The Forge of Darkness (Darkness After Series Book 3) (16 page)

Drake had only been alone for about 15 minutes when he heard voices. He had ridden roughly back in the direction of the creek, following the fence to the lower boundary, while Clint and Chuck had gone the opposite direction, to the house. Knowing it couldn’t be them he was hearing, Drake whispered quietly to his horse and walked him slowly in the direction of the sound. There was a small semi-open area with just a few scattered pines between him and the hardwood forests bordering the creek, and it was through this opening that the lower perimeter of the fence ran. The voices he heard were the voices of two men, laughing and joking about something, from the sound of it. Drake watched and waited, and seconds later he saw them, walking single-file, carrying a deer carcass on a pole between them. They looked younger than he’d expected and oddly, both of them were carrying bows and arrows instead of rifles, although he could see a large frame pistol holstered at the hip of the one in front. Drake would take that one first.
 

He waited until they had put their weapons down and were fussing with getting the deer under the fence, then when the first one stood again on his side; he took aim at his temple and squeezed the trigger. Just as he fired his target apparently moved his head upward and back ever so slightly. The bullet hit him, but in the hinge of the jaw instead of where he’d aimed. Coming from the 16-inch barrel of his Winchester Trapper, the 240-grain jacketed hollow point .44 Magnum rounds would do a lot of damage no matter where they hit and his priority was to put the other one down before he could react. He levered another cartridge into the chamber and squeezed off another shot, but missed as his second target dove to the ground and crawled for cover. Then, Drake made a foolish mistake that nearly cost him his life. He had not seen another weapon other than the two bows and the pistol the one he’d already hit was wearing. So confident that he would catch the second one easily, he urged his horse a bit closer to finish off the first, who was still alive. His next round went through that one’s eye, leaving no doubt that the job was complete.
 

He was about to dismount to cross the fence and go after the one that was trying to hide when he was surprised by an incoming rifle round that grazed the lapel of his jacket. He wheeled his horse to dash back into the cover of the trees and caught a glimpse out of corner of his eye of a rifle barrel over the log behind which the second one had crawled. Several more wild rounds followed the first, tearing through the foliage and ricocheting off trees around him, but somehow, he got away unscathed. Drake considered dismounting and doubling back, but not knowing whether or not there were even more than those two carrying the deer, he thought better of it and continued on to the house.

Twenty-three
 

L
ISA
FELT
BETTER
KNOWING
that April and Stacy and the others would now take the extra precaution of carrying their canoes into the woods to hide. Although she’d seen the horsemen turn back once they figured out the trail they were following led into the creek, there was no way of knowing whether or not they would return later and mount a real search up and down the banks. At least if they stayed on this side of the creek, they were unlikely to see anything. But by that time, Mitch would surely be back. She just had to find him before he went to the house.
 

As she crept back though the woods in the direction of the place where she’d seen the horsemen, she wondered again about Uncle Benny. If he were alive, he would probably know to come down here by the creek if he had managed to sneak up on the house and determine she and the rest of them were not inside. The more time passed without seeing or hearing anything of him, the more she worried. And when she suddenly heard two rifle shots ring out from somewhere ahead, in the area between the canoes and the farm, she wondered if the horsemen had found him. A third, single shot followed almost a full minute later, and then there were several more in quick succession, undoubtedly from a semi-automatic. Lisa felt a chill. The shooting almost had to involve the three horsemen, and who else could they be shooting at but Uncle Benny?
Unless Mitch and the guys had returned by a different route!

She moved carefully in the direction of the gunfire, as soon as it stopped. She knew she was too far away to intervene, and she could only fear the worst: that the men had killed whoever they were shooting at and were still out there, more on edge and cautious than ever. Lisa slipped among the trees in silence as she looked for movement or sound—anything to tell her where the danger was. She saw it as she came within view of the thicket in which the canoes were hidden—just a brief glimpse through the foliage of someone walking—but enough to make her stop and raise her rifle to her shoulder. A couple more steps and whoever it was would be in view again and in her sights. Lisa waited, her finger lightly resting on the trigger of the 10/22; ready to squeeze it, when a figure emerged into the open forest at the creek bank. But what she saw was not what she expected. It was her brother, shirtless and barefoot despite the December chill, and right behind him was Jason!

