Mitch went over a brief summary of the conversation he’d had the day before with the woman from Hilton Head. Most people already knew the details, but somehow hearing it from the man who'd made first contact made a difference. Many heads nodded in agreement as he discussed each point of information that they gleaned from the people south of Charleston.
“…and that about covers it, I guess," Mitch said as he shrugged and looked at Cami several minutes later.
Cami clapped, then the crowd picked it up, and color rose up Mitch's neck as he smiled and waved awkwardly. He made his way off the deck and rejoined the crowd, receiving a big hug from Amber. The men behind him grabbed his shoulders and a few shook his hand.
Cami's heart beat faster. Sweat trickled down her spine. This was the moment of truth. She gripped the railing like a captain facing a rogue wave on a wooden sailing ship and drew strength from the sturdy wooden beams that had survived attack, invasion, and a hurricane.
"There's something else that I need to tell you. All of you."
Her ominous words drew a hushed silence from the crowd. No one spoke, and the only sound Cami could hear was an agitated crow somewhere in the mangled forest.
"Some of you may have already guessed this, judging by the amount of time you spent in my house since the troubles began, but most of you might not know. I feel it's time I need to tell everyone. Before the tsunami hit, Reese, my husband that some of you know is still missing, he—we—prepared for many situations. Mostly we stocked away food, water, and medicine for hurricanes, injuries, and power loss. But just a few years ago, we began accumulating other items…like deep cycle batteries, solar panels, and wires to connect everything…and ways of concealing it all."
She let that sink in while the crowd murmured.
"I don't know how else to say this, except to just come out and say it—we have a hidden solar system, complete with batteries, that we can use to run limited electrical appliances inside our house. We’ve been using it ever since the tsunami hit to keep food fresh and run our refrigerator, make ice…that kind of thing."
As she expected, the rippling murmurs turned into louder conversations. More than one face crumpled into a frown. Dangerous, accusing looks shot Cami's way. Most of her neighbors seemed genuinely surprised, more stunned than anything. Several mouths hung open, but as time went on and more people discussed the revelation amongst themselves, more and more people grew visibly upset. Cami raised her hands.
"I understand that some of you may consider this as being dishonest," she began.
"I'll say! Me and my family have been on the edge of starvation for the past two weeks and now you're telling me that you got all kinds of stockpiles of food—and you even have power to run a refrigerator?” Several statements of agreement popped up from the crowd, along with a couple defenders who shouted them down with cries of “let her speak.”
Cami cleared her throat. “Yes, my husband and I prepared for bad situations, it was also part of my job as a hunting guide—you all know that. Sometimes I'd spend weeks alone in the Alaskan wilderness surrounded by animals that would gladly eat me for lunch!" Cami fired back. "There are many things that we're grateful to have now because of my job! And I want you all to know keeping this information from you wasn't in any way malicious. I didn't want to purposely keep you all in the dark—I would've loved to have shared everything I had right from the get-go—"
A single voice rang out from the crowd. “Then why didn't you?" The rumbling began to build again.
"Because I'm a mother!” Cami yelled over the noise. “I’m not going to do anything that would directly threaten my daughter's life!" The crowd fell instantly quiet. "If I'd announced to everyone the day the tsunami hit that our house was crammed full of supplies, medicine, food, water—and we even had a way to produce electricity—what do you think would've happened? I would've had a line of people begging for supplies all the way through the neighborhood!"
"Someone might think that you were just bein’ neighborly!"
"Why should she have to share with any of us?" Gary said, his deep voice silencing the dissenters. He turned and rounded on the crowd. "You had just as much time to prepare as she did,” he said, thrusting a finger at Cami. "And if you didn't do it, then that's doom on you, and no fault of hers!"
"That's easy for you to say, you’re living there!" somebody shot back.
"I did do what she did!" Gary replied. "Our house was in Rolling Hills," he said and let that sink in. Elizabeth stood next to him and wrapped her arm around his waist.
