Dissolution: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book One

by W. Michael Gear

Chapter Forty-One

  Hard to think he was making his way down this narrow mountain defile with the express purpose of shooting people. Had it only been a month since he’d left his rented room just off campus? That Sam Delgado? What had ever happened to him?

  This man was a stranger. Some elemental, hurting, and pissed-off remnant of a human being. Something confused, having been batted so quickly and violently from reality that he half thought of himself a human handball. Smacked so hard that he didn’t have a clue which way he was going.

  He had come to Wyoming in an attempt to find academic salvation. Instead he’d found love and a refuge—and lost it all. As he followed Breeze and Amber down that dim trace, all he had left was hatred for the men he would find at the end of this winding game trail.

  The scent of the forest filled his lungs. He listened to the early morning sounds of the birds, the last hooting of the great horned owls, a distant chorus of coyotes, and the faint rustle of night creatures in the brush to either side.

  He tightened his grip on the Marlin hanging in his right hand, feeling its reassuring heft. Images of Shyla, laughing, that teasing look in her turquoise eyes, lingered just behind the veil of his memory.

  He remembered other eyes: the intent look Edgewater had fixed on Shyla that day in the tannery. How the man took what he wanted, heedless of what it cost.

  Just get me close, Sam promised himself, and I’ll blow a hole through Edgewater like I did Ed Tubb.

  After that, nothing much mattered.

  Those few days with Shyla had been worth a lifetime. Looking back, he’d been loved, raised by decent, hard-working people. Instilled with values that had won him the woman of his dreams.

  A man could do worse.

  Fragments of unsettling visions clung to his memory: images of death. Shyla’s body, staggering along, bleeding from a ragged hole torn between her breasts. Her face twisted in a grimace of agony. She’d kept calling out, “Why weren’t you here?”

  Once, he’d been awakened when Breeze poked him with a stick, calling, “Hey, Sam. It’s all right. It’s just a dream.”

  He had blinked, looked up at the haze-blurry stars. Glanced around the camp with its smoldering campfire. Breeze had been propped on an elbow, little more than a shadow in the night.

  “Nightmare.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve got enough of my own that I don’t need to listen to yours. Either dream happy or move your bedroll somewhere else.”

  He didn’t “dream happy” but Breeze hadn’t jabbed him with a stick again.

  Breakfast had been a hurried affair, the last of the stew from the pot.

  And then they started down the trail, the way lit by Breeze’s red-lensed flashlight that cast a dim cone of light that barely illuminated the roots, rocks, and holes in the winding game trail.

  One either side, the canyon walls closed in as they descended, dark against a glowing sky whitened by the sliver-thin and waning moon that hung low in the east.

  They took their time, Breeze explaining that the last thing they wanted was to hurry, for someone to trip, to send the sound of breaking wood, or the clink of metal to warn any sentry that they were coming.

  They proceeded step by step, no one rushing in the darkness.

  “If there are deer in here,” Breeze also explained, “going slow lets them drift out of the way instead of sending them off in a crashing panic that will alert any guard.”

  “Never would have thought of the deer,” Amber admitted in a hoarse whisper.

  “You okay?” Breeze asked the woman.

  “Better now than I’ve ever been.”

  Breeze let them stop at the bottom of a particularly steep section. Gray twilight had filled the canyon, exposing stands of silent fir and spruce that darkened the slope. Outcrops of cracked rock jutted from the canyon walls above cluttered scatters of talus. A creek gurgled musically in the bottom as it tumbled over boulders and splashed down stone. Willows and currents choked the flats.

  Sam took a seat on a canted slab of sandstone, Amber dropping next to him and shedding her pack. She looked distant.

  “Tired?” Sam asked.

  “Not in the way you think.”

  “How then?”

  “I thought that killing that bastard trying to take Shyla would have brought a little relief. I mean, I’m glad I shot him. Piece of shit deserved to die.”

  She shook her head, as if baffled at something inside. “I’ll kill more of them today, God willing.”

  “You sound sad.”

  “Just exhausted. Tired of hurting. There’s no getting away from what happened. It lives inside you, down in your bones. I see him, over and over...”

