“Is he as bad as all that?”
“You should have heard what he said when he found out Lillian was teaching me the piano.”
Poor Grover. A gentle boy in a world of men. Where was the place for a boy like that in a family like the Smoots? What if you didn’t want the man stuff: branding cattle, hunting, hauling wood, and eventually collecting a harem of wives?
“Come on, already,” Miriam said. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet. How the devil did she have so much energy?
“Brother Trost?” Eliza said to the police officer. “You okay?”
The older man put on his shirt and fixed his cowboy hat back on his head. “I’ll manage.”
The four of them broke into a trot. Within minutes, Miriam had pushed far into the lead.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was dusk before the Humvee reached its destination, a spooky abandoned town on the Utah/Arizona border named Colorado City. Kemp knew without being told that it had been another polygamist enclave. The houses were massive compounds with multiple wings, like in Blister Creek, and the chapel had a distinctly Mormon look about it: squat and brick, with no cross on the steeple. But most of the buildings had burned down, gutted vehicles blockaded all but the central streets, and coyotes trotted through brown, weedy yards. Bodies swung by ropes from utility poles. Their clothing hung in tatters, and their bodies were so picked over by crows that it was impossible to tell age or gender.
“Every once in a while some fundy creeps into town from the hills to do some looting,” Shepherd explained when he saw Kemp staring.
“Isn’t this their town? How do they loot their own homes?”
“Got to stop thinking like that. That world is gone.”
Kemp was alone with the irregulars. The school bus had run out of gas some thirty miles to the north, and there it would remain. Kapowski and Tippetts had stayed behind, together with the second Humvee. Shepherd didn’t want the refugees coming into town. Not yet.
The Humvee turned down a street, passed two armed men in fatigues, then stopped in front of one of the remaining houses. An M1-A1 tank squatted in the yard. Grass grew around the treads and extra armor had been welded onto the front. A monster like this got what, half a mile to the gallon? Took ten gallons just to get the gas turbine engine up and running. It wasn’t going anywhere. But the 120 mm cannon could blow the hell out of anything that came rolling down the road.
The house itself was two stories, with wings attached here and there and barely matching the original structure except in the olive-green siding. As Kemp climbed out of the Humvee, one of Shepherd’s men yanked the garage door open and he and two others unloaded crates from the back of the vehicle. They stacked them together with crates and drums of various sizes that already packed the interior of the monster-size garage.
Across the street, a fuel or ammo dump sat beneath camouflaged netting in the space between a house and a cottonwood tree. Two men guarded it from behind sandbags. Based on vehicles and movement, it seemed that most of the houses along this street billeted troops. Still, it couldn’t be a large force. Maybe a hundred and fifty men, from what Kemp could see.
He helped Shepherd carry the final crate into the garage. “Food, fuel, and weapons. That’s what’s going to win the war. Isn’t that what you said in Iran?”
Shepherd grunted as they maneuvered it into position. “Some things change. Others don’t. We’ve got plenty of weapons. It’s food and fuel that’s the devil to find. Good thing nobody else has them either.”
“Except Blister Creek.”
Shepherd’s face darkened. “For now. Come on. Time to meet the general.”
They found the so-called general inside at the table, studying a map through the dying light that filtered in through the window. He ate directly from a can of peaches, which he slid to one side when the others entered. He rose and wiped his hands on his pants. Kemp had a hard time not staring at the peaches.
“This is the new recruit,” Shepherd said. “The others aren’t worth spit. I left them in the dunes.”
“Hold on,” Kemp said. “I haven’t been recruited to anything. I got three Purple Hearts and the army says—”
“Have a seat,” the man said. “Go ahead, take a load off. Shep, get this man a beer.”
He spoke with a slight Spanish accent. Burn scars marked his face. A general? He didn’t wear a uniform. Didn’t carry himself in a military way.
Kemp hesitated, but the thought of a beer won him over. He’d toss back a six-pack if he could. Blunt the memory of his mother’s hollow stare. Of his two nephews, pale and dead. He sat down.
Shepherd poured the beer into a dusty glass and set it on the table. Kemp drank it down. It was warm as piss.
“Get me another. And some food.”
The man retrieved an MRE from the pantry: meatloaf in gravy, applesauce cake, green beans, and a peanut butter HOOAH! bar. Kemp wolfed it all down.
When he’d finished the second beer, he felt almost human again. He sized up the general. “We going to have some introductions?”
“Is that necessary?” the man asked. “This is Shepherd, you’re Kemp, I’m the general.”
“You don’t look like any general I’ve ever seen.”
“You can call me Alacrán if you want. Scorpion, if you like that better. I’m not fussy about titles, so long as people do what I ask. And the sergeant here is my right-hand man. If half of what he told me on the radio is accurate, you could be number three.”
“Just like that? Corporal to number three? Never heard of that rank, but whatever.”
“We’ve got bigger things to worry about out here than ranks and army BS,” Shepherd said.
“I think you’re both full of crap,” Kemp said. “You’re not army. You’re not irregulars. You’re a bunch of bandits and deserters.”
