by Lou Cadle
Or as safe as you can be anywhere in this new world.
Chapter 24
Rudy had already found something pretty good in one of the cars. The grenade launcher had slipped out of their hands, but he had found a box of grenades. Arch was already bent over them, looking them over. She knew they were grenades not because of any special expertise, but because they were in a metal box labeled “grenades” plus a bunch of numbers.
She came up and squatted down by the open box. They looked like little rockets, like the kind they used to shoot into space. “Can we use them? Like in old time movies, you pull a pin and throw them?”
“No, not like that. You need a percussion device to hit just so to arm them.” He held one up and pointed, though it really didn’t tell Sierra anything. “We were lucky.”
“Why? That they left them?”
“Well, no. That these are riot rounds. There are much more lethal kinds than this. If they’d had those....” He shook his head. “I’d probably be out a wife and son.”
“Bad enough as it was,” she said.
“Yeah. I should have known when I took those fragments out of Kelly’s arm that they weren’t metal, but I didn’t look that close. This makes me feel a little better about both of them. These grenades aren’t meant to kill.”
She was glad to hear it. “So there’s no way we can use them without the launcher thing?” she asked. It’d be nice to have something that could take out a lot of people at once. Or, if they weren’t lethal, at least to deter a lot of people at once and prevent them from getting any closer.
“I might be able to do something with them. Kind of delicate work, of course. I’ll take a look later.”
“Wait a minute,” she said. “If they aren’t that bad, then why’d one blow a hole in the pavement?”
“Must have hit it from close up.”
She walked toward the crater and shook her head when she saw it. In the middle of the shooting and exploding and rain of asphalt, she’d thought it was bigger. It was definitely bigger than a normal pothole, but in the heat of battle her mind had turned it into something truck-sized. It wasn’t that big. It was sort of interesting, though, the way the charge had shaped the hole, and where the debris was concentrated. The initial force was in that direction, but a lot of the debris must have rebounded to be thrown backward. For an instance she flashed on her physics teacher, who’d have found this interesting. She got closer and could see dirt down there. It had dug pretty deeply.
Curt was dragging bodies into a pile while Rudy went through the cars. He was pulling stuff out and leaving it on the road, lined up, making the highway look like a flea market was about to begin. He backed out with a stuffed animal, a purple elephant. “Some kid’s—I guess one of these. She’ll be glad to see it.”
“I’ll be glad to see the kids. You haven’t seen any peeking out of the woods, have you?”
Rudy frowned at her in confusion. “What kids?”
Sierra remembered he’d been under the rabbit hutches for the whole firefight, so she explained.
“Wow. They did that?”
“They did.”
“I can’t believe it. It’s so mean. Besides, wasn’t it impossible to shoot while hanging on to some kid?”
“They had them tied to their belts or belt loops in most cases. They may have had some other sway over them in addition, a threat to their families or something. Until we catch some and can ask, we won’t know.”
“Are they going to stay here?”
Sierra hadn’t thought that far ahead. “For now, I guess. Though how we’re going to deal with ten terrified children, I don’t know. Or find beds for them.” Or feed them, but she didn’t say that aloud.
“I can help. I like little kids.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, and I don’t think I’ll ever be good at shooting. I was shaking, even though I was hidden. If I had a gun, I wouldn’t have been able to aim it right.”
“You get over it,” Sierra said. You’d better, or you’ll not survive long.
“But kids, I can manage. Play games, put Band-aids on skinned knees, distract them from bad moods. I’m good at all that.”
Sierra had no idea how he knew this, as he’d been home-schooled, but she accepted the claim at face value. “Great. I’m sure we’ll have a neighborhood meeting before nightfall, and you can mention it. I hope we find them all before night. I wouldn’t want any to be alone in the woods after dark.”
“Are there animals out there? Ones that would hurt you?”
“A few,” she said, and regretted it as Rudy looked scared and stared into the woods as if expecting a grizzly bear to run out and grab him. There were no grizzlies in Arizona, only black bears, who were pretty shy around here and had plenty to eat right now. Mountain lions were more of a worry. “They probably wouldn’t bother someone your size, but some nine-year-old kid might be in more trouble.”
“I should help look.”
“Finish the job here,” she said. “Then you can find Joan and see where she hasn’t yet looked. Curt has you emptying the cars? That’s all?”
“Yeah. But one of the trunks didn’t open from inside.”
“I’ll hunt for car keys.” Sierra went to Curt. “I’m going to check pockets for keys.”
He paused in his dragging a body. The man was covered with tattoos, including a large one of a swastika. She pointed at it and Curt said, “Yeah, big surprise there. Exactly the kind of people to use children as shields. Would you get out wallets and IDs if they have them? Just curious.”
“Here, I’ll get the arms.” She leaned her rifle against the nearest car and bent down to pick up the guy by his arms. Her knuckles bounced off something strange. “Hey, there’s something weird about his chest.” She felt around, felt a hard sheet of something under his shirt, and tore the shirt open, sending buttons flying.
