Hercules 500 Read online

  Chapter Twelve

  By Anika’s calculations—and she was counting steps!—they’d covered about a quarter of the distance when an unfamiliar, pounding sound filtered to the group. After searching the horizon, they spotted something coming their way along the road in front of them.

  Anika instantly stopped. The guys stopped, as well, staring at the oncoming ‘something’ until it emerged as a recognizable something.

  Men on the backs of the beasts the locals called dacasses.

  There were six riders.

  “What do you think, guys? Should we take cover? Or do you think it’s safe to keep going?”

  She couldn’t believe she’d even asked.

  Before they’d crashed it had never occurred to her that her fellow colonists might be dangerous. Now it seemed that pretty much everything was.

  “I am fairly certain we have been spotted and that hiding would do no good.”

  Anika’s lips flattened. “I didn’t say hide … exactly.”

  All three turned to look at her and irritation flickered through her. “Ok! So I was thinking it might be better than meeting up with six … well, we were attacked coming in! And nobody’s been nice at all. And it could be aliens for all we know.”

  “They are human,” Chance responded.

  “Which doesn’t necessarily mean ‘safe’.”

  As if that was their cue, all three of them slipped their rifles from their shoulders and into their hands, although they kept the barrels pointed at the ground and their stances relaxed.

  The six riders continued without slowing until they were close, scarcely twenty feet from where they’d stopped in the road to wait. Then they approached more slowly.

  The man in the lead seemed to be in charge.

  All six men looked rough.

  All six were wearing badges.

  And all six had their guns drawn.

  They halted maybe ten feet from Anika’s group.

  “Where you folks headed?”

  Anika glanced at the guys, but since none of them volunteered the information, she did. “The next settlement.”

  The man’s gaze flickered to her for the first time and raked her form in a way that made her feel downright unclean. “I’m afraid we’re gonna have ta relief you fellas of them weapons,” he drawled without looking away from Anika.

  Anger flickered through Anika. “They’re perfectly legal. In fact, the colonist guide requires all settlers to be proficient in the use of firearms and to keep one close to hand in case of an emergency,” she said defiantly.

  “Whooee! She got a mouth on her boys, don’t she?” one of the other riders commented, leering at her.

  “Yep. Looks like I might have ta teach tha bitch a lesson,” the leader responded.

  He’d hardly gotten the words out when there was a deafening explosion close to hand. A dark hole appeared in the man’s forehead. A few seconds passed and blood began to leak from it like a dripping faucet.

  Chance stepped in front of her, drawing her behind his back. “I do not think so,” he drawled grimly.

  The shock that held everyone frozen in place lasted maybe a nano second-barely long enough for Chance to shield Anika and issue ‘the challenge’—and then all hell broke loose.

  Less than a full minute after the ‘Marshall’ had offered to ‘lesson’ Anika, all six riders were lying on the ground dead. Only a couple had even managed to fire off a shot. Two had dropped to the ground directly behind their leader. One had whirled his beast and tried to run. The other two were shot down before they could aim the guns they were holding with any accuracy.

  The beasts they’d been seated on commenced to buck and gyrate wildly the second the noise of gunfire erupted around them. As soon as the noise stopped, they paused, looked around, and then put their noses to the ground in search of food.

  Anika was so deaf from all the gunfire, so shocked, she simply wilted to the ground when the shooting stopped.

  Sebastian dropped to his knees and patted her all over a little frantically. Finally, he caught her face between his palms. “You are hurt, dearling?”

  Anika gaped at him. “I am?” she said doubtfully. “I don’t feel anything.”

  “She’s in shock,” Cole said bracingly. Dropping beside Sebastian, he dug out a piece of the sleeping bag and wrapped it around her. “You’re ok, baby.”

  Anika nodded, glancing around at them. “Is anyone hurt?”

  “The men are dead,” Chance offered.

  A shudder went through her. “I meant any of us? You guys?”

  “They did not have time to aim,” Chance explained.

  “Because they didn’t expect any resistance,” Cole said grimly as he dug around in search of something to give Anika. Not surprisingly, they didn’t have anything stronger than water, but he gave her some and some of the color returned to her cheeks.

  Sebastian pulled her onto his lap and started rubbing her back and shoulders beneath the cover.

  Anika leaned against him gratefully, trying to focus only on the movements of his hands. “You think they really were … lawmen?” she asked shakily.

  “Damned if I know, but all of them are wearing badges,” Cole said tightly when he returned from examining them. “Maybe they’re what passes for the law around here. I’ve got no idea. But, in my book, they were just plain out thugs.”

  “This would explain the behavior of the settlers,” Sebastian said thoughtfully.

  “What do we do now?” Anika asked fearfully. “I have to tell you guys I am not in favor of reporting this. I mean, I know it’s against the law to kill people even if you think they might try to kill you ….”

  “Actually,” Cole contradicted her, “it isn’t against the law on the frontier. Back home, yeah, maybe.”