“Do bandits and deserters control predator drones with hellfire missiles?” Alacrán said.
“That sounds like bullshit to me.”
“You came into the valley with three carts and a school bus,” the man said in his accented English. “Nobody bothered you until you tried to leave. A warning shot, then the second missile hit the bunker when it started shooting back.”
Kemp fell silent. He hadn’t told all of that to Shepherd. And Kapowski and Tippetts had never been alone with the sergeant’s men long enough to give additional details.
“Our buddies would have finished the job,” Alacrán continued, “but we’re short of equipment on that end. Another week or two and they’ll call off the quarantine of Blister Creek—the drones will be sent elsewhere. The army has already abandoned the Green River base. Withdrawn most of the ordnance.”
“There are a hundred thousand refugees in Green River,” Kemp said. “What about them?”
“Like I said, abandoned.”
“Left to die, in other words.”
Kemp heaved himself to his feet and stumbled into the kitchen to look for more beer. He found a can sitting on the counter. He popped the top and took a swig on his way back to the table.
It was now almost dark and nobody made a move to turn on the lights. “No generators, huh?”
“Can’t spare the diesel,” Shepherd said.
“Kerosene for lanterns?”
“Only when absolutely necessary.”
“We can sit on the porch if you’d like,” Alacrán said. “Hell of a sunset out there.”
“I’ve seen enough sunsets. Bring in a light. Now is one of those necessary times.”
They were giving him enough of a leash that he felt comfortable pulling at it. They needed something from him. Otherwise, why the beer? Why the bogus offer of promotion? Why not give him the chance to join and if he turned them down, toss him out? Or worse, string him up with those poor fools dangling from utility poles.
Shepherd left and returned
with a lantern. It hissed to life.
“That’s better.” Kemp drained the beer. “Cut to the chase. What do you want?”
“You’re a smart man,” Shepherd said. “A survivor. And you keep your eyes open. We want to pick your brain, for a start.”
Alacrán nodded. “Right now you are the leading expert on Blister Creek, Utah. Tell us what you saw.”
“Bunch of religious nuts. A zillion women. The old ones in dresses with sleeves to their wrists. A million kids each. Creepy old dudes with Stepford Wives. Some guy was ranting about the chosen people and Jesus burning the wicked. They didn’t like me stepping about, that’s for sure.”
“And the leader?” Alacrán asked. “Did you meet Jacob Christianson?”
“Yeah.” He felt his face flush at the sound of the bastard’s name. “Yeah, we met.”
“What’s your read?”
“He’s a son of a bitch. But a cool one, plays himself as some kind of saint.”
“Well,” Alacrán said with a smirk, “they’re all saints, are they not?”
Kemp shrugged. “He’s not like the rest. Come to think of it, neither are the others he keeps around him. His sister, for one. Then there’s some lady with a gun who knew how to handle it. A tall cowboy dude named Stephen something. An old cop—don’t think he was a polygamist at all. They’re all different.”
Alacrán leaned forward. “What do you mean, different? Not religious, or what?”
“Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. But they’re practical. The Christianson guy is a doctor. He gave medicine to our sick kids. Could have saved my mother, but said he couldn’t spare the antibiotics.”
The memory of it made his face burn.
“The saint’s a liar,” Alacrán said. “He could have helped.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because Christianson looted the Panguitch hospital when it closed down. He’s got the biggest supply for a thousand miles. He didn’t want to help, that’s all.”
Kemp jumped to his feet and slammed a fist on the table. “I knew it.”
Christianson wouldn’t have done a thing to help if not for those people he wanted to smuggle out of town.
“Calm down, Kemp,” Shepherd said. “You can’t do anything about that now.”
“Some polygamists jumped onto the bus when you left,” Alacrán said. “Are they hiding in your group?”
“How did you know about that?”
“The drone.”
Kemp sat back down. His face was still burning.
Even out of ammunition, the drone must have followed them down the highway to see what they were about. That was why Sarge came up the road in the Humvees to meet them. Alacrán had received the news and sent them out.
“Three people jumped onto the bus at the last minute,” Alacrán said. “We think they were from Blister Creek.”
“Four, actually. One guy was already on board.”
“And are they hiding with the refugees?”
“No, I kicked them out. You should have looked while you were up there. You might have seen them.” Kemp narrowed his eyes. “Wait, if your drone was following, they would have seen that.”
“It ran low on fuel,” Shepherd said, “and had to turn back.”
“Who were they?” Alacrán asked.
“The town cop, some kid, Christianson’s sister, and the lady with the gun. Former FBI, supposedly. Whatever, she knew what she was doing.”
Alacrán rubbed at the scar tissue on his face and his expression darkened. “She’s former FBI, all right.”
“I took their gear and left them food enough to get home. But I don’t think they’re headed back. They were trying to get out of town all along. The Christianson woman and a couple of others. I’ll bet they’re headed out for . . . well, wherever.”
The two other men exchanged looks.
“That’s all I’ve got,” Kemp said. “You know, don’t you? Where are they going?”
