#14
Interested eyes watched Corbin and his entourage, as they pressed on through the woods. The closeness of the trees giving the travelers shade, but also hiding the ill will of a hungry, desperate man. Hunger making the man reckless, he shot without making sure he had a clear target. The branches in the way of the bullet, gave Corbin a stinging nick in his left arm, instead of a date with death.
Corbin's instinct was to whirl around and fire. His aim was more accurate, as he caught the hobo in the gut, sending a scream knifing through the green, shady innocence of the warm afternoon. There was a mighty growl and another scream ending in a gurgle, as dog grabbed the throat of the ambusher and tore it open.
"Oh, I'm gonna be sick," Judy stood up to heave over the side of her wagon. Clara felt as sick, but instead rushed from her wagon to Corbin's, to give aid to her husband. Dog stood over his victim with a bloody face, growling, as the humans looked at him.
"I'm fine," Corbin stressed, although to Clara, he didn't look fine. "Get on your wagon," he ordered. "I want to get away from here. Those shots may bring in others." Clara nodded, rushing back to her wagon, motioning to Judy to fall in between the two bigger freight wagons.
Corbin put his team into a trot, jarring his arm that felt like it was burning right off his shoulder.
Judy slapped the reins on the rumps of her lazy horses, sending them moving swiftly after the lead wagon. Clara didn't have to do any urging with her teams, they weren't about to be left behind, after the unsettling sounds of the shots. Corbin let the horses trot until they had a good lather in the warm afternoon. He estimated they had come a mile and a half, or so, allowing the horses to walk and cool down.
When his horses had walked enough to cool, Corbin was in familiar territory. They were closer to the farm than he had supposed, no more than a day's pull away. As a young man, he had ranged further and further away from the farm, growing up in the woods, streams and hollows; despite the busyness of modern day society.
There was a lake, full of good fishing, that they could reach right about dusk, if they upped the pace. Corbin started his team off on another trot, the heavy horses smelling the familiar aromas of their home area. Judy and Clara endured the bouncing of the increased pace, willing to follow Corbin as he took them to safety.
It was about an hour to sundown, when the lake came into view. A beautiful sparkling jewel in the waning sunshine, beset by a hidden menace as they got close. Clouds of hungry mosquitos swarmed the humans and horses, forcing Corbin to drive on until they reached a knoll where a stiff breeze blew most of the biting insects away.
Corbin was fairly immune to the bites, and Clara and Judy were not. Both women looked as miserable as they felt, cooking supper and letting the smoky fire keep the odd, stray skeeter away.
"I wonder how many of those mosquitos there were, several million?" Judy dipped a cloth in strong black tea and pressed the cooling cloth to her face.
"At the minimum," Clora mumbled through swollen, insect bitten lips. To ease the strain of getting supper, Clara opened two half gallons of chili that she had for emergencies, and soon the red richness was bubbling away in the heavy cauldron over the fire.
"Oh, I sure wish we had bread or crackers, I miss the way chili tastes with them." Judy sighed hard. Chili had been a favorite of Andy's, thinking about him made her sad down to the end of her toes. But, Judy reasoned to herself; if he was so unsure about the two of them, it was better if he rode on by himself.
The big kitchen has a stove good for baking," Corbin helped himself to another bowl of the red. "My Ma and Grandma used to bake six loaves of bread at a time. Later we got electricity and they installed a big, white electric stove, but the bread never tasted as good as when it came out of the old woodburner."
"You said your family had been there for four generations?" Clara fumbled her words, and Corbin made her sit and rest while he took his shirt off and they inspected the crease in his arm. Judy dipped a basin in the water heating for dishes, and brought the pan to her mother along with the cleanest rags they had.
"I don't want you to be a baby and do a lot of hollering," Judy teased, "I don't want Dog storming in here and taking a bite of me."
Corbin gave his step daughter a considering look, he hadn't thought about the dog since the attack on the ambusher. Now he wondered where the animal was.
to bad, but she be mad.
