OMEGA SERIES BOX SET: Books 5-8 Read online

  He didn’t answer. He just stared at me with no expression. The young guy came out with my coffee and poured me a cup. I said, “You got any food?”

  He looked momentarily astonished. Maybe that was the big thing in this town, being astonished by everything. After a moment of astonishment, he said, “Yuh! Sure! We have beef and red beans?”

  I nodded. “Good, and some bread. And give me a beer.”

  I took my beer and my whiskey to a table and sat. My friend at the bar got the hint and turned his back on me, started talking to his pals. Eventually, the woman called Abi came out of the kitchen with a large bowl of beans and stewing steak, and a basket of bread and butter. She placed them in front of me and sat. I was surprised and told her so with my face.

  “Excuse me.” She looked distressed. I studied her for a moment. She was very attractive in an un-affected kind of way. She was maybe thirty-six or -seven, wholesome, blonde, blue-eyed; very much a woman. “I just wanted to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Peggy. She would surely have died.”

  “Is that her name? Peggy?”

  “Peggy-Sue Martin. Where on Earth did you find her? What happened?”

  I was aware that the men at the bar had gone silent and turned to face us. I ignored them.

  “I took a wrong turn ’round about Mill City. I was looking for a motel, or somewhere to stay the night. I stopped when I saw the signpost for Independence. Luckily I got out of my car to read the sign. At first I thought it was a tree-stump. Then I saw it was a girl.”

  She was staring at me like I was talking Klingon, and she didn’t speak Klingon. “At the junction? With Bloody Creek?”

  I shrugged. “The main road where you have your mail boxes.”

  “What in the name of the Good Lord was she doing there?”

  I shrugged again, this time with my eyebrows, and shoveled a spoonful of meat and beans into my mouth. It was good. I spoke through a full mouth. “I was wondering the same thing.”

  She turned and stared at the men at the bar. It was hard to read anybody’s expression. I said, “Is there somewhere I can stay till the storm passes?”

  She turned back to me. “Of course. I have the guesthouse across the way. I’ll fix you a room there.”

  I continued eating. She was about to stand but I asked her, “What about her parents?”

  She didn’t answer straight away, which made me look up from my food. Then, she said, “They live up the road.”

  “Is somebody going to tell them?” She didn’t answer and I leaned back in my chair. “They didn’t alert anybody that she was missing?”

  She shook her head.

  I drained my beer. “Tell me where they live. I’ll go and get them.”

  My talkative friend at the bar spoke up. “You’re a regular good Samaritan, friend. Take it easy. I’m going that way. I’ll deliver the news and I’m sure they’ll be down to thank you.” As he walked past, he put his hand on Abi’s shoulder. “Good night, Abi. Be seeing you.”

  I heard the door open behind me. There was a blast of cold air and the shriek and moan of the freezing wind in the trees. Then the door closed again, shutting out the night behind its fragile wood and glass.

  “That’s Earl,” she said, as though she owed me an explanation, and an apology. “He works at the farm.”

  I should have let it go, but I could see Peggy’s frozen white face, her blue lips and her fragile, childlike body huddled in the snow, and something made me say, “Farm?”

  “Aloysius Groves’ farm. Al. Most people ’round here work for the farm. They’ll probably be down in the morning.”

  I frowned.

  She said, “Peggy’s parents. They’ll want to thank you.”

  “In the morning?”

  “They won’t want to come out in this…”

  It was my turn to look astonished. I said brutally, “Let’s hope she’s still alive in the morning for them to see her.”

  She stood and went back to the kitchen. I finished my food and had another glass of whiskey. After that, I asked Abi to show me to my room. She pulled on a heavy coat and hat and I followed her out into the night. It was very dark and our breath billowed like cigar smoke in the freezing air. The flakes were dense and a fitful, gusting wind tossed them this way and that in swirls and flurries. Abi hunched into her shoulders and crunched across the snow, which was now five or six inches deep on the small square. She pushed through the wooden gate to the Pioneer and opened the door to the guesthouse.

