It was about a hundred yards to the bridge, though by the time they got there the gunfire had subsided.
“What do you think we should do?” Randi asked.
“Let’s keep riding and see what we see,” Buddy said. “If there’s something going on, I’d rather be on the horse than on foot.” He was riding off before they answered him.
They topped a rise and watched from a distance. Several men were scrambling around trying to care for men that had fallen. Even some of those providing care appeared to have been shot. There was cursing, crying, and a lot of blood.
“What the hell?” Buddy asked.
Randi nudged her horse to a gallop and was pounding toward the group.
“Randi!” Lloyd yelled. “What are you doing?”
The group of men heard the commotion and looked up. In their state of panic, all they knew was that there was yelling and someone was riding toward them. One went for a rifle and had it raised toward Randi when she reached them. His finger was on the trigger, ready to fire. His adrenaline was high. He saw she was a woman and that was probably all that stayed his finger.
“Stop! Who are you?” he yelled.
She slung her leg over the horse without hesitation. “I’m a nurse. I can help.”
She ran by him to where a man was pressing a PVC raincoat over a chest wound. She pulled the raincoat up and caught a spray of bright arterial blood. “You can’t save him,” she said.
The man holding the raincoat looked at her stunned but she had moved on. She went to another downed man. He was holding a bandanna over a shoulder wound. She removed the bandanna. Blood oozed.
“Raise up!” she ordered.
He complied and she helped him sit up. She felt the back of his shoulder and found the exit wound. He screamed when her finger pressed into it. “You’ll be okay,” she said.
The man who’d held the gun on her was at her side. “I think the rest are dead,” he said.
She moved to the still bodies, felt for a pulse, and found three dead or dying from gunshot wounds to major organs.
“They’re not all dead, but you can’t save them,” she said. “Who’s he?” She pointed at another body at a distance.
“That’s the bastard that did this,” he spat. “I blew his fucking head off.”
She could tell that there was no reason to check him out. He had a gaping head wound. It was nothing she wanted a closer look at. She’d seen too much death already.
“You’ve been shot.”
“No shit,” he said.
“Can I look?”
He studied her and decided that he might as well. He pulled up his shirt. He had taken a round to the lower right side. She examined it and he flinched from her touch.
“The bullet is still in there,” she said. “It could have nicked an organ. If it did, you’re probably going to die. If not, you should be okay with stitches and an antibiotic.”
“You’re a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” he said, gritting his teeth.
“I’m practical,” she said. “You want the truth or bullshit?”
“The truth.”
“The truth is we can probably get the bullet out of you back at my place. It seems to be close to the surface. You seem to be well-equipped here. Do you have antibiotics in your medical kit?” she asked. “If so, we’ll need to take them. They’ll increase your chances.”
He nodded and went off to get the camp’s medical kit. Randi noticed that the man pressing the raincoat to the chest wound of his friend had not abandoned his work. His friend was still conscious and blood ran from the edges of his mouth. Randi went to him.
“What’s your name?” she asked the man holding the raincoat.
“Hunter,” he said, looking her in the eye.
“What’s your friend’s name?” she asked.
“Anthony.”
Randi leaned over and put a hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “You are only prolonging your friend’s death. We cannot save him. There is no ambulance coming. There are no emergency rooms. The longer you maintain pressure, the longer he suffers. You need to move your hands and let him go.”
Hunter stared at her. He seemed to be in shock.
“Let him go,” she said calmly.
Reluctantly, Hunter released the raincoat. Blood seeped from beneath it on all sides, soaking the ground, staining the knees of Hunter’s pants. He did not take his eyes off Randi. She reached down and pulled the raincoat over Anthony’s head.
“It’s over,” she told him.
The man returning with the antibiotics stiffened and raised his gun, cursing at the pain. He was pointing his weapon at Buddy and Lloyd, who were approaching the scene.
“Those are my friends,” Randi said. “They’re not going to hurt you.”
He hesitantly lowered his gun.
“I need to get you three back to my friend’s place,” Randi said. “I can treat you there.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Buddy asked.
“I’m a nurse,” Randi said. “The training kicked in. What was I supposed to do? I can’t leave them here.”
Buddy didn’t look happy. “Jim ain’t going to like it.”
Randi looked around. The only vehicles there were the road tractors that had pulled the trailers in. “Can you drive?” she asked the man with the gun.
“I think so,” he said. He seemed to be a little sluggish, perhaps from shock or blood loss.
“Let’s get your people in one of these trucks,” Randi said.
Buddy and Lloyd helped them load up and watched as the truck drove away. They regarded the scene around them.
“What the hell is this?” Lloyd asked.
“Looks like someone moved in on us,” Buddy said. “We should have been watching this end of the valley closer. We don’t know who these people are, and there could be more of them coming. They seem to have some resources available to them.”
