Danny’s two visitors looked at each other for a moment, before Brooke replied, “We’ll talk it over. I gotta talk to Kent about it, and about some other stuff he needs to know that’s going on with his people, but I believe you. I’ll make him believe you, too. And I’ll see about getting you out of this cage he put you in.”
Danny smiled. Maybe he’d be able to do some good for these people, after all. For them…and for his own.
Emma dumped the feed bucket into the slop pen and spared a minute to watch the hogs push each other out of the way as they rushed to feed. That was always amusing. But with so few adults left in the compound, a lot of the chores had fallen to her, and she didn’t have much time to spare. She looked up at the sun, hoping it would have moved backward somehow since she last checked, but no. She had to go. She waved goodbye to the pigs, who didn’t wave back, of course, and headed down to the main house, through the back door, and into the kitchen.
There, she got trays prepared for the next meal, washed the dishes from the last one, and then set to making snacks for the kids. Although she was no child anymore, she ate one of the snacks before heading out. She’d earned it, she figured, and no one ever complained. There was always enough snack-time food prepared for her to grab one herself, though Aunt Maggie had never explicitly stated Emma could eat one. That kind of bothered Emma, since she wasn’t a kid and it felt like Maggie might have included her in that list, but she also wasn’t going to turn down a snack on the sly.
That done, she balanced two trays in her hands and headed through the living room, into the “family room,” where Maggie schooled the children. Rae Ann and Henry jumped up as she came in, rushing her.
Maggie set down the book she’d been reading to them and stood, watching the kids and Emma with a bemused expression. “Is it that time, already?”
Emma grinned. “Yeah. Hogs are slopped, by the way, and I had time to throw some scratch down for the chickens, so you don’t have to do it later.”
“Thanks,” Maggie said as Emma set the tray down, and they watched the kids attack the tray of veggies, cheeses, meats, and breads like a tiny swarm of velociraptors, or so Emma always thought of them. “I’ve still got to bring some supplies up to the cattle barn, though. Can you watch them for a few minutes?”
“Sure.” Emma waved as Maggie left, then settled a little squabble between Rae Ann and Henry over who had more cheese.
That question settled to everyone’s satisfaction, Henry wandered off with his loot to the far corner, where his comics sat. Why Maggie wouldn’t just let him read those for Reading Class, Emma didn’t know, but he spent most breaks with his nose in the comics.
Emma sat beside Rae Ann and tousled her hair as the little girl smiled up at her with a mouthful of carrot. “So how are you doing, kiddo?”
Rae Ann swallowed, and her smile faded. “I miss Daddy. And Core needs to be here, not out there with all those bandits. Why’d Daddy take him, too?”
Emma sighed. This was the first time the kid had been without either her dad or her older brother. It had to be hard on her, but Rae Ann was tough. She kept up a brave face, at least. “Your dad needed someone to watch his back. Two people can travel faster and safer than one, you know that.”
“Yeah.” Rae Ann looked down at her tray, but didn’t reach for anything, her hands folded in her lap. “What if they both…What if they end up like Kat?”
Emma groaned inwardly. Of course, the girl was scared. Kat had been killed during a badly organized bandit attack, not that long ago. It was tragic, but almost as bad, everyone else had had to pick up the work she had done around the place. Every person was both another mouth to feed and a pair of hands to work.
She couldn’t tell Rae Ann that, of course, so she replied, “They won’t. Nothing can happen with them both watching each other’s back. It’s why your dad took Corey, instead of someone else. No one will watch his back like his own son, and the same is true the other way ’round. You shouldn’t worry, hon. I know you are going to anyway, but try not to think on it too much. They’ll be fine—they have to be. We’re all relying on them. Your daddy is a brave man, kiddo.”
“I know. He saved me. But I still wish they didn’t have to leave, ’cause it’s safer here.”
Emma nodded, but that wasn’t necessarily going to be true when the bandits got organized. They’d left to make sure that stayed true.
