Making camp that night was a subdued affair. Everyone had a job that they were usually responsible for; Charlie was the hunter, Bass and Miles swept the area around the site to make sure it was safe, Jeremy collected water, and it was Conner's job to build up the fire. As much as they all complained about Conner's uselessness, having to build the fire themselves made them all admit - very reluctantly - that maybe the kid had some uses after all. It was that particular realization that put everyone in a bad mood.
Bass had taken it upon himself to pick up Conner's slack, so they all watched him carefully add the kindling to the fire and set it ablaze. Meanwhile, Charlie had been silently cursing Conner for his childishness and stupidity. They had one little fight and he'd taken off running back to Daddy Nunez without a backward glance. Now Bass was determined to rescue him because she and Jeremy had been forced to lie and say that he was captured in order to save the man from yet another heartbreak. Suffice to say, Charlie couldn't wait to give Conner a piece of her mind.
They all ate quietly, except for Bass, who was stabbing the rabbit on his plate so forcefully that Charlie worried he might put his knife straight through it. She wondered if keeping the truth from him was the best way to go about the whole situation. Letting him believe that Conner had been kidnapped made him angry, but if she told him that his son had left voluntarily, he would be devastated. Either way, Bass still ended up hurt.
Jeremy watched Charlie while she watched Bass. He was worried that her own guilt for lying to Bass would affect her judgement. And while he didn't like lying to him either, he figured angry Bass was better than depressed Bass.
Meanwhile, Miles watched Jeremy, watching Charlie, who was watching Bass, with a worried expression. Whatever the two of them were hiding clearly wasn't good, but he wasn't so sure that he wanted to know about it either.
When the food had all been eaten and the dishes were done, everyone started getting ready for bed. Charlie laid her bedroll close to the fire while Miles set his own underneath a tree. Jeremy was in the process of laying his stuff out a few feet away from Miles when the other man started shouting.
"Oh, he'll no! You take your crap and sleep somewhere else."
"But I didn't even do anything!"
"I am not your cuddle-buddy, go sleep someplace else." Miles said firmly. Grumbling to himself, Jeremy gathered up his stuff and moved across camp to the spot furthest away from Miles.
Charlie chuckled to herself while she watched the boys argue, because no matter how much Miles complained, Jeremy was one of the few people he really did care about. Her attention turned back to Bass and her momentary happiness slipped away at the sight of the angry set of his jaw and tensed shoulders. He was still sitting near the fire, not even attempting to get ready for bed. Charlie approached him slowly and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. He didn't flinch away from her, which she supposed was a good thing, but he didn't acknowledge her either.
"Bass," she tried quietly. "You need to get some rest. We have no idea how far ahead of us Conner may have gotten, you're going to need your strength so we can catch up with him." He didn't move at first, making her think that he was ignoring her, but just as she was about to pull her hand away from him, he rose slowly to his feet and nodded.
"Goodnight, Charlie."
She gave him a small smile and was only a little disappointed when she didn't get one in return. "Night, Bass."
XxX
When he woke the next morning, Bass was already in a bad mood. His son had been kidnapped and was being taken back to a nut job that wanted to kill him, then on top of that, Charlie was lying to him about something. He wasn't sure what it was or why she was doing it, but it had been a long time since she had lied straight to his face, and it stung a little to have her suddenly revert back to their old ways. He rose from his bedroll to start waking the everyone else up, which only made his bad mood even worse.
Near the fire, Charlie was fast asleep laying on her back with Jeremy's leg draped across both of hers, his fingers twisted in the hem of her tank top, and his face buried in her hair. Something big and ugly reared its head deep inside of him, an all consuming hatred that almost managed to make him forget about Conner, burned in his chest. Bass shook his head roughly. There wasn't time for that. He strode over to where Charlie and Jeremy were sleeping comfortably and kicked Jeremy hard in the back.
"Get up, we need to move."
Charlie jerked upright immediately. "What time is it?" She groaned.
"Time to leave!" Bass barked back. She frowned up at him, her eyes suddenly filled with concern.
"Bass, what's wrong?" Guilt, slimey and slippery, settled in his stomach. Despite his rude wake up call, Charlie was still worried about him, which only made him feel worse for being dick.
"Nothing," he said with more force than strictly necessary, "We just need to hurry."
As Bass stomped off into the woods to releave himself, Miles rolled on to his side and looked over at the other two. "Really, Jeremy? You just had to piss him off."
