pretty sure she wouldn’t tell anybody.

Leading her back to the pump, I filled her nosebag with water.
As she drank, I cursed myself for not looking for a back door in
the first place. Sleeping would have been a whole lot more
comfortable.

After returning Fred to the grill a second time, I
remembered the hobbles, and took them off the saddle to put them on
her.
Handling the hobbles gave me the
feeling that I’d forgotten something.
Something important, about Fred, but
whatever it was escaped me. I shrugged it off for now. Fred had
food and I’d just given her a drink,
so it
couldn’t be too important.

I painfully picked up the pry bar from the patio. At the back
door, I tried the handle. I didn’t expect it be unlocked, but I
wasn’t going to look like a fool again this day, even to
myself.

The door
was
locked, but a few seconds work with the pry bar and it
swung open. I hoped there was something inside that would help me
get into those sheds. The keys to those padlocks would be a great
start.

The disgustingly sweet smell of mold and rot filled my nose as
I crossed the threshold. Not bad enough to make me vomit, but
close. It reminded me of two-day-old potato peels. Yuck.

I entered a kitchen. A rounded counter divided it from the
next room, where a hallway branched to the right. I assumed it led
to the bedrooms.

The dim light created a
spooky atmosphere. Remembering Sawyer’s warning about skeletons, I
hoped I wouldn’t find any.

Heading into the living room, I found the front door. I turned
the lock on the handle of the door and pulled. Nothing happened. A
closer look revealed a second lock, a deadbolt. It not only
explained why the door wouldn’t open now, but also why my little
trick with the pry bar had failed last night.

Releasing the bolt, I opened the door and let the sunlight
pour in. Throwing open the window curtains proved better than
lighting a hundred candles. The room sprang to life in full
color.

At first, the off-white walls, gray carpet, and dark blue
overstuffed furniture gave the room a homey touch, but the more I
looked around, the more unnerved I became. It wasn’t just the dirt
ceiling overhead, or the cave-like way the sunlight shone through
the door and windows, the thing that bothered me most was the exact
placement of everything, from the chairs at the table, to the
remote that sat on top of the TV. Even the little cloth arm-covers
for the sofa and chairs weren’t a smidge out of place.

This perfection bothered me. In my RV, I always left a few
things lying about, but I wasn’t a slob. When it got dirty, I
cleaned it up. This specific attention to detail was like looking
into the mind of a person that only saw things one way. It was a
mind that could never see the other side of the story. There was no
room for forgiveness in such a mind. It made me think of the
mayor.

I shook off that depressing thought. The mayor was not what I
wanted to be thinking about—or the deer, or even Chane. I needed to
find those keys.