“What about your truck?”
“I’ll go back at first light and get it. I can’t afford to lose those supplies.”
“And after that, we’ll head straight to Ashland?”
Mason smiled. “As long as nothing else gets in our way.”
“I have a feeling you and your giant dog can deal with anything that gets in our way.” She squatted down to pet Bowie, but when he started licking her face, she quickly straightened. “I just wish he wasn’t such a slobber mouth!” she exclaimed with a laugh.
“We all have our ways of showing affection. That’s Bowie’s.”
She reached over and squeezed the back of Mason’s arm.
“What’s yours, Marshal?”
Mason said nothing as he watched Jules swing young Lucy around in a big circle, both of them laughing with joy.
“Marshal?”
He turned to Connie with a sad smile.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
CHAPTER
8
Even standing fifty yards away, Samantha heard the woman scream. It was a violent, angry scream, laced with every possible type of profanity. She wheeled around and hurried back to the shop. When she stepped inside, she saw Tanner sitting in a small chair with his back against the wall. The sawed-off shotgun rested across his lap, and he was looking out through the front window like a man without a care in the world. The woman was still taped up on the floor. She didn’t appear injured, but her t-shirt was now on inside out, and a strip of duct tape was covering her mouth.
“What happened?”
Tanner motioned toward the woman.
“She got angry and started screaming. I couldn’t have that.”
“What made her so mad?”
“She learned a hard lesson,” he said, meeting the woman’s venomous stare.
“What lesson?”
“Never to trust a man when he’s negotiating for honey.”
Nipples tried to say something, but her words were muffled by the tape.
“She had honey?”
“Yep.”
“Is there any left?” Samantha asked, looking around the small store.
“Nope.”
“You ate the whole jar of honey by yourself?”
“Oh yes,” he said, winking at Nipples.
Nipples glared at him, growling.
“And she expected you to let her go for giving it to you? Is that it?”
“That’s right.”
“But you didn’t?”
“Nope. The way I see it is we’re even now. She did me wrong, and I did her wrong.” Tanner rubbed the scab on his side where the blade had nicked him. “I don’t think either one of us will forget the other anytime soon.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” Samantha said, still feeling a bit uncertain as to whether or not she was getting the whole story.
“I’ve always said I’m fair, if nothing else.”
“I’ve never heard you say that.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s true isn’t it?”
Samantha thought for a moment.
“Not really, no.”
He laughed. “You might only be eleven, but you could teach our prisoner a thing or two.”
They came for Nipples shortly after dark. The same two young men he had seen earlier scuttled around the huge pile of dirt that sat behind the repair shop. Tanner watched them from a thicket of trees about thirty yards away. When the men got to the back of the building, they split, one going right, the other left. The one that went to the right passed directly in front of him, barely outside of arm’s reach.
Tanner let him pass before stepping out and beaning him with the butt of the shotgun. The man fell forward into the dirt without making a sound. Tanner picked up his rifle, a Marlin carbine, and flung it off into the trees. A quick pat down revealed no other weapons. He pulled two long strips of duct tape from the roll and secured the man’s hands and feet. Then, like he had done to Nipples, he put a short length of tape across the man’s mouth. Taping someone’s mouth was risky because it could cause suffocation, but Tanner chalked that up to being a hazard of the profession the man had chosen.
When he was finished, he hurried to the corner of the building and peeked around. The second man had already cleared the opposite corner and was moving toward the front door. Tanner leaned around and waved for the man to come to him, hoping that it was dark enough that he would think it was his partner in crime. Before the man could get a clear look at him, Tanner ducked back around and waited.
A few seconds later, the man hustled around the corner.
“What are you doing? I told—”
He was cut short when Tanner stepped forward and headbutted him across the bridge of the nose. The blow was so powerful that the man dropped his rifle and stumbled back a couple of steps. Never one to leave things unfinished, Tanner brought a knee up into his groin and coldcocked him in the ear. The man bent at the waist and then fell sideways, moaning. Tanner taped him up before doing a quick circle around the building to make sure no one else had joined the party.
They hadn’t.
One by one, he grabbed the men by their ankles and dragged them into the shop. He slid them up next to Nipples and let them drop. For her part, she only shook her head with disappointment. Tanner reached down and carefully pulled the tape from her mouth.
