“Halllooooo,” he called, a long drawn-out greeting from a man obviously proficient and practiced at greeting folks.
Bryan tipped his hat to him. “Good afternoon, kind sir.”
The old man smiled. “Kind sir? I’ve been called many, many things in my life but never that.”
Bryan quickly became aggravated when dealing with “local color,” those folks with expansive personalities and a humorous saying to match every situation. This was one of those folks, the guy that everyone was delighted to run into in the post office, the grocery store, or the doctor’s office because he had gossip or a funny story to share.
The annoyance Bryan already felt with the man, even so early in the conversation, made him want to pull his gun and rid the world of some “local color” but that would not further his mission. This was exactly the kind of man he needed to talk to. Someone who had been around forever. Someone who knew the name of every hill, holler, and podunk community.
“What’s your name, old timer?”
“Jessie,” the old man replied, his possum grin pasted in place.
“How long have you lived around these parts?” Bryan asked.
“All my life.”
Bryan sighed. “How long has that been?”
“Well…all my life.” The man was still grinning, amused with himself.
Bryan’s mouth stretched tight, struggling to remain patient. “Could you provide that figure as a numerical value? Use of your fingers and toes to assist you in calculating this is acceptable.”
The remark stung Jessie, who’s smiled faded, darkening his face. “I’m not sure I like you.”
Bryan’s first thought was to tell the man how much he didn’t like him either, and to explain it great detail. He would then demonstrate his dislike in a physical manner, promptly killing old Jessie and tossing his body in the rusty shopping cart. Yet he needed to refrain. Jessie was the bird in the hand. If Jessie could provide the information he needed, it would be better to get it from him than have to find someone else.
“I apologize,” Bryan said, forcing himself to utter the words he so disliked using. “I’ve had a rough couple of weeks. I’m very stressed and am subject to a lot of responsibility. People are depending on me. I failed some of those people and don’t want to fail any more of them. You can understand that, right? With the mantle of leadership comes a great burden.”
“Wouldn’t know nothing about leadership, mantles, or any of that. Burdens I know a fair bit about.”
“Let’s try again,” Bryan said. “The reason I was asking you how long you lived her is that I’m trying to locate a place called Jewell Ridge. Do you know where I might find it?”
“Of course I know Jewell Ridge. I’ve lived here all my life.”
“How do I find it?”
“You don’t,” Jessie said. “You don’t want to go there.”
Bryan forced a smile so hard the tiny muscles within his cheeks trembled with the effort. “If I didn’t want to go there, I wouldn’t be asking.”
Jessie shuddered, as if even hearing the name gave him a chill. “Still, you don’t want to go there.”
“How about you let me decide where I want to go?” Bryan asked. There was a dangerous undercurrent to his voice that would have scared anyone who knew him. It was the tone that often served as a prelude to violent deeds. It was the timbre of voice that was often the last thing men heard before their blood spilled onto the ground.
“Mister, if I let you go up there and something happens to you, it’s just the same as if I killed you myself. You think I want that hanging over my head for the rest of my life?”
“Jessie, if you don’t tell me where Jewell Ridge is, you will be able to count the number of minutes remaining in your life on a single hand. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Jessie frowned. “Yeah, I get it but I’m an old man and you ain’t the boss of me. I don’t care if you kill me or not. I’m right with my maker and my plot is paid for. If I had my burial suit on I’d be ready to go this second.”
This was exactly what Bryan was afraid of. Escalate the situation too fast with old people and they didn’t care if you killed them or not. They got all stubborn and shut down on you.
With great effort, Bryan said, “How about we back this up a little bit?”
“Like rewinding on the VCR?” Jessie asked.
“Exactly.”
“Okay.”
“What would it take for you to tell me where to find Jewell Ridge?”
Jessie scratched his chin in thought. “Got any Little Debbie cakes?”
Bryan stared at the old man. “Little Debbie cakes?”
Jessie grinned. “Any kind, but Oatmeal Crème Pies and Fudge Rounds are my favorites.”
Unable to muster an argument, mentally weary, Bryan spun his horse to face his army. “Does anyone have any Little Debbie cakes?”
Not a hand rose, nor did anyone call out.
“If I find that any of you have one and are holding out on me, I will have you killed in a slow and degrading manner!”
A man in the back by the name of Groves rode forward. He was reluctant and moved slowly, begrudgingly. It made Bryan wonder. He’d never had one of these Little Debbie cakes before, but what kind of dark enchantment did they cast over a man that this entire negotiation hinged on one man’s desire for of these precious cakes and another’s unwillingness to give one up?
Groves handed over two Oatmeal Crème Pies without meeting Bryan’s eye. Bryan was certain he saw a tear running down the man’s cheek. He took the two snack cakes and turned back to Jessie. He found the man to be almost at his side, practically salivating. Bryan extended his arm and Jessie reached for the cakes.
Bryan snatched them back. “That little piece of information first.”
Jessie’s eyes were glazed with lust for the tiny cakes. “Get back on the highway. Go down another exit. Turn right and follow the signs.”
