“Buddy, you read me?”
After a moment, the radio chirped and Buddy’s voice came back. “I’m here.”
“You guy see anything out of the ordinary?”
“We can’t see shit,” Buddy said. “Besides the dark, I think a cloud has settled in right on top of us. Not to mention this shelter was kind of thrown up in a hurry. The top is waterproof but water is running back in on us from all sides.”
While Buddy talked, Jim scanned the fields behind his house. The farm road that they used to go in and out of this end of the valley ran back there. It was the way they’d come in after their trip to town today. Jim caught a flicker of light there again. It was yellow, like a headlight.
“Buddy, I definitely have something coming in back here. I’m pretty sure I’m seeing headlights. I hate to ask this, but I may need you and Lloyd down here. After seeing that drone today, this may not be a coincidence.”
“Roger that,” Buddy said. “On our way.”
Jim stood and went to stash his radio but it chirped again.
“I heard your conversation. Need another hand?” Gary asked.
Jim smiled. Gary always had his back.
“Might be a good idea,” Jim said.
“Got it. Out.”
Jim shoved the radio into his pouch and went back inside.
“We’ve got company,” he announced. “I don’t know that it’s anything serious but we can’t take chances. I want Ariel and Nana in the basement. Ellen, Pops, and Pete – I need you guys to gear up. Have rain gear handy just in case.”
As much as everyone may have wanted to moan and groan at the disruption of their evening, they all knew this was not the time. The seriousness of their new lives was made clear to them nearly every day in some manner. They quietly and efficiently began preparing for whatever was coming their way. Cooking was set to the side, gas stove turned off, lights were doused, and headlamps distributed.
“I’m going to teach you to crochet,” Nana said to Ariel as the two of them made their way into the basement. Ellen shut the door behind them. The basement windows had been boarded up long ago. They could use a lantern or headlamps down there with no worries.
The gun safe sat empty and idle most days. Guns were kept around the house, leaned in corners or hung on hooks. They needed to be handy and ready to go. The kids understood the rules just as Jim had when he was a kid. Guns had always been accessible but you kept your hands off.
“Where do you want us?” Pete asked.
“Stay together and monitor your radios,” Jim said. “Buddy, Lloyd, and Gary are all on their way down here so I don’t want any shooting unless you’re crystal clear who’s on the receiving end of the round. I just want you to be ready in case I need you.”
The entire time Jim was talking, he was slipping on gear. He threw on a black rain slicker, pulled his load vest on top of it, and checked his weapons. The Beretta was on his hip, ready to go. With visibility gone and dark upon them, Jim grabbed his Remington 870 tactical shotgun. With a shortened barrel and buckshot, aim would not have to be as exact.
“Be careful,” Ellen warned.
“Always,” Jim replied, leaving out the front door. He jogged in the darkness, his feet splashing with each step. In seconds, he was wet from the knees down and rain trickled in around his collar, running down his chest and back. He couldn’t see much but after nearly two decades on this property he didn’t need to. He ran about seventy-five yards and went through a gate, turned right, and ran along a fence line. He had to make himself slow down there. Cattle walked that fence line and had worn deep ruts into the ground. The muddy ruts made for an easy place to wipe out.
Jim could hear engines now. Not trucks but ATVs, like his father’s Kawasaki Mule. There was one gate between Jim and those machines and he wanted to reach it first. He had the advantage of knowing where he was going and whoever this was did not. They were driving slowly. They probably didn’t have windshield wipers and farm roads could be confusing. There were no directional signs and there was no way for these people to know if they were following the main route or some offshoot that would lead them to a barn or a watering trough.
When he reached the gate, Jim was the first one there and he was panting from exertion. He slipped behind a fallen tree, hoping that he would be both hidden and afforded some protection if this turned into a fight. The vehicles were closer now, the headlights completely visible, their twin beams cutting into the mist, illuminating raindrops that ran through the beams like static on a television screen.
There were two of the machines and Jim could see that each held two rows of seats. He couldn’t see inside the machines but knew that could potentially mean eight men, or even more if they’d jammed in there. The lead machine stopped inches from the gate. A ratcheting sound indicated the parking brake was being set. The plastic side-door popped open and a dark figure stepped out. When it reached the gate, the headlights illuminated the reflective lettering on the raincoat: Sheriff’s Department.
“Shit,” Jim whispered to himself.
Chapter 24
The Valley
Jim couldn’t see everything the figure was doing but heard the rattling of the rusty gate chain and knew the man was trying to unhook it. He didn’t want to let that happen.
“Don’t fucking move!”
The man jumped, startled at the voice from the darkness, but he obeyed the command. He dropped the chain he was working on, straightened, and turned toward the voice in the darkness. Jim knew his position was probably illuminated by the ambient light from the headlights but hoped that he didn’t present enough of a target to take a shot at.
“I’m Deputy Barnes,” the man said. “I’m here on police business.”
“What kind of police business?”
“That’s none of your concern,” Barnes replied.
“Everything that happens beyond that gate is my concern,” Jim countered.
