“My real name is Paul. Paul Burnett.”
It was the pastor’s turn to smile. “Paul the apostle. Once the persecutor then the champion.”
War Child wheezed a laugh, slapping his thigh. “Now ain’t that something.” He gave the pastor a rough whoop and laugh. “Never thought of it that way.” He pointed at him. “What does God have in store for us? Is he going to cut us down or raise us up?”
The pastor’s mouth curled in a smile. “He will raise his prophet and his champion to the heavens.”
Their hands met like a thunderclap in the silent barn.
AHMED
Northern Missouri
They neared a small home with no lights on. The siding was a pale gray, and the reflection of snow made it seem even lighter in the darkness. Trees surrounded the home that pressed upon on the edge of a field no larger than an acre. In the distance, a sizable barn stood on the border of a tree line. It was only the third house they’d come across as they’d trekked while shivering from the elements.
Jim stopped them near a tree with sweeping branches devoid of all leaves. He scrutinized the building for a moment from behind the oak.
“Why you waiting, Jimmy?” Kelly asked.
“Sly knows we’s got cousins in these parts. Why wouldn’t he come looking here too?”
“He’s prolly forgotten that Lee’s my mother’s cousin. Hell, I had to remind Brad half the time.” Her words trailed off as if her mind had finally caught up with what she was saying, reminding her that he was gone. She glanced downward at the white crusted ground. Flurries trickled through naked branches in the cold night like frozen tears.
“I’m gonna go check it out,” Jim said. He trudged ahead, and the rest trooped through the snow like they were stalking deer in the night.
They reached the porch, and Jim hammered the door with a fist. “Lee,” he called out.
The porch light flicked on, illuminating the front steps in an eerie yellow glow. The door eked open and the black barrel of a rifle emerged in its place.
“Who’s askin’?” came a voice.
“It’s me, Uncle Lee. Jimmy.”
The door swung open, revealing a man in an open blue robe and boxers. He resembled a mad scientist on the verge of a breakthrough, his gray hair sticking out every which way.
“You crazy, boy? Coming out here in the night. What in hell’s the matter with you?” He shook his head. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. Whatcha doing here?”
“We got run out.”
“Run out of what?” Lee stared out into the night and squinted over the porch light toward the other people. “Kelly?”
She walked forward, feet crushing brittle brush. “Hi, Lee.”
He shaded his eyes from the glaring light. “Are those kids?” He gave Jimmy an evil look. “Why didn’t you say you got kids with you? You got a block for a head like your father?”
Jim stared at the ground for a moment. “He’s dead.”
Lee’s mouth stayed closed, and he judged the young man for a moment. “Get these poor folks in here then you can tell me.” He motioned them on. “Come in.”
In a few minutes, they were all inside, huddled around a small wood-burning stove trying to thaw the winter from their limbs. Ahmed felt each step of their trek through the woods inside every muscle fiber of his legs.
Lee brought in a handful of blankets and passed them to the chilled people. He handed one to Ahmed and stared at him for a minute.
“Well, you ain’t one of Kelly and Brad’s. Sure don’t think you’re Barb’s neither.” He raised his eyebrows. “Unless one of the migrant workers slipped one over on Kelly.”
“I’m not from here.”
His bushy eyebrows worked up and down. “Clearly. You don’t sound funny though.”
“D.C.”
“From the swamp. Figures. I won’t hold it against you.” He turned back to his distant relatives. “What’s happened?”
Jim studied the floor, his jaw clenching. “They killed Dad and Kyle.”
Lee took a seat on a worn-out sofa and draped his robe over himself. “Who and why?” He didn’t sound as surprised as Ahmed thought he should.
“You know who. It was Sly and his henchman Vance.” Jim stared at him.
Lee sucked in some air through his nose, shaking his head. “After all this time, you’re still fighting the same battles. It was only a matter of time before somebody really got hurt.”
“Those are your battles too,” Kelly chided Lee.
Lee rolled his eyes. “That was a long time ago and nobody died,” he emphasized the word died at the end.
“They shot Brad in the back and gunned down Kyle in cold blood.”
