He grabbed Butch by the arm and guided him back onto the steps, taking them out of the line-of-sight of the police. “I’ve worked too hard to protect these rifles. First, when my house burned to the ground. I saved these two bad boys and left my wedding album. Susan never said anything about my choice; she knew what was necessary to survive. However, she would never forgive me if I willingly gave these away while that album went to ash.”
“I’m with her. We’d be dead without this hardware.”
They went all the way to the bottom of the giant staircase. The river blockage suddenly seemed minor compared to enforcers of law and order talking confiscation. He hadn’t thought any red-blooded American would willingly turn in their guns, but he was in St. Louis, not rural Kentucky, and things were obviously different. Men and women had been lined up at the back of the truck doing what he didn’t think possible: handing over their guns.
“We have to do something, or those cops are going to mosey our way and take what belongs to us. I don’t know that we could prevent it.” Ezra tried to stop the rising panic. Susan’s Grace sat a hundred yards away, south of the rapids below the blockade. The police were one staircase away from seeing them and the boat. What he did next might affect his entire trip to reach Grace.
“You’d really give up your guns?” Butch asked dramatically.
“If they came to my front door and politely asked for them, I’d tell them to come back with a warrant, then I’d promptly go out and have a boat accident with them.” He used finger quotes around boat accident, which was a well-known euphemism among gun-enthusiasts for hiding firearms from prying eyes. “However, if they walked down here and held a gun to my head, I don’t think I could refuse. I won’t kill a cop, you know?”
The big man shrugged, then touched his cowboy hat. “Yeah, maybe I’d agree with you if that’s how things went down, but if police knew there was a cost to pay for taking our rifles, maybe they’d think twice. Police back home in Kentucky would never obey the order to take our firearms, you can count on it.”
Ezra caught his meaning. “People around here are turning them in willingly.”
Butch glanced back up the staircase. “You think they saw us? These pop guns are obvious on our backs.” He half-turned as if modeling his AR rifle.
“I don’t know.” He looked at the boat. “We need to move it or lose it, though. There has to be a way we can get her from that side of the blockage, over to this side.” The upstream stretch of river had several isolated bridge pylons left standing after the bridges collapsed, but there was nothing blocking their escape to the north. Of the few vehicles parked on the cobblestone incline, most looked like they’d been washed in with the flooding, or at least been bogged down by it. More important to their escape, there were no boat trailers anywhere in sight.
Ezra tried to keep thinking up ideas. “We need Colby and his Jeepers. They could hitch a tow cable to Susan’s Grace, pull it out of the water, then drag it a hundred and fifty yards to the safe side. It’s not complicated.”
“Could you patch the holes in the pontoons while it’s out of the water?” Butch asked, always concerned about the worthiness and safety of the boat under his feet.
“Yeah, the water might drain out. We’d just need to patch it. Even duct tape would do in a pinch.”
Butch craned his neck, looking left and right. There were a small number of non-flooded trucks and cars along the riverfront incline, which also served as a parking lot for the Arch, but he didn’t seem to find what he wanted.
“What?” Ezra asked.
“You said we needed Colby and his buddies. What if there are others like him already here?”
Ezra rubbed his hands tighter, as though he’d solved a complicated equation. “Yes! Find a big enough truck and we can ask them to pull us out of the water.” Even a relatively normal car could probably pull the boat by dragging it, but it would be safer with a larger truck.
It took them about ten minutes to find what they sought. The monster pickup truck sat up high enough for him to see it far down the roadway. The pair hustled along the street, ever wary of the police in the park above them, though they made it to the bright orange truck without incident. Fortunately, it wasn’t one of the abandoned vehicles. Five or six people loitered near the oversized front tire.
He waited until there was a break in their conversation, then stood closer. “Excuse me. I’m looking for someone who can give me a tow.”
A black man leaned around from the front side of the chest-high tire. “Who’s asking?”
The guy was tall and muscular, with black track pants and a white St. Louis Cardinals T-shirt. He sported thick black sunglasses, completely hiding his eyes, so it was hard to gauge his mood.
Ezra held out his hand. “I’m Ezra. This is Butch. We’re from Kentucky, but we’re stuck here in the city. We only need a short pull.”
The man stopped leaning on the tire and took the offered handshake. “I’m Darius. Wish it was nice to meet you, but, you know…the end of the world. I’d love to help you, but I’m stuck here, too. I ran out of gas waiting for the bridges to open up.”
“Bridges?” Ezra asked, sure he meant the remains in front of them.
Darius pointed across the river. “I can almost see my place from here. I just can’t get over there.” He patted the lower part of the orange truck’s side, which was at about shoulder-height. “And I’ll never leave my baby.”
It was a sentiment he was familiar with. He wondered how many Jeepers, truckers, and sports car owners were standing on the side of the road, unwilling to walk away from their vehicles. Some people seemed to treat their rides like kids.
A cascade of revelations came to him. He felt the same about Susan’s Grace. There were other boats. Other cars. He didn’t absolutely need the one with his name on it. Yet, he did. Now that it had almost magically come back to him, he was unwilling to walk away from it.
