The Valley: The World Outside

By Elizabeth Martin

Allen Stryker and his buddy, Captain Curly Tey, receive permission from Hogan, Governor of the Valley, to explore outside the Valley. With thieving bandits popping up all over, Allen has a hard time avoiding them after Curly is slain. He determines to rescue a female who seems to be broadcasting distressing emotions. When he finds her, he and Jo have a fight on their hands escaping the cruel head of a band of cutthroats, a man named Ramsey. He covets Jo and makes every effort to get her back, not caring who gets killed in the process.. The Watsons, a family Allen meets on the way, are helpful, and all hope to reach the safety of the Valley.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503571037

Elizabeth Martin

Elizabeth Martin, a retired registered nurse, was born in Scotland and now lives in Casper, Wyoming. She has three grown children and five grandchildren, also grown, and two great grandchildren. She spends her time writing in various genres. This is her fifth book and her second romance. Her trilogy, The Valley, Sahra's Quest, Monahan's Purpose, and The World Outside are all in paperback. Her first Romance, a collection of novellas called Four Women, Four Tales is also in paperback and all are eBooks. She has two children's eBooks about Michael and his adventures. Martin is a member of a prolific writers' group who are fiction and nonfiction writers, poets and anecdotists, all friends and all stimulating and encouraging to her.

Book preview

The beginning, Book one

THE VALLEY: SAHRA’S QUEST

Sahra, a traveling health practitioner, has telepathic abilities that enable her to sense when trouble is ahead. An attempt to kidnap her fails and results in the murder of her uncle. She vows revenge on Monahan, the bandit leader. His lung disease has advanced to a point where he is no longer functioning as head of the bandit group which attacks the caravans conveying people and goods from one city to another. He wants to use her expertise and hopes she will be able to cure him. Another of his band, Sykes, has taken over and has resorted to killing and torturing, enjoying the sense of power being in charge has given him. He kidnaps Sahra’s adopted daughter, 5 year old Alice, and ambushes Hogan, Sahra’s new husband and Commander of the Protectors, (the soldiers who protect the Valley). Sykes is setting a trap for her, wanting to capture her in order to use her special ability for his own amoral schemes.

Sahra’s silver hair and eyes, and the presence of her devoted wolf, proclaim her an elite silver (the most powerful of the telepaths.) She sets forth to find her family, and Alice’s telepathic ability strongly broadcasts their whereabouts. This leads her to Monahan’s hideout, and they team up to rescue Alice and Hogan, outwitting Sykes in the process.

While Monahan heads up into the mountains to take the medications Sahra has given him, and to get healthy again, Sahra has adventures of her own in a town called Largo, beyond the Valley’s high mountain barrier. There she meets her silver haired grandfather, two cousins, and an elite, despotic aunt who tries to kill her by piercing her brain with her thoughts. Sahra battles this woman with her mind, as she finds herself also skilled in using it as a weapon. Hogan comes to help, with his friend Jesse, in the flying machine, called a whirler, which his brother, Vincent, has developed, and flies them up to where Sahra is hiding. With the help of her normal husband and Jesse, her silver cousins and new friends, Sahra kills the crazy despot and frees the citizens from her rule.

David Monahan, hidden in his mountain retreat, is determined to regain his health, and to seek out Sykes and bring him to justice.

* * *

Book two

MONAHAN’S PURPOSE

Sykes has taken over the ruling of a town called Godstown in the Valley’s western prairie. The nominal ruler is a man called The Holy One, banished long ago from Central when his religious zeal gets out of control. He is no longer seen in Godstown and Sykes does what he does best - kills and tortures.

David Monahan, who has been in hiding and recovering his health, has found Sykes’ whereabouts and starts a covert group to resist Sykes’ cruelties to the populace and try to save as many as he can. He rents a room in Bull’s and his slave, Edna’s apartment. Bull is one of his agents.

Bull overhears some of Sykes’ soldiers talking about another group of slaves that Sykes is bringing back to Godstown, people he has kidnapped, and tells Monahan that there is a silver in the group. Determined to save her, he and one of his group, Fiona, who, though she has red hair and green eyes, has telepathic abilities, have a plan and Monahan is able to save Lucy, the girl with silver hair. They are discovered by Otis and Jesse, who were sent by Sahra to find Lucy, and are taken back to Central, where Monahan suspects he will end up in prison. Instead, Hogan, now Governor of the Valley, recruits him to go back to Godstown to help capture Sykes.

