by A. American
“You son of a bitch! Don’t you even think of it, don’t you fucking dare!”
“Right now, you’re about to see who’s boss.” With that, Sarge reached into his pocket, took out a plastic bottle filled with water and unscrewed the top. “So who you think’s the dog in this equation?” He began to slowly pour the water onto Marv’s towel-covered face.
At first Marv sputtered against the water, then he simply pursed his lips so none of it would get in his mouth. He was still growling through the towel, or maybe it was a choked cry. Marv tried to hold his breath, but the way the towel was holding his head back, it ran into his nose. Even clean spring water on a warm summer day that finds its way into your nose will burn, and that burn just reinforced the idea that this man was pissing on his face.
Sarge looked up to Ted and nodded, then reached back to his fly and pulled his pecker out. Ted quickly pulled the blindfolds down on the other three men so they could see Sarge shake it over a soaked Marv, who was trying to blow water out of his mouth. The other three men hung from their ropes, mouths agape. Ned shook his head slowly from side to side and his eyes were wide with shock. Sarge waved at Mike, and he pulled the wet towel off.
Before Marv could catch his breath and say a word, Sarge opened the door and reached outside for a PVC pipe he had loaded with sand earlier. With the other three men watching, Sarge gripped the pipe and swung like he was batting cleanup in the bottom of the ninth in the World Series. The slap that followed the impact to the sole of Marv’s right foot was thunderous, but not nearly as loud as the scream that came immediately from Marv.
• • •
Danny and I didn’t say a word as we dug the hole. We moved like machines, neither needing direction nor offering any. When the hole was deep enough, we went into the house to get the body, again in silence.
I went into a bedroom and stripped the sheet from the bed and carried it back out to the kitchen. We spread it out on the floor and with Danny grabbing her feet and I her shoulders, we moved the body onto the center of the sheet, wrapped it up and carried it back out to the hole. As is always the case with this sort of work, filling it in went a lot faster than the digging.
Danny was smoothing the small mound that would be the only indication that this was a grave. In a few years even the mound would be gone, leaving no outward sign of what this place was. I was leaning on the handle of my shovel as he smoothed the soft earth over. When he finished, we both stood there for a minute looking at the place. Again, there would be no words, no prayers or clichés. After a short pause, I looked at Danny.
“Hey, man, we need to go to Reggie’s. There’s some people there I want you to meet.”
“Who is it?”
“Remember the old guy I told you about? Sarge? He’s here with his crew.”
“What are they doing here?”
“I sent him a message. He gave me some gear and told me to stay in touch, but it took me a while to get to it. I told them what’s been going on here lately and they showed up.”
“Cool, I’ll meet you over there.”
I headed back to the Suburban and drove back to Reggie’s. Jeff was standing at the gate when I pulled up, looking a little disconcerted.
“What’s up, dude?” I asked as I rolled to a stop.
Jeff looked back over his shoulder in the direction of the barn behind the house. “What the fuck is going on back there?” he asked, looking back at me.
I looked in the direction of the house for a long moment, then back to him. “I would assume Sarge is having a word with those guys.”
At that moment, a long shriek rose from behind the house.
• • •
Marv screamed. His back was arched as if he were trying to push himself off the floor. When Marv was at the end his scream, Sarge swung the pipe again, this time at the left foot. The pipe landed with a sickly slap. Marv’s lungs were empty from the first strike. His tongue shot from his mouth, the veins on his neck and forehead stood out and he raised his head from the floor. He took a deep breath and letting out another long wail of pain.
Just seeing what he knew was in store for him was more than Goat could take. He started to scream and thrash against the rope binding his hands over his head. Ned just hung there, jaw slack and his eyes wide in terror. A puddle slowly grew around his boots. Avery simply cried, no struggle, no fight. He wept openly.
Mike moved quickly and delivered a quick butt-stroke to Goat’s stomach. He immediately stopped screaming and went limp on the rope, moaning. Marv’s scream had trailed off into a cry of sorts. Sarge took the pipe and tapped the man on his chest, causing him to flinch, close his eyes and look away.
“I assume I have your attention now,” Sarge said as he leaned the pipe by the door. “You an’ me are gonna have a talk now, an’ if you got a brain in yer head you’ll answer my questions.”
Marv was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling as he huffed air. Sarge opened the door, reached out for a five-gallon bucket and brought it back in. After dumping his collection of goodies out of it—hedge clippers, an awl, pliers and other things—on the floor, Sarge turned the bucket over and sat on it, looking down at Marv.
Sarge sat there for a moment resting his elbows on his knees with his hands folded in front of him. He stared intently at Marv, then reached down and picked up the hedge clippers, holding them by the handle and chopping them a couple of times.
“What’s going on down the road there?” Sarge asked and chopped the clippers again.
• • •
Danny walked up to Jeff and I as we stood there listening to what was going on behind the door in the barn. He looked at each of us curiously. “What’s going on?”
“I think Sarge is in there having a talk with the guys who shot up the cookout the other day,” I said.
