Scorched Earth (Book 1): Good Fences

by Craven III, Boyd

  One of the figures was holding a pistol, I realized with a start. It was held low, by his leg. None of them were really looking at me, but they were walking straight at the house as if they owned the place. My door opened and closed. I didn’t look back, but I heard Randy’s heavy footfalls. I finally spared him a look and he had the AR, probably leaving Brenda his 1911… Shoot, she probably had her own gun now that I thought about it.

  “You want to talk to them?” Randy asked me.

  “Naw, I will,” I said, stepping off the porch.

  I took a few steps out into the sunshine, feeling the warmth on my skin. I reached my hand back and pulled the Glock, holding it at my side loosely, in as much as a guy holding a gun can do in a non-threatening manner. Then it hit me; I recognized the guy on the right middle. It was Mr. Wife beater from the trailer park. He wasn’t kidding when he said he knew where I was. I made sure they saw me, and they changed direction slightly, heading my way.

  “Morning,” I called to them, and they stopped about twenty feet away.

  “Morning, Brian. Seems like you stole something from me.”

  “Oh? What’s that?” I asked, noting that he seemed pretty sober.

  His other friends on the other hand… nope. Two of them were the same ones who were there when I knocked down the shithead who was talking. Both had glassy eyes and vacant expressions.

  “You took my momma’s trailer,” he said.

  “You mean I bought your momma’s trailer,” I told him, not understanding how a $400 singlewide elicited such a response.

  The fourth man I’d somewhat ignored, moved his hand from behind his back. He was holding a large hunting knife. None of them looked like they were ready to spring, but then again they probably didn’t know what to expect either.

  “That don’t matter, it’s my mom’s. She bought it brand new when I was a kid. You can’t just take people’s stuff like that,”

  “Hey, it’s all legal, I even got a title.” I told him, feeling my hands start to sweat.

  “Wait,” Randy’s voice boomed, almost scaring me in the tone he was using, “you’re telling me that you all are willing to get shot over an empty single wide? Isn’t that going to be your hunting shack?” Randy asked.

  “Pretty much,” I said and Randy busted up laughing.

  I looked to my side to see if he’d lost it. The laughter came out of his mouth sounded genuine, but he used it to bring his gun up to face the sky as he appeared to hold himself back from bursting forth.

  “Shack? That’s my home, I grew up there. You’re going to give it back,” he said, cocking the revolver, but not lifting it yet.

  “First one moves, will get shot. I’d advise you to drop your gun and walk away,” I told him.

  “You aren’t getting it man. I’m leaving with it, today,” he said, his hand starting to move.

  The man on the far left with the knife tensed and, as he was starting to make a run, a single gunshot from my left sounded. I didn’t see a hit, but he crumpled, screaming in pain, one hand holding a spot above his knee. I drew my gun up and centered it on the idiot’s head. He had been as startled as I was at the shot, but I’d recovered faster, had mentally prepared myself. He looked at me with hate-filled eyes.

  “Toby!” he shouted and then turned to stare at me again, “I’m going to put this down and check on my brother,” he said, moving slowly.

  He put the revolver on the ground and then knelt next to the writhing form on the ground. The tweakers just stared at us with slack-jawed confusion at the sudden escalation of violence. They probably just came along with Mr. Wife beater as a show of force, potential extra muscle to intimidate. They probably weren’t expecting as many people to be here.

  The kid knew a little first aid at least. He looked at me, and then Randy, calculating his chances then dove for the gun. Both Randy and I fired and the dirt kicked up around the revolver, both of us somehow electing not to kill the trash that was littering my lawn.

  Mr. Wife beater rolled away and put his hands up before standing.

  “Don’t try something so stupid again, get him up,” I said to the tweakers, motioning with my gun.

  One of them seemed transfixed on the bore of the .45 but the other one pulled his arm, breaking his concentration. They both struggled but got Toby stood up, one of them under his arm so he didn’t have to put weight on the leg.

  “What’s your name kid?” I asked him.

