by Brian Hart
“What do you think?” Roy said.
“I think, fuck this,” Karen said. Karen joined Mace on the tailgate, rubbed his head, squeezed his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here, huh? Down that road is death.”
“You don’t know that,” Mace said. “I’ll go by myself if I have to.”
“Nothing in there is that important,” Karen said.
“I drove all this way. I’m not turning back.”
Karen looked at Roy and he shrugged.
“Go by yourself, then,” she said.
“Goddamnit,” Mace said.
“Now hold on,” Roy said. “We know some of those people in there, or Miller does. Should we see if they’re OK?”
“You want to go?” Karen said. “Go ahead.”
“We’ll just whip in and come right back out,” Roy said.
“I’m not going,” Karen said.
“It could be worse staying here by yourself,” Mace said. “They could come back.”
“This is what I get, isn’t it?” Karen said. “No such thing as a harmless drive with you two. Now I have to make a life-and-death decision, and there’s no way to know which is which.”
“That might be overstating it,” Roy said.
“You know that, how?” she said. “From the bullet holes in that truck or from the shell casings?”
“I don’t know.”
“You feel like he came all this way and we should help him if we can?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll help him go back to our house and have lunch and forget about this place.”
“I’ll go by myself,” Mace said. “I’ll come back later.”
“Fine,” Karen said.
But when they were back in the truck, instead of going home, she turned around and drove slowly through the gate.
“Don’t say a word to me,” she said. “Either of you. I just want to get this over with.”
Roy attempted to comfort her, reached out to her. She pushed his hand away.
They followed the road through dusty fields studded with stumps and over two concrete flood-zone bridges. Karen drove faster than Roy would’ve liked. She was the definition of driving angry and it was almost funny, but if she went off the road the dry ditches were deep enough to swallow them up.
They’d yet to see any kind of structure or livestock, just burnt forest and scrub. They were in the mountains now but without trees it felt different, as if they were at high elevation, above the tree line.
“How big is this place?” Mace asked.
“I heard rumors,” Roy said. “Other people that sold their houses, they said it’s ten thousand acres and they’ve got an airstrip and their own power plant.”
“When they came for the house,” Karen said, “they had trucks, semitrailers and a big crew. We didn’t stick around to watch them break it loose. We went camping and when we came back it was just a concrete hole in the ground. I wasn’t the first or the last to sell to them. This was early in the whole Jefferson thing. Nobody took them seriously.”
“In town,” Roy said to Mace, “you’ll see all the foundations where people sold out. Lots of people did it. There’s got to be half a town up here somewhere.”
They came over a low hill and in the distance a roofline cut the sky, not Karen’s old house; it was far too large. Beyond it there was a wooden barn with a gambrel roof and steel outbuildings of various sizes and colors, a windsock flagged a runway. They came to another gate and this one was open. As they drove through Roy saw the red dot of a surveillance camera partially hidden in the branches of a withered cottonwood.
“They’ve got cameras,” Roy said.
“Great,” Karen said.
The road forked and all the tire tracks went toward the house so Karen went the other way. The road had been washed out in places. At the bottom of a long steep hill was a valley cut by a small creek, spring fed, still flowing. There wasn’t a bridge and Karen followed the old tracks along the creek and through the sandy crossing. In the distance, partially hidden in a band of scrubby trees was Karen’s old house. It was lined up with dozens of others, all facing south like barracks. A black SUV with two flat tires was parked in front. The windows had been broken out of all the houses, siding shredded by gunfire, doors ripped from their hinges. When they got out of the truck they stepped onto a blanket of shell casings.
Mace didn’t waste any time. He opened the tailgate and picked up a wrecking bar, using it as a cane. Roy grabbed a Maglite from the glove box. Karen tried the splintered front door and it swung open with a squeal.
Inside there were several broken deer antler lamps and two bearskin rugs strewn with shattered glass, hunks of drywall, and splinters of wood. The leather furniture was dimpled with bullet holes, but there were no bloodstains, no dead bodies.