The two men took stock of the camp. They didn’t know whether they should take the weapons from the fallen men though they weren’t sure they wanted to leave them either. They ended up hiding them beneath some bushes a short distance from the camp. Continuing to dig around, they found radios, ammunition, and government-issue survival gear. Most interesting of all were the loads of food and supplies that had been brought onsite. It was enough to hold perhaps hundreds of people for a good long time. Buddy and Lloyd hated to leave it behind though they felt like they should wait until it was clear who it belonged to. For now, they needed to get back to camp and let Jim know what they’d found.
Chapter 41
Rockdell Farms
A convoy of four Humvees and a road tractor with a cattle trailer made its way down the road to Rockdell Farms. They’d broken the board of directors up over several vehicles so they could have an armed guard beside each driver. Baxter had hoped to ride in a Humvee with his men but Lester insisted on riding with him. It was the same guy who had been so adversarial and accusatory in the meeting. Baxter figured the guy didn’t trust him and didn’t want to let him out of his sight. He didn’t have any ill intentions. His only plan was to let the board see the missing assets, explain that they were here for safekeeping, and then return the board to Glenwall. He had no intentions on actually abandoning those folks completely until he’d procured a few more items, including a tanker of fuel.
Lester sat back in the seat watching Baxter the whole time. He was reptilian in appearance, overweight, and clammy with oily skin. Despite his upscale casual clothes, it was clear that he was a man who’d done hard physical work in his life. He’d crawled around mines, worked late into the night on broken down machines, bolted roofs, and shoveled the built-up coal from the base of conveyors. He’d gone toe-to-toe with federal inspectors and had once nearly beaten three striking miners to death with an axe handle for trying to vandalize his equipment. He’d come up the hard way and he wasn’t easily impressed by the likes of John Baxter.
He stared at Baxter with his thick-lidded eyes as
if he were trying to make him confess to something. It made Baxter uncomfortable, which he realized was clearly the intention. “You know, you don’t fool me,” he said, his stubby, calloused fingers folded neatly together.
Baxter was leaned forward, speaking with the driver, mostly to avoid having to engage with him. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t fool me,” he repeated. “I think it was a mistake to bring you into our community. I don’t think you bring a damn thing to the table. The only reason you’re there is that I was outvoted.”
“I’m…sorry you feel that way,” Baxter said.
“I doubt it,” the man continued. “I think you’re sorry that someone has you figured out.”
“Whatever,” Baxter said. “You’ll see in a few minutes that we have an operation set up here. This is the collection point for the beef you’ve been eating and where we’ve kept supplies for safekeeping.”
They drove past the empty house where Don, the man who’d told him about Rockdell Farms, had lived. Baxter stared out the window and noted the corpse that buzzards had dragged into the ditch. Tendons still laced the bones together and articulated the skeleton. Had Baxter not known what he was looking at, he would not have recognized the shredded and sunbaked flesh as a person. It looked more like deer after a week of warm weather, buzzards, and coyotes.
Baxter attempted to radio ahead and let his men at the camp know that they were coming with visitors, but there had been no response. Because there’d not been any regular radio communications between the camps, he assumed the men had grown lax about monitoring it. They were probably off doing something else.
When they neared the camp, Baxter immediately sat forward in his seat. He could sense that things were not right. The gate was open and there was no one in sight. Then he saw the buzzards, their beaks stained with gore. They hopped and hunched their backs, their wings rising and falling. They tore at the shapes on the ground, tugging at filaments of flesh and tendon. It was not until the lead vehicle was upon them that they reluctantly hopped away, then rose in flight. As he got closer, Baxter’s suspicion was confirmed.
The buzzards were eating his men.
“Stop the car!” he ordered, fumbling with his door.
“Sir!” the guard bellowed. “We don’t know if it’s safe!”
Baxter was already out. He was wearing a holstered sidearm and had left his rifle in the vehicle. He was not reacting with a tactical or security mindset. It was purely out of horror and shock. He walked around waving his arms in the air and cursing, trying to process the sight before him. His lone guard was out of the vehicle now, holding his rifle at the ready and scanning the perimeter through his optic.
“What the hell is going on here?” Lester asked.
Baxter spun and found the coal man standing behind him. “How the hell should I know? I just got here, same as you.” His voice held a sense of futility that bordered on hysteria. He was losing his shit. He appeared unhinged enough that Lester did not press him further, choosing to wander off and make his own assessment of the scene. He was made of tougher stock and was not as disturbed by death as Baxter.
The other vehicles pulled up and Baxter’s guard directed the other guards and drivers. They all took weapons and established a perimeter. No one was sure what had happened yet, or if the threat was over. One of his team had a set of binoculars and glassed the hills.
“I recognize these men,” the grocery man said, staring with disgust at the dead bodies nearest to the unhooked trailer. “These folks worked for us back at Glenwall. These are your men, Baxter.”
The car dealer hesitated to come any closer, not wanting to see the dead bodies. The sight of murdered men was ghastly enough without the additional insult of buzzards picking at them. In his attempt to avoid the mass of bodies, the car dealer wandered upon Hodge’s body lying some distance from the others. A chunk of skull was missing and brain tissue leaked from the cavity. He turned and loudly spewed vomit into the tall weeds beside the road.
