Honor Road

by Jason Ross

  Captain Chambers bellowed from the lead, “Leave them and double up. Now! Let’s go.”

  Boys rushed to collect their bags and jump on the backs of the machines that ran. When they’d consolidated, Sage’s was the only sled left with just one rider. They were now down three machines. Sage searched his mind for answers: what had he missed when he checked the snow machines? Why were they failing?

  The team launched forward and covered another mile before the captain’s snow machine sputtered to a stop. The point man looped back when he noticed he was alone. All the machines circled the captain and his captive.

  “Mine just died too,” one of the boys yelled.

  “Mine too.”

  Sage’s own snow machine sputtered. He listened with dread as it hitched, coughed and went silent. His gas gauge showed full.

  Sage shook his head in disbelief. Something was profoundly wrong, and it couldn’t be happenstance. After three minutes of panicked shouting, all the snow machines had gone quiet. They were just ten miles from Pete Lathrop’s ranch, on an ice-covered county road, deep in enemy territory. They hadn’t seen another barn in miles.

  The captain unstrapped Commissioner Pete and dragged him to his feet. He ripped the duct tape off his mouth with a savage yank.

  “Ow,” Pete said. He sounded remarkably composed for a kidnap victim.

  Captain Chambers drew his sidearm, a nickel-plated 1911 handgun, and put it to the commissioners chest.

  “What the fuck is going on with your snow machines, Pete?” he fumed at his rival.

  “Well,” Commissioner Pete drawled, “I’m guessing you guys are doing some kind of Guns of Navarone thing where you nab old men while they piss off their porch. I still need to pee, if you don’t mind giving me a moment.”

  Captain Chambers poked him hard in the chest with his handgun. “I’m going to blow a hole in you right here, you sonofabitch, if you don’t start talking. Where’s the nearest ranch with snow machines?”

  Pete Lathrop looked around as though seeing the place for the first time. “It’s kinda hard to tell with all this white fluffy stuff in my eyes.”

  “You think you’re so clever,” Chambers seethed. “You think you’ve got this county wired—wrapped around your devious, little finger. I’m going to count to three and I’m going to blow a half-inch hole in your lying heart.”

  Sage’s rifle slithered down and around on its sling, and before he knew it, his 30-30 was in his hands, pointed at Captain Chambers. His hands racked a shell of their own accord.

  “This is over,” Sage boomed. It took a Herculean force-of-will to make his voice work, because his throat had almost entirely closed up in terror. “We walk away now and we leave the commissioner here. I can lead us back through the forest on foot. We still have our snowshoes. We can make it out, but we can’t make it dragging him.”

  The captain laughed, but his handgun remained jammed into Commissioner Pete’s chest. “So does this mean your balls finally dropped, Sage Ross? Good for you. We’ll dump you in the same snow bank as Commissioner Rattlesnake, here. Arrest him too.” The captain pointed a finger at Sage. Half the boys aimed their AR-15s at Sage, then the other half followed suit.

  Sage was close enough that he didn’t need to look through his scope to know his bullet would go through Captain Chamber’s chest. “They shoot me. I shoot you. This is where it ends, either way,” Sage said. He sounded a lot more confident than he felt.

  “Hold on now, boys,” Commissioner Pete patted at the air with his zip-tied hands. “Sage, lower your rifle.” He rubbed the side of his neck, then unwrapped a red scarf that’d been tucked under the collar of his jacket. “Just calm down everyone.” Pete worked the wrap up and around his ears.

  “I’m not going to ask again: where’s the nearest ranch?” Captain Chambers hissed.

  Sage hadn’t lowered his rifle, and the boys hadn’t lowered theirs either. The high school boys darted glances around the circle. Their jaws gaped. They looked at Sage, the captain, the commissioner, then each other. Then, they repeated the process, each on his own circuit. They looked like a gaggle of confused roosters. Sage knew they’d shoot him for no other reason than they didn’t know what else to do.

  “Seriously, Sage. Sling your gun,” Commissioner Pete ordered. “It’s over, Ron. Holster your gun. It’s over boys,” Commissioner Pete called out to the high school boys standing in the circle. “You’re surrounded and everyone but Chambers can go home.”

