The Day After Never - Retribution (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 4) Read Online Free Page B

than anyone due to his regular trips. They gingerly picked their way along the most perilous stretches as the sun rose and warmed them, the three thousand feet of grade to the lake making the trip easier than the one they’d made yesterday to cross the northern summit pass.
    Terry cried out behind Ruby when his horse misstepped. By the time she twisted around to see, one of his heavy burlap sacks had dropped down the side of the ravine and his horse was regaining its footing. Terry’s face was pale and tight at the near miss – it could just as easily have been him falling a hundred feet onto rocks as sharp as knives.
    “Are you okay?” she asked.
    “I…I think so. But my bag…”
    “What was in it?”
    He looked sheepish. “A bunch of spare odds and ends from my hangar. Parts, mostly.”
    She studied him as Craig retraced his steps to where they were stopped. “Look at the bright side. No more plane, so you won’t need them.”
    He nodded glumly. “I suppose you’re right. Still. A lot of time and work went into sourcing them.”
    “How’s your horse?” Craig called to him.
    Terry swung down from the saddle and inspected the animal’s leg. He looked up and nodded. “Seems fine. He just got one wrong. Happens to the best of us.”
    “You’re lucky you didn’t follow your sack down,” Craig said. “Mount up. Time’s a-wasting.”
    “But I need to get my bag…”
    Craig glanced down the steep slope and shook his head. “Not unless it’s absolutely life-threatening to leave it. We’re on a schedule, and we’re running badly behind.”
    “Just give me a minute.”
    “Terry, that’s going to take more than a minute. More like fifteen, at least, by the time you make it down and hoist it back up, and more like thirty if anything goes wrong. We can’t spare it. Sorry.”
    Craig spurred his horse forward, the discussion at an end. They resumed their plodding along the edge of the ravine, moving more cautiously after the near miss, the prospect of a disastrous plunge fresh in everyone’s minds.
     
    ~ ~ ~
     
    As dawn broke across the alluvial valley, Lucas and Arnold watched the last of the horses loading into the trailers. Sierra sat with Eve nearby, who kept careful watch over Ellie the pig; she’d insisted the animal travel with her instead of with the rest of the livestock, promising to keep an eye on her, and Sierra had reluctantly agreed. It kept her occupied, at any rate. When Duke and Luis returned from the truck at the end of the short column, Luis addressed them.
    “That’s it. We can get rolling,” he announced.
    Lucas had been reassured at the ex-cartel boss’s willingness to lend a hand, but even more by Duke’s gradually warming to him. The trader was a keen judge of character, and he seemed to think that Luis was if not reformed, at least uninterested in resuming his wicked ways now that he was a man of means. It probably didn’t hurt that he’d also seen how precarious his perch as the head of the Locos had been, the gang’s longevity seriously in question once the Crew recovered and moved back into Pecos in earnest.
    “Let’s start them up. We’ll lead the way,” Lucas said. They’d agreed that he, Colt, Sierra, and Eve would ride in the first Humvee, and Duke, Aaron, and Luis in the second, with the cargo areas packed with gear. All the chosen vehicles had been started the night before to verify their batteries would turn over, and the drivers were awaiting the word from Lucas to roll.
    The roar of truck exhausts filled the air as the four horse trailers started their motors, followed closely by the pair of buses carrying the wounded and the rest of the survivors. Lucas twisted the ignition and the Humvee’s engine ground to life. He waved out the window and eased the vehicle in a slow circle, the truck’s oversized tires crunching on the gravel shoulder as the trailers maneuvered to turn around. Five minutes later, the column was traversing the highway back toward