Chapter 13

One brisk late afternoon found them a ways down the mountain, to the West. Unexplored territory. They hadn’t really found much, not even wild game. They came out of a treeline into a wide clearing, and Girl grabbed his sleeve and yanked him down into the tall grass before he knew what was happening. “People.” She said, motioning ahead of them. Shit. The dogs, Fang and Bear, even hunkered down, realizing something was up. He slowly raised up, and saw, sure enough, people. A whole shitload of people. Maybe two hundred feet in front of them, headed away from them, at least.

“Those guys are tied up,” she whispered to him, and he raised again, trying to see, wishing he had binoculars or something. It was just too far away.

“What do you mean, tied?” he said, his voice low.

“There are seven people,” she explained patiently. “The four in the middle were tied together. By the neck and hands, I think.”

Tied? What the hell was that about? He slowly stood. The people were out of sight by now, deeper into the woods.

“Clipper,” Girl grasped him by the arm. She pulled him to face her. “Clip. One of the boys. I know one of the boys. I’m related to him, kind of ... I’m sure it’s him...”

She could see that far away? She could recognize somebody from behind as they walked away? Jeezus, he didn’t want to doubt her, but that was pretty sketchy...

“Girl. What do you want to do? Go home or follow them?” He actually wanted to go home, but he would do what she wanted. If this really was one of her people he didn’t want her to feel like he’d turned his back. He didn’t really want to get involved in this, though. Not outnumbered by one bad guy. He did have the AK, at least, with a full clip. And Girl had the .45, with six rounds in it. It would have to do, if that’s what she decided.

“Clipper,” she whispered. “We have to. If it’s really Dylan, we have to.”

Shit. They had to. Okay. He started out in the direction the crowd had taken. She followed. He shouldered the bow, and checked that the AK was ready for action. He checked the automatic, and handed it back to Girl. She slid it into her waistband, and tucked her shirt in behind it, where it was exposed and easy to grab. He saw her do the same with her knives. God, he thought, losing focus for a moment. She looked sexier than hell to him, with her shirt tucked into her knife belt, and her long dark hair blowing back in the breeze. The expression on her face was serious. She looked like a bad-ass, he thought. She looked like someone who should definitely not be fucked with. He wanted to stop the chase for a few hours and nail her ass to the ground, right then and there, but he couldn’t. He made sure the ridge of his thumb was on the safety of the AK, and they moved forward.

They tried to be as silent as they could although they were hundreds of feet back. Clipper caught a glimpse of someone through the trees and they pulled back even further. After a few hours of trekking through the brush the group of people stopped. Clipper and Girl stopped immediately when they realized things had stopped. It was late evening, and pretty dark already. He wondered if the people had stopped for the night. He badly wanted to be back in his cabin, the door barred.

They closed in a little, relying on trees and the dark for cover. Girl unnecessarily quietly shushed the dogs several times, but the dogs seemed to implicitly understand that stealth was the order of the day. Finally, they could barely make out an occasional figure, moving around, doing stuff. He smelled wood smoke and realized that someone had built a fire. They were settling in for the night it looked like. He tried to see the prisoners, if prisoners they were, but he just couldn’t make out anything. Girl, even with her superior eyesight, couldn’t tell him anything.

They pulled back a few hundred yards, and held a hurried conference. Clipper knew the folks were bedding down for the night. He knew they’d be here for a while. About all he and Girl could do is wait out the night. A night attack would be crazy and full of chaos, he thought. Gunfights in the dark were not a good thing. He’d be lucky not to shoot the prisoners or Girl, if shooting started.

He decided, now that it was good and dark, to spy on the captors a little. They crept forward, being as quiet and unobtrusive as they could. Finally, maybe a hundred yards from the fire, Clipper dropped to his hands and knees and motioned Girl to do the same. They slowly painstakingly drew closer. It was hard for him, he had to carry the AK, and limp along on one hand, with the AK in his other. He didn’t want it on his back, he wanted to be able to use it in a hurry, if he had to. Girl had the pistol, and crawling with it was easier for her. The dogs, at least, stayed behind her.

Clipper realized they were just ten or fifteen yards from the fire. He jumped slightly as a man spoke, and he could plainly hear and understand what he said.

“I don’t care what Elvis says. The law is on this mountain, too.”

Another man spoke. “Big shit. From here we just gotta go straight downhill. We got it made, when we hook back up with Darnell and his crew. We got a few goobers for them. They’ll know we can pull it off, now.”

“Fuck you,” the first man said. “Fuck you with a stick. We ain’t off this hill yet.”

There was silence for a few minutes.

“That boy gonna make trouble tonight?” That was a new voice. The third one.

“I don’t think so. I told him I’d poke an eye out if he fucked with us again. An’ he knows we’re serious, after that shit he tried last night.”

“Yeah.”

