The Devil's Highway

by Timothy C. Phillips

  Mayor Ferguson stepped up to Brad. “Everyone in town knows what you did out there in the desert. You saved these women, and you’ve prevented Colonel Cushman and those animals that follow him from repeating this crime in the future. The people of Delgado are very grateful to you, Mr. Caldwell.”

  “I’m sorry for all of this,” Brad said to the mayor. “The Redemption Army will come to Delgado in force now. They want me and these women back. I’m sure Cushman will do anything to make sure the truth doesn’t get out. Believe me, he is totally ruthless, and he has men who will obey any order he gives them, without question.”

  “We’ll have to get ready for them. They’ll be coming back pretty quick with everything they’ve got,” Garrett said, and for the first time since I’d known him, I detected a note of worry in his voice. “That means that we’ll have to move most of the people out of town, so we’re asking you folks to move out of the city limits until this thing is over, or help arrives.”

  “Why can’t we all just go to Van Horn?” Mayor Ferguson asked.

  “Cushman will have the highway blocked, and anybody who goes up that road risks being taken prisoner or shot,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “What we do not have is a lot of time to talk about it.”

  “But we can’t all just go sit in the desert. We would have to have some place to shelter, and there’s no place we can go!” a heavyset woman to the mayor’s right stated indignantly.

  Ira Greywolf spoke up. “I know a place.”

  The Mayor looked at him. “What do you know, Ira?”

  “There’s an old mining station, but it’s way off the highway. No one goes out there. I got it fixed up, some. It’s where I go when I want to be alone. There’s shelter, and a spring out there. I can take you all there. Bring whatever you can carry, and make it quick.”

  “Get them moving, Ira,” Garrett said. “Time’s wasting.”

  A few minutes later, the main street of Delgado was the scene of a mass exodus.

  Several school busses were lined up along the main drag. People of every age who didn’t want to be around when the shooting started queued up and boarded. It was obvious that for being a man regarded as the town drunk, Ira’s word carried a lot of weight. In thirty minutes, most of the population of the tiny town of Delgado was loaded and packed off towards Ira’s old mining camp.

  That left Garrett, Hughes, Andrea, Brad, and me. It was a dedicated crew, people who knew what they were doing and believed in the fight they were about to engage in. For all that, though, we were precious few.

  After a minute, Andrea looked up at Garrett. “So, do you have a plan for this, too? Your first one worked well enough.”

  Garrett just shook his head. “Sorry to say, I don’t. I’m open to suggestions.”

  “Cushman will come with plenty of weapons. What have you got here in town, Sheriff?”

  “This way,” Garrett said quietly. He led us into the SO and opened a door. Then he ushered us into a room adjacent to the lobby. A large metal gun safe took up most of one wall. He produced a ring of keys and unlocked the safe, and nodded at the contents.

  “Here’s what we have,” he announced. “Two law enforcement issue M-16A2s, two twelve gauge pump shotguns, and a few extra sidearms. We also have the three submachine guns we collected from Cushman’s people, but we don’t have ammunition for them. We should be able to arm everybody, some way. Also, we have enough radios for everybody. We can stay in contact through this thing.” He looked at me. “Do you have any ideas, Roland?”

  “We know Cushman and his people have done lots of ‘Operations.’ We know that they’ve planned, and probably even simulated an attack on Delgado, so they have that advantage.” I pointed out. “They also have better weapons and more resources. We know they’ve had this planned for a very long time. So we’ve got to make this town ready for them. We don’t have much time, and everybody’s going to have to pitch in.”

  Andrea winked at me and smiled. “Okay, Mr. Private Eye. Tell us what to do.”

  Chapter 21

  We crouched in a huddle like football players, and I quickly sketched out the best defense that I could put together in what little time I figured we had. With every second, I knew the Redemption Army, and potential death, was rushing ever closer, so I talked fast.

  I referred to a map of Delgado I’d taken from the wall in the Sheriff’s Office as I spoke.

  “Andrea will stay here in this warehouse with Brad. Sheriff Garrett will defend the main street, utilizing his previous route on the rooftops. Hughes, you’ll be here at the far end of town, I’ll be at the other end. We’ll keep in touch by radio, and use that as little as possible.”

