Texas Bound: Alone: Book 11 Read online

  “As food, honey. Look upon them like they’re just food on a plate that moves around a lot.

  “Can you do that?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I know that, honey. But because of the way the world is today we all have to do things we don’t want to do.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, then. Let’s get back inside. I feel one of my dizzy spells coming on.”

  Chapter 24

  In the tiny town of Blanco, Texas Red Poston’s windup alarm clock started to ring.

  She hated the darned thing. It seemed to have a personal vendetta against her.

  Every time she was in the midst of a nice dream the clock seemed to sense it and always chose that precise time to decide it was five a.m.

  Or perhaps it was her own mind which was conspiring with the devil clock.

  She’d always had a better-than-average body clock. For most of her life she was able to get up on time without external means. It was only recently she started using the alarm, and only at Lilly’s insistence.

  “It just wouldn’t do for the police chief to be late for a meeting or to testify in court.”

  “But Lilly, I almost never sleep late.”

  And then, the very next morning, she did.

  And the town council was left waiting.

  Lilly, never one who was above saying “I told you so,” told her best friend she was becoming irresponsible and owed it to the citizens of Blanco to start using an alarm clock.

  Red relented, and hated getting up ever since then.

  Perhaps it was her own subconscious mind which disagreed with that decision and was rebelling against her. Perhaps her mind’s feelings were hurt that Red no longer trusted it to get her up on time.

  Perhaps it was that mind which was intentionally causing her to dream just a few minutes before the clock was to start its incessant ringing.

  After all, three consecutive days couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?

  She sat up and placed her feet on the floor.

  “I really need to stop thinking so much,” she said aloud knowing there was no one else there to hear her.

  “I need coffee,” she said.

  She never talked to herself until she took the job as police chief.

  She wondered why she did it now.

  It wasn’t the stress. Being the police chief in a town like Blanco was roughly equivalent to being the sheriff of Mayberry.

  Once she’d gotten rid of John Savage the biggest problem she had to deal with on any given day was old man Spencer jaywalking across Main Street after she’d told him a hundred times not to.

  He did it on purpose.

  She knew that.

  She’d actually caught him a couple of times, jaywalking across the street when he saw her coming, only to cross back over in the same manner as she passed.

  It was his act of civil defiance against a petty and nonsensical law he didn’t agree with; a defiance which went back for years. Long before Red became police chief.

  In that regard she knew it was nothing personal against her. Joe Spencer was eccentric, sure. But no more so than some of the other town’s residents.

  No more than her good friend Luke, the nudist, who wandered around his end of town stark naked and claiming Adam and Eve as his moral guides.

  “God made each of us naked and told us to feel no shame. It was Adam and Eve who defied God and ate the apple, then felt shame and covered up. They ruined it all for everyone. And I hate apples, by the way.”

  Joe Spencer was no more eccentric than Sue Bennett, a widow in her eighties who dressed in a thong bikini to sweep the snow from her sidewalk each winter.

  No one knew why, exactly. No one ever had the courage to ask her.

  And Joe Spencer’s jaywalking habit was no worse than Emily Camp’s habit of hanging twisted clothes hangers from every single branch of the oak tree in her front yard.

  To the bottom of each one was tied a piece of white ribbon.

  And again, no one knew why.

  The little town was full of oddballs, sure.

  But once John Savage and his henchmen had been purged from the quaint little town it became something of a nirvana. For no one else hurt anyone else.

  They just did their own things.

  It was an easy town to police, and there was little or no stress doing it.

  Red fixed her morning coffee and washed and cracked two eggs from a rack on the kitchen counter.

  It was Emily Camp who told her that eggs didn’t have to be refrigerated immediately after they were laid.

  That was a surprise to Red, for she’d always believed they spoiled quickly if not immediately cooled.

  “Not true at all,” said Emily.

  “When a hen lays them they have a protective coating. It’s invisible so most people don’t know it’s there. But it protects the egg from spoiling for up to two weeks, as long as you don’t wash it off.

  “If you wash the egg, you wash the coating off and then they have to be refrigerated. The trick is, don’t wash them until you’re ready to use them.”

  Red was skeptical but took the advice, and everything Emily said was absolutely true.

  That was the day she unplugged the refrigerator.

  The only thing she’d used it for was the eggs. She was lactose intolerant, and therefore kept no milk in the fridge. Just the eggs, and once she was able to take them out and place them on the counter the electricity-hog of a refrigerator stopped draining her battery bank each night.

  She was able to stretch the two gallons of diesel fuel Tony brought by every other day until he came around again instead of running out after a day and a half.

  Tony… that was another problem she had to deal with soon, for he was starting to pester her much too much.

  She shook her head to get the spider webs out of it.

  As she stood in front of the hotplate, scrambling her three eggs, she wondered and said aloud…

  “Why in the world would I dream about Dave Speer, of all people?”

  Chapter 25

  They didn’t spend much time together, she and Dave.

