“It wasn’t any imposition,” Kyle assured them.
“I was away from my family last night. You know how that is. Even with friends around it’s hard not to be worried,” Jim said.
"I assume you fellas are armed?" Kyle asked.
Hugh grinned. Jim nodded.
"Give me a couple days to think on it and see what I come up with. When I get something figured out I’ll come by your place."
"And you all be careful," Kim added. "If you run into anything crazy just turn around and come back here. You can try again in the daylight."
"I think the scariest thing out there in the dark is the fellow right here beside me," Jim said with a grin, nodding in Hugh’s direction. "It’s everybody else that needs to be worried."
Kim nodded grimly. "I hope you're right about that."
15
Despite his eagerness to get home, Jim knew it was dangerous to cut through town. That was unfortunate, because from Kyle's house that was the most expeditious route home. Going the safe way nearly doubled the length of the trip, but in the valley they’d come up with their own version of that old saying haste makes waste. Their version said haste makes bloody paste, meaning if you get in a hurry, you die.
Jim and Hugh went in the opposite direction of the road into town, riding for nearly two hours before they reached the old farm road they had initially taken from town. This still required that they cross Main Street when they reached town but it lessened their exposure compared to an alternative route. While the night was cold and damp, the condition of the snow let them know the temperature was hovering right around freezing and not below. The snow stayed damp and slushy beneath the horses’ hooves, not freezing into a dangerous layer of ice that would have made progress even more treacherous.
It was after midnight when they finally crossed Main Street. Jim paused his horse over the double yellow line he knew lay beneath the snow in the center of Main Street. Hugh paused beside him. Jim didn’t look over at his friend but in the darkness he could sense his questioning. In his head, Jim had instantly been transported to a moment maybe thirty years prior when he and a childhood friend sat on a snow-covered Main Street in the middle of the night and reveled at the silence and solitude. Jim didn’t know if everyone had those experiences but sometimes the world blindsided him like that, hitting him with memories and recollections that stopped him in his tracks. It was amazing how much life he’d experienced since that moment all those years ago. Amazing how much the world had changed. He reminded himself that the big difference was they had power then. They had warm homes to return to. Most significantly perhaps, the town in his childhood was not full of the dead, the dying, and those still to die.
Jim nudged his horse on, forcing himself from that time and place. When they were clear of town, he would tell Hugh the story. Hugh might understand, or he might ask Jim what he’d been smoking.
They crossed at a point where the town was less densely populated. They saw no lights and heard no sounds. The fact that not even a dog was barking told its own story. It was the story of the starving people that would eat a dog when they could find nothing else. It was the story of a town that would never be the same even if the lights came back on. How many generations would have to pass before people forgot about the time in which they were eaters of dogs and neighbor killed neighbor?
When they were beyond town, Hugh cleared his throat. "Do you need to radio your family?"
Jim shook his head. "I don’t think I’m going to. I'm sure they're all asleep now. Since we have a general overwatch on the entire valley now, we haven’t been keeping our watch at the house. I’ll probably radio the watch when we get back there so they don’t shoot us, then I’ll just sleep in the barn or the shop. It’s too dangerous now to go sneaking into any house, even your own, in the middle of the night.”
They rode in silence for a while, following a paved road, then took a shortcut across a vacant farm that took them behind the superstore. There was the smell of distant fires. The road eventually brought them to their river crossing. Jim paused before heading down the steep bank.
“I’d like to use my light but I don’t want to blow my night vision.”
“Your headlamp do red?” Hugh asked.
“It does but I’m not sure it’s going to help here.”
“Then trust the horse.”
Jim nudged his horse on, halfway expecting it to wipe out at some point and dump him in the frigid water. It didn’t. It traversed the river without pause or stumble, climbing the steep bank on the other side.
Jim sat there waiting on Hugh, allowing his horse to rest.
“You need a place to crash for the night?” Jim asked. “You’re welcome to a spot in the woodshop. It’s warm when the stove is going.”
