That caused the floodgates to open, and even Marta was laughing out loud as Nikki led her up the stairs.
“Fine, but you sure made yourself scarce this morning with the sheriff came by,” I retorted as we made our way to the armory, I mean, the mudroom and exited the back door with our weapons secured. We might have relaxed the security around the house, reducing the level to just wearing a pistol when inside, but the rule was solid for going outside: bring your rifle when you hit the door.
We followed Mike over to Marta’s SUV, and I let Pat take shotgun as I climbed in behind him, Nancy copying me as she got in behind Mike.
“It was stupid, really,” Nancy began, then paused again, and I had to think for a second before I caught to what she was talking about. “I, uh, I was afraid the sheriff would see something on my face if I was sitting there.”
“About what?”
Mike’s question froze her for a heartbeat.
“Because Bryan took me down there last night,” Nancy nearly hissed. “He showed me, you know, the stuff.”
Mike, probably a little punch drunk from the long day and the short night’s sleep preceding it, didn’t seem to process what the woman was saying. He turned in his seat, vehicle idling, and cast a glance back at her.
“Just what in the hell are you talking about?”
Before I could open my mouth, Pat chimed in, his dry tone reflecting his amusement at the conversation.
“Much as I would like to poke fun, I think Nancy is saying she’s a little freaked out by what she saw in the Deep Freeze. Am I correct?”
“You got it,” she confirmed, hamming it up, finally able to see the humor in what she had been saying. “I thought Bryan was taking me off for a little alone time, but noooooo. It was guns, and bombs, and I don’t even know what else down there.”
“No bombs,” Mike replied, then paused, “I don’t think. Pat, you stash any bombs down there?”
“Nope. I think she means your hand grenades, Mike.”
“Oh, well, those are fine. I pulled the fuses. You had me worried there for a moment.”
Mike made a production of wiping his brow as I just sat there, looking back and forth at the trio. At that point, I realized something. Nancy was no longer just a visitor, or a houseguest. No, my family had fully welcomed her into their bosom, as it were. She was one of us, now. She not only got the deepest of our secrets, she also got the same treatment we gave each other.
“I think we need to get going,” I prompted, not wanting to interrupt the byplay but aware our clock was ticking. “I asked Wade, Ethan and Wil to wait up, just in case, for you jokers to get back, but I’m sure Dorothy is as wiped out as Marta was when she got home.”
“You got it bossman. Or should we start calling you sergeant? That could get confusing.”
“Let’s just stick with bossman for now,” I jabbed back at my brother. “Nice to see you can finally figure out our respective roles.”
We made the short drive popping one liners back and forth as Pat and Nancy watched us bicker.
“You’d think they were married, the way they go on,” Pat noted slyly as Mike made the final turn. We were taking the shortcut through the field, using the newly installed gate between the properties.
That was turning into a real road, if rutted and rough, that ran from the old Bonner homestead, through our property and crossed over into the back fields of the Husband’s place. Just a moment before, Pat had beat me out the door to handle the gate, and then he’d promised to hold a class on ‘unassing’ from a vehicle with long arms. Nancy thought he was kidding. I knew he wasn’t.
“Not sure about that,” Nancy popped back, “the thought of those two going Brokeback just doesn’t do it for me. No offense, but I guess that’s just because one of them is my boyfriend.”
The word defining our relationship made me pause for a second. What were we, in tenth grade? Boyfriend? I let it go, unaware of the smile that touched my lips at the thought. Mike noticed, though, but said nothing at the time. We were pulling into the parking shed around back of the Husband house, erected recently just for this purpose. We’d built a similar rough garage of poles and recycled sheet metal for the same reason behind the outbuildings. They offered shelter for visitors without being obvious.
This time, I did a better job of getting out of the SUV with my rifle held at an angle, avoiding the seat and the doorframe as I moved. Then I slung the rifle, and I felt eyes on me.