  It was warm and quiet inside. The walls were paneled in wood. The floors also were wood, and covered in thick, woven rugs. To the right there was a pine reception desk, and to the left a staircase, carpeted in deep green and illuminated by Victorian, glass-shaded lamps. Ahead, double doors stood closed. She opened them, revealing a comfortable living room with an open fire burning large logs. A girl, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, sat before it in a large armchair. Beyond her, a boy of perhaps thirteen lay stretched out on a sofa. They were both reading, but looked up when Abi opened the door.

  “Primrose, we have a guest for the night. Will you show him to his room, please? Two B is made up.”

  Primrose stood and approached. She was more than pretty, but too demure and sweet to be stunning in the Hollywood supermodel sense. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt, but you felt she should be wearing a crinoline. She was the kind of girl a young man might fall seriously in love with, and spend all his time staring at the stars dreaming of rescuing her from evil-doers. She was a maiden, a damsel. She smiled at me and said a simple but pretty, “Hello.”

  I found a smile somewhere in my weary face and nodded. While Primrose got the key, Abi turned to me, wrapped in her coat and hat. “I must get back to the saloon. If you need anything, just call down to Primrose, she’ll make sure you’re taken care of…” She hesitated. “And…I don’t even know your name…”

  “Lacklan, Lacklan Walker.”

  “Mr. Walker, thank you so much for saving Peggy…”

  Primrose turned to stare. I shook my head. “Anyone would have done the same.”

  She seemed about to say more, but turned and went back into the snowstorm, closing the door behind her.

  Primrose led the way up the stairs through the dim light of the lamps. As we climbed, I realized they were oil. It was fortunate. Electricity would never have survived that storm. She opened a door at the far end of a broad corridor and showed me into a large, comfortable room, furnished in the style of the early twentieth century, with an en suite bathroom at the far end, by the window.

  “I’ll light the fire for you.” She hunkered down and struck a match. As she put it to the kindling, she said, “The lamps are oil. We have no electricity or gas here. We’re pretty much off grid.”

  “No phone?”

  The flames caught and started to roar in the chimney. She shook her head and the flames danced amber on her face. She stood and turned to me. Her expression was oddly direct. “There’s no line, and no coverage for a cell. No TV. No internet. We get some electricity from a generator.”

  “You’re pretty isolated.”

  She nodded. “Especially in winter, when it snows.”

  “I guess you get what you need from Lovelock.”

  She smiled. It was an odd smile, part mischief, part irony. “The farm supplies us with basic necessities. Anything else we might need, we do without. What happened to Peggy?”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to know. I found her by the roadside, freezing to death.”

  She frowned and looked down at the floor. It was an expression of distress, but not surprise; not shock. “Was she…” She looked up into my face. “Did they…?”

  “Who?”

  She hesitated. “I mean, whoever…”

  “Do you know what happened to Peggy, Primrose?”

  “No! Of course not!” She turned. “I’d better go. Is there anything you need?”

  I smiled and showed her the bottle of whis
key. “Just this and sleep.”

  She smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “Goodnight, Mr. Walker.”

  “Goodnight, Primrose.”

  She closed the door and I fell into an armchair in front of the warm, dancing fire. I poured myself a generous measure of whiskey and savored it without swallowing, watching the manic dance of the flames as they licked and consumed the dry logs. I told myself that in the morning I would fit the chains to my car, charge the batteries and, whatever the weather, I would head for home. There was a problem here in this town, that much was obvious, but it was not my problem, and I must not get involved.

  But as I let the fierce amber liquid slip down my throat and warm my belly, I thought of Peggy, barely a child, left to die by the roadside, of cold and neglect. And it was not just the whiskey that warmed my belly, but anger.

  Three

  I went for a run next morning at six. Abi and her two children were already up and about. Abi was at the reception desk and watched me come down the stairs.

  “You’re up late, Mr. Walker. Did you decide to have a lie in?”

