Go back. Make sure Mary’s safe.
Mary? Why was he thinking about Mary again?
Get focused, man! Focus!
He couldn’t go back to Mary yet. He still had to find out who the attackers were, and they were on the other side of the barn.
He turned around and headed back, keenly aware that most of the shadows he’d been using as cover earlier were gone.
Smith picked up his pace.
Scratch-scratch from the other side of the wall, now to his left. Horses moving around, either sensing him or hearing his movements. He hoped it wasn’t the latter because he didn’t think he was being that loud. Was he?
No, definitely not.
The side door was in front of him, just five yards away, with the other corner on the other side. He needed to find out who the attackers were. What were the chances they were Mandy’s people? That was the ideal answer, but there was no guarantee of that. For all he knew, it could have been another group that had stumbled across the ranch and decided they wanted it for themselves.
He had to find out one way or another, and that meant getting a good look at the attackers.
Something flicked in the corner of Smith’s right eye, and he turned his head to look. It was, he would realize later, the only thing that saved his life. If he hadn’t stopped moving and turned around, the bullet would have struck him either in the temple or somewhere else along the length of his head. Bottom line: He would have been dead.
But he wasn’t, and instead he heard the soft, almost muffled pop! of a suppressed rifle firing, just before the bullet zipped! past his face, inches from slicing his nose off at the bridge, and piercing the barn wall.
A loud snicker and the suddenly wild clop-clop of hooves moving around as the horse on the other side of the wall jumped, spooked by its own near-miss. At least Smith assumed it hadn’t been hit, because he was too busy ducking his head and running.
The pop! of a second muffled rifle shot, followed by the almost simultaneous pek! as the sniper’s second round smashed through the wooden boards somewhere behind Smith. He didn’t know exactly where, just that it was too damn close, and he could feel splintered wood flicking against his back as he ran.
And he was running.
Fast.
Or as fast as he could, anyway. He hoped it was fast enough.
Shit. He better be fast enough!
Then the side door in front of him burst open, and Mary lunged outside.
“Get back inside!” Smith shouted.
She saw him and froze, one hand on the barn door, the other holding her rifle. He didn’t know why he shouted, because all it did was paralyze her in place.
Even as he ran, Smith glimpsed sunlight glinting off the sniper’s rifle scope out of the corner of his eye for the third time.
He dived at Mary just as the sniper fired, and Smith crashed straight into Mary, knocking her into the door. She must have bounced off it, and he along with her, because soon they were both tumbling to the ground. Mary was screaming as he held onto her, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist.
Was she hit?
Was he hit?
Sunlight filled Smith’s eyes as he landed on his back and rolled over, Mary clutched tightly in his arms. He waited for the sniper to fire again.
One second…
Mary was still screaming.
Two…
He wasn’t sure what she was screaming at, or who.
Three…
Him. She was screaming at him.
Four…
Why was it taking the shooter so long to get another shot off and finish him?
Five…
And Mary was still screaming even as she somehow got loose from his arms.
Six…
Why was she screaming at him?
Seven…
“…bleeding! John, you’re bleeding! Oh my God, you’re bleeding!”
Oh, that was why she was screaming. Because he was bleeding out, which meant he’d been shot and was probably gonna die pretty soon.
Makes sense, he thought as he closed his eyes and drifted off, with the sound of Mary’s voice in his ears, screaming his name over and over and over…
Twenty-One
“What happened?”
“You were shot.”
“Yeah, I figured that part out. What happened after that?”
“Oh. They showed up.”
“‘They’ who?”
“I don’t know. They.”
Mary was looking off to one side. Smith turned his head slightly to follow her gaze.
Two figures stood nearby talking quietly. He wasn’t sure if they were doing that on purpose to keep him and Mary from eavesdropping or if they were just— No, they were definitely trying to keep their conversation a secret.
One of them looked familiar…
Roger. It was Roger. Mandy’s second-in-command.
Mandy’s replacement, now, as far as Smith knew since Mandy was dead and the folks at the junkyard would need a new leader.
He was lying on some kind of futon in the same mobile building that Mandy had called her command center/office/living quarters before she was unceremoniously picked off by the Judge’s sniper yesterday. Or was that two days ago? Smith had no idea how long he’d been unconscious after getting shot.
He struggled to sit up, but Mary was there, grabbing his arms. “Hey, what are you doing? Stay down.”
“I need to get up.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t,” Mary said, and pushed him back down.
He would have resisted her if he could, but he couldn’t. Not only did he not have the strength, but there was that look in Mary’s eyes that made him want to do what she said.
Caring. She cared for him.
Shit. This is no good.
Smith lay back down on the soft bedsheet and sucked in a fresh lungful of air. His head was spinning slightly, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as when he’d been grazed in the head by a bullet days ago. Still, it was enough that he didn’t think he could have made it to his feet anyway, even if Mary wasn’t there to insist he stay down.