  But each of them made an impact on the other’s life, and they parted good friends.

  Such good friends that they frequently thought of one another; worried about one another; wondered what became of one another.

  But in all the months since they parted ways Red had never before dreamed of her friend.

  Why now?

  “Who knows?” she said to herself before turning her full attention back to her eggs.

  Dave had snuck into Blanco and tried to steal a generator from a shuttered auto parts store several months before.

  Blanco’s sadistic banker, a squat little man with a serious Napoleon complex and a severe lack of morals, caught him.

  The business didn’t belong to John Savage. It was a chain store which sent its money to the home office in Pittsburgh. Savage had no interest in it whatsoever.

  Still, he took the theft personally.

  “Nobody steals from the people of Blanco,” he told Dave and had his henchman beat the poor man with a baseball bat.

  Truth was, Savage would have looted the store himself were it not for the fact its merchandize was worthless.

  Except, apparently, to Dave Speer.

  Red Poston happened to see the beating.

  It wasn’t easy to miss, taking place in the middle of Main Street in broad daylight.

  She fired a shot into the air and told Savage to call off his men.

  Savage complied.

  For Red struck fear in his heart and for good reason.

  Savage was the man who ordered the murders of her husband and son, then her father.

  She knew it, and was trying hard to find proof.

  He knew she knew, and was trying very hard to suppress the evidence.

  For he knew if she could find something… anything… to confirm his guilt she’d send him straight to hell with no rest sto
ps on the way.

  He called off his thugs and Red took Dave back to the highway he’d come in on.

  “Come on,” she said. “We’ve got to get you out of here before he comes up with a plan to kill you. He doesn’t like it when someone makes him back down and will kill you the first chance he gets.”

  The pair holed up in the sleeper cab of an abandoned tractor-trailer.

  And she nursed him back to health.

  They got to know each other.

  He told her how his family had flown to Kansas just before the blackout. How he wasn’t sure whether they were alive or dead.

  And that he was on his way to find out.

  She told him an even sorrier tale.

  She knew for sure her family was dead.

  And she knew that Savage was to blame, but didn’t yet know who else was involved.

  She was on her way to Lubbock to track down the man who’d contracted with Savage to do the dastardly deed.

  And when Dave told her he had a working vehicle she accepted his offer for a ride.

  It beat walking.

  Or wear and tear on her horse Bonnie.

  Dave was ready to travel on the fifth day after his beating.

  He was already behind schedule, but offered to detour from his path to take her all the way to Lubbock.

  After all, she’d saved his life. It was the least he could do.

  The truth was he had full intentions of going into battle with her.

  It was an impasse they couldn’t overcome.

  He wanted to help her hunt down her family’s killer.

  She told him she didn’t need his help, for she was headstrong and independent.

  And “Texas tough,” as her father used to say.

  She didn’t need the help of this man or any other man to do what she had to do.

  Close to Lubbock, she abandoned him.

  She left him a note.

  She told him she appreciated his offer, but that this was something she had to do alone.

  She said not to follow her. That she was staying off the roads and going overland. That he’d never find her.

  He said a prayer for her and went on his way, but he never forgot her.

  He thought of her frequently. Wondered if she’d found the man she’d gone after.

  Whether she’d bested him and sent him to meet his maker as she’d planned.

  Whether she was safely back in Blanco now, and what she might be doing.

  They were never romantically involved; he was a married man and faithful to his wife.

  But in the short amount of time they spent together they’d become good friends.

  Dave was thinking of Red at the exact moment she was dreaming of him.

  They’d pass through Blanco on their journey back to San Antonio.

  He’d seek her out; introduce her to his family.

  Thank her again for saving his life.

  As she put her eggs on her plate and salted and peppered them Red thought again of her dream.

  Her mother died when she was very young.

  But in the days leading up to her death Red spent hours at her bedside, holding her mother’s hand. Talking of this and that and everything.

  Her mother had told her she’d have what she called “the gift.”

  “I don’t understand,” Red told her.

  “When you’re a woman you’ll develop a fine sense of premonition. You’ll see things in your dreams. You’ll see people you love, people you’re friendly with, sometimes people you don’t even know yet.

  “You’ll see things happening to them. Sometimes they won’t come true. You’ll miss the mark.

  “But often… very often, in fact… they will.”

  “You mean I’ll be able to predict their future, Mama?”

  “Yes, dear. It’s a gift all the Jones women have had, for many generations.”

  In fact, Red had many premonitions over the years that had come true, almost exactly as she’d seen them.

  That was why the dream of Dave Speer bothered her so. Why she couldn’t drive it out of her mind.

  For she dreamed of his death.

  Chapter 26

  Sal was apprehensive at first when Dave brought home a go-cart for him to ride in.

  “But it wouldn’t be fair to everyone else,” he protested. “If everyone else has to walk and push a shopping cart I should as well. I insist on carrying my own weight.”