“If you scream, I’ll zip you right back up. We clear?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
“Thank you for not killing them,” she said softly. “The older one is my brother.”
He studied the first man, and there did indeed seem to be a resemblance.
“How many more of you are there?”
“Obviously, we made a mistake taking your things.”
“You think?”
“We’re just trying to survive. No different than you and your kid.” She nodded toward Samantha, who was standing over near the window, looking out.
“Wrong,” he said. “We don’t take from the living.”
“That’s true,” Samantha said, without turning around. “He wouldn’t even let me take a chicken when I was starving to death.”
He glanced back at her.
“I don’t remember you starving at the time.”
“Well I was.”
“Uh-huh. Sure you were.” He turned back to Nipples. “Point is you stole from us. That’s not something I’m going to let slide.”
“Like I said, it was a mistake.”
“Okay. So, I’ll ask you again. How many more of you are there? It’s better if you tell me. That way, I don’t have to resort to pulling out your brother’s fingernails.”
She sighed. “Eleven. The rest are probably still over at the Domtar paper mill.”
“You’re holed up at the paper mill?”
“Most of us worked there. We use it as our home base now. It’s not much, but at least no one bothers us there.”
“All right then,” he said, standing up, “eleven more to go. I hope I have enough tape.”
“They’ll leave us here,” she said. “They’re not going to chance another rescue.”
Tanner bumped one of the men with his boot.
“For these two bozos, maybe not. But for you, darlin’, they’ll give it another go.” He smiled. “Believe me, you’re worth it.”
She glanced over at Samantha and lowered her voice.
“You shouldn’t have tricked me the way you did. Taking my… honey, and then not letting me go. That wasn’t cool.” There was a coy smile on her lips that suggested her feelings of betrayal were tempered with memories that weren’t all bad.
“It was pretty crummy, I’ll give you that. And maybe one day I’ll lose a little sleep over it. Right now, I’m more worried about assholes with guns.” He looked over at Samantha. “You guard the
se three. I’m going back out to watch for their friends.”
Samantha nodded. “Okay, but try not to kill anyone.”
“Believe me,” he said, “I’m trying.”
The second wave of rescuers was much less subtle than the first. Two Jeeps and a large sedan pulled up on the road about twenty yards in front of the garage. They turned their cars so that the headlights faced the shop. Tanner watched as six men climbed out. Every single one was carrying either a rifle or a shotgun, but they all appeared to be scared shitless—a dangerous combination to be sure.
To his surprise, they didn’t split up, take cover, or make any effort to advance on the building. Nor did they try to shoot the place up, which would have done absolutely nothing to help their compatriots’ cause. Instead, they stood close to their vehicles doing not much of anything. After nearly a full minute, one man finally got up the nerve to step forward.
“Don’t shoot!” he said, cupping his hands around his mouth like a bull horn. “We just want to talk!”
If they had split up, it might have been a decent ambush play. As it was, they seemed to be sincere enough. Of course, that didn’t mean one of them wouldn’t get a wild hair and do something stupid.
“Guns on the ground!” Tanner shouted from the tree line. He kept his command short and immediately shuffled to his right after calling out.
The group talked among themselves for a few seconds and then set their weapons down on the pavement.
“Now, back up!”
They moved as one big group, taking a few steps back, their eyes constantly searching the trees.
Tanner came at them from the side, careful to stay out of the direct shine of the headlights. He held his shotgun at shoulder level, ready to make a mess of things, if needed. They were so focused on the area where they had last heard him that they didn’t see him until he was almost at them.
He continued forward until he was standing directly over their weapons. There was no guarantee that one of them didn’t have a pistol stuck behind his back, but getting it in play before he took a load of buckshot wasn’t a gamble most men would take.
“Hands!” he shouted. “Let me see them!”
The men slowly brought their hands up, their eyes wide with fear.
Tanner took his time looking them over, slowly panning the shotgun from one man to the next. They ranged from just past puberty to approaching retirement, with nearly every decade in between represented. They were dirty, and their faces were spotted with beards slowly filling in. If a little mud had been smeared on their cheeks, they could have passed for miners who had just crawled out from the hole.