Extracting himself from Charlie's side, Jeremy huffed indignantly. "I didn't do it just to make him mad. I can't help it, I get cold easily, you know that. He knows that!"
Miles groaned, getting slowly to his feet. "Yeah, well, I don't think he cares about your cuddling issues when you've got yourself wrapped around her." He hooked his thumb in Charlie's direction like he didn't want to say her name out loud.
"I didn't mean too, she was just the closest warm body." Jeremy insisted.
Miles rolled his eyes hugely. "Yeah, tell that to lover-boy, see what he thinks of that."
"You guys do know that I can hear you, right?" Charlie asked flatly.
Miles made his shut-up-before-I-throw-up face at her. "Like you didn't already know, he follows you around like lovesick puppy."
Charlie growled at him. "That doesn't make me his property, I can sleep with whoever I want, and if he's got a problem with it, then he should grow a pair and talk to me himself."
As Charlie stomped off in the opposite direction that Bass had gone, Miles pulled Jeremy to his feet. "Do you think he'll ever figure it out?" Jeremy asked.
Miles shrugged his shoulders. "I just hope he does before Charlie finally decides that she's tired of waiting around."
XxX
The rest of the day went about as well as the morning had gone. So far, they had been traveling in Mexico's general direction with the hope of cutting off Conner and his friend Alejandro before they made it to the border. But they soon realized that they were much farther behind than they had originally thought.
"What do you mean they're two days ahead of us?" Bass shouted at her.
Charlie took a deep calming breath, trying to remind herself that Bass was just worried about his son. "They have a wagon." She pointed down to the thin, straight tracks that ran parallel to each other across the ground beneath their feet. "These tracks are two days old, a day and a half at the least."
Bass sighed hopelessly and slumped down on the hard desert ground, his anger dissipating into defeat as he realized that he might actually lose his son. "What am I going to do?" He asked quietly. Charlie glanced at Miles and Jeremy, finding both of them looking just as useless as Bass, and sighed.
"We'll figure it out." She sat down next to him and rubbed calming circles on his back. "If we can get some horses, we might be able to catch up. Probably not before the border, but at least before he gets to Nunez."
His blue eyes found hers, looking sad but just a little hopeful again. "Where the hell are we gonna find horses out here?" He waved his arms around them at the unaccommodating desert.
"We can steal them if we have too. Come on, Bass, we're not doing Conner any good by sitting around and pouting." Miles looked pointedly at his friend who finally seemed willing to listen.
"I wasn't pouting," he shot back.
"Yeah, you were." Miles grinned.
"Was not."
"Were too."
"Don't start that shit again, I will kill both of you." Charlie said loudly. The boys closed their mouths quickly and watched Charlie walk on ahead of them.
"Somebody's grouchy," Bass mused.
Charlie pretended not to hear him for fear of accidentally, actually killing him this time.
XxX
Luckily, the chance to get their hands on some horses came later that afternoon. They had been following the wagon tracks all day in the hot sun when they came across another small camp, much like the one they had found the day before near the river. Twelve tents were arranged in a large circle with a fire pit directly in the center where a few kids were playing with a black dog. Several horses were tethered to a cactus about twenty yards from the tent community.
"Do you guys think we can get some of those horses?" Bass asked.
But unfortunately, the desert wasteland that they'd been wandering through didn't provide any way to hide, so the kids had spotted them and started shouting in Spanish. "Gringos! Gringos!"
"I don't think they're going to be all that friendly." And of course, the words had no sooner left Miles' mouth when men with guns started pouring out of the tents. "Move!" Miles shouted, though no one needed him to say it. As the bullets started flying, Charlie and Bass dove behind a stray boulder while Jeremy tried to take cover behind a cactus.
"I hate this fucking desert!" Jeremy yelled from where he was pressed up against the spikey plant.
Charlie resisted the temptation to laugh as Bass shoved her front more forcefully against the rock. "Stay down." Dust kicked up around them where the bullets were hitting the ground.
"No shit," she panted back. Bass ignored her smart remark and peered around the edge of their hiding place. "How many?" She asked him.
"I count six, maybe sev-"
BANG!
He flinched and ducked so low that their faces were only an inch apart. "Seven. Definitely seven."
"I'll go high, you go low?" Charlie clicked the safety off on her gun and cocked it. Bass nodded and looked over to where Jeremy and Miles were in serious trouble with both of them taking cover behind the same cactus. He caught Miles' eye and jerked his head in their attackers direction. Miles nodded back and held up three fingers.