“Why are we bringing our rifles?” Nancy asked. “We can just stash them in the lock box in back.”
“Change of the house rules. Wil’s idea,” Pat explained. “Wouldn’t do us any good out here if the house gets hit. Wade’s got spares, but why try to use something not sighted for you?”
“That makes sense,” Nancy agreed. “You just know how Susanne gets, though.”
I didn’t know Susanne very well, other than she was one of Wade’s younger sisters and was the wife of Wil Huckabee. I liked Wil, but Susanne, not so much. She was well-educated, graduating with a degree in elementary education from Lamar and taught school down in the Little Cypress School district before Rockfall. She was also very anti-gun in her views, and vocal about her opposition.
“Well, apparently Margie and your sister had a bit of a come to Jesus meeting with her last night, after they got Sally’s wound treated,” Pat volunteered. “I don’t know the details, but on the drive in this morning, Dorothy said the new rules were for us to come armed and we could use the utility room to store our long arms.”
“So Wade and Wil adopted the same rules we use then?” I queried.
Mike gave me a nod and we walked in the dark around the corral and through the wide gap next to the haybarn.
“Tartar,” came the expected voice, calling softly from the bunker disguised as a tree stump. I thought I recognized Wil Huckabee’s distinct drawl.
“Mongol,” Mike replied, his tone equally low-pitched. That was the trick I’d learned. Whispers carry, but a soft word might be covered by even the lightest breeze.
With the proper code phrase, we walked carefully the rest of the way to the back door of the house, and I took Nancy’s shoulder to subtly guide her around the traps.
With Mike and Pat’s help, the Husbands had laid out a couple of gridworks of tanglefoot wire to break up any rushers trying to hit the rear entryway. A small garden gnome, strategically placed, gave clues to where the wire grids were emplaced in the tall grass. The staked metal grids made for simple, non-lethal, but effective defenses.
“What?” Nancy hissed, not seeing the traps, which was the idea.
“Trip hazard,” I replied under my breath. “I’ll explain later. Now let’s go inside and see if your sister is still awake.”
Once inside, we safed and unloaded our rifles, then hung them on pegs alongside the others neatly arranged in the old utility room. Like in our house, the area was only designed to house the weapons of the reaction force, and the actual armory would be located deeper in the building.
Instead on meeting in the kitchen, as was usually the case, we convened in the living room, where Sally, ensconced in her hospital bed, watched the goings-on with evident curiosity.
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” I chided her gently as I came over and took a seat next to the simple collapsible bed. I kept my voice soft, mindful of Billy sleeping on a pallet on Sally’s other side.
Mike had picked up the hand-cranked frame somewhere, military surplus of course, and I’d purchased a mattress for it before we’d assembled it in the shelter medical bay. Just in case. After Sally was wounded, rather than move her back to our house, Dorothy insisted she stay with them at least for the first few days. Billy had spent the day there, and no doubt Margie, Ethan’s wife, found work to occupy the young man. Dorothy insisted they play host, since Sally was wounded protected their home. It was a small thing and Sally didn’t complain, so I didn’t either.
“Slept a lot today,” she replied. “Even on the ride t
o Jasper, then got poked and prodded like a science experiment. Couldn’t even hold a rifle correctly. Being all crippled up and all.”
“Hell, Pat was just saying that was what they used to call a ‘million dollar wound’ back in Vietnam,” I teased gently. “A through and through right through the muscle, with no nerve damage, and it didn’t splinter the shoulder socket or scapula. Wasn’t for the broken collarbone, you’d be up and walking around, raising hell.”
“Vietnam? Do I look that old to you, sonny boy?” Sally teased back, and I knew part of it was for show. She was tough, and she was willing.
“No, ma’am. Not even close,” I replied honestly. She might have a half-decade on me, but Sally kept herself in good shape even before she started training with us. She might have been slinging hash, as she called it, at a diner when we met, but before that, she’d held down a physically demanding job at the furniture plant that many men couldn’t have done.
