A Stranger in Town: a Rockton novel

by Armstrong, Kelley

  “Damn,” I say. “ ’Cause that’d be hot.”

  A low rumble of chuckles as everyone relaxes a little.

  I continue. “We’ll borrow your glasses, too, Phil, in case he needs to remove his shades.”

  He hands them over. Dalton puts them on, and I say, “You owe me twenty bucks. Right?”

  “Yeah,” Dalton mutters.

  Émilie’s brows rise.

  “We had a bet,” I say. “I said they were plain glass.”

  Phil opens his mouth to protest, but I cut him off with, “Let’s finish playing dress-up and get going.”

  * * *

  We take Anders. That’s a risk—it leaves the town exposed. But with Petra gone and Kenny less than fully ambulatory, there’s no one else I can trust to cover my back. Kenny will be in charge of Rockton, with others stepping forward to assist, and they all know that the priority today is surveillance. Watch our borders. Any trouble—from hostiles to unexpected planes—fire off a flare, and we’ll abandon our mission to get back.

  Another person joins us. Maryanne. She knows the shaman, and while I argue that the hostiles have nothing to do with Petra’s kidnapping, they are out there, and they’re pissed off, and they may have Edwin and Felicity. We haven’t forgotten their plight. We just need to deal with Petra’s first. We’ll take the ATV, while Storm runs beside us.

  We’re almost at the stopping point before we hear Émilie’s plane. That’s still cutting it close. I make the executive decision to use the noise of the plane to drive a little farther. Soon, though, we’re off the vehicle and jogging on foot. There are no paths, and I’m in the lead, finding game trails, before Maryanne softly asks if she can take over. Of course she should—she is the expert out here.

  As we run, the plane circles twice, as if second-guessing its landing spot. That’d be at Dalton’s command, making sure we see where to go. We do, and it helps that we’re downwind, because Storm catches Petra’s scent and gives a little whine of excitement. I tell her to stay on that scent, quietly, and she moves into the lead, deftly finding a path that her big body can pass through.

  It’s Anders who sees Victor’s plane first, when a beam of sunlight strikes the metal. As Émilie’s plane lands, my heart thumps. I’d wanted to be in position before they touched down. I get Anders to cover me, and I tell Storm to wait with them. Then I slip through the forest, my gun out as I stay in the shadows.

  I spot Victor. I don’t see Petra, but I trust she’s nearby and safe. I position myself to come out behind Victor as he keeps his gaze—and a gun—trained on Émilie’s plane, idling in place, doors shut.

  The second plane sits ten meters away. Even from here I can see the damage, and I remember Victor saying he couldn’t leave because the “vultures” had picked it clean. Hostiles taking what they could? Or intentionally disabling it?

  I glance back and wave for Anders to join me. Maryanne and Storm will stay where they are.

  I don’t wait for Anders to catch up. While those propellers are turning, the whoosh of them drowns out all sound, and I need to get into the best possible position to defend Dalton. Yes, Émilie and Petra are there, too, but my attention is on Dalton. I know Victor’s is, too—faced by an eighty-something woman and a thirty-something guy, he’ll focus on the male part of the equation.

  Victor has made a mistake, though. He’s on the wrong side of the clearing, opposite the pilot’s door instead of the passenger’s. He takes a step toward the front of the plane, realizing his tactical error, but there’s no time to correct it now.

  “Get out of the plane,” he shouts.

  The pilot’s door opens, and Émilie waves a gloved hand. “Show a little patience, young man. It takes me a while to get anywhere these days.”

  She takes her time sliding from the seat, and when she’s on the ground, he shouts, “Are you turning off the damned plane?”

  She throws up her hands. “You told me to get out.” She turns. “Phil? Please shut off the engine.”

  “You get out, too,” Victor shouts over the engine noise.

  “Before or after I turn the engine off?” Dalton calls back, and his usual drawl is clipped with Phil-like annoyance.

  “Turn the fucking plane off, get out, and come around where I can see you. Hands raised. If you have a gun, I’d suggest you leave it behind because if I see it, I’m shooting.”

