The Quest

Chapter 11

Sarah Rourke had kept the children riding after darkness had fallen—something she rarely did but the man at the farm hardened against brigand attack had not only known Millie Jenkins’s Aunt Mary, but also known that brigand activity in the area was so intense that any stray traveler was likely to be killed—throat slit, possessions taken—forgotten, if anyone cared to forget. She kept the illegally modified AR-15 across her saddle horn—the safety on—but her trigger finger edged along the guard, ready.

Aunt Mary’s last name was Molliner and the mention of the name had struck a responsive cord in Millie. The farm was high in the mountains and far from the Interstate Highway that had before the night of the war teemed with commercial and private vehicles. Sarah knew these mountains, or mountains like them, she thought. She had camped several times with John, especially before the children had been born. He had liked the mountains, telling her that they were strong and peaceful—like him, she now realized, yet like the mountains, capable of erupting in storms of violence when the conditions were right. And thunder was rumbling now in the higher peaks. There was little of the moon visible, except when a gust of wind would blow the purple tinged clouds from its face for a moment. She would use those moments to slow and look back at the children, study the trail. Was she going the right way? The man at the farmhouse had drawn a crude map for her, and so far all the landmarks he had cited had been easily found—but the way was so long, she thought. Had he purposely drawn a map to take her some long and remote route, she wondered, to avoid brigand contact?

She eased up in the saddle, her rear end hurting her. The wind gusted again, rain starting to fall lightly. She started to turn, to say something to the children and, as she did, a gust of wind caught in a natural hedgerow to her right. She stared, thinking she’d seen some light beyond it.

She dismounted, holding Tildie’s reins and snatching at the reins of the children’s horses. The rain started to pour down in sheets as she edged toward the bushes, pushing them aside as the wind lashed the rain against her with sudden, almost unimaginable force. Water streaming down her eyes, the hair loosened from the bandanna plastered against her forehead, the T-shirt clinging to her body like a cold, wet, second skin, she saw light beyond the bushes. “A house,” she muttered, then turned back toward Michael. He was wearing a rain poncho she had cut for him from sheet plastic. He was riding Sam, her husband’s black-stockinged, black-maned gray. “Michael, keep together—all of you—you in the lead behind me and the pack horse. If anything happens, Michael, get Annie and Millie out of here. Try to find that farmhouse where we stopped.” “What’s the matter, Mom?” the six-year-old asked.

“I think I see a house—I’m not sure—it could be Millie’s aunt’s place. I’m not sure though.”

She brushed the hair back from her forehead, squinting her eyelids shut against the rain. Michael hadn’t let her down; he was his father’s son, and she’d learned to rely on him. He had stabbed one of the men who had attacked the farm the morning after the night of the War, Michael had saved all their lives and saved her from—she shuddered at the memory. She had drunk the contaminated water. He had cared for her until her health had returned. She looked at him now, his wavy hair plastered by the rain to his head and face with the perfect upturned nose, the strong chin, the smiling eyes. “All right, Michael?” “Okay,” he said.

She wondered when this were ever through, could Michael go back to being a little boy again? She didn’t think so: he had been a man too long now. Because of the rain, Sarah Rourke couldn’t tell if there were tears welling up in her eyes.

She turned, handing back the reins of his horse to Michael, handing Millie the reins of the horse she rode with Annie, Annie half-asleep against the older girl’s back despite the rain and rough country. Sarah hauled herself wearily into the wet saddle, bending across and shaking Annie, then snatching the little girl into her arms across the saddle horn, displacing the AR-15. She handed the rifle to Michael. “The safety’s on; don’t touch it, Michael!” Managing the reins of Tildie and the Jenkins’s horse used as a pack animal, her daughter Annie in her arms, Sarah started forward around the hedgerow and toward the light.

A broad, open field lay beyond, rocky and with high grass, the wind whipping the sodden grass against her legs and the horses, the rain so heavy now Sarah could barely see beyond the horse she rode. But the light was still there—that she could still make out. The wind was blowing harder now, driving the rain against her. She glanced behind her again and again to make certain none of the children had fallen behind. She felt her horse stumbling, the animal starting to go down. She slid from the wet saddle, Annie clutched against her breast. The ground was hard despite the rain, the grass lashing at her face as she forced herself to her knees. She glanced back to Michael and shouted, “No, I’m all right! Stay mounted and keep an eye on Millie!” Sarah Rourke, her body wet and aching, her arms stiff from holding her daughter against her, pushed herself to her feet and caught up the reins of her own horse and the pack horse, then stared at the yellow light beyond the end of the field. She started walking toward it, the rain hammering against her, obscuring her vision. She would turn her face away from it, then glance back toward it at an angle so she could see for a few seconds before the rain blurred her vision again. She could tell now that the yellow light was from a farmhouse window.

She stumbled to one knee, pushed herself up, and walked on, holding the sleeping Annie in her arms, the reins to the two horses tight in her left fist, the animals balking. She was tired—a mother, a mother to the children of her body, a mother now to the orphaned Millie Jenkins since her parents had been killed. Sarah Rourke laughed, swallowing too much of the rain, choking for an instant. She was a mother even to the horses. She could hear herself as if the voice belonged to someone else, cajoling the animals, telling them to be good, to walk just a little farther in the darkness and rain. Sarah Rourke, mother and adventurer, she thought. She laughed.

The farmhouse loomed ahead of her in a massive shadow, the yellow light brighter and clearly visible from a side window.

She stumbled once again, this time banging her elbows hard on the ground as she fought to keep her weight from crushing her four-year-old daughter. She got to her knees, leaned back on her heels, then one leg at a time, stood, then started forward, glancing behind her to the children, talking low and soft to the animals. The rain washed over her body and her body racked with chills.

The house was twenty yards ahead, she judged, and she quickened her pace. She saw the window clearly, a small porch and side door near it. She stopped at the base of the low steps, forced one leg, then the other, then again and again, and she was standing, swaying on the porch.

She kicked at the door and the door opened. A young man with a shotgun in his hands stood framed in the blinding yellow light from the kitchen beyond, a woman in a house dress standing behind him.

Sarah Rourke gasped, “Aunt Mary, I brought you Millie Jenkins.”

There was heat from the kitchen, and the warm dry air made her start to feel faint.

She heard a woman’s voice shout, “Get out of my way! Her baby!”

Sarah started to fall forward, felt a man’s rough hands catch at her and Annie swept from her arms as she sank to her knees.