Chapter 24
The morning began clear, and the heat came quickly, rolling down from the ridge and settling across the valley.
Mary Anne was already at the clinic when she heard Hale shouting for Freddie across the square.
By the time she stepped outside, a small group of men had gathered near the well.
Their faces were drawn, eyes ringed with sleeplessness.
Hale stood beside them, his rifle slung across his shoulder.
Freddie was tightening the straps on a canvas pack, his expression grim.
“What’s going on?” Mary Anne asked.
“Scouting run,” Hale said. “They’re following the trail Harlan’s people took. The wind’s kept it clear enough to track.”
“You’re sending them after the exodus?”
“Not after it. Just far enough to see how far they got. We need to know if they made camp or if they’re gone.”
“They’re already gone,” she said.
Freddie looked up. “Then we’ll find what’s left.”
He sounded calm, but she could see the tension in his jaw. He’d changed in the weeks since returning from the mountains. The jokes had stopped, replaced by something quieter.
“How many are you taking?”
“Four,” Hale said. “Small enough to move quickly.”
Mary Anne looked at Freddie. “You don’t have to go.”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “If there’s anyone alive out there, I need to know.”
“Be back by dark,” she said.
“Before then, if we can,” Freddie said.
They left a few minutes later, moving along the old road that cut north through the valley. The sun was just beginning to climb. Their shadows stretched long behind them, bending across the cracked asphalt.
By midday, the town felt emptier than usual.
Freddie had taken three of Hale’s best men, and the silence their absence left was heavy.
Mary Anne kept herself busy at the clinic.
There were burns to dress, a child with sun sickness, and a cut hand from someone splitting wood with a dull ax.
She moved from cot to cot, methodically, refusing to look toward the ridge even when the wind carried the faint scent of dust and smoke from that direction.
As the hours passed, the heat grew worse. The light coming through the windows was white and sharp, bleaching everything it touched. She poured water over a rag and pressed it against her neck, the cloth already warm by the time she set it down.
Emily arrived in the afternoon with a basket of boiled bandages. “Have you heard from them yet?” she asked.
“Not a word,” Mary Anne said. “They’ll be back when they’re ready.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No, but it’s what I’m saying until I do.”
They worked in silence for a while. The only sounds were the creak of the wooden floor and the hiss of the fire boiling water. When the sun began to lower, the sound of boots reached them from outside.
“They’re back,” Emily said.
Mary Anne stepped into the light. The patrol was crossing the square, moving more slowly than they had left. Dust clung to their clothes. Freddie was in front, face pale, eyes wide but distant. The others followed behind him, heads lowered. Mary Anne met them halfway.
“What did you find?”
“Boot prints,” Freddie said.
“Just prints?”
“Too many. Hundreds, maybe. All heading toward the ridge.”
“Could be them,” Hale said.
Freddie shook his head. “Not just them.”
“What do you mean?” Mary Anne asked.
“They were arranged. Not scattered like people walking. Lines, rows, and circles. Like somebody was organizing and moving them.”
“Organizing?”
Freddie nodded. “Patterns. At first, I thought it was the wind, but they were too clean. We found a stretch near the old mining road where it looked like they’d stopped. There were fire pits burned down to ash, but no food or packs, nothing left behind.”
Hale’s expression hardened. “Any bodies?”
“None. Just the prints, but they kept going toward the peaks. Straight toward those fires we saw.”
“You think they met someone?” Mary Anne said.
“I think they were met.”
“What do you mean by patterns?”
“There were circles. Concentric ones, like wheels. People standing in rings, facing outward. And tracks leading in from every direction. Like they were being gathered.”
“Gathered by whom?” Hale asked.
Freddie shook his head. “Didn’t see anyone, but someone was there. The ashes were fresh.”
Mary Anne looked toward the ridge. The mountains were a jagged silhouette against the fading light. “You didn’t go farther?”
“No,” Freddie said. “Didn’t seem smart.”
Hale nodded slowly. “You did right.”