“What was the doctor’s opinion?”
“Pretty much what Pat said,” Sally admitted, cutting her eyes at the man. “Said I’d already gotten some expert wound care. Talked to me about physical therapy after, and he gave me some instructions on how to strengthen the arm, and the shoulder.”
Nancy wandered over close to me, not saying anything, but bumping me gently with her shoulder.
“Sis already down?” she observed softly, not spotting Dorothy in the room. In addition to our group, we had Wade, Wil, Margie, and Wil Huckabee’s wife Susanne gathered in the living room for our little discussion.
“I take it this is in response to the sheriff sending out the call, looking to recruit,” Wade piped up as we all got comfortable in our seats. “And yeah, Dot turned in about ten minutes ago, if you want to catch her before she drifts off.”
“No,” Nancy declared, nestling into the loveseat we were sharing. “I’m working tomorrow, but I’ll catch her later. If she’s anything like Marta, she’ll need her rest.”
“Pure zombie,” Ethan added, getting an elbow from Margie as he said it. Unmoved by the correction, he looked over curiously at his wife. “What? She barely made it in the house.”
“Still not a nice thing to say,” Margie fussed, then cast a look in my direction. “And you, are you planning on hauling these men off on some harebrained quest to protect the county? Because we have plenty to trouble us, right here.”
I shook my head, and Pat cleared his throat before joining in the discussion. Honestly, I expected that kind of comment from Susanne, but then, Margie was focused on the prospect of protecting the home, and her kids.
“I was with you, Margie. Turtle up here and let the rest of the country take care of itself. But I can hear the gears grinding in Bryan’s head, so I think he has a plan,” Pat explained.
“I do, and I agree that initially, I just wanted to build a moat around this place and wait things out. However, Sheriff Bastrop’s visit did give me an idea. First, let me share this: Nikki and I think we can swing the purchase of the Fitts farm.”
Holding up my hands, I got the murmuring to a minimum before continuing. “As far as the sheriff can tell, Byron didn’t have a will on file with the county, and his only heir was Wally. Mike, I know we talked about it, so sorry, but I kind of used your proxy when talking rough numbers with the sheriff. You all know, all the property on the other side of the road, and all that behind us, belongs to the paper company. The only parcels on this side of the road going from west to east, are the horse ranch owned by the Lovetts, the Fitts place, this here fine piece of property, and then our homestead, with the Bonner place forming the end of the road if you will.”
“And you want to…” Wil started, picking up on the idea a split second before the others. “You want to section off this leg of the county road, making it limited access.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” I conceded. “If we can get the Lovetts to agree, we can mount a gate and a guard house, or however you guys do that, where County Road 1109 tees in to the highway into New Albany, and that should cut down on any traffic into our little subdivision. Just like the guys did at your place in Fort Worth, Mike.”
I saw several wrinkled brows as the rest of room considered my words.
“What about all those trails behind us? There’s a whole network of dirt roads and one lane tracks that connect back behind our property,” Mike protested. “That’s where the intruders came in last night, after all.”
“Yes, and I’ll bet Wade knows every one of them,” I countered, looking over at my neighbor for support. Wade, for his part, was nodding along as he thought about the problem, and the possible solution.
“That’s true,” Wade finally allowed. “Can’t deny I’ve gone coon hunting back there a time or two, back before Dorothy decided the hounds had to go. Mike’s right in a sense. There’s a mess of them little trails, but really, there’s only a couple of ways in back there.”
“You think you can map them out?” Pat asked, slim notebook out and open to a fresh page as he prepared to take over recording duty for the meeting.
“I can,” Wade admitted, then sheepishly, he added, “I’ve been temped a time or two to drop a few trees and keep those little brats from parking and partying back there, but I didn’t want somebody to call the law on me. I guess we can avoid that now.”
“That’s true,” Pat admitted, his face unreadable as usual. I could tell he was thinking, but his solemn features giving no hints of the way he was leaning. “How far would someone have to travel on foot to get from these entrances over to where we found those guys trucks parked last night?”
