by Lou Cadle
Wes said, “Everybody down.”
Sierra dropped—taking care to not hit the ground so hard this time—and tilted her head so she could see ahead. She couldn’t see a thing from down here.
Wes said, “Binoculars.”
Curt said, “Don’t let them see a glare off the lenses.”
“I know.”
Sierra stayed still, counting heartbeats, thinking of where they should run if someone came running up the hill for them. If the man she’d seen went straight up the hill into the woods, he’d be between them and the car. One man, of course, they could shoot. But more men? They would have to go cross country farther up the hill and come back around, hoping that the invaders didn’t send search teams up the hill that far. Or they’d have to continue to circle town, which would take too long. “Maybe we should move now,” she said. “Get back to the car before we’re cut off.”
“In a second,” Wes said. “I don’t think they’re going to do anything this instant. Two of them have been arguing, but the one who was pointing up the slope seems to have lost the fight.” A minute later, he said, “Okay, they’re going to leave.”
“We did it?” Tad said. “Accomplished what we set out to do?”
“Sure looks like it,” Wes said. “Okay—no. Damn. Okay. Looks like they’re leaving a guard. But just one. Let’s back off this spot one at a time. Tad, you start. Don’t stand until you’re well back in the trees.”
Sierra was next. She wiggled her way away from the cliff’s edge, then crawled on hands and knees for another ten yards until she could see Tad waving his hand at her. She rose, brushed herself off, and joined him. Curt arrived a minute later, and then Wes.
“I think we should go fast for the car,” Sierra said.
“Agreed,” said Wes. “Back to the car, double time. Whatever you do, don’t let yourself be seen through the trees.”
They moved as fast as they could through the trees, but it wasn’t running, if that’s what “double time” meant. It was lurching and trying not to crash through the undergrowth too loudly, in case someone had been sent up here to hunt for them.
Tad said, “The flyers could have been done any time, even overnight, as far as they know. Maybe we don’t need to hurry.”
“Don’t let up,” Wes said. “Move fast, in case we do.”
Curt got ahead of them, and Sierra was surprised that Wes didn’t stop him. Then she thought, Maybe he doesn’t care if Curt is the first to be spotted and shot. “Be careful, Curt,” she said.
He raised a hand to show her he’d heard, but he didn’t slow down. She tried to mimic him as she followed. He knew the woods and how to move in them. Even going faster than her, he was much quieter. Made sense, for in hunting and trapping, he was in the woods more than she was. She watched him and tried to learn.
It also gave her something to focus on rather than the worry they were being hunted. She could too easily imagine an enemy jumping out from behind a tree like a movie monster. The next fifteen minutes were tense, especially as they passed the nearest the spot where an enemy even then might be climbing the slope.
But they made it past there safely, and with every passing minute, her fear eased. When they were all back at the car, there was a collective whoosh of relief. “Back to the meeting site,” Wes said. “Right?”
“Right,” Sierra said.
Wes jogged to the road he’d driven in on and checked it first. He returned and got in the car, shutting the door quietly. “We’re clear.”
There was another moment of tension as they turned onto the main road, but there was no one there either. They’d done it, executed a guerilla action, without being hurt. Sierra allowed herself a moment of pride.
On the drive back, Tad turned around and said, “This is great. You know what I’m in the mood for? Going out for a big brunch. Omelets and waffles and bacon. Maybe champagne. One of those leisurely meals at an upscale restaurant.” He looked at Sierra. “You like those?”
“Can’t say I’ve ever done that,” she said. “And now I never will. There are still omelets, and there will be waffles for a year or two, but everything else about that life is gone.”
“No more champagne. That’s sad, don’t you think?” he said, and when she only shrugged, he turned around and faced front again.
Curt said, “You ever had champagne?”
“Twice,” she said. “At a wedding and once at home. Pilar and Lisette were celebrating a year living together. Or maybe it was six months. I didn’t see the big deal about champagne. But it’s better than beer.”
Tad turned again. “Did you drink much? Before all this?”
“Not really. I got drunk exactly once on some sweet wine, but I woke up with my head hurting so badly, I never did it again.”
Curt said, “Do you worry about Lisette?”
Sierra was ashamed to admit it, but she didn’t. “No. I think of my mother sometimes, and wonder how it is where she’s living.”
Tad faced the rear seat again. “Where is she?”
“Bhutan, the last I heard.”
“I’m not even sure where that is,” Wes said.
“Asia, by India. A long way from here,” Sierra said. “I haven’t seen her in person since I was a little kid.”
The road to the burned-out neighborhood appeared, and Wes turned into it and up the driveway to the house. There were shopping bags lined up—the harvest from the neighborhood gardens, Sierra supposed.
Kelly hurried to the car and gave her a hug as she emerged. “Ow. You’re lumpy.”
“And she hurt herself,” Curt said.
“Tattletale,” Sierra grumbled.
“Where? What?” Kelly said.
“A very minor and silly wound.”
Kelly kept frowning and looked her up and down.
She sighed. “I stapled myself.”
Now Kelly looked confused. “Why’d you do that?” she said.
“Not on purpose!”
“Let me take a look at it.”
