Someone leaned in the door, calling, “Boss? There’s a crowd building outside. Just thought you’d want to know.”
Edgewater asked, “Are you really staying at Tappan Ranch?”
“Yes.” The way Shyla bit off the words, Sam knew she was crying.
He rocked his jaw, trying to focus, reaching out for Shyla. Nor were his fingers working very well as they slipped across her sweatshirt.
“No need to make a scene,” Edgewater said reasonably. “The people just need time to realize that we are all going to have to sacrifice for the common good.”
As they walked toward the door, Sam heard Frederick say, “Makes you wonder, though. What’s a lust-bunny like that doing with a beaner?”
Sam missed any response as he bent double and threw up.
Morality
I lived all of my life thinking I knew who I was, what I believed, and what I would and would not do. Turns out I didn’t have a clue. When that moment came, I shot down three men who killed Felix, who would have raped and murdered me.
No guilt. No regrets.
Stumbled off to the side, feeling sick. Saw a pile of their previous victims dead in the ditch.
Since that day I have a very different understanding of morality. It marked a watershed, and on the other side I would be a stranger to the woman I had been.
— Excerpt from Breeze Tappan’s Journal.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sight picture. Breathe. Finger to trigger. Caress. Bang!
The little pistol rolled back in Sam’s hand; the tin can danced on the dirt bank. Fortunately, it turned out that his right eye—the one he was supposed to aim with, was his dominant eye. His left was swollen mostly closed.
The June day was perfect, warm, the sun shining after two more days of endless rain, and three after he had been beaten in the tannery. The air smelled remarkably fresh, filled with the scent of new grass and wildflowers, periodically accented by the smell of horses.
“Frederick Zooma,” Bill had told Sam as he handed Sam an ice pack. “Seriously. I couldn’t make up a name like that. He’s the dickhead’s personal security. The other guy, the blond, he’s Edward Tubb. Ex-military.”
Then Bill had dropped the bombshell. “You and Shyla might have dodged the bullet. There’s rumors of young women being taken in for questioning. Not local girls, but others from out of state. Women who don’t have anyone to speak for them.”
Sam remembered the look on Edgewater’s face and cocked the little .22. Settled the grip in his palm. Sight picture. Breathe. Trigger. Caress. Bang!
Twenty feet away the can jumped again. A soup can is about a third the size of the human brain. And then there’s the spinal cord below it. Sam hoped the day would come when Frederick Zooma and the soup can had a lot in common. That bothered him. He’d never thought he’d feel that way about another human being.
“Good work,” Pam said from behind. “We’re calling it for today. You’re shooting superbly, so let’s not muck it up by overdoing it. Leave that memory in your head.”
Sam nodded, still fighting the aftereffects of a headache.
“I hit the can more times than you did,” Shyla told him as he thumbed the cylinder open and pressed the extractor to clear the brass.
Shyla had her butt propped against a tractor tire, arms crossed, her blonde hair teased by the wind.
Pam took the little .22 Smith & Wesson, checked the cylinder, and stuffed it into a holster. Then, to Sam’s surprise, she pulled out a second revolver, bigger.
This one, too, she checked to ensure it was unloaded. Only then did she hand it to Shyla, cylinder still open, saying, “All right, love birds. That’s my old .38. It’s a Model 10. You take that home with you. Practice dry-firing it.”
“Love birds?” Sam asked.
Pam just gave him a knowing squint, saying, “Yeah, right.”
Shyla clicked the cylinder closed, turned, took her stance, and carefully dry-fired the Smith. “Smooth,” she said.
Sam took his turn at propping his butt on the tractor tire. “We would have had to shoot them,” he told her. “That’s the scary thing. I mean, the only decision they leave you is to kill them.”
“And then what happens to you?” Shyla asked. “Arrest, trial, execution. It’s that or be carried off and gang raped. Some choice. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
Shyla settled against him, squeezing him over to make room, and nodded. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
“Me neither. And that was before Zooma hit me. I never saw it coming, Shyla. And when it did, I was out of it. I couldn’t think, couldn’t see. It’s not like in the movies.”