“I might take you up on that,” Hugh said, nudging his horse into motion. As quickly as he started, he reined it to a stop. "You hear that?"
Jim cocked an ear to the night. "I don’t hear a damn thing."
"Listen!" Hugh hissed.
Jim did as instructed and then he heard it—the low rumble of a distant engine, barely audible.
"Generator?" Jim asked.
“No. Chopper."
"Helicopter?"
"Definitely. I’d guess a Blackhawk."
"You think it's going to the power plant?" Jim asked. “I’ve never noticed a flyover here.”
"Apparently there’s been choppers going to the power plant for some time and we've never been beneath her flightpath before. It makes me think this might be something else.”
The sound grew louder, filling the valley, bouncing off the ripples and convolutions that made up the ancient landscape. That echo made it nearly impossible to tell what was going on from the sound alone. Then the chopper sounded as if it was slowing.
Jim checked his watch; it was after 1 AM. He could imagine people throughout the valley waking and wondering what the hell was going on. “We need a better vantage point.”
“Lead the way,” Hugh said. “This is your territory.”
Jim turned his horse up a steep tree-less hill. The horse struggled in the deep snow with the weight of the rider and his gear. He was headed for the outpost that Pete maintained on the highest point of their property. It was the closest point with a good general view of the valley.
“What I wouldn't give for my old PVS-7," Hugh called out as they reached the vacant outpost.
Jim sprang from the saddle and dug urgently through the pockets of the backpack strapped to his horse. "It's not very good but I've got some Gen 1 consumer-grade bullshit in here. Maybe with the light off the snow it will tell us something."
Jim found what he was looking for and yanked it from the pack, hitting the power button and shoving the lens caps in his pocket. While he waited for it to power up, he scanned the valley with his naked eye. He had no idea where the chopper might be, though the buffeting of the rotor blades reverberated through his entire body. The acoustics of the valley wreaked havoc with trying to locate the origin of sound whether it was a gunshot, a scream, or apparently a chopper.
Jim scanned the valley with his cheap NVDs. “I got something."
"What is it?"
Jim handed the device over to Hugh. "Check the valley floor at my 1 o'clock."
Hugh oriented himself and scanned in the dim glow the device. “I hope you didn’t pay good money for this piece of shit.”
“It’s better than nothing,” Jim said. “You can see can’t you?”
“Barely.”
“What do you think is happening?”
“That chopper is landing. They’ve got IR lights designating the edges of the LZ and some kind of IR laser guidance system that probably steered the chopper in. I’ve seen those used before when the ability to provide precise coordinates was in question. Means you’ve probably got a pilot flying by night vision.”
“So who the fuck are they and why are they landing in my valley?” Jim asked.
Hugh passed the night
vision back to Jim, who raised the device to his eyes just in time to see the chopper touch down. The door immediately slid open and a red light emanated from inside. Red headlamp lamps popped on outside of the LZ, telling Jim the ground crew, whoever they were, was not running with night vision. Jim hooked his NVD on the saddle horn and dug out his regular binoculars from the pack. The shitty NVD only had 2x magnification and was practically useless. With the increased optical quality of the binoculars, Jim was able to see what was going on even with just the red light.
"Looks like a supply drop," Jim said. “They’re offloading gear. All of it in duffels and packs.”
“Maybe it's those folks that were camping beneath the power lines on the ridge.”
"If that’s the case, they're not a couple of ridges away now. They’re right here in our backyard."
“How many do you see there on the ground?"
"Four,” Jim answered. “How many did you see on the mountain?”
"They were too far away for me to get a good count," Hugh said. "But I'd bet there were three times that based on the number of tents and level of activity."
"If it was me down there, I'd have three teams working,” Jim said. “I’d have one guarding the base, one doing the offload, and one watching over the whole operation.”
"I think that’s a safe assumption. Are you up to intercepting these guys and asking them a few questions?"
