Joshua (Book 2): Traveler Read Free

us!”
    “No! It wasn’t me, I wouldn’t do that to you guys; it was the Whitmans! It wasn’t my food! It was theirs!”
    Rob sat down again, curiously the anger now gone as quick as it came, “Who’s the Whitmans?”
    “I promised.”
    “Come on, James, just tell us.”
    “I promised I would never tell.”
    “If you’re really our friend, you will tell us. Come on.”
    “I can’t.”
    “Come on, James ...”
    After a few more moments of all those stares weighing heavy on him, the boy’s resolve was at long last gone, “Mark and Sarah Whitman.”
    “They live in that town?”
    “Yeah ...” The boy wouldn’t look at him, instead staring at the ground.
    “Where exactly do they live?”
    “At Chestnut and Main, there’s an old brick building on the corner. It’s three stories tall and there was a pharmacy on the first floor, and there were apartments above that.”
    “Yes, I remember the drug store, we searched it real well. It was burned out and the stairs to the second floor were destroyed too. They’d completely collapsed. Are you saying they live above it?”
    “Yes, the first two floors are trashed, they live on the third floor.”
    “So how do they get in and out?”
    “They have a rope ladder they lower from a window down to the ground.”
    “This is hard to believe. How did you ever find them?”
    “I didn’t; they found me. I was searching that pharmacy too and as I was leaving Sarah yelled out. I guess she felt sorry for me. I probably looked pretty pathetic; I hadn’t eaten in three days. They dropped the ladder and let me climb up. They searched me for weapons, though, I’m sure that was Mark’s idea. They gave me a meal and let me sleep there last night. This morning they fed me again but said they couldn’t help me no more. They said I had to go. They gave me that soup and made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone about them. When I made that promise I thought I could keep it.”
    “It’s okay, James, you tried.”
    “You’re going to rob them, aren’t you?”
    “Yes, we are. Does that bother you?”
    “Yes ...”
    “Have you ever stolen from people, James?”
    “Yes ... but I never hurt anyone.”
    “Taking their food, that’s not hurting them?”
    “You know what I meant. You’re going to hurt them.” The boy continued to gaze at his frayed tennis shoes, the tears coming again.
    “James, look at me ...” Robert waited until the boy grudgingly stared up at him, “I want you to know we’re not going to hurt them, unless they try to hurt us. It’s one of our codes.”
    “Codes?”
    “We have codes we live by, James. When we join this group, we take an oath; if you decide to join us, you’ll take it too. One of our codes is that we never hurt anyone if we don’t have to. Unless your friends decide to fight us, I promise you they won’t be hurt.”
    “You promise.”
    “I promise ... so tell me all you know about them.”
    “I don’t know anything else.”
    “Sure you do, you probably don’t even know how much you do know. You’re sure it was just the two of them? How long were you there?”
    “I was there over twelve hours. I didn’t see or hear anyone else the whole time. I’m sure it was just them.”
    “Do they have some kind of alarm, or maybe a dog? Do they have any kind of animal that might warn them?”
    “No, I don’t remember any animals, or alarms.”
    “Do they have guns?”
    “Yes ... Mister Whitman had three I could see.”
    “What kind?”
    “I don’t know anything about guns.”
    “Come on, James, describe them to me.”
    “Well, the one he carried around with him most of the time was a shotgun ... I’m pretty sure of that. He kept calling it his ‘twelve gauge.’ He had a handgun too, in a holster on his belt. I didn’t get a good look at it though.”
    “Was it a pistol or revolver?”
    “A revolver, maybe, he never took it out.”
    “You said there was a third gun, what was it?”
    “Another long gun, maybe a