  “So the concern is that it might not be perceived as self-defense?” Sebastian asked.

  “Or we could run into people that don’t give a shit whether it was self-defense or not.”

  Uneasiness swept through Anika. “Well! Let’s not hang around!”

  “Good point!”

  “What should we do with the bodies?” Chance asked doubtfully.

  All four of them looked around, but they didn’t really need to. The road they’d been traveling meandered through an area that was a relatively flat, hard and rocky plain. That was why they’d been able to see the riders while they were still at least a mile away.

  There was actually no place to hide them unless they buried them—and Anika was pretty sure they didn’t have what they’d need to punch holes in the hard ground. There was thick forest at a distance from them, but it could be miles away.

  “I don’t think we can afford to spare the time to bury them—even if we had the tools to do it. We sure as hell don’t want to be at that if anybody comes up,” Cole said almost as if he could read her mind.

  “Do you think we could get them back on the beasts?” Anika asked doubtfully.

  Cole looked doubtful. “Kind of like in the old westerns? I guess we can try,” Cole responded.

  It transpired that it wasn’t at all difficult. The beasts, according to Cole (who informed them he’d grown up on a farm) were like chickens—dashing around in terror one minute and docile the moment things quieted down. He captured one and he and Sebastian hefted one of the men to its back. Cole looked it over and decided to use the lead to tie the body to the beast. When he had it secured, he walked to the back and slapped the animal’s rump. Instead of taking off, it merely tried to kick him in the head and then walked away and went back to grazing.

  “I was actually thinking about leading the beasts with the bodies on them,” Anika said.

  “Yeah, well I think we’ve hung around the scene of the crime long enough. I think we’re just going to have to leave them and hope for the best.”

  Anika wasn’t completely comfortable with that, but she was really uneasy herself about lingering. They seemed to be on the main connecting road between the two settlements
. There was no telling when someone might appear.

  They settled—not very happily—with moving the bodies off the road a few yards.

  Anika was a little leery about riding the dacass, but, when they’d rounded up four of the six and mounted, she discovered the beast was either well trained or just amazingly docile. It allowed her to lead it to the road and point it in the right direction and then it just kept going. The other two dacasses followed them in spite of all they could do as they mounted up and headed out again.

  Even though they were willing enough to move at a good trot, there was no convincing the beasts to move faster. Thankfully, they were very large beasts and had long strides that ate up the distance very quickly anyway.

  Anika had hoped to reach the next settlement before dark. With the beasts, they reached the outskirts by mid-afternoon. There, they stopped to consider the situation and finally decided they didn’t want to risk the possibility, however remote, that someone might recognize one of the beasts as belonging to one of the lawmen, or bad men, they’d shot.

  They dismounted, collected their belongings and left the beasts to graze at will.

  Thankfully, the beasts had no interest in anything but eating. They didn’t try to follow them.

  This settlement, they discovered, also had a palisade wall in progress, but it was far more finished. It went as far as the eye could see in both directions from the road they arrived on. This one also had a perch for a lookout—which was occupied—but the gate stood open and even though the guard eyed them suspiciously, he didn’t challenge them, so they just continued walking.

  “What do you suppose the wall and lookout is all about?” Anika wondered aloud.

  “To keep scary things out at night,” Chance responded promptly.

  “I’m think there’s a whole lot of bad out this way for them to go to so much trouble,” Cole said.

  Anika was thinking the same thing and also wondering if she wouldn’t prefer a piece of land closer in to the original settlement that was now Capitol City. She had a bad feeling, though, that the new lands had been opened up because everything closer in was taken.

  The settlement they’d arrived in seemed more prosperous. There were more people and more structures.

  Unfortunately, the people didn’t seem any friendlier and, like the first settlement, most of the structures were poorly done, looked very amateurishly constructed.

  She didn’t get that.

  The colonists had been selected by skills. There’d been all sorts of people with construction skills that had made the trip.

  Were they just in such high demand that they wanted to charge more than the average person could afford to pay? Or was it just that they were so busy trying to establish their own piece of the colony that they couldn’t afford the time to work on someone else’s?

  They were discovering a lot of things that either didn’t add up or added up to something bad. As far as the wall went, her guess would have been it was necessary because of animals like the pack they’d had such a nasty encounter with and there was no telling how many other dangerous species roamed the forests just beyond the settlement. Then there were the natives. She’d heard they were peaceful and stayed away from the settlers, but something might have changed that since the piece was written.

  Or the whole thing might have been a lie.

  She hadn’t noticed anything that suggested the wall had been assaulted, but then again, she hadn’t been looking.

  And what would they attack with when they were supposedly very primitive? Wooden spears and the like? Rocks?

  This settlement had an actual hotel—not that it looked any more comfortable than the boarding house where they’d stayed the night before, but Anika was hopeful.

  And those hopes were dashed fairly quickly.

  They had two rooms available, but since they wanted more than the proprietor at the boarding house had demanded, the group decided to take one room as they had before. Anika insisted upon paying this time since Cole and Sebastian had already paid for everyone previously, but she was mortally pissed about the price.