  She didn’t exactly smile, but there was a glint of humor in her eyes that could have been mischievous. I considered her for a moment and then smiled. “I’ve been up for a couple of hours, Abi, but I thought I’d finish translating Genesis from the original proto-Aramaic before breakfast.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Really? That is very worthy.”

  “Now I’m going for a run.”

  “Goodness. You’ll find there is hot water in the shower when you get back, despite the weather.”

  “That will be a novel experience. Perhaps I’ll give it a try. By the way, my name is Lacklan.”

  As I opened the door, she said, “You really are going for a run…”

  I nodded. “I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead.”

  It was heavy going down the track. The snow had eased up, but it was a foot deep on the road and six to seven feet in the drifts. It was pitch dark, but above you could just make out a low, leaden ceiling of dense cloud. It was colder than I had expected, I guessed about 5 degrees F. I punched and dodged as I ran, did quick sprints to break up the pace and increase my heart rate and calorie burn.

  After about half a mile, I became aware of some lights moving up ahead, and the sound of heavy diesel machinery. As I got closer, I saw there was a snow plow that had cleared a path to a structure about a hundred yards off the road, in the field. A large ten-wheeler truck, with a covered back, was pulling away from it, headed for the intersection. Once it got there, it turned right and moved south.

  From what I could make out in the light of the plow and a couple of trucks parked thereby, the structure was some sort of pen, with a barn in the centre. It was big. The pen itself was at least a hundred and fifty yards by the same again square. And the barn was easily seventy feet long and fifty across. I saw Earl standing in the back of one of the trucks. He had a couple of friends with him. They all watched me run past. I ignored them and carried on as far as the road. By that time I had warmed up. I practiced a few kicks and some Tae Kwon Do patterns, and then ran back at a loose, relaxing pace.

  In spite of my boast to Abi, I had a hot shower, dressed, and went down for breakfast at seven. She brought me bacon and fried bananas with a pot of coffee.

  “There are pancakes and maple syrup if you’re still hungry after. Exercising in the snow will give you an appetite.”

  I smiled at her. “It did.”

  “Can I sit down?”

  My mouth was full, so I gestured at the chair opposite me. She sat. She didn’t say anything, just watched me. I swallowed, drank coffee, and asked her, “Any news on Peggy?”

  She shook her head. “We moved her to the doc’s house last night, where he can take care of her a bit better. Her temperature’s up a bit, but she needs to get to a hospital.”

  “You want me to take her? I’ll need a truck.”

  “No. There’s heavy snow forecast. If you got stuck, she’d die.”

  She stared at the tabletop, like she was thinking about saying something but didn’t know how to. Finally, I said, “What’s on your mind, Abi?”

  She looked surprised at the question, then said, for no apparent reason, “We’re pretty isolated here, even when it doesn’t snow. I’ve never known it to snow like this before. All we’ve got really is the farm.”

  “I saw them clearing the snow when I was out.”

  “At the depot?”

  I shrugged. “Big barn off the track, with a fence around it.”

  “We call that the depot. It’s where he stores his produce.”

  “Aloysius Groves?”

  “He provides what work there is around here…”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is he the feudal lord?”

  She laughed, but it sounded strained. “Something like that.”

  “What are you trying to tell me, Abi?”

  She made a face like she was going to dismiss my question, then stopped herself and sighed.

  I said, “OK, let me ask you something instead. Al Groves has a snow plow. He also has several trucks. Why isn’t he either taking Peggy to a hospital or going for help?”

  She took a while to answer. “I guess he has other priorities.” She sighed again, heavily. “Mr… Lacklan, the weather is going to get worse before it gets better. It looks as though you may be stuck here for a couple of days. You may see or hear things that seem strange to you. It’s just the way things are around here. Best if you don’t get involved.”

  I drained my cup and sat back. “Does that include dumping children by the roadside, in the snow, to freeze to death?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Where is the doc’s house, Abi?”

  “Two down from the saloon. It has a blue door, and an arch over the gate.”

  “Thanks for breakfast, and for the advice.”

