Without Law 12

by Eric Vall

  We all woke up well before dawn, something that had become a trend in the past three days since we left Port Kent and came home after realizing that we were at war with my old Ranger buddy.

  Brody had proven himself to be something of a bastard in the past month, but our latest adventure with him had left no doubt in our minds that he needed to be taken care of, and quick.

  Since our return I’d placed someone on guard at all times, just as we had during the winter when we were under attack by Canadians. Even though Brody didn’t know where we lived, I still felt that it was best to take all the precautions possible, and nobody had objected once they learned of the situation.

  Besides, Brody was an asshole, but he wasn’t stupid, and I wouldn’t count on him not being able to find out where we lived. With the way things were now it could take him weeks or even months to figure it out, but that was why we had guards on shifts, and why we needed a plan to take him out pronto.

  We rotated shifts around the clock. It wasn’t technically Bailey’s turn, but after we finished checking on the traps and trotlines she took over for Dan who had the night shift. I hated to have to pull my team back into being afraid of an attack, but, as unlikely as it seemed, I couldn’t take the chance. Brody was too crafty of a bastard for me to underestimate him.

  I looked over to Anna and admired how lovely she looked in the little bit of morning light that lit the horizon. The orange of the sky shone on her red hair and gave it new life.

  “What?” she asked when she caught me looking at her. She wore a light pink athletic sweatshirt, black athletic pants, and black running shoes. Her hair, which was usually pulled back into a long braid, hung loosely around her shoulders, full and slightly tangled from restless sleep. Her bright green eyes were slightly narrowed as she eyed me with a confused half smile on her full, red lips.

  “Nothing,” I replied with a small smile. “You’re just stunning in this light, is all.”

  “Oh,” she said, blushed, and looked down. “Thanks.”

  “I think they’re pretty happy out here,” Paige said as she walked over to us and looked out at the horses and cows who grazed contentedly.

  “I’d say so,” I agreed. The brunette had her chestnut hair pulled up in its typical messy bun on the top of her head, and she wore a tight pair of dark denim jeans that hugged every bit of her small frame. On top she wore a dark gray hoodie with the Piper College logo across it, and her thick, black glasses sat just in front of her deep brown eyes that questioned everything.

  “We should check on Tara and Bailey,” Anna said.

  “Right,” I agreed, and I called out for the black headed dog that happily played with the calves in the field. “Winchester! Come here, boy!”

  The dog came running and stopped in front of me for pets before he followed us back toward the dorm building.

  Once we were out of the field we stopped at the chicken coop to free the birds for the day. They preferred to be out and about, and they had become a staple around campus. They never went far, but occasionally you’d find them asleep in the strangest of places, like in the wheelbarrow or on top of the hoods of vehicles. Once, a plucky hen that Bailey had fondly named Fancy, snuck into the dorm building somehow and managed to startle the hell out of several people before she was caught and put back into her pen with the others.

  The sun breached the horizon, then, and the world lit up with daylight while the sky continued to shine various shades of blue, purple, pink, and orange. I stopped for a moment to admire the sunrise before I made my way over to the fire pit where the girls now sat.

  “Mornin’,” Rolly said as I took a seat on the bench. His gray hair had grown out some in the time I’d known him, and now it hung around his ears in little tufts that poked out from under his newsboy cap. He had on a typical outfit for him that consisted of a mechanic style jumpsuit and boots.

  “Mornin’,” I replied with a grin. The old man and his newfound love were usually up before anyone, but lately we’d beat them to it.

  “Winchester wasn’t whinin’ to go out when we got up,” Rolly said as he reached down to pet the black headed dog, “so I figured you all were out here. Thought I’d come out and make you some coffee.”

  “Much appreciated,” I said as I took the cup that Betty held out to me.

