by Lopez, Rob
Connors concentrated his view on the woods by the lodge, seeing as that was where most of the firing had emanated from earlier. He’d glimpsed a couple of stragglers elsewhere, but as far as he was concerned, they were just hicks. Today, he was only interested in one target.
“There,” he said, catching sight of movement near the lake. “Can you ID them?”
Through his high powered scope, Taft zoomed in. There was some foliage in the way, so he only saw the flitting of shadows at first, but then he saw a man break cover and cross a road, taking up an overwatch position behind a tree.
“Well, I’ll be,” muttered Taft. “I do believe that’s Scott.”
“Scott? Damn, I’d forgotten about him. Can you get him?”
“Oh yeah. That tree won’t protect him.”
Dialing in the range, and calculating windage, Taft placed the crosshairs right on the tree trunk. Steadying the rifle in preparation for the massive recoil, he squeezed the trigger.
With a boom the fifty-caliber round traveled in an arc at over two thousand feet per second, hit the tree and bored its way through, stripping its copper coating as it did so. Slowed down by the impact, the bullet, still intact, had just enough energy left to strike Scott in the abdomen.
*
“Scott!”
Rick saw him go down, crumpling and rolling. Turning from his position, he rose up to sprint across, and a flurry of bullet strikes churned the ground up around him.
Fick led a squad directly to him, barely fifty yards away, and their gun flashes were like flickering lightning.
Rick threw himself down, turned and scrambled into the lake, dropping below the surface. Water spouts and zipping tunnels disfigured the ripples. Slithering in the shallows and raising dust clouds, Rick moved, surfacing farther along. Lifting his eyes above the bank, he witnessed Scott clutching his belly, his back arched and his face contorted with the pain. Leroy lay close to the road, alive but pinned down by fire. Rick emptied the water from the barrel of his Glock, steadied it and fired a series of rapid rounds at the enemy to get their attention.
He got it. Several bursts of automatic fire sent him under again.
*
Josh got a clear view of the men shooting at his father. Aiming his little .22, he began popping out rounds. Next to him, Ned and Ralph had their scoped AR-15s, and their contribution was a little heavier. The enemy squad was forced back to where the tree cover was thicker.
Red, meanwhile, had spotted something else. Far on the other side of the valley, up by the western barricade, he spied a figure standing clear against the skyline. Zooming his scope, he identified what appeared to be an officer peering through binoculars.
“Looks like I’ll be getting myself a buck after all,” he murmured.
It was a long shot – much farther than he was used to in deer hunting – but he had confidence in his rifle. Aiming the crosshairs above and slightly to the right of the figure to account for the breeze, he sucked in his breath and gripped the rifle tight. When the crosshairs stopped moving, he squeezed the trigger. The stock rammed deep into his shoulder, and he lost sight of the target as the scope wavered, but when he reacquired it, the figure was gone.
*
Taft aimed his rifle in the hope that Rick would emerge into view. He could see Scott clearly now, and knew he wasn’t dead. All Taft needed was for Rick to run over to help his friend, and Taft would have his second target.
With his eye glued to the scope, he heard the sharp 'zip’ of a round close by, and the sound of a log shifting in a pile. He looked up just in time to see Connors falling back and collapsing to the ground.
“Officer down,” yelled Taft, leaving his rifle and scrambling over the wood pile to get to Connors. “Medic!”
*
Rick became aware he was getting covering fire from somewhere as the shooting from Fick’s squad abruptly ceased. Taking advantage of this, Rick climbed out of the water and dashed to Scott.
Scott’s hand covered a mass of blood. Rick pulled the hand away and grimaced.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” hissed Scott.
Rick pulled his first aid pack out and placed a compress over the wound. “You’ll be fine,” he said.
“It’s a gut shot,” said Scott.
Both men knew what that meant. A gut wound was a slow killer.
“Take care of my family,” said Scott, gritting his teeth as Rick pressed on the dressing and taped it in place.
“I’m getting you out of here,” Rick told him. He turned to Leroy. “We’re moving out. Let’s go!”
