Perilous

by E. H. Reinhard

  He shrugged. “Not really too much of a rush. She’s pretty slow around here in the winter months. I wouldn’t mind getting back to the station and getting a couple of cups of coffee in me, though.”

  “Okay. Like I said, we’ll be quick.”

  He slid himself out from the front of the car.

  “Thanks for keeping an eye out here,” I said.

  “No problem.”

  My father, Jeff, and I headed for the back door of the cabin.

  “Is everyone ready to go, Jeff?” I asked.

  “We should be just about set, yeah.”

  I twisted the doorknob and walked in.

  “I’ll go make sure Tommy is ready,” Jeff said. He went toward the back bedroom. Melissa left Sandy and Callie to help Jeff.

  My father and I walked over. Callie wrapped her arms around my neck. “Hey, babe. Everything okay?” she asked.

  I squeezed her tightly and kissed the top of her head. “Yeah, we’re fine.”

  She ran her fingers across the sides of my head as she dropped her arms. “You need a haircut.”

  “You don’t like the salt-and-pepper stubble?” I asked.

  She smiled.

  “Callie, this is my dad, John. It looks like you’ve already met my stepmom, Sandy.”

  Callie nodded and looked at my dad. “I see where you get your good looks.”

  For a moment, I thought my dad was blushing.

  He put his hand on her shoulder and smiled. “So you’re who Carl is always talking about, huh?”

  She looked at me. “You talk about me?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe a little.”

  “What do you say?”

  I was silent.

  “He never says anything but good things,” my dad said. “So, when should Sandy and I expect our granddaughter?”

  I stared at my dad. “Granddaughter?”

  “What? I’m allowed a preference. I kind of want a granddaughter. You don’t want a daughter?” he asked.

  Callie’s eyes shot back to me.

  “I’m fine with a daughter. But our family name has to carry on, so that would require a son.”

  “You guys can always have one of each,” Sandy said.

  “Let’s just pump the brakes a little. We’ll see how the one goes and take it from there.”

  My dad waved away my comment. “You two will be fine. Hell, your mother and I had no clue what we were doing. You and your sister turned out all right.”

  I nodded.

  Jeff, Tommy, and Melissa came from the back bedroom with their things. Tommy wore a pair of red pajamas. He rubbed at his eyes. “Is it morning?” he asked.

  “Not quite, bud,” I said.

  He continued rubbing.

  “Do you girls and Tommy want to ride with me?” Sandy asked. “My truck is a little nicer than that old rust heap John has.”

  The girls nodded.

  “I’m out front,” Sandy said.

  “What are we going to do about my car?” Melissa asked.

  “We’ll come for it tomorrow, get it towed to a local shop if we have to,” I said.

  “All right.”

  “Jeff, you want to ride with us?” my father asked.

  “That’s fine,” he answered.

  “Let me get the power turned off and get the place locked up. You guys want to wait a couple minutes and follow us?” I asked.

  “We’ll just meet you back at Dad’s if that’s okay,” Melissa said. “I want to get Tommy back in bed.”

  “That’s fine.” I looked at Sandy. “You know how to get back?”

  “Yeah. Just take this out to the main road, make a left, and cut over to highway thirty-two.”

  I nodded. “We’ll see you in a bit, then.” I gave Callie a kiss and saw them out the front door.

  I closed the front door at their backs and locked the deadbolt from the inside, planning to lock up the back as I walked out and then restash the key under the stairs out front.

  I walked back through the cabin. My father and Jeff were at the back door. “Let’s roll,” I said.

  We walked out, and I locked up. Jeff and my father headed for his truck. The sheriff’s cruiser sat running, facing out beside it. I started for the front as Sandy’s truck pulled to the end of the driveway.

