Read Canyon: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (The Traveler Book 2) for Free Online

next door and was standing on his stoop. He was dressed in cargo pants, a faded Pink Floyd T-shirt, and his brown boss hat. One hand was wrapped around a coffee mug. “You think that’s the HQ?”
    “It’s the HQ,” Skinner sneered. “Get your posse together now and meet me over there pronto. You see any others on your way, you tell ’em the same.”
    Horn slipped back into his house. Skinner punched a wooden column that ran from the stoop’s wooden floor to the low-hanging ceiling. He punched it a second time and cursed Mad Max.
    Skinner marched back into his kitchen and retrieved his Browning. He checked his revolver, assuring it was fully loaded, and dropped it into his hip holster.
    He exited the house through the back door and found his horse cribbing on the wooden fence to which it was tied. Its teeth were clamped onto the top rail, its back was arched, and it was pulling against the rail, sucking in air.
    “Cut it out.” Skinner yanked on the bridle’s throatlatch and unloosed the reins from the fence. “You’re gonna suck in a splinter and kill yourself.” He shoved the Browning into a saddle scabbard, stuck a foot into a stirrup iron, and heaved himself into the thick leather saddle. He gripped the saddle horn with one hand and looped the reins around the other.
    “Git,” he said to the horse, digging his boot heels into its sides. “C’mon, let’s go.”
    The horse trotted to the front of the house and picked up its pace. Others emerged from their homes, pointing toward the dissipating smoke. Skinner’s horse was nearing a full gallop when he tugged on the reins and stopped in the middle of the street.
    He rubbed his eyes, not sure of what was moving toward him. It was still dark and he could only make out the roughest outline of the approaching machine. The sound, though, was unmistakable. A Humvee, with its lights turned off, was rolling at him.
    He reached for the scabbard but decided against pulling his rifle. If he took aim now, he’d waste ammunition. He directed his horse to the side of the road. He stopped in front of a ramshackle house and hopped off his horse. He tied it to the leg of a rusted swing set in the yard, took his rifle, and crouched down behind it.
    As the Humvee neared, a light flipped on inside the house and a man swung through the front screen door, standing there in his underwear. He wasn’t Cartel.
    Skinner stayed low, hiding from the man. He squatted lower and leaned forward on his knees, careful not to make a sound.
    The Humvee slowed in front of the house. Skinner got a good look at it. Aside from the driver, he could see an armed man standing in the bed, wearing a dark cowboy hat. Skinner couldn’t place the man’s face, at least not in the little ambient light the moon provided.
    “Hey!” the man called from the Humvee. Skinner shrank lower to the ground. “You know where Cyrus Skinner lives? I hear it’s on this street.”
    Skinner glanced over at the man in his underwear. The man hesitated and extended his left arm outward and pointed down the street. “Five houses down. Got a covered wooden stoop.”
    “Thanks.” The man in the Humvee rapped on the top of the Humvee’s cabin and the vehicle rolled along.
    Skinner stood up, his hands on the shotgun. “Psst,” he said to the homeowner. “Hey, you.”
    The man spun around, his face contorted with confusion until recognition washed over his expression. The man started waving his hands and stammering.
    Skinner kept the Browning at waist level, hidden from the man’s view. He stood there silently, listening to the man apologize and grovel. Midsentence, Skinner pulled the trigger. The man dropped in a heap.
    Skinner turned toward a red light to his left. The Humvee’s brake lights cast a glow. It was stopped in front of his house. He left his horse and started running toward the Humvee, staying along the edge of the street in the knee-high weeds and grass.
    Others were leaving their stoops and yards to