"On three," Bass said quietly to Charlie, who was braced and ready to go.
"One," he saw Miles put one finger down.
"Two," another finger.
"Three."
They both sat up and started firing at random, scattering the men while Miles ran out from behind his cactus and rolled behind another rock about ten yards back. His movement distracted the men long enough to give Bass and Charlie a chance to gain the upper hand. Charlie shot two of them in the leg and another in the chest. Bass caught one in the shoulder and another straight in the head. When their friends started hitting the ground, the other two guys ran back towards their tents, leaving their injured friends behind.
With the gunfire finished, the silence of the desert rang loudly all around them. The children that they had seen earlier weren't even making noise. Charlie chanced a look around the boulder, finding nothing but the dead and injured men laying between them and the silent camp. "Maybe we should get out of here while we can," she suggested.
Looking out as well, Bass shook his head. "To risky, they might follow us."
Miles and Jeremy were also peeking out from behind their respective covers, both of them shrugging their shoulders in confusion. "Did they surrender?" Jeremy called out to them. They shrugged back.
Charlie tugged on Bass' sleeve to make him look at her. "If we take their horses, they won't be able to follow." She could see him mulling it over in his mind, he looked between the small tent town and the horses tethered nearby with a small amount of guilt on his face. "If we take the horses we might be able to catch up with Conner," she persisted. And that did it, the guilt slipped from his face and his jaw clenched in anger.
"Come on, let's go get 'em."
They moved out from behind the boulder cautiously, waiting to see if there would be another attack. When none came, they waved for Miles and Jeremy to follow and moved quickly and quietly to where the horses were tethered. There were six horses, and every single one was shaking with fright from the loud gunshots. Charlie patted a dark mahogany one, almost black, on the nose and smoothed her other hand down its neck.
"Shh, it's alright. I'm not gonna hurt you." Barely, but enough for her to notice, the horse settled down. The horses weren't saddled, but luckily the people that owned them weren't very bright. They had left all of the saddles in a pile nearby.
All set and ready to go, they untied the remaining two horses and sent them off running. The horses would come back of course, but it would give them enough time to get well out of range before their owners decided to chase after them. The group set off at a quick pace back towards the wagon tracks that would lead them to Conner, giving the tents and the wounded a wide berth.
The wagon tracks were obvious enough that Charlie didn't need to be at the head of the line to lead them, so she hung back and let Jeremy and Bass move ahead. After a while, Miles trotted up next to her on his horse. Their horses fell in step next to each other and the two of them rode along in an easy silence for a several minutes. The adrenaline rush had completely died down already and now Charlie was ready for a nap.
"Are you planning on telling me what you and Jer are lying about anytime soon?" His question shocked her from her half asleep riding.
"Huh?" She tired her best to feign innocence but then she remembered that it was Miles, he knew what Matheson women looked like when they lied. Sighing, Charlie shook her head. "It's probably better, for now at least, that you don't know. I don't want to put you in a bad spot."
"Like I'm not already? Bass blames me for Conner leaving in the first place. If he hadn't left, he wouldn't have been taken."
"He doesn't blame you."
"Yes, he does. That's exactly what he told me."
Charlie gave him a disbelieving look. "That's what he says, but that's not what he actually thinks. You're supposed to be his best friend, how do you not know this?"
Miles rolled his eyes at her with a huff. "OK, since you're the new Bass expert, tell me what he really thinks."
Pulling her horse to a stop, Charlie glared over at her uncle. "He thinks that this is his fault. You know how he is Miles, he blames himself for every little thing but he covers it up by either blaming someone else or acting like he doesn't care."
Miles picked awkwardly at a hole in his jeans for a second, his jaw working back and forth like he was debating what to say next. "But it was my fault this time."
"No, it wasn't." Charlie said firmly. "Leaving was Conner's choice, no one made him go. And we don't know that he wouldn't have been taken anyway. For all we know, a week from now he could have been picked up and hauled off, and then we would still be in this same mess." But Miles still didn't look releaved of his guilt. "If it really bothers you that much, why don't you just tell Bass you're sorry?" His face went from guilty to shocked in a heartbeat.
"Apologize? Me? I didn't even do anything wrong."
"Exactly," Charlie told him with a satisfied smile. "You didn't do anything wrong, so you have no reason to feel guilty."
Realizing that he'd just been played, Miles growled something like 'smart ass' and took off after the other two at a gallop. Charlie followed them slowly, hoping that lying to Miles and Bass wouldn't blow up in her face.