Earthbound (28 page)

We rode back in silence, and when we arrived
I could see the look of relief in Pace’s eyes. He wanted to talk,
of course, but I shut him up quick. It was time to stop talking and
just get some sleep.

Becca settled in to the sleeping bag and
things settled down. I tried to sleep but that wasn’t possible. I’d
blown it with Becca. Both Pace and I have actually. If we ever had
a chance it was now long past over.

I heard another sound. This time laughing.
Becca was cracking herself up over in her sleeping bag. Then the
laughing stopped, and then I heard a soft kinda sobbing. Why do
girls do that sorta thing? Laughing one sec and crying the next.
Never gonna understand that. Never not ever.

“You okay, Becca?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” she replied. But I could tell she
didn’t mean it. She got out of her sleeping bag and walked over
beside me crouching in the corner. She was trying hard not to
cry.

“You’ve got me in this. You and Pace did
this. It’s up to the two of you to get me out. Safely. This is your
responsibility, do you understand me? What you two decide to do to
yourselves is your own choice. Now you are responsible for me. My
life is in your hands, you know that? I can trust you? I can trust
you both?”

She looked up at me with her beautiful brown
eyes, still kinda wet which helped reflect the fire from the fire
pit. In that moment I wanted to make it all better.

“Your life is worth more than my own,” I
said.

Not sure why but that got her crying even
more.

Women.

Somehow I managed to sleep that night after
all, not exactly sure how. Guessing maybe after all that adrenalin
surged through my body I needed to collapse. At any rate, I slept.
We all did. And in the morning, things were kinda different.

First of all, it was very quiet. Not a lot of
chatter. Suited me fine of course. And me and Pace were on best
behavior, doing our best to try to clean up our hideout and get the
stink out of the room. Meanwhile, Becca sat by the fire, not saying
much.

Finally, Becca had something on her mind. “I
appreciate you putting an effort into making this place more
livable.” Pace and I grunted our thanks. “So… can I see it?”

Pace got kinda cocky. “You can see whatever
you want.” I hit Pace kinda hard. Wasn’t the time or place to be
cocky. Guess that’s where the expression cocky comes from. Ha.

“Can I see your gold?” Becca asked.

A fair request. We led Becca to where we hid
the gold. More on that later. And when she saw it, her eyes kinda
widened and her mouth kinda hung open. That was a lot of gold.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my
life,” she gasped.

“Me neither,” Pace said. “It’s ten times more
than I ever saw in the bank.”

“Can I?” Becca asked, reaching out her hand.
We indicated that she should go right ahead. She ran her hands
through the gold. “It’s amazing.”

“Take all you want,” Pace offered.

“No.” Becca pulled her hands out of the gold.
“It’s not mine to take. It’s not yours either, mind you. But it is
amazing.”

Later that day, Becca took time to inventory
our supplies. Her mood was considerably better, that’s for sure.
Almost like she was trying to make herself at home. She announced
that we had maybe two or three days of fresh water. And plenty of
food so long as we did some fishing. But still, we had not taken
into consideration another mouth to feed.

“If you can get me to the outskirts of a
town,” Becca said, “I’ll purchase supplies while you hide out
nearby.”

“That’s a little risky,” I said, “if the
Nuggets have spread word to look out for you.”

“I’m not sure what choice we have,” she
replied. “If we ration between us we can maybe stretch an extra day
or two, but that only postpones the inevitable. And your horses.
They need water and bales of hay.”

She was right of course. Odds were better
with her buying supplies than us.

“Let’s go to Choteau,” Pace suggested.

I didn’t love that idea. About a third of the
way was the same route to Augusta and Conrad. Lots of people could
be looking for us in those parts.

Becca, however, loved that idea. “I’ve always
wanted to go there!”

Choteau was not known for being much of a
settlement, but Freezeout Lake was supposed to be pretty good if
you like that sort of thing. So we resolved that we’d leave the
next morning at dawn for the sixty mile ride.

Meantime we wound up actually having a pretty
nice night. We sat around the fire drinking whiskey, and things
actually felt kinda normal if you know what I mean.

“Do you think you’ll miss working at the
general store?” Pace asked.

Becca laughed pretty hard at that one. “No, I
don’t think so. And what about you, Pace? Miss working at the
bank?”

“I feel like I still do, in a fashion.” We
all laughed at that.

“Still dreaming of going to the stars?” Becca
asked.

