Thief River Falls Run

Chapter Eight

Blade called a meeting and informed the rest of Bertha’s decision to accompany them. He explained his motives for leaving Thief River Falls before the day was out.

“First, we can’t be positive the Watchers won’t return in sufficient force to give us real trouble. Secondly, the rats might decide we’re too tempting a meal to pass up and attack us en masse. Third, there’s a possibility that whatever jumped me earlier has friends waiting outside to ambush us after dark. Finally, we’re under a time constraint to return to our Family.

I’ve decided we leave before sundown.”

Blade, Hickok, and Joshua were sitting at the table. Bertha was lying on her mattress. Geronimo stood at the door.

“What about Bertha?” Hickok protested. “Is she fit enough to travel?”

“Don’t worry about me none, White Meat,” Bertha chimed in. “I’ll manage.”

“We’ll clear a space in the rear of the SEAL for her,” Blade detailed.

“She’ll be comfortable and safer than she would be in here.”

“What about all of this?” Geronimo pointed at the stack of boxes.

“We load all of that into the SEAL, along with the generator, and transport it to a building on the western edge of town. Put it on the second floor in a room we can seal and protect from the rats. If the Watchers return and find it missing, I doubt they’d take the time to search every abandoned building in Thief River Falls. It would take them weeks.” Blade gazed at each of them. “Any questions? Disagreements? Now’s the time to let me know.”

“I would enjoy moving on,” Joshua said. “This place fills me with vivid memories of violent death.”

“I like it,” Geronimo concurred.

“I reckon it’s okay by me, pard.” Hickok was staring at Bertha.

“Good. Joshua, Geronimo, and I will load the SEAL and hide the provisions. Hickok, you stay here and guard Bertha.” Blade stood.

“Thanks, Blade.” Hickok smiled at his friend and walked over to Bertha.

“Looks like you got me babysitting you for a spell, Black Beauty.”

“Will you burp me too?”

Hickok grinned. “I’ll paddle you if you don’t behave yourself.”

“Yes, mother.”

“Get some rest.”

Bertha closed her eyes. “Funny,” she said in a whisper. “This is the first time in years I’m going to sleep feelin’ safe and protected.”

“Before you doze off,” Hickok mentioned, “would you answer a question?”

“What?”

“Why’re you doing this? Going to the Twin Cities? I thought you’d never go back there.”

Bertha stared at the ceiling. “I just changed my mind, is all.”

“Why?” he pressured her.

“Your friend made me see the light.”

“Blade? What’d he say?”

“Not much.”

“Come on!”

“Really.”

Hickok watched Blade heft a box and carry it outside to the SEAL.

“He’s my best friend, Bertha. If he said something I’m going to regret, I need to know.”

“He just told it like it is.”

“All right,” Hickok said gruffly. “Drop the subject.”

Bertha touched his arm. “Besides, Hickok, you know by now I kind of got a thing for you. You’re the prettiest honky I’ve ever seen.”

Hickok opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind.

“I don’t want to let you out of my sight.” Bertha grinned. “Another woman might come along and steal you away.”

Hickok, uncomfortable, twisted and stared off into the distance. Blast her! Why did she flaunt her affection? Couldn’t she just let events develop naturally? He smiled. The girl sure had a heap of spunk! What was her background like? he wondered. Her description of life in the Twin Cities was terrible! It was amazing she still retained a sense of humor after what she had been through. He thought of the Watchers, grimacing. For what they had done to her, for the indignities and the humiliation and the pain, they would pay! He would see to it personally. Every Watcher he met from this day on would be a dead Watcher shortly after their meeting. Joshua, in a sense, was correct. No one had the right to inflict such abuse on another human being. They would be made to pay. Hickok recalled a portion of the Bible he’d read, something about an eye for an eye. That was his idea of justice. Swift, effective, and personal.

Hickok thought of Joshua. Had Joshua learned anything from the experience of the past two days? Didn’t he know by now that the men and women of the world were drastically different from the Family, that they didn’t cherish the same spiritual and moral values? Hickok felt pity for Joshua. In the confines of the Home, protected by the walls and the Warriors, insulated from the outside world, Joshua could pursue peaceful pastimes, ignoring the grim realities of existence, living love and promoting truth. Now, exposed and vulnerable, Joshua was finding it difficult to cope, to adjust to a system of survival based on a primal urge: kill or be killed. Without the Warriors along, Joshua would have died two days ago. Why had Plato sent him along? What sort of balance could Joshua provide if he bawled his brains out every time they shot an enemy?

It didn’t make much sense to him, but then those highbrows never did. All that thinking warped the brain. Give him a decent, stand-up shootout any old day. His basic instincts had served him in good stead all these years, and if he continued to trust them, to act on them, his chances of surviving were better than Joshua’s would ever be.

Memories of Joan filled his mind, unbidden, disturbing, filling him with feelings of guilt and betrayal. After all, it was only a month or so ago she was killed by the Trolls, and here he was experiencing an attraction toward Bertha, a woman he hardly knew. Was his budding affection for Bertha genuine, or was she catching him on the rebound? Was it Bertha’s personality he liked, or her strength, her toughness, so very reminiscent of Joan?

The sound of the SEAL’s engine turning over shattered his reverie.

Hickok glanced up.

Geronimo was standing in the doorway. All of the confiscated supplies had been loaded on the SEAL.

“We’re taking off to hide the boxes,” Geronimo said. “We shouldn’t be too long. Watch yourself.”

“Piece of cake.”

Geronimo smiled, waved, and ran to the SEAL.

Hickok walked to the door and watched the transport drive off, Blade behind the wheel. They’d need to return for the generator.

