Masters of Mayhem

by Franklin Horton

  Barb laughed. “It’s fine if you think I’m a rude bitch. I’m just making certain we’re all on the same page. The room and board don't come with a serving wench."

  Doc Marty laughed. "I like you. Your honesty is refreshing. You seem to be a lot more fun to work with than your dad."

  Barb barely curled the end of her mouth. It wasn't even a smile. "You've just barely met me. We'll see if you feel the same if we have to winter together. You may be ready to hike out of here in waist-deep snow just to get away from me."

  Conor looked at his daughter. "Let’s you and I go whip up a big breakfast. I’m afraid you’re scaring the poor man. We'll leave Ragus to help the Doc and Shannon unpack."

  Barb shrugged indifferently. “I like scaring men.”

  Conor took his daughter by the arm and led her out of the room.

  The group filed out the door of the bunkhouse, the Doc breaking off toward the shipping container. Ragus and Shannon were already coming toward them. Ragus had a recliner balanced on his head while Shannon carried two suitcase-sized pelican cases.

  Doc Marty spun and jogged back to the bunkhouse door, swinging it open to help Ragus negotiate the recliner through the door.

  "I'm not sure what I think about that man,” Barb said once they were out of earshot. “Especially since there are gaps in my information.”

  “I've known him eighteen years or so," Conor said. "My opinion of him ebbs and flows."

  "Do you think he’s a security risk? Is it safe to even have him here?"

  Conor shook his head adamantly. "No, Barb, he's solid. He’s a team player but a bit of a cowboy sometimes. We have a difference in styles. I'm a machinist at heart and I do everything with the machinist’s attention to precision and detail. Doc Marty…well, I don't know what you’d call his style. He gets his jobs done at any and all cost. Some of them are ridiculously complicated and incredibly dangerous."

  “I don’t particularly like the idea of folks that get the job done at all cost. That sounds a little reckless. And what the hell happened in Helsinki?"

  "Nothing I want to talk about right now."

  "That bad?"

  "It’s a sore spot."

  "That bastard put you in danger?"

  Conor shook his head.

  "Did he blow an operation?"

  "No, he just crossed the line and I'm not ready to talk about it yet."

  Barb threw up her hands in surrender. "Fine, fine."

  "His daughter seems nice," Conor said. "Maybe you ladies will hit it off?"

  Barb made a sound of indifference. "We'll see. I’ve been known to scare women as badly as I scare men."

  "If nothing else, maybe Ragus will take to her and give you some breathing room," Conor said. "I'm sure that would be a relief to you. Right?"

  "Of course it would."

  Doc Marty, Shannon, and Ragus unloaded the basics out of the shipping container, meaning only the gear they needed to get by or anything that might be damaged by freezing temperatures. All of the extra stuff remained in the shipping container since it was the only secure storage Doc Marty had at this point. At Conor’s insistence, they unloaded the pallet of gear Ricardo sent with Doc Marty as rent. Conor wanted those items under his control as soon as possible so there was no room for a misunderstanding.

  The pallet included an assortment of batteries, five thousand rounds of 9mm, and ten thousand rounds of 5.56. The remainder of the pallet designated for Conor was filled with cases of MREs, with the exception of two unmarked plastic pelican cases. Those cases were padlocked and Doc Marty hadn’t been told what they contained. He was, however, intrigued by the smile they brought to Conor's face.

  When everything that had to be unloaded had been, Doc Marty padlocked the container and slipped one key in his pocket, giving the other to Shannon. He noticed Ragus watching him.

  “No offense, son,” Doc Marty said. “I just don’t know the neighborhood yet.”

  “No offense taken,” Ragus said. “Conor has been broken into before. That’s how we met. He caught me in his chicken house.”

  Both Doc Marty and Shannon looked at him with surprise.

  “It’s okay,” Ragus assured them. “It’s a long story. We worked through it.”

  Ragus was saved from further explanation by Barb calling them to breakfast. The three joined Barb and Conor in the main living quarters.

