"What's that?" The bomb jams into my stomach underneath him. I wonder if the pressure will set it off before I can fight my way free.
"War Willow never spent any time with the Amish." Quincy reaches up to wipe blood from his eyes. "War Willow never had an Amish mentor or any kind of Amish training.
"It doesn't even make sense to say he did, because the Amish don't have any training. Not involving martial arts or weapons or anything War Willow would be interested in.
"In other words, you're not War Willow. Will you get that through your fucking head?"
Gunfire continues to crackle across the cemetery, a backdrop to our showdown. I am determined not to let this Poison Oak monster break me.
And yet...
As he wraps his hands around my throat and squeezes, I feel myself begin to drift. The gunfire fades. So does the sight of Quincy's face as he chokes me.
Another face comes into view. Another time.
Something falls away, like a wall or a curtain, and I see him...really see him for the first time in forever.
And I remember.
Finally, I remember the true story of Amish Amos.
CHAPTER 61
Every time another bullet zinged off a nearby headstone, Dunne clenched his teeth tighter.
He was safe behind the stone crucifix for the moment, but Weed's people had him pinned. They were shooting all around him—probably closing in, though he was afraid to take a look. If Dunne tried to run for it, he was pretty sure they'd pick him off.
He had the means to defend himself—a loaded pistol in each hand, a rifle on his back—but he was too scared to use them. As brave as he'd thought he'd been to leave the mausoleum, he was still at the mercy of the same old chickenshit tendencies.
All he could hope for, he thought, was a last burst of adrenalin when they cornered him. Maybe he could go down fighting, like a Weeping Willow would.
Either that, or the cavalry could rush to help him.
Back glued to the stone cross, Dunne looked toward the mausoleum—and saw Hannahlee and Gowdy approaching. They scurried between headstones, using the stones as cover, popping up to fire rounds at the enemy.
Dunne felt a rush of relief; also, worry for their safety. It was the same unexpected surge of protectiveness he'd felt in the mausoleum...but stronger now, seeing them fighting to save him.
When they came within a few plots of him, Hannahlee caught his eye and nodded reassuringly. He thought he saw a trace of her smile.
And then she looked away.
Dunne followed her gaze, looking in the opposite direction from the hostile gunfire. Looking in the direction of greatest vulnerability, where Gowdy and Hannahlee's cover would do them no good.
Where Jeremiah Weed was now standing, a machine gun in each hand.
He had gotten around all of them, sneaking through the graveyard while everyone was distracted by the gunfight. And now he had Gowdy and Hannahlee at his mercy, a machine gun aimed squarely at each of them.
"Hey, Boss," he said to Gowdy. "Like what I've done with the place?"
"Honestly, Lou?" Gowdy shrugged. "Not so much."
Weed laughed. "That's okay. You won't have to put up with it for much longer anyway."
CHAPTER 62
Warpath Journal
Dateline: Holmes County, Ohio
Life was not simpler then.
My name was Amos Bracken, and I was Amish. I grew up in a Community in Ohio.
I remember it well. I can still taste the home-churned butter on the home-baked bread. Hear the clopping of the horse's hooves as it pulled our buggy down the road. Smell the sweat and manure as I walked behind the plow in the field.
But life was not so simple as you might think. As they might have you believe.
The weight of God was always upon me. The weight of the Community. Their rules and expectations a relentless crushing force.
If you stepped out of line, you were punished or shunned. Your own family would turn against you if the elders decreed it.
I used to long for a truly simple life, like the lives of the Englishers around us. The rules on them were not so strict. The weights on their shoulders, I thought, seemed not so great as the weight upon mine.
As a teenager, I began to drift. When we went to town for business or supplies, I'd wander off to watch the girls on the street and the TV sets in the restaurants and shops. I would daydream I was part of that world—just another Englisher walking along on my way to somewhere interesting. Flashy clothes and car keys instead of tattered overalls and a sugar cube for the horse.
But the weight upon me held me down. Nothing came of my daydreams until years later.
I met a girl in town. Her name was Lydia. This was after I was betrothed to a girl in the Community.
I couldn't help myself. Lydia was full of light and excitement. She was an artist and musician; her work overflowed with beauty and honesty.
She had flashing blonde hair and blue eyes like the sky on the brightest summer morning. She dressed like no one else I'd ever seen—clashing mixtures of style and color, wild tangles of homemade jewelry, elaborate footwear.
She was like no one else in my world. She was my every dream of freedom and change brought to life in one person.
Of course I fell in love with her. And she returned the favor.
You can't imagine what that was like. After a lifetime of being buried alive, I could finally see daylight. I could finally breathe.
After a lifetime of never seeing a flower, I held one in my hand.
I began to think about leaving the Community to be with her. In my heart, I had already left the day we met.
I would gladly leave behind my family, my bride-to-be, my neighbors. I would happily abandon God and the Church. If I never again felt that crushing weight upon me, I would be the better for it.
