“That’s a nice fire you’ve got there. You know, the bad thing about a fire on a dark night is that it makes you night blind. All you can see is just what’s close. It gives folks that are afraid of the dark the illusion of safety, but what it really does is cut you off from everything else. I’m surprised either one of you lasted this long not knowing that. Now get up!”
Seventeen
MITCH WASTED NO TIME exiting his cell when the door swung open. He was shocked that they actually came for him after all he’d heard from his neighbor in the adjacent cell. The second night in here really had him beginning to wonder if he would ever get out, but here they were, the jailor and that Bailey fellow saying the sheriff was back in town and ready to see him.
Mitch squinted in the bright morning sunlight as they left the building, Bailey in front and another deputy with a rifle waiting to accompany them. The men led him to the courthouse building and up the steps to the entrance. The sheriff’s office was just inside the large atrium, well lit by daylight streaming into tall windows that reached nearly to the high ceilings. Bailey rapped on the door with his knuckles and in reply a man’s voice on the other side bade them to enter.
When Bailey opened the door, the deputy behind him prodded Mitch ahead with the muzzle of his rifle. There was a big mahogany desk that took up nearly a quarter of the room, and behind it sat a tall, dark-bearded man dressed in a Western-style shirt and a leather vest over it with the sheriff’s star pinned to the lapel. The man regarded Mitch with an even stare that gave little clue as to his first impression or disposition.
“This is him,” Bailey said.
Mitch said nothing, only nodding to the sheriff in greeting. It seemed like a good idea to let him speak first, as he wasn’t at all sure how this was going to go.
“He showed up here a couple of days ago riding a good horse and carrying an AK-47 with a custom folding stock and a Ruger .357 Magnum. Said he was interested in trading and that he had more guns and horses where he came from.”
The sheriff didn’t change his expression as he listened. Mitch was sure he’d heard all this before, or else he wouldn’t have sent for him for questioning. When he finally spoke, it was directly to Mitch.
“Bailey tells me you claim to be from Stone County. Is that right?”
“Yes sir. I’ve lived there all my life. Our place is down near Black Creek, below the Highway 29 Bridge.”
“What have you been doing to get by since the power went out? I know most of that country over there. It’s mostly national forest land with woods and little else.”
“Yes sir, it is in the woods. Our place is 600 acres with a lot of timber, but we’ve got a little pastureland mixed in with it too. My dad had some cattle on it, but we’ve been living off of hunting. The creek’s close by and there’s plenty of game all up and down it.”
“I know there’s hunting, but living off the land this long is not something many folks could do. You said ‘we.’ How many is that? Your parents and you? Any brothers or sisters?”
“My sister is there. I don’t know where my mom and dad are. They got on a plane in New Orleans the day the solar flare hit. I don’t know if the plane made it to Houston or crashed before it landed. I haven’t heard from them since. My sister’s best friend and her brother are there too, and a few others we met after it happened. There are 10 of us all together. There were 12, but two were killed when we lost the house and barn.”
“Bailey told me the story you told him, and that you claimed you got ahold of a stash of firearms and horses from the men you and your friends killed when they burnt out your place. He said you claimed you were here looking to trade.”
“That’s right. We need medicine, especially antibiotics and things like that. And we need clothing and footwear. We lost most everything, except our weapons and some of our tools. I went to Brooklyn to see if anybody there had anything, and found out the town had been destroyed. An old friend who’d survived told me about the trading post here. That’s why I came. I wasn’t expecting to be treated like a criminal though.”
“We don’t take any chances around here, son. If you’ve survived this long since the crap hit the fan, then you ought to understand why. We’ve managed to keep hold of law and order here, and we plan to keep it that way. Now, the reason I told Bailey to bring you to see me is because of who you said you are. I might not have believed him until now, but looking at you, I can see that you’re the spitting image of Doug Henley, so I know you really are his son.”
“You know my dad?”
“Know him? Oh yeah, I know him all right! I guess it must have been at least ten years ago, maybe twelve. You would have been just a snot-nosed kid then. I was working with the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics in those days, and we had a major investigation underway down there in the big woods not too far from your place. They were running cocaine airdrops out there in the middle of nowhere, and we’d brought in your dad and another warden from Forrest County to help us with the surveillance and tracking. Now, I’ve done my share of hunting and fishing, but I’d never run across a woodsman the likes of Doug Henley. He knew that country like the back of his hand and it didn’t take him long to find the right spot to set up a raid to take those folks down. The thing is though, somebody in our department ratted us out and it turned out the smugglers got the drop on us, instead. We lost two agents that day, and I would have been the third, if not for your dad.”
Mitch was listening in fascination now. The admiration and respect this Sheriff Macon had for his dad was obvious in the way he told the story, and it was a story Mitch had never heard before, although he knew his dad had helped with drug busts from time to time.