“You’re not going to weird out on me, are you? Filled with male guilt about not beating up the bad guy?”
“Nope.”
“Good. I couldn’t stand that macho shit. I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.”
“We got lucky,” he told her. “You saw. Edgewater’s taking anything he wants. Claiming it’s for the ‘common good’.”
Sam took the .38 from her hand, extended it, rolled the trigger back double-action as he sighted on the dirt bank. It didn’t tremble as much as he thought it might in spite of the heavier trigger pull. Click.
“This is what happens when societies collapse.” Shyla exhaled with resignation. “Who the hell appointed that piece of shit?”
“Well, we’re back to rumor again, but the story is that Edgewater made it up to some kind of assistant director’s position back in DC. Then there was some sort of malfeasance. Claims of sexual misconduct. Some kind of #MeToo stuff. Since no one is ever fired from the federal government, they sent him here. To Wyoming. A place that no one cares about.”
“He’s coming for me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It was in his eyes...in the way he looked at me. There was promise there, Sam.”
He leaned his head back, letting the warm sun bathe his bruised face. “I think Bill would let us take two of the horses. We could hole up at the field camp. Keep both of our butts out of sight. Hell, it worked for the Dukurika Shoshoni for...let’s see, four or five thousand years.”
She laughed at that, but it had a nervous quality. “Yeah, I suppose. So, what happens when shithead comes here with his twenty thugs and a warrant for my arrest? What happens when Bill can’t produce me? Take Danielle or Ashley instead? Take Pam? If I were a man, I’d look twice even if she is knocking on forty.”
She blinked her eyes. “It’s like I brought this on them.”
“You did nothing.” He stroked the revolver’s cool steel. “He’s the snake. And it could have been worse; what if Bill and Frank had walked in just as that was coming down? Bill had his .45. Tubb and Zooma had guns under those coats of theirs.”
“Remember when I said I’d never let what happened to Amber happen to me? You can say that, Sam. You can mean it with all your heart, and then when you least expect it... Damn, I never saw it coming, either.”
Jon burst into view from behind the barn, calling, “Riders coming! Two of them! I think it’s Brandon and Shanteel!”
Sam shoved the Smith into his belt, hurrying forward, Shyla behind him.
In Sam’s mind, it looked magical: Brandon, the living legend of a cowboy, riding along on his muscled blood bay. The big ranch dog, Talbot, running ahead, tail waving. Shanteel beside Brandon on Old Tobe, the mud-spattered yellow horse. She didn’t look any worse for wear. Her tent and sleeping bag were tied to the cantle, and she seemed somehow...different. More at ease.
“Hey, stranger,” Pam called, striding off the porch. “’Bout time you got back and picked up on your chores. Poor Jon here has been pushing water for you.”
“Obliged, Jon,” Brandon dipped his head and touched the brim of his hat in salute. “Ran into a touch of bad weather up top. Shanteel worried that I might get a little snow blind, so we holed up for my comfort and to save the horses. Wouldn’t want one to come up lame from
slipping around too much.”
To Sam’s surprise, Shanteel was smiling, as if in real amusement, before adding, “Mrs. Tappan, this boy of yours doesn’t have a clue about how to cook a rabbit.”
Old Bill limped out onto the porch, calling, “So, you’re back. What did you do? Hole up at the field camp?”
“Nope. Turns out that Shanteel, here, is something of a wilderness explorer. She’d managed to find her way clear over to Frying Pan Canyon. Since we were already there when the storm hit, we made ourselves a wickiup out of lodgepoles, packed in duff, built us a toasty fire and discussed the ills of the world until it blowed over.”
Shanteel was grinning again, shaking her head, as if in amusement.
“Something’s really not right about this,” Shyla whispered in Sam’s ear. “Think they’re on drugs?”
Amber stepped out of Evan’s cabin where the two of them had been working on maps. She actually let out a whoop as she hurried over, calling, “Shanteel, are you all right?”