  Beth was the only one who felt she knew him well enough to break the bad news.

  “But Grandpa Sal, we’re doing it for us too.”

  “How so, little one?”

  “Well, I’m sorry to tell you this… and I love you and all… but you’re slower than a turtle. If you push one of the shopping carts we’ll constantly have to wait for you to catch up.”

  It wasn’t meant to be harsh, even if it came out that way.

  And he certainly didn’t take any offense; he couldn’t, for she was absolutely right.

  She hugged him, just so he’d know she loved him and didn’t mean anything by it.

  Sal looked at Dave, who just shrugged. He couldn’t argue with her either.

  Sal had a hard time at first getting in and out of the machine, built just a few inches off the ground.

  But once he was in it he had to admit it was a world of fun.

  And it did beat the heck out of walking.

  “This is a blast,” he announced after he got over the sting of Beth’s words. “I never knew these things went so fast.”

  “Didn’t you have one when you were a kid?” Sarah asked him.

  It was a fair question.

  When she was young go-carts were all the rage. It seemed every family in her neighborhood had one or two parked in their garages.

  “He had a pet dinosaur,” Beth deadpanned. “Go-carts hadn’t been invented yet.”

  She and Sal had been developing a friendly banter of late. She was honing her skills at sarcasm and wit, and he was supplying her plenty of ammunition.

  He didn’t mind the slam; he knew it was all in fun and he enjoyed being her foil.

  “Hey, he wasn’t just any dinosaur. His name was Dino and he was the best mini-bronto around.”

  “A mini-bronto, huh?” Beth came back. “Just how big is a mini-bronto?”

  “About as big as a minivan, my snotty-nosed little whippersnapper friend.”

  Beth roared with laughter.

  She thought it was so cool that she could engage an actual adult in a give-and-take without being scolded.

  Her mother let it happen, but took her aside and warned her when she felt it was starting to get out of hand.

  “I know that Sal enjoys teasing you and you teasing him,” she said. “But remember that he is an old man and deserves respect.”

  “Oh, I know, Mom. And I respect him a lot. He knows.”

  He did.

  The go-cart had an adjustable seat, which Dave set to the rear-most position before he presented it to Sal.

  Sal, once a very heavy man, lost seventy pounds while on the road to and from California. He was now thin enough to take little Beth for rides on the cart whenever the group stopped to rest.

  There was just enough room for her to wedge herself in between Sal and the steering wheel and they sped up and down the highway while the others sat beneath shade trees or whatever other shade they could find.

  By late afternoon on that first day they’d made just over twelve miles.

  Sarah asked Dave, “What time do you figure it to be?”

  He’d forgotten to wind his watch that morning and it stopped working hours before.

  He looked at the position of the sun and said, “I’d say five, maybe five thirty.

  “Are you starting to get tired?”

  “I passed tired several miles back. Now I’m bordering on exhaustion.”

  “Mom,” Lindsey called from behind her. “Surely you can do a couple more miles. I’ll switch carts with you if you want and take the h
eavy one.

  “We’ve got at least two more hours before it starts to get dark.”

  Dave quickly pooh-poohed that idea.

  “No, I think your mom’s right, honey. Twelve miles a day isn’t bad. If we do twelve miles a day we can get home in ninety days or so without wearing anybody out.”

  “But Dad,” Lindsey protested. “It’s already September. If we only do twelve miles a day it’ll be December when we get there. I’d like to get there before it gets cold.”

  “Honey, it’s going to be cold when we get there too. It’s a new reality of life. In a house that’s heated by firewood, you’ll likely never be really warm in the winter again.”

  “That may be true, Dad. But at home I can curl up on the couch under half a dozen blankets.

  “I can’t exactly do that while we’re out walking.”

  Beth offered her two cents.

  “As much as I hate to admit it, she’s got a point.”

  Dave looked at her and smiled.

  “Who asked you, pipsqueak?”

  “Nobody. But I figured since this is a democracy and all…”

  “Wait a minute. Who says this is a democracy?”

  Beth was taken aback.

  She’d studied the basics of government in her second grade class and thought she knew what she was talking about.

  “Well, if this isn’t a democracy, what in heck is it?”

  Without missing a beat Dave said, “It’s a parentocracy.”

  “A what?”

  Lindsey helped out.

  “He means the parents get to decide for us.”

  “Well that’s not fair!”

  Dave said, “Look. If we push anybody too hard they might get injured. None of us are used to walking twelve miles a day for three months. Our muscles and joints might not take the stress. Let’s do twelve miles for a week or two and if we don’t have any problems maybe we can add another mile or two.

  “Fair enough?”

  Lind asked, “Is that the best I’m gonna get?”

  “Yep. Pretty much.”

  “Then I guess it’ll have to be fair enough, won’t it?”

  “Yep.”

  As they progressed through their friendly argument none of them knew they were being watched.

  Oh, this “watcher” wasn’t much of a threat to them. At least for the time being.