Roy followed Mace into the back bedroom. A sleeping bag was unrolled on an army cot with an orthopedic pillow. Empty water bottles and dehydrated food wrappers were stashed in the closet and when they kicked them out of the way, they saw the hole in the floor that someone had bashed out to use as a toilet.
“Goddamn,” Mace said. Then he pointed at the ceiling, the attic access in the closet. “I’ll give you a boost,” he said to Karen.
“Watch out,” Roy said, stepping in front of them. He kicked a hole in the wall and used it to climb up through the access. He switched on his flashlight and held on to the joists and shimmied along until he saw the plastic-and-tape packages that Mace had left behind. Roy pitched them back toward the access hole and fed them down to where Karen was waiting, one after the other.
Once he had climbed down, Karen brushed the insulation from his shirt and hair. Mace went to tear one of the packages open but Karen stopped him and they picked everything up and returned to the truck. As they sat in the cab, they heard gunfire, not close, just a few shots at first but then it grew until they couldn’t hear where it stopped and started.
Mace reached under the seat and brought out a pistol and handed it to Roy. “You shoot first, OK?”
“We gotta go,” Roy said.
Mace tore open one of his rifle-shaped packages, brushed it clean with his hand, and racked the slide. He lowered his window and rested the stock on the door.
Karen had the truck turned around and they went fast up the hill.
At the top of the hill, Karen shifted into third and buried the gas pedal. The truck drifted sideways for a moment before she corrected. There was smoke coming from around the big house now or the airstrip, they couldn’t tell which. Gunfire continued, small and far away, hesitant and random as the sound of a woodpecker. Roy spotted two trucks driving fast away from the barn. Men in both vehicles were shooting back and forth. They were fighting each other. A third vehicle joined the chase.
“What do I do?” Karen said.
“Get in front of them,” Roy said.
Karen missed a corner and skidded into the deep dust and ash and circled widely back onto the road with the motor roaring and left whoever was behind them in a dust cloud. Roy turned in his seat, keeping the pistol in his right hand, and watched out the back window. Mace was in the backseat tearing open more packages and piling ammo on the seat beside him. When he finished he sat facing forward with his AR across his lap like an angry child. Karen’s face was a mask of concentration.
Someone had moved the dump truck and trailer to block the exit. Karen slowed but a truck was coming up fast, trying to match them on the main road. Karen yanked the wheel and they went overland, parallel to the fence. The uneven ground was making it hard for Karen to keep control. The truck on the pavement was nearly upon them. Mace pointed his weapon out the window and fired four times and their pursuer dropped back.
“Go through it,” Mace said. “Drive through the fence.”
Karen yanked the wheel, and they tore through the fence and the motor wound out as they lost traction but the wheels caught again and after fifty yards of fence-tangled chaos they were up the bank on the pavement and free. The truck that was
behind them had stopped and turned around and drove back toward the gate.
“That was not worth it,” Karen said. Her hair was loose and blowing in her face, sticking to the sweat.
“We’re OK,” Mace said. “Nobody’s hurt. Keep driving.”
“What was that?” Roy said. “Militia versus militia? That was the Jeffs fighting someone else. They didn’t know who the fuck we were.”
“Good,” Mace said. “They never will.”
“Nothing was worth that.” Karen was as mad as Roy had ever seen her. She kept glaring at Mace in the rearview mirror.
“I’m sorry.”
“How could I be so stupid?” Karen said to him. “My kids could’ve been orphans. For some shit you stashed. Guns? Like you can’t find a gun anywhere. All there are is guns. For nothing.”
“We made it, OK?” Mace said. “We’re safe. We’re fine.”
“Just some shit,” Karen said. “Some useless, pointless shit. And I let myself get carried away by your stupid shit. Stupid man shit.”
Roy reached for her but she shoved his hand away.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” she said.
Mace had a photograph of his daughter, Whip, in his lap on top of his weapon. He opened his mouth to speak but didn’t say anything.
