“I did?” she said, playing coy.
“Yeah, remember that whole back and forth you had with him about how he didn’t want you to go off alone to the park? How he wanted you to wait for him to arrive? Any of this ringing a bell?”
She may have deliberately forgotten about those phone calls. After getting away from Nerio, she and her dad had finally linked over the phone. He explained why it would take him several days to reach her. She explained why she couldn’t sit around for that time. It turned into a point of contention, except her dad relented much sooner than she would have expected. It was almost as if he trusted her to make her own choices, which both surprised and pleased her. Without Mom around to put the kibosh on her grandiose plans, her dad seemed easy by comparison…
Grace wasn’t going to let memories of her mother get her down. If Mom had given her a hard time, it was a result of Grace planning to do something dangerous. In this case, it was absolutely true. As such, maybe she did gloat a little in leaving the message for her dad. She might have told him she’d been right about heading for Yellowstone to look for help, but next time they spoke, she would tell him he was right, too, about how insanely dangerous it had been. She’d almost been doused by scalding hot water and shot at by a rogue TKM guard.
The day was young, too. It was barely past lunch time.
“Uh, Grace,” Asher said slowly, drawing her out of her thoughts.
“What is it?” she asked, looking around as they drove into the little burgh.
“Signs.” He pointed to spray-painted sheets of plywood nailed against wooden telephone poles. “That one says we should turn back on account of radiation.”
It reminded her of another city.
“I’m going to guess those are BS, like Cheyenne. We know there’s no danger in these dig sites, other than TKM guns.”
Another sign said nothing but the misspelled word “poisin” on it. The word was stenciled with green spray paint, as if the very letters were corrosive.
“Nothing to worry about…” she said while trying not to make it a lie.
Her stomach turned to mush as she scanned the little shops, small homes, and the town park. Grace expected to see some sign of life in any or all of those places, especially given it was the lunch hour. However, as they drove through the town for the next two minutes, there wasn’t any sign of activity, not even the police or military. Cheyenne had at least had men guarding it.
It wasn’t poison, fire, or radiation which had forced the people out.
It had been TKM. Exactly like back in Jackson.
She drove on, determined as ever to find her friends.
Soda Ash Plant, WY
Ezra had a devious plan in his head and was ready to share it with Haley and Butch, but his new phone vibrated to alert him to a message. Despite the growing cloud of dust out on the horizon, he had to take it. “It’s Grace.”
The message was brief, based on the length of the recording. “Hi, Dad. I was right about going to Yellowstone. I have…about eleven trucks following my lead. We’re heading for a town called Pinedale, then we’re going to push on to Boulder. We’ve heard there’s going to be trouble there. I can’t wait to meet up with you. Stay safe, okay? I love you.”
He hung up and immediately spoke to his friends. “Screw this. We’re in the wrong part of the war. Grace is north of here, heading for the town of Boulder. She’s closer than I ever would have thought.”
“What are we going to do? Christian is watching us like a hawk, I’m sure.” Butch pointed down the line of shipping containers to where Christian had gone. “If he’s like most of these chicken-shit wannabe soldiers, he circled around and is now watching all of us in these coffins from a safe perch back in the factory.” He motioned behind them to the soda ash plant a hundred yards away.
Ezra already had a plan in mind, but he stacked on an additional directive. It wasn’t only a matter of helping the approaching people. He needed to get his friends out of the battle completely.
“Okay, we can’t walk straight back to the plant. We’ll be spotted and probably shot for desertion. Instead, we’re going to swing around that way.” He showed them where he wanted to go.
“You think the men in those boxes will simply let us pass?” Butch asked in a low voice.
He drew in a deep breath, knowing what he was about to ask. “We’re going to stop at each one and take them out of the battle.”
Haley raised her hand. “I’m not a coward, but I’m not a warrior, either. How are we going to get this done? What can I do?”
Ezra smiled, handing her the mostly-filled five-gallon water container.
“What do I do with this?”
Briefly, he explained the plan.
Butch whistled in amazement. “That’s ballsy, even for you, E-Z.”
“You guys ready?” Ezra said, not wanting to let how dangerous his plan really was sink in. He’d often scolded Grace for going off on her own, rather than listening to his wise cautionary tales, but here he was, doing an activity way more dangerous.
All thoughts of having a double standard bled away when a bullet whizzed by.
“Hurry,” he exclaimed, waving for Haley and Butch to jump into action. They all ran for the next container. Haley carried the water, which was at least thirty pounds, but he had to admit she made it look easy. After pulling tires for fun, carrying the load was child’s play for her. However, he’d assigned the task to her for a very important reason.
When they arrived at the open doors of the first cargo container, Haley called inside. “Water girl is here!”
A sweaty young man came to his door to greet her. However, what he got instead of a cheery delivery girl were two armed men with rifles pointed at his face. Butch pushed inside, shoving the man backward on his butt.
“Drop those rifles, boys,” Haley laughed.
The three men had no choice but to lay them down. Once they did, Ezra was faced with a dilemma. There was no rope to tie them, their pack and gear was all still back in the pickup truck. They couldn’t let them go, as they would run to the closest TKM guard and report the betrayal. They also couldn’t shoot them in cold blood.