“Of course,” Pace replied. “And I kind of
feel like I’m a step closer to that, even if that’s still a long
long ways away.”

That’s bullshit of course. But the more he
drank the more Pace loved to talk about going starbound.
Whatever.

More whiskey.

“Well, Rebecca,” Pace said, “I remember
clearly you dreamed of a life without poverty. Looks like you’re
getting your wish!”

“No!” she said pointedly. “I want a life
without
fear
! It’s not about the
poverty
, it’s about
the
fear
!”

“Oh, I heard that completely wrong.”

“You’re effing things up again,” I muttered
to Pace. Becca shot me a look. I know, language.

“All you’ve done is replace one set of fears
for another,” Becca explained. “Only these fears are probably a lot
more deadly.”

“I’m not seeing anything to be afraid of,”
Pace replied.

“Not even Shādo Shay?” I asked.

“Nope. I don’t see fear. I just see
opportunity.”

More whiskey.

“And what about you, Asher?” Becca asked me.
“Last time I asked, you said you don’t dream.”

I grunted for a second, trying to figure out
what to say. “I reckon I still don’t dream about the future. But I
do like this. Right now.”

That was something we could all drink to.
Then Becca did something that surprised me a little. She reached
out and put an arm around my shoulder and then Pace’s.

“My boys,” she said. “My little bank
robbers.

Becca was pretty excited when we headed out
to Choteau. We took turns with her riding in the saddle behind me,
then Pace. I coulda rode with her the whole time, feeling her arms
wrapped around my waist. But in fairness to Charon it was good to
trade off with Flashbound. Okay, Becca didn’t weigh much and that
wouldn’t make any difference to Charon. I guess it was in fairness
to Pace I suppose.

We crossed the railway bridge, for real this
time. Wished I coulda seen Becca’s expression on her face. I just
heard her gasp a few times. She’d never been this far from home
before. She’d never seen the freeways covered in overgrowth and
moss. These were new plains for her. New mountain ranges. New
abandoned buildings along the side of the road. New air to breathe,
sorta.

“This almost makes life with a couple of
criminals worthwhile,” she said.

The horses ran for a while so we could make
good time. We were hoping to get back to our hideout before
nightfall. But we had to take a detour to check out Freezeout Lake.
Not sure how it got its name, maybe it used to freeze out, I dunno.
Anyway, now that it was the beginning of Spring it wasn’t that cold
mid-day. Nothing was freezing. Didn’t really feel like I needed my
overcoat actually.

About a mile away from the lake you could
hear something. Kinda sounded like birds calling. But it was too
loud, didn’t seem possible. That would be a lot of birds. Well,
sure enough, when we arrived at the lake we saw some birds.
Thousands of birds. Thousands and thousands. Maybe hundreds of
thousands I dunno. They filled up the whole sky, like locusts in
those Bible stories Becca used to read me. And when you’re right up
against them it’s pretty deafening.

“We’re in luck!” Pace shouted. “I was hoping
we’d see this. Around this time every year snow geese visit here
during their migration. It’s incredible!”

Becca was also in awe. It was okay I suppose,
but I was mostly concerned those birds would poop on my hat. We
watched them for maybe an hour anyway. Just swirling in the
sky.

“This is their world now,” Pace said. “We’re
just visiting.”

I had to pull them away from the lake after a
while cause I was getting concerned we’d lose daylight. And a
little less than an hour after that we arrived in Choteau.

The plan was me and Pace would wait outside
the settlement for Becca, but once we were there that didn’t appeal
none to Pace. To me neither.

“Let’s just go to the saloon,” Pace
suggested. “Anyone who suspects we might be the bank robbers, well,
you can cover for us Rebecca. If anyone’s looking for a kidnap
victim, you clearly are here willingly.”

“Mostly willingly,” she replied slyly. “Okay
but at the first sign of trouble we’re out of there.”

It was an okay little settlement I suppose.
Smaller than Great Falls. Not as homey as Augusta. Probably the
least favorite of the ones we’ve seen. But it was easy to spot
their saloon, the only one in town, conveniently located next to
the bank. Becca caught me and Pace kinda drooling while we stared
at that bank.

“No way, boys!”

That bank was the most protected we’d ever
seen. They had three armed gunmen stationed at the front porch.
Wouldn’t have been surprised if those were Shādo Shay’s men. No one
was foolish enough to try to rob that bank. Course Shādo Shay knew
us well enough by now to know we were exactly that foolish.

And it looked tempting.