by Boyd Craven
I turned to the barn and saw an old man on a walker make his way into the doorway, the sunlight sparkling off the chromed finish. He was too far away for me to make out his features, but he had to be the grandpa. Laney turned and started running again, her legs pumping in the tall grass, when she suddenly fell, her entire body disappearing in the tall grass.
4
Laney didn’t come up right away, and the woman’s easy walk turned into a fast run. The grandpa stood in the doorway, a hand cupped over his eyes to block out the late afternoon sunlight that must have been blinding him. When two figures rose from the grass that had been disturbed, the woman slid to a stop, a good fifty feet away, a shout of surprise coming out of her mouth. The little girl was struggling as a man in camouflage held her under one arm. She kicked and bit at the arm holding her.
He had a rifle across his back, a boonie hat adorning his head with a small daypack in olive drab in one hand. His belt had pouches and one of them held an old tin GI canteen like the one I wore. He was a good hundred feet from me. I started crawling faster, being less mindful about disturbing things as I got into the tall grass, directly behind the figure.
“Just stop a sec,” a male voice grunted as he repositioned the little girl in front of him.
I wanted to drop him where he was, but the woman was closing on him, and he wasn’t unarmed. He had a pistol in the left side of his belt, and I could see a strap across his left shoulder and neck, though I didn’t see what it was slung to. It must have been in front of his body. Still, I was making good time and all eyes seemed to be on the struggling figures. The woman got there first and started screaming, sobbing, and begging all at the same time. I could barely hear her over the racket the little girl was putting out though. She sounded like a bobcat that was getting skinned alive, with all of it being projected through a bull horn or a college PA speaker set at a ball game.
When I was twenty-five feet away, I rose up. The woman looked over his shoulder at me as I leveled the gun at his back and she fell backward on her butt, screaming for everyone to run. The man took a glance over his shoulder at me, then did a double take. He dropped Laney, who ran to the woman. The little girl launched herself on the ground, into her mother’s lap.
“Friend, I mean no harm,” the man said, turning, both hands in the air.
His face and exposed skin had been blacked out with grease paint and ashes, though he wore a mosquito face net over his head, under his hat. He had a short-barreled AR slung on a one-point sling in his front. It was odd to me, he was left handed, not something you see every day. I held the rifle up higher, the long silencer almost blocking out my sight picture of his face, and I could see his eyes get as big as saucers.
“Who are you?” he asked me suddenly.
“Get on your knees, and if you go for your guns, it’ll be the last thing you’ll—”
“Westley?” he asked, pulling his hat off.
“Carter?” I responded in shock.
The family had fled back into the barn while we had our standoff, but now Carter was looking at me angrily.
“You were told to stand down, we’d handle this,” he said, exasperated.
“I came here to check things out,” I told him. “Jessica and her father didn’t seem all that interested in helping.” I lowered the rifle to point at the ground between us.
“She said that she told you she would handle it. She called me on the radio, and I’m handling it.”
“You bring any food?” I asked him.
“We don’t hand out food,” told me quietly, his eyes at the ground.
I slung my rifle over my shoulder and adjusted my pack. “I did. And I came to warn them.”
“I was here to observe and make contact without alarming them. Looks like I messed that up,” he said sheepishly.
I shook my head, not at him so much as the entire situation. I started walking, passing him, pulling the camo netting off my head and letting it fall on top of the tall grass. My goal was the open door that Laney and her mom had disappeared into. I heard Carter follow a few steps later.
“How did you sneak up on me?” he asked.
“I’ve been hunting my entire life. I didn’t see you until you broke cover and stood up. Should have let the little girl keep running and held still,” I told him.
“I figured that out after the fact,” he said from behind me, his voice thoughtful. “Thought if I had let her go she was going to tear my throat out with her teeth.”
I saw a flash of light reflect from the doorway of the barn and saw the edge of the walker. I raised my hands up to show that my hands were empty. A shot rang out and the ground erupted between my feet. I dove down, hearing Carter do the same.
“You’re on private property,” the old man yelled. “I’ll give you thirty seconds to get moving off my land.”
“We’re here to help,” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
The ground erupted next to my head about three feet away. Carter grunted behind me, and I turned to see him wiping chunks of dirt and grass off his face. His boonie hat was hanging by the cords behind his neck and the debris had stuck to the camo paint.
“I said clear out,” the old man shouted back.
I was mentally counting down, but rolled on my side, pulling on the straps, shrugging out of my backpack, leaving my rifle in the grass. I fumbled with the buckle on the pack but got it open. I grabbed a bag of rice and a bag of lentils and stood up slowly, each held above my head. My countdown had gotten to about five seconds when I saw the walker move slowly. Somebody picked it up and shuffled along behind it. I saw the old man come into the light. In one hand, he held the edge of the walker and a rifle. He shuffled a few more steps then stopped and raised the rifle up.
“Don’t shoot, I have food for your families,” I said, feeling a spot on my chest start to burn.
I knew it was all psychological, but I could almost feel the point of impact if he were to pull the trigger while he considered my words. The rifle wavered, then he lowered it.
“You that fellar who gave my granddaughters the rice ‘n’ food?”
