by Ian Daniels
“Copy,” I said and motioned Danielle to move toward the main door where she could still cover everything, as we readied a fast getaway.
Letting up my knee from his foot, the kid had finally lost his attitude and was ready to give some answers.
“The guys you were talking about, the ones you were looking for, it was their place we were staying at… they were pretty well set up,” he stammered.
“Were set up,” In the past tense? I thought to myself.
“Where are they?” I asked him.
“Nobody was home when we got there. There was lots of stuff left though, like they expected to come back.”
“And how many of you militia assholes are there at the house?” I leaned on my knee a bit to remind him not to lie.
“Five, we have... had... five others!” he replied quickly.
“You let that boy up right now!” A tall middle aged woman strode forward from the main Chapel doors. “Look what you’ve done to our church!”
Look what I’d done? I wasn’t the one that was running the protection racket. I wasn’t the one that opened fire. All I’d done was solve a mystery and hadn’t even fired one shot... and if I had, one bullet wouldn't have done all this.
“I’m sorry Ma’am. This has just been a big tragic misunderstanding,” the Captain interjected from his spot on the floor. “Please just give us one more minute to clear things up and we’ll try and get things back in order,” he told her.
“You’ll what?” I hissed at him.
“Look, you obviously know what you’re doing and if you hadn’t just killed half my men, I would probably ask you to join us, but I think I know what your answer would have been even before all this,” he gestured at the four dead men. “Please, you see what it’s like out there; this is all we have now. Let us try and make this right. We’ll stay here and help these people. We have nothing else,” he quietly pleaded to me.
I was not expecting this new twist and I didn’t know what to say. I could easily rat him out to the church, but then what? Where would these people be who had come to rely and feel safe under the watch of these men?
I looked at both Danielle and at Blake up on the roof and neither of them gave me any indication of what to say or do. It really wasn’t even my call one way or another. The fairest thing to do was probably present everything, the full truth, to the church and then let them decide. But would they really be better off for it? My head was buzzing with ethics, philosophy and options and I suddenly realized how low on energy I was. I felt like I had done a five hour workout in the last five minutes. My arm burned, my finger hurt, my stomach ached, and my leg was slightly shaking from the physical and mental exertion. I had to blink my eyes a few times to get them to focus correctly.
“It looks like I’ve got nothing left here other than a misplaced sense of loyalty,” I looked around. “We came in here and somehow managed to dirty already muddy water, and I almost feel bad about that, so here’s what I’m going to do," I told the Captain. "We’ll leave you to keep putting on your little show, but I want you to look at your dead men and think about one thing... I came in here today and did all this with no motivation. I now have motivation. Now I know where it is that you sleep at night. You had better do right by these people because if I don’t like what I see or hear, you’ll know it.” I finished with as much bravado as I could muster and holstered my pistol.
“Your guns will be next to your sharp shooter’s body. Go for them and you’ll die as easy as he did,” I turned my back and walked out of the main entryway.
Blake was just finishing his scramble down the front of a school bus that was parked next to the building when I stepped onto the overgrown, frost covered grass outside the church. The bus must have been how he got up on the roof in the first place I reasoned. He easily caught up with Danielle and I as we crossed the field and fell in step with us, leaving me to my somber mood to check on his wife instead.
“I’m fine but this is nuts!” she said under her breath to avoid anyone else from overhearing, it was loud enough to be sure that I would still catch hell though. “Highway robberies, gunfights in a church… and you,” she pointed an angry and accusing finger at me, “you need to figure out a better way to deal with stuff other than shooting at it! Not every problem can be dealt with at gunpoint!”
“I impaled one idiot in the foot and that was after they tried to kill us both!” I defended myself. “What the hell do you want from me?”
“You could have talked it out at any point in there. Instead you’re so damn combative with everyone, you make these situations happen!”
“Hey if it was up to me I wouldn’t talk to another person ever again in my life! As it is, I’m doing the best I can! I’m playing the cards we’re being dealt here. I’m not trying to start fights and I don’t like making decisions like that but honestly, what would you have done?”
“Find another way. Look if you’re leading us into your own personal hell, then I want off the damn train!” she implored then looked away, ending her involvement in the conversation.
“I’m not leading anyone anywhere,” I said to Blake, but he decided to tell me differently.
“Dude that was your mission. I agree, you walked into a circus and it went south quickly. No one could have seen that coming. You also took my wife into a place where you got pinned down by gunfire. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“Hey man, you know…”
“Oh I know, I’m just saying if this shit happens again, you need to either get better at talking your way out of it, or better yet, shoot first.”
I wasn’t quite sure whose side he was really taking after hearing that.
“By the way, how did you end up on the roof to be there to save our butts anyway?” I tried slightly changing the subject.
“Just saw it coming I guess. Once they went inside and you didn’t have eyes on them and you were still talking with that jackass, I knew you were going to need an extra gun in there. I saw the ladder on the bus and the skylights and went for it,” he summarized for me.
“So you expected that we were going to have to shoot our way out of there?”