“Better than ever, Amber. But I got to confess, think you could help me get off this horse?” She laughed from deep in the gut. “I’m so damn sore, I don’t think I can move.”
She had plenty of help as she swung stiffly off. Then she kept hold of Amber lest her legs fail.
Brandon reached down, taking her horse’s reins. “Mom, draw Shanteel a hot bath. Let her soak it out. She just made one hell of a day’s ride.”
As Brandon led the horses toward the barn, Pam stared thoughtfully at the grinning Shanteel. “I don’t know what you did up there, lady, but he doesn’t offer praise like that lightly.”
“Good man, that son of yours,” Shanteel said, slightly embarrassed. “Now, was he serious about that bath? Only thing we’ve had to wash with was snow, and that sucks.”
Sam walked over to help Brandon with the saddles, tackling Old Tobe’s cinch while Shyla unbuckled the breast collar.
“What happened to you?” Brandon asked as he slung his saddle down from the blood bay. “That a bit of a domestic dispute, or did you run into a doorknob?”
“Met the new District Director for Homeland Security. One of his hired thugs hit me when Shyla declined to accompany the shithead off to his hotel room.”
Brandon’s lips pursed, eyes narrowing under the brim of his hat. “That’s Edgewater?”
“That’s him.” Shyla called over her shoulder as she carried the saddle into to barn to put it on the rack.
Brandon gave a curt nod before he took a curry comb to his horse. “I see mom’s old .38 sticking out of your belt, but you’re going to need more than that.”
“Yeah, my thoughts, too.” Sam got another curry comb, and as he’d been taught, began working over Old Tobe, scraping off the mud. “Lot’s changed since you went up the mountain. Seems Edgewater’s got a thing for taking what doesn’t belong to him. Apparently, that includes out-of-state women no one will miss.”
“Someone needs to take that son of a bitch down.”
“They’re working on that.”
“How’d Grandad’s meeting in town turn out? Guess he didn’t shoot the son of a bitch, or you’d not have that shiner.”
“The local leaders are organizing, holding meetings. It’s like...a bad movie.”
“So, where do your people fit into all this?”
Shyla emerged from the barn, saying, “For better or worse, we’re in it with you. At least Amber, Evan, Court, Sam, and I are. Jon’s coming around. He’s discovered he likes irrigating. Danielle and Ashley are still in shock.”
“Where’s the snippy little girl from Washington and the Colorado dude?”
“Gone. Made a run for Colorado.” Sam shook the hair out of the curry comb. “My turn. You and Shanteel, how’d it work out that you’re suddenly on speaking terms? Shyla thinks it’s drugs.”
Brandon smiled that lady-killer smile of his. “That is one tough lady. Smart, too. She just had to get her feet under her. That’s all. Now, I’ll admit it was a nice wickiup, but after four days of snow, two rabbits and a partridge, there’s not much that two people don’t know about each other.”
Shyla and Sam gave each other a “who knew?” glance.
“Where’s Thomas and Willy? I see their horses over yonder.”
“They’re up on the hillside harvesting sego lilies, blazing star blossoms, and phlox,” Sam told him. “They’ll probably head home tomorrow if they can get across the divide.”
“Bet Grandad has Thomas in my bed, huh?”
“And Willy is in Celia’s,” Shyla told him.
“And the cabins? They all taken?”
Shyla arched an eyebrow. “We’re in one, Evan’s in another, and Amber’s in the third. The rest of the crew’s in the bunkhouse.”
“It ain’t worth pulling Breeze’s bed out of storage. Guess I’ll throw out in the barn. Won’t be the first time. ‘Cept usually it’s ‘cause I don’t want Mom to know how drunk I was.”
“Life has its little ups and downs, doesn’t it?” Shyla said trying to hide a smile.
“Who’s Breeze?” Sam asked.
“Twin sister. She and the folks had a parting of the ways a couple of years back.” His eyes thinned. “Wish to hell I knew she was okay.”
“Sorry.”
“You know which one it was who hit you?” Brandon asked, touching his cheek in the spot that corresponded with Sam’s bruise.
