Double Crossbow (Daryl Dixon) [The Walking Dead]

Chapter 71 ↣ Trying again better?

"Traveler, your footprints
are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
you make your own path as you walk.
As you walk, you make your own road,
and when you look back
you see the path
you will never travel again.
Traveler, there is no road;
only a ship's wake on the sea."

- Antonio Machado

↣ ↢

Daryl

Rick had gone into war mode. Aaron was now unconscious, tied to one of the posts in the barn. Everyone else was awake and on their guard. Michonne and Maggie sat on either side of Aaron, dressing his bleeding forehead.

Kathryn had wiggled her way up to the second level of the barn. She lay flat on her stomach, peering out between some broken boards.

"Anything?" I called up to her.

"Nope," she replied.

And she didn't think anything was coming. Her demeanor was far too relaxed. I didn't know what about this strange man had convinced her, but I'd ask her that later.

"That's a hell of a right cross there, Rick." Aaron looked around the whole barn. "You're being cautious. I completely understand."

"How many of your people are out there?" Rick asked. "You have a flare gun to signal your people, so how many are there?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes, it does."

"I mean, of course, it matters how many people are actually out there, but does it matter how many people I tell you are out there? Because I'm pretty sure no matter what number I say–eight, thirty-two, four hundred forty-four, zero. No matter what I say, you're not going to trust me."

"Well, it's hard to trust anyone who smiles after getting punched in the face."

I disagreed with that one.

"How about a guy who leaves bottles of water for you on the road?"

Maggie had filled in those blanks for us, and Eugene was still alive unfortunately. So they hadn't been poisoned. "How long you people been following us?" I asked.

"Long enough to see that you practically ignore a pack of roamers on your trail. Long enough to see that despite a lack of food and water, you never turned on each other. You're survivors, and you're people. Like I said, and I hope you won't punch me for saying it again, that is the most important resource in the world."

It was quiet for a long moment. I glanced up to Kathryn.

"How many others are out there?" Rick asked.

"One," Aaron replied. "I knew you wouldn't believe me. If it's not words, if it's not pictures, what would it take to convince you that this is for real?"

No one answered him.

"What if I drove you to the community? All of you? We leave now, we'll get there by lunch."

"I'm not sure how the sixteen of us are going to fit in the car you and your one friend drove down here in," Rick grumbled.

"We drove separately. If we found a group, we wanted to be able to bring them all home. There's enough room for all of us."

"And you're parked just a couple miles away, right?" Carol asked.

"East on Ridge Road, just after you hit route sixteen. We wanted to get them closer, but then the storm came, blocked the road. We couldn't clear it."

"Yeah," Rick started, "you've really thought this through."

"Rick, if I wanted to ambush you, I'd do it here. You know, light the barn on fire while you slept, pick you off as you ran out the only exit. You can trust me."