“Suppose notifying the authorities is out. Vance is married to a cousin of Sly’s. Not that they’re doing much now.”
“They never did much anyway,” Kelly said, looking away.
“Why’d they come now?”
The room grew silent like someone had sucked the sound right out of it. Ahmed eyed Jim and then Sadie. A secret stifled the room, one that he didn’t know.
Jim peered at Lee, his words coming as if he were reaffirming to himself what he’d done. “I killed Rog a week ago.”
“Why’d you go and do that? You know we got issues with them.”
“It was an accident. He came sniffing around. I got hot.” He threw a hand toward Sadie. “I was looking out for my sister.”
“Let him sniff all he wants. The girl’s got a mind of her own. Let her decide.”
Jim’s mouth tightened and his icy eyes gored Lee. “She said she didn’t want him coming around.”
Lee nodded and sighed. “And now they come and kill Brad and Kyle. This is ugly business, Jimmy. You should have thrashed him and let him be on his way.”
“They killed my boy and my man and burnt our home down,” Kelly said. “Ain’t right.”
“No, it ain’t. Suppose Jimmy wants help in getting vengeance.”
“It’s only a matter of time before they make it this way and burn us out again.”
“I suppose it is.” Lee leaned forward and clasped his hands in front of his body. “Tomorrow I’ll get the horses saddled up, and we’ll make sure they know they’ve done wrong.” His eyes glared at Jimmy. “By talking.”
Jimmy stayed silent.
“I’m going to try to get back to sleep.” Lee stood and eyed them all. “We don’t have much space, so you’ll all be out here.”
“Thank you, Lee,” Kelly said. Her words were echoed by Barb.
The refugees took places along the floor. Jim made sure Ahmed knew he wasn’t pleased with him bedding down next to Sadie but didn’t say anything. Ahmed let an arm settle over Sadie’s waist like a seatbelt. She snuggled in closer, and in moments, drifted into sleep.
***
He awoke with the dawn of the day and the sound of soft voices. He found himself alone and chilled on the floor. Sadie gave him a soft smile.
“Been waiting for you.”
He sat up and she handed him watery coffee. “I was exhausted.”
“We all are.” Her eyes worried.
The door banged open, and Lee came in with a googly-eyed young man that looked just like him but with brown hair instead of gray sticking out every which way.
“Andy and I got the horses saddled. Harry Bailey don’t live too far from here. He’s got a square head on his shoulders. Maybe we can talk this out. Get some kind of truce.”
“You know we ain’t talking this out,” Jim said.
Lee stomped his boots on a mat, snow dropping in clumps. “Maybe you ain’t, but I am. You want us backing you? We talk.”
Jim licked his lips. “You don’t tell us Singletons what to do.”
“Then you can find another place.”
Lee’s wife, Gina, was a short woman with big hips and a robust chest. She balked at him. “Where would they go? They’re family.”
“If there’s shooting, I’m not going. I’m not getting
killed for something stupid.” Lee crossed his arms over his upper body.
“This ain’t stupid. Stay then.” Jim weighed Ahmed as if to determine any sort of value. “Brown guy. You want to ride with us?”
Ahmed had been called so much worse throughout his life. The term brown didn’t bother him. His skin tone was more brown than white he supposed, or more brown than pink in most people’s cases. The fact that the man knew his name and refused to call him by it is what really bothered him.
“My name is Ahmed.”
“Whatever. You want to ride with us? We could use the help.” His angry ice-cold eyes told Ahmed he didn’t really care at all. He felt Sadie’s gaze upon him as well.
“Be nice to him,” Sadie scolded.
“Thank you,” Ahmed said softly to her.
She blushed at his words.
“Jesus, Sadie, you been swooning over this guy for weeks. Try to keep it in your pants. Your father and brother were killed yesterday. They deserve justice.”
Ahmed stretched his chest. There was pain, but he could fight. The real question in his mind was a matter of if he should. These people were being persecuted by another group. He’d witnessed the slaying of two in cold blood. He’d seen what the authorities had done. There was no hope of succor from them. The Singletons had cared for him while he lingered on the precipice of life and death but embroiling himself in the middle of a violent family feud wasn’t going to get him back to his people. He hesitated, weighing all the information as fast as he could.