  “Breakfast smells delicious,” the old woman said. She had bright blue eyes, a mane of salt and pepper ringlets that surrounded her head, and she wore a pair of worn in blue jeans and a sweater along with a pair of cowboy boots that had no doubt seen plenty of days out in the field of her family’s farm that we now called our own. “But I have to say, you girls getting up so early and cooking for everyone is putting me out of business.”

  “Hardly,” Tara laughed. “I’m a decent cook, but you’re way better. I think it’s because you’re a grandma.”

  “It’s true,” Paige agreed. “Grandma’s are always the best cooks.”

  “My grandma’s the only reason I know how to cook,” Tara said.

  “My dad was good at cooking,” Anna said with a shrug.

  “Yeah, but was he as good as your grandma?” Tara asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “I guess that’s a fair point,” Anna chuckled.

  “I’m gonna bring Bailey up a cup of coffee,” Paige said as she poured some dark liquid into a mug.

  “Thank you!” Bailey called down from the roof.

  “I’m almost done with breakfast,” Tara said. “If you wait a second, then we can head up there and eat with her.”

  “Good idea,” I said, “Anna, Paige, you wanna help me grab the tables and chairs?”

  “Yeah,” the redhead replied, and she stood up and headed toward the gym.

  We had such a large group of people now, over thirty of us total, so we brought out tables and chairs from the gym each day for everyone to eat together. Plus, we had even more people with us right now since we had women from a nearby compound, and a group of people we met while traveling. They were staying with us to help with planting and harvesting since we had such a large area of land to cover. The extra help was greatly appreciated, and the women, who were completely against working with men to begin with, had warmed up to us nicely.

  After all the shit we’d been through with Brody lately and the way he abused women, it was good to see that faith could be restored for someone. The women at the compound had created a safe space for themselves where no men were allowed, save children, and I didn’t doubt it was for good reason, but still, it was nice to see them come to trust some men once again.

  After the tables and chairs were all set out, we helped Tara lay out the breakfast platters, gave Winchester a large leg bone with some meat on it for his breakfast, and we made our plates to head upstairs.

  “Are you coming?” I asked Rolly and Betty when they didn’t move from where they sat by the fire with their coffee.

  “I don’t think so,” Rolly said, and he looked fondly at Betty. “I’m good right here.”

  “Alright.” I led the girls inside, but passed my plate off to Anna to carry up to the roof while I told everyone else that breakfast was ready.

  I knocked on a couple of doors on the third floor and let them know that breakfast was outside, but when I got to the fourth floor I saw Marla, the campus nurse, already up with the kids.

  “Breakfast is ready,” I told her.

  “Thanks,” she said, and she bounced baby Anthony on her lap.

  “Where’s Kimmy?” I asked, concerned that something was wrong with the infant’s mother.

  “She’s in her room,” Marla said, and she tossed her head toward the door. “She’s working on a project and asked me to watch him. Come on, kids, let’s go wash our hands so we can eat.”

  Marla led the kids out, and I knocked softly on Kimmy’s door.

  “Come in,” she said.

  I opened the door, but Kimmy didn’t turn around. She was hunched over her desk carefully putting something together.

 
“Hey,” I said, and she whipped her head around. I guessed she had been expecting someone else. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh,” she breathed, “just working on a little something.”

  The woman before me was absolutely stunning. She had rich brown skin and eyes the color of milk chocolate. Her face was framed with a headful of curls, and the sight of her large, soft lips reminded me that we had almost kissed just over a week ago.

  “Can I see?” I asked as I moved toward her.

  “Sure,” she said, and she blushed and looked down at her work. “It’s a radio.”

  “You got it working?” I asked.

  “I’d just need to set up some waypoints,” she said, “but I think it can be fully functional really soon.”

  “It’d be great to have a CB radio around,” I said as I looked at the device.

  “I thought it would come in handy if we could communicate to and from the farm,” she explained. “It would save time and gas to be able to call over when we need something at the farm.”

  “Right,” I agreed.

