by John Grit
Nate got up and moved over to the front windows next to Ramiro. “They left someone wounded out there. Must have knifed him.”
Nate heard Ramiro whisper in a sad, hoarse voice, “Yes. The poor soul is suffering. God have mercy.”
“There’s a sliver of moon coming over the horizon.” Nate raised his head above the windowsill to get a better look. “If we’re going to help him, we need to do it now before the parking lot is lit up.
Ramiro looked at Nate in the dark, just making out his form in the glow of starlight coming in through the windows. “I will not ask anyone to go out there.”
The moaning grew louder.
“Mother of Jesus,” Ramiro whispered, his breath misting in the cold night air.
The voice in the parking lot cried out, “Somebody help me!”
Nate said, “I recognize that voice.”
“Yes, the young man in the truck with big tires.” Ramiro sighed, sounding as if he were in pain. “Chesty called him Billy.”
“I wonder how he got himself into this mess.” Nate clenched his jaw. “Maybe he was captured, but I’m thinking he may have tried to join their gang.”
“I do not know, but he is out there bleeding to death.” Ramiro crossed his chest in the dark. “I will go.”
“I think you are too small to carry him,” Nate said. “I will go. I just don’t want to get killed doing it.” He called to Brian. “Bring my binoculars.”
Brian bumped into Nate in the dark. “Here.”
“No,” Nate said, “you keep them. I want you to overwatch. Scan the far reaches of the parking lot and what you can see out in the street. Someone shoots at me; you will see the muzzle flash. Shoot to the right of the flash.”
“Okay, but I don’t think he’s worth it. I’m sorry he’s dying, but he’s a punk with a smart mouth. I don’t like the way he talked to you.”
“I’m not so sure he’s worth it either,” Nate said. “It’s not a good idea to write off every teenager with a smart mouth, though. Society would soon be short of teenagers.”
“I guess you’re right. I said some things to you back when I was hurting over Mom and Beth dying that I shouldn’t have. You have a lot of patience. Maybe you knew why I was like that back then, so you let it go. I guess some of it was feeling sorry for myself. Anyway, I still don’t think he’s worth you risking your life over.”
“Probably not,” Nate said, “but I’m going anyway. He’s just a kid.” He spoke to Ramiro. “Do you have any clean cloth I can use to staunch his bleeding?”
Ramiro asked the other men in Spanish if they had any cloth. Everyone was awake, and most were near the front window, holding their weapons. A man spoke up and dug into his backpack. He handed Ramiro a white pillowcase that had been folded into a small square. Ramiro handed it to Nate. “He had this for bandages.”
Nate spoke to Brian. “Remember to keep in mind where you would hide if you wanted to shoot me. Search those places.” Nate spoke a little louder. “I don’t want anyone else to shoot. Brian knows what my silhouette looks like in the dark and he’s not going to accidently shoot me.”
“I got a good scope on my rifle.” Kendell had moved up behind them. “There’s enough light out there I can see what I’m shootin’ at with this scope.”
Nate did not hesitate. “Okay, position on the left end of the windows. Brian, you position on the right end. I have to go if I’m going. It may be too late already. He’s bleeding out.” Nate moved fast in the dark. He jumped up on the pickup and was over the back and jumped down just inside the entrance of the building, staying in the dark shade. He stood just long enough to make sure no one was standing against the wall, hiding, looking both to his right and left. He could see just well enough in the dim glow of the rising moon. Moving fast while trying to keep his boots from pounding the asphalt and making noise, he ran to the boy.
Nate saw the boy moving his arms, holding his hands against his side. He dropped to his knees beside him, pulled his hands away and tried to examine the wound. A large knife had been used to stab him once. They wanted him to die slow and suffer. Nate ripped a piece of the cloth off and forced it into the wound with his fingers. He wished he had cleaned his hands first, but there was no time. The boy protested weakly, “No. That hurts.”