“It’s body armor,” Curt said.
“Yeah?” She studied it then knocked her knuckles on it. “Lucky we were able to take him down. Should we take it off him? Can we use it?”
“It’s been hit several times. One or the other of us was shooting this guy and probably wondering why the hell he wasn’t going down. So no.”
“Why’s that matter?”
“They’re not effective after they’ve taken this many rounds. Look.” He pointed one by one to six places where he’d been hit.
“He’s also the one who had the grenade launcher,” she said, glancing down at his face.
“How do you know?”
“Lots of roadway in his face. Burns.”
Curt looked him over “He looks even worse than me, eh?”
“You look fine, Curt.” And it was odd, but she did feel that way. The face that had scared her just a year ago now looked normal to her. It was Curt himself, and that his basic goodness came through and erased what she’d seen as ugliness. Now he was just Curt, a friend and neighbor. And someone she was grateful to have watching her back in a fight. “You aren’t hurt? Dev and Kelly both are.”
“Bad?”
“Both were too close to a grenade explosion. Dev’s out cold still. Kelly’s dizzy and has an arm injury. Not a gunshot.”
“We’re lucky we haven’t lost anyone yet.”
“The Morrows. And my dog.”
“I’m sorry about Bodhi. But Mitch Morrow didn’t die under enemy fire. He made a choice.” He said, “Let’s swing the guy twice and on the third swing, get him up on the pile. Okay, let’s do this. One, two, launch.”
Sierra let go of the body and it landed with a thump on the others. Flies buzzed, lifted off the other bodies, and settled back down. One buzzed her head, and she slapped at it. “Eww, get away. You have dead guy goop on you.”
Curt laughed. “First time I’ve heard you sound like a teenage girl in a while.”
“I don’t feel like a teenager,” she said.
“No, this stole your childhood from you.”
“I had my childhood. Thin
k of these poor kids. Probably their fathers are dead or in jail. Maybe their mothers too. For all we know, these are the orphans of the town. And then to be dragged up here and used like this?” She shook her head and lowered her voice to say, “Or Emily. I don’t know that girl will ever be right.”
“I hate they’ve had to live through this,” Curt agreed. “But what can we do? Except for what we’re doing?”
“I know I’m a terrible person for asking this, but can we feed ten extra kids? Growing kids, they eat a lot, right?”
“It’d be hard to host them for long. Not without having to eat a lot less ourselves. But we have those gardens down the hill. And I can set out more traps, or take a morning to hunt.”
“I know we can’t say no to them. Can’t just drive them down the hill and throw them out. But I’m worried about food.”
“Maybe—hell, I don’t know. Maybe there’s some way to get them back to Payson safely. Maybe some of them have neighbors or relatives who are worried about them.”
“No way we can get them back to town while it’s still held.”
“That’d be a trick,” he said. “Okay, two more bodies back by that last car, and then we can start on clearing our road of these cars. And then get the log back in place.”
Sierra thought the solution to a number of their problems was obvious, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to be the first to say it.
“What?” he said. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“Well...” she said.
“Go ahead.”
“Don’t yell. I know you all think I’m irresponsible and take too many risks.”
“Uh-oh.”
“We need to invade Payson ourselves and get rid of those invaders.”
“Right.” It was skepticism, not agreement.
“Look, we took out two a couple weeks ago. More than fifteen today. So they’re down to a few dozen in town at most. If they’re still walking guard duty on the streets, we can send down two snipers and get a couple more.”
“You, I assume.”
“Our two best shots, whoever that’ll be in a day or two. Might be you and Dev.”
“And we go and shoot at people randomly.”
“The only young men on the street are going to be invaders. Joan says all the others are in jail. And we saw one old guy who we thought was probably a Paysonite out free, but only that one.”
“That might be a lie about the jail. They could have all been executed the same day they were taken.”
“Maybe, but if it were you—and I know it never would be, but if—wouldn’t you keep at least some alive if you might need some heavy work done?”
“Women can do heavy work.” He looked pointedly at the stack of bodies she’d helped add to.
“They seem to be using them for other things.”
He winced.
“I wasn’t thinking of that, actually, but that too. I meant that the woman of town are working the gardens and providing food for the men.”
They’d stopped and Arch joined them. “What are you discussing? Looks serious.”
“General Sierra here wants to invade Payson.”
Arch raised his eyebrows at her.
“Not invade. Guerilla warfare. Like the PAVN in the Vietnam War.”
His eyebrows went up even more. “You really have been at my library.”
“Dev said you wouldn’t mind. I read your books every night. I guess I’m on the twentieth book or so? I always return them. Anyway, not a full-out frontal assault like Normandy. I mean, we pick them off. Get the numbers down so that either they run in fear, or we can take them.”
“I can’t shoot right yet. Your dad can’t. My boy is probably out for a few days.”
“So, we do it now, then me and Curt are the guerillas. Or we do it next week and Dev and Kelly are better. Maybe you too, by then.”
“Seven of us. Thirty-odd of them? Plus collaborators?”