My life was about to begin.
I decided to surprise her. I packed some things and said goodbye to my mother and father. Took my leave of the Community, burning all my bridges behind me.
This was on a Saturday night.
I hitchhiked into town and showed up on Lydia's doorstep. When she came to the door, she was not as happy to see me as I'd expected.
This was because she was a freer spirit than I'd realized. I soon discovered she had another man in her apartment.
For the first time in my adult life, I gave in to rage. Without the weight of God upon me, it was easy to do.
I pushed my way into the apartment and attacked the other man. Pounded him black and blue and bloody. Threw him out on the sidewalk.
And then Lydia threw me out after him. I waited there in the rain until the police came and picked me up, answering her call.
I spent the night in a jail cell. Lying on a cot, facing the wall, crying over what had happened. What I'd done.
The next morning, Sunday, the police drove me home. They took me to church, because of course that's where everyone would be.
Hanging my head in shame, I pushed open the doors and walked inside.
One of the two policemen gasped. That was when I raised my head.
That was when I saw what had happened in the church that morning.
CHAPTER 63
Dunne remembered the bloody corpses in his living room two years ago. The bodies of his wife, Vicky, and daughter, Ella, after the shotgun blast.
He hadn't been able to bring himself to touch them. It had been too terrible to bear.
He had sat across the room, staring at their blown-apart bodies, waiting for what had seemed like hours for the police. Waiting for someone to tap him on the shoulder and wake him up from what could only be a nightmare.
And now, it was about to happen again.
Two of Dunne's family members knelt before an armed killer—Jeremiah Weed, with a machine gun in each hand. The killer was about to murder Dunne's family right in front of him, while he watched. Dunne was the only one who could possibly intervene in time.
But there was one
big difference from two years ago.
This time, Dunne was armed.
He had a pistol in each hand and a rifle slung over his back. He was only twenty feet from Weed...close enough, without being a marksman, to have a decent chance of hitting him.
Or of being hit. Weed could easily sweep those machine guns in an arc, cutting a swath through Gowdy and Hannahlee and continuing on to Dunne in seconds flat.
Familiar pangs of fear clutched at Dunne, freezing him on the spot. His hands sweated around the gun grips, and his stomach lurched like he was going to be sick.
Even as he realized he was wasting precious time, he couldn't get himself to move. Weed gave him a look, and that ratcheted up his terror even more.
"Enjoy the show, my friend." Weed laughed in Dunne's direction. "You'll be the star soon enough."
It was going to happen again.
The bloody corpses of his family at his feet. A mad dog killer walking away. Dunne left to live with the knowledge that he'd failed.
Only this time, it looked like one thing would be different.
"Don't feel left out," Weed told him. "I'll be killing you next."
This time, it looked like Dunne would not be left alive.
CHAPTER 64
Warpath Journal
Dateline: Holmes County, Ohio
War Willow would have stopped that massacre. He would have saved that Amish congregation.
That's what I thought later, when I'd become addicted to TV. Addicted to Weeping Willows reruns, specifically.
War Willow would have battled the maniac gunman with his Sendodansu'dinegaan fighting skills. Would have disabled him in a heartbeat, stripped him of his weapons, and hauled him off to jail.
There would not have been so much blood in that church. So many corpses.
No bullet-riddled mother and father and brothers. No blood-soaked bride-to-be. No lifeless friends or neighbors or elders or minister. No dead gunman who'd blown his own head off after killing everyone else.
War Willow would have saved them all.
What he would not have done is gotten arrested for beating his girlfriend's boyfriend the night before. He would not have been away when his presence could have changed things, when he could have been the one to trip up the killer.
And he would not have brought God's wrath upon his people for his sinful ways.
I became more and more convinced of this as I watched and rewatched every episode of Weeping Willows on DVD. As I sat in the apartment paid for by sympathetic well-wishers from around the world.
As I slowly lost my mind.
The guilt I felt for drawing God's wrath and not being there when it struck was too much to bear. I sank deeper and deeper into fantasy worlds in which the massacre never happened...I'd never gone astray...and the Willows were real.
I even pretended to be War Willow. Put myself through grueling workouts and martial arts training, paid for by the well-wishers' gifts. Drove myself harder and harder each day to become someone new and better, someone worthy.
Someone who did not remember...or failing that, someone who died trying to forget.
Because from the start, I'd wished I'd died with the others in that church. It should have been me that suffered God's wrath for what I'd done. At least I should have been there with them.
Again and again, I wished I could bring myself to end the nightmare and die. I wished I could just wipe myself out as if I'd never existed.
One day, I got my wish.
I was working out in front of the TV, watching Weeping Willows again, when something shifted in my head. One minute, I was Amos Bracken, sole survivor of the Amish church massacre.
And the next minute, I was War Willow. I had a family and a mission. Life was finally, truly simple.
And I would never turn back.
Until now.