“Frederick Zooma,” Sam said softly.
“There was a rumor before I left that everyone was going to have to do an inventory. That under martial law, it would all be requisitioned. Confiscated. That true?”
“They took over ten thousand worth of merchandise out of the tannery when I got this bust to the face.”
Brandon nodded and worked his lips as he looked down the valley. “That means there’s gonna be a war. You up to shooting people, Delgado?”
Sam glanced at Shyla. “They threatened the woman I love.”
Shyla said hotly, “They were within a whisker of dragging me out and into their car. Your mother’s had us shooting for two days now.”
“Can you hit anything?”
“Six out of six in a soup can at twenty feet,” Shyla told him proudly. “Delgado here, he misses on occasion.”
“I do a lot better with the rifle,” Sam told him. “Your mom says I’m a natural.”
Brandon studied them thoughtfully, his curious Tappan eyes boring into them. As if coming to a decision, he said, “If you’re into guns, you might want to come with me.”
They put the horses into the corral with a fresh bale, scooped out oats, and followed Brandon to one of the outbuildings along the base of the slope. He fished a key out of a crack in the logs, opened the door, and let it swing open.
“Welcome to my reloading room,” Brandon said. “If shithead is into confiscating things, he’ll be slobbering to have this.”
A big safe stood in the rear, and a bench along one wall supported curious equipment the likes of which Sam never seen.
“What do you reload?” Shyla wondered as she stepped into the room.
“Ammunition.” Brandon pursed his lips, looking around. “Those kegs on the floor are filled with different kinds of powder. Primers in the cartons up above. Bullets in the boxes on the shelves, all sorted by caliber. The plastic boxes are the loading dies.”
“Why show us this?” Sam asked.
Brandon stepped over, peeled a can of Copenhagen from a plastic roll, and used a thumbnail to break the seal. Taking a dip, he placed it in his lip, sighing. “Damn, I missed chew. Ran out the second day. Got so owly it’s a wonder Shanteel didn’t brain me with a hatchet.”
He then looked them both in the eyes, saying, “If the shithead is as bad as you say, and Grandad is...well, he’s the way he is. Government’s gone. It’s back to the will of the people. Can’t fight tyranny unless you’ve got something to fight with.”
“And we can fight with what’s in here?”
“Yeah, about ten thousand ro
unds worth.”
“Good,” Shyla whispered. “Because I looked into that man’s eyes. He’s a monster. And he will be coming.”
Ultimate Myths
Until the collapse I never understood how flimsy civilized morality was. We didn’t know it, but the Rule of Law was already breaking down. It started in the Obama administration, corroded beyond repair in the Trump years, and disintegrated into a mockery in the last administration. From sanctuary cities, refusal of subpoenas, political activism in the Justice Department, immigration laws, COVID, economic collapse, impeachment, antifa, BLM, boogaloo, QAnon, and Americans shot in the streets to the subsequent rise of the doctrine of “Noncompliance based upon conscience”. All the way from local sheriffs up to the presidency, Americans had been preconditioned to think of laws as political policy meant to infringe on their rights. As something they could pick and choose.
Was it any surprise then, that as the collapse started, people took matters into their own hands? Ignored the orders, regulations, and restrictions? If local, state, and federal government didn’t follow the laws, why should the people?
— Excerpt from Breeze Tappan’s Journal.
Chapter Twenty-Six
A week had passed. Hard to believe. That life had changed so radically, and irrevocably, was surreal. A fantasy of tragedy and hope. Sam tried to make sense of it as he sat on the front porch stairs. He’d finished his chores—helped Frank change oil in the tractor, shoveled horse shit out of the barn—and now had a can of cold beer in his hands. The bruise had faded from purple to a horrible shade of yellow-green, and the swelling had gone down.
Shyla was in the kitchen, helping with the dishes.
As the sun sank behind the mountains, the ridges to the east glowed an unearthly orange tinged with gold. A peaceful façade that masked the terrors lurking beyond, where God alone knew what was burning.
Dissolution: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book One Page 20