  “What’re you talking about, surrounded?” Captain Chambers spat, but Sage saw realization dawn in his slack cheeks and wide eyes.

  “You don’t think all those snow machines ran out of gas at the same time by chance, do you, Ron? And why did the gauges show full back at the ranch? Hmmm. Makes you wonder.” Pete Chambers tapped his chin with his bound hands. “Makes you think maybe I knew you’d do something desperate to hang onto your little fiefdom over in Union. Makes you ask yourself if little, ole Wallowa County didn’t already know you were planning this escapade.” Commissioner Pete nodded while the truth settled. “Sheriff Tate,” Pete shouted into the night. “Come on into the light. Show yourself.”

  The snow rustled outside the circle of snowmobile lights. From the gloomy edge, the portly figure of the Wallowa County Sheriff appeared, wearing his uniform, his revolver drawn.

  “Holster your gun, Ron Chambers. You’re under arrest.” Sheriff Tate reasoned with the team, “All you boys, put your guns on the ground. Don’t give our men any reason to shoot you. Half of them are still pretty sore about the lickin’ you gave them last time on the football field.”

  Commissioner Pete smiled and held up his hands. “That’s right. Set the guns down. Half the men of Wallowa have you in their sights. Just set your guns down and go on home, boys. Nobody needs to bleed tonight.”

  “Steady, boys,” Sheriff Tate yelled over his shoulder into the dark-curtained snowfall. “Don’t shoot unless they shoot first.” He crunched over the snow toward Captain Chambers. Chamber’s gun barrel wavered like a divining rod of his confusion and unwillingness to quit. It struck Sage: it’d probably been a long time since anyone had told Chambers “no.”

  “You too, Sage,” Pete said. “Put your gun down.”

  Sage snapped out of his adrenaline-drenched fugue and complied. He untangled his sling from his backpack and set the 30-30 on the snow.

  Sheriff Tate reached up and slipped the web of his thumb between Captain Chamber’s 1911 hammer and firing pin. He lifted the gun gently out of the stunned captain’s hands.

  Chambers stood in the circle of snowmobile lights, mute and lost, while Sheriff Tate cuffed him and recited his Miranda rights.

  Men with hunting rifles appeared from of the edge of the night and closed the circle around the arrest team. Sage raised his hands and the boys followed suit. A bearded, bear of a man collected their guns. Headlights flickered on the county road ahead and trucks appeared out of the drifting static of the snowfall—a dozen or more.

  Wallowa County men helped the high school boys into the back of the trucks and tossed their backpacks in after them.

  “Not him,” Commissioner Pete pointed his bound hands at Sage. “He comes with me. Give him back his rifle.”

  One of the men whipped out a Leatherman tool and cut Commissioner Pete’s bonds with pliers. A man Sage had never met handed him back his 30-30.

  “Come on.” Pete motioned Sage toward one of the trucks. The driver behind the wheel looked like he might be Pete’s son. “Let’s get coffee.”

  Sage watched the dawn as it colored the sky behind Sacajawea Mountain. He sat at Commissioner Pete’s breakfast table while his wife and pretty daughter made breakfast in the kitchen. Pete’s son was away recovering the snow machines.

  The Lathrop breakfast table was what Sage would imagine—big enough just for the four of them and covered in a red-and-white gingham tablecloth. Commissioner Pete’s wife came with a smile stretched from cheek to cheek and set a cup of coffee in
front of each of them.

  “She’s gloating. I hate it when she gloats,” Commissioner Pete chuckled. “Damned woman.”

  Sage had no idea what he was talking about. He felt like he’d been teleported from the set of a James Bond movie straight into the kitchen of Family Ties. He woke up an evil soldier in a military thriller to being served a country breakfast in a Hallmark holiday special.

  “Sir, I’m so ashamed of my actions. I can’t tell you how awful I feel about what I did. I disrespected your hospitality and I violated your trust, and I committed a crime. I deserve whatever punishment you throw at me. I won’t complain.”

