But she kept crying.
“Sissy is tired, Whoopsie, please go back to sleep.”
She wouldn’t.
She checked her diaper. “Shit,” she whispered. It was loaded. She didn’t want to have to look for a candle in the dark and she didn’t want to wake him. She had to figure out how to change her in the dark. A sudden bright light filled the room and made her flinch.
“Where’d you get a flashlight?” she asked.
“I keep it under the couch.”
“Where do you get new batteries?”
“They’re rechargeable batteries. They’re one of the reasons I have the solar panel on the roof.”
“Can you pass me a diaper?” she asked.
He came to her. “Will you let me change her?” he asked.
Somehow, it was okay and she gave her up to him.
“Go back to sleep,” he said.
“Okay. Just don’t put her in any of the jars downstairs,” she responded as she lay back.
“I’d have to fatten her up, first.”
“That’s not funny.” she said.
“Yes it is,” he said.
And it was. She smiled so he couldn’t see her.
A while later she woke up once more to some sounds. It was still dark through the windows, but Zach was sitting on the floor, with his back to her, quietly playing with Whoops in the glow of a candle. Beside them, Stupid was watching, apparently part of whatever games they were playing.
Had she not been so tired, she’d have joined in. But Whoopsie was safe, so she let herself slide back into the obliterating escape of sleep.
Chapter 21
August 31
Though a large gathering of the men and women, and an assortment of teenagers and children who lived on the compound had assembled in the office of Louis LaCroix, only four of the men, each now dressed in winter camo, were going to meet up with a party from the Brady compound, then head out into the back country of Curry County, Oregon, to find the man who had killed nine of their own.
The others in LaCroix’s office were concerned members of the small community and well-wishers who were there to send their men off. There were still others on the compound who had wanted to be at the send-off, but were busy with the funerals or chores. Given the size of the office, LaCroix was glad they hadn’t all decided to show up.
He stood in the crowded office and leaned against the front of his desk surveying the assemblage. He was in a better mood than he’d been a few days earlier for the previous meeting.
He turned to confer with Ron Goodman and asked, “Is anyone else coming?”
“Carol Parsons wanted to be here,” Goodman said, “but her son got a nail through his foot, so she’s treating it. The others are still mourning, doing chores…”
LaCroix waved a hand telling Goodman to stop. His question had already been answered. “You can fill the others in on what happens here, later.”
Goodman nodded and, with that, LaCroix turned to the group and announced, “Can I have your attention—now?”
When the voices died down to less than a murmur, LaCroix began, “You all know the situation: Someone out there murdered four of our own—five if you count Woody Harris from two years ago. We’ve learned he also killed four from the Brady compound. It’s created a problem we have to deal with. This may mean our survival. We think we know this guy’s name but we don’t know where he is. There’s also rumors he’s got a girl with him…”
Goodman leaned toward LaCroix and whispered something.
LaCroix didn’t like needless interruptions and nodded at what Goodman had said to him. “Ron says the girl has a baby with her. But the baby’s not a concern for us.
“I’ve asked around and some of you think you’ve heard this name before: Zachary Amaral. Of course, we can’t be a hundred percent sure he’s our guy, but it’s all we have to work with. We also don’t know if this guy’s operating alone or if he’s part of a gang. But from what our guys saw, and from what the only survivor of the massacre at the Brady compound saw, we’re pretty sure he operates alone.” He raised his index finger as a warning. “But we can’t be sure.”
“One of the Brady guys lived?” a man named Fletcher asked.
“Just until the next morning, then he died. But that’s the story he told before he passed.”
There was an undercurrent of voices in the room and LaCroix looked at the floor and made it obvious he wouldn’t go on until they subsided. He then continued, “We agreed with Abby Brady to send four men from each compound to meet up at the old beaver pond. I chose Billy…” He nodded to Billy Raymond. “…I have a lot of confidence in his leadership abilities…” Raymond nodded grimly and remembered the dressing down he’d gotten in the previous meeting. “…Brian…” He nodded to Brian Peterson who held his Steyr SSG sniper rifle. “…Jim, because he wants to go real bad…good luck…” That got a few laughs, and he nodded to Jim De Angelis who smiled, “…and Fred Mayfield, because he’s related to the Bradys, and that may help smooth some of the friction between us and them. You boys know what you have to do, and we want you to all come back safe and sound. Good luck to you all.”
He hiked his thumb in Goodman’s direction and said to the four, “Ron told me you got all your equipment together and you’re ready to go. I also want you to take two of the walkie-talkies…Ron’ll give ’em to you.”
Raymond nodded.
“But I don’t want any unnecessary conversation over them because this guy and any cohorts he has may be monitoring the channels. In fact, assume that every time we talk on these walkie-talkies, they hear what we’re saying.”
Raymond nodded again and said, “We’re all set. Have you found out who the Bradys are sending up?”
“I talked with Jerry Brady. You’re going to have to deal with Hank. But Jerry said he’s also coming and so are the Ingram brothers: Steven and Vince. Between you, Jerry, and Fred you should be able to keep Hank in line—I hope.”
