“Of course not,” Matt said, and he didn’t. “Still, Candland isn’t too far away and Halloween was almost three weeks ago.”
The teenaged refugee and only other man in the group, who looked a lot like Tom and was probably his son, had led the other refugees along the road to stand close by. At this he interrupted angrily. “Do we look like we’re in any shape to set traveling records? We didn’t know those smaller roads at all and kept getting lost and finding ourselves going the wrong way, forcing us to backtrack or trailblaze. Then a week after we left Highway 31 a storm hit and we were snowed in for days. We lost two people to the cold before the weather cleared enough to travel. We’ve been going slow, gathering firewood and searching for food as we went, and every day we’ve had a bit less strength to put one foot in front of another. It’s a miracle no one else has died since the storm.”
“Take it easy,” Matt said calmly. The kid had claimed the gun Razor’s thug had shot Jane with, a larger caliber bolt action rifle, and Matt had no interest in being shot himself over a temper tantrum. “I believe you, I was just being cautious. We’ve had news of a flu outbreak in the Price refugee camp and want to keep it out of Aspen Hill, that’s all.”
Tom shot his son a stern look. “It’s all right, Alvin.” He turned back to Matt. “I can give you my word we haven’t been through Price. We came to Sanpete through Nephi along I-15, making our way east to Ephraim. They’d set up a refugee camp at the college there, but the situation wasn’t good. They had no supplies and some of our people were attacked, so we decided to move on. South didn’t seem like an option, neither did north or west, so we made our way up to Fairview and tried 31. Folks in Fairview warned us the mountains would be dangerous and the land was drier and more barren to the east of them, but we didn’t see much choice. Now we’re here, and that’s everywhere we’ve been since the Gulf refineries attack.”
Matt nodded. “Now you’re here. We’ll find you shelter, and you’ll have the opportunity to join our hunting parties and forage for anything you can find. I’m afraid the town doesn’t have much to offer in the way of food, but we have weapons you can borrow for hunting and we’ll do whatever else we can to help.”
“What about Jane?” the older man demanded. “She could hunt, but she’s in no condition to fend for herself now!”
Matt hesitated. “You took down a threat to the town,” he offered, “that deserves something. We’ll do our best to take care of her until she can get back on her feet.” Glancing over his shoulder he saw Terry and half a dozen men coming down the hill towards them, Rick in the lead. “Good, our doctor’s here.”
To Matt’s relief after a quick inspection Terry reported that Jane’s wound wasn’t life threatening. Although serious, it probably wouldn’t have caused her to pass out so quickly either if the blood loss hadn’t come on top of exhaustion and hunger. Terry taped the two holes with patches until he could get her back to the storehouse, then had Matt help him lift her onto one of the four stretchers his group had brought with him.
It was slow going, with Jane on a stretcher and the ten other emaciated refugees having trouble putting one foot in front of the other, but they finally reached the storehouse and set Jane on the cot set aside for surgeries while Terry got to work on her. It was a simple procedure, he was quick to assure Tom when the older man worriedly questioned him, but he needed to concentrate and also keep the area as sterile as possible so he closed curtains around himself and April as they worked.
Sam had been waiting at the storehouse, and as soon as Matt set the redheaded woman down and backed away to let Terry work she threw her arms around him. Then, to his embarrassment, she insisted on checking his leg to make sure the cut hadn’t reopened. It hadn’t, thankfully, although it had seeped a little and needed to be cleaned and bandaged again.
Catherine was also there when they arrived, and while Sam worked on his leg she stood beside his cot to have him go over what had happened. The Mayor had already formally welcomed the new group and offered them cots to rest on, and although there wasn’t much to spare she announced that they’d already contributed to the town by taking out four of Razor’s thugs and insisted they each be given a bowl of soup.
It was humble fare, made by boiling bones, a few root vegetables, and a pile of other edible plant matter that needed softening with some herbs and spices to try to mask the somewhat bitter taste. The bones had then been cracked open and the marrow inside scraped out and added to the broth: they couldn’t afford to waste anything they could possibly eat at this point. Matt wasn’t a particular fan of the soup, but the refugees made no complaints as they ravenously emptied their bowls.
The Mayor insisted Matt and the others who’d gone out to the canyon, as well as Sam, all have a bowl too, so they settled in for a meal. While they were eating Ben came in to introduce himself to the new arrivals, starting a discussion with Catherine and Tom about finding them a place to stay.
Over the meal Matt overheard the new arrivals talking again about the near robbery along Highway 31 on Halloween, and out of curiosity asked a few questions about it. He pretty quickly came to the conclusion that it wasn’t likely Razor’s gang had been the perpetrators, but what surprised him was that he recognized the stretch of highway they described where the ambush had been planned.
It wasn’t far from Lewis and Trev’s hideout, and he couldn’t help but wonder if one or both of his friends were the “Spirit of Huntington River” that the refugees had taken to calling their benefactor. When they mentioned that whoever had taken out the bandits might have been wounded in the fight Matt became even more concerned for his friends. Hopefully they were all right.
Another thing he learned was that Jane’s dad had been killed by those same bandits a few days before the attempted ambush, and she had taken over leading the group even while grieving his death. If Matt hadn’t had reason to respect her after seeing how she’d protected her group at the mouth of the canyon, he certainly would’ve started after hearing how the refugees talked about her.
He hoped she pulled through.
To his relief just after he finished his meal there was a commotion behind the curtains where Terry was working on Jane, suggesting that the redheaded woman was awake and still had some fighting spirit left in her. A few moments later April emerged. “She insisted on talking to you, Matt.”
With a glance at Catherine, who nodded, Matt followed his sister back into the impromptu operating room.
Jane was propped up on the cot, one that had been designed to allow for reclining, with her shoulder bandaged and her arm bound to her chest in a sling. “What’s going on?” she demanded.
Matt came to stand beside her. “We brought you to Aspen Hill. There’s a bowl of soup waiting for you, and you’re welcome to rest here until you’re strong enough to join your group in whatever lodgings we find for them. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to find you a house you can have to yourselves, but we should be able to find enough people willing to take in one or two of you to accommodate the group. Ben, the refugees’ informal leader, has been doing a good job—”
Jane shook her head and cut in firmly. “No. We’ll camp out if we have to but we’re not splitting up. And we’re not staying with refugees, either.”
Matt supposed he couldn’t completely blame her for her suspicion. “The refugees have become regular citizens since moving into town. You’ll be safe with them, I promise.”