“Might as well make it worth while to have carried this beast all the way here,” he smiled and patted the butt stock of the FAL.
It might have just been my frayed nerves or the recovery from the adrenaline, but his easy going and eager nature was starting to seriously unnerve me.
We walked on silently until we met up with Clint at his spot on the hill in the wood line where we had left him. Despite the freezing temperature and altogether miserable conditions, it looked as though he had never moved from before Danielle and I had first walked off to the Church.
“Find what you were looking for?” he quipped as we rejoined him.
I shook my head in amused frustration at him. Honestly, what in the world was I supposed to do or say at this point?
“I’m getting real tired of all these Neanderthals that don’t use a damn suppressor,” I pressed my fingers to my ringing eardrums.
Clint smirked but said nothing.
“Can we go someplace warm with food now? Kathy was planning on making pumpkin bread today wasn’t she?” I tried getting our minds off of this most recent crisis.
“Yeah, I guess so. You want to take a look at your arm or neck first?” Clint asked, bringing the stinging sensation to the forefront of my mind.
“Huh,” I put my hand to my neck and pulled it away gingerly to check for blood. “Must’ve gotten sliced by some of that glass.”
“It doesn’t look too deep,” Blake stuck his finger into the hole in my neck and laughed.
“Sonofa…!” I yelped and shrugged away from his reach.
“Rub some mud on it,” Clint advised as he shouldered his pack and started walking away from the church.
We each gathered our belongings and followed him in turn. Danielle was not hiding the fact that she was keeping a wide berth of me.
Chapte
r 14
“You sore?" I asked Danielle tentatively.
We had stopped to rest again with maybe another mile to go before we made it back to Clint's truck. This time, for the first time, it felt like we had gone from point A to point B without any more incidents and were now scattered around a small space, each nursing our wounds and recouping. Clint had bandaged my arm and neck and then wandered off to use his larger portable radio to get in touch with Kathy back at their house.
Danielle I noticed was rubbing her shoulder and we hadn’t talked again after her blaming me for massacring a church congregation, so I thought I would try to ease us back onto better terms.
"A little bit," she relented.
"There's nothing like carrying a gun in the woods to get you in shape for carrying a gun in the woods,” I smiled devilishly.
“That's profound.”
“I know; there's no limit to my profanity," I joked to which she rolled her eyes and finally cracked a little smile.
The snow that Clint had forecast had finally started falling, it wasn’t really dumping on us yet though. As much of a disaster as it would be to the homeless and those who were unprepared, I would be as happy as ever if we got a foot or more. I loved the snow. The cold, the white landscape, the light it illuminated at night... it was my favorite time of year.
Clint came back into the little gathering and gave us a quick run down of the news, which wasn't much. From the sounds of it, Kathy hadn’t pushed to hear much more than a cursory overview of the last two day's events on our end, probably a good thing, I thought. She and the neighbors had been busy baking and quilting while we were gone. Clint also said that she sounded worse, even over the radio.
"Is there still a doctor at the clinic that will see anybody?" Danielle asked, already knowing the chances of there being a doctor, let alone any medicine, antibiotics, or other drugs, still available.
"You heard what I told that kid at the church, I wasn’t lying,” I told her. “People don’t even bother to line up to get into the Medical Center anymore unless they have the deed to their house they're willing to give away."
"Is it that serious yet? I mean do we really need to take Mom in to see a doctor?" Blake asked.
"Even if it's not that bad yet, can we afford to wait until it is?" Danielle shot back at her husband.
"You have any idea what the clinic is taking in trade, or better yet, what they need?" Clint turned to me.
"Not really. They were taking jewelry and stuff at first from what I heard, and then they realized they couldn’t spend it or eat it so now I don’t know. Clean livin's been keeping me away from that place," I huffed a little laugh and stuck the remainder of an unlit cigar in my mouth.
Clint nodded his head, apparently having made up his mind.
"Alright, in the morning I'll take her into town. We'll load up an extra can of gas and I'll see if I can come up with some stuff that the Docs might need or want. I don’t want her getting any worse so we'll try and treat it now."
"We should all go," Blake said. "Well you know, us I mean," he amended in my direction.
"Only four seats in the truck, I got ya," I nodded, making the dis-invitation easy on everyone. "What about the house?" You want me to stick around and watch over stuff?"
"Neighbors are pretty good about it. I'll talk to them in the morning and we shouldn’t be gone long," Clint answered.
I nodded but I wasn’t quite done just yet. Blake and Danielle stood up, stretched, and started off again before I gestured for Clint to hold back for a minute.
Standing there I raised my chin and let the clear, crisp, clean afternoon air assail me. It slightly stung the exposed skin of my face, the temperature having dropped again. It watered my eyes, and constricted my lungs… until the heated air from the smoke of the cigar hit them. I let the taste out in a long exhale, not exactly savoring the flavor, and more the fact that I was still here and able to partake in something as reckless and needless as smoking.
"Connecticut wrap?" Clint adjusted his parka, cinching it up tighter to fight against the cold and lightly swirling snowflakes.