Reggie and Doc came out of the house. Reggie’s hand was wrapped in a fresh dressing. We stood in a group, trying not to really pay attention to what was going on behind the door, though for a moment it was quiet.
“How’s the hand, Reg?” Danny asked.
He held it up and looked at it. “All right, I guess, for missing a finger. If I ever catch the sumbitch who shot it off, he’s gonna pay for it.”
Doc looked toward the barn. “Well, he’s in there.”
“Who?” Reggie asked.
“The guys that ambushed us at the cookout,” I said.
“What, they’re in there?” Reggie asked, glaring at the barn door. “How’d that happen?”
Doc said, “They greeted us when we landed, but they bit off a little more than they could chew. Once the old man heard them say they were working for the DHS, he scooped them up. We had no idea that they were the ones who ambushed you guys, but that fills in the picture a little. DHS has been trying to scare people into their camps.”
Reggie moved toward the door, but Doc reached out and grabbed his arm. “Just wait. Sarge is still working on them.”
Reggie shot a glance at him. “Them? How many are there?”
“Four,” Doc said.
The door swung open and Sarge stepped out with Ted and Mike in tow. For a moment no one said anything. The door was open and we could all see inside, see the men hanging up and one on the floor.
“What’s the word?” Doc asked.
Sarge scrunched his eyebrows and looked at the ground then crossed his arms. “Well, these boys—one of them, anyway, is the one who shot at you guys the other day. He hit Reggie there; you, Morg; an’ your little girl.”
“Why’d they do it? We wasn’t botherin’ them. Doc said they was workin’ for DHS?” Reggie said.
“Yeah. They’re being used to push people into going to the camps, the FEMA camps. If an area isn’t down the with the idea of being relocated, these boys go in and try an’ scare ’em. Most of the time it seems to work. Sometimes, like with you guys,
it doesn’t and they get tougher. That’s what the shootin’ was about.”
“What are you going to do with them?” Danny asked.
“That’s up to y’all. I got what I needed from ’em. I ain’t gonna do anything with ’em,” Sarge said.
“What did you need from ’em?” Reggie asked.
“I needed a little info about the DHS operation and what was going on out there at the old bombing range.”
“Right,” I said. “Reg, you care if I do it in your barn?”
“Now, hold on,” Sarge said. “If you boys are going to shoot ’em, and believe me when I tell you they need shot, use ’em to make a statement. Let the DHS goons know people aren’t going to take their shit,” Sarge said.
“What do you suggest?” I asked.
“Let’s leave ’em where their buddies will find ’em. Oh, an’ that reminds me, they have more back at their little trailer park compound who will have to be dealt with,” Sarge said.
“Sounds good to me. Morgan, let me have yer pistol,” Reggie said.
Sarge put up a hand, “I know you want ta get even, but wait on killin’ ’em.”
“Why? Let’s get it over with,” Reggie fired back.
“Simple: it’s easier to make ’em walk than it is to drag ’em around. We get ’em to where we want ’em then do it, just less work.”
I said, “Makes sense to me. Sarge, this here is Danny; Danny, this Sarge, Ted, Mike and Doc.”
Danny went around and shook hands with everyone, and when that was done he said to Sarge, “You said there were more of these guys somewhere. What are we going to do about them? They got to be close by.”
“We’ll take care of them,” Mike said.
“Need any help?” Danny asked.
“We’ll work it out, but yeah, we could probably use the help if you want to.”
We spent a little time going over what Sarge envisioned for the crew hanging from the rafters in the barn. I asked where they were planning on staying, mentioning there were plenty of empty houses around and they could probably take one of those. He said that it wasn’t a good idea for him and the guys to stay there as they would probably draw a bunch of unwanted attention. Which brought him around to our security situation. He was less than impressed.
He liked the log barricades, if we were being attacked by Sherman tanks. He said the gabions were a really good idea, but they didn’t have anything in them. He pointed out, in his usual colorful manner, that they were far more effective when they were filled with dirt. His overall opinion was that the area we were in was nearly impossible for us to secure with the number of people we had. He said we either needed to consolidate to the back of the neighborhood or relocate entirely.
None of us were very happy with the idea of having to leave our homes. Sarge made it pretty clear that he wasn’t saying to abandon our homes yet, but that it might come to that. He said he and the guys were here for a reason and we weren’t it, though they had enough mission latitude to include helping us out. He said that tomorrow he and the guys would start looking for a place to work out of, someplace out of the way and defensible.
I said, “I know a place. Not far from here, about ten miles, there’s some cabins on the Alexander Run, coming out of Alexander Springs.”
“That’s a good idea if they’re empty,” Danny said.
“You’ll have to show us. I’d like to get a look at them soon,” Ted said.
“How about tomorrow?” I asked.
“That’ll work.”
Ted and Mike said they needed to go do something and took Reggie with them. They headed back to my house to get their ride and I got with Doc. I wanted him to go look at old Howard; it had been a while since I checked on him. There was just too damn much to do. Sarge and Danny went to take a look at the neighborhood to see what could be done to improve the security situation. Jeff headed for the barricade to check in on Thad. Doc, Jeff and I hopped into the Suburban and headed for the house.