  “Oh my God,” Shannon said. “That smells amazing.”

  Conor gestured to a counter filled with fried ham, biscuits, eggs, and local honey. “Dig in.”

  While Shannon filled a plate, Doc Marty’s eyes roamed, checking out the place Conor called home.

  "So this is where they stuck you?"

  "This is where I asked to be," Conor clarified. "I found this place myself and was going to buy it with my own money but you know how that works. Ricardo likes to get you on the hook. He, and whoever he works for, likes to keep you in a position of owing them. They like to keep you feeling obligated."

  Doc Marty shrugged. "Sometimes it works to our advantage. I'm not complaining. They paid off my dental school. They paid for Shannon’s private school. They’ve set me up with dental practices in some of the most beautiful places in the world."

  "But there's a catch," Conor said. "Everywhere you end up has some benefit to them. Every practice you’ve ever had was there for a particular reason. For a particular client or a particular job. How did you feel when you got the call that it was time for you to move, that your practice was going to be disassembled overnight, and all records destroyed? I couldn’t live like that."

  “Sometimes that sucked,” Marty admitted. “But it was the nature of the job.”

  “That’s why I preferred my role better. I wasn’t interested in putting down roots particularly but I didn’t like the idea of having to move around a lot. I wanted to be able to set up a shop the way I liked it. I wanted to live the way I wanted. I wanted to be out in the country.”

  “So you built this fortress of solitude?”

  “I did.”

  Doc Marty grew serious. "Would you change it? If you could go back in time, would you say no to those men who turned up at your door? Would you give up the excitement and the experiences to work as a welder in a small shop somewhere?"

  Conor considered the notion. "I was raised to make the best of whatever situation I found myself in. I’ve enjoyed this but I would have found a way to enjoy whatever I ended up doing. But as farmers are fond of saying, I've already hoed my row.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Barb asked.

  “It means things are what they are and there’s no changing any of it at this point,” Ragus replied. “That right?”

  Conor nodded.

  "Are you still working?" Doc Marty asked. "Have you had any assignments since the shit hit the fan?"

  "Not until Ricardo called me about you. I assumed everything was on hold."

  "I thought we were friends," Marty said with mock offense. "You consider this work?"

  Conor said nothing but shot Doc Marty a nasty look.

  “The world isn’t on hold,” Doc Marty continued. “This disaster is localized to the U.S. and some aid is moving in. If anything, I would say our kind of business has picked up. What better time to make big political moves than in times of chaos and upheaval? People with grudges are settling scores like crazy. They have a little window where murders won’t receive much investigation or media attention so some people are trying to take maximum advantage of that.”

  Conor looked pensive and returned to an earlier comment. "Just so you know, we were friends. After Helsinki I put you in that to be determined category. You’re on probationary status.”

  “So you’re back on that again? I thought we were talking about business. That was a special situation. The job demanded fast action and my options were limited. It was an emergency.”

  “I have to say, the more I hear about Helsinki, the more intrigued I get. It’s not often I see my dad acting this way
. Whatever happened clearly pissed him off,” Barb said.

  “I'm done talking about it at this time," Conor said.

  “Spoil his breakfast and you pay all day,” Barb warned the group.

  "Fair enough," Doc Marty said. "We'll just put that little episode behind us then."

  That comment brought a devious cackle from Conor. "You’ll wish it was behind us. You best sleep with your door locked in case I dwell on the past a little too much one night and feel a sudden urge to settle old scores."

  "So what do we do around here for entertainment?" Shannon asked, anxious to defuse the tension in the room.

  Barb raised an eyebrow and looked at Shannon as if it were the dumbest question she’d ever heard in her life. "Uh, we try to survive."

  Shannon swallowed, admonished. “Sorry I asked.”

  Barb still focused on Shannon with a withering look but the younger girl didn’t appear put off by it.

