She scrunched her face up and said something lost in the wind. Reese grinned—it was probably a promise to slap him upside the head again. Then the ship settled further into the speared fort with a titanic groan of rending metal. He lost his balance and staggered back from the railing. The last thing he saw was Jo in mid-air, her face turned up and her eyes wide with surprise as her arms pinwheeled in empty space.
Reese regained his balance and rushed back to the railing. Jo was nowhere in sight, but the white mark on the water far below told him where she’d hit the water. “Jo!”
He frantically searched the churned water for a shape, her hat, her backpack, a shadow—anything to indicate where she was. “Dadgummit…” he muttered to himself as he moved over to the life boat and heaved it up and over the side, despite the wind pushing it back toward the wheel house. With a grunt, he launched it out over the side and used the wire rope he’d made to slow its fall as it headed for the water.
The wire burned as it zipped through has hand. “Dang!” He let it go and leaned over the railing in time to see it hit the water with a loud, hollow splat and send a ring of foam out in all directions around the orange boat. Still not finding Jo, he tossed the makeshift sail bundle overboard and made sure it stayed well out to sea from the boat—or where Jo might have landed. The wires were all holding, and the lifeboat remained tethered to the container ship.
Reese took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing,” he muttered as he stepped over the railing and held tight to the end of the handling line. The steps Jo had traversed were slippery with rain and spray. It was no wonder she fell. He cursed repeatedly as the ship settled ever deeper into the fort, shifting subtly. He almost lost his grip twice before he made it ten feet below the deck. He glanced over his shoulder to see if he could find Jo and the breath caught in his throat.
She floated face down in the water not ten feet from where she’d gone in and drifted toward the fort’s breached wall with every wave.
“Jo!” he yelled, his voice echoing off the side of the exposed hull. She didn’t move. Reese closed his eyes and clung to the trembling hull. He knew what had to be done. “Forgive me…” he muttered to Cami in case his plan backfired.
He looked down between his feet, timed the wave, and let go[MP11].
Chapter 20
Braaten Forest Preserve
Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina
Cisco crawled out from under his shelter, where he’d been dozing during the relative peace and quiet as the eye passed overhead. The sunlight, dappled through the canopy of the forest, had slowly faded over the course of the afternoon as the eye passed and the second eyewall approached.
He stood up, dusted the branches off his arms and legs, and examined the little shelter he’d created under Poacher’s tutelage. It looked a little the worse for wear, with a lot of bark missing from the stout poles he’d constructed the wall from, but overall, it had survived the storm admirably. The true test would be how long it survived the second half of the storm.
Footsteps on the damp earth and a few snapped twigs announced Jenkins' presence beside him. "I wouldn't worry overmuch," he said quietly. "Usually the second half ain’t never as bad as the first."
"Usually," Cisco echoed.
Jenkins nodded. He glanced up at the darkening sky. "Usually don't mean always, got that right. I remember one time—”
Cisco turned to him and the man stopped talking. "I'm not interested in your recollections. I'm interested in vengeance. I'm interested in blood. You got us this far, it's about time to get some payback."
Jenkins nodded. "Wind’s picking up. I give it another 30 minutes or so before the storm is full on in our face."
Cisco stretched. "In that case, let's get the men rounded up, get something to eat, and get on the move."
"We’re pretty close to the neighborhood already—”
“Right, and since nobody came this way, and we haven't moved closer to them, right about now they're more concerned with the storm bearing down on them.” Cisco looked up. "They're looking at the same skies, and they're gonna start feeling the wind and the rain. If we’re on the move, by the time it really gets bad we’ll be able to drop right in on them and catch Flynt completely flat-footed."
"You're the boss," Jenkins said, sounding completely unconvinced.
