After and Again (3 page)

  Only a few minutes had passed when Zack suddenly had the feeling that Jenny was staring at him. He looked up and she was exactly how she had been, but he suddenly had the overwhelming urge to get out of the basement right away. His caring nature however would not allow him to just leave her lying there, exposed and staring out at nothing.

  He quickly scanned the basement and saw a large wool blanket on top of some fruit crates in the corner. It was dusty and threadbare but would suffice. He briefly entertained the thought of burying her but quickly convinced himself that he may find her father. Zack covered Jenny Sanderson with the blanket and climbed out of the basement.

  He picked up his pack and started walking north again. He had a strange sense of foreboding, and the further he walked, the heavier the feeling got. He smelled them before he saw them.

  The charred bodies were piled on top of one another inside the church. The picture was a grislier version of what he had seen with the horses at the stable. People were piled up at both ends of the large building, where both the front and rear doors would have been. The scene was obvious; they had been locked in and burned alive. Zack staggered backward a few steps from the church and vomited.

  Zack was sitting on the steps to the small schoolhouse, covered in soot, when the group appeared from behind the community kitchen, the very same place where he had come down from the hill the previous night. There were a dozen or a little more, dirty, tired and disheveled looking. He scanned the group for his mother, she was not there although he recognized everyone. The man in the lead spread his arms to stop the rest of the group when he spotted Zack sitting across the street, a wary look crossed his features that quickly turned to recognition when Zack stood up. It was Tal Miller of Miller’s Stable and Tack House, his stable boy (who was really a man) Jonus, and several women and children; Tal’s wife Martha and three kids, Mrs. Lanhope the schoolteacher, others. Emily Hodgkins was not there. Nor were Santiago and Michael, his best friends.

  “Zack, boy, good to see ya son, is there anyone else here?” Tal Miller said striding toward Zack. He was a short, barrel-chested man of about forty-five with a beard that nearly reached his waist.

  “No sir, Mr. Miller,” Zack replied. “I found Jenny Sanderson this morning but she….”  He glanced toward the rest of the group and lowered his voice “died sir.”

  “Goddamn this is bad business, son.” Tal Miller said, shaking his head and rubbing his beard.

  “Sir, did you see what happened to my mother?” Zack asked, hopefully, but steeling himself for the worst.

  “No, son, I didn’t, everything happened so fast. Anyone else see Zack’s ma?” Tal Miller asked, turning to the people behind him. They hadn’t.

  Mrs. Lanhope said,  “They were gathering up everyone and taking them to the church. I was hiding in my privy and watched them take both Loren and Lacy Sturgess from their house. Two went around the back and took all of the chickens out of their coop and put them in a burlap sack, then one of them killed their poor dog Roy with an arrow for barking at them. Later we heard screams…” She trailed off, bursting into sobs.

  Tal Miller looked to his wife who was fussing with their youngest son’s bootlaces. He turned to a red-haired woman wearing a thin cotton nightdress.

  “Lisa, why don’t you take everyone over to the common there an’ just sit in the shade while we men discuss a few things?” Lisa Mccarron and her husband Ted had a farm just outside of town. Her two boys were with her but Mr. Mccarron and their daughter Rebecca were absent. She gave a nod and turned to the group.

  “C’mon now everyone let’s go sit awhile while these men get things worked out,” Lisa said.  Mrs. Miller briefly touched her husband’s hand before leading their kids away.

  “I’m a man, I should stay,” said Henry Mccarron, a boy of about ten, while puffing his chest out and throwing back his shoulders.

  “You will come with us, Henry Louis Maccarron,” said his mother, in a voice that brooked any argument. Most of the town figured that Lisa Mccarron wore the pants in her marriage, She was a plain, strongly built woman who was a tough trader and a hard worker. She often seemed short-tempered but was considered by all to be both kind and fair and was therefore well respected.

  The group moved away leaving Zack, Tal Miller, and Jonus Hemphill standing alone in the street.

  “What say we go over to the Doc’s where we can sit a spell seein’ it was one of the only places not burned.”

Tal Miller said to Zack and Jonus. Without waiting for a reply he turned back up the street and walked toward the town’s combination doctor and veterinary office.

  Doc Forrest was not really a doctor. There were no schools to teach such things like in the old days, at least that’s what Mrs. Lanehope had told Zack anyway. The Doc’s grandfather had come into town with his young daughter years before and set up shop as a healer. He had had a great deal of herb knowledge, and some books from the old days. Later his daughter, and then her son Doc Forrest, continued the practice. Doc Forrest had already been old for as long as Zack could remember. There had been talk amongst the town folk about who was going to do the doctoring when he could no longer do it.

  The door to the one-story, three-room building was wide open. The Doc used one room for people, one room for animals, and the other was his apartment. What had happened was obvious upon entering; there was a partially burned torch on the floor. Apparently it had gone out before they could catch the building on fire. There was no sign of the doctor.

  Tal Miller gestured to a row of chairs against the wall. Zack and Jonus walked over and took seats. Tal Miller grabbed a chair of his own and set it so as to face the other two. He reached into his shirt and pulled out a small metal flask and offered it to Zack. When Zack reached out to accept the flask Tal Miller held it back just out of reach and asked, “How old are you now, son?”

  Zack answered, “I will be sixteen in two months, sir.”

  “Have ya had whiskey before, boy?” Tal Miller asked.

  “Once sir, with my father on my eleventh birthday. Just before he…. I just had a swallow sir.”

  “You look like him,” Tal Miller said handing over the flask.

  “Yes sir,” Zack replied opening the flask and then taking a small drink. It burned like fire going down his throat, and more when it hit his empty stomach. He was vaguely proud of himself for not coughing like he had when his father had given him whiskey. He held out the flask to Tal Miller who just nodded his head toward Jonus. Zack handed the flask to Jonus who took it and drank deeply, ending with a loud exhalation of air and a shake of his head.