Bryan handed the cakes down and the old man grabbed them from him. He tucked one in a jacket pocket and tore into the other, shoving it in his mouth with greedy bites. Bryan was certain that if he looked back at his riders he would find Groves sobbing.
Zach rode up alongside Bryan. “You want me to kill him?”
“No. He’s been enough bother already. Let’s be gone and be done with him.” Before he rode off, something occurred to him and he turned back to Jessie, now licking the wrapper of the snack cake he’d devoured. “What’s so dangerous about Jewell Ridge?”
“Why, the Mad Mick, of course,” Jessie said. “He looks after folks in these parts and he’ll not take to you riding up there on his mountain with this mess of people.”
Bryan swept an arm back toward his army. “You don’t think we can take him?”
Jessie began to cackle like a madman. His cackle rose to wild laughter. He threw the dripping wrapper into his shopping cart and returned to pushing it down the street, his laughter turning into a chorus as it echoed around them.
For the first time, Bryan began to feel a little uneasy.
35
Conor got about four hours of sleep. When consciousness first tugged at him, there was no rolling over and ignoring it. He sprang from the bed fully-dressed, his mind already racing. There was a lot to do and he had no idea how long they had to perform all the tasks that needed to be done.
He slipped on his boots and went into the living room. A burst of warmth from the woodstove hit him in the face. Barb was already up, her personal weapons laid out in front of her. She was double-checking everything. There were times you wanted to be ready for anything because there was a chance things might get serious, but this was beyond that. This was the day when you knew shit was going to get serious. People were going to get killed. Little details like weapons and gear maintenance went a long way toward making sure you weren’t one of the poor suckers taking a bullet.
“Ragus back yet?” Conor asked.
“Ragus who?” Barb replied without ev
en looking up from the rifle she was attending to. She was still pissed over the way he’d treated her earlier.
“I don’t have time for your tantrums today, Barb. Having to ask you twice wastes time we might need later. You can get your head in the game or go to your room and sulk like a spoiled child until this thing is over with. I need to be able to depend on you. Can I or can I not?”
Barb slammed the bolt release on an M4 and the bolt shot home with a solid thunk. “You can.” She was gritting her teeth, choking down the fusillade of smartass comments she wanted to unleash.
“That goes for dealing with everyone else too, Barb. Be professional or stay home.”
“I got it the first time,” she hissed. “Lecture over.”
“I decide when the lecture is over!” Conor bellowed, raising his voice to his daughter, something he rarely did. “You go into the shit with this attitude and it may blind you to something that gets you killed. I’m not joking. Clear your head or stay home.”
Barb looked up at her dad and met his eye. “I got it, Dad. Seriously.”
“Good. We’ll speak no more of it then.”
“Ragus isn’t back yet. Doc Marty and Shannon are going through their own gear. They’ve apparently got a whole lot more gear in that shipping container than we’ve seen so far.”
“Doc always has tricks up his sleeve,” Conor said. “It’s the nature of the job.” He went into the kitchen and poured a cup of cold coffee, sucking it down with a grimace.
“You could have heated that, you know.”
“I know,” Conor said, rinsing the mug and placing it back on the countertop. “I need the caffeine, not the comfort.” He returned to the living room.
“So what’s the plan?”
“I’m going to split us into two teams. You and Shannon will work together. Doc and I together. Can you deal with that?”
“No issues,” Barb replied.
“Good. I want you on horseback with your full load-out and all the ammo you can carry while still moving effectively. No ridiculous loads that may slow your horse. Same for Shannon. Make sure all the armor is in your plate carrier—front, back, and sides. No shortcuts to save weight. You’ll take radios. They may not be able to reach back to here but hopefully as we all get closer to each other they’ll allow us to coordinate operations.”
“What about Ragus? What if he’s not back when we leave?”
“We lock this place up like Fort Knox and leave him a note. He has a key to get any gear he didn’t take with him. We’ll leave him a radio and he can alert us when he reaches the area of operations.”
“What’s our mission?”
“The overall mission is to decimate this army. You and Shannon will alert the neighbors as you head off the ridge. Be careful— folks are jumpy. You two may seem less threatening than me and Doc.”
Barb started to make some remark about her dad’s less than cuddly nature but bit her tongue. It wasn’t the time.
“Tell everyone that we need to stop this army before it gets here. Make sure they know it’s the kidnappers that took you and the other women. Tell them to gather at the base of the ridge. They should wear their hunting camo, and come armed and ready to fight.”
“What do Shannon and I do once we’ve made it down the mountain?”
“I want you to keep a low profile but try to find the enemy and keep them under surveillance. Once I’m within radio range, part of your job is to keep us informed of their movements.”
“So I’m basically sitting this one out on the sidelines? You think you can’t trust me anymore so you’re taking me out of the fight?”
Conor shook his head. “Not at all. If you think it’s safe, you can leave Shannon and join us. Communicate your moves first. If bullets are flying we need to know where people are. This is not the time to show up unannounced.”
