"Any idea how long we have?" Grace asked. Her voice was different now. A little higher. Stressed, nervous, but with the grit of resolve.
Sonyea put an arm over Grace’s shoulder. "We don't know, sweetie. They’re in vehicles and we never could have caught them on foot. That’s why the chopper ride was such a blessing. We’re hoping it leapfrogged us ahead of them but we have no idea how much time it bought us."
“Then we need to get on the ball," Grace said. "We need to touch base with Mom, then we need to get your guy back here with your gear."
“I know,” Robert said. “I doubt we have much time.”
The driveway to the Hardwicks’ place was steep and winding. Everyone, with the exception of Tom, leaned forward and dug in, taking long strides on the rutted gravel road. At the first switchback, Grace pulled a walkie-talkie from her pocket and keyed the mic.
"Anybody home?" she asked.
After a moment, Theresa Hardwick's cheery voice came back from the tiny speaker. "You guys on your way back? You have any luck?"
“We’re coming up the driveway now, at the first switchback. Just wanted to give you a heads-up so we wouldn’t startle anyone. We had incredible luck. In fact, also got somebody here who wants to speak to you."
Grace handed the walkie-talkie over to her dad. She could imagine her mom on the other end, a curious look on her face, wondering who Grace might've encountered who wanted to speak to her. Robert merely stood there staring at the walkie-talkie as if he was uncertain what to do with it.
"Go ahead," Grace said. “It’s just Mom. Talk to her.”
Robert cleared his throat and raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth. He keyed the transmit button. “It’s me, sweetie. Robert.” He released the transmit button and listened.
There was no response at all. Robert stared at the walkie-talkie as if was malfunctioning. He tried again and she still didn’t answer. He frowned.
"I think she hung up on you," Sonyea said, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Robert shook his head. "I think she'll come running down this road any minute now. Which is probably something she shouldn’t do in her condition. She’s still healing."
"She defended our home in her condition,” Grace pointed out. “She had gunfights and saved my ass in her condition. I’m pretty sure there's not much she couldn't do, regardless of her condition."
Robert shrugged. Grace was right. Sometimes you did what you had to do no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much it was contrary to logic or reason. He knew that. They all knew that. He started walking again but fell silent, his mind clearly elsewhere. He was thinking of his wife barreling out the kitchen door and tearing down the hill toward him. He couldn’t resist the pull.
"Excuse me," he muttered, setting off up the hill at a jog.
Behind him, Grace smiled. She looked over and saw Sonyea wiping at her tears.
Tom winked at Grace. "My mom, a sucker for a Lifetime movie."
Grace giggled.
“This is better,” Sonyea said. “It’s real.”
The remainder of the group moved forward, advancing to the second switchback. Once they turned that curve they could see all the way up to the house. Ahead of them, two figures stood in the road embracing.
"Well, it's not my home but it's a home. I'm very glad to be here,” Sonyea said, pausing to catch her breath.
"I don't know if you and Dad have talked about arrangements but there's plenty of room in the house if you want to stay there. The solar setup makes for nearly a seamless transition from having grid power. There’s also a couple of cabins around the property. Some are nicer than others. Depends on what we had laying around at the time. They all have minimal solar but nothing fancy. They don't have indoor plumbing like the main house but there is an outhouse."
Sonyea looked at her son and then at Grace, and smiled widely. “I'm good with staying in the main house right now. I’m so happy to be here with you guys that I want to bask in the glow of it for a few more days. I’m sure at some point my inner hermit will fight its way out and I can decide then what I want to do. By then, a cabin might be a welcome change."
"Inner hermit,” Grace laughed. “No wonder you and my dad get along."
Ahead of them, Robert let go of his wife and caught Blake, who had also come running from the house.
Grace pointed beyond her dad. "The lady standing by the house is Leslie," she explained. "She's cleaned house for my mother for years. That’s why Dad got her to stay and help out while he came to get me. The little boy is her grandson, Dylan. His mom is that meth-head Debbie that caused us so much grief. I like Mrs. Brown, she's been like a grandmother to me, but she's weak. I wouldn’t trust my life to her and I’d suggest you not take that chance either if it ever comes down to it."
Sonyea nodded at Grace's assessment. It impressed her that in one breath the girl could admit her affection for the old lady but in the next could so easily disclose that she was a liability who could not be trusted. Sonyea thought that ability to separate from her emotions would serve Grace well in life, especially the way life was now.
Blake was excited to see his dad but he shed no tears. For Blake, it probably felt that the return of his father was a return to normality, though it would not be the normality of the old world.
"As much as I'd like to go sit down in my own living room, in my favorite chair, with my favorite family at my side, we need to go get our gear and fetch Brandon,” Robert said. “Maybe Grace and I can do that together. It shouldn't take us but about ten minutes or so."
“The farm truck is fueled up," Grace said. Their old farm truck was a one-ton Ford dually with a flatbed. It was an older truck used for hauling around lumber and farm supplies.
"That sounds good,” Robert said. “Why don’t you grab the key and we’ll head out."
Grace sprinted to the house.
