With the ceremony done, they began heading back toward the house in twos and threes. Nicole was the last to leave and Dale stayed by her side until she was ready to go.
When they were alone, she no longer felt the need to hold back. “I blame you for what happened,” she told him. “Your brother loved you, looked up to you and for that you got him killed.”
Her words felt like hot stinging needles buried deep in his flesh. “I expected you to feel that way,” he told her. “You loved him very much and you’re grieving and I guess part of that means you’re gonna look for someone to blame. I never asked for you and your family to come here. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be forever grateful for everything you’ve done for us. But the four of you came of your own free will.”
She regarded him from the corner of her eye. “All you had to do was give them what they wanted and Shane would still be alive. Because of that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive you.”
“I won’t deny I’ve made mistakes,” Dale said quietly. “There’s no rulebook for how to act in a situation like this. All I can do is listen to my conscience and pray that I’m doing right by me and everyone else under my care. Sometimes that means making tough decisions. Sometimes that means people die, people we love, so that others may live. I won’t pretend that I can make those decisions better than everyone else, but so far the responsibility has fallen squarely on my shoulders. If you and your parents wish to leave, I won’t stop you. I’ll be saddened, but I won’t stand in your way.”
Nicole shook her head and Dale wasn’t sure if she was telling him she wanted to stay or whether leaving under the current circumstances was no longer an option.
For a moment, he considered pressing her on the subject but thought best to just let it go. Instead, he assured her he wouldn’t stop until Shane’s killers were made to pay, whether that meant at the end of barrel or at the end of a noose. The promise seemed to get through to her because Nicole took his hand, mouthing the words, “Thank you.”
By the time they made it back to the house, Dale saw that Dannyboy was back on his feet, mingling with the others by the pumphouse. They were looking at something on the structure itself and talking excitedly amongst themselves.
He arrived and saw that somebody had spray-painted a symbol of some kind onto his pumphouse door. A circle wrapped around the letter V.
“This wasn’t here when we came out earlier,” Sandy said, puzzled.
The house had been locked up while they were out back but Dale decided to make a sweep of the property anyway to be sure whoever had done this wasn’t still lurking around. After they were done, each of them returned to the pumphouse.
Dale ran his fingers over the red spray paint and saw that some of it came off on his fingers. “Sandy’s right. This is still fresh. Whoever this was, they must’ve done it while we were burying Shane.” He checked the door and found that it hadn’t been tampered with. Dale couldn’t tell what he found more unsettling, the fact that someone had so brazenly trespassed on his land or that the meaning behind the mysterious symbol had yet to be deciphered.
“You think it’s a threat?” Brooke wondered aloud.
“Looks like one to me,” Zach said, gripping his pistol. “A tag on the pumphouse. You don’t need to be a whiz to figure out they’re laying claim to what’s ours.”
“They wouldn’t be the first,” Dale said, trying to sound calm. “The real question is who are the ones laying the claim and why don’t they come right out and ask for it man to man?”
Just then a figure appeared at the end of the driveway. Duke let out a series of vicious barks before Dale gave the order to heel and leveled his shotgun.
The figure approached, dragging a small cart behind him. Duke continued growling as the man approached.
“Is that pooch of yours ever gonna cut me some slack?” Billy asked, annoyed and maybe a little hurt. He glanced around and whistled when he saw the bodies stacked in front of the house. “I heard the shooting yesterday and wasn’t sure whether you folks were still alive or not. Gave you fifty-fifty odds.”
“How generous of you,” Dale said.
Billy smiled. “Glad to see I was wrong.”
“We still have a lot of cleaning up to do,” Sandy explained, straining a smile. “If you’re offering to help, we’ll gladly accept.”
Billy bent over laughing. “Wish I could, but I got a place of my own that’s in desperate need of attention.” His gaze drifted past Sandy’s shoulder toward the pumphouse. “And I see I’m not the only one.” He was talking about the graffiti.
Dale furrowed his brow. “You get one too?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Billy spat.
“You know who did this, old man?” Zach asked.
Billy fixed him with a penetrating glare. “Don’t think I know this one.”
“It’s my father,” Colton said proudly. Zach ruffled his son’s hair and rested his hand on the back of his neck.
“Oh, I remember now. You’re the felon.”
Zach’s features darkened. “That was a long time ago.”
Billy let out the kind of laugh which made it clear he wasn’t afraid of causing offense. “If you say so. Far as I’m concerned, anyone who survived the scourge has earned a clean slate. CEOs and street cleaners are equals now. It’s what you do with the rest of the time you’ve been given. That’s what matters most.”
Zach eyed the rest of the group. “Maybe the old man’s not as crazy as he looks.”
That made Billy chuckle, until his gaze settled over that symbol again. “The folks who left that are nothing but a bunch of looters and vandals.”
“You know them?” Dale asked, curious why Billy knew them and he was still in the dark.
“Not directly, no. But I heard about ’em. See, a man in my profession learns to keep his ear to the ground and his lips sealed tight. Word on the street is they started as a small group stealing non-perishables from abandoned houses. Before long they’d graduated to snatching whatever they could get their hands on. And now it seems they’ve found us, except I don’t have nearly as much worth stealing as you do.” Billy was pointing a grease-stained finger at Dale. “I’d watch out for them if I were you.”
