B00C74WTKQ EBOK by Lloyd Tackitt Read Free Book Online

out there somewhere watching the house. Anyone tries to approach, Bear will let me know about it. There won’t be anyone sneaking past him.”
    Adrian went back to the garage and stoked the fire until he could hear the wood gas bubbling through the water in the cleaning chamber. The deuce-and-a-half was military-issue and didn’t have an ignition key. He turned the starter and the truck engine tried to turn over. Engines were slow to start on wood gas and the battery sounded a little weak, so he shut it off. Looking around, he found a case of starting fluid. He put the case of cans in the back and used one to spray a little into the air intake. Then he started the engine again. This time it caught right away, then slowed down a bit as it began cycling on the wood gas.
    While the engine warmed up, Adrian checked the tires on a horse trailer he’d spotted near the shed. They were still sound, but the truck’s trailer hitch didn’t fit, so he went back into the carriage shed and brought out a piece of chain he had noticed earlier which he used to make a crude, but effective, connection to pull the trailer.
    By the time he pulled up to the front porch of the house, Racy had already put a large pile of supplies on the porch. This girl isn’t lazy. With Adrian helping, it only took a few minutes to carry the rest of the goods out of the house and load everything onto the truck. It was quite a cache. Mostly canned goods, but there were some usable dry goods and several cases of canned meat and other dehydrated foods, enough to feed one person for a couple of years. Enough to feed the girls for quite a while.
    By current standards, Charley had been a wealthy man. Racy had been right when she’d said he was a successful trader.
    They loaded up twenty-seven rifles, fifteen handguns, and dozens of boxes of assorted ammunition. There were no two guns exactly alike in the whole bunch, but there seemed to be plenty of ammo for most of them. The guns could be traded for enough food to last them a couple of more years.
    Quite a dowry. At least they’re not going into the world as beggars. Poor kids deserved all this and more. They’re not stealing—they’re taking what’s theirs, but not nearly enough of it.
    As they finished loading up, Racy ran back into the house. She emerged a couple of minutes later, her expression flat.
    “We better get going, the house will be burning like crazy in a minute.”
    Adrian pulled up to the girl’s house and put the transmission in neutral, letting the engine run at idle while Racy went in to tell the girls to load all the food and guns they’d gathered along with their meager personal belongings.
    With all they were carrying it was going to be a tight fit for the girls back there. He could squeeze in two of the smaller girls with him and Bear in the front, but that still left over a dozen in the back. With an eye to the future Adrian directed the girls to stack the boxes of food along the sides of the truck bed and across the back, making a wall all around the slatted wooden sides of the truck. He wanted the girls to be able to stay out of sight just in case they ran into a situation that called for it.
    He also spent quite a bit of time coaxing Bear into the cab of the truck. Bear had run alongside as they returned, but that had been a relatively short distance. Adrian was planning on driving long distances each day. Bear would have to ride in the truck, and Bear had never been in a vehicle of any kind. Once Bear got the idea, he turned into a seat hog. That took more time to correct. When he finally had Bear situated, he loaded his horse into the horse trailer.
    Most of the girls had packed by putting their belongings in the middle of a bed sheet and then gathering and tying the corners. One or two had suitcases. Each girl also had a bedroll consisting of two quilts and a pillow, with rain coats, winter coats, and towels rolled up inside. Racy had told the girls which pots and pans and