"We brought a guy with us, Theresa. Brandon is his name. I’ll share the details when I get back but we have reason to think there's trouble headed our way. This young man can be a lot of help."
"What kind of trouble?" Theresa asked.
Robert shot a quick look at Blake and saw the boy was all ears. He lived to overhear adult conversations. "How about we wait until I get back and we have a little talk with just the grownups?"
"Aw man, I never get to hear the good stuff,” Blake moaned.
"One day, when you're older, you'll realize that none of it was good stuff," Tom said. “Grown up business is no fun at all.”
Sonyea smiled at Blake. "He's right, you know. It’s all work and no fun.”
With that conspiratorial comment, Blake immediately latched onto Sonyea as being the new, kid-friendly face among the crowd. He needed a new partner in crime. For her part, Sonyea had raised a son and was savvy to the ways of little boys. When he grabbed her hand and started dragging her off toward the house, she went along willingly.
“You’ll have to slow down,” she warned him. “I’m not nearly as fast as you are.”
As Sonyea moved up the driveway, Grace was returning, the farm keys dangling from her finger. “Who’s driving?” she asked.
Robert pointed a finger at her. "You. I'm shotgun."
3
Robert and Grace flung open the doors to the old white farm truck and heat rolled out like they were opening a coal furnace. They recoiled, giving the heat a moment to dissipate.
"You use this truck since you got home?" Robert asked.
"There's been no need," Grace said. "We've used ATVs mostly. People have been so sketchy I was afraid to go out and draw attention."
"Smart move. Hopefully this short little jaunt down the road should be okay."
“Famous last words,” Grace said. “Don’t jinx us.”
Robert eased into the truck and tested the waters. The vinyl seats were hot against his sweaty back. The truck was over twenty years old and had that old truck smell going on. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant smell. In fact, there was some comfort in its familia
rity, that earthiness reminding Robert that he was home. He was in his truck on his farm with his daughter.
Grace slid the key in the ignition, and the engine started right up. They rolled the windows down and slammed the heavy doors. They began the long drive off the property, passing the rest of the family getting acquainted in the yard. Robert and Grace waved, then turned down the steep driveway, keeping it slow because of the grade.
Now that they were alone Grace wasted no time in cutting to the heart of matters. "So who is this we’re expecting?"
Robert had always been blunt, a straight shooter, with his daughter. Sometimes he was more forthcoming with her than with his wife who, to be honest, didn’t always want to know what dangers might be lurking around the corner. Grace wanted to know. She wanted to be ready.
"When Sonyea was well enough to leave Arthur’s compound, we loaded the gear, the horses, and started toward home. We barely made it beyond the compound gates before we came under heavy fire. I don't know how we managed to survive but we did. They destroyed your truck and we lost some gear. Turned out there was this congressman who had met Arthur years ago and had been following the progress of his compound. The congressman’s bug-out plan, if times got hard, was to take Arthur’s compound and all his gear for himself. He had a whole entourage with him: campers, families, armed men, and piles of gear. Apparently he’d promised all of them that he had a place lined up and it would be easy pickings."
“That sounds crazy."
"It was," Robert said. "We tried to get out a second time on horses using one of the back trails out of the compound and we came under fire again. One of the horses was killed and that bothered Sonyea a lot. We realized then that if we kept trying to escape we were going to get killed. It's a long story but eventually the congressman just pulled up stakes and disappeared.
“We thought he'd given up and gone home but apparently we were wrong. Under interrogation, a spy the congressman had planted among Arthur’s men said that the congressman was asking questions about me and where I lived before he left. We’re not one hundred percent sure but we think he’s going to gamble that I have a compound of my own and it’s likely to be an easier target than Arthur’s place. Of course we can't be certain he’s coming but there were enough indicators to make me paranoid. Arthur and Kevin were certainly concerned enough that they arranged for this flight home and sent Brandon with me."
Grace took it all in stride, steering carefully. "Like you said, we have no way of knowing for certain but putting safeguards in place is not a bad idea anyway. It they come, it will slow them down and give us an advantage. If they don’t, it still provides us with a measure of security against any visitors.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Robert agreed.
At the bottom of the farm road, they rolled to a stop. Grace scanned in both directions out of habit.
"These folks have a manpower advantage," Robert said. “I don’t know what kind of numbers we’re looking at but there were a lot of them.”
Grace appeared undaunted. She was practical and preferred to deal with what was in front of her rather than speculating on odds. Odds meant nothing, really. All they accomplished was instilling a false sense of confidence or making you scared. Neither was a good place from which to be making decisions.
"So why didn’t Arthur just wipe them out when they showed up at his compound? I’m sure he had the capability."
Robert threw up his hands in frustration. "Ah, it's complicated. I thought the same thing and at one point I tried to urge them to pull some show of strength like that but they talked me out of it. I managed to step on a few toes in the process."
"Why?"
"They raised a lot of ethical questions. Did all of people who were there participating know what was actually going on or had they been misled? Also, if we killed all those men who were surrounding the compound, what would happen to their families? If their families showed up later looking for answers, would we be forced to kill them to silence them? To hide what we’d done? It was a lot to think about it. In the end, I decided it was their decision since it was their compound. If they show up here, I’ll make my own call."