He took a few seconds to get a better look at his wound. Or the bandage wrapped around his midsection. The bullet had struck him somewhere in the side; he knew that because that was where the throbbing pain was coming from. It must have gone clean through, considering how much he had been bleeding after getting shot. Not that he’d seen all the blood, but that was what he guessed from Mary’s terrified voice as she screamed his name after he collided with her and they both fell to the ground.
The lower half of his midsection was wrapped in gauze tape. Whoever was responsible had done a pretty good job from the looks of it. There was pain from the spot where he’d been shot, but not of the debilitating variety. At least, he didn’t think so. Then again, he could have been swimming in morphine or some other painkiller and not know it.
“What happened?” he asked Mary.
She was dabbing his forehead with a slightly damp towel while kneeling next to him. He wasn’t sure how long she’d been there, but she looked at home leaning over his prone form. Or maybe he just wanted to think that she looked at home because she felt like home to him.
Yeah. This is definitely no good.
“You were shot,” Mary said. “I already told you that.”
“By who?”
“One of them.”
Mary glanced over at Roger and the woman he was talking to, the two of them standing close to the door. They were much farther than he’d realized when he first looked over in their direction. No wonder he couldn’t hear what they were saying; they were standing well across the elongated building a good twenty yards or so. Smith didn’t recognize the woman Roger was talking to; she was blonde, early twenties. She wore a gun belt and carried a rifle over her back. Roger was, too. They looked very much like two people that had just been in a firefight. Or waiting for one to show up a
t their doorsteps.
“Why did they shoot me?” Smith asked.
“She said she didn’t recognize you when she fired,” Mary said.
“‘She?’”
“The one that shot you.”
“Who was she?”
“I don’t know. I think they called her Grampa?”
“Gramps?”
“I think that’s it.”
“Figures.”
“Who is she?”
“Someone I’ve met before.” Then, “She said she shot me by accident?”
“Yes. Why?”
Smith shrugged. Or did something that slightly resembled a shrug. “She didn’t exactly like me when we first met.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“Yes.”
“So you know these people?”
Smith turned to look over at Roger again. The man was staring back at him now. “I’ve met them, yeah.”
“They saved our lives,” Mary said. “After you were shot, they converged on the barn. I think they were going to attempt to take on the house.” She paused for a bit, before continuing. “Apparently they’d been preparing for the attack all night, but then you showed up and the woman, Gramps, took the shot.”
“So they took the house?”
Mary shook her head. “After they found us and the others inside the barn, they decided to retreat. We came back here instead.”
“What about the ranch?”
“It’s still there.”
“It wasn’t taken?”
“No.”
“So last night was all a waste of time.”
“Depends on your perspective,” a voice said.
Smith turned his head as Roger walked over to them. The woman was leaving the building, closing the door after her.
Up close, Roger looked different than the last time Smith saw him. It was in the way he walked, the way he talked, and even the way he stood with his hands on his hips as he sat down on the edge of a dirty couch and stared back at Smith.
“You attacked the ranch but didn’t take it,” Smith said. “Sounds like a waste of time to me.”
“It wasn’t,” Roger said. “We got what we went there for.”
“Which was?”
“Jackie and the sisters.”
“And Carol?”
Roger shook his head. “We didn’t know about her. But we got her, too.”
“You attacked the ranch just to save your friends?”
“That, and to let the Judge know that killing Mandy isn’t going to put a stop to this. We’re not going to just go away. Not by a long shot.”
“They didn’t get everyone,” Mary said.
Smith looked over at her. “Who did they leave behind?”
“No one,” Roger said.
“My son,” Mary said.
“He’s in Gaffney. We can’t do anything about that. Gaffney’s…more complicated.”
“But the ranch wasn’t?” Smith asked.
Roger shook his head. “The ranch is isolated. It’s not a town with hundreds of buildings and streets and places to hide. We’ve—” He stopped himself for a moment. Then, continuing, “Mandy and me have been talking about attacking it for a long time now. It was the most obvious choice to take the fight to the Judge.”
“Gaffney didn’t send help?”
“We kept expecting it. They would have heard all the shooting last night. And they had radios. But no one showed up to help the ranch. I had people waiting just in case.” He shook his head and looked thoughtful. Smith wasn’t sure if that was disappointment or relief on his face. “But no one showed up. Maybe they thought the ranch wasn’t worth saving.”
“Or maybe the Judge thought his men could hold out against you. Which, in this case, he was right.”
“Maybe.”
“So what happens now?”
Roger shrugged. “We haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“By ‘we,’ you mean you.”
“Yeah,” Roger said, a little quieter that time.
“You’re in charge now.”
“I guess I am.”
“You made the call to attack the ranch.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, thanks. You saved our lives. Even if Gramps did shoot me.”
“She didn’t know it was you. She was too far away.”
“Was that her excuse?”
Roger chuckled. “That’s what she claims, anyway.”
“By the way, you couldn’t get me a bed? Or a cot, at least?”
“You’re lucky I found that futon for you.” Roger got up from the couch and walked across the building.
“Hey,” Smith said after him.