Outside, in the bright sunlight, the park appeared tranquil and picturesque.

So what should he do while they were gone?

Hickok gazed at Bertha. She was sleeping, her breathing deep and measured. The poor girl needed her rest. He’d need to be extra quiet to insure he didn’t disturb her slumber.

The Henry was lying on the floor next to her mattress.

Hickok retrieved the long gun and walked outside, squinting in the sun.

He sat down on the outside steps and relaxed, enjoying the warm sensation spreading through his limbs. It was too cool in the concrete building.

Maybe he should explore the area? No. Too risky. It would leave Bertha unprotected, helpless.

So what to do?

Something to his right made a loud scratching noise.

Hickok turned his head, scanning. Just the deserted street and dozens of vacant, worn buildings.

Probably an animal of some sort.

The scratching came again. Sounded like metal on metal.

Hickok warily stood, raising the Henry. What now? One of the things Geronimo had shot earlier?

There it was again!

Hickok moved cautiously along the cracked sidewalk, listening. He didn’t like this one bit. The instinct he relied upon to alert him to danger was acting up, shrieking in his brain.

This time he pinpointed the sound. It was emanating from a frame house half a block away.

Hickok glanced back at the concrete building. No sign of anyone trying to sneak up on him or get inside. Whoever, or whatever, was in front of him, luring him with the noises, wanted him.

Well, they’d sure as blazes get him!

His eyes alertly covering every inch of the surrounding vicinity, Hickok, expecting an ambush at any second, reached the walk leading up to the frame house.

The scratching had ceased.

To be expected.

Hickok moved toward the gaping doorway. There was no sign of a door.

The interior of the house was dark and forbidding. He stopped, debating.

His common sense told him to return to the concrete building and wait for the others to come back.

The soft scraping above him forewarned him, too late, of the attack.

Hickok was bringing the Henry up, his eyes darting toward the opening on the second floor where a window pane had existed at one time.

Blast!

The first attacker had already launched himself from the opening, his body slamming into Hickok’s, and they both went down hard. The Henry rolled off in the grass.

Hickok twisted, bringing his right knee up, savagely driving it into his attacker’s groin area. His assailant, a young man with brown hair and a skimpy beard, gasped and rolled away.

Rising swiftly, Hickok aimed a kick at the man’s head, a kick that never landed.

The second attacker came around the corner of the frame house, running and diving and catching Hickok around the legs with both arms.

Hickok hit the walk, pain searing his left shoulder. He swung his left fist, catching the second assailant on the side of his head, above the ear.

The man grunted and tried to rise to his knees. Hickok drew in his legs and drove them straight out, striking the man in the chest, flinging him aside. He reached for his right Python.

The first attacker was already up, lunging. He grabbed Hickok’s right arm and held it fast. “Get him!” he screamed. “Hurry!”

The second man, a blond with a burly build, scrambled to his feet and moved in. “Hold him!” he urgently directed.

Hickok couldn’t free his right arm. The first attacker was clinging to him for dear life. Out of the corner of his left eye he saw the second assailant close in, and he waited until the man was right on top of him before he acted. He swept his left foot up, catching the man in the shins, causing him to stumble and trip over his own feet. The blond sprawled on the walk, cursing.

“I’m losing my grip!” skimpy beard warned. “Help me!”

Hickok, furious, extended the first two fingers of his left hand, held them rigid, and stabbed them directly into the first attacker’s right eye.

Skimpy beard screeched in agony and released his hold on Hickok’s right arm.

Hickok jumped to his feet, reaching for the right Python again.

“Not this time!” came from the blond.

Hickok spun, the right Colt clearing leather.

Not fast enough.

The blond had grabbed a huge chunk of broken walk, a jagged piece of cement, and flung it with all his strength at the gunman.

Hickok tried to duck, to dodge the projectile, but the heavy cement caught him above his right eye, tearing the flesh, blood pouring out, stunning him momentarily.

The blond, seeing his temporary advantage, closed in. He swung his bony fists twice, pounding the gunman on the chin, staggering him. A final blow to the side of the head brought him down.

The blond stared at the fallen gunman, catching his breath. “Whew! He was one tough son of a bitch!”

“You and your bright ideas, Harry.” The younger man rose to his feet, holding his right hand over his right eye. “The bastard almost took out my eye!”

“If he’d been able to bring those guns into play,” Harry commented, “I have a feeling we wouldn’t be alive right now.”

“But we are,” skimpy beard verified, “and we’ve got to get him back.”

“I don’t know…” Harry hesitated. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

the younger man bitterly demanded. “Catching one of them alive was your idea! Well, we’ve done it. So let’s get this sucker out of here before any more of them show up.”

Harry glanced back down the street, toward the concrete building. “No sign of anyone else. Maybe he was the only one left behind when the others drove off.”

“We can’t take that chance.”

“All right, Pete. I wonder what happened to Joe and the rest.”

“I have an idea,” Pete replied, staring coldly at Hickok.

“Let’s tie him up and get out of here,” Harry suggested.

Pete reached into his pants pockets and removed a length of cord. He knelt and securely tied Hickok’s arms behind his back. “I’ll take these,” he announced, and unbuckled Hickok’s gun belt and strapped it around his own lean waist. He picked up the right Colt and slid it into his holster.

“Then I get the rifle.” Harry spotted the Henry in the tall grass and claimed it as his own.

“This was your idea,” Pete stressed again. “I agree that the general will want to question this man. But I don’t expect this guy to come along peacefully. He’ll make trouble for us, for sure.”

“That will just be too bad for him,” Harry snapped, rubbing his sore chest.

“How do you mean?”

“If this bastard gives us too much trouble,” Harry promised, “I’ll personally blow his brains out.”