Billy’s warning didn’t sit well with Dale. Even after disposing of the dead cartel members and getting back to work on the removable staircase, Dale was still feeling concerned. The last thing they needed was another group coveting their resources. He was beginning to see now that his strategy of cutting himself off from the rest of the town was coming back to haunt him. More and more, Dale realized he needed to adapt once again to an ever-changing landscape or risk being isolated and destroyed. He needed allies and fast.
Chapter 10
Not long after, Dale called everyone inside. The garage had become something of a congregation zone in recent days, mostly since it faced away from the road and thus offered a level of concealment from attack. But the bushes and trees beyond the edges of the property left it somewhat vulnerable and so Dale had opted to hold the meeting up in his bedroom. That way they could all be present while also keeping an eye out for intruders. There was a lot to do and, as usual, too few hours in which to do it.
When everyone was assembled, Dale cleared his throat and began to speak.
“I remember Walter once told me that the difference between a successful mission and a failure was the debrief that took place between engagements.” Looking around, Dale could see most of what he’d just said had sailed right over people’s heads. “What I’m trying to say is that it’s important to figure out what went wrong and how to make sure it doesn’t happen next time. But before that, we should be congratulating ourselves for repelling Ortega’s attack.”
Not surprisingly, Nicole’s eyes began filling with tears and she excused herself from the room. Ann went to follow her, but Dale asked her to stay. “She’s not alone in losing someone she loved. She’ll be fine, we need to just give her some space.” He turned to Zach, C
olton, Sandy and Brooke. “But I didn’t call this meeting so we could pat each other on the back. What happened yesterday wasn’t a sure thing. For a while it was touch-and-go and we need to lay out what lessons we learned and how to better prepare for the next attack.”
“We need more ARs,” Zach said. “I mean, at least one for everyone as well as some night-vision gear in case we get attacked after sundown.”
Dale nodded. “We could definitely beef up our firepower, no doubt about it. I’ll look into the night-vision.”
“I also think we need to stash weapons around the house,” Zach went on. “If those bastards manage to break down another wall, I don’t wanna be caught on the john with nothing to defend myself.”
Colton chuckled, covering his mouth as he tried to hold it in. Whenever the conversation offered Zach an opportunity to toss in some toilet humor, he was always quick to oblige.
“Zach on the toilet,” Sandy said, shaking her head. “I’m sure the stench alone would send the cartel running.”
The group let out a collective laugh. Much to everyone’s surprise, Ann joined in, pitching in with a joke about a priest, a bishop and a monk who walked into a bar and asked to use the restroom. The joke itself wasn’t one bit funny, but watching prim and demure Ann let her proverbial hair down had them all in stitches.
Dale felt the muscles in his stomach burning. But more than that, he felt the growing tension rolling off of him in the way that only the best of belly laughs could accomplish. Slowly the room settled, Dale reminding them how important the current conversation was.
“Well, the cartel attacked us with small arms,” Sandy said. “But next time we might not be so lucky.”
“Sandy’s right,” Colton said. “I remember seeing a show on Mexican drug lords and some of them had fifty-caliber Ma Deuces mounted onto Hummers.”
“Just one of those would be enough to turn this place into a block of Swiss cheese,” Zach said, looking around at the myriad of bullet holes already punctuating the room.
Lucky for them, Arizona featured an incredibly arid climate. If they were somewhere else, like Washington State where it rained at the drop of a hat, mold and mildew might be a real problem. At least there they weren’t killing each other over water, Dale thought. Other things perhaps, but not water.
“Something else I noticed,” Colton added. “We need to go through all those rounds and sort them by caliber. Once our initial magazines ran empty, it was taking forever to dig through the 9mm and 30-06s to get to the .223s.”
Dale was writing all this down. “Since no one’s stated the obvious,” he said, “I’ll be the one to put it out there. We need to find a way to stop bad guys from crashing vehicles into the house. Up until then, I’d say we were doing just fine.”
“Sounds great, but how do you propose we protect against that?” Brooke asked. “I guess we could put concrete pillars across the front lawn.”
“Sure, and I could paint them to look like garden gnomes,” Ann offered.
Dale grinned. “I think the only viable option is to dig a trench. Doesn’t have to be very deep or very wide. If the dimensions are laid out right, it’ll be more than enough to stop a speeding truck. I’ll crunch some numbers and see what I can come up with. But more pressing are the stairs Walter and Colton were working on right before this happened. Those need to be attached and made operational as soon as possible.”
Dannyboy stepped forward, his head still covered in bandages. “The fancy defensive stuff y’all are talking about is great, but what’s the point if one guy with a spray can is able to walk right up when no one’s looking?”
“What about an automatic sentry gun?” Colton said sarcastically.