“You sure you want to be on the wrong side of the law?”
Jim had the short barrel of his pump shotgun leveled at the man over the top of a log. His head was low. He was pretty sure he could drop the man before he could draw his weapon but he wasn’t so sure about the rest of those men. He had to cycle the pump, which would require him to move the weapon between shots.
“Which side of the law are you on?” Jim asked. “Are you on the side that’s out there working to keep the peace or are you on the side that took over a shopping center and turned it into a private fort?”
“Again, I’m not sure that’s any of your fucking business,” Barnes said.
“If you’ve got police business here, get the sheriff on the radio and let me speak with him,” Jim requested. “I’m sure he can clear this up for us.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Barnes replied.
“You coming through that gate isn’t happening either,” Jim said.
“I’m tired of this bullshit,” Barnes muttered. “MEN! Roll out!”
The doors to the UTVs opened up and his men clambered out.
“You going to shoot all of us?” Barnes asked. “One man?”
With a flicker of red light a red laser beam formed a dot on Barnes’s chest. Another red slash cut through the night and a dot landed on another deputy’s chest. The men shifted uncomfortably. Another laser flickered from the darkness, playing across the cluster of deputies. Then suddenly there were three more.
Jim was running the numbers in his own head. He knew Lloyd and Buddy weren’t the laser type. Who else was out there? The deputies were talking among themselves, clearly not comfortable with how this was going. They hadn’t anticipated these odds.
“Maybe we should just call this a draw,” Jim said. “You guys go on back home before somebody gets hurt.”
“You’ve crossed a line,” Barnes said. “Ain’t no backing up from it now. I see you outside of this valley, you’re a dead man.”
“You speaking as a deputy?” Jim asked.
�
�Take it however you like. We’re not done, though.”
“I expect we’re not,” Jim said. “Now go on home.”
The grumbling deputies climbed back into their UTVs, slammed the doors, and awkwardly negotiated turns on the muddy road. As they crawled away, Jim sat there in the dark, the rain pattering on the hood of his slicker. He stood and looked off into the darkness.
“Who the hell is out there?” he asked.
“Me and Will,” Gary responded.
“Lloyd and I are here,” Buddy said.
Jim clicked on a headlamp and began walking back toward the house. He dug out his radio and informed his family that things had deescalated and he’d be up in a few minutes. He encountered the men crouched a short distance from where he’d been. “Where the hell did all those lasers come from?” he asked. “It looked like there was a fucking SWAT team hidden out here.”
“Will and I both have lasers on our rifles,” Gary said. “Will’s Glock also has one.”
“I saw more than three,” Jim said.
“The last couple were cheap laser pointers that I carry in my tac vest. I got them at a convenience store,” Gary said. “They’re not attached to a weapon, but whoever you’re pointing them at doesn’t know that.”
Jim nodded in approval. “Cool idea, but I guess this is another good day gone to shit.”
“Why can’t things just be cool for a few days?” Will said. “Why does this stuff keep happening?”
“It’s the tanker,” Jim said. “They know about it.”
“How?” Gary asked.
“They got it out of my dad today,” Jim said, shaking his head. “Somehow word must have spread to the cops at the superstore, although I’m not sure you can even call them cops at this point.” Jim hadn’t had the opportunity to tell Gary about his experience with the cops on the road today so he went into that.
“A bad cop can be a bad problem,” Gary said. “This could get serious.”
“Maybe we should just give them some of the fuel,” Lloyd suggested.
“If we give them some fuel then they’ll want all the fuel,” Jim said. “No matter what we give them, it won’t be enough. Then they’ll start wanting other stuff, and there’s no telling where it will stop.”
“But it wasn’t our fuel to begin with,” Lloyd said. “Speaking from a business standpoint, it’s not like we have anything invested in it. Maybe it’s better to just give it to them and look at it as the price for keeping the peace.”
“If it would keep the peace then I’d be fine with that,” Buddy said. “People like that don’t work that way. It’s like Jim said. While they’re in here poking around, they’ll want to see what else they can take. Next it will be cattle and crops. Then it will be our homes. I’m with Jim – we draw the line at that gate right there.”
“You think we should hide the tanker?” Will asked.
“I’m not sure we have a barn big enough,” Jim replied. “And if we did, that’s the first place they’d look for it.”
“Maybe we hide it in plain sight,” Will said. “We park it in a field and stack round bales of hay around it until it looks like a plain old stack of bales in a field.”
“That’s a good idea,” Gary said. “You think we could do that, Jim?”
Jim nodded. “We’ll get the Wimmers to help with that. They have a bigger tractor and it has a hay spike mounted on the loader.”
“What about these guys?” Buddy asked. “They might come back.”
“There’s no telling where they’ll come from next,” Jim said. “Maybe we warn every family to keep watch on their own places tonight. Tomorrow we’ll come up with another plan.”
Chapter 25
Alice
Alice and Charlie worked late into the night. Unable to move Terry’s body with the car, they were forced to roll him out onto a tarp and drag that with a horse. It was primitive and Charlie, already heartsick, stiffened each time his dad’s body was pulled over a rock or slipped into a rut.