Sierra took a step to the side. “It’s nothing.”
Arch walked up. “So? Mission accomplished?”
Wes said, “We’re almost certain that yes, it was. They were on a street where we’d left flyers, and they seemed agitated.”
“Excellent,” Arch said. “So we’re good to go tomorrow night?”
Sierra nodded and grinned at him.
Tad said, “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m going to try and sleep after lunch, so I can switch up my sleep patterns. Tomorrow, I want to be able to stay up all night if we need to.”
Francie walked up with two big sacks. “This is the last of the harvest for now. We didn’t take everything, in case someone from Payson does want to move up here. Which bag do you want, Kelly?”
“Either is good. You choose.”
Arch said, “We’ll see how it goes down there before we offer any homes up here to anyone.”
“Of course, dear,” Kelly said. “Besides, they aren’t our homes to offer. As far as we know, someone in town is related to the people who lived here and will stake a claim.”
Wes said, “Anything else we need to discuss now?”
Arch said, “I don’t think so. Curt? Sierra?”
Sierra was pleased he’d asked her. “We’re good to go. Meeting on the forest road by your place at six-thirty tomorrow evening, Wes?”
“Gives us plenty of time. Don’t forget your night vision gear.”
“We won’t,” said Arch.
They drove home. Kelly said, “Nobody say anything to Dev about tomorrow evening until I have a chance to check him out today. If he knows something is up, he’ll lie about how he feels.”
Sierra said, “So you’re going to let him go?”
“If he’s truly feeling okay, yes,” Kelly said. “We certainly can’t keep it from him when we leave, since we’re both going.”
“You are?” Sierra said.
Arch said, “I told the others I’ll guard the road
back up to both our neighborhoods. I can fire the Glock just fine for short periods, and accurately. I think I can keep anyone from getting past me.”
Kelly said, “And he wants to be there to negotiate at the end. You know, if everything goes as planned.”
“Sure,” Sierra said. “So it’ll be who going?”
“All three in our family, you, Curt, and Joan because she’s from town,” Kelly said. “Your dad is going to hold the fort back home, if he agrees.”
“With Rudy,” Arch said.
“He’ll be busy herding the kids,” Kelly said. “So it’s all on your dad’s head, Sierra.”
Sierra was worried. Was her father physically up to defending the whole neighborhood? “I hope no one attacks while we’re gone.”
“If someone does, it’ll be from up the hill, not down,” Arch said. “That’s part of why I’ll be where I plan to be. If a car gets by me, I’ll follow it and support your dad if it comes for our place.”
They pulled off the highway and told her to go home. Sierra said to the Quinns, “Hope Dev is okay,” and headed home. Because no matter what kind of war they were planning, she still had hens to care for.
“Wait up, Sierra,” Curt said.
She slowed, and he caught up.
“I don’t mean to overstep, but you going to be okay with that Tad?”
“I’m sorry?” She didn’t understand what he meant.
“I mean, with him coming on to you.”
“He was?” She stopped dead and stared at Curt.
“Well, yeah. I think your taking your clothes off sort of snapped him into awareness of you, if he wasn’t already aware.”
“I did not take my clothes off,” she said. “I was perfectly well covered.”
Curt shrugged.
“And we were running an operation. I mean, what kind of idiot thinks of sex at a time like that?”
“Well, you know. Breasts and all.”
“Breasts? Good gods. What the hell is wrong with men anyway?” She was out of patience. “They’re just tits. Meant to feed babies. What is your obsession with them? Why do so many guys see me as a walking pair of tits or an ass? With an inconvenient mouth and brain attached to them? Huh?” She poked a finger in his face.
Curt backed up and raised his hands. “Hey, now.”
“I mean, do I stare at your tits all the time? Do I? Sheesh. And besides, he’s like a hundred.”
Curt was fighting a laugh, she could tell. “Thirty-five, I’d guess.”
“And he’s a conceited jerk.”
“No argument from me on that.”
“And I can take care of myself. Shit’s sake, I shoot someone almost every week.”
“I don’t think you can shoot a man for flirting,” Curt said.
“Hit him in the head with the rifle butt then. Whatever.”
“Sorry I brought it up,” he said, raising his hands palms out, as if surrendering.
“Me too. Now it’ll distract me. No, it won’t. I’ll make sure I’m not with him tomorrow night. I’ll tell Arch and Wes to assign us to different streets or whatever.”
Pilar came up. He must have been walking guard duty. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” she said. “I’m just irritated over something stupid.”
Pilar said, “Curt?” There was a hint of warning in his voice.
Curt shook his head.
“He didn’t do anything,” Sierra said to Pilar, getting herself under control. Time to change the subject. “I wonder about tomorrow night. I mean, we only have forty-five minutes or so between meeting up with the others and sunset. Is that enough time to make a sensible attack plan?”
Curt said, “They probably were talking about it while we were in town. Over the harvesting job.”
“That go okay?” Pilar asked. “Not harvesting. I mean the raid.”
“Fine. Not so much as a scary moment,” she assured him. Then she turned to Curt. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“I was just the bearer of bad news, I suppose.”
“Yeah. Not even bad news. A silly distraction from the real work of today.”