Butch seemed to notice his hesitation. “Make them strip off all their clothes, so we’ll know they have no weapons.”
The three men crowded toward the rear of the container, which was the end without a door. They didn’t seem anxious to strip until Butch aimed his rifle at them. “My friend here isn’t the type to shoot you guys, but I did time over in Iraq. I know how to be very persuasive.”
That got things moving.
Quietly, he instructed Haley to take their clothes and stack them outside the container, toward the front. As she took the load of laundry, a bullet smacked against the outer wall, sending his ears ringing.
Butch slung all three enemy rifles over his shoulders.
“You fellas just stay in here, okay? Those bullets are coming in from the attackers, but if we see anyone running the field in their underwear, my sniper friends are going to make you regret it.”
One of the men spoke up. “We’re not going anywhere. We shouldn’t even be here.”
Another added, “Not our sofa. Not our cushions.”
Ezra almost experienced their pain. Who knows where they were picked up? Who would willingly get into the containers to defend a bunch of rocks? Money could only go so far.
He and his pair of helpers backed out of the container and shut the doors. On a whim, Haley used a discarded belt to secure the handles so the men couldn’t open it from the inside.
“Smart thinking,” Ezra said once it was clear what she was doing.
The trucks were closing the distance. He took a quick peek to see them spread out in a line, advancing toward the soda ash plant like a wall of Civil War soldiers. A few shots came in from those trucks, but they were still too far to shoot at him effectively. It gave them time to move to the next container.
Ezra rallied his troops. “All right. We have
our procedure. We take out each group of men using Haley as our bait. It’s going to get us all the way to the edge of the battlefield. That’s where we’ll make a run for the rigs with our stuff.”
The plan worked for several cargo containers. By the time they’d made it to the fourth in the line, one close to the edge of the defenses, the trucks were within a few hundred yards. Definitely close enough to target him and his pals.
“Hurry! We’ll knock this one out, then we’re going to skip the last one. We’ve done all we can and we’ll be close enough to the plant to run there.” He balanced the need to help the attackers while safely extracting himself from the area so he could go meet Grace up north.
Haley hurried up to the door carrying the container. “Water girl!” She tried to sound cheerful, but two bullets pinged off the metal, and one ricocheted wildly off a nearby rock.
They were all distracted by that whirring bullet, which made it a mutual surprise when the door opened, and a pointed gun greeted them.
“Water girl?” Ezra repeated sheepishly.
Chapter 14
Boulder, WY
“There it is,” Grace remarked, feeling a little like she was a participant in a war movie. “Our target for the day. The man on the phone said TKM has a trap there. Anyone see anything?”
She peered through a pair of borrowed binoculars given by one of the others. A few park rangers crouched nearby, looking through their field glasses. It allowed them to take up position on a low rise far outside of town, so they could plan what to do next.
“I see nothing,” she added. The word town was too big to properly describe what she was looking at. There was a little gas station and convenience store on a street corner, plus a similar building next to it. A gravel road ran between them, then through a small trailer park. By following the ribbon of white, dusty rock, it was apparent that was the road leading into the mountains. It was where Shawn and his people would come from.
“Wait!” As she scanned the gravel road, a plume of dust appeared toward the mountain range. “I think I see them coming.” She wondered if Shawn knew his vehicles were throwing up so much dust. It was giving them away.
She lowered the binoculars and stood there for a few moments, thinking about traps, the time they had before Shawn reached the town, and how they might warn him. Thus, she was unprepared when someone put their arm around her shoulders.
“Ash?” she asked, sounding surprised.
He held her tight. “I’m not very suave, Grace, but this seemed like the last opportunity to do this before we got back in the cramped truck.”
She shook off her initial uncertainty, then leaned into him. “I’m always available for snuggling.”
“Even when we’re about to go into danger?”
Grace looked into his eyes. “Especially if we are. I couldn’t do this without you, you know.”
Asher’s rich, brown eyes gazed into her soul. “I’m going to kiss you one last time, too.”
She didn’t hold back. Instead, Grace met him as they embraced there on the hillside. It helped to forget, for a few seconds, what was ahead. However, she had to let go long before she wanted to. “Hey, now. Remember our deal.”
Asher beamed. “When we finally meet your dad, I’m going to ask him if I have his permission to date you.”
It was their game. Despite her mother often holding her back, Grace was a modern woman. She could date any man she wanted. However, by mutual agreement, she and Asher dialed back their smoldering interest under the pretext they needed her dad’s permission to go out on a real date. Still, it didn’t prevent her from sneaking peeks at Asher, and she often caught him doing the same. Ending TKM’s threat and meeting up with her father was what it was all about, but wanting to finally let herself go with the man she’d come to see as much more than a friend, came in a close second.
Now was not that time.
Rocky and Carson came up to her, as if recognizing their moment of intimacy was over. “You want our advice?” Rocky asked.
She and Asher stepped a few paces apart, and she raised the binoculars again to catch her breath. While Rocky spoke, she scanned the town one more time.