“They were laying down fire with automatic weapons; so much I thought for a minute I was back in Afghanistan in a firefight with a pack of Taliban. I took a round right here,” he pointed to a spot on his lower abdomen, “and when I went down I thought it was all over. We were outnumbered and outgunned, but the next thing I see is your dad kneeling down over me, stuffing something in the hole in my stomach, and then, before I knew what was happening, I was on his shoulders with him running. I remember seeing chunks of bark flying off the trees from the bullets hitting all around us, but somehow he got me out of there alive. Man, I hope he and your mom are okay, wherever they are. If anybody could survive the craziness that’s going on out there now, it’s Doug Henley, that’s for sure.”
Mitch could hardly believe what he was hearing. He’d come to this office expecting the worst, but instead found Sheriff Macon to be a man indebted to his own father for his very life. Once again, his luck had changed, this time for the better.
* * *
Lisa turned her head enough to see the man behind her who’d ordered her and Mr. Holloway to their feet. Like the other two with him, he was pointing a gun at her, and from the size of the muzzle, she knew it was a 12-gauge shotgun. She got up from the ground as the man commanded, glancing at her own rifle propped up against a log away from the fire. It was a good ten feet away, and hopelessly out of reach, as was Mr. Holloway’s SKS. Both became even more so when one of the first two men circled around and picked them up.
“We don’t have nothing you’d want,” Mr. Holloway said, as he faced the man with the shotgun. “There’s been so many robbers and looters through here that there’s nothing left to get.”
“Shut up old man! Three good horses and a pretty young girl are a lot more than nothing, I’d say.”
“Two rifles too, Johnny!” one of the other men said. “And we haven’t checked all those bags they got packed on the horses yet.” He turned to Lisa: “We knew you’d stop soon when we saw you ride by in the middle of the night last night.”
So that was it. Even though she’d thought no one was around, these men had seen her pass by somewhere along the route from Purvis. They’d been following along the road, hoping to catch up, and no doubt saw the campfire in the dark. Not only had she gotten herself into an impossible predicament, she�
�d brought this trouble to Mr. Holloway as well. And what the men discussed next chilled her to the bone.
“Well don’t just stand there yakking at her, Preston. Go down there and get those horses and see for yourself if there’s anything worth having in the bags.”
“What about him?” the third man asked, nodding at Mr. Holloway.
“Take him off somewhere in the woods so they won’t nobody find him if they come here looking.”
“NO!” Lisa pleaded. “Please just leave him alone! He’s not with me and he’s an old man that’s not going to come after you or tell anybody what you look like. Just leave him here! Take the horses and the guns! Take me, but don’t hurt him!”
“Oh we’re taking you all right, darling. But don’t worry about him. He’ll be better off where he’s going.”
Lisa tried to step between the other man and Mr. Holloway, but holding his rifle horizontally at chest level, he gave her a shove that sent her flying backwards onto the ground. The other one was on her before she could get up, and he held her down while the third man grabbed her feet to restrain her from kicking. Mr. Holloway tried to help her, but a vicious punch to the stomach doubled him over, taking out any fight he had in him. The one holding her feet quickly bound her ankles together with some cord or rope he had in his jacket pocket, and then they restrained her wrists behind her back the same way. She saw one of the men roughly pull Mr. Holloway to his feet, forcing him to walk in front of him in the direction of the woods. The other man brought the horses over to the campfire while the one with the shotgun stood watch over her.
“Where’d you get these horses, young lady? They look pretty healthy, considering the times. Where were you going with them and why did you need three of them?”
Lisa said nothing. She stared at the ground, furious with herself for being so stupid. What in the world had she been thinking, stopping here at Mr. Holloway’s camp and staying so long after what happened to Mitch? She should have ridden straight back to the Henley farm and told the others as soon as possible. Now she was probably going to die or worse, and they would never know what happened to him. The only consolation she had was that they genuinely didn’t seem to know where she came from or where she was going. That meant they didn’t likely come from Purvis and didn’t have anything to do with why he was missing. It seemed that they really did just randomly see her pass by and decided to follow.
Several minutes passed as the two with her untied the bundles and saddlebags from the packhorses, whistling as they laid out the contents on the ground.
“My, my! Would you look at that? Where in the hell did you get all that hardware, young lady?”
Lisa ignored them as they appraised the weapons and ammunition that Mitch had selected to take to the trading post in Purvis. They were delighted at their take, but she knew she was part of the prize too. The man questioned her again about the source of the guns, but he was interrupted by the report of a high-powered rifle from the darkness nearby. The shot startled Lisa too, although she’d been expecting it and knew immediately what it was. Tears rolled freely down her cheeks as she sat there trembling, unable to speak or scream.
Eighteen
“WELL MR. HENLEY, I’M sorry about the treatment you got here and the inconvenience it might have caused you. I wouldn’t have had you locked up if I’d been in town when you showed up and I found out who you were, but Mr. Bailey was just doing his job. We’ve seen some rough customers through here; believe me. I don’t know of anywhere else in south Mississippi that’s kept any semblance of law and order, but it takes some tougher methods to enforce it than it did in the old days, let me tell you.”
Mitch told Sheriff Macon he understood. He was still seething with anger at Mr. Bailey, but he and the other deputy had stepped out of the office once the sheriff knew for sure Mitch was who he said he was. Mitch couldn’t just let things go without mentioning what he heard while in jail though, especially the stuff about people being cast out of the town to fend for themselves.
