Defiance: Judgment Day (The Defending Home Series Book 3) by William H. Weber

Author:William H. Weber [Weber, William H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Dale

The following morning, Dale awoke to find Carlos fastening pieces of cloth to the tops of his boots. When he was done, he shuffled off through the low brush, circling the camp before heading back.

“Have you lost your mind?” Dale asked.

Carlos laughed, revealing a set of mostly white teeth. After removing the cloths, one at a time, he held them over a pot and wrung out a decent amount of water. He was collecting morning dew.

Ingenious, Dale thought, raising himself onto his elbow with a noticeable wince of pain. But his abdomen wasn’t the only thing aching. He’d read once about monks who slept on cold stone floors. Last night he had done the next best thing and had the kink in his spine to prove it.

Dale rose to his feet and stretched as Carlos carried out his dew collection two more times. When he was finished, the boy removed the plastic bag from the branches and added that as well. By then the pot was half full. Dale continued to be more and more impressed. Without a doubt, he was taking solid mental notes on Carlos’ techniques on finding water in the desert.

After finishing off what remained of the rabbit and refilling their canteens, both men struck camp and set off for the ranch. Carlos told him it could be found a few miles north, which was good since they were heading in that direction anyway.

At one point, his companion stopped, dropping to one knee. He picked up a nearby stick and poked at something on the dry desert floor.

“What’d you find?” Dale asked from atop Alberto’s back.

“Coyote tracks,” the boy said, alarmed.

“That isn’t such a big problem.”

Carlos glanced up at him, blocking the sun with his hand. “Maybe not when there is one or two of them.” Carlos pointed toward several pieces of coyote scat.

“How many you figure?”

Shaking his head, the boy said, “Many.”

It seemed that once the number of humans was thinned out, other animal populations had been allowed to explode. A single coyote was not a threat. However, a pack of twelve or more could easily take down a grown man, leaving behind little more than a pile of sun-bleached bones.

“Stay vigilant,” Carlos warned him. “They may be close.”

With a pistol on his hip and an assault rifle slung over his back, Dale wasn’t worried about a pack of dogs. In fact, he wasn’t even worried about an angry Mexican rancher. As soon as Carlos had mentioned these large landowners were in cahoots with the cartel, commandeering their property went from a sin to something of a moral obligation.

They travelled for another hour before Carlos stopped and pointed to a rise in the earth. “The ranch is right over that ridge,” he told Dale.

With renewed enthusiasm, they moved onto higher ground, watching as a small collection of single-story buildings came into view. The wind grew stronger, kicking up tiny dust devils. Dale covered his eyes and looked away. Searching to his right, he observed a

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