  Hesitation, and then Dalton lifts a gun and puts it aside. Even through the windows, I can tell it isn’t his revolver—the barrel is too short.

  See, I’m disarming. You’re in control here.

  “Where’s my granddaughter?” Émilie says.

  Victor waves toward the other plane, his gaze never leaving Dalton as he walks around the front.

  Émilie starts to hurry over and then catches herself, moving slower as she makes her way to the plane. Dalton stays in the shade with his hands raised. He is indeed dressed as Phil, in new jeans and a button-down shirt. He’s taken off the shades and put on Phil’s glasses instead. He’s also shaved, and it gives his face a babyish look that, with the outfit, is a far cry from the wilderness sheriff Victor saw earlier.

  Victor grunts, satisfied that this is the right guy. That means he’s nervous—too nervous to insist Dalton come closer and too nervous to question. Dalton looks like a pencil pusher, so that must be what he is.

  Gun still trained on Dalton, Victor looks over at Émilie as she yanks on the other plane’s passenger door.

  “Not there,” Victor shouts. “The cargo hold.”

  She goes to the next door and pulls, grunting with the strain.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. It’s open. Just pull.”

  Another grunting tug. Victor curses some more and stalks over. The moment he walks away, Dalton slides out his revolver. He points it at Victor, who doesn’t even glance back, distracted and intent on his mission. Émilie steps aside, and Victor yanks open the cargo door.

  “She’s right—What the hell?”

  He leans into the cargo hold. “Where the fuck—?”

  “Behind you,” says a voice.

  Victor backs out and slowly turns toward the tail of the plane, where Petra holds a little Beretta Pico on him. Then she sees Dalton over Victor’s shoulder.

  “Shit,” she says. “Way to ruin my moment, Eric.”

  Victor looks over and spots Dalton, revolver trained on him. Victor’s gun arm swings up on Émilie, but she’s already five feet away, and Petra yanks her back.

  “Casey?” Petra calls. “I’m guessing there’s a third gun on this bastard?”

  “Third and fourth,” Anders calls back as I walk from the forest.

  Petra shoves her tiny pistol into her pocket and makes sure Émilie is safely behind the plane before she goes after Victor. He still tries to raise his gun, but she’s on him, and the gun’s wrested free.

  “Your turn to put your hands up,” Dalton says as he tugs out a wrist tie.

  Victor peers at the handcuffs and then up into Dalton’s face. “Fuck.”

  “Yep,” Dalton says. “You’ve seen me before, and you don’t even have the excuse of blindness. You were just in too big a hurry to get your plane. Now turn around and—”

  Victor staggers back, and everyone jumps, three guns training on him. Dalton barks at Victor to stop. Then we see the blood blossoming on Victor’s shoulder. He thumps against the plane, metal clanging.

  Blood on his shoulder, not from a bullet, but from the arrow embedded there.

  35

  “Will! Get down!” Dalton shouts as he pushes me toward the open plane hatch.

  I give him a shove toward the front of the plane. Dalton nods and runs around front, leaving Petra and me at the back. Victor stumbles after us until the thwack of a second arrow has him slamming into the door. I glance over to see him sliding to the ground.

  I get around Victor’s plane and find another cargo door. It opens before we can reach for the handle. Émilie’s holding it for us, and we scramble inside. Dalton’s
there a second later, and I pull him in.

  The first thing Dalton does is look into the cockpit, as if hoping he could fly us out despite the external damage. The panels have all been smashed, though, wiring pulled out. Definitely intentional. We aren’t going anywhere.

  Outside, Victor whimpers. I glance through the dirty window, but I don’t see him. He’s on the ground, shot twice, possibly dying. I don’t care. Can’t care. Anyone who helps him will risk the same.

  “Will,” I whisper to Dalton. “Will and Storm and Maryanne are out there.”

  His nod is curt. He is very aware of who we’ve left in the forest. I think about Felicity and Edwin, but push them from my mind. Later. They must wait for later.

  Seconds pass, and then comes the thunder of running paws. Storm bursts from the forest. I lean out the far hatch, and she runs straight to me, clambering in.

