by A. American
A few minutes before 0500, Sarge reached over and turned the radio on. In a low whisper he called his contact element.
“Swamp Rat to Stump Knocker.” He waited and repeated the call.
“Go for Stump Knocker,” came the hushed reply.
“What’s your ETA?”
“Stump Knocker is on station.”
“How many in your lead element?” Sarge whispered in the mic.
There was a pause, then, “Three.”
“How many in your security element?”
Another pause. “Two.”
“Roger that, retrace your route in. We’ll identify ourselves when you reach us. Leave your security element out.”
“Roger that, Swamp Rat. Stump Knocker’s inbound.”
Chapter 23
I came through the door with an armload of wood, leaving the big garden cart out front. The fire was down to a bed of coals, and I added some of the smaller limbs I’d collected to them. Jeff was sitting on a stool in the kitchen, and Mel was leaning against the counter.
“What’s for dinner?” I asked.
“Biscuits and gravy,” she replied.
“Sounds good to me. How you feeling?” I asked, looking at Jeff.
Rubbing his throat, he said, “Better, thanks.”
We sat and talked while the biscuits in the little oven browned. Jeff was from Phoenix and had been the supervisor of an IT department. He worked for a company that did contract work for the federal government. It was a good job and paid well, but it kept him inside more than he wanted. He enjoyed shooting the Mosin he had left on his scooter. He had modified it and told me, “It’s no peasant’s Mosin.”
I asked if he wouldn’t mind helping me on a little project I was working on.
“Not a problem, man,” he said.
Taylor and Lee Ann came trooping in through the sliding glass door. They stopped when they saw Jeff and stared at him. He smiled at them and said, “Hi.” They just stood there, Taylor slowly closing the door behind them. After I let them know it was okay, they said hello in return and lightened up a bit. They wanted to know what was for dinner and bopped around the kitchen pestering Mel.
Mel told them to go get Ashley and bring her out for dinner and to make sure they all washed their hands. They ran off and I asked Jeff if he would like to get cleaned up and showed him to the bathroom in our bedroom. As he was stepping into the bathroom, he looked at me and asked, “I assume my Glock is in safe hands?”
I let out a little laugh. “Yeah, sorry about that, but Mel insisted I get it. With three girls in the house, she’s pretty protective. You can’t be too careful these days.”
“If I hadn’t been so tired, I wouldn’t have come in here. Like you said, you can’t trust anyone these days. But after my little near-death experience, I was kinda wore out.”
“Did you see a white light?” I asked with a smile.
“Nope, but I did see the face of my ex-wife. Her head was bouncing up and down and her mouth was going a mile a minute, just like the last time I saw her. Now I’m scared of where I was headed,” he said.
I had to laugh. “Come out when you’re ready. The water works here, so do what you need to,” I said.
The girls were all at the table and there was some jockeying going on as to who would sit beside me. Mel was setting out plates with a couple of biscuits each and big ladle of sausage gravy. The stocks in the freezer were starting to run low, but we had decided to use them up so that if anything were to happen, that food wouldn’t go to waste. Jeff came out and took the empty seat. He was between Little Bit and Taylor. Little Ash had never met a stranger and immediately asked, “What’s your name?”
He told her, then she asked, “Were you the man asleep on the couch?”
He laughed and nodded his head. We talked a little while we ate, nothing serious, but the girls peppered him with questions and he politely answered them, never showing any irritation with their constant probing. Then I made a huge mistake. I was telling Mel about the video he had on his iPad, and as soon as I said that little four-letter word, all three of the girls looked up at him, just staring. Jeff’s eyes darted around the table from girl to girl. Finally he asked, “What?”
Taylor, with a forkful of sausage gravy dripping onto her plate, said, “You have an iPad that works?”
“Yeah, but there’s no Internet or anything, so you can’t do much with it.”
Little Bit looked up with wide eyes. “Does it have Angry Birds?” she shouted.
“Yeah, it does.”
“Oh, can I play it, please, please, please?”
“It’s not here right now. It’s on my motorcycle.” Looking up at me, he said, “Which I would like to go get.”
I told him we could after dinner and he promised to let Little Bit play Angry Birds, at which she giggled with delight. The other girls wanted to know if had any music on it that they could listen to. He said he would be happy to let them look at what he had. They told him they had MP3 players, but not much in the way of new music.
As we were finishing dinner, Mel surprised everyone by bringing a peach cobbler to the table to a chorus of cheers. She told us not to cheer until we tried it. Everyone got a big scoop, pretty much finishing off the pan, and we were all more than impressed with it. Jeff was particularly happy. He said, “This is great. It’s been a long time since I had a meal this good.”
Mel said, “I think your hunger is clouding your judgment.”
The girls and I all piped up about the same time, voicing our approval. Once dinner was done, the two older girls took care of the dishes and Jeff and I headed for the door. Little Bit was clamoring to come with us, but it was dark out and I had a pretty strict rule about them not going out after dark. She persisted, but finally got the point. I put my vest on and slipped the sling to my carbine over my head. Jeff looked at me. “My Glock?”
