The Traveler (Book 2): Canyon Read online

  Skinner had stitched his own stab wound himself during a round of cards, in between slugs of whisky, while the dead grunt slumped in the chair next to him. Nobody at the table, Pony Diehl included, had said anything about it. They’d played their hands and bet their chips.

  This time, Diehl had seen something unfamiliar in Skinner’s eyes. It was a glint of fear, of worry. That anger he’d flashed was an attempt to cover it. Diehl was certain of it as he guided the horse to the right, cutting short the corner to ride north on Pine Street away from the federal building.

  He turned his head as soon as he completed the turn, looking over his shoulder to the south. There was something in the middle of the road a block back. It took an instant, but he recognized the threat and yelled to the two grunts following him into the intersection and blindly grappled for his pistol at his hip. His muscles tensed. He jerked his reins, trying to redirect the horse as quickly as possible. His gut wrenched. His short, violent life flashed in his mind.

  ***

  Battle was on his back in the middle of the street. He was in what was called the Fulton position. His knees were drawn in front of him in a V-shape and his legs were crossed at the ankles. He’d positioned Inspector’s barrel between his crossed legs. His left arm was behind his neck, supporting his head, and his left hand gripped the rifle’s butt.

  It was an odd-looking position and not altogether comfortable, but it minimized his profile in a way that kneeling or standing couldn’t do. Were he lying prone, in a prototypical sniper position, he’d expose his head to oncoming threats.

  He was lying in wait for whatever or whoever turned that corner. The rifle was braced and steady. His aim would be true.

  Lola and Pico were half a block south. He’d sent them to retrieve the backpacks. He knew the Cartel would come after them. He knew they’d anticipate a northward trek and never expect them to retrace south. It gave them a leg up despite being outnumbered.

  He’d instructed them to arm themselves once they’d gathered the packs, and told them to join him in the street. They’d head west and north to find the Humvee at the church.

  At least that was the plan he’d spat out to his companions as they ran from the coming onslaught. Battle knew nothing was ever as easy as the plan.

  He was breathing in a comfortable rhythm in the street—in through his nose and out through pursed lips. The measured breaths slowed his heart rate and relaxed his muscles.

  Even without the scope, he’d focus when a target came into view.

  The first horse was followed quickly by two more. The first turned away from him and circled back. By then, the other two were closer targets, one in front of the other. Battle eased his finger onto the trigger. He tilted his head to the right and the world dissolved into a blur beyond the narrow focus of the rider atop the trailing horse. Battle exhaled.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  Thump!

  He quickly adjusted his aim to the left. He exhaled.

  Thump!

  In succession, the men spasmed and slumped atop their saddles. One of them, his hands wrapped in the reins, fell backward and jerked his horse’s head. The horse spooked and fought the reins. It snorted and bucked the rider from his saddle. He fell awkwardly onto his head. The horse trampled him and ran off.

  The other fell forward onto the horse’s crest, his arms falling limp to the sides, as if hugging its neck. His horse stayed put and blocked Battle’s view of the boss who’d first turned the corner.

  Pop! Zip! Pop! Zip!

  The boss fired twin shots from his revolver. Both of them came close enough to Battle for him to feel them rush past him. The boss and his horse emerged from behind the obstruction. He was riding straight for Battle at full gallop.

  Pop! Zip! Pop! Zip!

  Battle took another deep breath and exhaled. He knew he was exposed, but this was the best possible position. The boss had only one more shot in that six-shooter.

  The boss was high in his saddle, his legs straight as he stood. His hat flew off his head. He leveled the pistol.

  Battle knew there was no point in running or rolling over. He was stuck.

  The boss drew closer. He was bouncing with the rapid gait of his horse. Battle could see the grit on his face, the determination.

  Battle couldn’t flinch. He…just…needed…one…more…

  Thump!

  A single shot found the boss right below his left eye. It whipped his face like a hard slap across the cheek, and the boss twisted in his saddle. He flexed higher for an instant, fell limp, and dropped from the horse. His left foot was stuck in the stirrup iron when his head and shoulders hit the pavement. The horse kept its fast pace directly at Battle.