  “Scott,” he spit out.

  “Well Scott, it’s going to take more than four rednecks, a knife and a cheap gun to come busting in here. I don’t know what you really hoped to accomplish, nothing works anymore. Cars, trucks, cell phones. Even if I wanted to give you the trailer back, there’d be no way to tow it,” I tried reasoning with him to prevent more bloodshed.

  “My truck still works, best damn truck in the world,” Scott bragged, “I coulda towed it with that, still might if you let me and don’t give no more hassle.”

  “That’s not going to happen. I haven’t even checked out the insides, but if you’re dead set on getting it back no matter what, you’re going to die and die a hard death. You see that locked gate?” I pointed down the driveway.

  To their credit, they all turned and looked, “You come over somebody’s locked gate, armed and wanting to take away their property or lives, well in Michigan we have something called the ‘Castle Doctrine’, and I could have shot all of you dead already. Once when your dumb fuck of a brother tried to rush us, and again when you went for your gun. Your tweaker buddies don’t worry me, but I figure they are here for your moral support, so they would have caught lead as well. Now, leave the knife and gun and get the fuck off my property.”

  The last bit was delivered aggressively, and the tweakers almost dropped Toby. Scott flinched, realizing I wasn’t some pushover. In truth, I’d used language and anger to make myself sound more intimidating than the happy go lucky widower I usually was. Not so happy, not so lucky. Now I wanted to show them what their death could look like, what they would be facing if they ever came back. I had no doubt that it was them who shot the lock. Hopefully this would be the last time I ever saw them.

  “You boys start walking now, and me and my buddy are going to escort you to the fence,” Randy said, motioning with the AR.

  Scott tried staring us down, first Randy and then me. I just gave him a wicked grin and took a step forward.

  One of the tweakers tried to take a step backwards but tripped over his own foot, pulling Toby and the other guy down on top of him. They struggled and wrestled with each other until they were done cussing and swearing and got to their feet. As they walked towards the gate, I knelt down briefly to pick up the pistol and then watched Randy’s back as he got the knife. He stuck it in his belt. I really hoped he didn’t fall, but I couldn’t blame him for taking it.

  The walk back was full of vile threats from both sides, ours and theirs. Lots of cursing and lots of supposed butt hurt by the brothers. Since I didn’t feel bad, it didn’t bother me much and I was starting to feel like going through with my threats if they didn’t quit running their mouths.

  “Then I’m going to come back here and kill everyone,” Toby said, his eyes glassy in pain as they tried to climb the fence.

  “One of you get over the other two toss that garbage out of my yard, then follow him over,” I snarled at the half-baked attempts.

  “Just unlock it,” Scott whined, no longer sounding cocky and confident.

  “Naw, you didn’t give me any time to get my keys. You came in over the bars, the only way you are ever going through them is if you’re being carried by six,” I knew I was laying it on thick, but I really didn’t want to have to kill the young men.

  Whether it was the drugs or the booze or being born stupid, it seemed the four had the survival instincts of a lemming. Finally, they got Toby over, who didn’t fall like I thought he would, and then the tweakers scaled the fence as quick as they could.

  “I’ll be back
,” Scott told me before walking to the white ford pickup truck I’d seen before.

  I don’t know if he meant to use a phrase from the Terminator, but he was a weasel-dicked version of Arnold, and it wasn’t scary at all.

  “If you are, point out a spot by the fence here for me,” Randy said, speaking up.

  “Why’s that?”

  “So I can tell your buddies where to dig your grave,” Randy replied.

  We were flipped the bird and watched as the old truck started up, missed a little bit and then took off down the road, leaving behind a plume of white smoke.

  “That was weird,” I told Randy who stood beside me still.

  “Let’s head back to the house. We’re going to have to post a guard by the gate, you know?” Randy asked and I nodded. “So next time four guys walk up and they are armed or you think they are, stop them further away than you did. OK?”

  I looked to Randy, confused and started walking to keep up with him. “Why further away?”