Nate pressed the rest of the cloth against the wound. “I’m trying to help you. If you can, keep pressure on the wound.” He had cord in a pocket to use as a tourniquet in case the boy’s arms or legs were bleeding from an artery. He searched for more wounds. Finding none, he picked him up. The boy moaned.
“Billy.” Nate talked through clenched teeth. “You’re heavier than you look. I’m taking you where you will be safe. Keep pressure on that wound.”
Ramiro and two more men waited in the bed of the pickup. They took Billy from Nate and carried him to the other side where more men waited with outstretched arms.
In one motion, Nate climbed up and across the pickup. “Put him on my sleeping bag.” He lit the way with his flashlight, holding it low to hide the light from anyone outside as much as possible. As soon as they had Billy on his sleeping bag, he turned it off and put it away. One of Ramiro’s men knelt beside Billy and kept pressure on the wound. “He’s out, isn’t he?” Nate asked.
The man answered, “Yes.”
Brian’s voice echoed in the building. “Headlights coming from the south! Several vehicles.”
Everyone rushed to the windows, keeping low. Two men started up an excited conversation in Spanish. Ramiro scolded them. They stopped immediately.
“It’s them,” Nate said. He squatted beside Brian, looking out the window. “I recognize their loud mufflers.”
Someone in the lead car yelled out of a window as they raced past the parking lot, “Are you dead yet, Billy Boy?” A chorus of laughter faded away as they sped down the street.
“I think they’re drunk,” Brian said. “They didn’t see that the boy was gone, too dark I guess.”
Nate put his hand on Brian’s shoulder. “I would say so. Drunk or sober, from what I’ve seen of them, they’re not worth the bullet it would take to kill them.”
Brian scanned the scene before them with Nate’s binoculars. The moon rose high enough in the last minutes to light up the parking lot. “I’m sure they’ve done much worse. I put them in the same class as those who killed our friends.”
“Chesty’s people need the Guard here,” Nate said, “to clean this town up. These people are not going to have any peace until that bunch is gone.”
The man helping Billy spoke in heavy Mexican accent, “The boy is dead. He does not breathe.”
Nate rushed over and checked for a pulse. “He’s gone. You can stop keeping pressure on the wound.” The familiar metallic smell of blood filled his nostrils. “Damn it. He may have grown into a decent man with a little help from someone like Chesty.” Nate and the man carried Billy’s body to a pickup and put him in the back.
Ramiro stood next to the pickup, looked down at the body, and crossed his chest. “He suffers no more.”
“No, he’s passed it.” Nate went back and checked his sleeping bag, expecting it to be soaked with blood, but found little. His plugging of the wound had reduced exterior bleeding but did nothing to stop Billy from bleeding to death inside. “We can do so little for the sick and wounded now. It’s one of the things that’s hard to get used to. That and the needless violence.”
“How much more could we have accomplished,” Ramiro asked, “if not for the bad ones who would rather steal from others than work and help rebuild?”
“Yes. Brian has expressed that thought many times.” Nate returned to Brian’s side. “Ramiro, Brian, Kendell, and I will stand watch until daylight. You and the others might as well get some sleep. Come false dawn, we’ll be scavenging again and be out of here early. There are still a lot of things on our lists we have not found yet.”
“Thank you,” Ramiro said. “Seeing the young die always makes me weary.” He spoke in
Spanish to the other men, and they went to their sleeping bags without a word.
Chapter 13
“I am freezing.” Kendell blew into his hands.
Nate looked out the store window out across the empty parking lot for trouble. He could see much better with the sliver of moon higher in the sky. Stars shone above, and he knew false dawn would arrive soon. “Go get your blanket and wrap yourself up.”
Kendell passed by Brian on his way to where had been sleeping.
Brian said, “Bring my boonie hat, will you? It will keep my head warm.”
“Sure,” Kendell said.
Brian pulled his collar up and buttoned his jacket. “Now that I’m not worried about someone getting killed, the cold is getting to me.”
“Your body is not generating the heat it was when things were looking like we might be in for a fight.” Nate put his hand on Brian’s shoulder. “Give me the binocs and go get your sleeping bag.”