“Let’s radio our overwatch first,” Jim said. “I don’t want to be wandering around out there with no one knowing we’re here. If Mack Bird is on watch with his thermal scope, he wouldn’t know who he’d shot until he was checking the body.”
Hugh pulled his radio from a pouch on his plate carrier. “Valley Watch, this is Wayward Son returning to base. We’re mobile in your area of operations and didn’t want to be mistaken for hostiles.”
“Roger that, Wayward Son. What’s your location?” It was Gary. He must be on watch tonight. That probably meant that Will was there with him. They usually pulled watch together.
“Outpost Pete,” Jim said.
Hugh repeated it into the radio.
“Roger that, Wayward. We have you at Outpost Pete.”
“Do you have eyes on the chopper, Valley Watch?” Hugh asked.
Gary laughed. “Dozens of them, Wayward. I think everyone in the valley is up and mobile.”
“Good to know,” Hugh replied. “If things go south, we’ll all need to be careful with our fire.”
Jim held out his hand for Hugh’s radio and he passed it over. “This is Wayward Son. Can I get a head count of how many knuckleheads we have wandering around out there tonight? I don’t want any confusion.”
When Jim released his mic people began sounding off. Lloyd, Randi, Mack Bird, Weatherman, Pete, and Charlie were all awake and geared up.
Jim shook his head. “If that chopper has thermal, we’re screwed. I’m assuming they have comms, they’ll radio the ground crew that they’re surrounded.”
“Then we don’t surround them,” Hugh said. “That chopper will be anxious to tuck tail and boogie home. He ain’t sticking around for high fives. We wait until he’s clear before we do anything.”
When the last voice sounded off, Jim keyed his mic again. “I need you all to listen closely. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
16
When the last gear was tossed out, the chopper door slid closed. The Blackhawk rose and banked away. The men on the ground crouched, shielding their eyes from the stinging snow stirred by the rotors. When the flurry subsided, each man shouldered one of the heavy green duffels while carrying another by the handle. They waded toward the gate they’d used to access the field. The going was slow due to the snow and their general lack of familiarity with the terrain. They all turned their red headlamps off. It would be a long slog back to camp.
From a distant barn, Jim watched through his night vision. Gary monitored the same scene through the night vision scope on his rifle, lying prone in the hayloft of the barn.
“Their second team is pulling out of position and converging near the gate,” Jim said.
When the men with the duffels reached that gate, each man handed over a duffel to the men who had been covering their backs. Those men used the backpack straps to carry the duffels while keeping their weapons at the ready. Everyone left the field and started down the valley road. Cattle fencing lined each side of the road, forming a gauntlet. It was exactly what Jim and his team had counted on. There was no escape to either side.
Jim raised the hand holding his radio and keyed the mic. “The cattle are in the chute. On my signal, hit them with lights and strobes. Stay low and don’t fire unless you have to. Dead men tell no tales. We want these people alive.”
He watched their progress down the road. He didn’t want to spring the trap too early or the men would have a better chance of dropping their gear and retreating. Spring it too late and his men, stationed on both sides of the road, would be firing toward each other if things went to shit. Jim placed the night vision in a pouch on his plate carrier and raised the binoculars to his eyes.
“Get ready,” he instructed. “Hit ‘em on my signal. Count it down. Three. Two. One!”
Through the binoculars, he saw the road light up like a nightclub. Weatherman, Bird, Pete, Charlie, Randi, and Hugh hit the approaching men with tactical lights, strobes, and lasers. Some immediately threw up hands to protect their eyes from the blinding lights. Other squinted, shielding their eyes, but maintaining a grip on their weapons.
“Drop your weapons and you will not be harmed!” Hugh bellowed at the stunned men. “You are surrounded. Drop’em now!”
Gary remained in the hayloft, following the action through his night vision scope. Jim ran from the barn with Will trailing him. Jim had trained to run and gun but never in the snow, never with a loaded plate carrier. Lesson learned—train how you fight.
