After and Again (28 page)

   “This is as far I go, godspeed. I truly believe that good will always prevail in the end,” he let go of Zack’s wrist just when Desmond Trask stepped through The Crack.

  “Well aren’t
I
the lucky one,” he said, pointing the two pistols that he held at the group. He looked briefly at the sentries. “I thought I was going to have to kill them, but it looks like you took care of things.” The footsteps had reached the anteroom and there was distressed voices coming from the doorway, but no one took their eyes from Trask. Suddenly Weston let out a scream of rage, “EEEEYYYYAAAAHHHH!” and ran at Trask, who began firing both pistols. Weston had bent over just before impact and hit the giant man in the groin with his head. Trask overbalanced, dropped one of the pistols and fell backward through The Crack with Weston Presley’s arms around his waist.

  Zack pulled the pin and tossed in the percussion grenade a split second after the two men had disappeared. “The gun, Emily!” he shouted, while reaching for the other tranquilizer grenade. Emily dove for the pistol, grabbed it and wheeled around pointing it at the confused Lenhoans in the doorway. Zack tossed the grenade into The Crack and began counting, “one, two, three….” he reached two hundred and said, “C’mon Emily let’s go.” then, “You’re free, go live your lives.” Not knowing whether the Lenhoans understood him or not, Zack and Emily walked through The Crack.

  Trask was lying on the floor just past The Crack, his feet almost in it. He was covered in a pile of gray dust. There were three other prone men in the room as well. So Weston Presley was telling the truth, he thought to himself. Emily stood over Trask with the pistol aimed at his head. Zack waited; a moment later she dropped the pistol, she was crying softly. “What happened to them Zack?”          

  “Weston is dead,” he answered. “The rest of them are just sleeping I think. He really didn’t explain it that well. Emily, we need to go.” He took Emily by the hand and hurried over to the vault room. The keypad was there, just as described and after Zack pushed the buttons, the door clicked open.

  The two walked inside and Zack couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of guns stacked neatly on metal shelves; rifles, pistols, shotguns like Tal had brought to Auburn, giant things with barrels that Zack could nearly fit his arm in. Some were in sorry shape, rusted, dirty, but others looked as new as the pistol that he had found in the cave. Then he saw his pack; it was sitting in the corner on the floor with the Winchester leaned up against the wall next to it. He walked over and opened the pack, everything was still there- almost everything. “They took my chewing gum,” he said, with a half smile.

  He stood up and decided to stay with what was familiar. He selected a pistol identical to the one that Holly Sanderson had taken from him, and handed it to Emily. He found thirty-thirty ammunition and took three boxes, then found the forty-five ammunition for the pistol and took three of those as well. Then he loaded the thirty-thirty and Emily’s pistol, and divided the ammunition boxes between the two packs after taking out the device that he was to put in the room. “He handed Emily the orange pack that Weston had given him. “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

  “Yes please,” she answered, giving him a wan smile.

  Zack pushed in the lever on the box and turned it to the right. It started making a loud clicking noise and the two looked at each other, alarmed. “Let’s go,” he said, and they left the vault-room, shutting the door behind them.

  It was still dark outside. It seemed to Zack like he had been inside for a long time when really it had only been a couple of hours. Emily said, “What time is it Zack? We were just having dinner.”

  “It’s not quite dawn….maybe three hours yet.” There was no one about and they half-ran to the corral. Zack went over to the gate, about half of the horses were gone. “Grace!” he made clicking noises with his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Grace! C’mon girl!” He heard her chuffing before he saw her; she broke away from the others and trotted over to the gate. “That’s my girl,” he said, reaching in and stoking her neck. He opened the gate and let the mare out, he wondered if he should take another horse for Emily and then discarded the idea. He only had the one saddle, and wasn’t going to go looking around for another here. They could double on Grace until Auburn and then perhaps Buck Peterson might still want to give him the horse that he had offered before.

  The saddle had been right where he left it and he finished loading Grace by sliding the thirty-thirty into the leather scabbard that Toby Martin had given him.

  “Ready?” he asked Emily.

  “Almost,” she answered, then put her arms around his neck and kissed him long and sweetly.

  They rode away southward; a shadow of a question, just out of reach, tugging at Zack’s mind.

24

  Holly Sanderson folded the map and looked at the horizon, then at Kendra and Cassie Goodman. “If we don’t get there today, it’ll be tomorrow for sure.”

  “Well, let’s get a move on then,” Kendra said, “no sense in wasting daylight. C’mon, Cassie, time to go.”

  Tal and Max had stayed at the Mountain Rest Inn and Tavern for five days. On the sixth day Buck Peterson gave him a wagon for the trip back to the Martin ranch, and Andy Gross had supplied them with food. When Buck and Andy had seen them off, Buck had said, “You know that’s quite a boy, yer Zack.”

  “Quite a man, Buck, quite a man.” Tal had responded before urging the two-horse team away.

  They had taken it slow, and it was another four days before they reached the stream where Zack had camped, eaten crayfish and discovered the joy of chewing gum. Tal had stopped for water and was taking a minute to sit and dangle his good foot in the water. Max padded up to him with only a slight limp. “Dang dog, healed up pretty quick didn’t ya?” Max got close, and nuzzled Tal, something that he had never done before. They had become friends, but not in the same way that Zack and Max had. Tal stroked the wolf’s fur and looked at the animal questioningly. Max buried his face in the man’s chest for a moment, then turned and loped off northward into the prairie.

  “You go find ‘im boy, you find ‘im.” Tal said, weeping.