  “Who?” he asked, staring up at the violet-and-orange tinged sky. It was the smoke, always a constant, blowing in from the west.

  “Abu al Palmyri. I can’t get away from his eyes, dark and gleaming as they...as they...” She waved it away. “And his laughter is there. It echoes, you know. Endlessly. Pulsing with my blood. The louder I screamed, the harder he laughed. His crooked yellow teeth flashing behind that thick black beard of his.”

  “The guy’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “They missed him that day they got me out. Shot down most of them, but that miserable maggot-fucker was trying to get to Raqqa on some sort of Daesh business. So...he skated. And that haunts me. Knowing that he’s out there, somewhere.”

  “Like how I feel about Edgewater, I suppose.” Sam squinted up at the brightening sky.

  “Edgewater didn’t rape you day after day. Didn’t burn you with cigarettes and attach jumper cables to your nipples,” Amber said hotly. “Or have let his fawning creatures crawl on you and…”

  She blinked, lowered her head. “Over and over. It never stops. Never has an end. Just lives inside me. Down in the bones.”

  “Well,” Breeze said from where she’d been listening a couple of paces away, “let’s go kill as many of these rat bastards as we can.”

  Amber smiled in a wistful way. “Two men, our guys, died taking me out of that hole. Given what little was left of me, I’ve always thought they shouldn’t have taken the risk.”

  “That’s what those guys do,” Breeze told her. “They knew going in—”

  “They died for me!” Amber snapped. “I’ve tried.” She squeezed tears out from the corners of her eyes. “I tried so fucking hard to be worth their sacrifice. Pushed myself. Fought to shut the demons out of my head.”

  Her voice dropped, “But they showed up again at the ranch. Going after more women. They are here, don’t you understand? In America. In our country. Abu al Palmyri. Same demon, just masquerading as an American. You’ve got to understand the kind of men we’re dealing with”—she knotted her hands around her rifle—“and why we’ve got to kill them all.”

  The Value of Life

  I would like to think there were absolutes when it came to ethics, philosophical truths, and morality. The Ten Commandments tell us: Thou Shalt Not Kill. And, of course, the Bible goes on to expound upon the battles and conflicts waged by the Hebrews. So, we’re left with the implicit understanding that Thou Shalt Not Kill is limited only to not killing Jews who keep the laws of God. Anyone else is fair game.

  In American jurisprudence life was sacred; murder had no statute of limitations. No other crime had the same status. I prove my point by noting that an entire genre of film and literature—the murder mystery—existed on its own. Didn’t matter how hideous your neighbor might have been, how evil, twisted, and malicious. Killing him was forbidden, even if he poisoned your dog. People were known to go to jail for killing burglars and rapists who broke into their houses. Self-defense wasn’t an excuse.

  And in a single day, that changed. I knew it the moment we saw those three bodies on the sidewalk at Alameda and Kipling.

  I lived it when I shot the bastards that murdered Felix. The fear and horror disturbed me, but I never regretted or mourned snuffing those guys.

  Then came the Line, the I-25 ch
eckpoint. People whose bodies I blew apart with bullets. Or passing corpses along the side of the road like they were roadkill.

  The little girl in the tent, her family dead at their own hands.

  Now I was purposefully headed to take people’s lives.

  Without a functioning society the only right and wrong is what’s needed to keep your loved ones alive. The final reality is that all morality and ethics are situational. They change with the wind.—

  — Excerpt from Breeze Tappan’s Journal.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  To Sam’s relief, Breeze saw it first. She hissed, motioned them into the lee of a slash-pile of branches. The clear-cut slopes on either side of the V-shaped valley gave it away. The pile of slash—or cut branches—lay at the base of a slope at the upper end of the clear cut. Crews with chainsaws had logged out all the timber, dragged it down to the trail in the canyon bottom, built a barricade and skidded the rest out.

  The chest-high barricade was no more than a hundred yards down the canyon. The breastwork was made of limbed and stacked logs and piled earth.