  "Seriously, Marty, have you been so out of touch that you have no idea how hard times have been for folks in the U.S.?" Conor asked.

  "Between us, I was on assignment in Dubai up until a few days ago. Shannon was with me and I had a dental practice there. We’d been there three years.”

  "And you came back here?" Barb asked. "Why?"

  Doc Marty shrugged. "I knew there'd been a disaster but I figured things would be back up and running soon. My operation in Dubai was running its course and we had to get out of there.”

  "Nobody at any of the American bases told you that you shouldn't come back home yet?" Conor asked.

  Doc Marty shook his head. "You know how it is when we show up on bases. We’re invisible. Nobody asks us questions. Nobody meets our eyes. They see our paperwork and suddenly we’re invisible. The only people who spoke to us were the ones responsible for getting us on our flights and making sure we buckled up. Nobody else even acknowledged our existence.”

  “It was kind of creepy,” Shannon admitted.

  Ragus looked at her sympathetically. Barb noticed it and rolled her eyes skyward.

  “If you’re through eating, we’ve wasted enough time jawing,” Barb said. “Cooks don’t clean. That’s one of our rules around here. So one of you jokers who didn’t help with the cooking can roll up your sleeves and do the dishes. There’s water heating on the stove. That’s how we usually do it.”

  “I’d be glad to,” Shannon said.

  “I’ll give you a hand,” Ragus said.

  Barb tightened her mouth. She had no patience for his obvious efforts at spending time with the new girl. Did the boy know how ridiculous he was acting? Conor watched her and smiled, wiping it quickly from his face when she nearly caught him.

  “What are you doing today, Gramps?” Barb asked him.

  Conor looked offended. “Your dear old dad is going to inventory the contents of the pallet of supplies we just got, then I’m going to stow everything where it goes. After that, I’m heading to Johnny Jacks’ place. They’re going to introduce me to a local minister who’s running a soup kitchen. It might be a way to get some outreach about our effort to organize a defensive perimeter.”

  “You turning into a community organizer?” Doc Marty asked.

  “Bite my ass, Doc. More like a recruiter.”

  11

  Conor rode alone to Johnny Jacks’ house. Both Barb and Ragus offered to go with him but he was already going to have Johnny and Jason in tow when he got to the church. He didn’t want to present an overwhelming or menacing presence to the folks he was trying to befriend. The ride over the mountain was uneventful, little different from when he took the same trip a day earlier. He found Johnny and Jason ready to go, waiting in the barn and doing busy work while they waited on him. Johnny was repairing a saddle. Jason was crafting a rifle scabbard from an old pair of leather chaps.

  “Ready to go?” Conor asked, not even dismounting his horse.

  The two men nodded and went outside to where their saddled horses were tied off to a corral of red metal panels.

  “How was the night?” Conor asked. “Any trouble?”

  Johnny shrugged. Something seemed to be bothering him.

  “Coyote problems,” Jason said. “We lost a foal and a couple of lambs.”

  “Got traps out?”

  “Don’t have any of the right size,” Johnny said. “We have some smaller ones for rats and some live traps I’ve used for coons.”

  “I’d set snares,” Conor said. “Find where they’re entering your pasture, create a choke point, and put in a couple of snares.”

  “We’ll try that,” Jason said.

  “I can show you some tricks,” Conor said. “I’ve learned from some of the best.”

  They rode for nearly an hour, following a paved road which itself followed a wide, shallow river. Fallen leaves were everywhere, already beginning to turn to the leafy confetti produced by trampling feet, giving the air a particular smell, earthy, that combined with the smell of river silt. The men made small talk about the community and the folks who lived there. Johnny shared the adventures of men long dead and pointed out the locations of events long forgotten by all but a few. Even without knowing the area, Conor appreciated the stories, enjoying the window into the past.

