Sophie Littlefield - Horizon

Cass stood frozen to the spot, searching their faces. “What? What happened?”

Dor guided his horse forward, in between the others. He leaned down and seized her hand, pulling her up as if she was weightless, and she scrambled onto the horse’s heaving, warm back, sliding into the saddle, pressed close against Dor’s body. She caught Smoke’s expression, his hand slowly falling to his side. He saw. He knew.

“They’re coming,” he said numbly. “Renegades, from the East. Like Nadir was telling us. They picked the same settlement Mayhew did.”

“We have to get there first,” Nadir said grimly.

“We’re going to help defend them?”

Dor wrapped his arms around her and spurred his horse into motion.

“There’s no one to help,” he said into her ear, his breath hot on her neck. “The renegades sent a team ahead. They burned the settlement and killed everyone inside.”

THE RENEGADES’ ADVANCE team had actually killed all the settlers but one. As the Edenites scrambled to gather their belongings, Dor summoned Sun-hi to examine the woman Nadir carried on his horse. Sun-hi declared that she would probably live. The blow to the head that had knocked her unconscious had saved her; she’d been dragged to the center of the settlement and piled with the other bodies as the four men who attacked them soon after dawn lined up the people eight at a time and shot them, execution-style.

The woman moaned when Sun-hi probed the wound on her scalp, and winced when she wrapped it in bandages made from a torn shirt. “Janet almost got away,” she said listlessly. “She made it to the trees before they got her.”

Smoke and Nadir stood on the porch of the sturdiest cabin and Smoke whistled for attention. He described the horror that lay up the trail, the mismatched battle they faced.

“I know who these men are,” Nadir said, barely controlling the anger in his voice. “They were trouble back home. There are stories of things they have done, bad things. I do not know who they have convinced to come with them here, if they recruited others like themselves, but we must plan for the worst. They have already killed dozens of innocent people. They will not hesitate to kill more of them.”

“We could turn around,” Smoke said. “We could retreat down the mountain, reach our cars and be safely out of the area by the time these people arrive. We could keep looking for shelter elsewhere…

“But we will not do that.”

He waited a moment for his words to sink in, for everyone to grasp the scenario he painted. Cass knew she was seeing evidence of the talent that had made him such a good coach, his conviction and charisma.

“We will not retreat,” he repeated, and there was silence among the gathering. Everyone was riveted. “If we do not take this settlement for our home, odds are we won’t survive the spring. We’ve lost half our number so far, and conditions here are nearly intolerable for those who aren’t prepared. Yes, we will be living off the hard work of the slaughtered-at first. But I am not afraid to tell you that it is better for us to seize the spoils than for them to fall to murderers.

“Might does not make right, my friends.” Smoke paused again and searched the crowd, making eye contact with each of them. When he got to Cass he lingered for a moment, and the look they exchanged was tinged with a wistful sort of pain that she knew would only be cured by the passage of time.

And then he moved on. “But sometimes, the right can be mighty. We are in the right here. I have not known you long, but I think I have known you well. I’ve fought beside you, grieved with you, and now I have the audacity to hope with you.”

The applause started with a single pair of hands, echoing across the camp. Cass was surprised to see that it was Valerie. She had not returned to her headbands and her tentative smiles. She stood apart in her black clothes and her dark glasses and slick-backed hair, and a scowl so fierce Cass didn’t doubt she was looking forward to a fight.

When the applause died down, Smoke outlined the plan, such as it was. Get there first. Dig in deep. Shoot like hell and hold nothing back.

If the Edenites were disappointed with this bare-bones strategy, they didn’t let on. The procession set out, grim-faced and silent. The Easterners led the horses at the front. Steve and Fat Mike carried Dane and Dirk, and Twyla squeezed into the jogger stroller with Ruthie, Red and Zihna pushing it up the incline. Ingrid strapped Rosie to her chest in a papoose Valerie had rigged from a blanket.

Cass waited to take her place in the procession. People filed past until finally it was just her and Dor. She fell in step next to him, but they’d only gone a few feet when Sammi came racing back down the trail.

She was out of breath, unslinging her backpack and digging around inside it.

“Don’t say anything, Dad, because I don’t want to hear it. Only I thought you should have this.”

Cass knew the taped-together package of plastic bricks and wires was the real thing because of the way Dor’s face went utterly white.

“Where in the name of everything holy did you get this, Sammi?”

Sammi’s face looked like it was going to crumple. “I said don’t-”

“You don’t want to talk about it? That would be fine if you were late coming home from the movies, but this-shit, Sammi, this could have killed us all. There’s enough here to blow up this entire camp.”

“This was Owen’s,” Cass said. “Wasn’t it, Sammi?”

For a second Sammi looked confused, and then her eyes met Cass’s and cleared. Cass had no doubt Sammi had gotten the explosives from Colton, but whatever poor decisions the boy had made in the past, Cass felt that the time for punishing him for them was over.

“Yes,” the girl said shyly.

“But how-” Cass knew it was fear that raised Dor’s voice-not for the dangers ahead, but fear for his daughter, for the fact that she’d been ferrying this terrible load in her backpack. But Sammi would only hear the anger, and the fragile peace between them was not strong enough yet to withstand such a test.

“It’s not the time,” she said, taking Dor’s arm. “Look at me. Please.”

He did. She saw the indigo sparks in his narrowed eyes, the scars that started at his hairline and bisected an eyebrow. The fine lines that had appeared at his eyes and the corners of his mouth.

“Sammi did the right thing,” she said softly. “She was brave, and strong, and you are so lucky to have her.”

“All of that is true, and I wasn’t saying-”

“So thank her.”

Dor frowned at her for a moment, then turned back to his daughter.

“You’re-” He stopped, his voice cracking. “You’re my world, Sammi, I couldn’t stand if anything happened to you. Thank you for bringing this to me.”

“Oh-Dad.” Now she did cry, fat tears rolling down her cheeks and splashing to the ground.

“Go, go. Find your friends, and stay with them. Stay with them, no matter what, Sammi, you promise me?”

“I promise,” she mumbled, and kissed him on the cheek before dashing back up the trail after the others.

“For God’s sake, put that thing away,” Cass said, and she held his pack for him while he settled it into the outermost compartment. Then set it down and grabbed her hand, pulling her close. He circled his arms around her waist, but his touch was not gentle.

“Cass.” His voice was low and rough and he made her name sound like a threat. “You’re…”

He shook his head, and Cass understood that words eluded him, because her own thoughts were in disarray. Declarations of love were not for them. Gentle endearments would never pass between them. There would be no private names, no anniversaries. He would not sing her love songs or write her letters, and she would not be his helpmate, she would never wear his ring.