Carlos, Pedro, Tom, and Juanita made their way back to Owl Hollow. Their encounter with Enoch and the volunteers gave them some confidence that there wouldn't be anyone there to greet them. Still, they moved carefully. As they reached the camp, the sun had started toward the horizon.
They spread out as they reached what was left of the camp. Tom listened for signs of anything.
The south wind didn't enter the valley, only passing through the tops of the trees and making a soft rasping rattle. It somehow made the silence that much deeper in the valley itself. The dimming western sun lit those same treetops, leaving the valley floor in a growing gloom and deepening shadows. The hairs on the back of Tom's neck stood and a shiver ran down his spine.
He walked forward into the camp. Without a signal, the others had done the same. Tom was closest to the road, and could see where Silus' people had set up their tables and boxes, all now overturned and broken. Burnt patches of ground showed where the coals of the braziers had fallen. He looked closer, worried that someone may be lurking behind one of the larger pieces. That's when they saw the people.
Some wore the ragged clothes of Silus. Others wore clothes that he knew, the clothes that had been worn by people he knew. Horses had crushed their corpses. Dried blood and other fluids left dark stains on the ground. Flies buzzed everywhere.
Tom was used to death. There was the normal death of hunting. There were the people killed in the village he escaped from. Those people died in the ones and twos, always in some clean way, hung or shot at a distance where you didn't have to see them. His own father died somewhere behind him as his mother ran away with him in her arms.
This was different. It was large and blatant and filled with unexplainable hatred. The people who did this were violent at a level he couldn't understand. He had never been sure why the Plainos hated them anyway. This, this slaughter, suggested something more.
He turned to wretch and couldn't. There wasn't enough in his belly. But his body wanted to expel something, wanted to expel this scene, the reality of it, the wrongness. His knees buckled, almost dropped him to the ground, but he caught himself. Bracing his hands on his thighs, he willed himself to take a deep breath, and then another. The stench of death was on the air, but he needed air in his lungs.
Turning back, he saw that the others were having similar reactions to the scene. Juanita was behind a tree, the sound of sickness escaping her. Pedro stood with his hands over his face, his torso convulsing as though sobbing. Carlos was on his knees, his hands clasped before his chest, and his face turned to the sky in prayer. None of them would leave the camp unscarred.
He forced his legs to move further into the camp, only watching the corpses enough to avoid stepping on them. They had a mission and the survivors were counting on them. Focusing on the mission, that was going to be the key to getting out of this place. 'I could just run the other way,' came the thought to his head. He shook his head 'no' and kept moving forward.
After a couple of minutes, the others joined him. He was about in the middle of the camp by that time. "Are you guys alright?" he asked.
Juanita shook her head. "I don't think I will ever be alright again."
Pedro pointed her direction. "What she said."
Carlos gestured around. "God, what a mess! What are we going to do? Do we bury them? Do we say something? God, this is awful."
"I don't think we have time to bury them," Tom said. "We have people waiting on us to get them water and other stuff. Burying would take too much time, and really, I wouldn't even know where to start."
The four stood with their heads down, staring at the ground. Tom was right, but it didn't help any.
Tom wasn't sure why, but he seemed to be the de facto leader of the team. He wondered how Nancy did it, with everyone relying on her despite her not having any real authority. It was probably his relationship with Nancy that made him the leader here. As a leader, he had best do something right.
He could tell that there were now two missions. The original mission for water and information still stood. The new additional mission was getting his teammates out of the valley with as little mental damage as possible.
He knew Carlos was a mature and solid person, very reliable. The other two were younger and probably less able to cope. Minimizing their exposure would be important.
"Here's what I'm thinking," he said. "There were some extra canteens in my tent up there," he pointed to the flattened piece of green tarp a little way up the hill. "Juanita and Pedro, if you want, you can grab those and then start filling them from the stream. The stream is probably cleanest where it comes out of the hill at the west side of the camp."
"While you're doing that, Carlos and I will go through the other tents to see if we can find useful things like more canteens or safe food. Does that sound good to everybody?"
They all nodded, with Junita and Pedro not looking up.
The two younger members headed to their task. Carlos hung around a bit. "I saw what you did there. It is good to get them out of the camp, away from all of this."
Tom grunted and shrugged his shoulders. He had never learned social skills.
"About us," Carlos continued. "Are we looking for anything particular or just whatever we find?"