“Oh yeah, hang on,” I said and headed for the bedroom. When I handed it over, I said, “Sorry about that.”
“No worries, I’ve got it back.” He looked over at Mel who had took up a spot on the end of the sofa closest to the fire. “Thanks for dinner. It was great.”
“You’re welcome. We were glad to have you.”
We walked out the drive heading to the road and chatted as we went. I asked what his plans were and again he said he didn’t really have any. I asked if he would be interested in hanging out here for a while and he said he’d think about it.
“Why do you want me to stay?” Jeff asked.
“Well, to be honest, I’m not the most popular guy around here. I have one solid friend that I can count on and a couple of others that are all right, but that’s it.”
He looked at me with a sideways glance and asked why that was. I went on to explain my trip home to him, the whole thing, and what had happened after I got there. I told him about Pat and her kin. He looked at me with raised eyebrows and said, “Little harsh, don’t ya think?”
“I have a wife and three daughters. They’re my first priority, and there’s no way I can keep my eyes open twenty-four seven. Would you turn your back on someone who you knew was coming after you?”
We reached the gate and I glanced over at him. He had his head down and his hands in his pockets. I said, “I can tell from the look on your face you’ve already had to make that decision.”
He nodded his head without saying anything. We turned up the road and headed for the barricade. It was cold out and there was a low layer of clouds; it looked like rain was coming, and I hate rain when it’s cold out. Reggie was at the barricade with my neighbor. They had a fire in the burn barrel and were standing over it when we walked up.
“Hey, Morg, who’s your friend?” Reggie asked.
I made the introductions and we all stood around the fire, warming our hands. Reggie asked about the scooter. “That’s a nice
ride. What year is it?”
Jeff looked over at the old scooter with pride. “It’s a 1960 Panhead Duo-Glide. She’s all original too, even the paint.”
“Damn, that must have cost a pretty penny.” Reggie was shaking his head as he stared into the fire.
“Yeah, but what the hell, the thirty I spent on it wouldn’t be worth shit now anyway.”
We all nodded in agreement, and I asked what had happened to the bodies of the raiders. Reggie said that Mark and Rick had loaded them up and hauled them off, but he didn’t know what they did with them. We stayed there with them for a little while just shooting the shit, nothing too deep, then Jeff said he wanted to get his bike somewhere safe. I told Reggie I would see him later. He asked where he could put it and I told him to take it to my house. I said he could crash on the couch tonight and if he was interested in staying we could find him a permanent place later.
“The thought of sleeping in front of that fire sure sounds nice,” Jeff said as he swung a leg over the old Harley.
“One thing, though, you gotta keep it going all night.”
Jeff smiled. “No such thing as a free ride anymore, huh?”
I kicked his front tire. “Just this one.”
He laughed and started the old scooter. The pipes on the damn thing were incredibly loud. Jeff rode off toward the house. At first he went slow so I could walk alongside him, but that beast was so loud I told him to just get it to the house and park it.
It was completely dark by then, and with the cloud cover there wasn’t any moonlight coming through. The only light out now came from Jeff’s bike. The headlights cast a cone of light that illuminated the trees above and on both sides of the road. Jeff turned off into the drive and headed toward the house. I was still a little ways away when I heard a woman scream.
The scream came from past my house, and I strained to look out into the dark. Then there was another scream and what sounded like several people yelling. I started to jog toward the commotion, and a light appeared, dull and yellow, two houses down from mine. As I got closer, I could hear two men yelling and saw someone run out of the yard and down the road, heading into the neighborhood, but the yelling continued.
As I walked through the open gate I could see two figures holding another on the ground. The one on the ground struggled a bit and was met with a hard blow from the bigger of the two on top of him. From where I was, it sounded like someone slapping a steak against the fridge. The figure on the ground let a howl of pain and went limp. Then I heard a man say, “That’s what ya get, thief!”
Walking up to them, I hit the button on my flashlight and lit the group up. There was a woman standing to the side. She had on fuzzy slippers and some sort of flannel PJs, all wrapped up in a thick robe. She had one arm wrapped around her chest and the other hand over her mouth. On the ground was a young guy, somewhere between sixteen and eighteen. His right eye was already starting to swell and blood ran thick and slow from his nose, a string of it hanging from his face where it reached for the grass.
On top of him was a heavyset man in gray sweatpants and a black sweatshirt. He outweighed the kid he was on by better than a hundred pounds. He was one of those guys who had no neck—not muscled, but fat. He had those rolls of meat on the back of his head where it met his shoulders, and even in the cold he was sweating. With him was what looked like his son, who looked just as corn-fed as his old man. When the light hit him, the kid on the ground started to beg for help. “They’re trying to kill me!” he shouted.
Boss Hogg looked over his shoulder, having to turn his upper body to get his head far enough around to see me. “He’s a fucking thief! He was stealing our chickens. We done lost three, now I know wur they went.”