  Chapter 37 - Yury

  He lay in the snow to the south, his position in the woods giving him a perfect view of the entire property, aside from the northern section. People walked from the front of the cabin. In the darkness, Yury couldn’t make out who they were. Two of them entered the truck out front. Two more left the front of the house. He put the scope on them—a woman and a small boy—the cop’s family. He pulled his eye from the scope and looked at the cabin. People remained inside. A man walked past the window. Yury brought the scope to the next window and waited—the man was the lieutenant. He took his eye from the rifle and watched. Three men walked from the back of the cabin, and two headed toward the truck. Yury heard the truck at the front of the house start. It turned in the driveway.

  “Shit,” Yury said.

  Yury brought the scope back on the patio and caught a glimpse of Kane as he stepped off the stairs and started toward the front of the cabin. Yury swung the rifle back to the truck trying to leave. He took aim.

  Chapter 38 - Kane

  I’d replaced the key and was rounding the front corner of the cabin on my way back to my father’s truck when I heard the sounds of a quick crack, a zip through the air, and what sounded like a rock hitting metal. I heard it again and then glass breaking. I heard two more and a clank from the back of Sandy’s truck, at the top of the driveway. Someone was firing on them with a suppressed weapon, I had no doubt.

  “Drive, Sandy! Go! Go! Go!” I shouted.

  The truck didn’t move. It idled at the end of the driveway. Another pop and zip through the air followed. I saw the bullet spark at the top-left corner of the cab.

  “Get the hell out of here!” I yelled.

  The truck pulled right from the driveway and fishtailed into the street.

  I turned and ran toward the back of the cabin. “Get down! Get down!” I shouted, fumbling for my father’s pistol in my pocket. I heard another crack and felt the cold night air break behind my head as a bullet plugged into the side of the cabin. I continued running toward my father and Jeff. I saw the broken windshield of the sheriff’s cruiser.

  Jeff hunched at the rear quarter panel of my father’s truck. My father lay on the ground. I slid down into the snow beside them.

  “He’s hit,” Jeff said.

  I saw blood in the snow. “Dad, are you all right. Where is it? How bad?”

  “Barely winged me. I’m fine.” My father held his left shoulder.

  “Let me see.”

  He pulled his hand away. A tuft of blood-soaked stuffing came off his jacket. I unzipped it and pulled it to the side.

  “I’m okay, Carl.”

  “I’ll be the judge.” I ripped away the sleeve of his shirt. The wound was three inches across his shoulder. The bullet hadn’t fully penetrated flesh—a graze, but a good one. I pulled his coat back up over his shoulder. “Keep your hand on that.”

  I glanced around the back of the truck, at the sheriff’s car, and saw where a bullet had exited the windshield on the passenger side. Our shooter was somewhere to the south. The inside of the car was dark. I couldn’t see if he was alive.

  “I need to check on the sheriff. Did you see the shooter?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “The shooter is over there.” I pointed. The truck should give us cover. I looked to Jeff. “Is that rifle still inside?”

  He nodded. “I put it back where we got it, on the deer mount.”

  “We need it.”

  “Where is everyone else?” he asked.

  “They got out. The sheriff from down the street will be coming. He’ll call for backup. Right now, we need that other gun.”

  “I’ll get it,” my father said. “I
’ll loop around the back of the cabin and go in the front.” He pulled himself to his knees.

  “Let Jeff get it, Dad.”

  “Dammit, I said I’ll get it.”

  I wouldn’t argue with him. My dad was a fine shot with a rifle. “The key is hanging on a hook under the front steps. Stay low. I’ll cover you,” I said.

  “I got it.”

  “Count of three,” I said.

  I marked off three with my fingers and stood, aiming over the bed of the truck. I fired four shots into the woods south of the house. Return fire came immediately. I dropped to the ground and pulled Jeff down. Bullets peppered the other side of my father’s truck and flew over the top of the truck’s bed, plugging into the back patio. I looked behind me to the back side of the house. My father was nowhere in sight, but I heard a faint whistle, the same he used when we’d hunted when I was young.

  “What the hell are we doing here, Carl?” Jeff asked.

