The Abandon Series | Book 2 | These Times of Retribution

by Schow, Ryan

  He kept a few car-lengths distance, observing them for now. So far they weren’t breaking any laws, but then, with less than a mile to go before reaching the city, one of the guys in a Jeep CJ7 with big off-road tires tried to run a Honda Pilot off the road.

  Garrity sat up, turned the radio down. “What the…?”

  He sped up, watched the cars, trucks, and bikes move around the Jeep, but the Jeep was harassing the Honda Pilot, which had the driver slowing down to try to move over. When it was clear the Jeep could pass, the driver chose otherwise. He kept swerving into the Pilot, almost like he had a grudge or Defcon 1 road rage. That’s when the guy in the Jeep attempted to force the Pilot off the road.

  A soft, grassy shoulder sloped down towards a stretch of white, wooden fencing. If these idiots actually succeeded, this could be bad news for the driver, unless he or she had any kind of defensive driving skills.

  Garrity sped up, got behind the Jeep, watched the guy in the passenger’s seat pull out a bat and take a swing at the Pilot’s window. Both vehicles were slowing down fast, the Jeep’s caravan creating distance between them.

  Garrity flipped on the lights and gave the guy a siren blast. This caused the bat boy to turn and glare at him. The guy was white and mean-looking with tattoos snaking up his neck. Back in the day, Garrity dealt with bikers and gangs. Now it was tweakers and revolutionaries, which made him long for the old days when there was at least a little bit of dignity in crime.

  This thug, this professional trouble-causer, hit the Pilot’s window again, cracking the glass and forcing the Pilot off the road. Garrity slowed even further, feeling better now that the kid plopped back down in the passenger seat. As the Pilot braked hard on the grassy slope and started to slide, the Jeep gunned it, leaving Garrity to deal with the Pilot.

  Suddenly a glass bottle came flying out of the Jeep. Garrity swerved hard, but the bottle exploded on the side of the windshield, cracking the tempered class.

  He roared out a slew of near obscenities, one eye on the Jeep, the other on the Pilot.

  Forced to decide between pursuing the Jeep or helping the driver in the Pilot, he chose the Pilot. This was the right thing to do. The SUV’s brakes locked, the back end slid, but the driver corrected it and came to a stop, just short of crashing through the wooden fencing.

  Garrity pulled the cruiser off the road in front of her, then backed up to the Pilot. Before getting out, he radioed the station.

  “This is Sheriff Garrity,” he said to Laura, his dispatcher.

  “What’s going on, Lance?” she asked casually.

  “We’ve got a scumbag brigade moving in or through town. They’re heading south on 27, a whole pack of them. One of them just ran someone off the road and launched an unopened beer bottle at me.”

  “I thought you were taking the day off,” she said.

  “I am. Get the word out, will you? These guys are up to no good.”

  “Roger that, are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said, leaving the lights on. “I’m going to need a new windshield, though.” He shut off the cruiser. “I’m going to check on the driver, make sure everything is okay.”

  In the rearview mirror, he saw a flustered woman.

  “Roger that.”

  “I want Marilyn and Derek on high alert,” he said of his two remaining deputies. “Let me know if these idiots are just passing through, or if they decide to stay and grace our town with their enchanting presence.”

  “You sound so sweet when you say it like that,” Laura said.

  “Keeps me from cussing.”

  “You still trying to stop?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  When his mother passed from cancer just last year, she’d only asked one thing of him, and that was that he clean up his mouth.

  “It’s the military, Mom,” he’d said.

  “I’m going to be watching you,” she’d replied, glancing up from her hospital bed, indicating she’d be in heaven looking down on him.

  “If I get out of line,” he had said with tears in his eyes because he knew she was close to passing over, “I promise to wash my own mouth out with Tabasco sauce.”

  She used to load up his tongue with hot sauce when, as a boy, he started cussing. This was right before she switched to washing his potty mouth out with Ivory soap.

  “You were always a good boy,” she had said before going. She took his hand, his big mitt in her skeletal grip, then she looked up at him with those deep blue eyes. “Not a single word, Lance. Promise me you won’t say a single cuss word.”

  “When you get to heaven, if you see everything from there, if you know everything, please don’t hold it against me.”

  She closed her eyes, a slight smile on her face. A few minutes later, she was gone.

  As he got out of his cruiser and walked down the grassy, uneven ground to the silver Honda Pilot, he smiled, keeping his eyes on both the woman and the highway traffic. A semi-truck rocketed by, its gusting winds causing Garrity to hold his hat.

  When he approached the woman’s SUV, he wanted her to open the door instead of roll down the window. The window was shattered where the creep with the bat had attacked it.

  The woman was crying, as was a small child in the car seat in back. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.

  “It’s okay,” he replied, calming her down. “Is everyone alright here?”

  She nodded, wiping her eyes. She was maybe thirty, thirty-five years old, more than a decade younger than him and scared.

  “What happened?”

  “They saw my ‘Baby On Board’ sticker in the back window, I think. That guy, the one who started hitting my window, he was screaming at me for no reason. I mean, I think maybe I might have cut him off trying to merge over? I don’t know. They were going so fast!”