  “Tight quarters,” Émilie says with an even tighter smile, as we rearrange ourselves in the cargo hold.

  “Fish in a barrel,” Petra mutters.

  I shake my head. “We’re fine. I’d like that other hatch closed, but as long as someone’s guarding—”

  “Got it,” she says, turning her gun that way.

  “You okay?” I murmur as I lean toward her.

  “My ego is on life support, but I’m fine. Asshole.” She scowls toward the hatch, and then shakes her head and inches that way.

  Dalton glances at the other plane, as if wondering whether we could get to it and escape. It’s too far and too dangerous for all of us to make that run, even if we would all fit, which I doubt.

  I lean out the back as Dalton covers me. I listen for Victor but hear nothing. Then I listen for Anders. Still nothing. Is he lying low with Maryanne? I hope so. I pat Storm, reassuring her, and she nuzzles my hand.

  “I’m coming out!” a voice shouts. “And I have a hostage. Fire at me, and I fire at him.”

  It’s Anders. My heart thuds, and Dalton tenses, rocking toward the front hatch. Anders is coming that way, and there’s nothing either of us can do to stop him. Leaping from the plane would only give our attackers a second target without protecting the first.

  “You folks can see me?” Anders says. “Just stay cool, and he’ll be fine.”

  Anders appears through my angled vision out the hatch, and when I see him, my heart does a double thud. His hostage is the young hostile. The boy isn’t small, but beside Anders, he looks like a child, his face blank with terror as Anders hustles him along, positioning the boy between him and the forest. Between him and whoever is out there with bows and arrows.

  Whoever? No, we know who it is now. The shaman and her troop of hostiles.

  A soft noise behind us has me spinning, gun up, cursing myself for not monitoring that open back door. But Émilie is—she has Victor’s gun, which Petra must have given her, and she already has it trained on the newcomer. Or she did, until she saw it’s Maryanne. That’s part of Anders’s ploy. Create a distraction so Maryanne can get to us.

  I let Émilie help Maryanne in while I cover Anders. When Dalton eases forward, I resist snatching him back. Yes, he’s moving into a more exposed position, but Anders needs that. From our vantage point, Petra and I can only survey the left side of the forest.

  Dalton hesitates a split second, and then darts to the other side of the hatch. No one fires from the forest. Outside, Anders is almost to us, still using his military voice as he talks to the hidden hostiles. That voice is rock-steady, just short of a bark.

  He’s almost to us when the arrow comes. He must hear a thwang that we miss. He moves fast but the young man still lets out a hiss of pain, and we open fire. We shoot into the trees, above anyone’s head, the sudden gunfire intended as both warning and cover as Anders drags the boy the last few feet, and then Maryanne and Émilie haul them both in.

  Once they’re inside, we stop shooting, and the forest goes silent. While Petra and Dalton stand guard, I crawl over to the boy.

  Blood soaks his shirt. A hole shows the arrow’s path through his side.

  “They aimed at him,” Anders growls as he rips off the boy’s bloodied and dirt-crusted shirt. “They damn well aimed at him. Their own goddamned guy.”

  I get the young man lying down. Maryanne is there, crouched at his side, gripping his hand.

  “You’re okay,” Maryanne says. “You’re okay.”

  She smiles down at him, and it’s a big smile, one that shows her teeth—her filed teeth—and that is intentional. When she says “You’re okay” again, his eyes fill with tears.

  “Yeah, he’s fine,” Anders says. “Looks like they just nicked him.”

  That isn’t what Maryanne means. Not the injury but his ordeal.

  You’re safe. You’ll be fine.

  “If I hadn’t seen it coming, though?” Anders shakes his head. “It was a chest shot. Motherfuckers. They were taking out their own guy.”

  I could say that I’m not surprised. At the time, I’d been too worried about Anders to see the danger the boy faced, but now I realize that they absolutely would have taken him out. Maryanne had warned the shaman wouldn’t hesitate to use him.

  Did they shoot him so they could get to Anders? Or to show us the futility of taking hostages? Or because the boy had been too “weak” to avoid capture?