  “I need to check on that deputy.” I handed him my father’s Colt. “I’m going to go around the back of the truck and open the sheriff’s cruiser from the passenger side. You cover me over the bed of the truck.”

  “We don’t even know where this guy is.”

  “He’s that way.” I pointed again. “Probably in the woods. Point the gun over there and shoot at whoever shoots at us. There’s only a few shots left. Make them count.”

  “Okay.”

  I crouched around the back of my father’s truck and went to the passenger door of the sheriff’s cruiser. I stuck my fingers under the door handle and pulled the door open, making the interior light come on. As soon as it did, the back windows of the cruiser exploded out toward me. Another shot ripped through the car and exited the windshield. I saw Jeff fire back into the darkness. Three more bullets whizzed over the top of the police car and cracked into the bed of my father’s truck.

  “Jeff, are you all right?” I called.

  “Yeah.”

  I stuck my body in the doorway of the police cruiser. Deputy Benson lay across the front seat, facing me.

  “Are you hit?” I asked.

  “Got me in the leg through the door,” he said with a grimace.

  I reached in and grabbed him by the shoulder of his jacket and yanked him across the seat and out of the car beside me. Then I reached back in and took the center-mounted shotgun. As Benson leaned against the car, I closed the door. He held his thigh with both hands, his pants red with blood. “Come on,” I said.

  I grabbed him by his jacket again and dragged him around the back of my dad’s truck. “Did you call it in?” I asked.

  “My radio isn’t going through.”

  I glanced toward the cabin. The back door stood open. I looked at Jeff, who was holding the hunting rifle.

  “I took shots where I saw a flash in the distance. The pistol is empty. Your dad just tossed the rifle to me out the back door.”

  “Dad!” I called.

  He didn’t respond.

  A group of three shots ripped into the side of the truck. Another three hammered into the police cruiser. Shards of blue and red plastic from the light bar flew through the air.

  “Where the hell is that other sheriff?” I asked.

  Deputy Benson moaned and held his leg.

  Another round of three shots plugged into the truck’s cab. Glass from the windows flew to the snowy ground.

  “Dad!” I called.

  Again, he didn’t respond.

  “Where the hell is he, Jeff?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t say he was going for help.”

  “He wouldn’t run,” I said.

  More bullets ripped through the bed of the truck over our heads, those further back.

  “The shooter is moving for a better angle. We need to get in the cabin. Give me that rifle,” I said.

  Jeff passed it over. I set the shotgun from the deputy’s cruiser up against the rear wheel.

  “You’re going to drag him up into the cabin. I’ll cover you.”

  “Got it.” Jeff grabbed Benson under the shoulders and stood.

  Chapter 39 - Yury

  “Shit!” Yury mumbled.

  The truck that escaped from the driveway would surely be out of the cell-phone jammer’s radius. They would call for help, and the place would be swarming with sheriffs within ten minutes. Yury saw the interior light flicker in the cop car. He fired one shot through the rear window and another through the glass on the driver’s side. Return fire came from over the bed of the black truck, but the shots hit nothing within fifty feet. He put the scope on the bed of the truck and squeezed off three rounds.

  Yury stood from the snow and fired a three-shot burst into the bed of the truck—then he fired on the squad car, then another three shots back to the truck’s cab. Glass and bits of debris flew from the vehicles. He stayed low and advanced tree to tree. From each new position, he fired another group of shots. He moved west toward the street and then north toward the cabin, keeping the rifle planted against his shoulder, waiting to get a view of his targets. He had a clear view on the front of the cop car and the tailgate of the truck. He emptied the nine remaining shots in the rifle’s magazine.

  Yury dropped the magazine and swapped it with the full one. He brought the scope to his eye and continued side stepping to the north. He stopped when he saw the feet of three men huddled along the back of the truck for cover. The spotlight off the back of the cabin lit up the area like daylight. Yury caught movement on the left side of the scope. He swung the crosshairs. A man began to drag the sheriff toward the house. Yury put the scope on him and fired.

