The Kalispell Run

Chapter Three

Sherry woke up with the sun high in the sky, a light breeze on her face, and birds singing in nearby trees. The September air was warm. She remembered the events of the night before and sat upright, fearing the gunman had abandoned her.

He was still there.

Hickok was by the fire, sitting up, his arms resting on the barrel of his rifle, the butt on the ground between his legs. His head hung low, his chin on his chest, asleep.

So he hadn’t left her to fend for herself! Delighted, she went to rise, her right hand scraping against a small rock.

Instantly, the gunman reacted, coming awake, sweeping the rifle up, searching for the source of the sound. His keen blue eyes fell on her.

“Oh. It’s just you,” Hickok grumbled, lowering his Navy Arms Henry Carbine, a reproduction of the original Henry used by pioneers in early America. Kurt Carpenter had stocked the Family armory with hundreds of firearms, the appropriate ammunition, other assorted weapons, and even a shop for reloading cartridges, repairing defective guns, and sharpening blades. The other Warriors could use whatever firearms they wanted, but the Colt Pythons and the Henry were Hickok’s by virtue of his supreme skill with both, and his attachment to them bordered on the extreme.

“Thanks a lot,” Sherry quipped. “You sure know how to make a girl feel flattered.”

“Sorry I drifted off,” Hickok apologized, standing and stretching.

“No need,” Sherry said, following his example.

“Yes, there is,” he stated seriously. “I’m trained not to fall asleep on the job. This is the first time I’ve ever done it. I hadn’t slept for two days, but that’s no excuse.”

“It’s good enough for me,” Sherry stated.

“We could have been killed because of my laziness,” Hickok remarked.

“It won’t happen again,” he vowed.

“What are you plans?” Sherry asked him.

“Are you hungry?” Hickok responded.

“My stomach is growling loud enough to wake up the dead,” she replied.

“Here.” Hickok reached behind him and unfastened the flap on a leather pouch attached to the rear of his belt. He gripped a strip of dried meat and tossed it to her.

Sherry caught the meat and raised it to her nose. The aroma was incredibly appetizing. “What is it?”

“Smoked venison jerky,” Hickok informed her. “It’s all you’ll get until I can take the time to kill some game.”

“It will suffice,” she said, biting into the tough jerky.

Hickok walked over and retrieved the Glenfield. He knelt and probed the dead Troll’s tunic until he found a handful of bullets in a makeshift pocket.

“What are you doing?” Sherry inquired, savoring the tangy taste of the venison, her mouth watering.

“You know how to handle this?” Hickok waved the Glenfield at her.

“I can shoot,” she told him.

“Good. It’s yours.” He handed the rifle to her and looked her up and down. Her dirty yellow blouse was torn in a dozen spots, and one of the short sleeves was missing. The faded jeans on her legs were in slightly better shape. “Are those pockets in one piece, ma’am?” Hickok asked her.

“Ma’am?” Sherry repeated, her mouth full of jerky.

“Are those pockets in one piece?” he demanded again.

“These?” She glanced down. “One of them is. The one on the left has a big hole in it, but the other one is…”

“Fine,” he interrupted, shoving the bullets at her. “You’ll need these to go with the rifle.”

Sherry leaned the Glenfield against her right leg and took the bullets.

Hickok turned and began walking in an easterly direction.

“Wait a minute!” Sherry stuffed the bullets in her pocket and hastily caught up with him. “What’s the rush?”

“While you were with those Trolls,” Hickok ignored her query, “did you see anything of a guy dressed in black, totin’ a six-shooter?”

“A what?”

“A revolver strapped to his right hip,” Hickok replied, a bit impatiently.

“To be specific, an Abilene Single Action in .44 Magnum. He’s not much more than a kid, actually. Just turned sixteen.”

“I haven’t seen anyone answering your description,” Sherry stated. “I’ve only seen one other person since the Trolls caught me, and he was a pitiful little man they tortured and killed. Kind of fitting, in a way.”

“Why is that?” Hickok asked, still marching east. They were at the eastern edge of the town of Fox, the former Troll headquarters. The forest loomed ahead.

“The Trolls gouged his eyes out with a spear.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. The one you shot last did all the gouging.”

Hickok nodded. “Fits.”

“Fits?”

“I have a friend named Joshua,” Hickok said. “He would call it the design of cosmic justice.”

“Sounds like your friend is the brainy type,” Sherry commented, taking another bite of the delicious venison.

“Where you from?” Hickok inquired, glancing at her face, amused at the sight of her full cheeks and mouth chewing furiously.

“Sundown.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Sundown,” she said again. “It’s in Canada, just across the border from Minnesota. Dinky little place. Has a few dozen still living there. The Trolls caught me when I stepped out of my cabin to enjoy an evening stroll.”

“Didn’t the folks in Sundown evacuate to a larger city when the nuclear war broke out?” Hickok asked.