“Who’s in charge?”
The man who had stepped forward earlier raised his hand a little higher. He was in his forties, a little plump around the middle, but with arms thick from a lifetime of hard work.
“That would be me. They call me Bronco.”
“All right, Bronco, which of you jokers has our stuff?”
“Mister, we didn’t know what Pete and his sister were up to.”
“Sure you didn’t.”
“We’ve got your packs in the Jeep.” He pointed toward the closest vehicle. “I’ll get them if you like.”
Tanner turned to a young man standing beside Bronco. He was short and thin, and had a head full of stringy hair that couldn’t have looked worse if he had crawled through a sewer.
“Are the packs really in the Jeep?”
The boy looked around before answering, not at all happy about being singled out for questioning.
“Yes, sir.”
Tanner pointed the shotgun directly at his face.
“Okay, Bronco, you go and get the packs. If you screw with me in the slightest, I’m going to blow this boy’s head off.”
The young man started to protest, but Bronco patted him on the shoulder.
“It’s all good, Frankie. Just stay still, and you’ll be fine.” He turned to Tanner. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“You are.”
Bronco walked over to the nearest Jeep and lifted out the two backpacks. He carried them over and carefully set them on the ground a few feet in front of Tanner.
“It’s all there. You got my word that nothing was taken.”
“All right. Now, you men load up and drive back to the paper mill.”
Bronco’s eyes widened a little, like he had been splashed in the face with cold water.
“How’d you know—”
Tanner waved his shotgun. “Go on now. I mean it.”
“What about our people inside?”
“I’ll let them go after I make sure you didn’t take anything from the packs. If something’s missing, I’ll take something of theirs in return.”
“Something of theirs?”
“Most likely a finger. Depends on what looks easiest to lop off.”
Bronco made a concerned face but motioned for the men to get back into their cars. They quickly loaded up and eased down the street. Tanner watched until the three-car caravan disappeared around the corner. As soon as they were out of sight, he hurried back into the shop.
Samantha was standing next to the window, her rifle pointed toward their captives. Both men were now conscious, and Nipples was telling her brother that everything was going to be okay.
“Time to go, Sam,” he said, tossing her one of the gas cans.
“Did we get our packs back?”
“We did. Go put yours on while I cut them free.”
Samantha turned to the captives.
“We’re going to let you go now, but you should quit stealing from people. Not everyone’s as nice as we are.”
Tanner knelt in front of Nipples and gently lifted her chin with his hand.
“She’s right, you know. Next time, you might not be so lucky.”
She started to say something but bit her lip. Now was not the time to get an attitude.
He reached around and cut her hands free.
“You can work the tape off your ankles and from the others. I imagine your friends will be back shortly.”
She nodded. “Thanks.”
Tanner stood back up and started for the door.
“Big man,” she said.
He glanced back over his shoulder.
“You were right about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
She winked. “I’m not going to forget you.”
Tanner grinned as he went out the door.
Tanner and Samantha drove south on Wilcox Road, packs safely tied to the back of the flatbed truck, weapons resting on the floorboard next to their feet. Both windows were down, and the warm night air swirled around the cab. The sound of bugs, frogs, and bats serenaded them from the thick forest lining both sides of the dark street.
“I watched you from the window,” she said.
His gut tightened. Had she seen him with Nipples? Tanner’s discussion of the “birds and the bees” with his own son had involved a Playboy magazine and a couple of cold beers. He doubted that was going to cut it in Samantha’s case.
“Watched me when?”
“When you dealt with those men outside.”
“Ah,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. “And you were proud of me, right? I didn’t kill a single person.”
“I was proud of you. I think I’m rubbing off on you.”
He smiled. “We’re both changing each other.”
“I guess. But I think I’m changing you more.”
“If you say so.”
“I’m confused about one thing though.”
“What’s that?”
“Was all this really necessary over a couple of backpacks? It’s like the woman said. They were just trying to survive.”
“Maybe so, but I didn’t like their means.”
“What are means?”
He thought for a moment before answering.
“Means are how you go about getting what you
want.”
“And means matter?”
Madness Rules - 04 Page 9