He could feel Sadie’s light blue eyes on him. They lit something in him that he didn’t understand. He nodded. Something kicked in his chest and simmered in his gut. He couldn’t place this excitement of being with someone he really cared about, and the thought scared him at the same time. He was doing things for someone he’d only really known for a few days, and because he couldn’t say why, it perplexed him deep inside. “I’ll go with you.”
Sadie exhaled and a smile spread on her lips. “Thank you.”
Jim’s eyes fell to Andy’s, testing his manhood. His younger cousin held a reverence for the older, one that yearned to be seen as a man in the eyes of the elder males. Jim pushed him further. “You comin’?”
The young man quickly nodded.
“I knew you’d man up. Not back down from this fight.”
Lee gawked at the ceiling in consultation with the Lord. “I thought I raised you better than this.”
“This is how you raised me, Dad. It’s blood. There’s nothing thicker. If we don’t have their backs, who will?”
“I should have stayed in bed last night.”
Kelly gave Lee a nasty glare. “We don’t want to impose. We just thought you’d be one for helping family in need.”
He waved his cousin off. “No. No. We could never put you out. But I don’t want this fight. Nothing good can come from it.”
“We didn’t neither, but this is what we got.”
Lee took a moment to judge Jim in silence. “I’ll go with ’em. Try to keep this somewhat civil.”
Jim grabbed a shotgun from the corner and handed it to Ahmed. “Come on, brownie.”
Ahmed held the gun for a second, watching the man walk outside. Asshole. He followed him anyway, keeping his word if only for Sadie.
A fraction of snow had covered the cold ground in the night. Sticks and dead leaves stuck out here and there as if they defied their frozen white blanket. Jim, Lee, Andy, and Ahmed marched out to the horses and mounted up.
Lee looked at the young men. “This ain’t much of a posse.”
“This all we got. We could go up north and grab Dennis and Ethan or the Foxworth boys.”
“Nah, we got enough to make ’em talk.”
Jim snorted and kicked his horse down the dirt driveway, tossing dirt and snow alike. Ahmed climbed on his horse with a grunt and urged it forward with his hips.
The land was dead or in the process of seasonal dying. The country roads melded into one long tunnel of wilderness, indistinguishable from each other. Ahmed knew he would never make it back to Lee’s without help.
“It’ll be Christmas soon,” Lee said.
The thought was in the back of Ahmed’s mind, but the realization had slipped him. Without the constant barrage of Christmas advertisements on television, he’d hadn’t remembered. Then there was the whole end-of-the-world thing that had gotten in the way of him recollecting holidays, months, or days for that matter. “I’d almost forgotten.”
“Don’t celebrate?”
“Took the free holidays.”
Lee eyed him, waiting for more. “Far from home.”
“It feels that way.”
They rode in silence for a moment before Ahmed spoke. “Home is where you find those you love. Otherwise, I might never have a home.”
“Thoughtful words for a young man.”
Talking about his religion with strangers sometimes felt odd, especially when he knew his reception might be less than cordial. “I’m Muslim, but most of my friends weren’t, so I kind of celebrated, I guess with them.” That seemed like a lifetime ago when things were normal and America still hummed with life.
Lee smiled. “Ahhh. As-salamu alaykum, friend.
This caused Ahmed to smile as he was immediately reminded of his family. “Wa ‘alaykumu s-salām.”
Ahmed stared at the wild-haired man with a grin. “How do you know that greeting?”
“I used to be in the military. A long time ago. You go, they teach you a bunch of things, forget most, but you remember a few.” He finished with a smile. “Or you select a few to remember.”
They turned down a road that appeared to be a long driveway in silence. Pines and maples gave way to rusted-out cars and other random junk in a yard. Long expired off-white refrigerators. An oven. Corroded brown fencing worthlessly tossed in a pile. A faded blue swing set with no swings, only rusted chains hanging.