His voice was loud and clear. I could hear Carter clear his throat, but I beat him to it. “Yes, that was me,” I called back.
“Come up here slowly,” he said. “I may not look like much, but I got you both covered.”
“Yes, sir,” I called back, my voice not as loud.
I put the food back in the pack, lugged that up, and put the rifle sling across my shoulders. My nerves were on fire from the gunshots, and although my heart was beating faster than I could imagine and my stomach felt like it was going to turn itself inside out, I was starting to calm down. His shots were warning shots, meant to scare us and show that he really had us dead to rights; the same way I had with Carter earlier when I hadn’t known who he was. I approached slowly, and Carter caught up with me, walking to my left. We both stopped about twenty feet away.
“You’re Bud’s grandson,” he said, statement, not fact.
“Yes, sir.”
“Who are you?” he asked, turning, his rifle now pointing between us, but more or less at the ground.
“Carter, sir, Carter Munising.”
The old man’s skin was wrinkled, and his face seemed to almost have shriveled in on itself. He was older than my grandparents, by a lot. I wasn’t a good judge of age. He was wearing bibs, a long-sleeved flannel shirt, and a green John Deere hat with sweat stains on the brim. A round shape was in his front breast pocket and when he turned and spat a brown stream, I figured he had a dip of Copenhagen or something similar in.
“Looks like this fellar snuck up on you,” he said, pointing with the rifle.
“He did, sir. I was watching your farm, working on how to get closer to talk to you when the little girl tripped over my head.”
“Laney…” he said, shaking his head. “So, you didn’t know each other was coming? You obviously know each other.”
“I do, he’s a friend of a friend,” I to
ld him, keeping my hands relaxed as possible. “But I didn’t know he’d be here.”
“His girlfriend is like my little sister,” Carter told the farmer.
I turned to him, shooting him a puzzled look. Girlfriend?
“Thank you for the food earlier. We’re almost out of everything,” the old man said. “They’re cooking up some now inside. You two aren’t with those guys on the motorcycles, are you? You’re both dressed like you’re playing army.”
“No, sir,” I said quickly.
Carter shot me a look, then shook his head no also. “I just thought it’d be a good idea to come in unobserved, all things considered.”
“What you want to talk to me about?” the farmer asked Carter.
“Probably the same thing he does,” he said, using his hand to point at me with his thumb. “The guys on bikes mean to attack the farm, take the…” he stopped, looked around, then spoke quieter, “take the ladies and kids.”
“What’s that? I’m half deaf.”
Carter repeated himself, but louder. The old man’s face went pale.
“Mister, who wants to take us and where?” The little voice came out of the darkness, and I saw Mary come out into the light.
She was wearing the same clothing as earlier, but her hair had been brushed out. She was holding a rough teddy bear who was missing an eye, and several stitches had come loose, exposing the stuffing.
“Get back inside,” the old man barked, and the child fled like the devil was snapping at her heels. I could hear a murmur of voices in the darkened interior.
“I came to warn you about them and drop off some food. With the kids’ fathers being gone—”
“How do you know that?” he asked me sharply.
“Well, they told me that earlier,” I said, remembering overhearing the conversation, “and Lance’s boys are planning on being back in two days, in force.”
“Were you the one who heard that, or were you passing the message along?” Carter asked me suddenly.
“I heard that directly from the two scouts. The guys on bikes. One of them is named Danny.”
“I ain’t worried about no two or three bikers,” the old man said. “Their fathers will straighten things out when they get back,” he said, but there was something in his eye that told me he didn’t believe that.
“There isn’t just two or three of them,” I said softly, “and you might want to consider leaving, or going into hiding.”
“Son, like I said, when my grandsons get back here—”
“Did your grandsons take off down the road on quads a couple days back?” Carter asked suddenly.
“Yeah, chasing off the pricks who came in last time and tried to steal food out of the corn crib.”
“That wasn’t a group of thieves, that was Lester,” I said quietly, shrugging the pack off.
“Lester? The moonshiner?”
I nodded, not correcting him. Lester was just a cutout, a middle man, the guy everyone went to arrange a shipment of hooch. He didn’t make it, he just insulated the people who did. Shared risk and profits. Each of us had our own jobs. “He wasn’t trying to steal from you, sir.”
“You know this man too?” he asked, turning to Carter. “Where are my boys? Where are my grandsons?”
Carter opened and closed his mouth a few times. I opened my pack and dumped out the Ziploc bags as quickly as I could and re-shouldered the backpack. I’d left the bags on the ground, but I wanted to be ready. I wasn’t prepared to have this conversation. I was still raw myself.
“Where’s our husbands?” Laney’s mom asked, walking out of the dark, her arm around another woman.
Both were in their early to mid-twenties. Laney’s mom was raven haired, whereas the other woman had brownish blondish colored hair. Both wore dirty looking dresses, their hair greasy and dirty, though it was combed and pulled back in loose ponytails.
“They were trying to kill Les,” I said. “He fled to our property. They kept shooting at Les trying to kill him…” My words trailed off, I didn’t want to say the rest.