"That's right," Cisco replied sharply. "I am the boss." He turned and motioned the men around him to gather closer. "This everybody?" He looked around at the weary, haggard faces, none of them gentle, all of them exhausted. "I know we’re all at about the end of our ropes—I ain’t here to give a big speech. This here’s the final push, boys. We’re gonna split up.” He looked at his lieutenant. “Jenkins will take his men a little ways north and make his final approach from that way. You guys with me, we’re going to go straight east."
A gust of wind tore through the trees and leaves fluttered in the air between Cisco and his troops. One of the men raised his hand.
"Yeah?" Cisco asked.
"We going to try to coordinate all this or we all hit at the same time?"
Cisco shook his head. "No. We’re not going to attack at first. We’re going to get inside the neighborhood, secure a couple houses, and wait til it gets dark."
Someone whistled.
“We fightin’ in a hurricane at night?"
“Yeah,” Cisco said as he pointed at the man, who spoke. “Imagine yourself one of those slackers in that neighborhood. What you gonna be thinking about as it gets closer to nighttime?"
"Finding me a woman, a bed, and a beer," the man replied instantly. The others erupted into hyena-like laughter and high-fives.
Cisco let them enjoy the moment and smiled with the rest of them. "You got that right. No way anybody gonna be thinking that we’re coming’ at ‘em. Especially not from the house next door, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the storm. We'll catch ‘em completely by surprise. And then…” Cisco said as he clenched his hand into a fist. "Then we’re going to take that neighborhood and throw us one hell of a party."
The men cheered, loud at first, then in a more restrained fashion after Cisco and Jenkins urged them to lower their volume. "Here's the deal,” he said quickly. “From here on in, we’re trying to be as quiet as possible. That means you, Jimbo,” he said as he pointed at a tall, lanky man in Jenkins' group. "You best cut out those stupid jokes of yours.”
“You serious?" Jimbo replied with a slow drawl.
"I don't know what's gonna be funnier, him walking around unable to tell a joke, or him opening his mouth to talk and gettin’ a bullet between the eyes," one of the others said. Another round of chuckles interrupted Cisco's talk.
"All right, simmer down," he snarled. "This ain't no Boy Scout camp out. The people in that neighborhood know we’re out here somewhere, and they know we’re mad. But it ain't gonna help ‘em." He put his hands on his hips. "We're done with them—that place is going to be ours and then we’ll start taking back what we lost."
"Okay, you heard the man. My team over here," Jenkins said as he cut through the crowd. The men broke up. Half followed Jenkins to the far side of the clearing, the others clustered around Cisco.
"All right, let's get this going. Grab a snack or some water if you can. Get your gear, and let's move out."
"We gonna dismantle all these huts?" one of Cisco’s squad asked as he gestured in the direction of Cisco's own lean-to. "Might alert somebody we’re here…”
Cisco laughed in the face of a stiff wind that came from the south. Just like Poacher had predicted. "I couldn’t care less if they find it. By the time somebody stumbles across these things, it's gonna be too late for the people of Bee’s Landing. Let's go." He walked over to his shelter, pulled his pack from under the stout branches and slung it over his back. His rifle came out next, and after a quick check of the action and magazine, he was ready to go.
One of the men approached him with a water bottle, which he took gladly, and downed half the soothing li
quid. "Everybody geared up?" he asked, forced to raise his voice as the wind increased in intensity.
The others, shielding their eyes in the face of the gale, nodded.
Cisco grunted and settled the pack on his back. “Let's go." He turned and marched due east, the wind buffeting him on the right side. They moved carefully to avoid tripping and falling over the miniature walls they'd constructed around the clearing, then loosened up as they entered the deeper forest.
Cisco stopped at the edge of the camp and instructed his men to pass by single file. As they marched into the woods, he turned and saw Jenkins on the far side of the clearing marching his men northeast. His lieutenant turned and offered a halfhearted wave to which Cisco replied with a kind of salute. Then Jenkins turned and slipped into the wind-tossed bushes and disappeared from sight.