Brian scanned the parking lot and what he could see of the street. “I’m okay.”
Nate kept his voice low to not disturb those resting. “You’re standing up to all of this well.”
“Not much else to do but keep going.” Brian shrugged. “I can finally see now that it probably will get better in a year or so. People are starting to come together now. But before this town can rebuild, something has to be done about that gang of morons, and I bet there are a bunch of them in the big cities like Orlando and Miami. It’s gotta be hell in places like that.”
“You got that right.” Kendell handed Brian his hat and returned to his firing position, sitting, on a five gallon bucket someone brought from the paint section. He wrapped himself in his blanket and resumed his vigil.
Brian spoke to his father in a low voice. “Maybe Grandpa was so hard on you because he wanted you to be tough enough to take on the troubles of life.”
“Well…” Nate did not speak for several seconds. “Maybe. Don’t think he was abusive or anything. I don’t want you to think I was complaining when I talked to you about him. He just had a different way of raising children. Society changes over time and so does society’s idea of parenting. Each generation is different.”
“You went easy on me, though I didn’t realize it at the time. Anyway, I didn’t turn out to be a wimp.”
Nate chuckled. “No. I didn’t have to toughen you up; life has done more than enough of that lately. I would say you are about five years older now than you were a year ago.”
“That means I’m almost nineteen?”
“It means I trust you to back me in a fight the way I would trust a private or corporal in the Army. You have proven yourself.”
Brian lowered the binoculars and looked at his father, just able to see him in the glow of the moon.
Nate put his hand on Brian’s shoulder. “I have always been proud of you. You have never done anything to make me ashamed.”
They kept silent vigil until the sky lightened from the sun’s predawn glow and they could just make out the street beyond the parking lot. Kendell’s eyes grew heavy, but he stayed awake. A sound from the street caught his attention and he threw his slumped shoulders back and sat up straight. “Cars comin’ from the north.” He let the blanket slip off his shoulders and fall to the dusty floor and rested his rifle on the windowsill.
Nate heard laughter. Several horns blared. Tires screeched. “They’re turning into the parking lot.”
“They seem awful happy to have just murdered someone,” Brian said. He thumbed the safety on his carbine and readied himself for a firefight. “If they see the body’s gone, they might come looking for it.”
“Yep.” Nate raised his voice. “Ramiro, get your men up and ready to fight!” A flurry of motion told Nate he had heard.
Ramiro spoke to his men in Spanish. In seconds, Ramiro and all of his men were wide-eyed and armed, muzzles pointed out the windows at the two cars and one pickup that had just stormed into the parking lot. Everyone’s breath misted in the wet, cold air.
“The killers return,” Ramiro said. “They come to admire their night’s work.”
Nate glassed the pickups. “I’m afraid Billy was not the sum total of their night’s activities. They’ve got a girl in the back of the pickup. Her hands are tied behind her. From the looks of her, she’s been attacked.”
The young men in the vehicles piled out and looked down at Billy’s blood. The one who seemed to be in charge said, “The bastard crawled off.” Twenty heads turned right and left as their eyes searched the lot, finding no sign of Billy. The leader pointed at the building Nate and the others watched from. The young men spread out, shouldering various types of long guns.
Ramiro’s face hardened and he clicked the safety off on his rifle. He spoke in Spanish, and the building echoed with the sound of safeties clicking off. The men readied for battle, taking aim. Ramiro looked at Nate. “Excuse me. But they must die. To capture and abuse women is too much to forgive.”
“She’s just a girl,” Nate said. “About fifteen.”
“Dad,” Brian said, “the girl is going to get killed if we don’t do this right.”
Nate asked a serious question. “Can your men shoot accurately in low light?”
Ramiro nodded. “Watch. It is not far.”
“Tell them I’m taking the two on the right, closest to the girl.” Nate aimed. “I’ll shoot their legs out from under them first, then finish them while they’re on the ground. It’s the only way to keep the girl out of my line of fire. Make it soon; they’re getting suspicious, and it’s getting light enough to see our pickups parked across the entranceways in here if they come closer.”