“Oh that Hartfield fellow’s been a malcontent all his life. He never was able to hold down a job and was always complaining about how things were run as long as I’ve known him. To tell you the truth, he was one of those conspiracy theorists nut jobs for years, even before the solar flare happened. He was sure the government was behind it when it did, and that it couldn’t have been just a random act of God or nature. If we were going to run anybody off, he would have been the first one, but we’re mainly just holding him in jail for his own good. He’s lying when he says he’s been in there as long as he told you, and we’ll let him out before long, simply because we don’t have room to hold them all.
Now, what you heard about the hangings is partially true. No innocent man or woman has gone to that gallows though. You know yourself from what you’ve had to deal with what people are capable of when they think they’re out of options or think there are no repercussions to their actions. It’s just that it’s no longer a long-drawn out process in the absence of criminal defense attorneys or even a criminal court system. The only way to keep the peace is to let it be known that the worst offenders will meet with swift and harsh justice. It’s like it was in simpler times, Mitch, like out on the frontier during the settlement of the American West. A town’s got to be able to handle these matters at home, because the state and federal governments pretty much don’t even exist anymore, as far as anyone can tell.”
Mitch had to agree when he heard it put this way, but seeing how things had to be run to keep a town together in such circumstances, he was glad he didn’t live in one. The sooner he could get out of this one, the better he would feel. To that end, he asked the sheriff about the trading post he’d come here to visit in the first place.
“I suspect old Ed Sanderson will have something in the way of antibiotics that’ll help your sick friend. They gathered up everything they could from the drug stores here in town once we realized this was a long-term event.”
“I won’t be able to get my trade goods today, I don’t reckon,” Mitch said. “My little sister was waiting with the horses and guns in the woods outside of town. I gave her strict orders not to come here if I wasn’t back on time. I told her to turn around and ride back home instead, and I imagine that she did.”
“She didn’t show up here, or Bailey would have mentioned it. I don’t have any say over what Ed gets for his goods, but I’ll go with you and let him know you’re to be trusted. I suspect if you give him that rifle and pistol that Bailey said you were carrying as a down payment, he’ll give you what you need. You can come back later with the rest and barter for anything else you and your group needs.”
Mitch didn’t like the idea of riding out of Purvis unarmed, but it sure beat staying there, especially in jail. And if he could take medicine with him that would keep Uncle Benny from getting pneumonia, then this would all be worth it. He hated to let go of the Ruger GP100 that his dad had given him for his fifteenth birthday, but figured maybe he could trade back for it with one of the other guns if he ever came back. The thought of returning wasn’t a pleasant one though. It would be hard to come back to this place after what he’d been through, despite Sheriff Macon’s apologies.
Two hours later, he left Purvis through the same gap in the vehicle barricade through which he’d entered, once again riding Amigo. He felt naked without his sidearm or any other weapon, but in his saddlebags he had two Z-Paks and a half pint of Jack Daniels for Uncle Benny, and another unopened bottle of Ibuprofen in case anyone else had a fever or pain. There was also a large assortment of bandages, tape, anti-biotic ointments and other First Aid and wound-care supplies, and a few pounds of cornmeal and enough jerky for the trip home. He urged Amigo to a fast trot as soon as he was past the barbed wire; anxious to return to the spot where he’d left Lisa to make sure she had left when she should have.
* * *
“They’ve had more than enough time to get there and back. I’m starting to worry, Jason,” April said as they all
sat around the fire pit at the entrance to the lean-to. It was the sixth night since Mitch and Lisa had left, and April had hoped they would be back yesterday, and surely by today at the latest. She kept hearing Mitch’s voice in her head saying not to worry; reminding her that before he’d left he listed a number of reasons they could be delayed. But even though she understood all that, April couldn’t help but consider the possibilities that something bad happened. What if they’d run into some of that same bunch that attacked the farm and burned down the house? What if there had been other bandits on the road to Purvis? And what if the whole town was full of them, and Mr. Holloway had heard wrong about a trading post? April hated thinking of all these things because she didn’t want to dwell on negative outcomes. But she knew she would worry until the minute she saw Mitch and Lisa land on the sandbar.
“They may have had to take a longer route,” Jason said. “Maybe Mitch spotted trouble and thought it best to detour. His estimate of the distance was counting on using the Black Creek Trail and then county roads the rest of the way. If they had to cut through the woods instead, it would change everything. They wouldn’t be able to ride the horses for the most part and they’d have to work around the cutovers.”
“That’s a fact,” Benny said, coughing hard to clear his chest before he could speak. “I don’t think we need to worry about them just yet. Twenty-five or more miles and back again is a long trip these days.”
“I’m worried about you too, Uncle Benny. I hoped they would be back by now with something that would help you get over that mess. You shouldn’t try to talk. I know it hurts you when you have to cough to clear your throat.” April and Jason had already discussed Benny’s condition when they were out of earshot. They were almost certain it had developed into pneumonia, or if it hadn’t yet, that it would.
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