“I’m grateful for the offer. Thanks. We will. We’ll take care of her.” The beautiful thing about horses was that there was food everywhere for them. Hell, maybe we could travel all the way to California by horse and buggy. It’d take a while, but it sure would be nice not to have to walk.

Abram helped his daughter up into the seat of their buggy, and then climbed up and sat down next to her. I waved goodbye as he turned and began trotting out of sight.

That’s when I noticed several people on their porches, peering curiously at us. I gave a tentative wave, wondering if we’d walked into more trouble, but the people waved back, one man giving us a thumbs-up. Emily and Charlie stood as a man crossed the street and headed our way.

“You rescued them, didn’t you?” the man said as he approached. He held out his hand, and we shook in turn. “Tim Cramer. Word traveled that those men were breaking into businesses. Never seen Amish do shit like that. I knew we had some bad apples in our midst.”

I gave Tim our names. “You were right to be concerned. They were prisoners who must have gotten free when the electricity went off. They abducted a father and his daughter and…weren’t treating them well.”

His gaze held mine for a moment before he thinned his lips and nodded. “More and more of that seems to be happening. I suspect it’ll get worse before it gets better. If prisoners are escaping…damn.”

I nodded in agreement because what that likely meant was that not only had the power and generators failed, but guards had deserted their posts. “Any word at all from local officials around here?”

“Nope. Radio silence. Even the officers who live in town are home taking care of their own.”

“Mr. Cramer—”

“Tim.”

“Tim. The two escaped convicts are back that way, likely gravely injured if not—”

“I’ll send word that they need to be picked up.” He gave me a resolute nod. “I’m grateful we didn’t have to contend with more than that. They were armed and headed this way.”

I glanced back the way we’d come. “We’ll need to backtrack to collect our gear.” As much as I didn’t want to do that, I wasn’t willing to give up the precious possessions we had.

“Stay put,” Tim said. “I’ll use the walkie-talkie and have a couple of the kids bike your things to you. Where’d you leave it?”

“I appreciate that.”

I described where our packs could be found and Tim gave me a fist bump. “You did us a solid and we’re grateful to you.”