Wanted: Dead or Undead (Zombie West) by Angela Scott Read Free Book Online

hardly take it as such. "That's it," he said.
"You can't have any more of my potatoes."

Chapter 6 – Lavender
     
    Cowboy ignored Red for the remainder of the evening. He
didn't talk to her, or look at her. When he finished cooking dinner, Cowboy
slid some potatoes and meat onto a plate for Wen, but didn't offer any to her.
Fine. The angrier he became with her, the better. Maybe he'd go his separate
way and leave her alone for good.
    She nibbled at some hard tack and potatoes of her own—well,
technically they were his too—and listened as Cowboy questioned the stranger about
the land out west and what might lay ahead for them. Red stood, gathered her
empty dishes, and went off to clean them. The trio had found darn near
everything they could hope for in the abandoned wagons—tubs for washing, wooden
barrels full of water, clothes, bags of beans and rice, and lots of flour and
cornmeal.
    Yet no matter how useful it all was, a horse could carry
only so much. The less weight Classy had to carry, the longer she could travel,
and the sooner Red would reach California and find her brother, Davis. She had
no problem leaving behind perfectly good supplies to ensure a well-rested, fast
horse.
    As the blood-red sun dipped below the western horizon, she
left the men and climbed into a wagon she hadn't searched earlier. She found
plenty of food and a couple of clean shirts, but what she most longed for was a
nice bar of lye soap to wash her hands and face. She sighed. Soap . Such
a small thing.
    She opened a chest near the front of the wagon and searched
through the contents, mostly dresses and children's clothing, nothing of use to
her. Then she brushed her hand over a large, leather-bound book. A family Bible.
    She lifted it out of the chest and placed it on her lap,
turning the pages and reading the scrawled names of strangers: Joseph W. Bell,
Martha Jane Williams, their children Samuel, Ella, James, and Mary. Dates
detailed births, deaths, and weddings—decades of family genealogy. Further on
in the Bible, portraits of people had been inserted between the pages. Red
looked at one after another, sad to know that these particular people were
gone.
    Her fingers brushed over the picture of a young boy dressed
in knickers held up by brown suspenders. A school pail dangled from his
fingers. The laugh in his eyes and the tuft of blond hair poking out from under
his cap reminded her of her youngest brother. She held up the picture and
examined it more closely. For a moment, it brought the image of her brother
back to her, which she feared she'd forgotten. A tear threatened to escape the
corner of her eye, but she wiped it away before it had the chance.
    She shoved the pictures into the book, just the way she'd
found them, and placed the book back inside the chest. She didn't need a Bible.
She needed soap.
    Red moved onto a second wagon. She only stayed inside for a
moment—the baby clothes, toys and dolls proved too difficult to rifle through.
She left each small item where it had last been placed.
    The children bothered her most. They turned faster than
grown adults, the feverish sickness ravaging their tiny bodies so quickly that
their whole makeup changed in a matter of minutes. They were also faster and
hungrier than their adult counterparts. Every time she had to shoot a child, it
tore at her heart. They would find peace only in death, but that didn't make it
any easier. She hated it above all else.
    The third wagon looked more promising. A soft mattress with
a large comforter covered the floor of the wagon, and Red claimed it for
herself. Cowboy would be jealous, but it served him right. She searched through
the contents of the wagon for anything of use and found a small suitcase buried
beneath wool blankets and loose clothing. She opened it and sunk down onto the
thick bed with a smile.
    Soap .
    She lifted the paper-wrapped package to her nose, and closed
her eyes while breathing in the flowery fragrance. She actually moaned