“No, I wasn’t! I didn’t steal anything! They just jumped me!”
“You did too! I saw you with two of ’em in your hands. You callin’ me a liar?” the woman shouted.
I could hear Mark’s Mule coming down the road and looked up to see him turn into the drive.
Mark pulled up looking frazzled. He looked like he wasn’t getting enough sleep and it was starting to wear on him. The robe-clad woman ran to him as he climbed out of the Mule. “He was stealing our chickens!”
“No, I wasn’t! They jumped me and started beating me! Get him off!” the kid on the ground cried.
The cop in Mark was already in gear. “Then why you in their yard?” he asked with a sigh.
The fat man glanced over at Mark. “’Cause he was stealing our chickens.”
The kid on the ground didn’t have anything to say; what could he say? He was caught in their yard at night with a chicken in each hand. Mark asked them what they wanted him to do about it. They looked at him kind of confused. “You’re the law; it’s your job. You need to do something about it. We can’t have people going around here stealing from us,” the man said, loosening his grip on the kid.
“Well, what do you expect me to do? I can’t put him in jail,” Mark said, more than a little annoyance in his voice.
The man straightened himself up and looked at Mark. The boy rolled hard to the side and out from under the man. In a flash he was trying to get his feet under him to run. The man lunged for him, missed and landed on the ground. His son leapt for the kid and in a twist any football player could appreciate, the kid rolled out of the tackle and was at a full run. The man looked at Mark and shouted, “Shoot him!”
Mark just shook his head. “I’m not going to shoot someone for stealing a fucking chicken.”
The big man stood up. “Then what damn good are ya if you aren’t going to protect us?”
Mark just shook his head and walked over to the Mule. I looked at him as he passed me, but he didn’t even acknowledge I was standing there.
The man and his wife watched Mark as he got back in the Mule. He said, “Next time I’ll shoot him myself!”
Mark started the Mule. I walked over to him and rested a hand on top of the roll cage. “You look like shit.”
He said, “Yeah, thanks.” He sat there for a minute staring off into the darkness and then said, “What do these fucking idiots want from me?”
“They want what they always wanted: someone else to make decisions for them.”
He hung his head and shook it slightly. “They wanted me to shoot that kid for stealing a fucking chicken.”
“We need to come up with a way of dealing with little shit like this. If they had shot him I wouldn’t have blamed ’em, but if people call for help or there’s some other petty crap, we need something a little less permanent than a firing squad,” I said.
“What are we going to do, put a set of stocks in the village square?” Mark asked.
I raised my eyebrows and looked at him. “That’s not a bad idea. Then the next time something like this happens we have a way to deal with it. I think you should do just that. I mean, think about—I don’t know, three hundred years ago. No small town had someone who could stand watch on a jail all day. But people who stole stuff, they were still part of the community. They were tied to the land, just like we are now. You couldn’t just pack up and get a job in the next town over. So they used peer pressure. Some dumb kid takes a chicken, he gets shamed in front of everyone he knows. Chances are he learns not to do it again.”
Mark didn’t even look up as he put the Mule in gear. “Fine. I delegate it to you, then.” And he drove away.
• • •
Thad sat rocking his head on the wheel while the men outside shouted orders at him. He could hear them, but he just couldn’t face the fact that he had only made it this far. Turning his head to the side, he looked at the M4 lying on the seat. For a moment he thought of getting out with it and the shotty and just ending it right here, but he knew he couldn’t do that. Slowly and with great effort he reached over and opened the door. The voices ordered him out of the truck.
“Put your hand
s up, turn away from me, get down on your knees, cross your feet, do not fucking move!”
Thad followed the orders. He was thrown to the ground, a knee on his neck, and people were grabbing at him, yanking his arms, shouting orders that seemed to contradict one another: “Give me your hands! Don’t fucking move!” Well, which is it? Thad wondered.
He was quickly searched. “Gun!” one of them called out. “Knife!” shouted another. “Look at the size of this fucking thing!”
Thad was jerked up off the pavement and led toward the far end of the bridge. He heard the old Scout start up, then the lights went out, all of them. He was led in the dark, and no one talked to him, not that there was really much to say now. His hands were bound behind with those flexible cuffs. He heard the zziiiiippp as they tightened them on his wrists. He saw that one of them was wearing a vest with the word SHERIFF in big white letters.
“You guys cops?” he asked.
“Shut up and keep walking,” came the terse reply.
At the other end of the bridge there were a number of people, almost all of them in uniform. Thad was led to a tent and forced into a chair sitting in front of a folding table. Other than him and the man standing by the door to the tent, it was empty save the Coleman lantern hanging from a hook on the pole that supported the top of the tent.
He sat there for some time. He wasn’t too worried: after all, it was the sheriff that had him and not some band of thugs. After a while, a man came in and sat in the chair on the other side of table. With a thud, he dropped some of the gear from the Scout down in front of him. The man sat there looking at Thad, not saying a word. Thad stared back at him indifferently.