"We lost everything,” she said in a voice soft enough to force the others to quiet down in order to hear her. “We barely made it out with our lives! And Cami took us in…my whole family!"
Merle stepped back up to the deck. “I probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for her. Cami and Amber saved my wife’s life.”
“It’s true,” Amy Orchard called out as she looked around.
"It's still not fair!" A woman cried. "My kids have been so hungry! And you—”
"I gave away food and medicine every chance I had!” Cami said. "Is there anyone here who came to me and asked for something and didn't get it?"
No one raised their hands. Most people turned and looked at each other, some shrugged, many nodded, and only a few frowned. The woman who had called out about her children turned red but didn't say anything. Cami pointed at her. "Ashley Lockwood, you came to me last week, and what did I do? I gave you six Mason jars full of pancake mix. All you had to do was mix it with water, and it was enough food to feed your family for a week!"
The crowd separated and a space opened up around the woman who'd spoken up.
"You never gave me anything," a shrill voice called out from the back of the crowd.
Cami closed her eyes and sighed as she looked down. Of course, it would be Harriet.
"The entire time I've been grieving for my husband in my house, since the tsunami hit, you never lifted a finger to give me anything or help me in any way."
"Harriet," Cami began, staring daggers at her.
"When this neighborhood was reeling from the loss of so many people during the fighting, when we needed a way to cut loose and celebrate the fact that we were all alive—I ask you all,” Harriet said with arms spread wide, “who offered their own house for the celebration? Was it Cami?"
Everyone who’d looked at Harriet turned to look at Cami. Several sets of eyes narrowed, and more than one person shook their head in disapproval.
"And then, during the height of the storm, when we came under attack…yet again…" Harriet said, somehow insinuating with her tone that it was Cami's fault. “Who disappeared? When we needed her the most? And who stayed?"
"You helped the defenders who'd been injured,” a weak voice called.
“I saw Harriet bandage people up," somebody else said, next to Harriet.
She smiled graciously and nodded in the man's direction.
"You brought me water, too," a woman said to her right.
"I was being held prisoner—" Cami began, incredulous that anyone out there would take Harriet's claim of being a volunteer seriously.
"And yet this whole time, who'd been holding out on us?” Harriet replied. “Who's the one sitting on a horde of food? Anyone can go over to my house and take a look—it was ransacked by those animals from Cisco's camp in the last attack. But is anybody fixing up my house? Did anybody say thank you to me for hosting the party? Did anybody offer to give me any food?"
The whole time Harriet spoke she worked her way forward through the crowd. People nodded and moved apart to let her pass, several men crossed their arms in agreement, and more than one turned to stare balefully at Cami.
Cami's hands grew slicker. She looked down at Amber, who shrugged as if to say she was sorry. I'm losing them. I never should've said anything…
"Who was the one who faced down every single threat to this neighborhood?" asked Amber.
“Amber, stay out of it,” Cami pleaded.<
br />
"Who sacrificed her house for the defense of this neighborhood?" demanded Gary. His voice echoed across the lawn and the crowd grew quiet. "Not a single one of you stepped forward to offer your own house. This is where we’re going to make our stand. This far and no further." He pointed at the Lavelles’ house. Look at those bullet holes! Go on, look! Look at the scorch marks! Our enemy has tried to destroy this place three different times. And three times she stood tall, not just for her, but for everybody in this neighborhood."
"That's right, if we can stop them here, then they won't get any further, and they won't be ransacking any other houses," a voice agreed from further back in the crowd.
"Where were you when those army trucks rolled through here the first time?” somebody called out to Harriet.
“Cami faced ‘em down on her own…” another agreed.
"I'll be the first one to admit,” Mia said in a loud voice. “I was too scared to even come out on my front porch when those guys rolled through. But I saw Cami face down two of them. By herself.” She turned and looked at Harriet. "I don't even know where you were when all this was going down."