  Battle was transfixed by the disintegration of the boss against the asphalt as the horse drew precariously closer. And closer. And closer.

  “Battle!” Lola’s voice shook Battle from his momentary trance. He hugged the rifle against his body and rolled to the left as the horse barreled past him. The boss’s body flopped against him as he rolled.

  From his stomach, Battle looked up at the galloping horse as it clopped southward. The dead boss’s face was still grinding against the road. Battle closed his eyes and prayed. He’d forgotten to do it before opening fire on the latest trio of Cartel members to challenge him.

  It was becoming more difficult to hold onto his sanity, what made him human. When he was protecting his land and his family, he could justify the violence. He’d pull scripture from the vault in his mind to rationalize what he did.

  But now, on the offensive, struggling to resist the easy temptation of revenge and wanton violence against those predisposed to it, he was conflicted. To his surprise, there was no admonition or praise from Sylvia. She was silent. Battle pressed his eyes closed and leaned his head back. He drew in a deep breath and then exhaled with force, pushing the air from his lungs.

  Was she leaving him? The thought of not hearing her voice was at the same time frightening and comforting. Battle pushed the thought from his mind. Now was not the time for this.

  He got to his knees and picked up his brown cowboy hat from the ground next to him. He checked his rifle for scratches or damage. It was fine.

  Lola, with Pico close behind, ran up to Battle. “Are you okay? The horse almost ran you over.”

  “Yeah.” Battle used his rifle to balance himself as he stood. “Thanks for the warning.”

  Lola’s eyes were dancing back and forth with concern. “You were just lying there,” she said. “Like you were waiting for the horse to kill you.”

  “No. There are better ways to die. You both have what you need?” Battle looked past her to Pico.

  Pico nodded and shook the pack on his back. He had a nine millimeter in his hand. “We got everything. We should go.”

  Battle offered to take Lola’s pack. “You need to take care of that leg,” he said.

  She handed him the pack and they started south, turning west onto Third. Battle kept a fast pace, wanting to avoid another street fight until they got to the Humvee.

  Lola limped between the men. “So what’s the Jones?” she asked Pico.

  “It’s in Lubbock,” he said without looking at her.

  “You said that.”

  “Yeah,” Pico said. He cleared his throat and adjusted the pack on his shoulders. He cleared his throat again. “It’s a place where the Cartel takes people who’ve done them wrong. Thieves, runaways, rivals, and such.”

  “What kind of place?” Lola puffed. She was breathing more heavily than the men, her limp more noticeable.

  “It’s like a place for entertainment. They don’t talk about it much. I mean, you got to be a part of the Cartel to know about it.”

  Battle guided the other two north on Orange Street and turned right. “I don’t follow. It’s for secret entertainment and for thieves?”

  Lola’s voice cracked. “Tell me what it is,” she said. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”

  “It’s like a gladiat
or pit,” Pico replied. “Like that colosseum they had back in Roman days. They throw the thieves and such into the Jones and then do things to them for an audience. They got lots of Cartel people who go to the Jones and they watch it like it’s entertainment, like I said.”

  The men kept their pace, but Lola stopped cold. She bent over at her waist. Her hands were on her knees and her chest and back were heaving.

  Battle heard her gasp and turned around. He marched to her and looped his arm around hers, pulling her upright and forcing her to move. Her face was soaked with tears, her nose running. She was on the verge of hyperventilating.

  “We’ll get him,” Battle assured her, doubling down on his promise. “We’ll get to Lubbock; we’ll find the arena. We’ll save him.”

  Lola stumbled forward, her body racked with anguish. She held tight to Battle’s arm and put one foot in front of the other until the tsunami of emotion ebbed.

  “I didn’t want to say,” Pico offered as some form of apology. “I knew it wouldn’t help.”

  “It helps,” Battle said. “It pushes us. Gives us a deadline. We know now where we have to be and how quickly we have to be there.”

  ***

  Cyrus Skinner cracked his thick neck and lit a cigarette. He was crouched beside what was left of Pony Diehl. In a post-Scourge world rife with blood, guts, and bone, Diehl’s remains were maybe the most disgusting of the things he’d seen.