“Los Angeles,” Alacrán said. “To look for Eliza Christianson’s fiancé. He’s another FBI guy, stuck outside the valley when the government threw down the quarantine last fall. Jacob Christianson did some begging, but the army wouldn’t wait.”
“FBI?” Kemp thought about the upheaval and violence when California pulled away late last year. There had been bloody reprisals against FBI and CIA agents who tried to thwart the secession. “Is he even still alive?”
“We don’t know,” Alacrán said. “And I’ll bet neither do the polygs. But they’re stubborn. They’ll look for him.”
Kemp didn’t call that stubborn, he called it loyal. He’d kill to have someone like that, someone to fight for him. A girl to come home to at night. Couple of buddies to share beers with. His mom back. His brother, his nephews. Good for the polygamists if they wanted to rescue one of their own. Then he remembered Jacob Christianson and the antibiotics, and his heart hardened.
“It will be a lot easier to take the compound if they don’t make it back,” Shepherd said.
“You can’t toast them with air strikes?”
“Nah, we’re on our own. That drone attack was our last aerial support.”
“And you don’t have enough men and equipment to storm the valley? Couple of tanks, some Bradleys . . .”
The two men only stared at him. Alacrán spoke first. “We have a couple of different plans going. One of them is cutting the head off the snake. If we get the top eight or ten people, the rest will fall. We can leave this hellhole and move into nicer accommodations in Blister Creek.”
“How do you figure it’s nicer? Same kind of town, same kind of terrain. Seems the only difference between Colorado City and Blister Creek is the people running it.”
“Exactly,” Alacrán said, apparently missing the irony. “All the fundies around here are dead or run off. Blister Creek has a ready-made supply of compliant labor, assuming you can get rid of a few hardened old men.”
“By compliant labor, you mean women and children.”
“Right, to keep things running. They’ll adapt to the new regime quickly enough. And while we consolidate, we’ll have all their food and their electrical supplies. And that valley is more defensible, especially with the prep these doomsday types have done.”
Sergeant Shepherd leaned back in his chair. “But then we’re right back to our problem. Blister Creek is a little too defensible at the moment. They had bunkers and mines. Machine guns, assault rifles. Probably grenades.”
“And this is where I come in,” Kemp said. It wasn’t a question.
“This is where you come in,” Shepherd agreed.
“I’ve got a sniper rifle,” Alacrán said. “I understand that’s your area of expertise.”
“Eleven confirmed kills in Iran,” Shepherd said.
Most of them had been ugly kills. Screaming women, children with AK-47s. An old man with an anti-tank gun.
“I did what I had to,” Kemp said. “What kind of gun?”
“M40,” Shepherd said.
“What variant?”
“A1. It’s an older model, but in fine condition.”
“I’m sure it will do. Tripod? Correct cartridges for sniping?”
“Yes.”
Kemp imagined sighting Christianson through his scope. “Can you get me into the valley?”
“Not yet,” Alacrán said, “but soon.”
“Then what, take it easy while I wait? You got a place with AC? And central heat too.”
“Like I said,” Alacrán said. “Cut off the head of the snake. That’s step one, and there’s more to the head than just Christianson. While we work to secure your firing position on Blister Creek, you’ll be going after the part of it that’s out in the open.”
Both men looked eager now that they were down to the nuts and bolts of it.
; “You know the desert,” Shepherd said, leaning forward. “You survived it. You know where you left those four—the kid, the FBI woman, the former cop, Christianson’s sister. And we know where they’re going.”
“So I track them, locate their camp, and pick them off one by one?”
“Too hard for you?” Alacrán said.
“Like shooting jackrabbits. Assuming I can find them. And keep myself alive. It’s hell out there. But I don’t know—my beef is with Christianson, not these others.”
“That’s how you get to Christianson,” Shepherd said. “Kill off his support and he’ll be weak.”
“So it’s not really the head of the snake,” Kemp said. “It’s cutting off the body to get to the head.”
“Quit dicking around—you know what the general meant. Are you in?”
Kemp enjoyed being needed. And of course he was turning it over. He didn’t have the stomach to kill civilians, but he wasn’t sure there was such a thing in this day and age. Not in Iran, not in the U.S. Could he peg them, one by one, from a distance? Yeah, he could.
“Might take a couple of weeks to get west and finish the job,” he said. “Depends on where I catch them. Maybe Cedar City if I hurry. That cop will take them there first. To resupply.”
“Take as long as you need,” Alacrán said.
“Will we be ready to move on Blister Creek when I get back?”
“We’ll make it happen,” Shepherd said.
“Two conditions. Satisfy them, and I’m in.”
“Name them,” Shepherd said.
“First, you keep your promise. When I get back, I’m number three. No more grunt work. No more ‘yes Sarge, no Sarge.’ And as number three, I make the call what happens to those people up at the bus. If I come back and find them slaving around for you, some heads are going to roll.”
The sergeant nodded. “You got it.”
“Second, when it’s time, you leave Christianson to me. He killed my mother. No long-distance sniping. I’m going to look into his eyes and tell him I offed his sister, right before I put a bullet through his brain.”
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