Sophie Littlefield - Horizon

The horsemen circled the remaining Beaters, cutting them down efficiently. In moments there were no more of them on their feet. One of the horsemen galloped after the ones who’d dragged Brandt away, and a series of shots proved that he’d found them.

Suddenly, there was quiet on the field. The screams of an injured Beater were abruptly cut off when the pickup drove over it, and seconds later, the driver cut the engine. Dor turned to the scattered crowd.

“Everyone, stay together until we’re sure there aren’t any more,” he yelled. A few yards from Cass, Mrs. Prince lay under the Beater that had killed her, her legs sticking out awkwardly. Behind her, the crowd started to draw back together, the silence punctuated with cries and sobs.

Then a new voice rang through the air.

“People! Anyone with an injury of any sort, stand here to my right! Line up single file! Everyone else, stand with four feet between you and the next person! We will come around to check you out. Please, do not fall out of line until you are told to.”

The speaker was the rider of the brown horse, a broad man with red hair and a graying red beard. He wore sunglasses of the sort that were once favored by snowboarders and skiers, his expression inscrutable behind them.

“Who the hell are you?” Dor demanded.

“My name is Damon Mayhew. I’m-we’re-here to help.” He gestured at the other riders, who had spread out along the front edge of the crowd. Now Cass noticed the gear stowed on the horses’ packs, all of it dusty and hard-used. “We saw your flares. We were sheltering a few miles from here, to the northeast, along the river. Took us a little while to break camp but we came as soon as we could.”

“We’re obliged for the help,” Dor said, but there was no mistaking the suspicion in his voice. “But I’ll thank you to let us handle this.”

Mayhew spoke impatiently. “Look, we can hash this out later. Right now we’ve got a real problem and we need to deal with it now. We need to make sure no one was compromised.”

“We?” Dor demanded, his lip curled in contempt. “ We? Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you just get here a few minutes ago?”

Mayhew’s frown deepened, but otherwise he didn’t react to Dor’s challenge. Instead he pointed at the ragtag crowd. “Like I said, there’ll be time for this later. For now, you get one person infected in a group this size, think about how much damage he can do. Not even knowing it, even. What we have to do, anyone who came anywhere near those bastards, they strip and we check them out. No exceptions.”

All eyes were on Dor, who glowered at Mayhew. “None of that’s exactly groundbreaking,” he said. “We have our own procedures.”

Dana stepped forward from the crowd. Only then did Cass realize that she hadn’t seen him anywhere in the fighting, again-again he’d stayed behind in safety with the others, despite the fact that he was armed and carried a weapon with him everywhere on the island, an exception to the council’s own policies.

“I’m in charge here,” Dana said. “Why don’t you and I discuss your proposal, Mayhew. Your men can start this safety check or whatever you want to call it.”

“No.” Dor practically spat the words. “Mayhew’s right about one thing, we don’t have a lot of time. Here’s how we’ll do it. Anyone who’s armed, who was in the fight, we stay away from the others. Tonight or whenever we find shelter, we’ll check then. The fever takes at least that long to turn. But we can do that on our own, Mayhew. These people don’t answer to you.”

“They answer to me. ” Dana’s voice rose, belligerently. “You’re a laborer, Dor, and a, a philanderer . We’re all grateful for your bit in the canoe yesterday, but you’re not a council member. And this isn’t the time to start pretending you are.”

The crowd buzzed, but no one contradicted Dana. Cass knew it was a critical moment, that whoever played the crowd’s fears most skillfully would lead, qualified or not.

“You’re weak, Dana,” Dor said, not bothering to hide his contempt. “You’ll get us all killed. And you- Mayhew -we don’t know you. We don’t know what your agenda is. Why should we trust you?”

Mayhew was implacable behind his dark lenses. “You want to know my agenda? Fine, I’ll lay it out for you. We come from the East. Like, beyond the Rockies, get it? We’re here to help you, but unless we get moving, we’re all screwed.”

He reached for his gun, but Dor was faster, his own out and ready before Mayhew had his out of his holster.

“I’m offering to hand this over to you,” Mayhew said tightly. “Mine and the rest of my men. As a symbol of trust.”

“Dad. Stop it.”

Sammi burst from the edge of the crowd, hugging herself, looking miserable.

“Please, you’re just making it worse,” she pleaded. Her face was flushed with anger and embarrassment, and Cass realized she was ashamed of her father. “Just do what the guy says, okay?”

Everyone looked from Sammi to Mayhew to Dor. Dana opened his mouth to protest but then shut it after it became clear that no one was going to be following his notions.

The resolve seemed to drain from Dor as he watched Sammi, flanked by her silent friends, fade back into the crowd. Dor, who’d taken the front line without a second thought, who was wearing the blood of the creatures that he’d killed, bowed his head and turned away.

The crowd shifted its attention expectantly at Mayhew.

“I promise that tonight, once we find adequate shelter, we’ll share everything we know,” Mayhew said as though Sammi hadn’t spoken. “We’re not here to take over your people. We’re trying to carve out a future for everyone and we’re all in the same boat now that the fever’s gone east. When you hear what we’ve got to say, you can choose who you want to lead you, but you’ll be doing it from a place of knowledge because right now, my friends, I think you’re acting from fear, understandably.”

This man said his words gently, his face sympathetic. But behind his sunglasses, Cass was certain his expression burned with thoughts and plans that he wouldn’t be sharing.

As everyone began to divide into the groups he had asked for, Cass watched Mayhew’s frown curve-ever so slightly-into a smile so brief that Cass wondered if she’d conjured it from her imagination, the spoils of Dor’s defeat.

MAYHEW’S MEN DISMOUNTED their horses; one of them stayed with the animals as the rest moved into the crowd.

“If you were within eight feet of a Beater, go with Bart here,” Mayhew ordered, indicating a tall, broad-built man with ruddy skin and pale hair cut almost to his scalp. “If the person next to you was, see that he goes.”

Those who’d stayed with the crowd separated themselves from those who fought, some sheepish, some defiant. Soon eight people had assembled around Bart: Cass and Dor and five other men and Darla Piehl, who had surprised them all by producing a little.22 from her backpack and hitting a target some thirty feet off.

The examination didn’t take long. They took off their shirts and coats and examined each other’s bare skin, Cass shivering in just her sleeveless undershirt. Fat Mike squinted at an old scratch she’d gotten while pruning, tracing its shape delicately with his finger, then nodded his approval.

“What’s that?” Terrence Godin asked, peering closely at Owen Mason’s shoulder. Everyone looked to see what he was pointing to-a small gash smudged with drying blood.

“Got it when I fell,” Owen said. “I tripped on the first one I put down when I was trying to get close enough to take a shot at the rest.”