There were scattered snickers around the room.
He continued with a nod to a woman named Karen Peoples and said, “Karen wanted to know why we’re not sending you guys out on snowmobiles. I explained they’re noisy, I don’t want this guy to know you’re coming; they’re also eating up our fuel and we’ve got to conserve every drop we can—there are no more gas stations; if it gets too warm in the next few days, and the snow melts, we’re going to have trouble getting them back; lastly, this guy targeted one of our snowmobiles already and we can’t afford to take any more holes in them. When he hits an engine with the armor-piercing stuff he uses, it’s toast.” He nodded toward Karen so it was understood that he’d made her concerns known to the group.
“But there’s enough snow out there to ski on and you can walk back if it melts, so there shouldn’t be any problems.
“You’ve got enough food for three days. If you don’t find him by the beginning of day three, get close enough to use the walkie-talkies and we’ll arrange to get more provisions out to you with the snowmobiles or whatever other means available. We’ve already designated rendezvous points with code names, so we won’t have to discuss exact locations over the air.”
He looked directly at Raymond. “Now, I was hard on you guys during the last meeting and I still don’t know how it all went wrong, but I have confidence in all of you.
“I don’t have to tell you that if it turns out this guy’s part of a gang not to engage them unless you can ambush them and end it quickly. Don’t get involved in a prolonged firefight because that’s when we’re going to take casualties. Come back and we’ll go out in force.”
There was another murmur through the room.
“Don’t you boys go taking any unnecessary chances,” Karen said.
LaCroix looked in her direction with a scowl and said, “I can handle this.”
Chastised, she looked at the floor.
He continued, “You boys listen to Billy. He knows what he’s doing.”
Directing h
is gaze at Peterson he said, “You weren’t out there when your brother got killed. If this guy can be taken out with a single shot, I want you to do it. It’s likely you can end this whole thing with one pull of the trigger and everyone comes home safe.”
Peterson nodded and patted his rifle.
“I want all of you back here safe and sound and I want you to keep yourselves and each other safe. This is a team effort and we’ll all be praying for you.”
A voice in the room asked, “Is it okay if they don’t bring Hank Brady back?” and got a lot of laughs.
LaCroix didn’t mind that interruption, it loosened the tension, and even he smiled at the question.
“I know how many of you feel about Hank, and I’m not too fond of him either. But after feuding with them the last three years, there’s something we can finally work on together. Let’s make the most of it.
“Consider this as a ‘partnership’ thing with the Brady ranch,” he said looking at Billy Raymond, “and that you guys have all got to count on each other—and that includes Hank.
“I don’t want to hold you guys up any longer. Are there any questions?”
He looked around the room.
“How are they going to find him?” Steve Turner asked. “There’s a lot of country out there.”
“I’ve been trying to narrow down the search,” LaCroix replied. “Remember when Goodman was knocking on the doors of your trailers asking for old phonebooks, no matter how old? I’ve been looking through them looking for the name of this character hoping I could narrow our search and give our boys a place to start.”
“Not everybody had a listed phone number,” Turner said.
“I know,” LaCroix said. “I never did. If you looked for LaCroix in the phonebook, I didn’t exist. But it’s still a place to start, unless someone here can think of something else.
“I’ve also sent some boys up to the old county offices in Gold Beach to see if they can find the guy’s name in the county register or in the deeds. But I don’t have much hope for that. But we’ll see.”
“What about loot?” Goodman asked.
LaCroix turned back to Raymond. “If you catch this guy, and there are goods we can use, take what you can carry. I don’t have to tell you to grab the most valuable stuff, first, and you know what that is: ammo, good guns, medical supplies, fuel…” He waved his hands in the air. “You know.”
“And there are going to be questions about how to divvy things up with the Bradys,” he said to all four men, “but I’m sure Billy can work that out.
“If this guy has a lot of stuff we can use, bring the good stuff, stow the rest, and we can send a party out to get it, later.”
“Are the Bradys sending snowmobiles?” a voice asked.
“No,” LaCroix replied without trying to figure out who asked the question
“What if we hide the stuff and the Bradys go back for it first?” De Angelis asked.
“If you hide stuff, we’ll send a party right back out, as soon as you get back here, and we’ll get to it first.”
He turned to Goodman and loud enough for the others to hear said, “Make provisions for that so we can move fast if we have to.”
Goodman nodded.
“Any other questions?”
“What about the chickens? How many are we going to try to carry through the winter?” Trent Powers asked.
Though exasperated, LaCroix smiled and others chuckled with him. “You must be here for comic relief,” he said. “Trent, questions about the chickens can wait.” He looked around. “Are there any other questions about the expedition?”
Marie De Angelis, Jim’s De Angelis’s wife, raised her hand and looking over his glasses LaCroix nodded and asked, “What, Marie?”
“The way I heard it, we ambushed him and he was just defending himself,” she began. “I don’t want my husband out there exposing himself if he doesn’t have to. Wouldn’t it be safer to just leave him alone and he’d leave us alone?”