“We have five gallons of extra gas. We’ll give them to you to start your truck if you’ll help us out.”
The man appeared interested; he’d said the magic words. However, a few moments later, Darius continued to look at him. He motioned toward Ezra shoulder.
“How about you give me the gas plus a rifle? I used to have my own pistol, but those mall cops up there made me surrender it. Took them from all of us.” The men standing around Darius rumbled in agreement, making them seem a bit menacing. If they all ganged up on him and Butch…
He had to decide if having Susan’s Grace was worth one of his two precious rifles. He slowly reached for the rifle’s strap, in case Darius didn’t take no for an answer.
CHAPTER 22
Cheyenne, WY
The city of Cheyenne continued to remind her a bit of Billings as she drove out of the downtown, across a wide rail yard, and into another residential area. All that was missing to complete the comparison were the burning fuel storage tanks. And, of course, the people.
Grace took advantage of the abandoned streets. There were no cars in her path, so she ignored whatever speed limit had been set for the four-lane thoroughfare. The speedometer said she was at seventy-five miles per hour; the little houses and strip malls passed by in a blur.
“Miss, do you have to go this fast?” Shawn spoke respectfully, almost reluctantly.
The high RPMs soothed her nerves. Speed meant less time traveling in the ghost city. It meant arriving sooner in Denver. It meant, she prayed, getting Logan and his father to safety. Grace didn’t want to slow the process down.
“Empty. It’s all empty. We have to find out why.”
Asher caught her attention. “My phone doesn’t have anything about Cheyenne. It connected with the internet for a second and I did a search, but nothing came up. It says the same boring stuff you normally find: sixty thousand people live here. Will have the biggest outdoor rodeo in America in a few weeks. That type of stuff. Nothing about why people are gone.”
He swallowed loud enough for her to hear. “An
d I got a text from my sister—”
“Really? Is she okay?” she shot back.
“This message is from days ago. It says the asteroid is coming down. It also says TKM officials wanted her on a plane so they could take her to safety.”
The good news made her let off the gas a little. “Great! It means you can stop worrying about her. Maybe those TKM goons were wrong about her being in trouble.”
“Yeah,” he replied.
“But?” she asked, hearing doubt in his voice.
“I don’t know what she’s been doing since this message. She could be in trouble. Lost. Who knows? I really need to hear her voice.”
Grace let her foot become a hammer again. “I’m sure she’s fine, or at least in less danger than us. My job is to get you to Denver.” She looked in the rearview mirror. “And get those guys in front of someone who can help them. Keep your eyes open for help.”
She slowed for a wide intersection, out of habit, but there was no cross traffic. Seconds later, she was back up to speed.
“Come on!” Grace pleaded. “Someone has to be here!”
They passed parks, schools, corner gas stations, fast-food restaurants and a little bit of everything in between. Before long, she started to run out of Cheyenne.
“There!” she snapped, spiking the brake pedal. “Hold on!”
Everyone lurched forward as the tires fought against the anti-lock brake system. They didn’t stop in a long smoking trail of rubber, but there was squealing of tires involved. Grace brought the Suburban to a full stop in the middle lane of the roadway. When she had her chance, she pointed to a small strip mall on Asher’s side. A blue sign said Books over one of the shops; several figures stood near the rear of a pickup truck backed up to the door of the place. A box truck and some other vehicles sat in the front row of the adjacent stores, giving the impression of an evacuation.
“Now we’ll get some answers.” There were no police around, so she drove the truck off the edge of the roadway, over a narrow row of grass, and into the parking lot of the strip mall. The truck popped over a parking curb, bumping Shawn and Logan about a foot out of their seats.
She whipped the wheel around, straightening the truck a second before it rammed the parked cars in front of the store. Men went scurrying. Blood surged through her temples as the pressure and excitement of the last few seconds caught up to her. However, she rolled Asher’s window down and shouted toward the people she hoped would finally explain the mystery of where everyone had gone.
“Hey! Where are all the people?”
A man came out from between two of the cars. He was tentative at first, but then straightened and walked up to the passenger side of her truck. Others regained their wits, too, and made their way toward her.
“Uh, Grace,” Shawn said with nervousness.
She continued to watch the man. He was older, perhaps in his forties or fifties. He wore a nice brown leather jacket, blue jeans, and cowboy boots. To her eyes, he’d come straight off the ranch.
The man smiled for all the world to see, at least until he got up to her window. He looked inside, saw her and Asher’s uniforms, then stepped back with a bit of haste. “You’re cops?”
She yelled across the front seat. “No, we’re park rangers.” The last thing she wanted was to be mistaken for—
Wait. Why would he care?
Grace used a second or two to reevaluate the scene. The pickup truck was backed up to the bookstore, but the shop’s door was closed. Men stood around the entrance of the next place over, watching the commotion as if to see what it meant for them. Other vehicles had their lift gates and trunks open, too, and most of them were parked to her left, toward the group of men.
The rancher guy tripped over his own feet as he went another step backward. He bounced off the parked pickup truck and took half a spin to catch himself. His maneuver revealed the stub handle of a pistol tucked behind his back.
Shawn whispered, “They’re thieves.”