Cami searched the crowd and found Flynt at the back. “That’s not entirely accurate,” Cami said, stepping into the verbal sparring match. “Darien Flynt and his men helped me…I wasn’t completely alone…“
Darien stared at Harriet, his face a mask of fury, his crossed arms quivered with suppressed rage. Harriet had clearly called an audible and changed the gameplan he’d uncovered. Darien was none too happy that she was trying to split the crowd.
Cami glanced at Harriet. That was interesting. She looked down at the railing and scrambled to compose her thoughts. Before she could say anything further, a voice called out from around the corner of the house.
"Cami! Cami!"
Questioning murmurs erupted from the crowd as those on the sides spilled forward to see the commotion. Cami heard only mumbling between those who could see and those who couldn't, but she caught "guards" and "newcomers."
Cami limped toward the side of the deck and looked out over the redoubt, riddled with bullets and shredded bark after the storm. One of the two guards posted at the southern entrance to the neighborhood ran forward. "Cami, this lady just showed up—"
A veritable tornado of a woman rushed around the house, and shoved the teenage guard gently, but firmly aside. Her clothes, filthy and stained with blood, mud and dirt from her travels, hung off of her body as if she’d dropped a few sizes recently. She had a long thick gray braid of hair that looped down over one shoulder, and despite wearing cargo shorts and a ratty T-shirt, she wore decent hiking boots—if mud splattered—and a wide hat that looked more appropriate on a park ranger or a drill sergeant. She looked up and squinted at Cami with a grandmother’s weathered face.
"Can you tell me where I can find Cami Lavelle?"
Cami glanced at Amber than the rest of the crowd, before looking at the newcomer. "Well, yes…I'm Cami."
The woman nodded, a grim smile on her face. "I figured as much. You're just like he described."
Cami's heart raced. "What?" she breathed. “Who?”
"My name is Jo—up until this morning, I've been traveling with your husband since the tsunami hit. We made it all the way down from Maine, but that's not important—what is important, is that some people captured him this mornin’.”
The world fell away and Cami's vision pinpointed like a laser on Jo's face. Her hands gripped the deck railing hard enough to draw blood. "He’s alive?"
Jo nodded and pushed the wide-brimmed hat back off her forehead. "Alive as you and me…least he was this morning. We saw some people…I don't know what they were doing, like they were taking prisoners or something. They went one way, we went the other, and Reese followed behind us to keep us safe…and…" She shrugged. "He vanished. Only thing I can figure is those rustlers came back and got him.”
"Where was this?" Gary demanded as he stepped forward.
"Oh, ‘bout a couple hours yonder," Jo said as she pointed roughly southeast.
“There’s more people than just her, Cami,” the guard reported. “We found her with a whole family. A guy and his kids, a grandfather, and a grandchild. They’re on their way over, but the granddad’s hurt so they’re carrying him in a stretcher.”
“I stitched up the old man,” Jo said with a nod, “but if y’all got any pain killers and maybe some antibiotics, he might could use some.”
“Tell them to meet me out front!” Amber said, already moving toward the house. “Mia, grab your gear.” She swung her own medical kit over a shoulder and pushed her way through the crowd. “Can you tell me exactly what you did?” She asked as she walked up to Jo. “I’m Amber Lavelle, by the way,” she added, her hand outstretched.
“Well, of course you are,” Jo replied with a smile and a handshake. “Just the spittin’ image of your daddy.” She turned and walked with Amber toward the front of the house, already lost in conversation.
Gary turned and looked up at Cami. “You think Cisco had something to do with this?”
"I don't know," Cami said as she found her voice. Her hands trembled as she spoke. "But I'm going to find out."
Reese is alive. Thank you, God.
Chapter 19
Braaten Forest Preserve
Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina
Two days had passed. Two whole days. Two days of jabs in the ribs, crude jokes, and constant reminders that he was low man on the totem pole. Little better than a slave.