There was silence for twenty minutes. The fire burned lower and lower. Clipper wondered if they were going to simply go to sleep at some point. He figured they’d leave a guard awake, they had the manpower to stagger a guard rotation. He would do that, at least.

He drew Girl back a few dozen yards, and they found a light brush pile to hide in. He slowly, carefully, over the space of five minutes, whispered his plan to her. It wasn’t much of a plan. She nodded, in the dim light. They lay back, in each others arms, and waited for morning. Clipper didn’t worry too much about going to sleep, he was too keyed up to sleep. The dogs came in close, and kept them warm, at least. And, the dogs would let them know if anyone came close.

The hours crept by slowly. This would be horrible, he thought, if I weren’t holding a pretty girl in my arms. He could tell at last that she was sleeping from her even breathing, but he never went to sleep, he was too keyed up. The Eastern sky began to brighten. He knew morning wasn’t far away. He sat up, and then carefully stood, his joints creaking. Laying on the ground in cool weather was hard on an old man, he thought. Girl jumped up quickly and quietly, and seemed ready for anything. He envied her youth.

They moved over a little, to put a few large trees in between themselves and the camp. They waited a little longer. Clipper’s plan was simple. He was just going to go in, put the guns on the bad guys, and walk away with the prisoners. He’d shoot the bad guys, if he had to. He had no idea if they were armed, or not. He didn’t know of any other way, the prisoners had been right in the middle of the captors, last night. If the prisoners had been on the ground a few dozen feet or more away, he might have tried to sneak up and free them. But they hadn’t been. He hoped that superior firepower and a couple of bad-ass dogs would tip the scales to their favor. He knew that guns weren’t that common anymore. He hoped that all three of the men were lightly armed.

He seized Girl, and pressed his lips to hers. They stood and kissed, and kissed again. “Stay behind me,” he ordered her quietly, hoping to shield her if things got out of hand. He carefully slid the slide back half an inch on the AK to make sure a round was in the chamber. He’d only ever fired the gun once, well, he’d let Girl fire it once, and he knew it functioned. He made sure that Girl had the .45 in her hand, pointing away from him and cocked. They turned towards the fire. The dogs were at his feet, as he moved slowly forwards.

Shit. When they came out into the clearing, only two men were standing. Where the hell is the other motherfucker? He thought. Shit, shit. Something snapped under Girl’s foot, and the two men turned, surprise evident on their faces. Clipper could see Girl’s arm alongside his head, holding the automatic on the men. He had the AK on them. The men wisely froze, one of them opening his mouth like he wanted to say something. About that time, the prisoners figured out something was going on, and three of the four of them began babbling and shouting. Shit, it was chaos, thought Clipper. And he still didn’t know where the other guy was.

He said, “shut up!” as loud as he could, and was rewarded with silence. The two men seemed to be smarter than they looked, and they were slowly lifting their arms into the air.

“What the fuck was all ... that ... about...” The third guy said, suddenly appearing from behind his two buddies while zipping up his pants. What a time to take a leak, thought Clipper. What the hell. It’s morning. Everybody pees in the morning. He should have thought of that and scouted more thoroughly. The third guy just stood there, blinking and staring in surprise.

“Get your fucking hands up!” Clipper yelled at the man. He plainly saw a revolver in the man’s belt, and the guy suddenly jerked his whole body and made a grab for his gun. Clipper squeezed the trigger of the AK, flinching as Girl’s .45 went off a thousandth of a second earlier just a foot from his face. Jeezus, I have to teach her better team shooting skills he thought. The guy had flipped over backwards as the two slugs smashed into him. The other two guys hunkered down, and there was a shocked silence, and then the prisoners started up again.

“Shut up!” yelled Clipper again. Dead silence once more, except for his ears which were ringing from the gunshot. A dog growled at his feet.

“Girl. Cut them loose. Your kin first.”

She slowly lowered her pistol and dropped the hammer. She stuffed it into her waistband and went off to the side out of his field of vision, where the prisoners were. Clipper still felt a little danger, he didn’t know if the prisoners represented any threat to her. He crab-walked to the side, and got behind the prisoners, his gun never leaving the two bad guys. Well, who he thought of as bad guys at the moment.

He heard Girl speak, and then the boy said something. It sounded like he said, “Okay.” He heard a dog growling again softly from off to his left, and he knew that one of the dogs was with Girl. Good, he thought.

“Wait.” Clipper said. “Girl. Give me your gun.” He didn’t want anybody grabbing it from her belt and using it on her. She came back and handed it to him without comment, a knife in her hand. He hoped she could take care of herself. His eyes never left the former captors. The two men looked more and more nervous. He realized that they would also get more and more desperate as they realized their plight. He tried to be ready for anything.

“Girl. Send one of those kids to me. The big guy.” he said, and immediately the boy moved into his field of view.

“Yeah?” the kid said. Clipper motioned to the two men. “Go around behind them, and search them. Under their arms, and between their legs. Squeeze their balls, even. Make sure they don’t have no guns or knives on them.”