“Some did,” she said, shrugging, “and some didn’t. We heard horrible tales from our parents and our grandparents. There was a critical shortage of the necessities, of food and clothing and the like, right after the war. Governments collapsed. Our grandparents said they even heard reports of cannibalism from Winnipeg. Cannibalism! How terrible!”

“Winnipeg?” Hickok repeated, displaying his ignorance of Canadian geography.

“Winnipeg is the nearest major city to Sundown. No one has ventured there in years and years,” Sherry’ explained.

“You got a family in Sundown?” Hickok questioned her.

“My mother and father.” She smiled at the memory.

“No husband?”

“No.” Sherry shook her head.

“Really?”

“You sound surprised,” she said, amused.

“I am. How do you folks get by?”

“Oh, we grow a lot. We have livestock. Except for the damn Trolls, no one has bothered us in a long time. Guess Sundown is so far out in the middle of nowhere, no one knows we’re there.”

“You eager to get home?” Hickok asked.

They reached the forest, the tall trees and the dense underbrush confronting them with a dark wall of vegetation.

“It looks foreboding in there,” Sherry remarked.

“It’s your imagination,” Hickok stated, and led the way along a worn trail. “The Trolls must have used this regularly. We’ll follow it and see where we end up.”

“What makes you think the Trolls came this way?”

Hickok knelt and pointed at the bare ground. “Look at all the scuff marks and heel prints. I have a friend named Geronimo, the best tracker there is, and if he were here right now he could tell you how many people had passed this way, how long ago it was, and even if they were right- or left-handed.”

“You’re kidding,” Sherry commented.

“I’m telling the truth,” Hickok said. “A competent tracker can determine from the depth of the imprint whether a person is right or left-handed. If a person is right-handed, the right heel digs in a bit deeper than the left. Or the other way around. Well, I’m not that good. But I am skilled enough to know a lot of Trolls passed this way some time back. I suspect the lousy varmints came this way when they moseyed out of Fox.”

“Has anyone ever told you,” Sherry noted, “that you talk funny sometimes?”

“You’re kidding!” Hickok smiled.

“Why?” Sherry asked him.

Hickok rose and continued deeper into the woods. “I reckon it’s because I like the Old West so much.”

“The what?”

“The western frontier of America in the days of the gunfighters, the sheriffs, and the outlaws,” Hickok answered.

“Never heard of it,” Sherry admitted.

“You have a good vocabulary,” Hickok observed. “You must be able to read.”

“My parents taught me,” she confided. “We have several hundred books, but none on this Old West.”

“Too bad,” Hickok stated. “We have a library where I come from, and it’s filled with hundreds of thousands of books. Books on every conceivable subject. My favorites were always the westerns, and in particular any book on the life of James Butler Hickok.”

“Who was he?” Sherry pushed a slim branch out of her path.

“One of the greatest Americans who ever lived. As a tribute to him, I took his name at my Naming.”

“Your what?”

“My Naming. When we turn sixteen we’re permitted to pick the name we want to be known by,” Hickok told her.

“You’re kidding!”

Hickok glanced over his left shoulder, frowning. “No. The man who built the place where I’m from wanted us to remember the past, to keep in touch with our historical roots, as he put it in his diary. So we’re told to go through the history books, or any of the others for that matter, and select whatever name we like. It’s as simple as that.”

“Where are you from?” Sherry inquired.

“Somewhere,” was his cryptic response.

“I told you where I’m from,” she pointed out.

“Thank you.”

“And you’re not going to let me know where you’re from?”

“I reckon not.”

“Why?” Sherry asked, an edge to her tone. “Don’t you trust me.”

“Nope,” he replied frankly.

“Why not?”

Hickok paused and stared into her eyes. “Trust is like love. You must earn it. Only an idiot trusts blindly.”

Sherry followed on his heels as he resumed their trek. He certainly was a strange one. But then, all men were a bit on the weird side. Must be a quirk in their genes. She gazed at the trees overhead, watching a squirrel scamper from limb to limb. Funny, how she sensed she could trust this one right off the bat. There was something about him, a quality of confidence he tended to inspire in others. What was this “score” business?

The chip on his shoulder must weigh tons!

The squirrel suddenly chattered like crazy and darted to the north.

Sherry detected a movement in the branches of a large tree ahead. The branches hung directly above the trail they were on. Was it the wind?

Hickok was strolling nonchalantly along the dirt trail, his Henry cradled in his arms.

Why should she worry? If Hickok wasn’t concerned, if he didn’t see anything wrong, then there probably wasn’t. He gave the impression of being a proficient fighter. Surely his senses would alert him if anything were amiss?

Those branches moved again, sagging unnaturally, as if a great weight were on them, concealed by the leaves.

Should she say something? Sherry tensed as they neared the tree, her eyes focused on those lower branches. Maybe she should tell…

The leaves abruptly parted, and a hulking form hurtled from concealment, leaping at the gunman seven feet away.

“Hickok!” Sherry shouted, frozen in her tracks. “Lookout!”