  “The guy with the knife… If I hadn’t been expecting that rush and had the gun more or less ready, I never could have fired on him before he buried that knife in my guts. There’s been studies that say a reasonably quick on his feet guy can close 21 feet worth of distance before a cop can take his gun out of his holster and shoot.”

  I thought about that a moment and then nodded in understanding, “You saw that on Mythbusters last week, didn’t you?”

  Randy gave me a pained look and then busted up laughing, “Yeah, but it stuck with me,” he said, “when the guy was working himself up to spring I kept thinking of that episode. That’s why I was cracking the bad jokes and letting you pretend you’re all badass.”

  I knew he meant it in jest, but I figured I’d explain myself a little bit. “I didn’t think anything else would have scared them off. I don’t know. Try to speak their language? Know what I mean?”

  “What’s that, booze, meth and stupidity?”

  This time I cracked a smile, “Naw, no fear, violence, anger, no remorse. I don’t know how to get through to somebody that stupid. I think they were asking for a bullet.”

  “True that.”

  * * *

  The ladies and kids were relieved to see us return. Brenda had gotten my father’s long gun out of the safe and had a pretty good rest set up. I realized she’d had us covered all the way to the gate with the big gun. I’d been wondering why the screen had been removed from the storm window, but it suddenly made sense. Up close, it wouldn’t have mattered. For a long shot, it would have been enough to throw off the gun’s trajectory.

  “You scared the bad men away?” Spencer asked.

  “Yeah, buddy. Everything is A-OK. Nothing to worry about, but one of us is probably going to have to sit outside so we can watch the gate for people climbing over.” The first was for Spencer and the last was spoken to the room at large.

  Brenda nodded and Lucy went to the safe and picked up one of my .22s. I smiled.

  “I can’t touch those, so don’t bring it by me. I don’t want Brian mad at me.” Spencer told his Mom, and I chuckled.

  “Do we get to learn how to shoot all of those?” Lindsey, the quieter of the twins, asked.

  “Probably someday, honey bear.” Randy said, messing up her hair.

  “Daddy…”

  I smiled. It wasn’t the same as we’d had a week ago, but it was definitely comfortable feeling in a world gone crazy. But trying to steal a house trailer back? I had to shake my head at that.

  “You know, we probably can’t let the girls run to the bar for eggs on their own anymore. Not until we do something with the gate, and get the security system I bought set up,” Randy said.

  “Yeah, I think that’s a priority. I don’t know what else to do other than that. Ok, let’s work on that this morning, rest up and then we’ll move the rest of yours and Lucy’s stuff later on, when it gets dark. Unless… you don’t think they’re going to have another subdivision party, do you?”

  “I don’t know, but they’re stupid if they do. We can get stuff pretty easy now the trailer is empty, if I can pull it up to the fence with the quad. We stashed the rest of our stuff in Lucy’s garage,” Brenda said.

  “Can we move the trailer by hand to the fence?”

  “You’re worried about the sound?” Lucy asked.

  “Yeah, when you fired it up last night, I could hear it for a ways. I don’t know how we missed hearing those rednecks pulling up to the gate.”

  “They probably came sometime last night and tried to get in,” Lucy interjected, “when they couldn’t see in the dark they probably went back to the truck to wait for the morning.

  “That’s a scary thought,” Brenda said, her eyes going wide.

  “Brian, can I play a board game?” Spencer interrupted.

  I nodded and the twins and Spencer took off towards my stash of them on the shelf.

  “Well, if they come back, they’re going to have a long nap,” I said.

  “In the dirt,” Randy finished.

  The girls gave him a sour look and I smiled, pushing him towards the front door. We had a gate to reinforce. I had an idea of how to do it, but it’d take the tractor, some fence pliers and the roll of barbed wire.

  “Come on Randy, give me a hand.”

  “What do you need me to do?” Lucy asked.

  I felt bad, because she was going to get stuck with the kids and food, because Brenda had already grabbed two boxes of .30/06 and was readying a small backpack she had brought with her. It already contained some lightweight camo clothing and bottles of water.

