Return to Blanco (Red Book 4) Read online

  RED

  Book 4

  RETURN TO BLANCO

  By Darrell Maloney

  This is a work of fiction. All persons depicted in this book are fictional characters. Any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Copyright 2016 by Darrell Maloney

  This book is dedicated to my faithful readers, who tend to read every book I publish and say they enjoy them.

  You have given an old man another reason to get up in the morning, another reason to enjoy life. Another reason to smile.

  Thank you all.

  The Story Thus Far…

  There was nothing typical about Debbie Poston.

  She was but a spit of a girl, but as capable as anyone else she knew.

  When she was very young her father told her she could be summed up by a line from Shakespeare himself:

  And though she be but little, she is fierce.

  Debbie disliked her name. It made her sound like everyone else. Like just another girl.

  And she had a fire inside her that made her different. She knew it and embraced it.

  “Call me Red,” she told a bully on the playground when she was six. “And if you ever pick on my friends again I’ll beat the tar out of you.”

  The name stuck. And she was true to her word. The bully didn’t listen, and he was pummeled.

  From that, Red learned many lessons. One was that there were two distinct types of people in the world. One who would pick on the weak and the oppressed.

  And one who would protect them.

  Another was that bullies were, at the core, merely cowards who couldn’t feel good about themselves and who built themselves up by tearing others down.

  Before long Red had a reputation as one who took no smack from anyone and who was fiercely loyal to her friends.

  They were admirable traits.

  Her father Butch raised her alone from the age of seven. Her mom died of cancer, and he wasn’t wise to the ways of being a mother. Still, he did his best. And if she grew up a bit of a tomboy, she didn’t mind.

  At least she’d have the tools she needed to survive, and would never be dependent on any man.

  Butch called her “Texas tough,” and the description fit her to a T.

  Red chose nursing as a career but left the field shortly after she began. For it exposed really the only weakness she’d ever found about herself.

  She couldn’t bear to see children die.

  And in the nursing profession, it was inevitable.

  She married Russell, a confident man who wasn’t at all threatened by marrying a girl as tough as he.

  They had a son, Russell Junior, whom they nicknamed Rusty. His flaming red hair matched his mother’s own.

  Whether his temperament and disposition would as well would never be known.

  For Russell and Rusty died tragically in an accident which burned their house to the ground.

  And which turned out to be no accident at all.

  Red was seriously injured but survived, only to find her father dead a few weeks later.

  Of an apparent heart attack.

  She had her suspicions, but couldn’t prove that he was murdered as well.

  The world around her, meanwhile, was in chaos. A fierce solar storm on the face of the sun had sent electromagnetic pulses raining down upon the earth.

  The power grids were brought down. The vehicles stopped working.

  The scientists said it was worldwide.

  And it was permanent.

  The state of the planet made it infinitely harder for Red to get to the bottom of her family’s murders.

  But after all, she was “Texas tough.” And she be little but fierce.

  And she was something else to boot.

  Her mother once said she was as hard headed as an old mule. Although Red preferred to call it “determined,” it really boiled down to the same thing.

  She was driven to find her family’s killers and to make them pay.

  Even if the world was falling apart. Even if people around her were dying at every turn. Even if there was no justice system left.

  For she was quite capable, and quite willing, to exact her own brand of justice.

  Red left her tiny town of Blanco in pursuit of Jesse Luna, who was rumored to have carried out the killings. She caught up with him in Lubbock, a once-vibrant West Texas city which had been hit particularly hard.

  Luna was able to answer some of her questions before he died. And confirmed her suspicions that others were involved.

  Those others were now directly in her sights.

  In her travels, Red befriended an old woman named Beth, and gained a riding partner named Jacob.

  They made a good team, she and Jacob. He was alone and being bullied, and something deep within her made her want to protect him and guide him. It was the same trait which made her fight off bullies on the playground so many years before.

  “You can come along with me to Blanco,” she’d told him. “I’ll introduce you to some good people. Kind people, who will treat you not as a whipping boy, but for the kind and gentle man you are.”

  Jacob had his own agenda. Red owned his heart, and he wanted to win her love as well. But for the time being he’d settle for being her friend.

  He recognized that, for now anyway, he really had no choice.

  Back in Blanco the town banker was also the chief of police. He’d won the role through coercion not because he wanted the job. But rather to prevent an investigation into Red’s family’s murders.

  For he was the mastermind behind the crimes.

  And John Savage knew, from the day Red set out after Jesse Luna, that she’d learn the truth and come back after him.

  He had a surprise for her.

  And he didn’t know it, but she had one for him as well.

  And now, Book 4 of the series:

  RETURN TO BLANCO

  -1-

  Red and Jacob were an odd lot. She was tough and determined; he was a bit meek and much more a follower than a leader.