“Uh, that’s a good question.” Wade wrinkled his brow as he went over the routes in his head.
“At least a mile, probably more. I mean, its shorter, going through the woods, but I’d have to go take a look and see. There’s really only three entry routes that connect to that track.”
“I have some maps back at the house,” I volunteered, “and I think you can even make out the main trails on at least one of them. We can use them as a place to start.”
“So, are you all doing this?” Sally asked, getting the conversation back on point. She wriggled in her bed, and even reclined like she was, I could tell it was probably time for her pain medication.
Nancy caught my look and stood quickly, hurrying over to the small settee arranged next to the adjustable bed where Sally was resting. Margie perked up as well, and she joined Nancy in a quiet discussion with Sally before the wounded woman lifted her plastic water cup in her good arm and sipped at the liquid, likely washing down not only a pain pill but an antibiotic as well. I waited until Sally resettled herself before I gave her my answer.
“I told the sheriff, if we did this, then it wouldn’t be all of us,” I explained. “These homes are never going to be left unguarded. We would have sentries manning the wall, if you will, before we consider any issues outside.”
“What did he say to that?”
I couldn’t tell if it was Margie or Susanne who’d asked the question. Not that it mattered. The answer was the same, either way.
“He wasn’t happy, but then, he was the one who showed up with his hat in his hand,” I replied, starting off softly but raising my voice ever so slightly as I continued. “I’m not here to make the man happy, but if we can use him to help us, I’m all for it. That brings me to our next issue, which is personnel.”
Looking closely at Wil, I gave him a raised eyebrow, and he got the message.
Looking around at the rest of the room, he spoke up to answer my unasked question.
“I called Shawn, and he’s interested. Where’s he’s living in town, well, it’s his mom’s old house off Tram Road. Not exactly the Country Club, you know. You thinking of seeing if his family would be willing to move into the Fitts place?”
I shrugged, still debating the idea of bringing more outsiders into the fold. “Not sure yet. I know you guys said the place has a lot of space. Maybe we can fit more than one family in there. We’ll
need to check out the house and the grounds tomorrow, after we go see the Sheriff.”
Pat spoke up then. “I think we should still go with a two-person escort to the hospital tomorrow. I don’t like that stretch of road out by the old saw mill. That’s prime country for an ambush. Who’s going?”
Wade raised his hand, and so did Margie. I know it was their turn, but the idea of these two being in the line of fire gave me some pause. Wade, not just because he was my friend, but he was also the linchpin here of the Husband family group. Margie, well, I just didn’t know her capabilities.
I shared a glance with Mike, and that’s all it took. Our link wasn’t telepathic, but many times we just knew what the other was thinking.
“Margie, if you don’t mind, I’d like to make tomorrow’s run with Wade. I know the deputy in charge over at the hospital, and it might help us firm up some plans when the Guard withdraws. That is, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, well, I guess that’s fine. I really just wanted a chance to get out, but I understand.”
“I would appreciate the company,” Sally added in, maybe not following the reasoning, but willing to back our play. She was a gem, that way. “You’re about the only one around here who can keep my Billy busy enough so he isn’t worrying about his mama, after all.”
“Alright, then that’s settled,” Wade said, and to the side, I saw Ethan give a sigh of relief. Again, I didn’t doubt Margie’s fortitude, or skills defending her home, but out on the road under the threat of ambush, I would want Mike or Pat at my back. We stood to leave, and hands shakes and hugs as appropriate were given as I approached Sally and bent close to speak.
“Heal up quick,” I murmured, “We need you back. And just so you know, one of those deputy badges will be yours.”
“Shoot, Bryan, I can’t do much from laying right here,” she complained, and I could tell she wasn’t just complaining for show. She was worried about her utility to the group, to the family.
Tertiary Effects Series | Book 3 | Bite of Frost Page 10