Reese spent two miserable days cutting down trees and hauling wood—with a decided emphasis on hauling wood—and had the bruises and sore muscles to show for it. Others in the camp were tasked with building structures out of the wood, but everyone, even the cooks—who had little enough food to work with—had it better than the manual laborers. They were good for one thing: a strong back.
He frowned as he picked up yet another six-inch diameter log and hefted it over his good shoulder. With a grunt, Reese stood and wiped the sweat from his eyes. He trudged through the trampled bushes and debris left over from the storm, one foot after the other.
Cisco had lied when he’d said those who worked would eat. They’d given him enough food—barely—to survive, but Reese could almost feel what little weight he had left evaporate as he toiled in the hot sun. He worked sunup to sundown, like everyone else. Around him, those captives—for that's how Reese thought of them—who'd been trusted to have axes hacked away at the trees on the edge of Cisco's camp.
Those that didn't have the trust of their guards or the leadership who blindly followed Cisco—like Reese—were lorded over by men who probably shared a child's IQ between them all. The two on guard duty in the mornings both had shotguns, which upped the game. What made it even worse for Reese was that one of the guards carried the shotgun that he'd liberated from the wreckage of the tsunami.
"You look like you're slowing down…need me to teach you a lesson again on what it means to work slow?"
Reese shook his head. "No lesson is necessary," he muttered as he shuffled past carrying the hundred-pound log on his shoulder.
The two guards laughed. "Well, you better put a little pep in your step there, boy," the one nearest Reese said. But he knew the threat was idle—the man was already turning his attention to someone else who’d slacked off. "Hey! We ain’t paying you to sit!"
The second guard, somewhere on the other side of the tree line, called out in reply, “Hah! We ain’t paying you at all!" Reese grimaced when he heard a meaty thwack as one of the guards punched the offender.
Everything had been going too well…he should've seen it coming. He and Jo had made it out of Charleston and crossed the bridge over the Ashley, survived the encounter with the raiders, and were less than a day’s hike from home.
"And now this…” Reese grumbled as he slogged through the forest, one foot after another. Each plodding step sent a mild shock of pain up his back. But he had to go on—he had no other
choice. There was hardly any time at all between where the trees were cut down and others hauled the logs back to camp that they weren't guarded by men loyal to Cisco—armed men.
Reese made it back to camp and dropped his log with a hollow thud on the pile in the middle of the gravel parking lot. He took a moment to look at the row of shot up trucks, many of which appeared to have burned to the floorboards. As he’d done every other time he'd dropped a cut log onto the pile, he put his hands on his hips and took a few moments to catch his breath.
The guards at camp weren't nearly as aggressive at enforcing Cisco's policies as those out with the men who cut down the trees. Under their watchful eyes, Reese wiped the sweat from his face and eyed the row of trucks, including the massive military truck parked in the center of camp.
Not for the first time, Reese considered the fact that Cisco and his men might have taken over the camp from someone else. He couldn't figure out any other way to explain how the trucks appeared as if they’d driven through a war zone. Shot up and burnt to a crisp, it was almost as if someone had dropped a bomb in the car park.
He shook his head. For the life of him, Reese couldn’t figure out what the giant armored truck was doing there in the first place. Sighing, Reese turned and headed back toward the forest.
As he turned, he spotted another prisoner dragging an even bigger log over one shoulder across the parking lot. He staggered and fell to one knee, then, with a monumental effort, raised himself back up on trembling legs and continued to haul the heavy tree.
Reese felt more than a little sympathy for the man and admired his dogged determination. He rushed over and grabbed the back end of the log, so that between the two of them they could carry it a little easier.
"Thanks," gasped the man at the front.
“Don’t worry about it," Reese replied with a grunt of effort. "Can't believe they made you carry this thing by yourself…”
"Yeah, well…guess I wasn’t working fast enough…”
"I'm Reese," he said quietly after they’d passed by a guard who stared at them with dead eyes.
Broken Tide | Book 6 | Breakwater Page 14