  Until Cole distracted her by pointing out that they should all be together in case they needed to run.

  She’d managed to mostly put the ‘incident’ out of her mind—or at least pushed it to the back.

  It had been self-defense! She wanted to find the authorities and clear them so they didn’t have the killings hanging over them, but there wasn’t a sign of a lawman anywhere around the building marked with a huge sign that said ‘Rangers’ and she just didn’t want to ask.

  They found an eatery that was also a pub after they’d examined their room and decided it might be safer just to hang on to their dwindling supplies.

  In case.

  The food wasn’t as good or as plentiful, but it was way more expensive.

  “We’re going to be in the hole before much longer,” Anika muttered. “I think we should head for mom’s place as soon as possible and hold up there until we can all get situated. I mean, obviously, we’ll have to help her with expenses, but it’s got to be cheaper than this.”

  None of them, even Cole, objected, but he did point out that they might not have a choice, that they might have to keep moving.

  Almost on the heels of that reminder, they heard a commotion out in the street. At first, none of them thought anything about it. But as it grew louder and closer and the people in the restaurant with them finally took note and began to get up to see what was going on, they exchanged an uneasy look.

  They got up as casually as they could, one by one, looked around for a rear exit, and headed that way slowly. Cole paused to pay up the bill as Chance slipped out and then Anika and finally Sebastian. He joined them in the alley behind the building.

  Fortunately, they’d had the foresight to keep their belongings with them.

  They debated, briefly, whether to try to go out the way they’d come in and see if the beasts they’d rode were still where they’d left them, but none of them could see that they had a lot of choice. The beasts were their best chance of getting away if anyone came after them.

  They did their best to circle around the growing commotion but they still got caught up in the fringes.

  “They’re dead. They’re all dead.”

  “Taylor seen it with his own eyes.”

  “On the road between here and Dacus Junction!”

  “They was just lying side the road. Ever one of them with a hole right between the eyes!”

  Anika felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. She glanced fearfully at the guys.

  “We should have hidden the bodies,” Chance muttered under his breath.

  Sebastian elbowed him in the ribs and they glared at one another.

  “Don’t you two dare start fighting again!” she snapped angrily, and then turned and stalked off, heading toward the city gate.

  Chance and Sebastian shared an accusing look with one another and then Sebastian followed her. Chance watched them indignantly for a handful of seconds and then hurried after Anika, shoving past Sebastian.

  Rolling his eyes, Cole followed them, his expression grim as he pushed his way through the gathering crowd.

  They’d managed to clear most of the crowd and were closing on the gate when they heard a shout behind them.

  “Hey! That’s the folks that just come in a while ago!”

  They didn’t know whether to freeze or take flight, but Cole stopped and turned to look to verify that they had everyone’s attention and, when he did, everyone else froze.

  “Did any of you see anything?” one of the group yelled to them.

  Relief flooded Anika since it seemed they just wanted news and weren’t accusing.

  Cole hesitated, but obviously decided a partial truth was better than a complete lie.

  In Anika’s book, it was time to confess and plead their case, but her butt hole tied itself in a knot at the very thought and seemed to close her throat.

  “Bodies?�
�

  The question seemed to take the people in the crowd aback. “The rangers? Marshall Sharp and his boys?”

  Cole frowned. “I don’t know them. We just arrived from Earth.”

  Anika thought she was going to pee herself at the discovery that the bastards actually were lawmen!

  Cole had been right not to confess, she thought a little frantically.

  “Oh my god! It was them! It must have been them that shot those bastards!” a woman in the crowd screamed.

  Before Anika could will her legs into motion and run like hell, a jubilant whoop went up from the crowd. They began to dance and bounce up and down excitedly. “Dead! Dead! Dead! SOBs won’t be robbing me again! Beating up on anybody! Threatening people! Raping!”

  Struggling with the urge to burst into tears from pure terror, Anika looked at Cole questioningly.

  He pulled her into his embrace. “It’s ok, baby,” he whispered. “I think they’re glad we killed the bastards.”

  “Should we say we did?” Chance asked quietly.

  “I don’t think so,” Cole responded. “I don’t care how glad they seem now. I was worried about trying to prove it was self defense before we discovered the bastards were cops. I’m way less inclined to confess and try to clear myself now.”

  Thankfully, everyone was so busy celebrating and discussing the end of their tyranny, they didn’t notice as Anika and her group slowly slipped away. Once they were out of sight of the townspeople, they increased their speed until they reached the area where they’d left the beasts.

  The dacasses were still there, very happily clearing vegetation.

  Not too happy to have riders again, but they allowed themselves to be mounted and headed to the road and then down it when they were guided that way.

  They discovered they were closer to Anika’s mother’s plantation than they’d realized. It lay just beyond the next settlement, but the next settlement was closer than the one previous. It was still late afternoon by the time they reached the gate proclaiming they’d arrived at number 510.