  “What do you mean about the ‘Baby On Board?’”

  “He started screaming that babies suck, so I don’t know…he just…he was scary, you know? Like he was possessed, or high, or something.”

  She couldn’t stop crying.

  “Do you want me to help you get back on the road? Or maybe escort you someplace where you can take a few minutes and compose yourself?”

  “That would be great,” she said with a weary smile. “Thank you.”

  “Just ahead, the gully levels out, and there’s a flat, hard shoulder. You can park there until you feel better equipped to drive.”

  “What about those guys?” she asked, the fear starting to turn to anger.

  “I have my deputies on high alert for them.”

  She nodded, wiping her eyes, one of her false eyelashes starting to detach. She was pretty, but seeing that kind of fear on a woman bothered him.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  She nodded, then reached out and took his hand.

  His first instinct was to flinch, cover his weapon, start barking out instructions to move away from her, but he let her take his hand.

  “The last cop that helped me was fat and old, and he had a couple of cracked sunflower seeds on his uniform.”

  He laughed and said, “One day I will be fat and old, but I’m not a seeder.”

  With a slight chuckle, she said, “I can’t thank you enough.”

  Nodding, smiling, he gave her hand a little squeeze, then let go and said, “Follow me, okay?”

  He returned to his cruiser, then crept over the soft terrain. He saw the road ahead but couldn’t stop looking at his spider-webbed windshield.

  This was where he almost wanted to start cursing those clowns, but he thought about his mother, about the promise he made to her.

  When he reached the leveled-out section of highway, he pulled far enough ahead for the Pilot to ease up behind him. He got out, checked on her again, and said, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  She shook her head and smiled. “I appreciate you stopping to check on me and my child.”

  Garrity glanced into the back seat, saw the child’s wet
eyes, and chubby red cheeks. He had a binkie in his mouth, his little jaw working it.

  “Are you married?” he asked.

  She shook her head, and there was a sadness in her eyes he could actually feel. “My ex-husband met his new girlfriend when I was five months pregnant.”

  The shock of this visibly hit him. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I know, but on behalf of my gender…”

  She gave a pleasant laugh and said, “I’m not stupid enough to think that one bad guy is indicative of all guys.”

  He didn’t know what to say. Looking at her, seeing a woman like this, made him think about his own life. He hadn’t been in a relationship for years now. Maybe it was time to stop punishing himself for his past transgressions.

  “If you need anything else, just call the Jessamine County Sheriff’s Office. I’m Sheriff Lance Garrity.”

  “That’s a good name,” she said. “I’m Chastity.”

  When he got into his cruiser, he heard Laura trying to reach him on the radio. He reached down for the mic and said, “I’m headed back to town, Laura. Can you repeat that last transmission, please?”

  “Oh thank, God,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I was saying these guys got off on North Main Street, and they’re causing trouble at every light. Marilyn doesn’t act like she’s scared, but she said she thinks they’re Hayseed Rebellion and she’s clearly intimidated.”

  “They have some of the earmarks of HR,” Garrity said. “It could be an offshoot of them, too.”

  The offshoots of the Hayseed Rebellion weren’t as organized as the original group and they weren’t as violent, but when these groups decided to dig into a town, they crept in slowly and under the radar, and then they struck all at once. Whether or not they were Hayseed Rebellion was concerning because the HR was tactical in its operations, and highly organized.

  “What about Derek?” he asked.

  “He’s on a domestic abuse call on Nottaway Drive. Should I have him wrap up and rendezvous with Marilyn?”

  “No, I’ll be there shortly.”

  “Roger that.”

  A few minutes later, Laura radioed him again. “Marilyn got sidetracked at North Main and Maple. A drunk driver plowed into a Toyota Camry in the intersection. She said to tell you she doesn’t have eyes on those Hayseed scumbags.”

  “Roger that,” he said. “I’m heading to North Main now, so keep me posted.”

  Chapter Four

  Colt McDaniel

  Daybreak was Colt McDaniel’s favorite time of the day. He crawled out of bed, kissed Faith on the cheek, or sometimes in the soft hollow of her closed eye, and told her he loved her. This wasn’t an empty gesture, nor had it ever been. He’d been in love with her since he first ran into her in L.A. as a twenty-one-year-old girl. Now forty-five years old, she had aged some, but not as much as she should for a country girl getting close to fifty.

  He stepped out onto the porch, inhaled the crisp Kentucky air, then stretched his legs, arms, and back. He bounded down the steps, walked across the packed-gravel driveway, then walked through the gate and into the half-acre garden. Row by row, he checked to make sure there were no irrigation issues, animal issues, or insect issues with the new crop.

  When he was done, he walked to the small barn he’d converted to a man-cave he’d deemed his “work shed.” Faith didn’t buy it, but she said she was happy he had a place to get away. Inside the converted barn, he slid on his rucksack, rolled his neck to loosen it up, then headed back outside and started down the driveway. On the asphalt road leading out, Watts Mill Road, he broke into an easy jog, heading to Sulfur Well Road/US-39, a one-point-seven-mile run.