“MITCH!” she called in a loud whisper.

He turned in surprise as she stepped out from among the trees where he could see her. He immediately raised a finger to his lips and pointed back in the direction from which he and Jason had appeared and she whispered again as she walked up to hug him. “Are you okay? Were those men shooting at you? Have you seen Uncle Benny? Where’s Corey?”

“Corey’s
dead
, Lisa! Someone shot him! What men are you talking about? Have you seen someone? Why would Uncle Benny be here? And what are you doing out here? Where is April? Is she okay?”

Her brother’s questions didn’t even register after Lisa heard the first words out of his mouth.
Corey was dead!
“They shot Corey? That was the shooting I just heard?”

“Yes. Someone on a horse shot him and tried to shoot Jason too.”

“I have no idea who he was,” Jason said. “I shot back but I don’t think I hit him at all.”

“I know who it was!” Lisa said. “It was one of the same men who killed Tommy yesterday. Tommy’s dead, Mitch!
And the men who killed him are in our house right now!”

Lisa saw the color drain from her brother’s face as he took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “What about April and Kimberly, Lisa? Tell me they’re not dead too!”

“No, they’re fine, Mitch. Everyone is okay except for Tommy, but we don’t know about Uncle Benny. We haven’t seen him since right after Tommy got shot.”
 

“Where is April, Lisa? Did they all go down the creek? I saw tracks where two of the canoes were launched.”

“Yes! They’re all safe. I just saw them after the three men on horses followed their trail here looking for them. I went back and told them to hide after those men turned back. I thought they had gone back to the house, but they must have still been nearby.” Lisa just could not believe Corey was dead. How were they possibly going to break this news to Samantha?”

“I only saw the one guy,” Jason said. “He had a long red beard and he was riding a black horse. He shot Corey with a lever-action rifle.”

“I saw that one!” Lisa said. “The rifle looked like a Winchester, but the other two were carrying ARs like yours.”

“Who are these people?” Mitch asked. “How many of them are there? Are there more than three?”

Lisa gave him the quick synopsis based on what she knew. She told him how it started with the shooting of the cattle. Mitch was sick when he realized he’d heard those first shots the afternoon before and dismissed them as nothing. She would never be able to convince him that he couldn’t have known what was happening and that it was not his fault for not rushing back. There was no point in him beating himself up for not being there, just as Lisa realized that feeling bad for not waiting in the right place for Mitch to return wouldn’t bring Corey back.

She went on to describe the shootout with the unseen rifleman that had shot Tommy, and how she’d last seen Uncle Benny when he sent her and Stacy back to warn April and Samantha and get the travois. She told him how David had seen Tommy finished off with a hatchet and how they had all hidden in the woods and shot two of the men stalking near them in the dark woods beside the yard. She could tell Mitch was burning with rage as he listened to all this. He wouldn’t stop blaming himself, not only for not coming back or for leaving in the first place, but also for not working harder to prepare better defenses to guard against just such an attack.
 

“Let’s just go back to where April and the others are, Mitch. She’s worried about you. We all were. And now we’ve got to tell Samantha about Corey.”

 
“I can’t right now, Lisa. I’m going to look for Benny. And, I want to see how many of these thugs we’re dealing with.”

“Please don’t go near the house, Mitch! They know there are more of us now after seeing Jason and Corey. You might run right into an ambush!”

“I’m not going to run into an ambush. Believe me; I’ll be careful.”

“I’m going with you,” Jason said.

“Me too, then. We’ll all three go!”

“No! Neither of you are going with me! I can do this better alone. You both know that. Besides, April and everybody else must have heard that shooting. Since they know you came this way, they may be thinking it was you who got shot, Lisa. You need to get back there ASAP and let them know you’re okay before they decide to come looking. You’ve got to tell Samantha about Corey too, but no matter what she says, you can’t let her see him. None of you need to see him like that. I want you to go with Lisa and help her, Jason, because you two need to take the other three canoes and paddle them down the creek. We don’t want them just waiting here for those men to use if they come back and decide to go search downstream. I’ll help you launch them, and then I’ve got to go.”

“I was thinking that,” Lisa said. “They know about the other canoes. They walked right in there where they’re hidden and found them.”
 