A few miles from home, the back left tire went flat. Karen pulled over and Roy followed Mace’s instructions on where to find the jack and the tire iron. He had the tire off and was about to put on the spare when he saw the strange black disk stuck to the filthy, mud-covered frame. It was cleaner, newer, than the patch he’d put on the exhaust. With effort, Roy broke the magnetic pull and tore it loose. He showed it to Karen and she shook her head. He held it in the window for Mace to see and Mace took it and frowned at it, chucked it into the field like a frisbee.
“What was that?” Karen asked. “Was that part of the truck?”
“No,” Roy said. “I don’t know what it was.” He finished with the tire and put away the jack and mounted the flat onto the bumper where the spare had been and got back in the truck. “We must’ve picked it up somewhere on the ranch,” Roy said. “They could be tracking us. Like a transponder.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Karen said.
“Not if we ran over it and it stuck,” Roy said. “Like those guys at the gate put it on the road in case anyone got away.”
“What are you talking about?” Karen said. “That isn’t even a real thing, is it?”
“I don’t know,” Mace said. “Are you ready to rethink coming back with me now?”
“I don’t want to hear another word out of either of you,” Karen said. “Not another fucking word.”
Jerzy was at the Millers’ helping with their new well, Sarah and Wiley were with him. Roy had watched them pull out of the driveway with a truck bed full of water pipe. The dog ran after them, showing off, stretching out and kicking up dust, racehorse fast. Not for the first time, Roy thought how he’d hate to be on the toothy end of that animal.
Mace’s gear was stowed, blankets on the couch neatly folded, pillow on top. A stack of photographs on the coffee table. Dead people. No sign of the weapons they’d brought from Frenchman. If you could put Karen’s anger in a bottle, you’d need a big fucking bottle.
Weak sun, gray light, in the kitchen. “I’m making eggs,” Roy said to Mace. Karen was still in bed. She’d come down with a fever after they got home from their ranch adventure and that morning their bedroom had smelled rank. Roy wanted her to sleep all day but knew that she wouldn’t. She was calling it stress-induced illness, Mace-induced, but Roy was included with that too.
“I ate,” Mace said. “Thanks.” He’d been up early, might’ve gone for a walk. Pitter-patter footfalls outside had awoken Roy and the dog. They’d stood side by side in the hallway in the dark with the safety off, but the dog hadn’t barked and the couch had been empty so Roy flicked the safety and cleared the chamber and went back to bed.
Later, maybe 10:30, Roy made Karen a cup of tea and took her a plate of eggs and fried potatoes but she was still sleeping so he left it by the bed and returned to the kitchen. He sat down at the table to go over the planting schedule that Karen had drawn up on a large piece of butcher paper with a Sharpie. Before any seeds came out, drip lines needed to go in and the tunnel-house plastic had to be patched enough to last one more season. The frames were showing damage too and he’d have to use rebar and tie wire to splint them together, again. Eventually it’d all unravel, material degrading to the point of being unusable, fabric so threadbare it wouldn’t take a stitch, and once that happened, decisions would need to be made. Could be the worst thing that could’ve happened to them was hitting water. They’d be gone by now. But where was gone?
He thought it was the sprinklers at first, that maybe Jerzy was moving them. But Jerzy wasn’t there. Who’s moving the sprinklers? was what he thought. They could’ve parked Mace’s truck in the barn but they didn’t. They could’ve been careful.
Dust and small rocks peppered the living room windows and the whole house shook. Roy went to stand but Mace was yelling at him to get down. When he looked out the window he saw a helicopter hovering as if it were going to land but it didn’t. A sound like a pneumatic tool, a mechanic’s shop heard from a block away, and then the wall was dust and the table was coming apart. Mace was on the floor in the living room now but Roy couldn’t tell if he’d been shot. Roy crawled on all fours through the thick dust and broken glass toward the bedroom. The shooting continued but it seemed that they were no longer shooting at the house. He could hear bullets tearing through the metal roof of the barn.