  “Son of a bloody bitch,” Breeze growled as she pulled one of the dead limbs out of the way. She had her small set of binoculars to her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam asked.

  “Behind the log breastwork, see the Polaris side-by-side with racy paint and the big tires? That thing in the weather cover? That’s a pintle-mounted Browning M2 machine gun atop its roll bar. And the thing’s sitting butt-ugly in the middle of the trail. I’ve got four men just visible from the shoulders up behind the barrier.”

  “So?” Amber asked.

  “So, we’re screwed,” Breeze told her. “See why they cut the slopes bare all the way up to the limestone cliffs? It’s to provide a full field of fire. Anyone trying to bypass the position would stand out like a Santa Monica street walker at an Atlanta cotillion.”

  “Can we shoot them from here?” Amber asked as she peered through the screen of branches.

  “Not and live,” Breeze told her, looking around. “Even the boulders have been chained up and pulled out of the ground around the slash pile.”

  “Shit,” Breeze muttered, “You know why they left this slash pile out here? Why even the boulders had been dragged away? We’re in the jaws of a God-damned trap.”

  “How?” Sam whispered.

  “If they’d been alert. If they hadn’t been telling lies and drinking coffee down there, we’d already be dead. It’s just luck we got to the slash before they noticed.”

  “I don’t understand,” Amber said warily. “Don’t these branches give us protection?”

  “That’s Ma Deuce down there.”

  “What’s Ma Deuce?” Sam asked.

  “That machine gun mounted on that ATV. It’s a fifty caliber. Get it? With enough power to blow our little stack of kindling apart like tissue and turn us into hamburger.”

  “But this is the only place to hide,” Amber hissed back.

  “Exactly. We’re hunkered down in a death trap. The instant they figure out we’re here, they’re going to cut us into doll rags.”

  “Why the fuck can’t they be somewhere else?” Sam asked angrily.

  Breeze smiled bitterly. “The narrow walls here, that’s what they call a choke point. A bottleneck. Any descending force will be packed together, in the open, and set up for shooting. Think three hundred Spartans and Thermopylae. And they’re the Spartans.”

  “What do we do?” Sam almost cried. “How do we get past?”

  “We don’t,” Breeze said with a weary exhale. “This is it, kids. End of the line. Our biggest problem right now is how do we get back up the trail and around the bend before they shoot us in the back?”

  “Why can’t we shoot them from here? Each of us pick one and kill them?” Sam asked.

  “It’s a hundred yards. Doable if we were all excellent shots, with scoped rifles. But all it takes is one guy jumping onto the back of that Polaris, getting a sight on this position, and thumbing the spade.” She made an exploding gesture with her fingers. “Poof. We’re gone.”

  “What if we could get past these guys?” Amber had her eyes fixed to a gap in the branches. “Think there’s another barricade down yonder?”

  “I doubt it.” Breeze scratched under her chin where a mosquito had found a free lunch. “My memory is that the canyon opens up after this. And you can see the trees, narrow-leafed cottonwood, growing thick along the creek. Lots of cover that they didn’t take down. No, my bet is that they think this has their butts covered. The pisser of it is, it pretty much does.”

  “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Sam gritted through clenched teeth, his hand knotted so tightly around the Marlin his knuckles were white.

  Breeze carefully crawled back, studying the trail back up the canyon. It wasn’t much, maybe fifty yards to a house-sized boulder next to the trail. Once behind that, they’d be out of sight all the way back to camp.

  “Got a plan?” Sam whispered.

  “We can crawl about twenty yards before they’ll see us. At that point, it’s get up and run like a striped-assed ape for that rock. Duck behind it, and you live.”

  “If we can get that far,” Amber noted. “It’s, like, turned into daylight since we’ve been hiding here, folks.”

  “Any chance we can do a distraction?” Sam asked. “Buy us some time?”

  Breeze chewed her lips, trying to think.

  “I know a way we can get past that barricade,” Amber said, eyes fixed on that eerie distance she so often stared at. “Something I saw used in Syria in situations like this. They won’t be expecting it here, that’s for sure. And I know these men, the kind of animals they are. That’s a weakness, you know. A vulnerability that can always be exploited.”