  Still, he was very good at following instructions and was comfortable in letting Red take charge. Although naïve and unwise to the ways of the new world, he seemed to trust her and sense she wasn’t going to take advantage of him as so many others had.

  He was on the cusp of manhood, Jacob was. Red was a bit older. A bit wiser. A bit more adapted to the newly harsh realities of the post-apocalyptic world. It was up to her, using the things she’d learned, to get the two of them safely back to Blanco.

  Jacob, for his part, was content in letting her take that lead.

  So he didn’t question Red when she shook the hand of a man they’d met along the way from Lubbock to Blanco, on a wind-blown prairie smack dab in the middle of the Twisted Seven Ranch.

  A man by the name of Tom Waits.

  “Aren’t you Butch Poston’s daughter?” he’d asked her when they met up.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Does he know you’re gallivanting around the countryside, being chased by men who want to shoot you?”

  “My father is dead, sir. He was murdered going on four months ago.”

  Waits expressed his condolences, then asked Red and Jacob to follow him to the headquarters of the sprawling Twisted Seven Ranch.

  “We can escort you to the edge of the property, where it connects with Highway 281 into Blanco. We can provide you cover to make sure you get that far safely, and we can wish you well at that point.

  “But if we go to the ranch house, you can meet some more old friends of your father’s. We can make sure you get a good meal into your gut before you head out on your way. A good beef steak is a hell of a lot better than the jackrabbits and prairi
e dogs you’ve been eatin’. And if you’ve a mind to, you can stay for the night and rest up a bit. We’ve got air conditioning, and I’m guessing that’s something y’all haven’t enjoyed much lately.”

  “Not in almost a year,” Red replied. “But how in the world…”

  Waits laughed.

  “Dennis Bryant, he’s the owner of the Twisted Seven. The kindest man you’d ever want to meet. I know he’ll remember your dad, and probably have some fond stories to tell you of him.

  “Mr. Bryant, when the world went to hell, saw an opportunity to get rich quick. Some of the other ranchers in the area took advantage of the situation by increasing their beef prices ten-fold. And by demanding payment in gold and silver. That priced most of the common folk out of the market and left them to eating their family pets for protein. That, or by having to hunt for rabbits and prairie dogs like you folks have been doing.

  “Mr. Bryant, like I said, could have done the same thing, but he’s far too decent a man for that.

  “Instead, he went a different route. He invited all his ranch hands, and many of his friends, to come onto the ranch with him, and to bring their families too.

  “He was a rich man when the blackout hit. He lost it all when the dollar became worthless. But he still had his ranch and all the livestock on it. He said a man shouldn’t be judged by what he has, but by how he’s willing to share it with them who ain’t got nothin’ themselves.

  “So from that day, the day after the blackout, all these people descended upon the ranch and we became a type of commune, for lack of a better word. The men folk pitched in to build several small houses for the families. The single folks took up permanent residence in the two bunkhouses. One was designated for men and the other for women.

  “It’s kind of like a big community now. Everybody has chores to do, and in exchange for doing the chores everybody has an equal say-so in how we live and such. We have plenty of food to eat and we all feel safer than we would on our own on the outside.”

  Jacob asked, “What kind of chores?”

  “Well, most of the men provide security and do the heavy labor jobs. Going after the firewood and wrangling the steers and such. And riding the fences to ward off rustlers and keep hostile people off the ranch.

  “The women folk, they mostly tend to the garden, to grow our fruits and vegetables, and to can the excess for the winter.

  “Most of the women pitch in to keep everything clean. Mr. Bryant, he said going in that it wasn’t their role to do so simply because they were women. He said he didn’t want to be accused of being sexist. So he said he’d let everybody pick where they wanted to work. Choose their own chores, as it were.

  “Most of the men chose to do the security and livestock work. Most of the women chose to stay indoors teachin’ or cleanin’ or cookin’. He didn’t want it to be sexist, but that’s just kinda the way it ended up.

  “We have get togethers every Sunday afternoon after church, and he asked the ladies a few weeks ago why it was it ended up that way. Why did most of them choose to cook and clean when they had their choice to do other things instead.”

  Red was curious.

  “And what did they say?”

  “One of them stood up and asked, ‘Have you ever really eaten a man’s cooking? Have you ever had to actually live in a house a man cleaned?’

  “There was a lot of laughter at that, good old fashioned ribbin’.

  “But the bottom line was, the women generally wanted to do the cookin’ and cleanin’ because they’re better at it.

  “And I have to say I’m glad it worked out that way. Because that woman was right. I’ve eaten my own cookin’. And I’ve eaten a woman’s cookin’. They’re a damn sight better at it than I ever was. It’s a fact which cannot be disputed, whether it sounds sexist or not.”

  “What do the kids do while the men are out punching cows and the women are taking care of the home front?”

  “The kids? Well, they’re all in school all day.”

  -2-

  The Twisted Seven Ranch was an impressive place indeed. A little nirvana in a great big cruel world.