Fiona is rescued from the dungeon by Otis, a silver, and Jesse, one of Hogan’s men and then David is captured and beaten by Sykes and thrown into the dungeon. Otis manages to get him out of there with the help of Bull, and he is taken to Central where Sahra, Hogan’s pregnant wife, takes care of him. He and Lucy plan their future together.

Hogan makes plans to sabotage the dungeons, mines and brothels and rescue the unfortunates held there, and with the help of the silvers, like Otis and Allen, with David and Lucy, they manage, in the end, to defeat Sykes when he returns to Central to exact revenge on Hogan and David by kidnapping their wives. Sykes is captured and condemned to death.

* * *

And now: Book three

THE WORLD OUTSIDE

Chapter One

The prison was almost full.

Considering the number of poor souls incarcerated, Jo was one of the lucky ones because she had a cell to herself, for the moment anyway. She hoped it stayed that way.

She squirmed on the narrow bottom bunk, her body seeking the dent her hip had made in the thin mattress over time.

For the past few months she had spent all the daylight hours slaving in the gardens, mending and patching clothing, or cooking slop for the inmates and trying to dodge trouble. So far she had managed to avoid any confrontations but maybe she’d just been lucky. Some of her worker female friends hadn’t been so fortunate. So, add whoring to the list of jobs they were constrained to do. Not that any of the women were paid for that particular service, or for any of the others, for that matter.

The men fared slightly better, she thought. But what did she know? She hadn’t talked to a man since she got here, except for the guards. The women were not allowed to mix with the men. Husbands and wives were separated. Children were taken elsewhere, nobody knew where. Unproductive workers, the sick or the lazy also disappeared.

How did she get herself into this pickle? If she had not been so traumatized at the sight of her parents being slaughtered… she could not think of any other word to describe the brutality she’d witnessed… she would not have lost all reason. She had grabbed her father’s old rifle from his slack hands, not even sure if it worked. Her father had never had to use it before. But she had used it. It had worked to good effect on the two men who had orphaned her in a matter of minutes. In a fit of horror and dejection she had not noticed the third man coming up behind her. So, now, she was in this place.

In the months Jo had been here she had never heard of anyone escaping. She wasn’t sure anybody had tried. Surely someone had tried! She wouldn’t believe that human beings were so downtrodden in this day and age that they would simply give up.

She had not been born when the devastation had decimated the known world, in fact even her father had been born after the apocalyptic events, and, although there were rumors, speculations and suppositions, all anybody knew for certain was the disease, the lack of drinking water, no food to speak of and the general absence of any comfort in what was left after the event. Not to mention the decimation of the population.

And now there were men like Ramsey, and the cruel manipulation and subjugation of lesser beings who could not defend themselves.

And this place! She gazed up at the tiny, barred window, through which she could see a hint of moonlight in the darkness. In the old days the building had been a correctional facility. That phrase was etched in the crumbling stone wall at the main gate. Cells had opened and closed in a manner that was a mystery to today’s jailers. Up in the control room sat ancient, broken-down machines that no one knew how to fix, or, for that matter how to use if they had still been in prime condition and ready to go. They belonged to an age long gone. The hexagonal control room with windows in all six walls made it easy for a couple of Ramsey’s men to sit and watch over all the long corridors that radiated out like the spokes of a wheel.

Jo turned on her back and stared into the darkness of the night. Her eyes were bleak, her expression grim. It was going to be a long time until morning. Her body was too weary and her mind too active to allow her to drift off into much needed sleep.

She thought back over the last couple of days, over the first meeting she’d had with one of the guards. His name was Stryker. Allen Stryker, he’d told her as he’d escorted her to the berry bushes at the edge of the orchard. He’d wanted to warn her, he’d said quietly. Ramsey had been watching her. Now he was ready to make his move. Stryker hadn’t answered when she’d wanted to know why he was warning her, but had turned and moved on toward the orchard. He was a new guy, had shown up only the other day, and didn’t have the brutal look or the cruel mentality the other guards exhibited.

She thought about the man who had wanted to save her from…her mouth twisted in a grimace…a fate worse than death. Where had that phrase come from, she wondered. Was there anything worse than death, except perhaps loss of freedom? She had to admit to herself that, in other time and place… Well, he was one of the finer specimens of manhood, after all. But, under the circumstances, what was the point of thinking like that?