Scott gasped for breath as the pain wave hit him again. “Just go,” he uttered. “Tell April she was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Leroy!”
Fire resumed from Fick’s position and Rick took cover behind the tree, rapid firing his pistol.
“Come on! Move!”
Leroy got up and sprinted across the road. “Oh God,” he said when he saw Scott.
“Help me get him up,” shouted Rick.
Scott screamed out as they lifted him. With bullets whizzing about them, Rick and Leroy ran across the open ground. Firing from both sides filled the air with cracks, and their feet pounded hard as they strained every sinew to cover the distance. When they reached the cabins, they leaped over empty trenches and forced themselves on, Scott’s cries drowning out all sound of gunfire. Plunging into the trees, they tackled the slope and collapsed as the going got too hard for them.
“Again,” gasped Rick, blinking sweat out of his eyes.
Heaving Scott up, they made it a few more yards, then Josh appeared.
“Dad!”
“Help us,” stuttered Rick, trying to keep moving.
Josh took some of the weight and they made it farther up the trail. The fire slackened behind them, and moments later Red and the others joined them. Taking a limb each, they carried Scott up the mountain while Josh and Leroy guarded their rear.
It was like a funeral procession. Scott was quiet now, his body limp, and Rick seethed with fury at how helpless he felt.
Everything had gone wrong and it was his fault.
When they reached Sally and the others, he watched through a haze as April went crazy, throwing herself on Scott as they lay him down. Daniel was wide eyed, unable to comprehend how this seemingly invincible father figure could look so vulnerable and lifeless. Lizzy wept openly and hugged Josh hard. Sally pushed April off to examine the wound. Scott still had a pulse, but when she pulled back the dressing, she shook her head.
“Save him, damn it, save him,” screamed April.
Sally shot Rick a grave look, and Rick could take it no more.
He turned and walked away.
35
Crows circled above Round Knob, attracted by some strange sense that assured them there would be pickings down below. From their vantage point, the valley was a mere hollow in a sea of snow-capped peaks that surged like foamy waves in a vast green sea. Only the rising column of smoke from the burning lodge marked it as a significant place.
Among the trees and in some wild, overgrown pastures, lay the dead: crumpled into limp postures if they died instantly, stretched out if they tried to crawl before they bled out, or curled up if consumed with pain before they expired. Unlike the crows up above, the flies soon found them and settled on the corpses without delay.
Disconsolate figures moved around the compound as the Asheville militia secured and took control of the valley. Some searched for lost friends, tearfully examining every body, but all the dead looked alike, regardless of which side they fought on. Others explored the cabins in pursuit of food. Dragged hastily to the front, many hadn’t eaten for hours, and stress induced a hunger that drove a need for gratification. Yet more searched to satiate a desire for material plunder, taking tools and items for use in trade, and some simply stayed in the shadows to avoid being given tasks by the platoon leaders trying in vain to restore a sense of order among the scattered militia.
/> High up on the side of the valley, Connors sat upon the remnants of the shattered bunker, biting on a piece of wood as Taft attended to a wound on his shoulder.
“You’re lucky,” said Taft. “Two inches to the right and you’d have been dead.”
Connors removed the wood from his mouth. “Would that be your way of saying I was a damn fool for standing in the open like that?”
Taft said nothing, and Connors sighed. “Ahh, you’re probably right.” He threw down the piece of wood. “It was a stupid thing to do.”
Fick came up the trail from the valley. He had a fresh bandage wrapped around a forearm.
“What happened to you?” asked Connors.
Fick dismissed the inquiry. “A .22 mosquito bite. It’s nothing.”
“I’m assuming from the look on your face that you didn’t get Nolan?”
“He’s not among the dead. I think he got away.”
“Any resistance left down there?”
Fick shook his head. “They’ve escaped into the mountains.”
“Sent a squad to track them?”
“Tried, but they’re afraid to go too far in. They’re useless.”
Connors rolled his eyes. “Militia,” he muttered.