***
Dateline: New Justice, New Mexico
My name is Amos Bracken. I know that now. I remember everything.
And I am dying.
Quincy straddles my chest, his knees on my arms, and is choking the life out of me. I feel light-headed, and I know I don't have long to go.
"Wait." I rasp out the word through my strangled windpipe. "P-please."
Quincy shakes his head and goes right on crushing.
I can't blame him, after everything I've done...but I need to stop him. There's something he doesn't know.
Something that will kill him.
"Bomb." I can barely force out the word. "Dead man's...switch."
Quincy scowls. "What dead man's switch?"
This is what he doesn't know. The handheld remote control was a dummy device. A decoy. It could never set off the bomb.
The true trigger has always been the dead man's switch on my wrist. A little something I picked up on the Internet. Disguised as a wristwatch, it monitors my pulse. If my pulse stops, the watch will send a wireless signal to a receiver on the bomb.
And boom.
"If I die...the bomb blows." It's getting harder to speak. "We...both...die."
"Nice try." Quincy tightens his grip. "You're full of shit, War."
"Not...War," I tell him. "Amos."
"So now you're Amos, huh? And everything's peachy-keen? Well, guess what my bullshit detector says?" Quincy laughs. "It says bullshit!"
"You're...wrong." My own words sound like they're coming from a million miles away. "What I told you...is true."
Quincy shakes his head. "Doesn't matter. I don't care."
"Why?"
"I killed my brother." Quincy snarls the words in my face. "You and I both deserve to die!"
"Deserve...forgiveness." As the words leave my mouth, I suddenly realize they're the last words I'll ever say.
Because it's then, with a howl of rage, that Quincy tightens his grip one final time and crushes my windpipe.
CHAPTER 65
What was Weed waiting for? Why was he hesitating to gun down Gowdy and Hannahlee?
At first, Dunne couldn't figure it out. Weed could have pulled the trigger moments ago. Was he enjoying torturing Dunne so much that he wanted to make it last? Was he afraid that shooting Gowdy and Hannahlee would push Dunne over the edge and make him shoot?
No. It was something else.
Weed's gaze flicked for just an instant to a point behind Dunne—and that was all the clue Dunne needed. He finally knew why Weed was waiting.
It was because someone was back there.
So now Dunne's time really was up, and he had to make a move. Had to save his mother and father and himself, breaking decades of chickenshit failure.
Or give up and let them all be killed.
That was what it boiled down to. No longer a matter of fear, because fear would not change the outcome. What he faced was a simple question.
Was he ready to die?
If so, giving up without firing a shot was the perfect, no-fuss option. But if not...
If not, Dunne knew what he had to do.
His heart pounded in his ears. He stood for a moment that felt like a year, well aware that the future pivoted upon him.
Weed laughed at Gowdy and Hannahlee. His gun arms stiffened.
Dunne sensed the presence of whoever was sneaking up behind him. He or she was getting closer, ever closer.
The last second of time dribbled away. The last possible second of indecision.
And it was in that second that Dunne finally decided what to do.
CHAPTER 66
Warpath Journal
Dateline: New Justice, New Mexico
There's almost no time left.
Quincy has crushed my windpipe like a cardboard cylinder, cutting off my breath. The only oxygen I will ever have is that which is already in my lungs.
Which means I'm only seconds away from death. And when I die, the dead man's switch on my wrist will activate the bomb around my waist.
I decide, as the last act of my life, to take as few people with me as possible.
I relax suddenl
y in Quincy's grip, as if I am already dead. This lulls him just enough that he lets go of my throat.
And then I throw him.
With every last bit of strength I can muster, I buck and twist my body to one side. Quincy's a big man, but I manage to knock him in the dirt.
Choking, I scramble to my feet and run. I try to get as far from Quincy and everyone else as I can.
My head feels light. Dark spots cloud my vision. My arms and legs tingle with pins and needles.
And then I fall.
I land on my hands and knees, but I refuse to give up. I keep crawling forward, putting one more yard, one more foot, one more inch between me and Quincy.
I hear him shouting behind me, and I keep going.
Until I collapse on my belly in the dirt.
CHAPTER 67
There was a time when Dunne would have chosen to die. When he'd had nothing to live for, no one who cared, no hope to cling to. When he'd thought he deserved to die for what he'd failed to do.
But that time was over. Day 8 was over.
Dunne half-turned and spread his arms, pointing one pistol toward whoever was sneaking up on him. The other pistol, Dunne swung around to aim at Weed.
Alerted by the sound or movement or both, Weed looked in his direction. Swept the machine guns away from Gowdy and Hannahlee.
Which is when Dunne killed him.
As soon as Weed turned, Dunne pulled the trigger on the pistol. Pulled it repeatedly.
Multiple rounds flashed toward Weed—and three hit him. One in the shoulder, one in the chest.
And one in the face.
Instantly, Weed dropped the machine guns and fell. Dunne didn't watch to see him hit the ground.
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