"Yep, for the three times a year I smoke one of these, I can’t handle the dark stuff."
“You know how far the smell of smoke carries right?” Clint reminded me.
It was a needless reminder and he knew it. Two or three years ago while out with Clint and two Fish and Game guys, I had zeroed in on the location of a wanted poacher by following the telltale smell of tobacco smoke on the wind from a quarter mile away. Not much of a trick, but effective none the less.
“You know at this point... aw screw it,” I took one last pull then snuffed the smoldering end and put the remainder back in my coat pocket.
We stood in silence for a few moments, looking up at the gathering clouds.
"It's going to snow tomorrow," I stalled.
Clint knew better.
“So what's up? Is there a new and exciting problem to add to the mix?”
“It's Blake,” I began.
“What? Sick, hurt…?”
“No he's fine... shoot that’s the problem. He needs to take a break or something, especially going into town; he needs to sit that out."
"What're you getting at?"
"He's a machine. All these people... the kids a few days ago with me and now these two earlier today; he killed ‘em with ease, precision... impunity. He's devastatingly good at it and he's starting to know it."
"How many people have you shot in the last two weeks?"
"I'm not here to compare numbers," I deflated a little.
"I know, hear me out. You’ve shot what, four people, plus one that could have amounted to torture..."
"If that’s what Danielle told you I get it but..."
"Now Blake's had to pull the trigger on the same number as you, all of them to keep you from getting stabbed, maimed, or shot. You already came to me and said how you don’t feel much over the one at the trailer, but Blake should feel bad over the ones he saved you from? Is that what you're saying?" Clint asked coldly.
"Look it's not like that. I feel all of em but it's different. Danielle said I go in looking for a fight and am too quick on the trigger, well shit, he's on the trigger and smiling."
That last part didn’t come out right, but I left it at that. We stood in silence for another moment before Clint spoke again.
"I've seen it too,” he finally admitted. “The question is, do you trust him to watch your back?"
"Absolutely. I also trust him to take any shot he wants to take, whether it's valid or not. He's looking for opportunities. It's like he's trying to run up the top score in a game. I’m starting to wonder if he might actually be, in his own mind, maybe trying to make up for stuff he didn’t do in Iraq," I shook my head, not knowing how else to phrase it.
Clint didn't get why I was still struggling with this. Maybe I didn’t either. It wasn’t for my or anyone else's safety that I was concerned about it, it was for Blake. Clint was making me re-look at things though. Did Blake jump the gun or would I have done the same thing if I had have been in his place. That wasn’t it though. It wasn’t that he had taken the shots, what was bugging me was his excited anticipation about doing it again.
"I don’t think it's like that, and I agree he is a little eager, but so far, unfortunately, it's working," Clint relented. "He's saved us all a couple times just in the last couple of days and maybe him being good at... this... is an okay thing and we're the ones who’re out of sync. We can't keep holding on to old ways. You see it, shit you're more ready for it than anyone I know, this is life now and it's going to just keep coming. If that’s what he has to do to get though it, to get us all through it..." Clint still hadn’t been able to bring himself to fully embrace the issue.
"He might be the one losing his cool, but you're," he began to say again when suddenly our attention was wretched behind us by a muffled step.
"I'm doing what now?" Blake's voice was strangely soft.
I di
dn’t even turn to look.
"Take it easy, were just talking about how this is effecting all of us," I tried.
Instead of another expected knock down drag out, he was silent. When I finally did turn to look at him, he raised his eyes to meet mine and I shivered at the impact. They were not angry or confused; there was a deep glow, a fierce and full force in them and I couldn’t tell which way it would swing.
Blake stood there staring at the both of us, opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it, then spun on his heel and walked off.
"Look you guys go ahead, I'm going to hangout out here for a while. I need to get some food in me and I'll probably double back and set up on our back trail for a bit. Then maybe go see about that camp we stumbled on earlier today, you know, check to see how the dog is doing," I offered to Clint.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, it's not that far and I'll be back to my place by dark. No problem, just don’t want to make anything worse with those two. Give Kathy my best."
"Alright," he shrugged.
Clint knew I was probably right to get some time away from the others and he knew I would be just fine out here in the woods where I belonged. What he didn’t know was the headache I had acquired since Blake had walked off and how I was pretty sure it wasn't from the cigar.
Chapter 15
"Well how the hell... man that’s a weird angle," I muttered to myself.
I wasn’t getting a good ground and the tip of the welder was having trouble fitting into the little channel. That’s about when a loud knock on the door made me jump out of my skin. I threw the kill switch on the power cord that had been running the radio, bench grinder and welder, spun and scooped up my pistol and an old cut down single barrel shotgun that were both on the bench beside my work area.
Another loud knock reassured me that I wasn’t just hearing things. I slid a corner of the covering blanket from the window behind me and peeked outside; the back of Blake's head was about a foot away.
"What're you guys doing here?" I leaned the shotgun in the doorway and greeted the three people I had recently spent so much time with. The three people I hadn’t expected to see again so soon mostly because the majority of them were pissed off at me.