“Men are inclined to estimate the enemy’s strength too high. Such is human nature.”
Arch’s eye’s narrowed. “What is that, Von Clausewitz?”
“Yeah. He has sort of become like my bible for warfare. I mean, no offense to the real Bible or anything.”
“Everything in war is simple,” Arch countered, quoting the same book. “But the simplest thing is difficult.”
“Don’t forget the perils of hesitation,” she said, smiling at him. “We should do it. Not right now. We have things to do today. But soon, I think. Tomorrow or the next day. While they’re wondering what happened up here, and still debating about another assault on us.”
“I can’t believe some little girl is throwing Von Clausewitz at me.”
“I can’t believe you still think of me as a little girl.”
He smiled back at her. “You’re a hell of a little girl, is what you are.” The smile faded. “But we need to discuss it as a group. I’m sure your father will have something to say.”
He glanced around. “Where is he, by the way?”
Rudy piped up, “He went to help look for the kids.”
Sierra said, “If we take care of the invaders now, and if we let the Payson people know it’s us who did that for them, we’ll earn their gratitude.”
Curt said, “Gratitude has a short half-life.”
Arch frowned at him. “True, but that’s not Von Clausewitz, is it?”
Curt flushed. “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Sorry.”
Sierra laughed hard at Arch’s disgusted expression. Apparently that wasn’t considered a good war college textbook. It was the first time she’d felt like laughing in a while. Her laughter made Arch smile and shake his head, and Curt chuckled too. When she had released some of her tension with laughing, she said, “We can remind them why they owe us. Maybe take them seeds or gardening advice once a month. Maybe even up our production of chicks and take them some of those. Joan might remind them in a weekly church service.”
“I guess we’d lose her if Payson were liberated,” Arch said.
“If Payson is liberated, we won’t need her as much, right?” Sierra said. “Anybody coming from downhill would likely go through Payson first. And if they’re grateful, and we’re giving them a little help to keep them grateful, they won’t be coming up here again to bother us.”
“Let’s think on it, and talk about it after we get all this done.” Curt waved his hand around. “We need to get these cars moved into the woods and the log back in place. Otherwise, both are advertisements that we’re here.”
Arch said, “If I had enough storage for it, I’d take all the gas out of them first.”
Curt said, “Their gas tanks are as good a storage site as any. We’ll keep all the keys.”
“Right,” Sierra said. “I’ll check pockets now.”
They split up and went to accomplish different tasks on the road. Arch was checking out everything Rudy pulled out, rejecting some stuff and tossing it back in the cars, and Sierra went through pockets of the dead men. There was one Payson driver’s license, supporting the theory that they had some collaborators, but otherwise they were from Phoenix suburbs. Curt dragged the last body alone.
“Burn these bodies again?” she said, when she had emptied their pockets.
“I don’t know. It’s so dry, and the wind is up.” Curt was right. It had picked up, and the sky was clouded over. Still no rain though.
“Maybe we should stick them all in the biggest car and make that their tomb.”
“Better to dump them in the woods and let the scavengers have them.”
“Can I go help look for the kids now?” Rudy said. Sierra turned to see he was asking Arch.
Arch said, “Okay. Check for eggs and feed the animals at our place first, okay? It’s getting late. Then you can find Joan and do whatever she tells you to until dinner time.”
“Great! Thanks.”
“Thank you, Rudy,” Sierra called as he raced away. She went to Arch. “Did we get anything good from the cars?
”
“Weapons, extra ammunition, and look, a topographic map.” He pulled it out of his pocket. “Why they didn’t use this to come at us from behind, I can’t explain.”
“Maybe they thought they had us outnumbered. Arrogance. Or maybe they didn’t know we were here until they saw the log or…heck, I don’t know.”
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. But he didn’t finish.
“What? About my idea of sniping at them in Payson?”
“Something else. I’ll save it for the meeting. We should get these cars moved. Let’s see, so all three of us drive one, and one guy ferries the other two back. If we do that, we may as well drive them quite a bit up the road. So if they come along and find the cars, they’ll look for whoever did it up there, not here.”
“Remember the two who got away.”
“If that were me, I don’t know that I’d go back. For one thing, it’s a big drive around to get back to Payson from the south. For another, whoever is in charge down there in Payson might not greet news of a sound defeat with much joy.”
“Maybe they’ll wait for night and drive back past us.”
“Then we need to double up on guard duty tonight. Keep someone right on the road at all times and shoot them if they try to get past. It isn’t the two men I’m worried about so much, not a direct attack from them, but what they carry in their heads that I’m worried about it.”
Sierra understood. It was their location, their numbers, their weapons. The knowledge of how small a force they were might lead to another attack immediately. She said, “You’re right. I can take four hours.”
“You’ll have to. Either you or Curt needs to be there. Joan’s getting better with her rifle, but she doesn’t have the ability you do.”
“Thanks, Arch. I had a good teacher. Or teachers. You and Dev both.”
“I should go back and check on my family before we start with moving the cars.”