  Chapter 40 - Kane

  Before I could bring the rifle to my shoulder, I heard a shot, and Jeff fell to the ground. He scrambled to his feet and pulled the deputy up the stairs and into the cabin. I swung the rifle to the area where the shot had come from and fired. No return fire came.

  I backpedaled along the truck’s side, toward the front fender. “Are you hit?”

  Jeff said nothing.

  “Jeff, are you hit?” I asked again.

  He was moving inside the cabin. “No, I hit the deck as soon as I heard the shot. Neither of us got hit. Your father isn’t in here, Carl.”

  “Shit.”

  “Get something wrapped around Benson’s leg.”

  “I’ll find something.”

  “Do it quick. Benson, are you okay?”

  “I’m still alive, for now at least.”

  “You’ll be fine. I need you to get that gun in your hand and give us some help, okay?”

  He let out a grunt of pain. “Yeah.”

  I heard two suppressed shots in a row. Bullets thumped through the tailgate of the truck, moving in my direction. I popped up and tried to take a shot toward the area—click. I heard another pop, and a bullet whizzed past the side of my face.

  I dropped to the ground. “Son of a bitch.”

  The shooter was getting closer. I had no idea how many shots he’d fired. I didn’t know how many extra rounds he had. What I did know was that we were outgunned and running on a limited supply of ammo. The longer the shootout went on, the worse our chances were going to be. I had to think the girls had gotten a hold of the sheriffs or 9-1-1. I could only assume that backup would be coming.

  “Benson, how far away is your station?” I asked.

  “It’s in Antigo. A half hour.”

  “Shit. There isn’t an outpost or something closer?”

  “No.”

  Nobody would arrive for twenty-five minutes, at a minimum. We didn’t have enough ammo to hold out for that long. If this guy advanced, we were done.

  “Jeff,” I called.

  I saw him crouched just inside the doorway. I threw the rifle toward the back door of the cabin. “Get those shells in the drawer and load that back up.”

  Jeff reached out and scooped up the rifle then disappeared back into the house.

  I inched toward the shotgun at the rear wheel. It would be
a completely useless weapon if the guy didn’t get within forty yards. I reached out and grabbed it. As my fingers wrapped around the barrel, the truck’s rear tire exploded from a shot. I fell backward, scrambled to my feet, and brought the shotgun to my shoulder. I heard more shots and glass shattering. Whoever was shooting was putting rounds through the side windows of the cabin.

  “Are you okay in there, Jeff?”

  There was a pause before he answered. “I’m trying to load this damn thing.”

  “How many shells do you have in that box?”

  “It looks like about ten.”

  “Looks like or is?”

  “I got nine here,” Jeff said.

  “Benson, how many rounds in your service weapon?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “In the shotgun?”

  “Eight. She’s ready to go,” Benson said.

  “Is there anything else in the car?”

  “Shotgun shells in the trunk.”

  “Can you guys see where the shots are coming from?”

  “A property over. In the woods somewhere,” Jeff said.

  “You checked the house? My dad isn’t in there?”

  “He’s not in here. Maybe he went to the neighbors to call for help. Maybe he went to get the other sheriff.”

  “If that sheriff was still down the block, he would have already been here. You checked the bedrooms?”

  “I checked, Carl. He’s not in here.”

  I crouched back down. “Shit!” I banged my fist against the side of the truck. I knew exactly where my father had gone—into the woods, after the shooter. We had to stop returning fire with the chance that he was out there somewhere.

  “Jeff,” I called.

  “Yeah?”

  “I need you to get some eyes out that window. I’m making a run to get in there with you guys. I want you to try to get a visual on where the shooter is. Do not fire.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t fire—you got that part? Just look for a muzzle flash.”

  “Yeah, don’t fire. I got it.”

  “Benson, I need you to watch too.”

  He groaned “Okay” in response.

  “All right. Get ready. I’m coming in three.”