  Pete chuckled again. “I’ll grant you, it might be a while before you can show your face in Union County again. They’re going to need some time for new elections, and we’re hoping none of Chamber’s boys make it into office, ever again. But, democracy is democracy. You never know what you’ll get. But some folks over there will blame you for betraying Chambers, sure as the Pope wears a fancy dress.”

  Sage stared into his coffee. He didn’t feel like he deserved to enjoy the sunrise.

  “I’ll just tell you plain,” Pete sighed. “You were working for us, almost right from the start.”

  Sage looked up.

  “Well, actually, you were working for Aimee Butterton and she was working for us. More accurately, you were working for Aimee Butterton and she was working for my missus. My wife, Veronica—the one burning the bacon right now—she was U.S. Army intelligence back in her heyday, and she loves these mind games. She played Union County and Captain Chambers like she was the CIA and he was a North African warlord. I swear to the Maker, she’s as crooked as a three dollar bill. The only reason I’m a county commissioner is because of her finagling.” Pete took a sip of his coffee and collected his thoughts. “So, I’m saying she sorta put you up to all this, with Aimee’s help.”

  “Aimee?” Sage parroted back. He still wasn’t tracking. “Butterton?”

  Pete closed his eyes and sighed. “Yes. Aimee Butterton. Son, I tried to tell you before. Well, it was Joan Schlacter who told you—that day at the Blue Banana in Lostine. Do you remember? She read you in on the natural order of things? Men run the show and the women run the men? she said.”

  Sage didn’t know if he remembered anyone ever saying that, but he could barely remember his shoe size right now. He had a very unsteady grip on reality at the moment. He nodded anyway, and picked up his coffee to have something to do other than sit with his jaw open.

  “The Buttertons are second cousins to my wife’s family. The Butterton girls aren’t actually big fans of Ron Chambers on account of him having relations with their mother under their papa’s nose, may he rest in peace. The girls have been network assets for us from the get-go. Not Mrs. Butterton—the mother—but the girls.”

  Sage’s face must’ve looked a-mess because Commissioner Pete tried to explain again. “We needed that corrupt sonofabitch Chambers removed for his crimes of corruption. He and his band of merry men have been robbing that county blind while some people went hungry. We could’ve helped Union with beef, but there was no way we could do that with the amount of graft Chambers would’ve charged us. You see?”

  Sage nodded. He knew Chambers was crooked. He’d witnessed it, even gotten used to the idea. He still didn’t understand how they’d been led straight into a trap.

  The commissioner continued. “This is about democracy. Chambers is arrested now, and will stand trial in Wallowa for kidnapping. It’s all legal and on the up-and-up. La Grande will have to choose a new police captain and probably reinstate the Union County sheriff that Chambers silenced. After that, we can go forward as one valley, Wallowa and Union. At least, that’s my wife’s plan. So far, she’s called it on the nose, one hundred percent. I ain’t never gonna live it down. She’s going to be fuller of herself than a homecoming queen after this.” As much as he complained, even a fool like Sage could see how proud Pete was of his wife.

  “What about me?” Sage held out his hands. “I’m as guilty as anyone for your kidnapping.”

  “I think you and I both know where your heart landed on this thing. We set you up, Aimee Butterton kept you on-track and you did what was right when push came to shove. At seventeen, I wouldn’t have done half as well. Chambers wore the badge and our daddies taught us to respect the badge. As far as Wallowa County is concerned, you’re welcome to abide here.” Pete held out his hand. “And you’re welcome in my home until this thing blows over.”

  Sage shook the proffered hand. He felt like he might be getting a lot more grace than he deserved.

  “Sir, I won’t let you down again,” he offered.

  Commissioner Pete raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m glad you said that, because there’s a lot of work around here before the real snow hits. All this goofing around has set us back.”

  21

  Mat Best

  Reever Street Pork Drying Facility

  McKenzie, Tennessee

  * * *

  Buddy Lansing needed a drink. His flask was empty and he hadn’t had a nip in over an hour. His whiskey supply was back at home, and he’d been stuck in the pork shed for hours, babysitting 300 propane barbecues as they slowly dried 1,000 pounds of thinly-sliced pork.

  “This is bullshit,” he told his shift partner, Lee Billings.