Roger stopped at the door and looked back. “What? More complaints?”
“I wanted to say thanks.”
The other man raised both eyebrows. Smith guessed he was surprised to hear that. “For what?”
“You know what.”
Roger grunted. “Okay, tough guy.” Then, turning away, “Try not to die on my floor, okay?”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Roger left. Smith heard voices from outside. Roger, calling out to someone. Silhouetted figures moved across the windows to his right as they responded to the junkyard’s new leader.
Smith turned back to Mary. She remained where she was on the floor next to him. He wondered how long she’d been there, taking care of him while he was recuperating. She hadn’t said very much during his conversation with Roger, and he didn’t have to wonder what she was thinking about then; and still was, now.
“Aaron,” Smith said.
Mary stopped what she was doing—wringing water out of the same damp towel she’d been using to clean him, into a bowl next to her—and looked over.
“I’ll get him back,” Smith said.
“How?”
“Whatever it takes.”
Mary pursed her lips. He wasn’t sure if she believed him or not.
She was wiping down his face when Smith reached up and took her hand. He squeezed as hard as he could. It was probably not all that hard, seeing as how he wasn’t even close to being 100 percent yet.
“I’ll get him back,” he said.
She didn’t say anything.
“I swear to God,” Smith said.
She smiled. “I believe you.”
He returned her smile, glad that she did believe him, because he really had meant it. Every single word of it: He would get Aaron back, even if it killed him.
Now all he had to do was figure out how…without actually getting killed in the process.
Twenty-Two
Roger had attacked the ranch with twelve people and left with the three they’d been looking for—Jackie and the sisters—along with Carol, who decided to come along. He’d taken two wounded but no KIAs. Roger was certain they’d killed at least one of the Judge’s men and wounded three others, but couldn’t be sure about the latter.
“Saw them dragging away one body, but I don’t know about the rest,” Roger said. “Maybe two dead? I don’t know. Can’t be sure.”
“So the goal was never to take the ranch?” Smith asked.
“No. It was always just to get our friends back.”
“Mission accomplished.”
“You’re damn straight.”
Smith didn’t think Roger should have been that proud of last night’s raid. One confirmed kill and two, possibly three wounded wasn’t really the kind of enemy casualties he would have called a success. Especially since Roger had the ranch outnumbered and outgunned, not to mention attacking with the element of surprise on his side.
But Smith didn’t bring those points up. Roger was a new leader, taking over for, from what Smith could tell, a beloved predecessor in Mandy. He’d done his best, and for a first time, well, it wasn’t too bad. At the very least it hadn’t been a clusterfuck, which it could have very well been if the Judge had counterattacked from behind the junkyard folks last night. Instead, the Judge had hung back,
either confident in his belief the ranch could hold out, or he just didn’t care what happened to them.
Frankly, Smith was leaning toward the latter.
Smith also didn’t mention that he’d taken out four of the ranch’s manpower nearly singlehandedly. He had two confirmed kills alone with a possible third, not to mention a fourth that was incapacitated. Probably four in all, because he didn’t think Not-So-Gruff was going to wake up from his wounds anytime soon, but that wasn’t a given. Three was a safe number.
“What are you gonna do with him?” Roger asked as they walked through the junkyard.
“Ask him some questions,” Smith said.
“You sure you’re up to it? I mean, no offense, but you look like shit.”
Smith grunted. Roger wasn’t wrong. The first few steps from the building where he’d been sleeping off his wound for the majority of the day had been an adventure. Mary hadn’t wanted him to leave and insisted on holding onto him as he climbed down the steps. She’d wanted to come along, too, but Smith told her not to. He didn’t want her to see what he was going to do. Reluctantly, she had acquiesced.
He didn’t so much as walk alongside Roger as he limped. Or hobbled. A mixture of the two. He wasn’t feeling 100 percent. Hell, he’d be lucky if he was 50 percent.
Right now, he felt more like…30 percent?
Feeling a little generous, eh?
More like 20 percent, maybe.
…or just shy of 10 percent...
“I can do this, you know,” Roger said. “You just have to talk me through it.”
“No,” Smith said.
“Why not?”
“Because he wouldn’t believe you.”
“And he’d believe you?”
“Yes.”
“Looking like that?”
“Especially looking like this.”
“Come again?”
Smith shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”
He thought Roger would argue, but instead the man kept quiet. Maybe he really didn’t want to do what Smith had proposed and had just offered to be nice. Or maybe he didn’t want Smith to think he wasn’t up to the task.
They walked on, Smith taking the time to glance around him at Roger’s small army of young women and even younger men. There were lookouts all around them, some perched on the piles of junk that littered the place. They were mostly silhouettes in the dwindling sunlight, hidden against the shadows cast by their hulking stations. The fences were still intact, and no one strayed out into the open where they could be picked off. Roger had organized the place with an eye toward safety in the aftermath of their attack on the ranch. Smith guessed the younger man had learned well at the feet of his former leader.
After The Purge, AKA John Smith (Book 3): Shoot Last Page 14