  “We should have code names for ourselves and the spots we’re in, so if Cushman’s people are listening in, they can’t tell our positions,” Ira suggested.

  “Good idea,” Garrett agreed. “Any ideas?”

  “Brad and I will be Atlanta,” Andrea volunteered. “Roland, your moniker will be Birmingham.”

  “What about me and Hughes?” Garrett asked her. “We can’t both be Texas.”

  “True. You’ll be Big Eagle and Hughes will be Little Eagle. As far as the bad guys go, Cushman’s people are Rats.”

  “That’s for sure,” Garrett chuckled. “And what about locations? They’ll need code names, too, if we want to avoid telling Cushman’s people where we are over the radio. You can bet they’ll be listening in.”

  “Okay, say the town has three zones. The north end of town is Yellow, the middle is Red, and the South end, where we know they’ll be coming from, is Blue. Brad and I will be hiding out in The Green Zone.”

  “Works for me,” Andrea said, shouldering an M-16.

  “Now, listen, everybody,” I said, “our hope here is to hold off these guys until help arrives. The folks in Van Horn have got to know by now that something’s wrong out here. If we can stay down long enough, we stay alive. But the Redemption Army will have blood in their eyes, make no mistake. So nobody take any chances they don’t have to. We want to all live to see Cushman behind bars.”

  “All right then,” Garrett said. “Let’s get going.”

  Garrett took up position on top of a building with an old-fashioned facade on the right side of Main Street. He knew his way around on the rooftops, and that had saved us once before. His plan of fire and move, fire and move, had set Palin’s buddies hightailing it.

  I wondered how many would be coming back. We didn’t have long to wait. After about fifteen minutes, the radio crackled.

  “Big Eagle here. Rats on the move,” Garrett called out on the hand-held.

  “How many, Big Eagle?” I responded.

  “Looks like the whole nest, Birmingham.”

  I had taken up my initial station in the lobby of a used car sales showroom. I was crouched behind a fine specimen of a 1957 Chevy Bel Air. I stood up and looked out through the wide glass over the desert. A mighty cloud of dust was rising, out on the highway. Cushman was coming for his revenge. Our final battle had begun.

  Not wanting to be showered with glass again, I ducked out the back and went up the fire escape to the roof of the building. I had my Colt .45 in a shoulder rig, and one of the Sheriff’s M-16s with four clips. I went to the forward edge and crouched down. There were four vehicles coming, all large vans or SUVs. They fanned off the highway short of town and came to a halt. Sheriff Garrett and Old Betsy had taught them a lesson on their previous visit, it seemed.

  Garrett was watching the proceedings through binoculars. The radio crackled again.

  “This is Big Eagle. Be advised that the rats are fanning out.”

  Garrett was right. Taking advantage of the flat terrain, three of the Redemption Army vehicles were splitting off. Two were circling Delgado to the west, and one to the east. They were planning on coming in from four directions.

  “Big Eagle to Little Eagle. You have incoming.”

  “Roger that,” Deputy Hughes replied, sounding almost as eer
ily calm as his boss.

  I looked back toward the fourth vehicle; it was still just sitting there, just out of rifle shot. Whoever was out there was waiting for the shooting to start before making their move. Or maybe they were just there to take our attention away from the other vehicles that were bearing down upon us.

  I went to the back of the building, trying to spot the van that had circled around to the east—my side of town. I saw nothing. There were too many buildings in the way. They wouldn’t come into town in the van, of course. They’d park close to a building, to avoid being spotted, and then they’d all get out and come in on foot, fanning out to hunt us down one by one. They’d comb the whole town and meet up at a pre-designated place, a rally point, we called it in the army. Then, if we weren’t all already dead, they’d do another sweep in force to find the survivors.

  I stayed low and scanned the streets and alleys. Nothing. Then, down on the far end of town, I heard the stutter of a submachine gun. Hughes had made contact. There was another burst and then silence.