She glanced at the wall clock, deciphered the sweeping hands’ display into real hours and minutes, and gasped. Feeding the hogs had taken longer than she’d thought. Dang sun, it wasn’t very accurate…“Sorry, Rae. I have radio duty. But we’ll talk later, okay? I can read you that one story you like so much, with the puffy dragon.”
“Puff. His name’s Puff, silly.” Rae Ann grinned at her.
Emma tousled her hair again, then headed down to the basement.
As she opened the door to the basement radio room, Dexter looked up from where he was scribbling in the logbook. Abram insisted on it, even when he wasn’t around—he’d be back, and heaven help anyone who slacked off on the Right Way of doing it.
Dexter said, “Hey. Just wrapping up. It’s been slow, no one’s on out there, so you’ll have an easy shift.”
“Good.” Emma moved over to the table and waited for Dexter to rise, then took his prior perch on the office chair. “I left snacks upstairs for you, in the kitchen. Behind the fruit basket.”
“Thanks.” He tossed a pen onto the desk, then left quietly.
Emma went through the routine she’d been taught, signing on and announcing herself. As Dex had said, no one replied. She sighed, and fished a comic book from the drawer, then set the dial to “15” on a white kitchen timer on the desk.
Two minutes before it was set to ding, the radio crackled to life. A man’s bored-sounding voice startled Emma from her comic.
…of Bravo Company. Any civilians hearing this? We’ll keep trying to contact you. Help is coming. If you need assistance, please respo…
The signal gave out in a crackling death. Emma turned to the radio, heart pounding, and adjusted her frequency. Nothing. She turned it the other direction. “Come on, come on…Please let me find it,” she begged.
She didn’t get the signal back, but that did little to hide her elation. After a few more minutes of trying, she swept the frequency over to Abram’s and tried to raise him. He should know about this. The military! They were coming. Everyone was saved, and they’d all be fine, and soon, this whole nightmare would be over!
She got no response. Frowning, she noted the activity in the log. She’d be sure to try again soon. After setting the alarm for another fifteen minutes, she returned to her comic, but she just couldn’t focus on that, not with the good news bouncing in her head.
35
“Fine, if you believe him, so do I,” Kent said, eyeing Brooke. She seemed to be feeling some kind of way about it, and it wasn’t worth fighting over. Plus, what he’d said was true. He did trust her judgment. She always had had a good head on her shoulders, or he wouldn’t have been with her. She was solid. “Go ahead and let him out. Same rules as the others, though. We don’t need no outsiders walking around by themselves, doing who-knows-what when we ain’t looking.”
“Kay,” she replied. “But, um.”
Here was the real thing she wanted to talk about…“Um, what? You got more on your mind?”
“Yeah. Lots more. People are talking about the guy they shot when they came here.”
They, in this case, had to be Black’s goon showing up, making demands. Of course, people would talk about that. Kent nodded. “Yeah, that’s a hard one to swallow. But everyone knows I’m as pissed about that as anyone. I just got to make sure we stay safe, and we make the best choice we can. There’s no good choice left to us, but we can pick the one that sucks less.”
“Babe. I love you. You know that. And I respect you, else I couldn’t love you. But you gotta know, there’s a time to play it safe and then there’s a time to j
ust stand up. Your people, they aren’t talking about you making the right choice. They’re talking about taking things into their own hands, with that guy who killed one of us. I don’t think you can stop it, but you can get ahead of it.”
Kent stared at her, mouth open. They what? No, no, no…If they did that, it would ruin everything. There’d be no way out but to go to war, if they did that. People like Black didn’t take a black eye and just leave. No, they came back with their crew, and hurt you back.
She said, “Don’t look at me like that. You worried it’ll piss them off? Guess what, though. That bastard murdered one of us. In cold blood. In front of everyone. And you just talked. You took it, like a bitch. You aren’t a bitch, you’re careful, but they don’t know you like I do. You’re losing their respect, even though not swinging back at that jackass was probably the hardest thing you ever done. So yeah, you’ve got to do something. You can’t stop it, but you can get in front of it. Be the leader we need you to be. But dammit, lead.”