Baxter walked toward the new body, recognizing the old man by smell before he got visual confirmation. “Son of a bitch!”
“You know him?” Lester asked.
“He’s one of the locals we bought cattle from. I can’t tell if we killed him or he was collateral damage in the gunfight.”
The grocery man walked up to them, casting a wary eye at the surrounding hills, as if suddenly aware that they may be in danger. Unlike the coal man, he’d grown up in grocery stores, stockrooms, and back offices. It was a sheltered world compared to the coal business. “Have you had any trouble here before?”
“None,” Baxter said. “There are families living back here along this road. We haven’t had any dealings with them.” His mind wandered to Don, the man they’d killed and run over when they set up this camp. Did he have family that had seen him killed? Had they come for revenge?
“Is everyone accounted for?” Baxter called to his guard. “I can’t recall right now how many there were.”
“We’re missing some,” the guard replied. “There’s more blood too. They could have gone for help, tried to find an open hospital, or maybe even back to Glenwall. Or they could have been taken prisoner.”
“Prisoner?” Lester asked as if he’d never heard such a ridiculous thing.
Baxter waved a hand in Lester’s direction. “There’s been no signs of hostility from the families in this valley. That’s not likely.”
They heard the sound of an approaching engine brake. The semi truck with the larger cattle trailer had finally caught up with them. The truck couldn’t negotiate the country roads as fast and had been a little behind the convoy of Humvees. The driver pulled up to the gate, waiting for instructions on where to park.
“Leave it out there in the road for now!” Baxter called to the driver.
“I don’t know this county well,” the grocery man said. “Where the hell are we?”
“Middle of Russell County,” Baxter said. “We came across this valley while buying cattle. There was an opportunity to secure much-needed resources for the community so we took advantage of it. The more time we spent here, the more sense it made to try to cache some of the Glenwall resources here for safekeeping. To create a fallback location in case we had to bug out.” He looked specifically at Lester when he said this and noted a smirk of disbelief on his face.
“Is there good water?” the grocery man asked.
“Several springs nearby,” Baxter replied.
“Any big barns or anything?” he asked.
“We’re told there are,” Baxter replied. “We haven’t secured any of them yet.”
Lester and the grocery man exchanged glances. It was not lost on Baxter. He understood that he was still the outsider here, the hired help on the lowest rung of the ladder. If there were decisions being made, he had no reason to expect that he would be part of them.
“What are you all thinking?” Baxter asked anyway.
“I would guess that he’s thinking we might should move all our folks over in this direction,” Lester replied. “That’s certainly what I’m thinking. We get a few more of these campers and set up a shelter in a large barn. We could winterize it and put in a few woodstoves for heat. It would be a hell of a lot safer than where we are now.”
“That’s what I’m thinking too,” the grocery man agreed. “We don’t have a sustainable plan for maintaining the golf course location. There are too many folks around us. In a place like this, we could grow crops, hunt, and raise livestock if this crisis continues.”
Baxter shrugged. “There would be hurdles,” he said. “Like the folks that live here. I’m not sure they would be welcoming to an entire subdivision of people suddenly showing up to share their resources.”
“That didn’t seem to concern you very much when you moved these campers in,” Lester said. “I think the basic question is whether those folks could do anything about it or not. They might not like us moving here but do they have the guns and manpower to stop it?
”
Baxter’s mind was racing. He wanted to tell these man that this was his place and they weren’t welcome. How could he make this place seem unattractive? How could he make them want to run back to Glenwall? He should have played up the violence aspect. He should have claimed that they sometimes came under random gunfire. It was too late now to throw something like that out.
He should never have brought them here. It was a stupid idea that rose out of panic. Now things were spinning out of control. He’d dreamed of forming his own group here. It would consist of men who didn’t require coddling, who didn’t come to him with stupid concerns and requests. He was tired of cowing to people. Had he blown it? He didn’t see how he could fix this. The men were here now and they knew how to get here. They didn’t need him anymore, the same way he hadn’t needed Don and Hodge.
Baxter pulled his lips into a strained smile and looked at the Glenwall board of directors. “We can certainly talk about your ideas,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “There are logistical issues we’d need to address.”
“Fuck that!”
Baxter spun. Valentine faced them with an AK shouldered and pointed in their direction. Baxter opened his mouth to start berating him for not listening to orders. Valentine was supposed to be hiding. He was supposed to wait until they were all gone before coming out of the truck. While Baxter formed those words in his head, Valentine’s finger began squeezing the trigger. Shots rang out.
“NOOOO!!!!” Baxter screamed
With practiced efficiency, Valentine dumped two rounds center-mass in each board member. In seconds the four members of the Glenwall board of directors lay dying on the ground.
Valentine lowered his AK, smoke still rising from the barrel. He smiled at Baxter. “That was some damn good shooting, if I do say so myself. That’s why you run training drills. Practice makes perfect.”
Baxter sagged to his knees, his head in his hands.
Chapter 42
The Valley
“Dad! Gary! Dad!” Pete yelled into the radio.
No Time For Mourning: Book Four in The Borrowed World Series Page 18
