He set up his sniper rifle on its tripod. Quietly, he fixed the scope, squatted, and took a closer look. Three figures, all right. A rabbit or other small animal roasted on a stick over the fire, and they stared at it as if eagerly anticipating their meal. It was too dark to pick out features.
But were these three the travelers from Blister Creek? Why would they stand around the fire without setting up a defensive perimeter?
He fixed one of the figures in the scope and drew his finger against the trigger.
What if you’re killing the wrong people?
He was too far down the path to worry about that now. He’d abandoned the refugees he’d led east from Las Vegas. His mother was dead at the hands of Jacob Christianson. Shepherd and Alacrán had given him the chance to take his revenge. There might be collateral damage. God knows he’d seen enough of that in Iran.
He fired. The gun thumped. One of the figures fell into the fire.
Instead of diving for the shadows, the other two grabbed for their fallen companion to yank the body out of the fire. They let out confused shouts. Kemp chambered another round and fired a second time. Another figure fell. At last the third member of the party seemed to recognize what was happening and turned to run. Too late. Kemp fired again. The last person fell.
No. Wrong.
They hadn’t fled. They’d stumbled about and died. The reaction was so different from the hair-trigger flight of the polygamists from the highway yesterday that he knew with absolute certainty he’d killed three innocents.
Dammit.
But just in case, he kept his gun trained on the camp for several long seconds, waiting. If there were others lurking in the shadows, he had to take them down too. He couldn’t leave fresh enemies.
“Move and I splatter your brains,” a woman’s voice said behind him.
Kemp froze.
“Good, now lift your hands from the gun and turn slowly. If you drop your hands, I will shoot you. Stay on your knees. Now kick the rifle toward me.”
He obeyed. A single figure stood behind him on the hill, about ten feet away, aiming a pistol steadily at his chest. A half-moon hung overhead, providing enough light to see a thick braid hanging over one shoulder. Her face remained in shadows, but there was no doubt who he faced. It was the former FBI agent.
“Who were they?” he asked. “Who did I kill?”
“Refugees, maybe. A family. I didn’t get close enough to see. Hands up!”
His hands had been drooping, but now he raised them high again. “Then why—? How—?”
“I spotted three people with a campfire, not far from the road. I knew you’d find them irresistible, think they were us. I didn’t think you’d murder them without verifying their identities.”
“You killed them as much as I did.”
“Nice try, but no.”
“You could have warned them. Told them a sniper would be gunning for them. Instead, you used them as bait.”
“Who supplied you?” she asked. “When you threw us from the bus you didn’t have horses.”
“Cedar City.”
“I was there. I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. I came in the day after you ran off with their horses. They were pissed, looking for revenge, and I promised to track you down if they gave me mounts and fresh supplies. They were more than happy to help. Even offered to pay me.”
“I see.”
“I thought you’d be easy quarry. Look, I see I made a mistake. I’ll turn around and go back and you can—”
She shot him in the thigh. He fell over, screaming in pain, his hands digging at the fiery hole several inches above his knee. She came over to him and frisked him, took away his pistol, then put the sniper rifle behind her, well out of his reach.
She checked the magazine of his Beretta, then holstered her own weapon and used his to keep him covered. “Ready to talk?”
“Is that what they teach you in the FBI?” he said between clenched teeth. “To shoot a man when he’s not resisting?”
“I’m not an FBI agent anymore. You can call me Sister Miriam.”
“Please let me go. I’m sorry about the old man.”
“After you threw us onto the highway you drove south in the school bus. Then what?”
“I followed you. Isn’t that obvious?”
“Yes, but you didn’t drive. If you had, you’d have passed us on the road. But you couldn’t have walked either, if you came into town the day after our escape. Somehow, you ditched your refugee friends, picked up horses, and followed us to Cedar City. Who gave you the horses?”
“Army irregulars. Fighting bush wars in the back country while the army puts down the California rebellion.”
“Who leads them?”
“Two guys. One named Shepherd—a buddy of mine from the army. The other is named Alacrán.”
“Alacrán is not in the army, and never has been. He’s a bandit and a criminal. And so are you.” Miriam lifted the pistol. “May the Lord have mercy on your soul.”
Kemp pitched around for something that would save him from this religious fanatic. He clawed up memories from his childhood Sunday school. “The Bible says blessed are the merciful. It says turn the other cheek.”
“The scriptures also say that it’s better for one man to die than for a nation to dwindle in unbelief. You are an enemy of my prophet, and therefore an enemy of God.”
“Let me talk to the other girl. Christianson’s sister. Please. Have mercy.”
“Like the mercy you showed Brother Trost?”
Trost? Was that the man Kemp shot?
“I’m your prisoner. Don’t do this.”
Miriam hadn’t killed him yet. She’d been about to; her posture had tightened, the gun had come up not to guard him, but to fire. He was sure of it.
But now she hesitated. It was one thing to shoot a man in battle, and another to execute him while he lay before you bleeding from a gunshot wound.
“Let your God decide,” he said. “You wounded me. You took my guns. Just leave me my food and horses. If God wants me to survive, I’ll live. If not, I’ll die of this gunshot. And if I live I swear to God I will never bother you again.”