  “Can’t say I have ever needed one more than now,” he said, handing the flask back to Tal Miller, who made the flask disappear back in his shirt without taking any himself.

  They sat in silence for a minute and it appeared to Zack, who had always been perceptive to what others were thinking, that Tal Miller was measuring what he was going to say carefully.

  After a moment he spoke. “Have you been to the church, Zack?”

   Zack nodded, and Tal Miller nodded in return as if he had known as much already.

  Tal sighed and said, “I come down the hill from the place we had hid overnight at first light, to scout it out ya see. I seen the bodies in the church, and there was three more lying in the street by the ‘smiths, one of ‘em was Theo Olsen, an he was all cut up. Both the other one’s worked the ranches, Vern, was one of ‘ems name I think. I drug the bodies up behind the ‘smiths. The murdering cowards locked up everyone in the church, leastways all of the men, old women, and young kiddies. Then they burned ‘em up inside. That was the screamin’ that we heard last afternoon.”

  “Jesus wept.” Jonus said, all of the color had drained from his face.

  “Sir, what did you mean by just the men, old women and young kiddies?” Zack asked with both dread and hope.

  “You can quit on the sir now boy…. er, Zack, you have drunk from my flask and I count you as a man in my company now just as I do Jonus here. You call me Tal, I call you Zack. And as man to man I will answer your question. There was a traveling trader through here not six month ago an’ he said there was horrible things being done away down south. He said these no good lowly worms will take boys your age and turn em into thieving murderers like they are, an’ if they don’t do what they’re told they kill ‘em. The women they make slaves of, and….well, other things. They’ve no use for the rest of ‘em and can’t risk the men organizing and coming after ‘em so’s they murder ‘em. Well now, I just thought the trader was just jawing me a yarn ya see, an’ I didn’t pay it any mind, but here it all is right in front of our very faces.

  “I’ll find them and kill them, every single one,” Zack said through clenched teeth, thinking of his mother and Emily.

  “I understand yer thinkin, Zack, and those cowards deserve killin if anybody ever did, but it would be foolhardy to go after ‘em, there was easily thirty riders all told. All that you would do is get yourself killed too. Besides, there are womenfolk and kiddies here that are going to need tending to.”

  Jonus, who was normally a quiet man by anyone’s reckoning spoke up. “No disrespect meant here, Tal, but I don’t blame the boy for wanting to go find his ma. In fact, I’ve half a mind to go with him if he decides to go ahead. Wouldn’t think twice if it weren’t for this bum leg, and you know darn well that if it were Martha out there you would be leaving your babies with that Mccarron woman or the Martins and you’d be off chasing those vermin down,” Jonus had busted his leg in three places several years back when he had been breaking a new pony for Tal Miller. Doc Forrest had set it but it was never much good afterward.

  “My mind is already made up,” Zack said, looking at both men in turn. Tal gave Jonus a hard look and then deflated.

  “Alright, Zack,” he said, suddenly looking very old and tired. “It’s your business if ya want to run off and get yourself killed but I know what your ma would think about this. She would tell you to keep as many miles as possible between those men and yourself. She would, and you know it.”

  Zack said, “That may be but my father would’ve stripped my hide if he knew that I left her to be….left her with those murderers.

  Tal’s face clouded for a moment, “Okay, well don’t just rush off without thinking things through, we had a mind to walk out to the Martin ranch, it’s a long haul but the way I figure it the gang probably never went anywhere near there. The Martins will lend us a hand, and they might even be willing to outfit ya with a horse if you don’t come to your senses in the meantime. At the very least you can get a hot meal before you’re off.

   The three left the Doc’s place and walked up the street toward the town common to join with the others. Before they had left they had begun to search the building for food but soon discovered that the doctor’s apartment had already been ransacked. They did find a leather canteen hung in the closet next to a threadbare winter coat. They took the canteen to fill at the town pump located at the common. It was a long walk out to the Martin’s ranch and the day promised to be hot.

  When they arrived at the common the four younger kids (two of them Tal’s) were asleep under a tree. The four women were in subdued conversation and looked up expectantly at the men.

“Well, lets be off to the Martin’s,” Tal said without preamble. Tal’s wife Martha woke the children and got them to their feet.

  “I want to look for my husband,” Mrs. Lanhope said, looking forlorn and defeated.

  “Now, Marion, I told you that there was no one here to find.” said Tal. Lisa Maccarron put her arm around the now sobbing woman and began to lead her away.

  “But how does somebody do something like this? What could make someone such an animal?” Mrs. Lanhope asked, looking back at Tal questioningly.

  The group walked north out of town. The town’s main street was really just a part of the north/south road that travelers and traders used to get from one town to another. The signs showed thirty or better horses and two wagons. Tal Miller figured it unlikely that the group would find the Martins place from this direction. The wagon track that the Martins used to get to and from Paynes Station came in on the south end of town, as the terrain was flatter for wagons. Tal led the group north because it was a shorter distance to walk overland.

  After about a mile Tal led the group off of the road and headed east through the mildly rolling grasslands. There was not a good deal of conversation between the adults, each lost in their own thoughts. The children however were just children; they laughed, cried, complained that they were hungry and that their feet hurt. Zack envied their lack of more adult understanding.

2

  They reached the Martin ranch around four in the afternoon, the entire group hot, tired and hungry. Toby Martin, his wife Miranda, their only child Heath and his wife Dalia were standing on the large porch of the sprawling stone home, looking at the ragged people entering their dooryard. When they were close enough to be recognized all four of the Martins strode down the steps in unison toward the group of people.