  Skinner held the smoke in his lungs, trying to decipher which parts of Diehl’s face were left. It was like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing. He exhaled.

  He pointed at Diehl’s head with the cigarette and tapped the ash from its tip with his thumb. “Is that an eye?”

  “I think it’s his ear,” said a grunt standing over Skinner’s shoulder. “Maybe his nose?”

  Skinner sucked his front teeth with his tongue. “I think you’re right. It’s a nose. Well—” he chuckled “—it’s where the nose was.”

  “Poor dude,” said the grunt. “I liked him. He was a straight-up fella.”

  Skinner stuck the cigarette in his lips and pushed on his knees with his hands. His knees cracked as he stood, offering a crescendo of pops as nauseating as the remains of Pony Diehl. “Cut him loose,” he said to the grunt. “We’re gonna need the horse.”

  “What do I do with him?”

  Skinner shrugged. He puckered his lips, sucked in, and the cigarette glowed orange. He pulled it from his mouth and flicked it at Diehl’s body. “I don’t care,” he exhaled, a trail of smoke streaming into the air. “Leave him there. Bury him. Burn him. Whatever. He’s dead. He ain’t gonna care neither.”

  Skinner walked away from the grunt toward the rest of the group gathered at Walnut and Third. They’d all seen the horse heading east on Third. Skinner had ordered them to stop it. They had. Then he’d told them to step back while he examined Diehl.

  Now they stood together in the middle of the street, awaiting further instructions. They were a motley crew of gunslingers, rapists, and drug dealers. Skinner didn’t like men who balanced on the thin line between good and evil. He wanted those who’d jump with both feet into the hellfire. He paced back and forth in front of them, looking into their eyes as he passed. These were tough men. Though they’d seen and done things that would keep good folk awake at night, they slept like babies.

  But as Skinner assessed their readiness, there was something in each set of eyes that made him swallow hard. He could see apprehension, fear, weakness. He could see it because he felt it too.

  There was something otherworldly about this Mad Max, this Battle character. He’d singlehandedly inflicted pain on the Cartel in a way nobody had done since the federal government gave up and pulled out.

  Save the small group of nasty holdouts in Palo Duro Canyon, the Cartel had fended off, silenced, and obliterated any challenge to its power. Now, when everything seemed to be rolling along without issue, a single man had spun everything onto its head and then lopped it off with a rusty blade.

  Skinner cleared his throat. He wasn’t much for pep talks. Threats had always been remarkably more effective, but he knew his men needed incentive.

  He stopped pacing and spread his boots shoulder-width apart. He cracked his muscled neck and peacocked his chest.

  “All right then, we’re gonna mount up and head north. Mad Max, or Battle as Pico called him, is heading to Lubbock. He’s looking for that redhead’s kid. The kid is already on his way. We had him in the old Scurry County Sheriff’s Office in Snyder about eighty miles from here. I got the Dalton boys with him.”

  One of the grunts raised his hand. Skinner pointed at him.

  “Lubbock?” the grunt asked. “Why Lubbock?”

  “I’m putting the boy in the Jones.”

  A hushed murmur ran through the men. They mumbled to one another, but none of them said anything directly to Skinner.

  “We’re gonna catch up with Mad Max,” he said. “We’re gonna make him think he’s got a safe path to Lubbock and that boy. We’re gonna let him go for a bit. Then we’re gonna pounce.” Skinner slapped his right fist into his open left palm. “We’re gonna pounce and we’re gonna crush them.”

  The same grunt raised his hand again. Skinner begrudgingly gave him the floor.

  “How do we know he’s heading to Lubbock?” he asked. “Why not go get him now while he’s close?”

  “I know he’s headed to Lubbock ’cause I told Pico about it,” he said. “And we ain’t hitting him now because he’s hot. He’s expecting it.”

  Skinner motioned toward the federal building with the brim of his hat. “With all these buildings, he’s got places to hide. On the road, he won’t see it coming. He won’t have nowhere to hide. We’re gonna get more men. We’re gonna trail him. Then we’ll get him.”

