by D A Carey
In that instant, the boats slammed together from the tension of the lines that bound them and the force of the current. For a brief moment, Vince saw the horror in Malik’s eyes as the shadow of the heavy Sea Ray covered his face. An instant later, the heavy hull of the Sea Ray crushed his head between the larger cabin cruiser and the open-bowed ski boat.
Although he’d seen death in many forms, Vince was aghast at the sight of Malik’s mangled head and the smear of blood on both boats as they swung apart. Malcolm yelled for him to jump. Vince grasped one of the dangling lines that Malcolm finally sawed through. He was dragged through the water as the ski boat fell away. There was a lull in the action as both sides stood shocked by what they just witnessed. It was a gruesome way to see someone die, even by people so accustomed to death.
Bile rose in Ellie’s throat. It wasn’t so much the vision of what happened that elicited that reaction; it was the sound. From the second step of the galley, her view was mostly obscured. She screamed in horror when she saw Malik’s hand grasping the knife held over Vince’s neck. At that moment, she was knocked off her feet when the boats crashed together. She heard a sound like a pumpkin exploding. The other people on the boat let out a sound half between a gasp and a wail. She saw the blood spray and Malik’s hand go limp and knew what happened. Later in her dreams she would wake to the sound of a large melon being dropped from a fifth-floor balcony onto pavement. Ellie imagined she would hear those sounds in her dreams for years to come.
<< Vince >>
Bert wasn’t driving that fast. Even so, he didn’t dare take the time to stop for Vince to climb back aboard and make themselves easy prey for the other men still following. While the thugs were rocked back on their heels for the moment, they weren’t giving up.
Hand over hand, Vince pulled himself up the dangling dock line until he could grasp a rail. He needed to be careful and not allow himself to dangle too far down the line toward the rear of the boat. He didn’t want to survive the fight with Malik only to get his feet sucked into the propellers and mangled or cut off. His arms and body were as weak as a newborn calf after the struggle and then hanging onto the rope through the rush of water. He kept trying to swing his foot over the side of the boat and coming up short. Just as he decided he wouldn’t make it and would have to hold on as long as possible and be dragged alongside the boat until they were in a safe place, a pair of strong hands grasped his arm and ankle and pulled him up into the boat. He turned his head away from the spray of river water for a breath of air and glanced up at the boat, only to see Malcolm with a huge grin on his face.
“Glad you made it back, my man. I wasn’t so sure about you for a while there.”
Vince sat for a moment, bent over and breathing in huge, deep lungsful of air, river water dripping from his face and clothes while he caught his breath and tried to slow his heart rate. “I wasn’t so sure myself for a minute there. Thanks for the hand. I was worn out,” Vince said between gasps, his head hanging down, for the moment focused on nothing more than the water dripping from him to the carpet of the boat. He didn’t trust his emotions yet to face the group.
“Brother, we all need a hand sometimes. We’ve got to be there for each other. You’ve been there for us. Besides, isn’t that what this whole community thing you all are building is all about?”
Vince didn’t know why it should affect him so strongly. However, Malcolm’s comments filled him with a fresh burst of energy and optimism. “You couldn’t have said it any better. Thanks, man.” He reached out to embrace Malcolm and pat him on the back.
***
Still wet and weary, Vince sat on the white vinyl boat seat trying to catch his breath. He was resting his forearms on his knees and hanging his head down, allowing the beads of water to drop on the boat carpeting. He turned his head slightly to the right, facing downriver. With the horrific death of Malik, there had been a temporary respite from the violence. The appalling way Malik died shocked them all.
Now, the pursuing boats were picking up speed and resuming the hunt. The group would soon be taking heavy fire again. Vince steeled himself for the oncoming fight. He wondered how much longer they could hold out. They were so close yet still so far from their destination.