“We think you should drive into town as one big procession. They’ll never be able to stop all of you. There can’t be many of them down there. Look at the place.”
He was right; there wasn’t much to see. The two shops along the highway didn’t seem to be heavily trafficked, though there was a blue passenger car parked in front of the gas station. The trailer park wasn’t much of a going concern, either. There were about ten trailers on each side of the gravel road, lined up mostly facing the mountains. Probably for the view.
Grace did notice movement at one of the trailers.
“I see something,” she said, shushing those around her.
“What do you see?” Asher said quietly, almost in her ear.
A man pushed open a set of doors at the end of the trailer, though it didn’t sit right with her. She had to squint to take in the details, but it was hard to square what she saw with reality. Then it snapped for her. The trailers were long and thin, as she’d expect from any mobile home. They sat in a trailer park, furthering the illusion. However, the man exiting from the end made her appreciate what she was looking at. Most of the boxy shapes weren’t homes at all. They were cargo containers.
“I see a fortress,” she lamented.
Soda Ash Plant, WY
“Whoa there, big fella,” Haley exclaimed, staring at the gun barrel leveled at her face. “I’m here with water.” Her arm muscles flared as she held the heavy water container where the man couldn’t miss it.
The guy looked at Haley, then at him and Butch, but ducked reflexively when a bullet struck the outside of the metal container. A second later, they all put their heads down as one of the men inside fired his weapon through the firing slit. Concussive waves of air blew out of the shipping container.
“Can we come in?” Haley said seriously, continuing her charade.
The man lowered his pistol. He was average build, perhaps in his thirties, but he seemed dry and worn out, as if he’d spent too much time in the sun and rocky wasteland in these parts. His dry lips cracked as he grinned at Haley. “Any chance you could deliver something more interesting?”
“She’s only delivering water,” Butch said in defense.
“Hey, I didn’t ask you. Let the lady speak for herself.” Dry guy didn’t seem worried at all he was propositioning a woman while his buddy repeatedly fired a rifle twenty feet down the inside of the box. The middle guy stood behind his friend, apparently anxious to see what Haley would say.
Haley set the water down, speaking at the same time. “I don’t need him to answer for me. I can do it on my own. You boys can drop—” She did her best to swing her rifle off her shoulder and point it at the guy, but he almost seemed ready for it. As she brought it to bear, he kicked it aside, then punched her on the side of the head.
“What the hell?” Ezra let out, surprised.
“DROP IT!” Butch bellowed, shoving his way past Haley.
The man with the pistol brought it back up, intending to target Butch. However, when he realized the blue-shirted TKM goon wasn’t going to do as he was told, Butch had to shoot him several times in the chest. The man managed to get one shot off, but it missed Butch and hit the inside of the half-open door behind him.
Ezra’s heart beat louder than the rifle hammering away. The first guy fell backward. The second man tried to bring his rifle up off the wall where he’d set it. Ezra had to put two shots into his chest. Shots that seemed ten times louder than the man already firing.
The man on the end figured out what was happening an instant too late to do him any good. He pulled his rifle from the shooting port and tried to redirect it to the people inside his defensive base. Ezra fired his rifle at the same time both Haley and Butch unleashed theirs.
The man fired, too, but then instantly fell over.
“Holy
crap!” Ezra blurted after the return shot struck the metal wall at his side.
The container went silent.
When he turned his attention to the man at the end, he was down on the floor, bleeding out a lake. He reached out to the three of them, wearing a look of abject fear. But, in a few short seconds, he went completely still.
Ezra didn’t know what to say. They’d engaged in a fight to the death, and Death had come to their shipping container. Ezra breathed in and out like a steam engine, wondering how close he’d come to being the guy on the floor. He needed time for his heart to slow back down.
“Everyone okay?” Butch asked, seemingly oblivious to the threats outside them or the high-stakes gamble they’d survived. Haley was down on one knee, trying to keep from crying.
“It’s all right,” Butch comforted as he gently brushed his fingers through her hair. “You both did great.”
“I almost got you killed,” Haley said, not yet crying, but sounding emotional.
“Hey,” Butch replied, pulling her up. “Don’t fall apart on me. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. I know you can do this.”
She sniffled a bit. “I’m sorry. You’re right. This isn’t me. We’ve seen some danger since I left St. Charles, but I heard the bullet zip by my head. That was close.”
Ezra couldn’t deny he’d been severely affected by the violence and whizzing bullets, too. He took a final deep breath, intending to bolster her spirits with words of kindness and support as a leader should. However, before he uttered a sound, she grabbed the water container.
“Next one, I’ll be faster on the draw.” Haley walked out the doors, then went toward the back of the container, out of the line of fire of the approaching trucks.
Butch flashed a wry smile, then trotted out after her.
When Ezra came out, the trucks were slowing on their approach. The shipping boxes on the far end had begun to fire at them, which was making them think twice about proceeding. Several of the trucks displayed broken windshields, suggesting the TKM people were doing some damage. He and his team had wiped out many of the fortified boxes on the right side of the line, but there was one more. He’d planned to skip it, especially since its doors were shut, but Haley went right for it.
Impact | Book 6 | Dig Page 11