A pickup sat in front of a dilapidated house. A man unloaded boxes from the pickup’s bed. The exterior wood siding of the home was rotted. A window was covered with plastic. The storm door was bent to the side, unable to latch back in place. He didn’t look up until they were close enough to shout.
He squinted at the riders. Jim kicked his horse into a gallop, riding hard for him. The man dropped the box he was holding. Using the truck bed to propel him, he scrambled for the back seat.
“Christ!” Lee cursed. He spurred his horse after Jim with Andy and Ahmed close behind.
Pickup windows shattered, spraying shards of glass, as Jim fired his shotgun at a gallop, an almost impossible task. Bullets banged out of the cab as the man crouched behind his truck.
Ahmed pulled the reins hard on his horse, half-stumbling, half-falling on the icy ground. He let the horse trot away and dropped his knee into the cold earth. Gunfire came from the house with muffled pops. Even while muffled it made him jump. Dirty snow erupted off the ground and his heart pounded even faster. His fellow riders drifted toward the edge of the house trying to avoid the gunfire, circling back in front.
Rapidly, Ahmed dropped from kneeling to prone. Now he could see the man behind the pickup. His only thought was to win. He could make out the man’s jeans-clad thigh, calf, and tan-booted foot. He let his trigger go, and a slug sailed into the man’s meaty leg.
When the slug hit, it was like someone had removed his femur with a wicked giant’s punch. He tipped over on his shoulder, screaming in pain. A man ran from the house and began dragging him toward the door. The wounded man fought him, trying to put pressure on his wound.
Pumping his shotgun, the spent shell ejected. He fired again. This time, the slug took the other man in the foot. The boot with the foot inside separated from his body leaving a bloody streak in its place. He went down wailing next to his friend.
All the while, Lee screamed in the background for everyone to stop, but it was too late. Jim and Andy steered their horses toward the wounded men, peppering them with bullets. Ahmed bounded forward for
concealment, keeping a constant gaze on one of the windows. The shades moved, and he sent another slug through. Cries came from the inside of the house.
Jim dismounted with his shotgun. He sprinted and kicked in the door. Andy trailed behind him, and they disappeared. Ahmed reached the bodies of the two men. The only part of them still moving were bloody pink trails of leaking insides pooling into the layer of crispy white ground.
Jim dragged a woman out of the house by her hair. She kicked at him, her legs splaying wildly.
Lee reached in his direction. “Jimmy, stop!”
Raising a hand, Ahmed said, “Jim.” The fighting was done. There was no more need for bloodshed.
Blue eyes flared at him. Jim put a Smith and Wesson .40 caliber handgun to her head. She quit kicking and sobbed, snot running from her nostrils onto her lips.
“Fuck you!” she screamed. When she caught the sight of the two dead men, she screeched, her mouth vibrating with her wails. “You bastards!”
Lee gestured at her. “She’s a woman. Stop this.”
“You think that they give a shit about women?” Jim kicked at her rear with his boot sending her onto her hands. “You think they gave a shit about the kids? They burnt down our home after shooting Dad and Kyle in the back. That’s the good faith a Bailey will give you. Guarantee of a bullet.”
The woman caught her breath, her lips snarling. “He’ll find you.” Her chest heaved. “And he’ll kill you. He will.”
Jim snarled, pressing his pistol into her head. “Shut the fuck up, you slut.”
Her anger took over. “You’re all fucked anyway. You may as well kill me too.”
Jim shoved her with the gun. “Don’t tempt me, bitch.”
“Does she deserve this?” Ahmed said.
Jim spit. “Don’t she? She’s with them.” He pointed at the bodies. “Those two pieces of shit were there. They gunned them down.” Ahmed vaguely remembered their shadowed faces near the pickups, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Was she there?”
“She’ll run to Sly and prolly breed a bunch more just like ’em.”
Ahmed took a step closer. “She didn’t commit the crime. She wasn’t there. No more than Sadie and Kelly are here. Don’t condemn her for something she didn’t do.”
The End Time Saga (Book 5): The Holding Page 12