Tom shrugged again. "I don't know. We definitely need water and food. We got those thirty people to take care of. Other than that, we could use more weapons and anything else that might be useful. If we can find an undamaged tent or two, we can use the cloth to make bundles to carry back."
"I have a suggestion," Carlos said. "If we find some keepsake that is unbroken, maybe we should take that too. Those people with Nancy have lost everything. Maybe some little trinket can bring them some peace."
That hadn't occurred to Tom. He knew some people grew very attached to things. The things brought them comfort or reminded them of someone they cared about. He hadn't found any such object for his own and assumed that he never would. It just wasn't something he would do. It was good that Carlos was there; he could make the caring suggestions.
The two men split up, Carlos to the south and Tom to the north. Instinctively, they stayed away from the end of camp where Silus' people had set up. There would be nothing useful, or clean, there.
Tom meandered through the wreckage of his former home. Most of the tents were destroyed, trampled by horses or sliced. The things inside were just as broken. He was somewhat relieved to see a tent that was splayed open so that he could see the debris of what it used to contain. It was the other tents that filled him with dread.
He approached a tent that lay flattened but still in one piece. He remembered the guy who used to live there. That guy always complained that he only had the blue tarp from which to build his shelter when we would rather have something easier to camouflage. Tom struggled to remember the man's name, but that wasn't important, he would probably never need the man's name again. What was important was whether the man was still at home.
The lump under the tarp could have been made by a sleeping bag, pots, or just about anything. Part of it could be made from a corpse, a crushed, broken, mangled, rotting, corpse of a person who was living just the day before and now was not.
Tom stared at the lump in the tarp, breathing hard. He needed to look under there, see if there were things that would keep the living alive. The back of his brain told him to run. In the quiet valley, the sound of blood pulsing through his ears roared. He swallowed hard. He needed to complete the mission.
He reached down and, with his eyes averted, pulled up on the edge of the tarp.
Nothing moved.
He closed one eye and slowly turned to look with the other.
No corpse.
He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to regain his composure. He thought, 'Am I going to go through that with all the tents? I don't think I'll survive.'
Most of the contents of the dwelling had been crushed thoroughly. There were two usable canteens and a quiver of arrows. Tom decided to take the tarp as well, folding it into a small square for easier carrying.
He only found a few other tents where the cloth was intact, and none of them looked like they held the dead. Tom was grateful for that.
Finally, he came up to Nancy's old tent. Nancy always kept useful things, and a store of dried meats, flour, and any other food she could keep. If any of it had survived, it would be a great find. He approached from around the fire ring and the rough wooden table to see what he had forgotten about.
That Thing, the timid teen who had just joined them, had died in front of Nancy's tent. She hadn't died in the slaughter, though. Tom had seen her die. She did it herself. She stepped out of the tent, saw how horrible life was, and decided she was done. Her body still laid there, still curled around that knife she put into her own gut.
Something finally cracked. Tom's eyes filled with tears, blurring his vision. She was just a teenager. The Plainos were hunting her down when Nancy found her. She had only just been rescued from that horror only to be thrust into this new one.
That's sort of what started all this, he thought. Nancy killed that Plaino and sent his buddy off with a warning. That's what got the Plainos mad enough to attack the camp. They came in and killed everybody. It started because they wanted to hurt this one girl.
Not true, he decided. The Plainos had been hurting all of them for a long time. That's why they had the camp, to get away from the Plainos. Besides, if the Plainos hadn't showed up, those ragged bastards would have killed or mutilated everybody. He risked a quick glance toward the east end of camp.
Anger had done its job and sobered him up enough to return to the mission. He ignored the corpse of That Thing and rummaged through the broken supplies from Nancy's tent. Since she had buried some of her supplies, they didn't get as squashed. He gathered what he could and bound it in the larger, useful half of the tent cloth.
He started to leave but made a decision. He pulled the remaining half of the tent forward and covered That Thing. "I'm sorry, girl. It's the best I can do now. Wish you could have had a better life."
He went on.
As the sun set lower, greater darkness settled into the lower part of the valley. Tom and Carlos met Juanita and Pedro at the stream. The tent search turned up another half dozen canteens and a few other sealable containers that could hold water. They filled them quickly.
"What about this other stuff?" Pedro asked.
Carlos held out some tarps and a backpack. "I guess we can split it up into four equal loads and everybody can carry some back."