“It’s worse than that. We’ve got less men than we started with, and it’s not because they’re dead. They’re just gone.”
“Deserters?”
“I think so. Remember the unit we sent to attack from the south? I found the commander dead in a car. The idiot drove straight into the barricade. The other vehicles are gone, so I figured everyone else bailed. If they’d done their job right, we could have cut off Nolan’s retreat.”
“That sucks, but we’ll keep it to ourselves. To anyone who asks, we won a decisive battle here. We’ll put the word out. It’ll make other settlements think twice before trying to confront us.”
Taft tied off the bandage, tight enough to make Connors wince. “You’re done for now,” said Taft. “We need to get you back and have someone take the bullet out.”
“Hopefully someone with a better bedside manner,” said Connors wistfully. “Gentlemen, I think we’re done here. Burn the cabins and pull everyone out. We’ll reorganize them and train them a little more. They can give a better account of themselves, then. Today was a mess.”
“We leaving Nolan be?” asked Fick.
Connors looked at him. “I’m getting tired of your attitude, Sergeant.”
“That don’t change nothing. He’s still out there.”
“Indeed he is. But get this into that thick skull of yours: I’m in charge, and if you don’t like my methods, you can quit and join the hobos.” Connors paused for a second to calm himself down. “Don’t underestimate me. I’m building an enterprise here and I can cut you out of the proceeds any time.”
Fick was unimpressed. “You still haven’t said what you’re going to do about Nolan.”
Connors jabbed a finger at Fick. “I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to waste time chasing him around the mountains and lose men in doing it. I’m going to wait. We’ve got his wife. He’s got to come to us.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then she’ll hang.”
Fick studied Connors for a while. “You really think he’s going to give himself up?”
“He doesn’t have many other options.”
“He can try and spring her.”
A gratifying smile spread slowly across Connors’ face, as if his sergeant had finally seen the light. “I sincerely hope he tries,” he said. “Because we’ll be ready, and I’ll finally have him right where I want him.”
*
As far as Josh was concerned, the situation was beyond despair. As the survivors made their way over the mountain with the intention of hiking it to Camp Grier with the wounded, Josh remained behind, watching his father.
Rick sat by the trail, staring into the trees. He hadn’t moved a muscle for at least twenty minutes, and was as immobile as a statue. The only activity he showed were the tears that cut through the dirt on his cheeks. Josh had never seen his father cry before, and in other circumstances he might have felt closer to him as he himself wept. Maybe even embraced.
But not now. An aura of smoldering rage surrounded Rick that kept everyone away. Even Red and the other two guys who were watching the trail maintained their distance from him. As Rick’s burning eyes glared into some other dimension, they stayed quiet lest they trigger a reaction.
Josh stayed until he could stand it no more. Wiping his eyes, he stormed up the slope. Red followed him. Some way up the trail he caught up with him and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Don’t go too far,” he said gently.
Josh’s shoulders shook. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said tearfully.
“Me neither, kid.”
Josh turned on him. “Why doesn’t he do something? Why’s he just sitting there?”
“Takes a while to come to terms with stuff, sometimes.”
“But it’s useless. Mom’s gone and Scott’s dying and he’s doing nothing. What’s the point?”
Josh wept harder and Red took him in one arm. Josh reciprocated with a fierce embrace, sobbing tears into Red’s shirt.
“Your mom’s not gone, kid. All we know is that she’s been taken.”
“I’m never going to see her again,” burbled Josh.
“Hey, that ain’t right.”
“It’s true.”
“You don’t know that.” Red held Josh out and looked down at him. “You gotta quit feeling sorry for yourself. Now ain’t the time.”
“Well, when is?”
“I don’t know.” Red scratched his head. “Look, if it helps, try feeling sorry for someone else.”
“Like who?”
Red turned to look at the brooding figure of Rick. Even from here he could feel the anger pulsing from him. “You can start by feeling sorry for the fellas who took your mom,” said Red darkly. “I think they’re gonna find they made the biggest mistake of their lives.”
End
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