  A half an hour into his run, on his way back from Sulfur Well Rd, thoughts of Walker crept into his mind. This was Walker’s rucksack. Well, it was the one he let Colt use. The two of them used to ruck together in the Army. If there was ever a time they bonded, it was on those pre-dawn runs. He hated running, but now, all these years later, he found that if he started the day running, it kept memories of Walker alive in his mind. At least until he saw his older brother again. What started out as a way for him to think about his brother had become a better way to center his thoughts and keep himself fit. At forty-eight years old, he was closer to fifty than Faith. And just like his beautiful wife, who ran a boot camp in town, he was also trying to preserve what was left of his youth.

  After a three-and-a-half-mile round-trip run, he humped it up the packed-gravel driveway, then returned to the barn. There he shrugged off his rucksack, collapsed on the couch, and flipped on the TV he’d mounted on the wall last year. He thought about cracking open a cold beer, but Faith said drinking before noon—especially when you’re retired and still trying to be a responsible adult—was not acceptable. Instead, he sunk into the comfy couch and let his muscles cool down.

  Watching the news, or as Walker used to call it, “observing stylized gaslighting,” he could not help but shake his head at how easily the lies poured forth. Disgusted with what he saw, as usual, he found a fishing show and dreamed of being on the water. March 31st was officially the end of trout season in Kentucky, which was coming up fast, and nothing sounded better than a lazy day on the Cumberland River. Brown trout or Rainbow, it didn’t matter, he had yet to come home empty-handed.

  But his life wasn’t about fishing, or kicking back with a six-pack on the river—it was now all about farming. His grandfather said starting the right crop at the right time of the season was critical to ending up with a good harvest. He picked up a lot working with his grandfather, and then his father, but he chose the Army first, and the water treatment plant later. When his grandfather died, he left what money he had saved to Colt’s father—as well as a life insurance policy to cover the remaining balance on the mortgage. When Colt’s father passed last year, he left everything to Colt and Faith, including a nice income from selling extra crops to local patrons and restaurants.

  Once a warrior, then a water man, now a farmer. It was just as well. In his time in the Middle East, he’d succumbed to the pull of violence. Then, working at the water treatment plant, he found he’d become insufferably boring. But with the change in lifestyle, and his ability to be home more, he had a chance to be the man he wanted to be, the husband Faith had deserved, and the father he should have been, had he made more time for his family.

  Now, nearly a year retired, he found he liked himself just fine. He had also been able to sort through his past rather well. What happened in the Army—what they did in the name of defending the country—was mostly justified and almost legal, even though he still suffered the occasional nightmare. But now that he and Faith were getting along, and the kids were out living their own lives, it was just the two of them.

  The peace and quiet, Faith had surmised a few days ago, helped push back the horrors of war, which he was sure was the reason the nightmares had become far less frequent.

  On TV, Colt watched an angler pull in a largemouth bass, talk about it, then toss it back. He shut off the television, headed inside to shower, then sauntered into the kitchen to the smell of a late breakfast cooking.

  “You don’t act like a farmer with these late morning starts,” Faith said.

  “Dad always said size and balance matter,” Colt said, kissing her. “Size of the gardens, balance in life—”

  A ruckus at the front door startled them both. The insistent, heavy-handed pounding sounded like a cop’s knock.

  Standing in the kitchen, Colt looked at Faith and asked, “Are you expecting someone?”

  Tending to scrambled eggs on the stove, she said, “No, not today.”

  When he opened the front door, Colt found himself face-to-face with Sheriff Lance Garrity. He was holding a rather large box. “What’s going on, Lance?”

  “Nothing,” he said, stoic. “Just take this. It’s from your brother.”

  Surprised, Colt took the big cardboard box and thanked the man. It was heavy and wrapped
in packing tape, like a three-year-old had done it.

  “Everything else okay?” Colt asked.

  “No, Colt. Everything else is not okay. Not unless you’re living under a rock. Are you living under a rock?”

  “Not today,” he said with a frown. Garrity spent time at war as well and could go sharp quick, and distant even quicker. Being a lawman evened him out, but right then, he had that look like he could pull you over and put a bullet in your head just for speeding.

  “Surely you know what’s going on, how it is for us out there,” Garrity said.

  It had been a month or two since they’d seen each other socially, but yeah, he knew. There was a resurgence of anti-police sentiment brewing through the big cities, which was only made worse by the nightly-news coverage. The second the sensationalist media started churning out videos of anti-police protests and riots, the crime bureau could practically track the increase in misconduct.

  Just last week, in Louisville, a trio of anarchist rats broke into the house of one of Louisville’s most beloved captains. They tied him and his wife up, beat him nearly to death, then gutted the wife while forcing the captain to watch. When it became too much for the captain, these same monsters cut him from stem to stern. When they were dead, the anarchists stuffed pig guts from a nearby farm inside them both like they were turkey dinners.

  “I know exactly what’s going on out there, Lance,” he said. “It’s hard not to own a TV and somehow miss the chaos we see plastered all over the news day and night.”