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They all groaned. Half a day’s travel, wasted. It was brutally hot, and all of them were a little short-tempered. Justin used the hem of his sleeveless T-shirt to wipe the sweat from his forehead as he studied the wall.
“What the hell is it?” Stan scratched his head.
“It’s an island. Look.” Justin laid the map flat on top of the wagon bed. “Town named Colby, and you can see there’s plenty of land around the edges of the town for farming. They’ve got themselves a nice set up, and it seems like they’re looking to protect it. There’s only one road bisecting it, and if they’ve got a wall on the other side, blocking the bridge, they’re got a damn near impenetrable fortress. At least until the raiders start banding together into tribes.”
Carly put the binoculars back in their case and stashed them under the wagon seat. “Well, maybe they’ll let us through.”
“For a price, I’m sure,” Justin said dryly.
They approached the gate at a slow, cautious pace, keeping their hands out so as not to alarm anyone who might be watching them. A face appeared above the gate.
“That’s close enough!” he shouted, and they froze in their tracks. “What do you want?”
“Just passing through,” Justin called back.
“Sorry, stranger, no one comes into our town but our own.”
Justin nodded. “We’ll be on our way then.”
The man’s head vanished for a moment and then reappeared. “My people want to know about your horses. Are you willing to trade for them?”
“We’re willing to trade, but not for the horses.”
“You sure? We could make it worth your while.”
“I’m sure.”
The man shrugged. “All right. Be on your way.”
Dagny chose that moment to let out a wail. The man jumped, and his jaw dropped. “Is that a baby I hear?”
Carly hopped up into the wagon and picked up Dagny. “There, there, Mommy’s here.”
There was a woman’s soft cry, and a female face surrounded by blonde hair peered down over the edge. She said something to the man, and he called out, “Can you hold it up?”
“She’s a baby, not a Super Bowl trophy,” Carly said indignantly.
Both heads vanished back behind the wall and Carly could hear the rumble of voices. A few shouts. A woman yelled, “They have a baby with them! They’re safe!”
The man’s face appeared above the fence again. “All right, we’re letting you in.” He didn’t sound welcoming, almost as if he were resigned to it.
“Maybe we shouldn’t go in there,” Stan said. He moved closer to Mindy and his hand drifted down to his belt, where a gun was holstered.
“We’ll be fine,” Justin replied as he eyed the faces peering down at them from the top of the wall.
“How do you know?” Stan asked.
“Trust him,” Carly said before Justin could speak. “Justin has really good instincts about this kind of thing. He wouldn’t take us inside if it wasn’t safe.”
“Look, Carly, Justin, I don’t mean any offense, but—”
Justin cut him off and nodded toward the people who were gathering on top of the wall to look down at the strangers at their gates. “Look up there, Stan. What do you see? More importantly, what don’t you see?”
Stan glanced up. “What am I looking for?”
Carly was curious about that, herself. She saw nothing odd or out of place.
“Guns,” Justin said. “Only one person has a firearm, and it’s a shotgun, not the ideal weapon for defending a wall. They must have no ammo left.”