  “I’m going to find a spot in the barn where I can see all around,” Brenda said.

  “You a good shot?” I asked her.

  “Randy dear, I’m a little older than you are, no don’t look surprised. I’ll bet you dishes for a week I’ve killed more deer than you have.” Brenda told me.

  “More deer than me? A week’s worth of dishes? You know I grew up on a farm right?” I asked her, incredulous.

  “If you can beat 43 bucks and 20 does then I’ve got dish duty.”

  “63… but… but I didn’t bet!” I waffled.

  “I always filled tags for my dad and mom. Dad’s eyesight was so bad he could only just hit the broadside of the barn, as long as you led him into the middle of it first and shut the doors.”

  Lucy busted up laughing as I looked at the sink, pouting manner.

  “About that gate,” Randy reminded me.

  Oh yeah. The gate.

  * * *

  We used the bucket to carry the big role of barbed wire to the fence. I started out by weaving it between the bars up and down. I was scratching the hell out of the pretty blue paint, but if it meant no more cretins climbed the fence, then it was worth it. Once a strand was weaved up, it was pulled tight with two pair of fence pliers, twisted together so it pulled taught, and then cut off with bolt cutters. Once both sections of gate had wire going up and down we weaved the barbed wire side to side in the same manner. We had spaced everything about four inches apart, not really enough to get a hand or foothold. The heat started to kick up and Randy headed back to the house to grab some water.

  I kept going, a little slower so I didn’t hurt myself. My leather gloves not only protected my hands, but also kept my bandage from getting dirty. I’d have to clean it out after sweating and working with the rusty wire, bandaged and gloved or not! I paused to look up and saw where the sun’s position was in the sky. So much for getting the security systems up today; it looked like it was already past lunchtime.

  Randy returned after a few minutes, his hands full. I smiled and kept going. Just a few more wires to pull through the left gate and then we’d be done. I’d feel secure and safe. A few minutes later, Randy and I were breaking, sitting on the edge of the bucket. Lucy had made us both stacked ham and cold cut sandwiches.

  “You know, we have to figure out a way to dry out meat. When I shoot a deer this fall, what am I going to do, can it?” I aske
d him.

  “I thought you were wanting to build a smoke house?” Randy asked.

  Build something…. I could totally do that, right after everything else we were going to do. But I had an idea of how to do it cheap and easy. I didn’t know if it would work, but something had to be better than nothing. We finished off the fence and Randy sat on the back of the tractor to watch our backs as I put it back in the barn. The day had started out bad, but after wiring the gate, I was feeling pretty confident.

  “Brenda, you in here?” Randy called.

  “No hun, I’m in the house,” she called back.

  “Last couple times we’ve gotten together, Lucy has ended up doing the food and kids,” I told Randy before we left the barn, “I’d like start teaching her some stuff. You, Brenda and I, taking turns,”

  “Yeah,” Randy said, wiping sweat off his brow, “I was thinking that too. More she knows, the more she can help. What’d really help though, is having Ken and Kristen and Frank and the Docs…”

  “I know you’re right, but it’s all still a little hard to swallow, you know?” I asked.

  “I know, and it’s just day one. Nothing really bad has happened yet,” he told me, starting to walk to the house.

  “You shot somebody on day one,” I pointed out.

  “Naw, I just grazed him. I aimed for the left side of his leg. I didn’t want to hit the bone and have it deflect and take out his femoral artery.”

  “You’re that good?” I asked him, not sure if he was pulling my leg or not.

  “My wife’s the one who taught me. 63 deer Mr. Farmer, don’t you forget it,”

  That shut me up. Knowing my luck, there’d be dishes to do!

  14

  “I can clean it out,” I told a belligerent Lucy who was looking at the wet dirty bandage on my right hand.

  “No, sit down and let me look at it. I should have known better than to have let you…”

  “Young kids in love,” Randy said to Brenda with a smile.

  “Shut up!” we chorused, and started laughing.