  “Big Eagle, we have a rat down. Little Eagle out and moving to the Red Zone.” I spoke into the radio. I was on the move then, too. I couldn’t see anything from where I was, so I went back down the fire escape and up the alley towards Main Street.

  “Little Eagle, Birmingham. Will meet you in the Red Zone.”

  “Roger,” I said, and looked up to see one of Cushman’s men right in front of me.

  I almost ran into him. He was standing there with a pump shotgun and wearing a police style bullet-resistant vest over camouflage BDUs. Instinctively, I rammed the butt of the M-16 into his throat, and put a knee into his groan. He was wearing a cup, but it still took the wind out of him. He tried to recover but I brought the rifle butt back down across the back of his head once, twice, three times, shouldered the M-16 and relieved him of his shotgun, and ran on to meet Hughes.

  I heard Garrett firing before I reached the town center. Hughes beckoned to me from an alley on the other side of town. I ran across the street, expecting to be fired on before I made it. I made it to the other side, and heard Old Betsy speak again. Garrett had moved, and was firing from his new position. I wondered if he was shooting at the SUV that hadn’t moved earlier.

  I heard gunfire answer his shots. They had to be shooting at Garrett, though some of the shots sounded as though they were coming from too far away. Who were they shooting at? I wondered. Hughes was here with me.

  “Birmingham to Atlanta. Are you still in the Green Zone?”

  “Ten-Four.”

  Had help arrived? I shot a questioning glance at Hughes, who only shrugged and shook his head.

  “Longville, I found us a good defensive position. Follow me.” Hughes turned and ran in a crouch down the alley. Several blocks away, there were shots, Garrett’s, and many others. Hughes ran to the edge of town, the last building right on the edge of the wasteland surrounding the town. United Carriers, the sign on the building proclaimed. Behind the building, there were many large shipping containers, the kind that get loaded onto the flat bed diesel trailers and transported to shipyards, and loaded onto the back of big container ships.

  “These will make a nice little fort. Let’s draw them in here and pick them off, one by one.”

  “Look,” I said in a whisper. There were three men in camouflage, headed our way. They were about three blocks up, towards Garrett’s position. I realized I hadn’t heard any shots in the last minute or so. Hughes and I drew back into the shadows and waited for the men to get closer. The containers we were sheltering behind looked pretty sturdy. I wondered if the metal was thick enough to stop bullets. I’d soon find out.

  The three men were stalking down the rear of the buildings, checking each alley, police style, as they came to it. They were doing a fairly competent job, and when one of them gestured towards our maze of shipping containers, they halted and talked. At least one of them was schooled enough to realize its potential as an ambush site.

  The tallest of the three said something that I couldn’t hear and pulled something from his belt. It was a grenade. He took a couple of steps towards us, and lobbed it into the darkness, directly where I was hiding. I came out of the darkness at a dead run, firing as I came. The grenade passed over my head in slow motion. Time slowed down and everything happened with the grace of the most sublime ballet: the widening of the men’s eyes as they realized they had flushed me out; their attempts to get their gun muzzles pointed towards me; my fully automatic burst, as I attempted to spray them all.

  Behind me, the grenade went off, and I felt tiny bits of gravel and sand bite into the back of my neck and arms.

  The man who had thrown the grenade toppled, and the man next to him grabbed his abdomen and slouched to the ground, but the third man hit the ground the second I appeared, and started firing. One, two, three, the large caliber pistol in his hand spoke. Somehow I was still alive. I sighted on him, and fired, but there was a bone-chilling click and I realized that my magazine was empty. I was a dead man, but then I heard Old Betsy fire and the man didn’t move any more.

  I looked up to see Garrett coming towards me, at a jog. “Hughes!” he yelled.

  I turned. The man on the ground hadn’t missed me three times; he had been shooting at Hughes, who the grenade had also flushed from his hiding place.

  We couldn’t tell if the grenade or the bullets had killed him, not that it mattered. All three of the shots had caught him center mass, but some of the grenade fragments had pierced his back. I looked at the shipping container that stood beside his body. The grenade had apparently struck the back and bounced inside, so that there was a metal wall between me and the explosion. The wall bore dozens of small outward dents from the grenade fragments. Hughes had tried to run out, and the man with the pistol had sighted on him, even as the grenade had wounded him.