In a mutually agreed, but unspoken silence, they gathered their packs and got ready for the trek. It would be slow, trying to move quietly uphill through the woods. The burdens made them unsteady on their feet and there were no paths toward Old house Hill.
Tom took one last glance toward the old camp. A wave of sadness ran through him, and then was gone. There was still the mission, and they needed to go.
Getting There
Nancy knew about the Old House Hill and its reputation. She had also visited it several times while hunting. A large house stood there before the Storm. She wasn't sure why the Plainos thought it was haunted, but it didn't matter as long as they stayed away.
On earlier trips, she found a large hole in the ground, part of the old house. It was deep enough to camp in but not so deep that you couldn't climb out. Metal tubes stuck out here and there, and she found old, rotting pieces of wood that would probably burn easily. There was also an old, metal door on one wall, but rust had taken that a long time ago.
If she could get these people into the hole, they could have fires without anyone in the distance seeing them. It would also get them out of the wind for the night. She wasn't sure what they would do in the morning, but the night was taken care of.
Jimmy Nakano tapped Will Faring on the shoulder. "Hey, look! Somebody's coming." He pointed to the east side of the clearing.
Faring stared across the grass. There was just enough sunlight left to see a group of small people coming out of the woods. They seemed to be headed toward the hole in the ground.
"Should we get 'em?" Jimmy asked.
"Not yet," Faring answered. "Let's see who they are and what they're doing."
Nancy led the group straight to the hole. With the low sun angle, the hole made a dark spot, almost like a grave, in the middle of the tall grasses.
"Watch your step," she called out in general. She knew the group was exhausted. The volunteers were still recovering from being drugged. Nobody had much water all afternoon. She just needed to keep them moving until they could settle down and rest.
It was uncomfortable to cross the open, grassy space without the cover of the trees. She had grown to consider the trees her natural habitat, her home. The trees could hide her, an important feature in a world filled with people who would attack whenever they could. As true as it was that Plainos avoided the hill, the experience with Silus' people showed that there could be new enemies at any time.
The idea of a stopping place motivated the group to move a little faster. Within a few minutes, all of them were gathered around the east end of the hole. Some were looking in while others just stared nowhere in particular, exhaustion having stolen their curiosity.
Nancy tried to use her best leader voice. She hated being loud; it felt like she was giving away her hiding place. "This is that old house the Plainos are scared of. I've been here before and there is nothing bad about it. We'll camp in this hole in the ground for the night. No one can see our fires from a distance. It'll also keep the wind off of us. We should be safe. Just be careful of old pieces of metal or broken wood. You can burn the wood."
She called over to Oak, "Start helping people get down. There's a piece of metal tube part way down on this wall that can be used as a step."
By this time, the Vanier brothers had moved closer to Will Faring. "Watch them," Faring said. "They're climbing down into that basement. Probably planning to camp for the night. I only saw a few of them with bows and didn't see any guns. You guys see anything?"
The other three shook their heads in response.
"Good," Faring continued. "We'll let them get settled. If I was them, I would leave one or two on guard at the top, but Spotties don't always think like we do. Once they're down, we'll move."
It took a while to get everyone down safely. Many of the volunteers were either too exhausted or hadn't been in athletic shape to begin with. Oak lowered Henry and Henry Junior down first. They stayed near the pipe and helped the others get down. When Mary was lowered, she helped guide people away from the pipe and got them to gather firewood.
While this happened, Nancy walked away from the hole and circled around it. She still felt vulnerable out in the open. The sun fell just below the horizon, leaving enough light to see the clearing, but not clearly. The first stars rose in the east, promising a clear night. That would make things chilly, but at least they wouldn't get rained on.
She got back around to Oak as he lowered the last of the others down.
"All, done," he said. He seemed relieved and a little tired.
"That's good. I didn't like having everybody out in the open."
He looked around, scanning the clearing and the woods around. "Expecting trouble?"
She let out a heavy sigh. "I'm always expecting trouble."
They stood for a moment, each looking out into the growing night.
Below, the people in the hole were setting up little groups, each with their own fire. Nancy thought the wood would last longer if they made fewer fires and larger groups, but was too tired to argue with them. Many of them had just been willing to run off with a violent cult because it used promises of comfort. Getting that out of their heads was going to take a while.