He only needed another few seconds to catch his breath, then he planned to give ’em hell. He never believed he would win every fight. One day, the odds would be too overwhelming or a bullet would have his name on it. As a soldier, he had long ago come to terms with that. He only hoped that when he went to Hell, he would slide in on the blood of a lot of dead bad guys.
This was different and heartbreaking. In his worst nightmares, he couldn’t contemplate the people he loved most would die or worse because he couldn’t do enough to save them. He looked around. He could read the despair etched deep in their faces. They were injured, low on ammo, overwhelmed by men and firepower, and had just seen a gruesome death up close. At least the fighting would keep them from thinking about what might happen if they were captured. While the men had little worry of experiencing that, the women should pray that they never got the chance to learn.
Vince readied for the fight that was fast approaching from astern. Both he and Malcolm were worried about the thugs, the future, and keeping their family safe from two very different perspectives. Malcolm was a good man who lived his life honorably. Vince was a warrior. The difference between Vince and Malcolm was that this was Vince’s kind of world. As good as men like Malcolm were, this was not a world for the good and honorable. This was a world for the mean and ruthless.
Vince was mean and ruthless.
At that moment, the beauty of what Uncle Dave was building finally crystalized in Vince’s mind in a lightbulb moment. Decent, honorable men like Malcolm and ruthless, mean men like Vince needed to team together to shield people like Ellie, Kate, and Liz from the chaos and darkness sweeping the country. Calling these cities an Ark was a stroke of genius. They did need two of everything from auto mechanics, to doctors, to artists and poets. People like Uncle Dave could conceive the cities and fund them. People like Malcolm were the hardworking blue-collared backbone of these refuges. Vince knew that men like him would be the mean, ruthless bastards manning the walls and protecting it. Every time in history when a nation prospered, somewhere there was a story of a mean bastard on the wall willing to get rained on, maimed, or killed so people like Ellie, Kate, Liz, and Malcolm could go on living and building.
Vince knew he couldn’t show worry and concern in his face and posture, because if he was worried, the rest of the group would as well. While he was trained to deliver and get things done under stress, most of these people were not. They needed to believe he had a plan and things would work out. His stress and worry was his burden alone.
He stood tall to give directions, and all eyes were on him. There was still shooting going on. It was clear they needed leadership and inspiration, and he was the man that needed to do this. He’d been in these situations before, although never with civilians, and never with his family. While he sometimes wished he was the man following someone else’s lead, deep down Vince knew that wasn’t his lot in life.
As he spoke to encourage them, the shots grew thicker and he was forced to duck. Some of his words were drowned out in the noise of the engines and gunfire. The group sensed this was their last battle. Their mood shifting to one of grim acceptance and determination, they grabbed their weapons and settled in for their last fight. The women snatched up handguns as if they knew what awaited them if captured. The wounded limped into firing positions. For all his plans, this was all they had left. Desperation wasn’t a plan, but it was sure dangerous for the attackers. Vince was so proud of them, his heart was thudding against his chest. His face was wet and not only from the spray of river water. Some came from his eyes as he shed tears of pride for these comrades in arms.
He turned to fight and make the bastards pay dearly.
It was at that moment Vince heard a huge boom roll across the river like a
cannon shot. He and his companions ducked.
“What the hell?” Malcolm exclaimed.
Vince knew that sound and couldn’t tell at first if hearing it was a reason for joy or terror. It was then that he saw a hole the size of a grapefruit impact one of the boats closing in behind them. The hole was close to the waterline, and in seconds the boat was taking on water much faster than the bilge pumps could bail. That huge boom and the hole in the chasing boat left him both surprised and hopeful.
Vince turned to Malcolm with a huge grin on his face like a Cheshire cat. “That, my friend, is the sound of a fifty caliber. If I was guessing, I’d say it’s a Barrett on the ridge with a high-end scope and a skilled sniper behind it. Anyone that man wants dead needs to get gone from this area of the river and fast!”