That did nothing to lessen the shock he felt. She’d never spoken to him like that, and his mind spun trying to think of something to say, but thoughts were like slippery eels escaping whenever he tried to grip one tight enough to pull it out of the water and say it.
She waited patiently, though, her gaze never wavering. And in that gaze, and the faint smile that accompanied it, he knew she was being honest. She did respect him. And he did need to “get in front of it.” Otherwise, matters would be out of his hands, just at the very moment they most needed him to lead.
Fine. He’d never been certain he was going to give in, anyway, only that it was a solid possibility. What mattered wasn’t whose idea it was, only what was best for his people. Dividing them now, in the face of an enemy they were determined to fight, was not the best thing for them. It just sucked to have his hand forced like that. But things were what they were, not as he’d have them be, or Black’s thugs wouldn’t be parked outside the gate. “Okay. But do you really think it’s what’s best? Tell me what you really think—should we get payback for killing our guard, even knowing that’s going to get more of us killed? And more of your pop’s people, too.”
In a voice so quiet that he had to strain to hear her clearly, she said, “Yes, I do. More of us are going to die, either way, but I’d rather it be standing up than lying down. And I believe Danny.”
Danny…What the hell did he have to do with this? “Dammit, Brooke, that boy’s got no part in this. I don’t even know him, and you want me to take his word?”
She didn’t even pause before replying, “I know him, and you don’t. He was my dad’s close friend, and good friends with my mom, too. He’s a good man, and they trusted him always. I know he’s telling the truth, even if you don’t, so trust me like they trusted him.”
Kent fought down the anger in his gut. She could be right…He was too angry to tell. But she had a solid, practical head on her shoulders.
He told himself that a couple of times, and the anger receded. When he trusted his voice not to betray him, he replied, “Yeah, okay. He’s a good man.”
“Plus,” she continued as a warm smile spread across her face, “Danny says we don’t have to kill everyone Black is gonna throw at us.”
“That’s…a relief. I mean, I don’t think we could. He has twice the people we do, probably more. What did Danny say, though?”
“That we only have to make it hard, like they’d be cutting their own throats to keep fighting us. Make them pause for a moment, and they’ll wake up to the truth about Black. He says that once that happens, they’ll take care of Black themselves.”
A glimmer sparked in his gut. Hope? Yes, that was it. She sure sounded convinced, and her conviction had halfway convinced Kent, too.
Then she added, “Maybe even before I do.”
“What?” Kent blinked rapidly, startled. Had she said what he thought she’d said?
“You heard me. I promise you, I’m going to kill that bastard for what he did to my daddy, unless someone beats me to it.”
Kent watched the mix of anger and determination playing across her expression. She was one hell of a woman, a real firecracker. Cautiously, he said, “You know, killing the man won’t bring your pops back.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. They’re my people, and I won’t leave them to the wolf. My mom wouldn’t want that…She’d say it’s my duty to make it right.”
A new problem rose in Kent’s thoughts. “Babe, sometimes getting payback doesn’t give anyone a clear head. You sure it’s to save your people, not to get revenge?”
“Yeah, that’s not why I’m telling you to fight back. No, it’s because our people, the folks here—they’re mine now, too—they want you to fight. They need you to stand up for them. And I think Danny can help us do that.”
“Us. Why would he help us?”
“He’s smarter than you think, baby.” She smiled faintly. “Plus, he’s got a few ideas on how to give Black that bloody nose he needs so bad.”
“You want me to take the word of that bandit king’s traitor lackey?” Kent saw her expression and instantly regretted his words, but this was too important to back down just to avoid a fight with his girl. Time to man up. He pressed onward, “I bet he’s got some real specific ideas—the kind of things someone who knew about ’em ahead of time could take advantage of, against us. He could be flipping on us, buying his way back in and paying with our heads. Tell me I’m wrong.”