The reaction was swift. For the first time in the meeting LaCroix raised his voice and, pushing the glasses back on his face he said, “The way he sat up on that hill and picked us off, he was just waiting for us when we were exposed. He shot up our equipment and, don’t forget, he shot my fourteen-year-old nephew, Kyle.” And putting hand to his temple like it was a gun he said, “He literally executed him.”
All eyes were going back and forth from LaCroix to Marie and back again. Other voices chimed in admonishing her for raising the question and Marie now wished she hadn’t said anything.
“He was in our territory,” LaCroix said angrily, “and now we’re going to get him and his. I’m sure you won’t want your husband out there working while this Amaral guy, or whoever he is, is on the loose. Jim may be next. We’ve got to take care of him.”
“Our territory?” Marie started to ask. “But we didn’t find him on the compound…”
“That’s enough,” her husband snapped at her.
Other voices in the room were directed at her and got louder with comments about how they wouldn’t feel safe knowing the guy was out there.
Marie could feel the pressure of the group and began nodding her head in acquiescence.
“He’s killed our own, now we’re going to get him and his,” LaCroix now said firmly.
“Okay,” Marie whispered while looking at the floor.
“Should we take any prisoners?” Mayfield asked, and the attention was diverted from Marie.
LaCroix rubbed his chin. “Billy and I have discussed that issue and he’ll fill you and the other boys in on the details, once you guys are on your way.
“But broadly speaking,” he said for the benefit of the others in the room, “bringing someone back here means another mouth to feed. But, and this is an important but, if Billy thinks we have to extract information from someone, he’s got the green light to bring them in. If he thinks we can ransom someone, maybe for that, too. A lot of it’s going to be up to Billy and he’ll make the call.”
“Isn’t ransoming someone illegal?” another voice asked. It was Trent Powers.
LaCroix couldn’t believe the question. “If someone takes a person from our ranch for ransom, yes, it’s illegal. If we take someone, it’s not.”
That got a lot of laughs, though Powers wasn’t exactly sure why, and he wasn’t sure if they were laughing at him.
They were.
“Anyone else?” LaCroix asked looking around the room.
No one spoke.
“Then let’s get started.” But he added, “Trent, why don’t you come back in a little while and we’ll make a decision on the chickens.”
There were a few more chuckles in the room, but Trent nodded, as if struck with his own self-importance.
The last thing LaCroix did, before the meeting was adjourned, was to cross the room to Marie De Angelis and give her a hug. “I know you’re trying to help, and you’re worried about Jim’s safety,” he said, and she began to cry in his arms.
Others in the room who had just been castigating her for her errant opinions now clucked in sympathy for her as LaCroix symbolically brought her back into the fold.
“I’m just scared,” she said. But she learned never to voice her dissent, again. Though these meetings had a town-meeting feel to them, they were anything but democratic. In the end, only LaCroix’s opinion mattered.
“We’ll talk about it later,” La Croix said. “Now, give Jim a kiss goodbye and wish him luck.”
Δ Δ Δ
Fifteen minutes later, the four men got a send-off from the crowd of well-wishers, which had grown to more than eighty of the compound’s residents, in the circular driveway in front of the main house on the LaCroix compound. With kisses, hand shakes, shouts, and waves, the four moved away from the compound along the old fire road trails, lumber roads, and cow paths that wound through the forest. They were heading for their rendezvous at the beaver pond, though no beavers had been there in years.
None of the
other three men in the group mentioned anything to De Angelis about the outburst from his wife. And though there was little talk among them anyway, they didn’t speak to him at all. He was good with that. He was still embarrassed by what his wife had done.
They moved along for three miles and reached the beaver pond well before noon and, as expected, they had to wait.
While it’s one thing to move through the snow, it’s quite another to have to wait in it. Minutes turned into an hour, then two, and the men got cold and were grousing about the wait when Peterson suddenly asked, “What the fuck is this?” His sharp eyes were the first to see someone coming up the trail.
Raymond stood up. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Look for yourself,” Peterson replied.
Now, all four men were looking down the trail to where some figures had come into view.
Raymond took out his binoculars and glassed the party approaching. There were three men walking, none were wearing skis as the members of the LaCroix party were. The big man was obviously Hank Brady and with his powerful strides he was pulling a toboggan behind him.
“They’re dressed like cops,” Raymond said. “Who the hell do they think they’re fooling?
“Wait a minute…is that the old lady on the toboggan?”
“That’s what I was talking about,” Peterson said.
“What the hell is she doing here?”
“Well, they did say they were going to send four,” Peterson said.
“They’re supposed to send us four men,” Raymond countered and lowered the binoculars in disgust.
“Looks like we’re going to have to deal with both Hank and the old bag herself,” Peterson pointed out.
Δ Δ Δ
When they reached the pond, Abby was sitting on the toboggan bundled up against the cold. Hank was wearing his police uniform complete with badge, sidearm, handcuffs, and heavy boots to tread through the snow. Jerry Brady and Steven Ingram were similarly dressed. They contrasted sharply to the winter camo outfits and skis the men from the LaCroix compound wore.
“Good morning, Abby,” Raymond said not bothering to try to hide his irritation.
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