The rain pelted Cisco as the full brunt of the storm appeared right on schedule. He turned and moved into the forest behind his men.
What would've taken merely 15 minutes in good weather, took closer to an hour as the storm continued to intensify. One of his men approached and informed him that the storm didn't feel nearly as bad as the first half, but Cisco couldn't tell.
The wind was strong enough to force him to walk bent over, and every now and then a gust threatened to knock him off his feet. The rain came down in buckets, driven by the wind into great sheets that obscured the world further than thirty feet in front of them as they picked their way through the groaning, creaking, storm-weary forest.
A yelp—barely audible from over the noise of the resurgent storm reached Cisco's ears. He turned and glanced around behind him. The next man in line was only a few feet behind, and so on as the team stretched off into the forest. He signaled for the man in the second position to keep moving, and the line continued on.
Cisco walked back through the underbrush, the wind and rain now buffeting the left side of his body as he checked on the men. At last he found somebody limping along toward the end of the column. "What happened?" he yelled over the storm.
The man looked grateful to pause in his painful marching, and leaned closer to Cisco. "Almost broke my ankle back there! Stepped on that log," he said as he pointed to a dark shape on the edge on the periphery of what Cisco could see. “It broke apart. I'm sorry, man, I can't hardly walk on it."
Cisco frowned and looked down as the man pulled the cuff of his pants up and exposed an already bruised and swollen ankle. He sucked air through his teeth. It certainly looked painful enough. "That's already the size of an orange…you sure you didn't break it?"
The man had narrowed his eyes and used his hand to shield his face from the wind, but his mouth was stretched tight in a grimace as he spoke. "It sure hurts like I broke it!"
The last man in line approached and took the wounded man's arm over his shoulder to take some of his weight. "I can help him," he said unnecessarily.
Cisco put his hands on his hips. If he allowed the second man to help the first, his team would be down two fighters. He looked back and watched as the tail end of the group continued to move forward into the woods.
"I can't slow down the team!" Cisco shouted into the wind. "You two follow as best you can. Just keep going east. This might work out okay…if we need help, you can draw their fire from the woods…” His mind raced with the possibilities.
They might be able to provide a bit of a distraction during the initial assault. If the defenders were focused on Cisco's own group, and then, after the shooting started, Jenkins showed up, they could have a three-way crossfire…if the wounded man and his partner emerged from the woods to join the fray.
Cisco grinned. "I think this is gonna work out just fine," he shouted. He slapped both men on the back and urge them forward. "Catch up as fast as you can!"
By the time Cisco managed to catch up to his team and fight his way through the bushes and wind and rain to reclaim his pole position at the front of the column, the men had stopped and gathered just inside the tree line. Through the billowing branches and bushes ahead, lights flickered in the distance. Cisco crept up behind his men, pleased that they’d all gotten close down to the ground, and stayed put until he rejoined them.
"I think that's it, ain't it?" his squad leader asked as he pointed through the undergrowth.
A wide smile spread across Cisco's face in the growing darkness. Overhead, lightning flashed and thunder crashed, and the wind whipped and attacked the canopy. Behind them, somewhere in the distance, what sounded like a gunshot cracked as a tree gave up the fight against the storm and crashed to the earth, sending up a terrible racket.
Cisco waited for the vibration in the ground to dissipate before he turned to his men. “Everyone follow me. Remember—we’re taking the house next to Lavelle’s place, and the one across the street…where they had the party. Got it? Good—let’s go.”
Chapter 21
Braaten Forest Preserve
Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina
When the eye passed overhead, Cami was overjoyed. She clawed her way east from the beaver pond and made comparatively great time. She almost made it back to her house before the eyewall reappeared. But the struggle through the muddy, drenched debris that the storm had left in its wake proved too difficult for her to completely escape the forest.
As the wind rose once more—this time from the south—she sheltered on the north side of trees and continued to limp her way, leapfrog style, closer and closer to the western edge of Bee’s Landing.