By flashlight and lantern they arranged the bodies. It took hours to refill the grave. They passed the time with their own improvised memorial service. They told stories of the people they placed beneath the earth. In a different world, it may have been a spooky scenario, standing beside a half-filled grave in the pale splash of lantern light. In this world, after this day, it was as natural as being anywhere else.
When they humped the last shovelful of dirt atop the grave, they patted the mound with the backs of their shovels. They were sore, sweaty, and dirty in the cool air of the late summer night. They had blisters that had opened and were ringed with dirt. In the distance they sometimes heard indecipherable shouts or voices that made Alice touch the handle of her revolver for reassurance. Nothing ever got close, but the smell of smoke hit their nostrils when the wind came from the right direction. It was a reminder that despite feeling alone in the world, there were other people out there. For the moment, they wanted no part of them.
“You think that smoke is from a campfire or a house?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t know,” Alice said. “But we should probably get on home.”
“Are we going to take turns keeping watch each night?” Charlie asked. “Just us?”
“I’ll keep watch,” Alice said. “I won’t sleep anyway.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this tired,” Charlie said. “I’m almost too tired to sleep, but I’ll try to find a way.”
They had one horse with them, the one they’d used to drag the tarp. Leading it, they walked home. They left the digging tools at the graveside, carrying only their lanterns and guns.
“If we don’t stay here, where will we go?” Charlie asked. “Are we going to stay with your friends from work?”
“I don’t know if I’d call them friends or not,” Alice said quickly. She considered the things they’d been through. The offer that had been made to her was not casual, nor was it meaningless. She didn’t care about her own life anymore, but the offer they’d extended to her could mean a better life for her son.
“I guess they are friends,” she decided.
“We could go there?”
“We could probably get there in a day on the horses,” she said. “We could pack our gear on the extra horses. It wouldn’t be easy. We would have to be on guard. It’s dangerous out there, Charlie.”
“It’s dangerous here,” he said. “What about the stuff we can’t take? People will steal it.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Alice said. “There’s an old cistern. It’s empty now. We could use that.”
“What’s a cistern?”
“A concrete box in the ground. There was an old house on the farm that burned down. This cistern collected rainwater from the gutters and they could pump it out when they needed water. I saw the cistern the other day and slid the lid off to check inside. There’s a little water in it but we could siphon the water out, seal the inlets, and it should stay dry. I’d cover the lid with a tarp and some dirt.”
“So we do that tomorrow and leave the next day?”
“I don’t see any reason why not.”
Charlie nodded. “Maybe one day this place won’t make me sad but it sure does now. I don’t want to stay here.”
Chapter 26
The Valley
The next morning Jim was sitting on the porch with his M4 pulling guard duty. He’d relieved Pete at 4 a.m. and was now pondering what he might do about last night’s visitors. Pissed off cops were never good neighbors. He’d always found cleaning guns helped clear his head and help him think. He had the Beretta disassembled in front of him for that very reason. Rain had soaked his weapons last night and he wanted to make sure they were thoroughly cleaned and oiled.
The rain had quit during the night but left the valley humid with patches of fog. Through that mist strode a figure in camouflage hunting clothes. Jim could tell from the walk that it was Buddy. As he neared, Jim could see that he wore a faded Army-issue pack and had hi
s lever-action rifle slung over his shoulder.
“What are you up to?” Jim asked. “Lloyd drive you out of your own house?”
He reassembled the Beretta, double-checking that the slide, safety, hammer, and trigger all functioned correctly before reloading it.
Buddy stopped and stood close to the porch but didn’t take off his gear. “I’m headed to Randi’s house.”
Jim wasn’t aware that the two of them were all that tight. “Everything okay?”
Buddy nodded. “I hate to run off and leave you to deal with that problem from last night on your own but I made a promise to that girl. She didn’t want me to tell you about it but I can’t hardly run off and not tell anyone where we’re going.”
“She going after that Cross woman?” Jim asked. He popped out the takedown pins on his M4 and stripped it to the basic components. Once they were laid out, he examined each carefully.
“She is.”
“I knew it,” Jim said with resignation. “I knew she couldn’t let it rest.”
“I knew it too,” Buddy said. “She didn’t even have to come out and say it.”
Jim took an oily rag and polished the bolt. “When you coming back?”
“A few days probably. Depends on when the opportunity presents itself.”
“Keep an eye on her,” Jim said. “Try to get her back here alive. She’s got kids and grandkids.” Jim held the M4 up to the light, examining the components of the lower receiver.
“I’ll do it. You all be safe too. Don’t let Lloyd lose any more fingers.”
“I’ll try,” Jim said. Satisfied with the condition of his weapon, he deftly fit all the components back together and checked function.
Buddy gave a wave and started to walk away. “I’ll be seeing you.”
“Buddy!” Jim called after him.
Valley of Vengeance: Book Five in The Borrowed World Series Page 12