He’d spoken this last part out of pure desperation, not expecting it to work. But something changed in her face—she was actually considering it.
“I won’t make a wager with the Lord,” Miriam said at last. “But very well. His will, not mine, be done. If you survive the bullet and the desert, if you soften your heart against the Lord’s anointed, then maybe He will spare your life.”
“Thank you!” Kemp gasped.
“Where are your horses?”
He hesitated. She lifted the gun again.
“Down the road a half mile. There’s a dry wash. I tied them to a Joshua tree.”
“Good. I’m taking your weapons, the horses, and anything else useful. I’ll leave you water and enough food for twenty-four hours.”
“That’s all I had left anyway,” he said, bitterly. “How about a knife?”
“No.”
“That’s not much of a chance.”
“Don’t push me, Mr. Kemp.”
He fell silent.
“You have a choice,” she added. “Given not by me, but by God. But I swear to you, if you come after us, you will die.”
She gathered his rifle and tripod and slipped into the darkness. He thought briefly about staggering to his feet and hurling himself after her, but quickly gave up that thought. His fingers probed at the gunshot wound. It hurt like hell, and there was a lot of blood. But she hadn’t hit the femoral artery, and if the bullet had hit the bone, it had only cracked it, not shattered it. He might have a chance.
What about the campfire below him? There was a rabbit on a stick. And whatever supplies the dead people had been carrying.
He waited until he was sure Miriam would be long gone, then scooted painfully down the hill to the campfire.
When he arrived, the rabbit was missing, and if the three travelers had carried any supplies, Miriam had already looted them. They now had nothing of value.
Kemp stared at the empty campsite in growing fury. If there had been any doubt before, it fled now. The hell with letting the polygamists escape into the desert. He would track them down if it cost him his life.
Starting with Miriam. He swore she would die a horrible death.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Eliza and Grover were waiting down the highway when Miriam returned. She was riding a horse and leading a second. It had been an hour since the gunshots—first three suppressed rifle shots, then a shot from Miriam’s pistol—and at least two hours since she’d left the other two hidden in a rocky gully so she could double back to watch the camp. It had been easy to spot. Miriam was certain the sniper would find the camp as well.
That shot from the Glock said she was right, but Eliza was still relieved to hear her sister-in-law calling in a soft voice that she was coming. Miriam slid from the horse. She wore a new hunting knife on a sheath and carried a new rifle tied to her saddle.
“It was Joe Kemp,” she said.
“What?”
“I should have guessed. He told Jacob he was a sniper.”
Miriam shared the man’s story, but it didn’t make much sense. Apparently Kemp had met Alacrán, the smuggler turned bandit who’d tried to rob Blister Creek of nine thousand gallons of diesel fuel last fall. The smuggler had armed Kemp and sent him off on horseback to track them down. Kemp resupplied in Cedar City and raced ahead to cut them off on the road.
“And he tracked us all this way, why?” Eliza said. “Because he blames my brother for his mother’s death? That’s crazy. Jacob tried to save her life.”
“Not hard enough, apparently.”
“But Kemp is dead now, right?”
“No. I let him live.”
Grover stiffened next to Eliza. “You mean he got away?”
“He didn’t, so calm down. He’s not coming after us.” Miriam sighed. “It’s dark and I’m cold. I’ll explain on the road.”
Within a few minutes they were riding south by the light of the moon and the red glow on the horizon. Miriam filled in the missing details as they traveled. Kemp had gunned down the three campers, which allowed her to pinpoint his exact location on the hill and take him prisoner. Instead of killing him, she’d shot him in the leg to force him to surrender the information about Alacrán, then left him with food and water to find his way out of the desert.
“But as long as we’re on horse and he’s injured,” Miriam said, “there’s not much chance he’ll catch up to us. That’s why I felt justified in sparing his life.”
“I suppose that executing him wouldn’t have helped matters,” Eliza said, reluctantly.
She was shaken by the thought that three innocents had died, on top of the haunting image of Trost staring at the sky with his forehead a ruin, but the idea of Kemp still alive to their rear didn’t fill her with confidence.
“I am not getting soft, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“She’s not implying that,” Grover said. “She’s saying there’s enough killing in the world without you adding to it. Bad enough that you shot him and left him to die.”
“And what would you have done?” Miriam said. “Given him a kitten and fluffed his pillows?”
“Leave him alone,” Eliza said. “Anyway, that’s not what I was saying.”
“Do you think I was too hard?” Miriam asked.
“No,” Eliza said. “I think you were too soft. Kemp murdered Trost. He was already our enemy, and now you’ve shot him, but left him alive. If he survives we’re bound to face him again sooner or later.”
Miriam looked surprised at this, and a little pleased, as well. “I thought that too. My first instinct was to finish the job. The only tragedy would be the loss of a bullet. But the Lord spoke it in my heart. I had no choice but to obey.”
“Spoke what?” Eliza asked, suspicious.
“He told me to let the man live. Kemp will be spared if he leaves us alone. If not, he is sealed unto death.”
Eliza had no answer for this, so she fell silent. The others followed her lead. They continued south. Not long now. Another day at most. Steal fresh supplies in Vegas and then make for California.