  From what Maryanne said of the shaman, I’m betting on the last two. Even with that insight, though, Anders couldn’t have foreseen this. He comes from the military, where taking out your own man is unthinkable.

  “You’re okay,” I tell the young man, and he seems to see me for the first time.

  “Careful,” he whispers, his voice rough with disuse. “Please, please be careful. She’s . . .”

  He swallows and doesn’t finish, and he doesn’t need to. The “bad guys” in this scenario may be a distant Danish corporation and its agents, but the real danger lies in its victims.

  We want to help the hostiles—or at least those who’ll accept help—but that doesn’t matter. There’s no opposing team to fight, so the hostiles will fight us. We still don’t want to attack if there’s a choice, especially when they may have Felicity and Edwin. I ask Anders, but he hasn’t seen them. He did see Victor and thinks he’s dead.

  As Dalton and Petra and Émilie guard the exits, I talk with Anders, and the boy contributes where he can. Bennett. That’s his name. First or last, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter yet.

  Anders spotted one hostile—that’s how he saw the movement that preceded the arrow fire. He’d also spotted another before he’d grabbed Bennett. Dalton and Petra check Anders’s directions and find both hostiles still in place.

  According to Bennett, there are five people left of the shaman’s group. Two of them are watching “the old man and the girl.” Felicity and Edwin are alive. Relief surges . . . until I realize this only adds to our need to resolve this peacefully. Otherwise, the hostiles may kill them for revenge.

  Worse, the shaman’s group has apparently joined forces with the other group, the shaman having rallied them to the fight. Only a few members of that group are here. A total of five in the woods then, including the wounded shaman. Three are armed with bows.

  Dalton listens to the assessment and then opens his mouth, but Petra beats him to it.

  “Eric?” she says. “I’m going to suggest you let me and Will go after the ones we have eyes on. That’s two of the three archers.”

  He hesitates, but only to check with Anders.

  “Makes sense,” Anders says. “If Petra and I can subdue them quietly, that leaves one bow, one guy armed with a knife, and the wounded leader.”

  They head to the back hatch. Dalton shouts out the hatch, “We want to talk to the woman in charge!”

  Silence.

  “We know it’s a woman. Your shaman or whatever. Your leader.”

  Silence.

  “Fucking hell. Seriously? We know your numbers. We might be holed up like cornered foxes, but that only means we’ve got eyes and guns on the exits,
and we’re feeling a little trigger-happy. There are seven fucking people crammed in this tin can. Five guns. One really big dog. You honestly want to test your odds?”

  Still no answer. He shifts his gaze, making sure Anders and Petra are gone before he continues his bluster.

  “So what the fuck are we doing here?” he shouts. “You sit in the forest? We sit in this plane? Wait for dark? That’s a helluva long time, and I can guarantee you, the dark will be our friend, not yours. We’ll shine flashlights out this hatch and see you coming.”

  Nothing.

  Before he can react, I lean into the open hatch.

  “I would like to speak to the woman I shot!” I shout. “I know you’re capable of talking.”

  I pull back fast, even as Dalton growls.

  It takes a moment. Then the shaman calls back, “I will talk to you. Not him. You. But you need to come out.”

  Dalton’s laugh echoes through the clearing. “Fuck no.”

  “You can be silent,” the shaman calls. “You call us savages, but you can barely speak a sentence without that word. You are ignorant and uneducated.”

  I glance over at Maryanne, who is staring at the side of the plane as if she can see through the metal. Her brows are knitted, as if she’s not quite sure what she’s hearing. When I catch her eye, I lift my brows and mouth, Is that not her?

  “No, it is,” she whispers. “I’ve just never heard . . .” She swallows. “She always spoke better than the rest, but not like that. Not so fluently.”

  I think Maryanne’s hunch was right—the shaman regulated her own intake of the narcotics. She kept her mind clear and her wits sharp. Dalton hides his intelligence behind his rough language. She hid hers behind fractured speech.

  “If I come out, so do you,” I say. “If your people shoot at me, you’ll be dead before you can get back into the forest.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do your people?”

  “They will not fire unless I tell them to,” she says.

  “Will you come out and speak to me?”