  When Buddy took a volunteer slot at the hastily-organized pork shed, he imagined it would be like staying up all night drinking beer with his buddies while occasionally tending the barbecue. He’d done it a thousand times. But this was entirely different. This was like a damned job—a shitty job, too.

  They’d lined up hundreds of scavenged, home barbecues in the old lumber curing shed and piped them to the lumberyard’s 5,000 gallon propane tank. His job was to mind the meat.

  Buddy didn’t have a problem doing menial tasks. He’d worked in the back end of a kitchen since he flunked out of high school, but he always cooked in the haze of a whiskey buzz. Working sober royally sucked.

  “Stop your bellyaching,” Lee Billings jeered. “Shift’s almost over. Finish packing up today’s batch. I’ll go shut the valves, and we’ll be outa here in twenty minutes.”

  Buddy was trying to remember whether he’d hidden a whiskey bottle in the lumberyard or if he’d only thought about doing it. While he considered it, his gloved hands shoveled dried pork into plastic tubs, snapped their lids tight and stacked them on industrial shelving on the wall of the curing shed.

  Billings headed to the exit and called over his shoulder, “Finish cleaning up for me will ya? Wendy’s cooking a real breakfast this morning.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Buddy didn’t have a family waiting for him, just a half-empty bottle.

  “Come on over to our place,” Billings invited. “There’ll be plenty.”

  “Thanks. I’ll think about it.” Buddy could think of little except how soon he could get the next slug of whisky into his belly. As Billings walked out the door, Buddy turned the wrench on the six rows of ball valves to shut off the propane supply. If he’d been paying attention, he’d have heard Billings say that he’d already done it.

  The hoses from the rows of barbecues snaked across the floor to the propane tank outside. The shed had once been used for a lumber oven, but now it powered every barbecue in town. To make it easier to add or subtract rows, they’d split the main hose at a hose manifold C-clamped to a heavy wooden workbench. They used surplus ball valves from a bin at the back of the hardware store, and the handles had been swiped for some dude’s sprinkler system back before the crash, so they had to use a crescent wrench.

  Buddy turned the last of the six valves with the wrench. He saluted the barbecues, like rows of soldiers, and headed for the door. He trimmed the kerosene lantern by the exit down to a dull glow and left.

  The door clicked shut and physics ran its course. The propane gathered in an invisible layer on the floor until it flowed across the entire footprint of the warehouse, then it seeped between the floor slats
into a long-forgotten storage basement, where they’d once kept coal for firing the lumber ovens. For two hours, propane shushed from 300 barbecues, cascaded through a thousand gaps in the rough-hewn floor and mingled with the hundred-year-old coal dust.

  When the basement filled to the brim, the lapping pond of colorless gas filled the warehouse: six inches, eighteen inches, thirty inches. By the first light of day, the propane reached the guttering flame of the kerosene lantern, and the structure had become an enormous fuel-air bomb.

  In a ka-whomping flash, the explosion killed every living thing in the warehouse, even the cockroaches feasting on pork drippings. The fireball vaporized the windows and ignited mountains of left-over sawdust and a hundred trillion particles of coal dust.

  A dust explosion can blow the top off of a grain silo. A propane fuel-air bomb mixed with coal dust and sawdust can send a man to the moon. The roof of the pork shed didn’t stand a chance. The primary fireball and secondary dust explosion hurled the roof 300 yards in six pieces. The flaming warehouse walls collapsed on 2,000 pounds of dried pork.

  Alan Stokes lay awake on his rotting cot as the the sky above became too light for sleep. His morning wood was painful, but he was too tired to jack off, or make a move on Janice, his end-of-the-world-hookup sleeping on the other side of his plastic lean-to tarp.

  The word “girlfriend” didn’t make sense anymore because nobody even pretended there was a future, but the word “hookup” fit. She hated it when he called her that, but the options for a grimy brunette with teeth coming loose from starvation were markedly limited, so she tolerated his vulgarity.

  Life in the mud camps didn’t leave much for courtship. Before they grew too weak to care about sex, he and Janice couldn’t get enough of each other’s unwashed, malodorous bodies. One type of hunger took the edge off another, it seemed.