When she saw the group of men moving through the forest in single file, she paused and remained hidden. She didn’t know who they were—a rescue party from home, or Cisco’s men out for blood—and didn’t dare make a move until she knew for sure if they were friend or foe.
When she saw Cisco’s lieutenant, the man with the dead eyes who’d narrowly missed a chance at having his way with her, Cami’s blood ran cold. It wasn’t a rescue party; it was a war party. She’d had that same determined look when she’d led John Douglass, Darien Flynt and the others to rescue her daughter.
As thunder rumbled in the distance and the wind picked up once more, Cami huddled behind a pine tree and waited patiently for the men to file past. After the skeletal lieutenant, another man appeared, perhaps twenty feet behind him. They walked silently, compared to the whistling of the wind and the groaning trees all around her.
Cami waited. Another man emerged from the rain, following the second. He struggled a little more, and tripped on a branch, but soon he too was out of sight, and a fourth man appeared to take his place in line. Cami waited until the fifth, and then sixth man appeared. When she didn't see the seventh, she waited even longer. By then the storm had ratcheted up its fury another notch.
Fearing she might lose them in the gale, Cami slipped around her tree, quickly found the trail the men had left—even though they walked single file, she could tell at least two of them had very little experience in the woods. They left plenty of sign for her to follow, even in the rain.
She limped forward, her captured rifle up and at the ready. Staggering under the onslaught of the wall of wind that hit her from the south, she painfully gained every inch of ground on the men heading toward Bee’s Landing. Tree by tree, she moved quick and efficient, using every trick in her book to gain ground. Adrenaline surged through her body and gave her the last ounces of energy needed to keep up with the men.
Cami smiled to herself. They thought they were hunters. They had no idea they’d become the hunted.
At last, as she worried the men would stumble upon Bee’s Landing before she caught them, the last man in the formation appeared in front of her, a shifting ghost. One second his silhouette was there, the next, a sheet of rain obscured him.
Cami surged forward and fell in step behind him, just a few feet back. Remarkably, he didn't hear her, so intent was he on following the man in front of him.
Closer. Cami shifted from tree to tree and dove behind a bush when the man paused. As she lay on the ground and pee
red through the branches, her heart thudding in her chest, he turned and looked toward her, but failed to spot her. He narrowed his eyes and shielded his face from the rain, then returned to his plodding trek through the woods.
Cami scrambled back to her feet and stifled a groan of pain from her injured leg. She glanced down, relieved to see that the improvised bandage she'd made still held firm despite the abuse she’d put it through. Cami brought the rifle up to her shoulder and sighted down the barrel. It would be an easy shot to place a bullet between his shoulder blades and nail him to the next tree.
She lowered the rifle. It wouldn't do her any good to announce her presence with the rifle shot, though. As soon as she fired, the other men in the line would turn and attack. Injured as she was, she wouldn’t be able to withstand a frontal attack from so many determined enemies. No, she had to go about her business in stealth mode.
Cami shouldered the rifle, and a grimace crossed her face as she drew the knife she’d brought with her from Cisco's camp. She abhorred violence, but the thought of the men in front of her seeking vengeance against the people of Bee’s Landing—against Amber—sent a wave of fury through Cami that couldn’t be overridden with moral objections. She lowered her head against the rain and continued forward.
It took less time than Cami imagined to catch up to the last man in the war party, but unlike before, she didn't slow down. She continued to press forward, heedless of the noise her feet made as she forced her way through the leaves, branches, and debris on the forest floor. At the last second, the man froze.
Cami's heart pounded in her chest, and her breath came in ragged, quick bursts, but so did her attack. As her target stopped and turned to look over his shoulder once more, her left hand reached out and clamped over his mouth. She didn't so much remember the act of killing the man, but the surprised look on his face would stay with Cami for the rest of her days.
Broken Tide | Book 5 | Storm Surge Page 16