It was Ramsey she feared. Ramsey, who ran the joint was a mean, vicious man with a bunch of cutthroats at his beck and call. Jo had known for some time that Ramsey watched her with lust in his eyes, and to Ramsey, whose word was law and whose justice could be lethal, a little thing like rape wouldn’t deter him from getting from he wanted. And, he was brutal. Jo had seen what he had done to one woman when he was finished with her.

So, what she had to do was keep a low profile, If that was possible with the multitude of guards around, avoid the man, hide somewhere, if she could, in the trees, or the berry bushes, if he showed up looking for her. And hope like hell he found some other poor soul more to his liking. But she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was nowhere to hide in this place!

She saw Stryker again next morning when she was brought to her assigned post. He was patrolling the Orchard again. And Jo was again in the berry patch. The berries were fat, red and juicy and much as she was tempted she wouldn’t allow herself to pop any into her mouth. They stained the skin and the teeth and any telltale signs of consumption were severely dealt with.

As always, her mind was occupied in wandering into various plans for escaping this hell as she filled her basket so she didn’t hear Ramsey coming. Her first clue was when she noticed that the hum of conversation around her had suddenly stopped.

Then she heard his voice.

Where’s Whitney?

Nobody answered.

You! Jo heard the sound of a hand hitting flesh, followed by a cry of pain. Where’s Whitney, you moron?

Jo dropped her basket, goaded into action by panic, and ran along one of the neat rows looking about her for a place to hide, knowing she wouldn’t find one, knowing that her luck had run out, knowing, too, that her worst nightmare had finally found her.

She heard a soft voice, a whisper. Over here! and dived toward it through a gap low in the hedge. She crawled through several rows of bushes toward the orchard. Finally reaching open space and green grass, she stood up, turned and bumped straight into Allen Stryker.

He put out a hand to steady her. Then he said, Sorry about this. His hand curled into a fist and landed with a fast and hard punch on her jaw.

She staggered back with the jolt, felt the pain and saw colored circles behind her eyes before she sagged. He caught her as she fell and laid her gently on the grass.

‘Now, stay put, he hissed in her ear. He stood up and yelled, She’s here!"

Chapter Two

Dizzy, and slightly nauseated, Jo tasted the peculiar metallic taste of blood that meant a split lip. Beneath her cheek she felt the soft turf shift to the thud of feet as Ramsey and his cohorts came near.

Sorry, boss, She heard Stryker say as they approached. I guess I hit her too hard. She’s passed out. I’ll take her to the Doc in case I did more damage than I meant to.

Dammit, Stryker. Ramsey was pissed off and looked as though he wanted to hit something, or someone. The man was huge, with the strength of a bull and hands as big as shovels. Stryker, looking sheepish, took a step backward out of reach of those hands.

Sorry, he muttered. She was trying to run.

Ramsey stood over Jo looking moodily down at her then suddenly made a gesture toward the main complex. Well, go on then. Tell the Doc I want to know when she comes to. And he turned and strode off. The two men with him followed.

Jo lay still. The grove around her rustled as the breeze played around the leaves of the orchard trees. The grass was still now, quiet, peaceful, no longer transmitting footsteps. The soft murmur of workers relaxing into quiet conversation as the crisis passed was somehow reassuring.

She stiffened as a shadow fell over her face. She felt his hand on her hair, touching and stroking it away from her face. Gently, almost tenderly, he tucked it behind her ear.

Jo?

She looked up into his face as he crouched down beside her and saw the genuine regret in his eyes. And he couldn’t help but see the puzzlement in hers.

It’s okay; I’m on your side. His voice was barely a murmur

When suspicion edged out puzzlement his finger touched the bruise that was fast forming on her chin. I had to make it look good. Now let’s get you to the infirmary.

He hefted her into his arms. She was no lightweight, although she imagined she’d lost some weight lately. He carried her easily.

In case his stooges are watching, could you act just a wee bit unconscious?

Again his voice was low, and she obediently laid her face against his shoulder. He lifted her against his chest, cuddled her closer and her forehead seemed to fit nicely at his neck. They traveled to the medical unit in silence. Despite the throbbing in her jaw she felt cozy and secure – safe – in his arms and she could swear she felt him rubbing his cheek against her hair. She stiffened against his proximity and his grip tightened.

It’s okay, you’re doing fine.

When he’d left her off at the little room with a couch and a desk that was used as the ‘medical’ facility he hadn’t mentioned to the guard who was in attendance that day that Ramsey wanted to be notified when she woke up. She hadn’t seen him again when she’d been sent back to the berry patch. Being sick or injured was no excuse for being released from work.

Lying there in the dark