  I knelt next to Garrett.

  “He was just a kid,” Garrett said in a low voice.

  He took Hughes’ body by the shoulders and dragged him inside the container. He came back out and looked at me with a stern expression. “Come on.”

  “Big Eagle and Birmingham, headed to the Green Zone,” he called out on the radio.

  “Where’s Little Eagle?” Andrea asked. Garrett looked at me, but he didn’t answer Andrea. Some news has to be delivered in person.

  “I knocked down four men, besides those three back there.”

  “Hughes and I both downed another one each.”

  “That’s nine. If you figure four per vehicle, we’re talking at least sixteen, maybe more. So we have to consolidate. They might turn tail yet.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Someone else is in this fight, on our side. I heard shooting out there that wasn’t any of us.”

  “Yes, I heard that, too. Any idea how many?”

  “One or two at the most. But that might mean more are on the way. Maybe if we defend in place, maybe our helpers will come to us.”

  “One thing’s for sure. Cushman’s people will. They’ve lost a lot of people. This is for keeps now.”

  Garrett looked back towards where Hughes’ body lay, and said in a low voice, “They better know it is.”

  Chapter 22

  Garrett took Andrea aside when we got back to the warehouse where she and Brad were hiding out.

  “Where’s Hughes?” Brad asked me with big eyes. “We heard lots of shooting.”

  “He didn’t make it,” I told him, and put my hand on his shoulder. He immediately looked crushed, and his eyes went to the floor. I knew he was blaming himself, but I couldn’t find any words for him.

  I went over to where Garrett stood, Andrea crying on his shoulder. It was tough, but it was about to get a whole lot tougher. He stepped back from her. I gave her a hug.

  “He was a good man,” I said. She nodded, and then pulled herself together.

  “I’m okay.” She was hurt deeply, but she had control of her pain. She was one tough woman.

  “We have to
get ready for them,” I said gently.

  “Right.” Garrett picked up his weapon and checked Old Betsy. Satisfied with what he saw, he nodded at me, his face stern. “There’s a service ladder in the back of this place. I’m going up on the roof again. They try to come in, give ‘em what you got. There are only two doors to this place, and it’s full of racks and crates, plenty of places to hide. Whoever our helpers are out there should hear the fight and come to us.”

  “Good luck, Sheriff.”

  “You too, Longville. We’re all going to need plenty of it.” With that, he headed for the back.

  I took stock of what we had. I gave Andrea one M-16, and I took the other. Not a lot of ammunition. I gave Brad the shotgun I’d taken off the Redemption Army man. It was an old pump. It was loaded, but there were no further reloads for it.

  “Find a good hiding place, and don’t shoot unless they find you. Make your shots count,” I told Brad. “No matter what happens, stay hidden. Understand?” He nodded vigorously.

  “Whatever else happens, Cushman goes down,” Andrea said to me, her eyes two pools of bottomless black.

  “You got it.”

  The place was full of tall inventory racks, filled with large crates on pallets. There were plenty of dark places to hide in its dark interior. After a few minutes, we heard the bark of Sheriff Garrett’s rifle. Cushman’s men had begun their final sweep.

  I heard it, then—the unmistakable sound of a helicopter.

  I grabbed Andrea’s arm. “Go hide. I’m going up there to help Garrett.”

  “I’m coming with you, Roland.”

  “No. Stay here and protect Brad. You’ll be the last line of defense if they get past us.”

  I ran to the back, and found the service ladder that went straight up to the roof. There was a door up there showing a square of the blue sky. Garrett had left it open for purposes of retreat. I slung the M-16 across my back and went up as quick as I could. The sound of the helicopter was getting very close.

  I stuck my head out and saw Garrett, sheltering behind a huge air-conditioning unit that dominated the roof. I leapt out and ran towards the Garrett, firing at the helicopter. Firing a weapon while running almost assures you a miss, but my fire spooked the pilot and he veered off, though not for long.