Karen was sitting up in bed, wide-eyed, covered in chunks of drywall and insulation. She touched her head and held up her hand to see the blood. Roy shucked the larger pieces of drywall that had fallen from the ceiling from the bed to the floor. There was blood on the bed. Roy felt as though he were moving in a dream; a whimpering, weak cry formed in the back of his throat. He touched Karen’s leg and the blood was warm and wet on his hand. He pulled her to him and held her and felt her struggling in his arms. Then Mace was in the room and he had one of his rifles for himself and another for Roy.
“They’re gone,” Mace said. “I watched them go.” His face changed when he saw the blood. He leaned the rifles against the wall but they slid down and clattered and fell heavily to the floor as he rushed to the bed. “Where’s the blood coming from?”
“It’s OK, baby,” Roy said. He had his hand on Karen’s forehead and her eyes were open and she was staring back at him with a look of utter surprise. He pulled back the blanket. The projectile had entered on her left side, just above her pelvis. He put a hand underneath her to feel if it’d gone through but he couldn’t tell. Just blood. He wadded the sheet onto the wound and clamped it there with both hands.
“I don’t understand,” she said. Her whole body was vibrating in shock. The cut on her head was from the ceiling coming down, white dust streaked with blood, spattered on the sheets and blanket.
Through the shattered window Roy saw a fire burning but it was only Mace’s truck.
“It’s OK,” he said. “It’s OK.” Daylight was shining through the holes in the walls.
Mace picked up one of the rifles and muttered something about them coming back. His footsteps on the broken glass and drywall echoed through the house. The front door squeaked open and slammed shut. Karen was taking deep measured breaths and holding her stomach.
“It’s just a scratch,” Roy said.
“It hurts.”
“I know.” He turned his head and yelled for Mace but he didn’t answer so he told Karen to put pressure on the wound and ran to the bathroom for their first-aid kit himself. He clipped the lid from a large bottle of saline with the heavy-duty scissors he found in the side pouch. Karen groaned while Roy flushed the wound with saline. The bullet, or more likely a ricochet, hadn’t gone through and there was already a massive purple-and-yellow bruise forming on her lower back. He didn’t know wh
at to do. They had to get her out of here, someplace clean, safe. Keep the wound clean, let it drain, and keep her warm. They had to get her to Ilah. He stood up and went to the hall closet and got clean towels and extra blankets. With a fresh towel pressed to the wound, he had Karen hold it in place and used tape to wrap all the way around her to keep it tight. Her eyes were glassy. He pushed her hair back from her face and kissed her forehead.
“Hang in there. It’s not bad. Stay on your side.”
She was crying now, sobbing. He didn’t try to comfort her or tell her to stop. He gave her three Darvocets and one of the broad-spectrum veterinary antibiotics they’d gotten from April that had to be expired. He found her Nalgene under the bed unharmed and she swallowed the pills down and had a few extra gulps of water. Her face was wet with tears and he wiped it dry with a towel.
“How long has it been?” she asked.
“Minutes.” He took note of the time and calculated when the next dose of antibiotics would be given.
“The girls.”
“You first. We have to take care of you first.” He forced himself to focus on human anatomy and overlay it with what he’d learned over the years of hunting and butchering animals. Foreign body, nonarterial bleeding, left side and low so the risk of intestinal or stomach rupture was low. Liver was on the right. She wasn’t distended and she was responsive. She was all there.
“Just a scratch,” he said again.
“Go get the girls.”
“Hang on.” He lifted the corner of the towel to peek at the wound again, still leaking watery blood.
“What if they go to Miller’s next?”
“OK.”
“Do it now. Mace can stay with me. Go.”
He did as she said. The only vehicle left on the place that wasn’t blasted to pieces was his bicycle. The dog met him on the road, it’d run all the way from the Millers’, and Roy got off his bike and held him and they watched together as Barry’s truck came into view.
Miller was driving and the girls, Ilah and Jerzy too, were with him. Everyone but Sarah had a weapon.
“We heard shooting,” Miller said. “Is everyone OK?”