“Got it. When do we go?”
“I’ll talk to Doc and Shannon. Be ready to go within an hour. There’s enough daylight that you should be able to make your way down the mountain and get in position tonight. Plan on spending the night, so pack accordingly. Sleeping gear, tarp, clothing for the weather, and rations.”
Barb wasted no time. She got to her feet, gathered her pile of gear, and headed to her bedroom. Conor stepped outside into a breezy afternoon. The temperature was probably in the mid-forties with the wind chill knocking a little off that. It would be a cooler night. Perhaps down into the twenties with frost. A cold night for anyone out camping without a fire but it couldn’t be helped.
He found Shannon and Doc Marty standing outside the conex box surrounded by a wall of gear. “Building a fort?”
“Just making sure I’ve got all the goodies where I can get to them. We packed in kind of hurry. Ricardo’s men were also shoving things in here that we didn’t have the opportunity to discuss. Things he thought we might need. I’ve found several decent surprises.”
“Like what?”
Shannon pointed to a stack of hard plastic Pelican cases. Conor picked up one around the size of a briefcase but a little thicker. He flipped the latches, opened the lid, and found thirty-two grenades nestled in the black foam lining.
“Jeez, that’s a pleasant surprise.”
“There’s several,” Doc Marty said. “Smokes, frags, concussion, and CS riot control grenades.”
Conor laughed. “Nice.”
“There’s more but I haven’t had time to check through it all.”
“I need to run you guys through the plan and make sure you’re cool with it. Time is short. We need to get people into position.”
Conor ran through the details, as he’d done with Barb. Conor could tell that Doc Marty was apprehensive about his daughter having any role in a potential engagement.
“I think it’s safer to have her out there working with us than to leave her behind by herself. We can’t even maintain radio contact with the compound while we’re in the valley,” Conor said. “We put her in an observation post above the fray and that’s probably the safest place to be.”
“You sure putting me somewhere alone with Barb is the safest place to be?” Shannon asked, seeming wholly unconvinced. “I’m not sure the enemy I need to worry about is the one I’ll be observing. It may be the one sitting behind me.”
“I’ve dealt with that,” Conor said. “I give you my word that she will behave professionally. She understands the consequences.”
Shannon nodded but still appeared to harbor doubts. “If you say so.”
“When are the girls leaving?” Doc Marty asked.
Conor looked at his watch. “I need them on horseback in forty-five minutes.”
“We need to get on the stick then, Shannon,” Doc said to his daughter. “We’ll get you geared up and I want to go over a few things with you.”
“Okay.”
“You up for this?”
“I’ll be fine, Dad.”
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Conor said. “Doc, figure we’ll pull out an hour behind them. I have more to get ready. We’ll be taking two pack horses.”
Doc Marty gestured at the piles around him. “What kind of goodies should I bring?”
“Your preferred flavor of rifle, overnight patrol gear, shitload of ammo, and some of those grenades. I think I have the rest covered unless you have any goodies in there you haven’t mentioned.”
“There might be. We didn’t get through all of it. There’s probably not enough time before we have to leave.”
“Bring the case of grenades. After you get Shannon ready, prep your own gear, and take it to the barn. I’ve got some surprises of my own to pack up.”
“I enjoy your surprises,” Doc Marty said.
“I enjoy yours less so,” Conor said, both men knowing he was referring to the debacle in Helsinki.
Doc Marty looked at Conor seriously. “Aren’t you ever going to get over that?”
“No,” Conor replied. “Not until I get even.”
Conor returned to his quarters
leaving a concerned-looking Doc Marty behind.
36
Bryan and his army settled for the evening on the high school football field. Most of his men were able to find indoor accommodations in the high school. The building had been a shelter in the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks but had been abandoned when the organizations running the shelter had no longer been able to provide food or water. The building was ransacked by those who had stayed in the shelters, but it was tolerable. Bryan’s folks had stayed in worse and it damn sure beat sleeping on the cold ground.
The horses were turned out onto the football field, which provided fenced grazing. Zach set up a watch schedule to keep two men on the horses all night. The good news for the sentries was that the entire field could be watched from the announcer’s booth. It provided both an observation post and a position from which they could fire at anyone dumb enough to try to steal their horses. It beat the hell out of walking the perimeter all night.
Cooks set to work preparing a meal before darkness fell. The school cafeteria still had some large institutional size pots in the kitchen. One man cleaned the pot, another built a fire and a platform of cinderblocks to hold it. Other men rode to the river and brought back jugs of water. When the water came to a boil, the cooks added the spoils of the last day’s travel, some jars of home-canned tomatoes and green beans, along with some potatoes, carrots, and onions found in a basement in Tazewell.
They added the meat of a rabbit shot on the highway and that of a cat found skulking around behind the high school. The addition of the cat to the stew pot was not discussed beyond the cabal of the two cooks, nervous to assure that they had enough food for everyone. Once skinned, the cat looked pretty darn similar to the rabbit. They disposed of the incriminating cat hide in a school locker, hoping no one opened it.
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