“Of books?” she said, incredulous.
“No, of that.” Asher pointed to the sign over the next storefront. It was also in big blue letters, like the one for the bookstore. There was only a single word listed: Jeweler.
All at once, everyone in the truck yelled.
“Go!”
St. Louis, MO
“What do you think we should do?” Ezra asked Butch. When they left Darius and his big truck, they agreed to go back to the boat and get the five-gallon fuel can but didn’t commit to trading the rifle for an extraction. He wanted some time to think about it, plus he wanted to speak privately with Butch.
“It’s your call, boss. It’s your rifle anyway. I was only borrowing it.”
He chuckled. Naturally, the man thought he was going to lose his weapon. “It doesn’t work like that. You’re the ex-soldier. You get to hold on to the last rifle for when we need it. I thought you understood how this works.”
Walking side by side, Butch towered over him, but the man’s demeanor was always respectful, almost like a mild-mannered boy who’d come to take Grace on a date. As much as he appreciated it during normal times, Ezra believed the era of politeness was about gone. He halted and grabbed Butch’s arm. “Look, your relaxed attitude has been fine up until this point, but I need to know what you really think. Is it a mistake to give up a rifle, or is it necessary to keep our mission moving forward?”
Butch sighed. “I don’t like countering you, boss, since you’ve gotten us through so much, but I wouldn’t give up a gun for anything. Right now, anyone comes along who wants to take your boat just needs to get the drop on the two of us. With one gun, they’ll be able to do it with half the effort. We each need one if we want to make it to your daughter.”
He clenched his jaw, then relaxed. “Thanks. I’ll take it under advisement.”
They walked the rest of the way to the big orange truck. He tried to work through whether Butch was right. Was a rifle a fair trade for moving Susan’s Grace up the shore so they could continue the journey? His partner didn’t think so, though there weren’t many viable alternatives. Was he being stubborn out of sentimentality alone?
The police continued to announce their confiscation efforts in the park, their public address system barking the request to surrender firearms every couple of minutes. Ahead, the small gathering around Darius had dispersed somewhat. No one cared to watch the great beast do a simple task like giving a tow. The driver cared, however, and when he saw the red gas can he trotted over to meet them. “Are we really going to do this?”
Ezra glanced over to Butch, wondering if seeing him would tip the scales one way or the other. His friend seemed interested in the truck, however, avoiding eye contact. Did the young man already know what Ezra was going to say? He found that interesting, since he didn’t know himself. However, as the seconds dragged out, he admitted he didn’t want to abandon the boat. If it made him as irrational as men like Colby and Darius, unwilling to part with their toys, he was willing to accept it.
“I hate giving up one of our two rifles, but we can’t go back down the river. People down there want to kill us. So, yeah, I guess we’ve got a deal.” He waited to see if Butch would protest, and he might have changed his mind on the spot if he had, but the other man continued to study the truck. Ezra looked back to Darius and his Cardinals T-shirt. “We’ll hold the rifle until my vehicle is moved somewhere safe. When you see our problem, you’ll understand. We wouldn’t be able to chase you, if, you know, you up and left with our property.”
Darius held out his hand, not to shake, but for the gas can. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. I’ll pour this in, and we’ll go check out your setup. You two can climb in on the other side. There’s a ladder that pulls out.”
Ezra could have crouched under the truck, but he was polite and walked around the hulking tires. When he and Butch were on the far side, he wondered if the man’s silence was his way of making a statement. “Butch, I heard what you said, and I know you’re right. My problem
is I can’t let go of my boat. I probably shouldn’t have named it after my wife and daughter. I think I’m attached to it in an unhealthy way.”
Butch cracked up. “No, I get it. In the long run, it’s easier to find another gun than to find another boat, or car. At least, if we aren’t going to steal them.”
“Good point. It’s a long shot, but if we can make it to a gun store with inventory left, we can buy something right off the shelf. Those are located on every other block in most towns where I live.” He considered asking Darius where to find the nearest store, but first wanted him to make good on their agreement.
It took them as long to climb into the cab of the oversized truck as it did for Darius to fill up the tank and climb in himself. He’d fabricated a ladder which raised and lowered by stepping on a button mounted to the floorboard. Darius had to show Ezra how to click it shut. He then turned on the motor, which kicked on his music.
“Let’s rip it!” the driver wailed, ignoring the option to turn the tunes down.
“We’re about a half-mile south along the riverbank,” Ezra shouted.
Darius dialed the caustic bass music down, so they only had to speak in a loud voice, rather than screaming. “Did you guys mess your drawers? You smell terrible.”
Ezra looked at the dried mud on his boots. “We fell in the river.”
The driver held up his hand. “Say no more. My cousin fell in the Mississippi once. Had to take three showers in a row to get the smell of death out of his hair. That mud is nasty!”
Once underway, he was anxious to take attention away from their stench. He couldn’t miss the fact the truck seemed twice as large as any normal truck they might find on the road. Would it catch unwanted attention from law enforcement? “How did you drive this downtown? It doesn’t fit in between the lanes, does it?”
Impact (Book 3): Adrift Page 18