“I’m not kidding,” Dannyboy said, annoyed. “Tech it up all you want. Dig a hundred ditches while you’re at it. But it’s human oversight that leads to most failures. Some folks call it user error. Let me be as clear as I can. Banks, back when they still existed, used to invest billions in anti-hacking firewalls and protective measures, and yet getting around their security was often as easy as leaving an infected thumb drive with the bank’s logo lying around for some poor employee to find. The minute he plugged it into his computer, bam, he’d infected the entire network. Humans are the soft entry point. All I’m saying is let’s make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to us.”
Dale was impressed and the look on his face must have showed it. “So how many banks have you hacked?” he asked Dannyboy, only half serious.
The skinny thief held up a hand. “I plead the fifth.”
“It’s an excellent point,” Dale went on. “All of us were so caught up with grieving Shane’s death that we didn’t think to maintain security during his burial.”
“Maybe we need more people to join us,” Brooke said. “You know, open up diplomatic relations.”
Dale looked at her and nodded. He’d been thinking the same thing.
The meeting finished soon after and everyone left to begin the work assigned to them. Dannyboy and Colton would finish the stairs, while Ann and Sandy would tend to the garden and the livestock. Every few hours, Ann would check in on Walter and change his bandages. As for Brooke, she had won the enviable task of sorting through the ammunition. Meanwhile, Sandy would join Dale out front to begin work on the ditch. Originally, he’d asked Zach to help him, but his brother-in-law told him he was going to take the pickup left by the cartel and see if he could find weapons, ammo or anything else of use. Colton’s immediate impulse had been to go with his father and it had taken some serious cajoling to convince him to stay and finish his work.
Dale asked Sandy, his ditch-digging partner, to stay behind.
“That seemed to go well,” she said with a touch of irony. She was referring to Zach, of course, and his reluctance to fall in line and fully join the group.
“He’s always had a difficult time with authority,” Dale said, hoping it didn’t sound like he was making excuses. “It’s been helpful having him around, even if sometimes I wanna pummel him.”
Sandy raised her eyebrows. “That bad, huh? What’d he do to ruffle Mr. Hardy’s feathers?” She whisked imaginary dirt off his shoulder as she used to do back when they were dating.
Dale debated whether he should say anything.
“Out with it,” Sandy ordered. “Don’t you think I know when you’re hiding something?”
“He’s been getting a little too touchy-feely for my taste.”
Sandy’s eyebrows arched. “With you?”
“No, not with me,” he corrected her. “With you.”
She grew silent, seeming to replay in her head each of the interactions she’d had with Zach. “He has been friendly, but I wouldn’t categorize it as inappropriate.”
Dale frowned. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.” He started to walk away.
“Dale Hardy, are you jealous?”
He glanced back. “What gives you that idea?”
“You are, aren’t you?” Sandy began to giggle. “Men are so territorial sometimes.”
The comment made Dale smile. Maybe she was right. This was his house and perhaps he’d blown things out of proportion. “Just promise you’ll let me know if he steps out of line.”
“If Zach crosses any lines,” Sandy said, “then I’ll fix him myself, thank you very much.”
Standing in a beam of soft light, she looked even more beautiful. Unable to help himself, Dale crossed the distance between them in two short strides and pulled her in for a long kiss. He felt Sandy go limp in his arms before at last he pulled away.
A radiant smile filled her face. “What took you so long?”
Chapter 11
Sheriff Randy Gaines
The morning had begun for Randy with the stark realization that life in Encendido would never be the same. For some time, he lay on his cot replaying the seconds before Mayor Reid’s head was made to look like a dead animal along the side of the highway. That was to say, red and covered in hair, but otherwise un
recognizable.
Ever since Dale’s attack against the sheriff’s office, Randy had ordered that the lunch room at the rear be converted into a temporary barracks. Out went the tables, chairs and the now empty vending machines and in came the army-style cots. There were fifteen of them in total, although currently only eleven were being used. The process of recruiting more deputies was becoming something of an uphill battle, especially after the arrival of Edwardo Ortega and his men. Surely, things would only grow harder once word of the Mayor’s death began to spread.
The cartel’s attack against Fortress Hardy, as some of the folks in town had taken to calling it, had proven to be a total and complete failure. A third of Ortega’s men were either dead or wounded. Before charging off, Edwardo had assured them his men were more than up for the job. He’d even spat when Mayor Reid had suggested the deputies tag along as a reserve force in case he should need them. In hindsight, seeing that look of anger on Edwardo’s face, his nostrils flared, his bloodshot eyes looking like roadmaps, it was clear Mayor Reid had just swung and missed. Strike one. The final strike would come after Edwardo and his men limped back, swearing incessantly in Spanish and firing their guns into the air in frustration.
It was no surprise that Ortega had blamed the mayor for the failure, telling him if his deputies were man enough to be there, they would have slaughtered the defenders and carried the day. It didn’t matter that the mayor had told him to limit the bloodshed, that a surrender was preferable to an extermination. The mayor had given his word and he had intended to keep it.
Keith entered the barracks just then carrying a handwritten note. A few of the other deputies around him were stretching the kinks out of their backs from a bad night’s sleep. Randy stood, rubbed his eyes and took the note from Keith. It was from Edwardo and in broken English instructed Randy to assemble his deputies out front in five minutes.
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