“What can we do? Do you think he will shoot at us next?” Malcolm asked, his voice high and fast.
Vince put his arm around Malcolm and hugged him close like a brother. “No way, man, that’s the cavalry! Our community is on that ridge. The first shot hit their boat, not ours. We made it under the umbrella of artillery coverage! I think it’s now safe to say we’re gonna be okay!”
The others on the boat heard Vince, and the cheers and jubilation were louder than the shooting had been a few moments earlier. There were hugs and back slaps and grins so wide their faces hurt.
Vince even got a kiss on the lips from a movie star. Before he could ponder whether it meant something or was just exuberance, Liz went to Bert and kissed him on the forehead. Then she hugged Malcolm and kissed him on the cheek. Vince was enjoying the thought that she kissed him on the mouth when she peeked over Malcolm’s shoulder and winked. The kiss had been chaste, but the eye contact lingered for a moment longer than needed and left unanswered questions.
Bert began hitting the boat horn in celebration. Ellie went to Malcolm and gave him a big hug and a kiss too. For the first time, Vince didn’t feel jealousy or resentment at their happiness, merely a sense of loss. He was happy for them and their shared joy of living through this terrible event. Kate came up from the cabin with a huge grin and hug for her dad, and that meant more than everything else combined.
While Vince couldn’t be sure who was behind that big gun, he knew someone who loved shooting those big Barretts. Levi was a master with them. It was too much to hope that it would be him up there, but that man would always have Vince’s back when he could. It would be like Uncle Dave to send help if he thought Vince and the town needed the back up.
They heard more big booms, and Vince peered downriver to see the first speed boat powerless and riding lower by the moment in the water, bow first. Then the Barrett shifted to the second boat.
The smaller boats completely forgot about the Sea Ray. They hadn’t completely given up the fight, though. In a futile gesture, they were trying to fire uphill at the big Barrett ensconced behind a wall that was almost a mile away. While their weapons might actually carry that far, to think they could aim or hit anything at that range from a boat was ridiculous. As long as the people of the town stayed behind the wall and presented a small target, they were in no danger. Vince even wondered if a shot at that distance from an AR weapon firing a .556 round would still have enough penetration power to kill.
The Sea Ray continued to chug upriver to a dock up ahead and around the bend at the junction of the rivers. It was a little way downriver from the actual city of Carrollton where the charter town sat gleaming on the hill.
The Sea Ray was out of effective range and out of the immediate thoughts of the pursuing boats. It was clear the second pursuit boat was receiving the worst of this gunfire exchange with the big gun on the ridge. The attackers lost interest in Vince’s boat and were picking up swimmers from the first boat and soon would be from the second as well.
The gangsters continued to futilely return fire. Those bursts of fire back at the ridge were becoming more sporadic by the minute. The ARs and AKs didn’t have the range of the Barrett, and the men weren’t exactly sure where to shoot. All they knew was that the big shots were coming from somewhere behind the walls on the ridge.
In the end, two boats were sinking and the third boat was way overloaded with thugs and limping its way back downriver to Madison.
For a moment, the ruthless side of Vince contemplated getting a couple of boats from the community and organizing a chase. The thugs would be sitting ducks. As a military man, Vince knew the community would be safer with those men dead. As an “old” military man and a father, he was bone tired. Tired of fighting and tired of killing.
He wanted to go home and have a beer, a steak, and a nap, in that order.
Those men would have to be dealt with another time. Hopefully they would learn their lesson or be killed by other bad men before they once again became Vince’s problem.
Homecoming
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”
- Lao Tzu
<< Liz >>
After the echo of the fifty-caliber rifle faded away from the river valley, it was strangely quiet. Two of the pursuing boats were very low in the water and either smoking or sinking. A third boat was fishing men out of the water and sitting low in the water due to all the extra weight. Whoever was on the hill with the large gun finally took mercy on those men. They were sitting ducks with no way to return fire that far and had quit trying.