  CHAPTER 16

  JANUARY 3, 2020, 6:52 PM

  SCOURGE -12 YEARS, 9 MONTHS

  ALEPPO, SYRIA

  The second trip through the railcars was much more difficult than the first. Buck was little help, and Battle’s legs were enervated, the lactic acid thick in his muscles by the time they reached the final car.

  They were in the ninth wagon, the one with the food. Battle leaned Buck up against the slatted wall, assuring he wouldn’t tip over or jar his injured leg, and trudged to the pallet of Ukrainian MREs.

  He tore open another package and replenished what he and Buck had eaten. Battle’s hope was that they’d be out of danger and at the checkpoint before they grew hungry again. It wasn’t worth taking the risk with the bounty afforded him.

  Satisfied with his haul, Battle stepped out to look east between the ninth and tenth cars. It was darker outside than an hour earlier. That was good. The orange light dissipated more definitely with the sharper contrast of the deepening night. There was enough of a pale haze to help him clear the tracks and disappear onto that slope up the other side.

  He stood silently on the platform between the two cars and closed his eyes. In the distance he could hear the pecking echo of semiautomatic gunfire. There was a car alarm chirping. The orange lights hummed. There was nothing else. The air was still and growing noticeably cold. It was an uncommonly warm January, so the chill was recognizable. He felt it in his nostrils as he inhaled.

  He stepped back into the car and found Buck in the same place he’d left him. His breathing was rapid and shallow, like a dog panting. At least he was breathing.

  Battle checked his watch. It was nineteen hundred hours local. If he’d calculated correctly, he could have Buck past the checkpoint and in friendly hands by twenty-one hundred hours. It was probably less than a thousand yards and, under normal circumstances, might only take ten minutes to walk. This wasn’t normal circumstances.

  He knelt in front of Buck and gently shook his shoulders. “Hey, Buck. Brother, we gotta move.”

  Buck grimaced. “Gotta move,” he mumbled. Spittle drooled from the corners of his mouth. Battle could tell he was trying to open his eyes. The trek through the train wago
ns had taken its toll, and Buck had already paid heavily in the journey to get to the tracks.

  Battle squeezed Buck’s shoulders with his fingers. “Can you get up?”

  “Up?”

  Battle reconciled he wasn’t going to get any more help from Buck, who’d already fought as hard as he could to get to this point. He checked his watch again. He had the luxury of a long night, but with the dead militia in a nearby railcar, he figured that luxury was mitigated by what was probably a regular patrol.

  Soon enough, somebody would find the dead men and call for help. The train yard would be swarming with malicious opposition, making it impossible to escape.

  Battle holstered his nine millimeter. Sitting in a baseball catcher’s crouch, he took a deep breath and pulled on Buck’s arms until he’d draped him over his shoulders. Once he’d regained his balance, he shifted Buck’s body and wrapped his left arm behind Buck’s neck. He wrapped his right arm around his thighs. He lightly bounced up and down, gaining confidence and momentum until he slowly pressed himself upright, carrying Buck like a competition weightlifting barbell.

  Buck groaned as Battle started his slow stomp to the exit. Battle’s exhaustion was momentarily overcome by the adrenaline of knowing he had little time to find safety.

  Essentially unarmed despite having the HK in one hand, he pushed his way into the open between cars nine and ten. Bracing himself against the side of car nine, he stepped down gingerly to the tracks. He was at the edge of the orange light and quickly short stepped his way north and into the darkness.

  Ahead of him was an overpass for a four-lane street. Battle’s thighs and back burned from the effort, and he turned right. He headed east, parallel to the overpass.

  Buck was dead weight on his shoulders and neck. It was good because it meant he wasn’t moving or shifting. It was bad because Buck was a thickly muscular soldier. Muscle weighed more than fat. And the tough part was coming.

  Battle crossed the last of the tracks, almost slipping, but he kept his balance and found the lower edge of the long slope upward. His pace slowed when he hit the incline, his quadriceps and calves straining with each upward step. He leaned forward as he climbed, trying to balance the awkward weight of Buck on his back.