Ahern, Jerry - The Quest

He fired. Some of the dogs were now starting to run, but they were rabid and he had to stop them. The third dog took two rounds as it leaped toward him, two rounds before it fell. He shot his fifth round into the fourth dog, dropping it. The last two weren’t interested in him anymore and were running. Rourke dropped to his right knee, fired his sixth round at the fifth dog, then, both hands bracing the Metalifed Colt auto, he fired his last round—the last of the fleeing dogs bounded on a few yards, then keeled over in mid-stride.

Rourke stood up and breathed hard. Swapping magazines, he thumbed down the slide stop and left the safety off as he walked from animal to animal, verifying they were dead.

He holstered the gun, having upped the safety, then looked back at the half-eaten skeleton in the car. He knew now what had half-eaten it.

He found rags and made a torch, lit them from the licking flames of the gas station office and tossed the rags into the car seat to dispose of the dead man. The rabid dogs should be burned or buried to prevent the spread of infection, he thought. Cursing softly, he went back to the Harley, got his gloves and his trench shovel and started up the shoulder of the road, looking for a soft spot.

Digging the grave and hauling the six dead animals had consumed forty-five minutes, he noted, as he wiped off the blade of the trench shovel and strapped it with his pack on the back of the bike. “Dammit,” Rourke muttered half-aloud. He stowed the gloves in his pack and remounted his cycle. He had not wasted the time spent digging the mass grave for the rabid animals. He turned the Harley down the road leading from the Interstate. The fire had probably been set—that meant brigands, and Rourke wanted an idea of their strength. He started up toward the mountains again.

When Rourke stopped once more, his watch and the sunlight agreed—it was approximately three o’clock: the wind was stronger and the temperature getting cooler. He had left the highway—a two-lane road—and turned off onto dirt and followed this along toward a valley. Lying on his belly, he stared into the valley now, his eyes tight against the binoculars, the objective lenses sweeping the town in the valley floor. There was one main street, and at its end by the edge of the town was a large, wide grave. For two people, he thought. In the town, standing around a long abandoned pickup truck were more than a dozen men and women, their vehicles parked at the opposite end of the street—an assortment of pickup trucks, several motorcycles of varying quality and one badly damaged station wagon.

More of the brigands waited by the vehicles: Rourke guessed there were thirty of them in the valley all told. He edged along the lip of the valley, getting back into tree cover to avoid detection; he was concerned they might have someone exploring the rim of the valley.

Still able to see into the town, though his field of view was reduced, Rourke waited for more than fifteen minutes, observing through the Bushnells— finally, the knot of brigand men and women broke up around the abandoned pickup truck and they started back toward the vehicles and the rest of their number back at the other side of the town. Rourke didn’t smile. He planned to slip down into the town; the large grave bore investigation, he thought.

It was another ten minutes before the last of the brigand vehicles disappeared in the distance, then Rourke waited another five minutes. Patience was something he knew he could never sacrifice. Swinging the CAR-15 into position—slung now just under his right arm suspended from his right shoulder—the chamber still loaded, the safety on, he slipped down along the side of the valley, past pine trees, guiding around through bushes. He skidded the last few feet to the valley floor on the dirt and gravel, dropping into a low crouch, the muzzle of the CAR-15 sweeping from one side of the street to the other. Standing—the safety off, his finger near the trigger—he edged forward, the scoped rifle’s stock collapsed, his left hand free.

Spent cartridge casings littered the ground and where there was dirt rather than paving, the cartridges were half buried. From the corrosion and the depth to which the cartridges were covered with dirt, he judged there had been a large scale, prolonged gunfight there—but several weeks earlier. There were picked clean bones in the street, some of the skeletons still partially clad with rotting clothing, but all this with rips and tears. He stopped at one body, looking through the shredded shirt and the bare bleached rib cage. There was a tarnished police badge on the ground. Rourke looked at the empty eye sockets in the skull. The skull was punctured by what Rourke judged as .45 ACP Slugs. The man had apparently died doing his duty trying to defend his town. Rourke scanned the ground, found a half-fallen-down wooden sign, ripped it down the rest of the way, and dragged it back, laying it over the top half of the dead police officer. He kept walking. There were more cartridge cases, some plastic shot-shell cases, a rusted and bent-out-of-shape magazine for some pistol he couldn’t immediately identify.

He walked back through the town then, going up to the grave, which was unmarked. He wondered, debating whether to go back up to the bike and get his shovel. He started to turn toward the near side of the valley, to climb back toward where he’d hidden the bike, but stopped. There were motors rumbling in the distance and he saw the grille of a pickup truck turning down the street into the town. Rourke ran, his lips drawn back from his teeth, toward the closest edge of the valley. He half dove into the brush, then dropped: the brigands were returning. He couldn’t afford to be trapped in the valley. He started up the slope. His bike was in the other direction, but he could circle to get it. Rourke reached the rim of the valley, sinking to the ground from the uphill deadrun.

The brigands were returning in force. He mentally noted to return and check the gravesite later. He started off through the brush again, circling wide along the rim of the valley toward the Harley. He heard a noise, dropped into a crouch near some bushes and waited. The noise did not repeat itself, and he dismissed it, but stared at the ground.

He took the bayonet from his belt—the Bowie knife was in his pack—and scratched at the ground with the tip of the blade. It was a foil packet from some of the food similar to what he had left for Sarah, buried but partially uncovered. Some animal had probably scented it, begun to dig it out then, but been frightened off. In the corner of the package was a black ink date stamp—he stamped all his food with the date of acquisition.

“Sarah,” he thought, muttering the name out loud. He moved along the ground on his hands and knees, searching for some further clue he hoped to find. He stopped again. More of the food packages—and a footprint. He dropped back on his haunches, leaned against a tree trunk, and his face broadened with a smile. “Annie,” he sighed. He took off the sunglasses and stared at the footprint, faint but clear. With the tip of the bayonet blade he deepened the lines of the footprint—a child’s tennis shoe with a design in the center. He remembered when he’d been with Sarah and the children prior to leaving for Canada, a few days before the night of the war. Annie had proudly made him look at the soles of her new tennis shoes: there was a daisy, a raised yellow daisy in the center of each sole. As he scratched the ground with the point of the bayonet, he drew out the design of a flower— a daisy. “Annie!” He walked the area, uncaring about the brigands in the valley below. There were the remains of several fires, branches to which he could tell horses had been tied. They had camped there, were traveling by horseback and, from the branch markings, he judged, there were three or four horses—Tildie, Sarah’s mare and Sam, his own horse—and at least one, possibly two other horses. He sat down on the ground. The Jenkins family had lived nearby, he remembered suddenly; they rode. Mr. Jenkins—Rourke couldn’t remember his first name—had been in the Army or Marine Corps, Rourke couldn’t remember which. A retired non-com, Rourke recalled. If Sarah and the children were with Jenkins and his wife—didn’t they have a daughter, he tried remembering?