The old man’s grip on the gun tightened, his knuckles going white with the sudden pressure. His lips pressed together in an angry line as his whole body trembled. A single tear rolled down the side of his face.
“All three of them?” he asked me.
I nodded.
“All three of them what?” the blonde woman asked.
“Dead, my grandsons are dead,” the old man said hoarsely, another tear falling from his eye to leave a streak on his cheek.
“I’m sorry, I had no choice,” I told them.
“Chasing down a friend of yours?” the blonde woman said, brushing off the raven-haired woman’s arm.
“Yes, he’s an old man who wouldn’t hurt anybody,” I answered, noting that Carter was shifting foot to foot, both hands flexing.
I took note of his wary posture and subtle stretching and decided that maybe I wasn’t reading this shit storm correctly and saw the furious looks the women were shooting me, rather than the sorrow and resignation the old man was showing.
“How do you know he wasn’t with the guys who came by here before, shooting at my son?” Laney’s mom hissed.
“That wasn’t Les,” I said, backing up a step as both women advanced, the old man putting an arm out to symbolically stop them. “I know who probably did it. It’s the same group that’s coming in two days to take you ladies. The kids too, if the guy called Danny is to be believed.”
My words didn’t seem to register to them.
“You murdered my husband,” the blonde woman hissed and darted forward.
I saw the slap coming and for once I was thankful I didn’t have Raider with me. I didn’t think he would have allowed her to get close like this with her tone so loud. The sharp blow rang out, turning my head with the force of her fury. I turned back to her, rubbing the side of my cheek. I was fighting off both anger and shame at the same time. The blow had stung and, if she’d been a man, I would have knocked him senseless and stomped his head in. As it was, the woman was probably Linda Carpenter’s size, though shorter. She reared back again, and I put my hand up.
“I did not murder your husband,” I hissed, my face on fire where I was sure she’d left a handprint. “I stopped him from murdering a friend.”
She swung, and I caught her wrist. I squeezed until I could feel the bones grind, which got her attention. She pulled, then tried kicking. I held onto her wrist but backed up, so she had to face me.
“Your husband made his decision. I don’t know why he went after our friend, but your husband came onto my property to murder someone else. This is not my fault.”
She leaned down to bite at my wrist when nothing else worked. I’d had enough, and before her teeth could sink into my arm, I used my other hand to push on the top of her head, sending her sprawling into Laney’s mother. The old man was crying freely now, one hand wiping at his eyes, the other clutching the walker. I watched the woman get to her feet, cursing. Another woman walked into the edge of the opening, the sunlight showing a gaggle of kids behind her. Seven, eight, nine?
“I told them they couldn’t try to take stuff from others,” she said, her arms around one of the little girls. “They got what I told them would happen.”
“And you’re ok with that?” the blonde turned and screamed at her. “We’re starving here! There’s no food, there’s barely any water, and don’t you think this man hasn’t merely killed our husbands, but all of us by proxy?”
Her words were sharp, and I realized a half a second too late I could tell her political leanings and education level. I would have been hard-pressed not to have recognized that. In college, I’d met a lot of people like her; politically active and slightly self-entitled. I pointed to the food I’d earlier taken out of my backpack and dropped on the floor in front of me, the old man watching my every move. The blonde woman and the woman who’d just appeared started arguing and bickering, tears flowing freely. They were ignoring the food.<
br />
"Let's get out of here," Carter said quietly.
"I did what I could," I said softly, not even to Carter. "I should have let Jessica handle this part," I finished, looking directly at him.
He just nodded at me, and I snapped my pack closed. Grandma had reloaded my backpack with the very basics that I had given away earlier, and I could hear the murmur of the kids behind me. It took everything in my power not to start digging for a candy bar, or some more of Grandma's sourdough bread. Another sharp crack rang out, and I looked up to see the blonde woman had smacked the other. Things were getting ugly, but for right now their attention was not focused on us.
Carter and I were backing away slowly, not making any big moves. Laney's mother had been shouting at the other women who were ready to start pulling hair and scratching eyes out. She'd been in the middle screaming back at both of them with her hand pointing at them in turn when she saw us backing away. She turned and yelled, "And where the hell do you think you're going?"
"I just came to give you the news and some food. I'm sorry for your loss, but you've guys got two days before Lance's group will be coming back." The fighting and bickering stopped when I spoke, but only for a moment.
"How can we trust the guy who murdered our husbands?" the blonde woman asked, her voice high and shrill, her cheeks stained with free-flowing tears.
"You can't trust anyone," Carter told them.
We hadn't stopped moving backward, and now they were advancing on us slowly. I wasn't about to take another slap to the face, but none of them looked armed either. I felt bad about shoving the one woman down on her butt, but I wasn't gonna let her keep escalating, and my cheek burned from more than just guilt and shame; she’d really walloped me a good one. I just hoped they were going to take our warning seriously.
"Who's coming for us?" Laney's mother asked, advancing on us quickly.
"There's a group that's camped out at the Crater of Diamonds. I know at least one of the guys there, Lance, has been up to some pretty nefarious stuff. I overheard two of their men talking. You've got two days and they're going to hit the farm."