Mary Anne’s throat felt dry. “If Harlan’s people reached them, they’re walking into danger.”
“They walked into something.”
“Then we have to go after them.”
“We can’t,” Hale said. “We’re down to half a dozen able bodies, and two of them are sick. If we send anyone, the town goes unguarded.”
“They could still be alive,” she said.
“We could be dead if we chase them. We can’t save everyone, Mary Anne.”
“You agree with him?”
Freddie hesitated. “He’s right. We’re not ready for whatever’s out there.”
“Then I’ll go alone.”
“You won’t,” Hale said.
She stopped. “Try to stop me.”
“I will, because you’re the only one holding this place together.”
The words hit harder than she expected. She said nothing.
The men dispersed, heading toward the well.
When they left, Mary Anne went back to the clinic.
The air inside was cooler, the heat of the day fading but leaving its weight behind.
The last patient of the evening was waiting, a young man with burns on both arms from a cooking fire.
He sat at the table, face pinched with pain.
“Let me see,” Mary Anne said.
He unwrapped the cloths. The skin beneath was red and blistered.
She poured water over it, the smell of char and flesh filling the room. “Keep still.”
He gritted his teeth. “Heard the patrol came back.”
“They did.”
“They find the preacher?”
“No,” she said. “Just tracks.”
“Maybe he found God out there,” the man said.
“Maybe God found him,” she said.
When he left, she stayed at the table, staring at the bandages in her hands.
The fire outside the window hissed in the wind.
Every sound felt sharper: the creak of the rafters, the rustle of fabric, and the faint whistle of air through the cracks in the wall.
She stepped outside. The sky was a deep red fading to black, and the mountains cut into dark shapes against the horizon.
Somewhere up there, beyond what she could see, those fires still burned.
Freddie sat near the well, staring north. “I keep thinking about those prints,” he said. “They didn’t look random.”
“You think someone’s building something out there?”
“I don’t know, but it felt wrong. Like walking into a place that wasn’t empty anymore.”
Mary Anne said nothing. The wind shifted, carrying the smell of dry wood smoke.
Emily joined them, a blanket around her shoulders. “You both need to eat,” she said. “Soup’s ready.”
“Later,” Mary Anne said.
“You said that yesterday.”
“I’ll say it again tomorrow.”
Emily sighed and walked back toward the fire pit where the others sat.
Freddie rubbed his hands together. “You ever feel like we’re being watched?”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know, but when we were out there, I kept feeling it. Like something was just beyond the ridge, waiting.”
Mary Anne looked up at the mountains. “We’ve all been staring too long. Makes ghosts out of shadows.”
He nodded but didn’t look convinced. When the night deepened, she climbed the ladder to the water tower.
The metal was cool beneath her hands. At the top, the wind was stronger, carrying the faint scent of sage and dust. She leaned against the railing and looked toward the peaks. There the fires were.
They burned in the same places she remembered, but tonight they looked closer, brighter.
She squinted, counting again, waiting for them to fade or flicker.
She lowered herself to sit against the rail.
The rifle Hale had insisted she carry rested across her knees.
It felt awkward in her hands, heavier than she’d expected.
She checked the chamber the way he’d shown her, then set it back down. The lights on the ridge burned on.
She stayed there for hours, eyes fixed on the horizon.
Every time she blinked, the lights seemed to shift a fraction closer, like they were creeping down the slope.
When dawn began to show, she was still there.
Her legs were numb, and her eyes were sore.
The fires dimmed in the growing light, fading to smoke, thin and gray against the pale sky. She climbed down slowly.
Freddie was right; someone was organized.
She felt a chill settle deep in her stomach.
Whatever was out there was moving, and every night, the fires seemed a little closer.
That evening, when the sun slipped behind the ridge, she climbed the tower again.
The rifle rested across her knees. The valley stretched out quietly below.
As the first stars appeared, so did the lights on the ridge, faint at first, then clear and bright, steady as before.
She counted them again, and there were seven.