The blacktop was a ribbon of ink across the desert. The southern horizon burned and the rumble of artillery seemed to redouble in ferocity. About an hour later a jet roared overhead. Soon after it passed, the wind shifted. It suddenly smelled of burning rubber and fuel, and something metallic that left a bitter taste.
“It smells like hell,” Miriam said in a flat voice.
Kemp made himself a leg splint from two straight branches broken from a scrubby tree and strips of fabric chewed off his shirt. He found another branch to use as a cane.
Fueled by his anger, he hobbled down the highway. He should rest, should concentrate on finding food and a source of water so he could camp out for a few days and heal. Instead he continued, one agonizing step after another. Up ahead, he guessed, his enemies would be talking over their plans. Maybe he could catch them before they left. Then they’d be sorry.
He didn’t make it more than a half mile before he grew weak and shaky. What was wrong with him? He wasn’t bleeding that hard. The wound hurt like hell, but he could handle pain. He stumbled and fell to his knees. His breath came out in a hiss and he ground his teeth together to keep from screaming.
When he put his hand down to his leg, he was terrified to discover that so much blood had streamed out that his pant leg was wet and gummy all the way to his ankle. It hurt so bad it was almost numb and he hadn’t noticed that the bleeding had increased. Why? It had only been oozing before.
Of course, you idiot. You didn’t give it a chance to clot and scab over.
And all the walking kept tearing it open afresh. His pulse up with the exertion, every beat of his heart had forced more blood from the wound.
Get the straps from the brace. Make a tourniquet.
The fabric was slick with blood and the knots so tight from shifting back and forth as he hobbled that he couldn’t get them undone with his shaking fingers. He lay prone on the pavement and tried to regain his strength. He took a swig of water from his canteen, but it turned sour in his stomach and he puked it up. His dizziness spread and the pain eased from his leg.
Now that he was weak and fading, he could only curse at himself. Why hadn’t he waited until his leg healed? Why hadn’t he given up the whole thing? These polygamists—what did they matter? He was going to die if he didn’t stop the bleeding.
He grabbed for his canteen to wash the blood off the knots on the brace. Maybe then he could untie them. Only he’d dropped the canteen when he threw up, and most of the water had spilled onto the road. What was left didn’t rinse away enough to matter. And anyway, the blood kept oozing from the wound. Slowing now, but only because he’d lost so much blood. He didn’t even have the strength to press his hands against the wound to hold in what blood remained.
As he sank back to the pavement with a moan, he remembered the chilling words Miriam had uttered when she left him on the hillside.
You have a chance. But I swear to you, if you come after us, you will die.
When dawn broke, Eliza, Miriam, and Grover found themselves riding across a scorched landscape of toasted juniper bushes surrounded by blackened grass and sagebrush. The hills to the west of the road had burned for miles, while to the east, it looked like the fire had made a couple of attempts to leap the highway but failed to catch. Another mile down, a bomb crater tore a chunk out of the highway. A dead traffic jam of burned semis, twisted family sedans, and motor homes with their roofs peeled off clogged the road s
outh of the crater. All the vehicles faced north, filling both lanes and the shoulders of the road. It stretched for miles.
A caravan of refugees had been fleeing Vegas along this desert highway, only to be stopped by a bomb crater. Then what? Helicopter gunships? Drones? Tanks coming in from the desert? Someone or something had attacked the refugees and annihilated them.
It took almost an hour to pick their way through the sea of wreckage. Even though it had been months, maybe longer, since the attack, the dead lay everywhere. In cars, on the highway. Dead in the ditches on the side of the road, where they’d attempted to flee the fire. Their bodies were too charred to identify gender, and maybe that’s why they hadn’t been carried off by scavengers. Or maybe they were so numerous that even the greediest vultures and coyotes couldn’t eat them all.
The companions reached the small town of Caliente, at the junction of Highway 93 and Route 317. It lay in ruins. The dead sprawled in the street outside a gutted casino, their bodies humming with flies. Most were soldiers, but there were civilians among the dead as well, cut down as collateral damage. Burned pickup trucks and army vehicles lay scattered across the pocked road. An LDS church was a pile of blackened beams beneath a single standing wall. Train tracks came into town and promptly turned to twisted, snaking rails, like a scorched piece of modern art. On the south end of Caliente, the devastation was so complete it was impossible to pick out the streets. Then, beyond the town, craters rendered the road impassible. In the desert, more signs of a battle: two downed helicopters, the blackened hulls of armored vehicles, and thousands of brass shell casings littering the hardpan.
“We should back up to Caliente and continue west on 93,” Miriam said, when they’d found 317 and were headed due south. “That way we’ll bypass Las Vegas to the north.”
“What about resupplying in the city?” Eliza asked. She was chewing on horse meat that had started to taste funny.
“I know what Trost was thinking, and it made sense at the time. But if there’s nobody to rob, nothing to steal, then it’s pointless. We thought we’d run into refugees, but the only ones we’ve seen have been scorch marks on the highway. Plus those three Kemp killed, I guess. There’s no food this way.”
Hell's Fortress Page 17