As Bert’s boat got closer to the mouth of the Little Kentucky River, Vince moved up to stand beside Bert. He directed him to the new dock a little ways inside the mouth of the river on the west bank. Liz followed his glance back at the remaining boat that had pursued them as it limped back downriver. It was nearly lost from sight by this time as it crept east on the Ohio River and Bert’s boat passed the point of land going into the Little Kentucky River.
Liz thought she knew Vince fairly well by this time. She believed he was silently hoping it wasn’t a mistake to let them go. As mean and ruthless as he could be, she thought Vince Cavanaugh was a good man at heart. He wasn’t ready to be so cruel right now as to kill them while they floated helplessly on the water. It was obvious that whoever was behind that big gun apparently agreed.
She couldn’t know that Vince was indeed thinking exactly that. Then he moved on to wonder how long it would be before they couldn’t afford the luxury of letting bad men live when they had the chance to put them down.
Bert expertly guided the Sea Ray to the dock, about two hundred yards inside the smaller river that emptied into the mighty Ohio. The dock was brand new with three fingers of slips to hold twelve boats. The dock was anchored to a series of large metal poles similar to telephone poles in such a way as to allow the entire dock to float up and down with the water levels. It had power and water connected to the community on the hill.
One of Bert’s engines had seized up earlier, and the other engine was smoking by the time they docked. The Sea Ray had taken a tremendous amount of damage.
There was a crowd of people at the dock as Bert gently slid the boat sideways into the dock. Several people rushed forward to take the lines and secure it. They were safe, and their arrival had the feel of a celebrated homecoming. The mood was boisterous, joyous, and even tearful. As a group, a whole lot of tension and fear had finally been released. It was time to celebrate life. The world took a misstep and they survived. With some planning, hard work, and a little luck, they would be the ones that thrived as well.
As they went through the crowd, Vince directed some folks to offload their gear. Their group was given the option to walk up to the charter town on foot or get a ride in a four wheeler or golf cart. Most chose to walk. The whole thing was more like a victory parade than a walk.
Liz was thrilled and surprised beyond words when her grandmother came through the crowd and gave her a huge hug. Dave, in his usual thoughtful attention to detail, made sure some of Liz’s family was there to greet her. Liz cried tears of joy and relief and couldn’t stop. She hadn’t realized how lonely and scared she’d been un
til she was safe and in her grandmother’s arms. She couldn’t have explained the range of emotions running through her mind if she’d been asked. Her grandmother sensed it and just squeezed Liz more tightly and patted her back.
When Liz wiped her eyes, she saw that Vince was watching the reunion between her and her grandmother with a smile. At that moment, a huge man wrapped Vince up from behind in a bear hug. Liz didn’t know who it was at first. After hearing them talk, she was sure it was Levi, Vince’s old buddy.
“Levi! I thought you were in Colorado with my uncle!”
“I was, then he and I thought I’d be more use here.”
“Wasn’t all air travel grounded as a part of the nationwide declaration of martial law?” Vince asked.
Levi grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Well, you know your uncle. He got some senator to call another and so on until he got our flight designated as critical and providing relief aid. We did have to donate some critical supplies to the police and FEMA workers in Louisville, so here I am, big and beautiful as ever!”
“Did you fly into Louisville?”
“Heck no,” Levi said, sounding curiously like Vince’s friend Greg. “We went into Springfield, Kentucky. I offloaded the supplies there, and we sent a message to Louisville for their police and FEMA folks to come get their cargo.”
Shaking his head, he said, “I’m surprised they went for that.”
“They didn’t have much choice. We mentioned shots fired and damage and garble this and that. They’re government and are used to fubar things. Besides, what can they do about it? It’s free stuff, if they want to send a team down to Springfield.”
“I had no idea you were coming. We did get a couple of calls through. I would have thought Uncle Dave would have told us. Not that I’m complaining, mind you!”