  I stood. She spoke in a rush, like she wanted to say it before it was too late, before I left, “It’s not as simple as it might seem from the outside.”

  “I know, Abi. I’ve seen it before, many times, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the jungles in Colombia. You’ve told me all you need to tell me. I’m going to go and check on Peggy now.”

  There was a limpid gray light when I stepped outside. The clouds were low, thick and dark, and for the first time, I got a look at where I was. The village of Independence was tiny, and settled in the mouth of a steep canyon that rose to the west. To my right, the east, that canyon opened out into a flat plain that seemed to extend for miles. Right now it was blanketed in dense, luminous snow. Ahead and to my left, the terrain rose steeply into mountains, densely forested and shrouded, like the plain, in heavy snow. I raised my collar and crossed the road.

  The doc’s house was like something on a chocolate box, or a tin of Danish cookies. It was a cottage on two floors, with two chimneystacks and a black slate, gabled roof. It had a small front lawn enclosed by a stone wall, and a wooden arbor with a creeping rosebush over it, now dead and covered in frozen clumps of white.

  I checked my watch as I pushed through the gate, and made my way to the shiny blue front door. It was ten minutes before eight, but I figured in this village people were early risers and I took hold of the brass knocker and rapped a couple of times. He opened the door almost immediately.

  “Saw you out running earlier. Was going to call you in for breakfast…” He winked wolfishly, “But I figured you’d rather have coffee and bacon with Abi than me!”

  I smiled. “I hope I am not too early.”

  “Too early? No such thing. Been up since five. Come on in. You’ll have some coffee.”

  It wasn’t a question. He led me through a small hallway with a narrow flight of stairs to a comfortable living room with wooden beams, a large open fire, and, arranged around it, leather armchairs and a sofa that looked at least a hundred years old. The walls were lined with books and there was an agreeable smell of pipe tobacco mixed with soot and fres
hly brewed coffee. A broad bow window overlooked his front lawn and the small square, and afforded a direct view of the guesthouse.

  “In the summer,” he said, as though he were answering a question, “we get the occasional weekend pioneer, with their luxury RVs and motor homes. But aside from that, I rarely get to talk to somebody from outside. Sit down.” He said all this from the open doorway, then leaned back and shouted in a surprisingly big voice, “Mrs. Entwhistle! Coffee for two!” Then he closed the door. “She does for me. But I imagine you didn’t come here for my sparkling conversation and amusing anecdotes. You came to inquire after Peggy.”

  I sat in one of his vast, cracked leather chairs by the fire. “How is she?”

  He frowned, not at me, at the fire. “Know anything about medicine?”

  I gave half a shrug. “First aid. I’ve seen a few cases of hypothermia, gunshot wounds…”

  “You’re a soldier.”

  I nodded. “I was.”

  He raised an eyebrow like an albino shrimp. “You still are. Believe me, I can tell. Her core temperature has risen. She should be recovering.” He sighed. “But she should be in hospital. She has bruising…”

  “Mind if I have a look?”

  He gave a brief nod. “In a minute.”

  The door opened and a woman who looked remarkably like the doc, only less bushy, stepped in with a tray of coffee and biscuits. She smiled at me like the doc wasn’t there and set the tray on the table by the window.

  “Would you like me to pour, or do you think you can manage that?”

  I smiled back. “I’m sure we can manage.”

  “Go away, Mrs. Entwhistle. Go back to the kitchen, where you belong.”

  She left.

  “With a population of less than barely eighty people, you can’t afford to sack somebody like Mrs. Entwhistle. Her ironing and cooking are second to none.”

  “I’m sure. She looks formidable. You were saying about Peggy.”

  He went and poured the coffee, handed me a cup with two biscuits, and sat in the other chair.

  “Either she had a bad fall, or she was beaten. She may, of course, have been struck by a vehicle. Sometimes you get trucks coming this way, to the farm, then they go on down Independence Road, over the Humboldt Mountains.” He shrugged and shook his head. “The long way around. I’ve never understood why.”