She thought back to something Old Herman used to say, "Comfort is the enemy of progress." He was an old man from where she grew up and had been in something he called Army before the Storm. With his survival skills, he kept a lot of people alive in an old building. He said it used to be a mall, a place where people could get things they needed. Then he would laugh and say they also got a lot of things they didn't need. He didn't care if you had spots or not, saying we all had to pull together. When he died…
She shook her head slightly to get herself back to the present. "What are your thoughts?" she asked Oak. "I'm thinking the two of us stay up here on guard for a while. About midnight or a little later, we see if Herman and his son want to change places."
"Sounds good to me," he said. He leaned over the edge of the hole and called out, "Hey Herman!"
Herman called back, "Yeah?"
"Nancy and me are going to stand guard up here for half the night. You and and your boy ok with changing places with us later?"
Herman Junior answered, "Sure thing!"
Herman looked over at him. "Well, I guess we're ok with it."
"That takes care of that," Nancy said.
She pointed to the northwest corner of the hole. "I'll go over there. You can stay here. You see anything, give a yell."
"Sure thing," he said, mimicking Herman Junior.
She walked around the edge of the hole, staying far enough from the edge so she could watch the treeline and not worry about falling in.
Over, hidden among the trees, Boss Henry's men watched.
"They've only posted two guards," Noah whispered. "They must not expect an attack."
Faring shook his head in the dark. "It's more likely that they only got two who would be any good as guards. Did you see how they had to help most of them down? I don't think this is an army; it's a group of damned refugees. They probably ran away from that camp we hit. When it comes to fighters, I think we have them out numbered."
Oliver whispered, "Should we go get them?"
"Not yet," Faring answered. "Let's wait till just before sunrise. They'll just be waking up and we'll be able to see if they have any nasty surprises for us. Besides, we still need to blow up that door, and that can take care of a bunch of them."
With that, the four fell into their regular sleep-and-watch schedule, the same one they had used for as long as they had been together.
Moving in the Dark
Trying to move quietly with a heavy load went slowly for Tom and his crew. Each carried a bundle, including water, from the camp and the exertion wore them down.
"Let's stop for a rest," Tom said. He stopped and lowered his load to the ground.
The others did the same.
They all dropped to a seated position as if practiced.
"How much further do you think it is?" asked Pedro.
It took a moment for anyone to answer as they all tried to reckon their movements and the location of the Old House Hill.
"I think it is still an hour, maybe two,," said Pedro.
"That's in daylight," said Tom. "With the sun going down, we're going to trip on every root and twig out here."
Juanita added, "They are counting on us to get water to them. Will they be ok?"
"Nancy will see to their needs," said Tom. "She's pretty good at getting things done." That was one of the reasons they all followed Nancy, they could trust that she would figure out a way to accomplish the goal. Tom wished he had that skill, but that wasn't really a thing.
Carlos added, "Yeah, but Nancy would keep going through the dark even if it killed her. She's not one to stop, but none of us are her. If we get hurt or lose our way in the dark, it just makes things worse in the long run."
Pedro nodded in agreement. "What he said."
Juanita had been looking back the way they came. It was still quiet, and night had fallen there earlier than up the hill. "I know we don't have too much farther to go," she said, "but I still feel too close to the camp. I don't like it."
The others turned to look back at the darkness of the valley. Each had their own memories of the things they had seen. It was never going to be a clean place, never again.
Carlos broke their silence, "I think we are far enough from that. The ones left there won't bother anybody. The ones who caused it are long gone, safe at home in their beds."
Tom looked around at the growing dusk. "I think Carlos is right about getting hurt. If any of us gets hurt bad, not only will we not get all this stuff back to the others, but we become a burden. I don't want you guys to have to carry me back and I don't want to die out here in the woods."
"Sounds good to me," said Pedro. "Want to take a vote to make it official?"
Tom held his hand up. "I vote 'rest for the night'."
Juanita held her hand up. "Me too."
Carlos and Pedro held their hands up as well. "It's decided," Carlos said.
They each took a tree to rest against, their packs held close.
Changing of the Guard
Oliver nudged Noah and whispered, "Something's happening."
Noah shuffled to see better.
Near the hole, the two on guard had gathered near the bigger of the two. They reached down to lift two more people out of the hole. All four seemed to chat briefly before the original guards climbed down. One of the new guards took position on the opposite corner of the basement.
Noah whispered, "They changed their guards. That's kind of organized."
"Think we should wake Will?" Oliver asked.
"Nah, we'll tell him when it's his shift. It don't matter right yet."
The brothers went back to their silent vigil.
Daybreak was still hours away.