Connor, playing his part of tough guy and asshole, stepped forward. He lowered his voice intentionally, like some kind of vigilante. “We came to take food and water.”
Heather shifted her pink backpack. She smiled at the woman. “Can you spare some?”
A second woman stepped out, looking wary. She had hovered just behind the other in the darkness of the house, watching and listening. This woman, perhaps a year or two older, wore similar clothes. Her face was gaunt, as if someone had nipped and tucked and tightened her expression over the years. She gave both Connor and Heather a wary look. “We’ve got a little.”
Connor craned his head, squinting to look through the shadows of the doorway. “So where’s the man of the house?”
The good-natured woman piped up, “He’s returning from temple in Salt Lake City.”
The gaunt woman answered simultaneously, “He’s out back.”
Connor snorted, ignoring the obvious lie. Turning to the good-natured woman, he said, “In Utah?” He pronounced it U-taw. “At temple? What are you, Aztecs or something?”
Heather glared at him and muttered, “They’re Mormons, stupid.”
“Mormons?” Connor straightened up and let out a guffaw. “So, these must be the guy’s two wives.” He laughed again.
The gaunt woman snapped, “Shelda’s my sister.”
“Hey,” Connor said looking to Heather with an expression of concentration on his face, “aren’t Mormons supposed to keep a year’s supply of everything? In case of emergencies. They must have plenty to share.”
The gaunt woman eased back toward the house, vanishing into the shadows. Heather knew she was going to go for a hidden weapon. Connor jerked up the shotgun in a frightening, smooth movement and pointed it toward the doorway.
The dog, its protective instincts suddenly ignited, went wild, barking and straining to the edge of its rope.
Connor pointed the shotgun at the animal as if extending a finger at a recalcitrant child and squeezed the trigger. The explosion echoed around the ranch yard and the dog flew backward into the air, its side ripped open by the scatter blast of the shotgun pellets. It tangled two legs into the rope as it somersaulted and lay in a bloodied heap in the dusty yard.
A smothering silence fell. Everyone stood transfixed. The old windmill, finally stirred by a breeze, creaked and turned twice then fell still.
Heather stared at Connor, not knowing what to say. The gun was so loud. This was the first time he had actually fired it, for all the threatening and blustering he had done over the past few days. It smelled foul and sulfurous.
Connor’s face took on a pinched, calculating look. “Maybe we should just stay, Heather. This place has everything we need, and I’m sick of hiking everywhere.” He laughed. “Go on ladies, get your tennis shoes on. You’ve got a lot of walking to do.”
Heather put her hands on her hips, refusing to let him see her fear. “Connor, cut it out!” She grabbed at the shotgun, but he snatched it away, glaring at her.
The moon-faced woman fell to her knees on the porch. She kept staring at the motionless dog bleeding into the dust.
The gaunt woman reappeared, her eyes as wide as coins. She gripped the door frame but she didn’t move a muscle.
Connor spoke to Heather while keeping the shotgun trained on the women. “What’s your problem? We’ve been trudging around this state like scavengers, and these bitches are sitting fat and cushy on a year’s worth of food. It’s our turn! We deserve a bit of convenience for a change. I thought you wanted to get back at the people who stepped all over you your whole life.”
Heather’s words came out quieter than she intended. “These people never did anything to me.”
“Well then let’s get that Al Sysco you keep complaining about.” He dropped the barrel of the shotgun and pointed toward the ladies’ feet. “I can make him dance like in an old cowboy movie. Pow, pow, pow!”
“Right, I want to hike all the way back to Flagstaff just so I can make a pathetic little man squirm. Cool it, Connor, we’ve got better things to do.” She turned to the gaunt woman, the only one capable of doing anything at the moment. “Would you get us some water and some packaged food?” She hesitated. “Please?”
Connor pointed the shotgun at her moon-faced sister. “And don’t try anything!” Heather didn’t like the predatory look in Connor’s eyes. More and more of his real personality was unfolding before her eyes. With a chill she wondered what he might have done to the women if she wasn’t there.
Connor snorted at Heather. “Man, what made you turn boring all of a sudden?”
Minutes later the gaunt woman returned with the supplies. Heather’s heart raced and she tried to slow her breathing. She was afraid the woman might have gone for a rifle of her own, and then things would have gotten messy. But she carried only water and some boxed food. “Here… now please, leave us alone.”
Connor was about to retort, but Heather grabbed his arm and forced him to turn around. “Let’s go,” she said, and they set off back down the dirt driveway.
As they departed, Heather glanced back. The gaunt woman took her sister’s hand and pulled her to her feet. The two of them moved slowly forward to stand in shock over their dead dog.
Chapter 57
“Hey, Spence—visitors!” The words echoed in the still air around the electromagnetic launcher on the slopes of Oscura Peak.
“Who is it?” Spencer asked with a sigh. Even with the isolation of the post-plague world, people still found ways to interrupt his work a dozen times a day. He swore that he would never be the person to bring back the telephone.
Gilbert Hertoya shrugged, his small, compact body silhouetted against the door of the tin-roofed accelerator. “Don’t know, but they’re riding down from the north.”
Spencer put down his wrench and wiped sweat from his forehead. His new beard itched like crazy in the stuffy heat. Pinholes of light punched through the metal siding, but no breeze came at all. Spencer could only stand to work inside the enclosure for half an hour at a time.
He left a jumble of wiring on the concrete floor. For the past few days it was the only work he could do that wouldn’t bring a squawk from his experimentalists. They kidded him and told him to keep away from the delicate refurbished equipment after the water-pump fiasco. Short no unskilled labor, Gilbert Hertoya had cheerfully put him to work laying down relay switches on the EM launcher facility. “If liberal arts students can handle it during the summer, I think you can manage,” Gilbert said.
Spencer emerged from the dim building into the brilliant desert sun; he held up a hand against the glare as he stared down the mountain slope. Gilbert stood on a pile of metal siding to get higher, pointing toward the north. “Looks like five of them.”
Spencer squinted. “All on horseback?”
“Yeah. And they’re not from Alamogordo unless they got lost coming back from Cloudcroft.”
“Too far south. Besides, they’d stick to the mountains if they were lost.” Spencer thought for a moment. “You know, Romero’s been getting some disturbing reports—martial law in Albuquerque, riots in El Paso, a lot of the Indian pueblos killing anyone who comes on their land. We’ve been lucky up here.”
Gilbert gingerly stepped down from the pile of rattling metal. “What should we do?”
“Send out the welcome wagon, what else?”
In the concrete blockhouse at the base of the railgun launcher, Spencer and Gilbert waited in the shade. The travelers arrowed straight for the facility—the five-mile launcher could be seen for miles around.