  “Plus,” she said, and she bit her lip. “Since we have a constant watch now, I thought it would be a good way to alert everyone if something happened.”

  “It’s a really good idea,” I told her. “I’m glad we have you around to fix things. I’m good with a gun, but this looks pretty complicated.”

  “I was always the kid who took apart the remote just to put it back together,” Kimmy chuckled and revealed her bright white teeth.

  “I would have been the kid to take it apart but leave it that way,” I laughed.

  “I’m sure your mom didn’t appreciate that,” she said.

  “No.” I shook my head. “Which is why it only happened once.”

  “You must have been a good kid,” she said with a soft smile.

  “I tried,” I replied, and I stared into her brown eyes and felt my stomach jump. I wanted to lean down and kiss her, but I wasn’t sure where we stood after our previous attempted kiss had been interrupted by a giggling Tara, so instead I cleared my throat. “Breakfast is ready, by the way. Marla took the kids down to eat.”

  “Okay,” Kimmy said. “I’ll head down there, too, thanks.”

  “Let me know when you get this working,” I said. “And again, thank you for taking the initiative. I really appreciate you.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and she blushed and looked away. “I’ll let you know.”

  “Alright,” I said, and I headed out of her room and up to the roof.

  “Look who decided to show up,” Tara teased as I walked out onto the roof.

  The sun shone bright now with the morning and warmed me up as I took a seat and grabbed my coffee cup. I looked down to see some of our people already sitting at the tables with plates of food, and as I watched, Kimmy walked over to Marla. Baby Anthony smiled and reached for his mom, and Kimmy laughed and spun him around. It was hard not to grin at the sight of it.

  “You are so smitten,” Paige laughed.

  “What?” I asked, and I looked away from the beautiful woman below me. “No, I’m not.”

  “You totally are,” Tara said with an eye roll, “but right now we have bigger things to worry about.”

  “This has to be good if Tara wants to talk about something other than your love life,” Anna said, then she took a big bite of eggs.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked the platinum blonde.

  “We need to discuss Brody,” she said seriously. “We have to take him out, and I’m sick of waiting around.”

  “You’re right,” I told her. “I wanted to give us all a couple of days to rest and collect our thoughts, but it’s time to get the ball rolling.”

  “So, what’s our plan?” Paige asked.

  “That’s what we need to figure out,” Anna said. “Brody has a frickin’ fort we have to get through.”

  “Yeah,” Bailey said. “But at least we know where his fort is, he doesn’t know where we live.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed. “But we’re still being cautious about that.”

  “Yeah,” Bailey sighed, “having to do a twenty-four-hour watch is reminding me of winter.”

  “I know,” Anna said. “I don’t like it, either. I feel like I have to look over my shoulder all the time.”

  “It sucks to go from feeling safe to feeling like we could be under attack at any minute,” Paige said.

  “I know it does,” I told the girls. “And I’m sorry you and everyone else has to deal with it, but we’ll get through it.”

  “What are we going to do with the fort after we take him out anyway?” Paige asked.

  “I don’t think it’d be right for us to take it,” Bailey said. “The people there have put in all the work.”

  “Right,” Anna said. “They should keep it.”

  “That would open up a line of trade for us,” Paige said. “That’d be good.”

  “Helllloooo,” Tara said, and she snapped her fingers at us. “We have to figure out how to get rid of that fucker first.”

  “Tara’s right,” I said with a smile. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

  “What if we just set Bailey up outside the fort,” Anna said. “She could pick Brody off easily.”

  “That’s assuming that he’s dumb enough to step out onto the wall,” I said. “He may be a sonofabitch, but he’s not stupid.”

  “You think he’ll hide?” Tara asked.

  “I think so,” I said. “He knows that we know where he lives. He’ll put everyone else in danger before himself.”

  “Coward,” Tara sneered.

  “Yes,” I agreed, “but also a smart tactic. He knows the fort would be nearly impossible to penetrate, so if he waits for us to attack then he has the upperhand.”