  Homes in this isolated community were mostly distant from each other. Occasionally, there would be a family enclave where relations settled together, crowding homes into tight proximity to each other, sharing roads, yards, and drama. Wood smoke hung in the air and was visible rolling from the chimneys of some of the homes. Unlike other areas Conor had seen, this community seemed to be alive. People had not been driven out nor died yet of starvation and disease. It boded well for these folks. Maybe they were hardier than most, made durable by the challenge of daily life in such an isolated area.

  They passed a single country store that had not escaped destruction. It had been ransacked and burned. The fact that some in this community might be working together to save lives should not be misinterpreted. These hill people, denizens of dark, remote hollows in steep, unwelcoming mountains, were much like Conor’s own people back home. They had their habits and traditions. They had their ways. Sometimes those ways included burning down things that didn’t belong to them. It didn’t make all of them bad but it did mean that badness existed among them. It was something Conor and the people who lived here needed to remain aware of.

  Pastor White’s church stood at the intersection of two roads and two bodies of water. The road from Jewell Ridge joined the road to Pilgrims Knob at that location and Hell Creek joined the Dismal River. The church could have chosen from any number of names but settled for some reason on the Hell Creek Assembly of God. Perhaps they felt that including Hell in the name of their church lent a degree of provenance to their name, as if they were fighting on the very front lines of salvation in the war between good and evil.

  If they were indeed perched on the cusp of Hell, they had been there for some time. The church was a sagging and obtuse building that inferred a log structure later covered with plank siding. Inevitably, as the logs rotted and lost their structural integrity, only the planks held them in place, like wooden splints supporting a limb determined to remain broken. With each passing year, gravity tugged at the logs. One day the congregation would have no choice but to surrender the fight and rebuild. For now the structure stood, a relic of a day without power and indoor plumbing, restored again to the type of world in which it had entered, like an old man returning to his hometown to die.

  A picnic shelter stood across the road from the church, overlooking the river. The shelter was of more recent construction and even without sides was likely a more substantial structure than the church itself. Folks sat at picnic tables eating soup from mugs or bowls. Other folks were still straggling in, carrying their bowls, spoons, and bibles. Despite the times and the hardship, these folks dressed for the evening. It was not suits and ties, but clean white shirts with long buttoned sleeves for the men, long dresses and wide hair bows for the women.
>
  Most of these folks arrived on foot and Johnny’s group drew some attention for their horses. Conor was pleased to see that the pastor’s flock was not made up entirely of sheep. There were guns present, leaning against tables or worn on the belts of the faithful. That was an encouraging sight. These men would not go down without a fight.

  Johnny spotted a man ladling out soup and threw a hand up to him. “Pastor White!”

  The pastor turned his ladle over to the woman beside him and wiped his hands with a dishtowel. He stalked toward Johnny in long, lurching steps. It was the gait of hill people, men and women who grew up having to walk wherever they wanted to go. The pastor had his hand extended and a smile on his face before be even reached the visitors.

  “Brother Jacks! How are you?”

  Johnny took the hand and shook it vigorously. “I’m good, Pastor White. You remember my son Jason?”

  The minister nodded in Jason’s direction and reached to shake his hand. “Jason.”

  Johnny gestured toward Conor. “I know you’ve not met this fellow before. This is Conor Maguire. He runs a machine shop on top of Jewell Ridge.”

  Pastor White studied Conor for a moment. “I’m good with faces but I don’t recall seeing him before.” He extended a hand and shook with Conor. “It’s good to meet you. If you’re a friend to this family that tells me all I need to know.”

  Conor nodded. “Same here, Pastor. It’s good to meet you.”

  “You here for the sermon, Johnny? Haven’t seen you in the soup line before.”

  “No,” Johnny said with a shake of his head. “Not that I wouldn’t enjoy hearing you preach. I wanted to introduce you to Conor. We also brought some canned goods for the pot.”

  Jason extended two jars of pork his mother had canned the previous year. The minster took them gratefully, catching the eye of the woman he’d turned his ladle over to and raising the jars to show her.

  “The pickings getting slim?” Conor asked.