  It was obvious that Dennis Bryant took great pride in his little piece of paradise.

  He took it upon himself to give Red and Jacob a personal tour of the place, instead of leaving it to Tom Waits or anyone else.

  “I guess I was a little concerned, at first, about so many people moving into a place where their privacy was limited and their space was as well. I mean, most of these people had houses of their own. They pretty much had to leave it all behind. The houses we’ve built for them are tiny by comparison. It was like moving from a nice sized house to a bungalow for most of them.

  “But to their credit, they’ve gotten along famously. So far, anyway.”

  Red said, “Maybe they realize how lucky they are. I mean, life in the cities is hell.”

  “Yeah, maybe. I hear there are other communities like this one set up all over Texas. Maybe this is the way civilization will look fifty years from now. Maybe we were just lucky enough to stumble across it.”

  “You didn’t stumble across it.”

  The comment came from Jacob. It was the first time he spoke except to answer direct questions.

  Red and Bryant looked at him.

  Red asked him, “What do you mean?”

  “The Native American tribes were set up similarly to this long before the white man came in and drove them into reservations.”

  Red was a bit taken aback. So was their host.

  “Come to think of it, you’re right. I never thought of that.”

  Jacob was suddenly embarrassed, and feared he’d insulted Bryant by correcting him.

  “I apologize, sir. I spoke out of turn…”

  “No reason to apologize, son. Don’t ever say you’re sorry when you’re right. It’s a bad habit to get into. Makes people think you’ll cow-tow to ‘em all the time.”

  A middle-aged woman stepped into the room and said, “Excuse me, Dennis. You’re wanted on the radio.”

  Bryant turned back to his guests and said, “You two feel free to look around. I’ll be back in just a minute.”

  As soon as he left the room Red asked, “When did you become an expert on the American Indian?”

  “I’m sorry, Red. It just slipped. My grandpa was a full-blooded Choctaw. It just hit on a raw nerve when he implied his people invented a way of life the Indians had twenty generations ago.”

  “Okay. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

  “I apologized. You don’t think I offended him, do you?”

  “No, he didn’t seem so. But try to remember he’s our host, will you?”

  “Okay. But tell me… what does ‘cow-tow’ mean?”

  “Beats the hell out of me, Jacob.”

  Bryant returned and Red asked him, “Mr. Bryant…”

  “Please. Call me Dennis.”

  “Dennis… I’m curious. Mr. Waits said something about air conditioning. And you just went off to answer the radio. How is it that you have electricity and working radios and most others don’t? Are you preppers?”

  “You know about preppers?”

  “Not a lot, no. I met one in Blanco a month or so ago and traveled with him for a time.”

  “Well, to answer your question, we’re not preppers. I wish we were. It would be a lot easier on everybody. We have electricity because we’re so far away from the electric coop’s power lines. The main house is a mile and a half from the connector. Three years ago the coop changed the way they charged for electrical fees. They added an additional charge for every ten feet of line stretching from the connector to each of our outbuildings. Even though the lines to those buildings had been in place for twenty years, and even though I’m the one who paid for the lines to be put in to begin with.

  “They called it an ‘extended line charge.’ It was a blatant attempt to fatten their profits at the expense of longtime customers who they thought had no option except to
pay their damn fees. But they were wrong. Dead wrong.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I had a company come up from Houston and install my own electrical system. Solar panels on the roof and a wind turbine two hundred feet from the house. Took six months to get it all constructed. Then I called the electrical coop and told ‘em to go straight to hell. Said I didn’t need ‘em anymore.

  “It cost me a pretty penny, but being able to make that phone call made it all worth it. And now I realize it was the best thing I could have done.”

  -3-

  “How come your system survived the EMPs?”

  “Well, it took some damage. The compressor on the wind turbine was fried, but one of our guys was an electrical engineer at the University of North Texas in Denton. He was able to repair it. One of the main batteries in our battery bank shorted out, so if we go more than a couple of days without wind or sun, we’ll probably run out of power temporarily.

  “But it ain’t happened yet. This is central Texas, land of the wind and the sun. We have plenty of both, all year ‘round.”

  “But… everything inside the main house seems to work too. The television, the lights… and I overheard the woman who said you were on the radio.”

  “Red, I don’t want to brag. But we had almost six thousand head of beef when the power went down. Not only that, we had a reputation of selling quality beef for fair prices throughout this county and all the counties surrounding it.

  “We were in the second day of the blackout, still dazed and trying to figure out what was going on, when the first prepper rode in on a horse.

  “He was a good friend of mine. I grew up with him. We went to the local school together. But as close as we were, even I didn’t know he was a prepper. He was that damn good at keeping it a secret.

  “We partnered up. He had plenty of gear that he buried in four big boxes underground. Conexes, he called them. I think that’s a fancy name for the shipping containers you see stacked up nice and neat on container ships.