As he stared into her stern gaze, he wondered, why was she buying into Danny’s sob story? Didn’t she know by now that outsiders couldn’t be trusted? It wasn’t his looks—Danny was nothing special to look at—so what made her so eager to believe his unbelievable tale?
Kent frowned. Maybe Danny really had just made good sense. Maybe the guy really gave up almost his entire life, then risked the rest of it just to come warn strangers.
And maybe pigs can fly. Selflessness seemed damned unlikely.
Yet…stranger things had happened. Kent felt he could be wrong—and looked away first.
Brooke glared openly, triumph flashing across her face an instant before he looked down and saw only his shoes. She said, “For one, he says we need to be ready for a surprise attack. It might come by train, if you can believe it.”
“I’m not sure I do,” he muttered.
“Well, one of his jobs back home was checking out all the rail lines that went through or near town. I remember Daddy talking about it, and it was Danny’s job to get it done. Well, it turns out, this Black jackass found himself a working train engine, whatever they’re called—”
“Locomotives,” Kent said.
“Yeah. Those. And he put cars on it, rigged up to carry people and unload them real fast. But one train car, Black covered up and had it guarded day and night. Not even those guards were allowed to peek in, either.”
“A secret weapon?” Kent looked up, startled. Trains…He hadn’t considered that some might still work. None at the station in town did…
“That’s what Danny figured.”
“Damn.” Kent felt a sudden ache in his shoulders and neck, the beginnings of a tension headache. “We’re a trade hub. We got tracks that run through town. We can’t protect against that, not from every direction. We’d have to split our defenders up, just in case. Too many ways they could roll in.”
Shrugging, Brooke replied, “Actually, it doesn’t have to mean that. I mean, trains can’t go around a chunk of tracks that got mysteriously ripped up in the middle of the night.”
Oh. Damn, he should have thought of that. “This is why I keep you around, babe. Yeah, we could wreck the main line.”
“Yup. And then we can keep the side spur open. Danny mentioned it, said it’s normal to have one, and maps show we do, too. You know that stretch of rails that goes off the main line, around the farmer hub, and then joins back up?”
“Of course.” He picked up immediately on where she was heading. “We could leave that alone, s
o if we ever do need it, we got a working train track.”
“Right,” she said, her lip curling back into a snarl. “No one even has to know we left it alone; it ain’t likely someone else would think of it. I only realized that because we took that walk along the tracks, right before the CMEs. You remember? That one day, in the middle of the heat wave, where it wasn’t so hot you could fry an egg?”
“I do. And we had all them pretty birds flying around us, singing.” Kent smiled at the memory. She’d been beautiful, lit up by the sun so that she had almost seemed to glow with it, and the birds’ songs had been like a serenade, just for them…
He gently put that memory away, to focus on the far less pleasant situation at hand. “I could never forget it in a million years, baby. And I think you’re right about this idea, at least. It came from him?”
She nodded. “The part about taking out the tracks, yeah. If he was some kind of double-agent spy, he would have only said to post guards along the rails. They’d get picked off easy, out there where they couldn’t help protect the town when the time comes.”
“But he didn’t say that.” Kent already knew the answer.
“Nope. He said taking out the tracks would be the fast, easy way to stop whatever Black has planned with that, um, locomotive train. And someday, we could put them rails right back, too.”
“All right. You got my attention. What else did he suggest? I’ll listen, but that’s all I’m gonna promise you.” Somewhat surprisingly, Kent realized, he really was now listening, and with an open mind, even if they hadn’t been his ideas.
“The biggest thing he said, well, it sounds right simple. But, it’ll be hard to actually do it. He said we need to keep Black off balance, you know, hit him below the belt and sucker-punch him when he’s looking somewhere else. Make him look somewhere else, first. We weaken him as much as we can before the big fight.”
EMP Crisis Series (Book 3): Instant Mayhem Page 26