“How did you manage to step on toes?”
Robert shrugged. “I wasn’t looking at the big picture. All I could see was that their failure to act was keeping me from getting home. I forgot there were other lives at stake too. I was a bit of a jerk.”
Grace let that confession pass. She knew her dad could be a little obsessive but she’d never seen him act the way he was describing. "I would probably have acted on impulse, like you, and then tried to straighten out later. I guess sometimes you may take action that can’t be straightened out. That’s the chance you take."
Robert patted Grace on the shoulder. "You think like me, which isn’t always a good thing. Remember that. Fortunately, in this case, cooler heads prevailed and they brought me around to their side."
"Cooler heads aren’t always right,” Grace said. "You've said all along that if you don't deal with a problem when it’s before you, you’ll just have to deal with it another time. If Arthur's people had taken care of this congressman down there in Georgia, we wouldn’t be dealing with him now with a smaller force.”
They fell silent for a moment, each processing, watching.
"We’re going to need eyes and ears out there in the community and I'm not sure yet how were going to get those,” Robert said. “I don't want to be surprised when the congressman shows up here at the house. I’d like to know the minute he hits town."
"Town isn’t anything like it was when you left. The hikers that were here for the festival apparently concerned the sheriff enough that he tried to drive them off. It didn’t go well for him. Things got ugly and now the hikers pretty much occupy the town. It's not sustainable. A lot of them are melting down under the pressure. Most want to go home and can’t understand why the government hasn’t come for them. No one has the initiative to just get off their butt and leave. It's too big a group to feed and eventually they’ll run out of scavenged food. There’s not enough in the whole town to keep them going indefinitely."
Robert absorbed all this. "The congressman's entourage is not exactly low-key. They have a caravan of pickups, RVs, and campers. They'll draw attention wherever they go. They’ll need a big place, like a football field or campground, to set up camp."
"I know for certain they can’t park their rigs in that campground outside of town. A lot of the townspeople that were driven out by the hikers took up residency there. I made the mistake of taking a shortcut through there and things got real ugly."
Robert's attention flared. "Are you okay? They didn't hurt you, did they?"
Grace shook her head. "No. I killed one of them but it was only because he raised his gun at me. I didn’t have a choice."
This was the first Robert heard of Grace having to kill anyone. It brought a flood of mixed emotions. He was glad she was okay, glad that she had prevailed in whatever fight took place, but his heart ached that his baby girl had been forced to take a life. Sure, that was what weapons training was about. Self-defense was about protecting yourself and your loved ones, but you hoped that you never had to resort to it.
He tried to maintain his calm and hide his emotions while he spoke to her. “I’m sorry you had to kill someone, sweetie. Are you okay with that? Do we need to talk about it?"
Grace became very serious. She didn't take what she’d done lightly but she’d made her peace with it. "We have a lot to talk about, Dad. He wasn't the first man I killed and I seriously doubt he'll be the last. As a matter fact, I haven’t gone back and counted so I’m not even sure exactly how many people I’ve killed at this point. It's been several. I'm not bragging. I'm not proud of it. But the fact I was able to do it means I'm here sitting with you now because I was able to pull the trigger instead of hesitating. I can tell you one hundred percent, unequivocally, that the way you trained me growing up is what saved my life. I thank you for that."
The acknowledgment brought a lump to Robert’s throat. All the times he was concerned he might be transferring and instilling his paranoia into his daughter were irrelevant now. The situations he’d trained her for had come to fruition and she had survived. Beyond that, she’d helped keep his family alive because of the things he’d taught her. All he could offer her at this point was to help her be at peace with what happened. If she needed to process, he’d help her do that. If she wanted to move on and not discuss it, then he would respect that.
"I’d like to hear all you went through, Grace. When we have the time to sit down, I’d like to know."
"Dad, I'm cool with talking about it if it makes you feel better but I can hear that thing in your voice. That concern and that whole loss of innocence thing. Don't waste your time feeling that way. There's no room for it anymore. If I'm cool with what happened then you should be too. I’m sure you didn’t get back home without spilling a little blood. If talking about that makes you feel better, I'm here for you, but I'm good. The fact I’m alive and they’re dead is all the proof I need that I did the right thing."
Robert leaned over and patted his daughter on the hand. “Alright then. That’s the last you’ll hear about it from me."
They rode in silence for a few moments, until Robert pointed out one turn, then another. He kept his weapon at the ready, watching for anything of concern, but their sparsely-populated neighborhood was as sleepy as ever and they didn’t see a soul.
"Right here," Robert said, pointing to a wide spot in the road. A gate provided access to the hayfield where they’d left Brandon. "Keep the engine running and stay here.”
Robert eased out the door and left it open. He counted on Brandon having heard their approach but he didn’t want to just go scrambling up there. If Brandon took a shot at him by accident, he wouldn’t miss. Robert looked around and confirmed there was no one else around.
Blood Bought: Book Four in The Locker Nine Series Page 4