  “Well, shit,” Anna said. “What do we do?”

  “Brody knows that we’re not dumb, either,” I said. “We had the same training so he knows exactly what I know, but we do have one thing going for us.”

  “What’s that?” Bailey asked.

  “Brody isn’t as patient as we are,” I said. “If he tries to attack first, then we’ll have a much more even playing field.”

  “There’s no telling that he will, though,” Bailey pointed out.

  “That’s correct, too,” I agreed. “Which is why we need a plan, but there’s a lot for us to consider so it needs to be more well thought out than any other plan we’ve made before. We can’t underestimate Brody as an opponent.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of like going up against the evil version of you,” Tara chuckled darkly.

  “What about the refinery?” Paige asked.

  “What about it?” Anna pushed.

  “Well, they have to still be making runs,” Paige said. “What if we cut off his supply of fuel? That’s bound to piss him off. It might even draw him out.”

  “Yeah, but we know those people,” Bailey said with a frown. “They’re good people.”

  “That’s one of the main problems we have here,” I said. “Most of the civilians surrounding Brody don’t want to be there. They’re too scared to disobey him, but we know that they really don’t respect him or want to live under his rule. The people at the refinery made that clear when we talked to them.”

  “You’re right,” Anna said, and she bit her lip. “So how do we take Brody down without hurting any of the civilians?”

  “What if we use the civilians?” Bailey asked.

  “I’m not following you,” Tara said.

  “We could go to the refinery and talk to the civilians there,” Bailey said, and she leaned forward with excitement. “We know that they want to be rid of Brody just like we do. Maybe they’ll help us figure out a way in.”

  “It would be good to talk to someone who knows the layout better,” Paige said with a small shrug. “The one I drew up is incomplete.”

  “Maybe if we can talk to the people at the refinery then they can warn the ones at the fort,” Bailey suggested. “That way t
hey can get out of our way and we don’t have to take out any civilians.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” I said, and I took a bite of my eggs. They were slightly cold since I had let them sit so long, but the taste was still great, and I let them sit in my mouth for a second to savor the flavor.

  “I think that’s the best plan we have so far,” Anna said. “We can’t just go in guns blazing, but if we can use Brody’s assholeness against him and get his people on our side then I think we can make it work.”

  “I think you’re right,” I said with a smile, and I took a sip of my black coffee and looked down to the ground.

  The courtyard was filled with people now, everyone chatting and laughing as they ate their breakfasts. The kids had eaten quickly no doubt, as kids tended to do, and now they were playing catch with a football while Winchester ran between them and tried to catch the ball at every opportunity.

  I smiled as I ate my breakfast of eggs, meat, and hash browns with vegan cheese on top. The morning sun was bright and warm, and I couldn’t help but look down at the group of amazing people below me. This is what I was protecting. My tribe was happy. We had running water and electricity, a farm full of produce that would be ready to harvest come fall, and there were plenty of friendly faces around. I wanted to keep it that way.

  I’d do whatever I could to preserve this life we’d created for ourselves.

  I watched as Kimmy chatted with Marla, baby Anthony on her lap as she threw her head back to laugh.

  “Uh, Tav,” Bailey said.

  “What?” I asked, and I looked over to see the blonde’s face shrouded in fear. “What’s wrong?”

  “I swear I just saw someone in the woods,” she said as she stared out at the forest behind the school.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “I’m almost positive,” she said, and her voice trailed off as she squinted slightly, then raised a finger to point. “There! Did you see?”

  “Fuck,” Tara breathed. “You think it’s Brody’s people?”

  “Everyone else is accounted for,” Anna said.

  I watched for a few seconds before I saw a male figure move from one tree to another about five hundred yards from the school. He had on dark clothing, but he moved like an amateur, and his sloppy movements caused everything around him to rustle, which gave him away instantly.