“I understand.” Ramiro spoke to the other men in Spanish and then turned back to Nate. “We will fire when you do.”
Nate’s first two shots were so close together; they sounded as one. Two twenty-year-olds fell to the asphalt, dropped their rifles, and grabbed their shattered thighs. Nate shot them both in the head. He had not noticed the roar of gunfire echoing in the building, but now his ears rang. Gun smoke filled his nostrils and left an aftertaste in his mouth. He saw a teen moving his arms and fired.
The girl in the pickup screamed continuously.
“I guess someone has to go out there.” Brian looked past Ramiro to his father.
Kendell reloaded his bolt-action rifle. “She might be less scared of Brian. I think it’s safe enough with us watchin’.”
Nate stood. “Get that pickup out of the way before I come back with her. We don’t know how bad she’s hurt. It’d be better not to have to haul her over it. The pickup she’s in is still running. I’ll try to drive it up here, if she will sit still for that.”
Several men pushed the pickup they had blocking the entrance out of the way. Nate stepped into the opening and checked both directions to be sure no one stood against the wall and waited for a shot at him. Gray dawn lit the parking lot. He walked straight to the pickup and screaming girl. As he passed the prone bodies, he kept alert in case one of them was not dead. He wanted to give each of them a pistol shot in the head to be sure, but he feared it would frighten her more than she already was. “Girl.” He spoke loud so she could hear, but her screaming overpowered his voice. “We are trying to help you. I want to take you inside where you will be safe. Just sit where you are.” He got behind the wheel and drove to the others, backing the pickup to the entrance. She stopped screaming and sat in the pickup whimpering.
Ramiro removed the ties that bound her; his gentle nature came to the surface when he saw how badly she had been beaten. “Little one, no one will harm you.” He picked up Kendell’s blanket off the floor and wrapped it around her.
The girl settled down and became quiet, but she shook with fear as much as cold. “Please take me home.” Her eyes darted from one man to another, finding compassion and pity on every face.
“We will,” Ramiro said. “Do not fear us. Where do you live? We will take you home now.”
A familiar pickup pulled into the p
arking lot at high speed. It was Chesty, and he had six men with him. He brought his pickup to an abrupt stop and jumped out, looking around at the bodies in astonishment. Unlike the day before, he had a pistol on his side and extra ammunition on a combat vest. He also had on a badge and a faded uniform.
A forty-year-old man jumped from the back of the pickup and hit the asphalt running. Tears streamed down his face as he rushed to the girl. The girl cried, “Daddy!”
Chesty and the other men walked up and watched the father and daughter hold each other for a second, and then looked around at the others. Chesty held a full-auto M-4 at the ready. “Well, someone tell me what the hell happened here.”
Ramiro nodded to Nate.
Nate gave a short version, starting with the knifing and death of Billy and ending with him driving the girl up to the building.
The father listened while he held his daughter. “Thank you. They would have taken her to the warehouse and kept her as a slave.” He lost control and could not speak, just held her and cried.
Chesty’s eyes darted to the bodies on the parking lot asphalt and then to the girl and father. He scratched his head and looked at the bodies again. “Well, you had no choice.”
“No choice?” Nate stepped forward. “What the hell?”
Embarrassment washed over Chesty’s face. “We all appreciate you saving her, but killing that filth is going to start a war. They usually go back to the warehouse around sunrise, and the others will certainly notice this bunch hasn’t returned. They will come looking for them.”
Brian’s eyes flashed to his father but he managed to keep quiet.
“If they are murdering your boys and taking your girls for sex slaves,” Nate said, “I would not call what you have peace.”
Chesty gave Nate a hard stare. “You don’t have to live in this town.”
Nate stared back. “Neither do you. If you are that afraid of them, there are empty homes all over this county. Pack up and leave. Anything would be better than what happened last night.”
“Until they all do leave, as town marshal, it’s my responsibility to keep them safe. Now that gang is going to come at us with everything they have.”