He slipped once and went down but was back on his feet in a second. He and Will put the cork in the bottle, closing off any retreat.
“Drop your weapons now!” Hugh repeated. “Drop them!”
Jim relaxed a fraction as rifles began hitting the ground.
“Now drop those duffels,” Hugh ordered.
“You can have the gear but we need our rifles,” said one of the men.
“Time to use your ears and not your mouth,” Hugh said. “Just shut the fuck up and do what you’re told. Drop to your knees and raise your hands over your head.”
The men reluctantly complied. Some prayed. Some begged. These men were clearly not a military unit. They were not combat-hardened troops.
Bird and Weatherman looped around behind the men and approached cautiously, rifles raised, moving from one man to the next. With Weatherman providing cover, Bird dropped a feed sack over each man’s head and zip-tied their hands. They performed a hasty search, removing any handguns and knives they found, tossing them into a pile. With the bulky clothes and the assortment of pockets, it was understood that they were probably missing things but the hope was that this would be over shortly. If the men had a solid story, Jim would cut them loose. If they had bad intentions, Jim would send Pete and Charlie back home, then he’d deal with these men.
It had become that kind of world. There were no second chances. There was no hoping people might have a change of heart and see the error of their ways. Sometimes it was just a matter of drawing a line through the world. Which side you found yourself on at any given moment could determine your fate. Sometimes it was bad choices. Other times it was just shitty luck.
Jim’s group frog-marched their prisoners back to the barn where Gary was hiding. They lined the men up and forced them to their knees on the packed dirt. The building smelled of moldy hay and old manure. Pete and Charlie maintained watch outside. The remainder of Jim’s team circled the bound men.
“Which of you is in charge?” Jim asked. He spoke loudly enough to be sure the men heard but he did not yell. If they were scared it would be because of what
Jim said, not how he said it.
No reply.
“What’s in those duffels?” Jim asked.
Again, no answer. They must have planned for this.
“Dump that shit out,” Jim said.
Hugh unsnapped the strap from the ring at the end of the bag, unfolded the grommets, and looked inside. He upended the duffel and the contents dumped onto the barn floor. Jim sorted through it with the toe of his boot. It was mostly dehydrated meals, some clothing, batteries, and socks. Glaringly absent was any tactical gear, ammunition, or weapons.
“You guys just out for a little winter camping?” Jim asked.
No response.
“Okay, who’s in charge?” he repeated.
No answer.
“This is getting old. Please don’t make me assume you’re here with bad intentions. Randi, what happened last time I took men with questionable intentions into a barn and shut the door?”
Randi’s face hardened at the memory. “You killed them,” she said flatly. She was pissed he brought that up as she felt a degree of responsibility for those deaths.
Jim sighed. “I’m not a patient man. In fact, I’m an asshole. This will be the last time I ask and that’s not an idle threat. If I don’t get an answer, this will move beyond that point where we can back up and fix things. If I kill one of you, I have to kill all of you. Then we have to track down your friends back at camp and kill them. Do you understand?”
Jim let that hang out there. Let it settle in. The barn was silent. The valley was silent. There was no wind that night, no dogs barking. Only the sound of breathing. Then Jim clicked the selector switch on his weapon. The sound was massive in the small space, like the cracking of a board or the shattering of glass. It was the sound of a hard decision being made.
“I’m in charge,” one of the masked men blurted out.
Jim nodded at Hugh and he stripped the bag from the man’s head in a single pull. The man blinked at the yellow glare of the lantern light. He looked around the room, taking in the hard faces made harder by the cold night, the late hour, and the grim resolve that they would see men die before the night was done. It was a scene no man kneeling and bound would relish. It was the kind of scene that was often the last men saw before they died. Cold men. Dispassionate expressions. Hard eyes. Men who knew violence. Men who could stomach death and live with the decisions they made.
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