“I’ll consider the matter closed then,” Curt said, and walked on down the road.
Pilar said, “What was all that about?”
Sierra shook her head. “Nothing.”
“I heard you screaming about ‘tits,’ so if there’s a problem with Curt….”
“No, no. Nothing like that. It’s just that guy Tad. Curt said he was flirting with me, and I didn’t know. I don’t want it, and I overreacted to hearing it.”
“Tad was talking about your breasts?” Pilar’s face was growing red.
“No. He was talking about—hell, I don’t even know. Champagne with breakfast was the only thing I remember him saying that could vaguely be taken as flirtation. I mean, nothing really. I guess Curt saw something in him that I didn’t.”
“Hmm,” Pilar said, looking at Curt’s retreating back.
“Hmm, meaning what?” She felt herself getting irritated again.
“I assume you can handle it?” he said.
“Of course. I mean, not to sound full of myself, but I’ve shut down guys before. I have some experience at it.”
“I’m sure you have.” He paused, seemed to weigh his next words, and then said, “But you know....”
“What?”
“If we’re going to be allies with that other neighborhood, then you’ll be exposed to more young men. And if we can liberate Payson, even more. You might want to see young men. To date. That’s a good thing.”
“Sure, I—” A thought struck her. “You thinking of getting back together with that Francie?”
“No. No, not at all. There were good reasons we broke up. Besides, I still am in love with Lisette a little. I’m not ready for another relationship.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really not a very good daughter to you, am I? I don’t think about her much, which is bad enough. But I don’t think about how you might be feeling at all.”
“I just hope she’s okay. She was going to leave me anyway. But she was out there, not at home, when gas ran out. It could have been bad for her.”
“I wish there was some way to contact her,” Sierra said. “Or the friends she was staying with.”
“But there isn’t. Even if you saved the gas for a trip like that, or used the electric car and had a place to top off the battery at the other end, a known source of power...someone would probably carjack you before you arrived.” He shook his head. “It’s a new world. At this point, it ends about thirty miles from home.”
“Or less.”
“Or less. But for dating purposes, for you, thirty miles.”
“That’s if we succeed tomorrow. One step at a time.”
“Is that the talk about invading Payson? Tomorrow?”
“It’s on for the night. I’m sure our group will meet later today, or tomorrow morning, and Arch will lay it out for everyone.” Her father had been updated on their hopes while she made the flyers.
“You’ll be very, very careful, won’t you? It’s one thing to dash in and out of the edges of town. It’s quite another to storm a well-defended place. Fending off frightened families looking for food has been easy compared to fighting well-armed men on their own turf.”
“We did okay here the other day.”
“There’ll be more men in Payson. And they may have better weapons there. Hell, they could have rocket launchers or machine guns or anything. You be careful.”
“I will,” she said. “I wonder what they’ll assign me to do. I hope it’s good.”
Chapter 8
The next day, after Sierra and the others were done with morning chores, the seven of them met about attacking Payson and who would stay behind to defend the neighborhood. Dev had caught wind of the plan somehow and insisted he was healthy enough to go along on the action to liberate the town. It had been Kelly who’d come up with the most interesting idea: what if they tried to break some
of the Payson men out of jail to help. They even had extra guns to distribute, the ones they’d taken off the men they’d killed a few days ago.
When they had talked everything over, Arch drove to the other neighborhood alone to talk about it with the others, a white flag flapping from the rear window in a pre-arranged signal.
After cleaning up from the lunch her father had made for the two of them, Sierra went over to Joan’s to see if Rudy needed any help with the little kids. As she walked into the yard, she jerked back in surprise when she saw Emily outside. She was tying the shoes of the littlest kid, the girl the man had carried around as a human shield. The little girl ran off when her shoes were tied, and as she began to interact with another child, Sierra felt a moment of relief. The little one seemed to be recovering from her ordeal. She was smiling. Rudy led the kids off toward the woods and Emily stayed behind and watched them, no smile on her face.
Misha was also left behind, and she looked longingly at the children as they marched off in Rudy’s wake. When she turned to see Sierra, she brightened. She ran up. “I have to stay at home and work, Mom says.”
“Makes sense. You have a lot of mouths to feed. They depend on you.”
“Will you help me collect eggs? I’m still afraid of the hens.”
“Where’s your mom?”
“On guard.”
“It’s very grown-up of you to do what she says. Where’s Rudy going with the kids?”
“He’s teaching them about the woods, he said. He said he’s part Indian. Do you think that’s true?”
“Could be.” She walked toward Emily and smiled at her. “Hi, Emily. It’s good to see you out. Do you want to help with the eggs?”
Emily shook her head and turned for the house. It was an improvement in her behavior. She didn’t run but walk. She didn’t smile, but she didn’t look quite as terrified as she had. She made it to the deck and then turned and raised her hand in farewell.
To Misha, Sierra said, “Has she been spending time in the closet a lot?”
“Not much. When it gets noisy in there, she does.”
“That many extra people must make it crowded.”
“It does!” Misha said. “But Mom says we have to be nice. They’ve been through a hard time and we need to make a home for them for now.”