  “What plan?” Breeze asked skeptically. “Lay it out, Amber, and it better be good.”

  “I’ll need a hand grenade. Can’t take the rifle. That’ll tip them off for sure.”

  Sam was looking skeptical. “You’re just going to walk down there and lob a hand grenade over that barrier? What makes you think they’ll let you? And why won’t they shoot you down the second they see you pull the pin?”

  “Because they’re not going to see the grenade until it’s too late.”

  Breeze stared across at her in the shadows cast by the branches. “You ever even laid fingers on a hand grenade before?”

  “Actually, yes.” Amber snorted in amusement. “Took one out of a guy’s gut in Syria. A bomb blast in Aleppo blew it, unexploded, like a piece of shrapnel right through his navel. Still had the pin in it when they brought him into the hospital.”

  “That’s just the point—”

  “I’ve been around a lot more grenades than you have, Breeze. Now, do we want to get past these guys and be in position by the time Brandon and Willy get set up on the hill? Or do we want to give up the whole thing and take a chance on getting shot in the back getting out of here?” She narrowed one blue eye. “It’s a risk either way, but I think I can take those guys out.”

  “What if it doesn’t work?” Sam asked in a whisper.

  “Then you and Breeze hightail it while they’re taking me down.” She reached out, took Sam’s hand. “Do you trust me?”

  “Well...sure.”

  “Then you’re a fool, ‘cause you know I’m an emotional basket case.” Amber’s grin got wider, a kind of crazy behind her eyes. “But just this once, trust me.”

  Sam nodded, unconvinced.

  Breeze still hesitated, her fingers wrapping around the grenade she pulled from her pack. “So, what’s the plan?”

  Amber nodded as she spoke, seeing it in her head. “I walk down all alone, a lost woman from the forest. My hands are out and open, no weapon. They let me close. You and Sam have to be ready. The second I toss the grenade over the breastwork you’ve got to run like you’ve never run before. Get to that barricade and shoot down any of the dazed men behind it. When it’s all finished, I’ll go back for the .30-30 and my p
ack.”

  “You think that will work?” Breeze hissed in disbelief. “You’ll be standing there, in the open. All it takes is one shot, and you’re down.”

  “Would you be expecting a hand grenade from a backwoods camper?” Amber lifted an eyebrow.

  Sam had a creepy feeling along his spine. Something that screamed of wrongness. But, what the hell, light as it was, they’d be shot down like fools if they made a run for the boulder.

  From her expression, Breeze, too, could sense the wrongness, but handed over the grenade. “You just pull the pin and throw it. You’ve got—”

  “Three seconds. I know.” Amber took the grenade, held it close, and shrugged out of her pack. Over her shoulder, she whispered, “The only thing that matters to me is freeing those women down there. Promise me.”

  “Promise,” Breeze and Sam answered in unison.

  Amber, like a snake, wiggled her way to the edge of the slash and slipped out of her jacket and pistol belt. Then she froze, intent gaze fixed on the men below. She waited until all eyes turned away and stood.

  Amber made it ten good paces down the trail, calling, “Hello! God! Am I glad to see you! I’ve been lost for three days! Where the hell am I?”

  “Who’re you?” one of the men called, the others lining up on the breastwork, leveling rifles.

  “Amber Sagan! I was hiking outside Cody. Got turned around. Haven’t seen a soul for days.”

  “Keep your hands where we can see them. Come on in.”

  “What’s she doing?” Sam asked as Amber, apparently unfazed began unbuttoning her shirt.

  “I haven’t a clue?” Breeze muttered in amazement as Amber discarded her shirt to flutter down onto the trail.

  The men were watching with rapt attention as Amber strode toward them; reaching behind to unhook her bra, she let it fall. Then she shook her red hair loose from the clip restraining it, letting it tumble down over her shoulders in a wave.

  “Duck. Freeze,” Breeze hissed as one of the men pulled up binoculars and searched the slash pile. It seemed forever before he lowered the glasses, apparently satisfied that Amber was alone.