“Take them and when you get to April, get everybody moving again and all of you go further downstream. Paddle down to the mouth of our little secret branch, Lisa. When you get there, you can pull the canoes a couple hundred yards upstream in it without leaving tracks, but I’ll know where to find you when I come back. How are you set for weapons and supplies? Did you get anything out of the house?”

“We got a lot out, but we had to leave a lot of it when we ran down here after the shootout. We have some food, and a couple of blankets. We all have weapons and we brought what extra ammo we could carry: 5.56, your .357 Magnum, some 9mm and some shotgun shells. We’ve got more magazines for the Glocks and ARs. David’s got Tommy’s .308 too, and I’ve got all my magazines for my 10/22 and a full brick of CCI Stingers.”

“Good. Give me the AR and its magazines then, Jason, and all your broadhead arrows too. You take Corey’s Glock 20, but I doubt you two will need a rifle or the bow before you reach the others. I don’t plan to use the rifle, but you never know. I’m taking all of Corey’s arrows too, in case I get an opportunity too good to pass up.”

* * *

As soon as the three canoes were at the water’s edge, Mitch promised Lisa he would be careful and then he turned and set out for the road. His plan was to take a circuitous route through the heavy woods well to the east of the property boundary and the house, then cross the gravel road to the south side and work his way back west to the spot where the first shootout had taken place. There was a wooded ridge on that side of the road that would provide a natural route, and it was from approximately that area that Lisa said the first shooter had fired and hit Tommy. Mitch wanted to start there looking for any sign of Benny, knowing that if he was still alive and anywhere in the area, he would have returned there for his wounded son and found him dead.
 

It made Mitch sick to think that someone killed Tommy in cold blood that way. Of all the people he’d met since the breakdown of society, Benny and Tommy were the nicest and the most honest, having retained their human decency despite the tragedies they’d suffered. It was far more than Mitch could say about most people. The dark side of humanity that had come to the surface as civilization unraveled was far worse than the other kind of darkness that was the direct result of the power grid failure. Mitch had seen it manifest almost immediately in the beginning, and he knew it had only gotten worse over time, especially in the more populated areas. It had reached the remote backwoods out here too, but until now not on this scale, with such a large group bent on murder and plunder finding their way all the way to the Henley farm. Mitch wondered where such a band of killers came from, and how many there were in total following the men who had forged ahead to pave the way. Lisa said that David had overheard some of them mention women and children. If it were true, Mitch figured there would probably be more men traveling with the second group as well to protect them. It would be in his best interest to do something now, while they were still divided. Maybe he could come up with a plan to take them out, but if Benny was out there somewhere, Mitch wanted to find him first. Lisa knew for sure Benny had killed one of the intruders. And she and the others had heard his shotgun twice more out by the road in the area where he was headed now. If Benny was still alive and in the fight, Mitch was sure the two of them could accomplish far more together than he could alone.
 

Knowing that the route he was taking was far from the house and any path that the men on horseback could use, Mitch was able to move fast. He threaded his way through an area of densely planted 10-year-old pines and reached the road at a point more than a quarter mile east of the driveway entrance. When he was sure no one was within sight of the road, he sprinted across. Closing in on the scene of Tommy’s murder took much longer, as stealth was imperative. Mitch knew someone was there well before he was close enough to see. Men were talking, not especially loud, but at a normal tone as if they weren’t concerned about being heard. With an arrow nocked on his bowstring and two-dozen more jammed into the soft quiver that rode close to his body so it wouldn’t snag brush, Mitch crept along the ridge overlooking the road. As he drew closer, he could see that there were four men, along with two saddled horses tethered nearby. They were working at skinning the carcasses of the steers and not far away, he saw three fresh mounds of dirt, one with with a folding shovel standing upright in it by the blade. Mitch had no doubt they were graves, but whose? Lisa had told him Benny had killed the first cattle rustler there, a teenaged boy not much older than her, and Tommy had died there too, according to David. One of the graves was surely for their own fallen, but could the other two be for Tommy and Benny? It didn’t seem likely that such men would bury their victims, but then again, if they planned to stay here long term, they just might. All in all, it was a mystery, but Mitch intended to have the answers soon. The men were preoccupied and still had much work to do. He would watch and make sure they were indeed alone. If so, four was not really so many with the element of surprise on his side.