“You really going to off those guys?” Jeff asked.
Doc looked back over the seat at him. “It’s a messy business, but what else can we do with them? They tried to kill you guys, weren’t you there?”
“Yeah, I was there, and at the time I wanted to kill them, but now, after the fact, it seems different.”
I said, “I was there too, so was my little girl who took a bullet from one of those sons of bitches. They need to pay, and there isn’t much else to do with them. They deserve what they’re going to get.”
He didn’t say anything in reply. I glanced at him in the mirror and he was looking out the window. I knew how the guy felt, Just a few months back, the police would have been called. An arrest would have been made and charges filed. The defense and prosecution would offer deals back and forth and then a compromise would be settled on. But things were different now. There was no law to call, no courts, and now men had to settle things amongst themselves. I understood that before everything fell apart, the “might makes right” argument didn’t hold water, but it was different now. It wasn’t that might made right these days, but if you didn’t have might, you had no chance of ensuring that right—justice—would be done. And there was no one else to do it for you.
I knew Jeff hadn’t expected to land in the middle of our troubles when he decided to stay with us and he was kind of playing ethical catch-up. It was more satisfying for me to explain things in terms of vengeance in this case, but I knew that underneath my rage there was a larger moral issue. I told him, “Think about it this way: these guys didn’t give it a second thought when the DHS told them to shoot innocent folks and burn down their houses, right?”
Jeff said, “Yeah, I get it: they’re bad guys. But still.”
“I know. Judge, jury, executioner. I’m not comfortable with that either. I mean, I know I’m doing the right thing here, but sure, there are plenty of people who are gonna take that too far. But I don’t know what we can do about that right now. It’s a big issue, and the big stuff is gonna have to wait until we see if we can survive the shit coming at us day by day. But what I do know is this: if we don’t take care of these militia assholes, they’re gonna do the same thing to someone else’s family. So how do we sleep at night if we don’t end them and later we find out they shot someone else’s little girl? What I mean is that it’s not just revenge, we have an obligation to take care of this because we can. Yeah, it sucks, but we can’t just kick the can down the road. We have to finish this. If we don’t, good people will die, and like it or not, that’d be on us.”
Jeff thought for a second and said, “You should have been a lawyer.”
I snorted at that. “Thanks, asshole.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Chapter 36
Jeff walked up to the barricade from Howard’s house while Doc and I went in to check on Howard. His wife met us at the door. She looked frail, gaunt, like it had taken all the effort she could muster just to open the door. She was gracious and kind, offering us coffee, though I doubt she had any. Doc and I both refused politely and asked about Howard. She led us into the living room where we found him sitting in a recliner.
From the looks of the chair and the debris piled around it, it looked as though he had been living in the chair. There were some plates and empty food cans. The most telling, though, which were as much an assault on the eyes as they were the nose, were the bottles of piss and the bucket half full of shit. It was obvious that he could no longer make it to the toilet, not that it probably worked anyway. I looked over at Doc and could see in his face the situation was not good.
Howard’s chin was on his chest and it rocked back and forth in response to the old man’s breathing. Howard’s wife came in behind us, shuffling across the carpet in an old pair of slippers.
“Howard, honey, Morgan’s here with a friend,” she
said as she moved blankets from the sofa. She was obviously sleeping there as well.
The old man roused in his chair, lifting his head. His eyes looked wet and bleary, and at first he didn’t understand. It took a moment for him to come around, but he pushed himself up in the chair and a thin smile spread across this lips. He blinked a couple of times and then his voice croaked, “Morgan, how are you?”
“Good, Howard, how’s the leg?” I asked. I introduced Doc to them.
Doc took off his pack and set it on the floor and knelt down to start inspecting the wound. The couple had long since run out of bandages and from the looks of things were not boiling the old ones and reusing them. Paper wrappers from Kotex pads littered the floor, along with used pads stained with blood and discharge. Soiled strips of bed sheets were mixed in with it that, adding to the foul mess around the chair.
Phyllis puttered around the room, fussing about the mess and ashamed that she hadn’t had a chance to clean up before we came. Once the leg was exposed, it was obvious that it was not good. The leg from the knee down was red, swollen and angry-looking. There were dark red streaks running up the leg past the knee. Doc pulled a large absorbent pad from his pack, unfolded it and gently lifted Howard’s leg as he spread it out on the footrest of the chair and laid the leg on it. He then went about cleaning the wound.
I stood off to the side as Doc worked, not saying anything while Phyllis sat silently on the sofa. Howard grimaced and shuddered a couple of times as Doc scrubbed the raw wound with a Betadine-impregnated surgical scrub.
“Howard, does the leg hurt much?” Doc asked.
Howard mashed up his face. “Naw, not really, a little sometimes but not really.”
Phyllis looked over at her husband and said, “Now, Howard. It does, mister, he’s just too proud to say it. It hurts him plenty.”
“Howard, I’m gonna get a couple of things for you. Just hang tight for me,” Doc said as he stood up and motioned for me to follow him.
“Take yer time, Doc, I’m not going anywur.”