“Give it one more layer, in case the lines get hot and burst or crack,” I told her.
“Kind of like preventative maintenance?” she asked.
“Sort of. You can sometimes fix a hole or crack in a coolant line if you use the good duct tape and dry things off some. I’m just doing everything ahead of time so we don’t get stuck somewhere.”
“How long’s that battery going to last?” Luis asked me walking up, using his thumb to point over his shoulder at the house where Mel and Jamie were talking.
“I don’t know. I’m going to rig up some jumper cables from the alternator to charge the battery, but… It’s good for them to hear from… him,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“You kind of like her,” Courtney said, making Luis’s neck almost crack as he did a double take.
“She’s married, and has a very alive husband,” I told her, not meeting her gaze.
“You’ve been carefully avoiding her,” Courtney pressed.
“You’re a pain in my ass,” I said, finally turning to her. I pointed and growled, “You should know when to leave well enough alone.”
“You know, I feel like I was just struck by lightning,” Courtney said. “You couldn’t figure out why we wanted to hurry, and now we know why you’re so grumpy,” she said, making her eyes open wide and then dropping me an exaggerated wink.
Luis gave her a wary look and then put his arm around her waist, pulling her close.
“Attraction and having feelings for someone is different,” he told her softly. “Don’t pick on him.”
“I’m not doing it on purpose,” she said. “It just hit me. You looked like somebody just shot your dog when you heard him on the radio talking to Jamie.”
“Was it that obvious?” I asked.
“It is to me, now,” Luis said.
Shit.
“For sure,” Courtney said. “But they were too busy to notice your reaction.”
“Until you mentioned it, I didn’t even realize. Jamie always caught my eye, but now I feel horrified and… I mean… I’m still in love with Mary.”
“Oh shit, not this again,” Luis said, pulling Courtney and doing a one-eighty. They started walking away.
“Ok, I’m having a moment, go eat shit,” I said loudly. Courtney turned to give me a smile, then slowly flipped me off.
Was that it? I’d been fighting it for a long time. I’d been shut down emotionally for so long that I was overcompensating, and I decided to throw myself into my packing and wrapping until it was time to leave. I’d have Jamie drive with Mel and Luis ride shotgun. I’d sit in the back with Courtney and watch our back or watch our six. One of the nice things - the back window opened so we wouldn’t have to shout to communicate.
Attraction or affection? That was the question. I’d already taken for granted that I was attracted to her, especially when she’d gotten in close to me, but I’d always fought that back. I’d kept that part of me so clamped down that I hadn’t realized or admitted to myself that I was starting to care. If it was this obvious to virtual strangers, how obvious was it to Jamie and Mel?
“Battery died,” Mel’s voice drifted over to me.
“Ok, hand it here,” I said, holding my hand out.
“Mel’s got it,” Jamie said, brushing a tear away as she walked up to the truck. “I just wanted to thank you for letting me talk to Steve.”
“I’m sorry circumstances kept me from doing it before,” I told her, trying not to meet her gaze.
“If you hadn’t noticed, we were kind of busy,” Jamie said.
It was obvious she wasn’t going away, and I felt raw. Not only had I fucked up earlier when Mel had found the whiskey, but I'd also apparently worn my heart on my sleeve for a minute. The guilt and shame and mixed feelings were crushing something inside of me. Part of me wanted to hold and protect Jamie and Mel as if they were my Mary and Maggie. They weren’t though. Jamie had a husband, and Mel, a father. I still had Mary and Maggie somewhere. I thought I’d feel it if something had happened to them.
“Kidnapped, fought off bad guys, raided bad guys—” I was saying in a snarky voice.
“Gave a community hope, helped others along the way…” Jamie said before I cut her off.
“Killed almost three dozen men, washed the streets in blood…”
“Is that why you’ve been such an ass lately?” Jamie asked.
“Wait, what?” I asked her, horror-stricken.
“You’ve been walking around this afternoon in some kind of funk. You’re snappy. Did I do something wrong, or is it all the killing that’s getting to you?”
“The killing always gets to me,” I admitted. “You’ve heard me sleeping.”
She nodded, her face relaxing. Damn, I must have put her on edge. Probably everyone.
“How many?” she asked me.
“Too many,” I told her.
“So the number, does it bother you?” she asked me in a softer tone.
“If I even knew how many I’d killed or who’d died because of me… I’ve lost count,” I told her, turning back to the motor and winding the last of the tape on the big radiator hose.
I turned and stood up straight, letting my back pop and crackle. Behind her, I could see Mel walking out of the house with the small twelve-volt battery I’d used. It was essentially a twelve-volt battery from a Hot Wheels car. Deep cycle, small… still weighed about ten pounds. Ten more than I wanted to carry in my pack.
“Hey kiddo,” I said, diverting attention.
“Hey,” she said, handing me the battery.
“Give me a second,” I told her and stuffed the battery in the firewall next to the other one. It wasn’t snug, and it would rattle.
“What are you doing? I thought that battery is good?” she said.
“Well, I figure we could charge it here, but I have to rig something up,” I told her.
“Oh, do you need anything?” she asked.
“Some wires, alligator clips, something. If nothing else, I can use the wire and some duct tape,” I said, holding up the half-used roll.
“My dad says that you can fix about anything with duct… oh wow,” she said, leaning over the hood and peeking at the tape job I’d done on the main heater hose.
“Yeah, just getting things ready so we can roll,” I said.
“Ok, I’ll go look in the garage. Does it matter what kind of wire?”
“Not really,” I told her, knowing I was probably going to have to rip some out of the house somewhere.
She hurried off. I headed toward the driver’s door and started checking the side door and behind the seats.
“What are you looking for?” Jamie asked.
It startled me, and for half a moment I’d forgotten she’d just stood back, silent. Watching.
“A rag or something to wrap around the little battery.”
“Would this help?” she asked, pulling an old red bandanna out of a side pocket of her pack.
“That might be perfect,” I told her and took it.
I went back and wrapped it around the battery equally, but there was still too much play when I tried to shove it down. Instead, I took it out and put the battery back in. I wadded up the bandanna and shoved it in, between the battery and the sidewall. It was just enough.
“Would wire like this work?” Mel called out.
I turned to see her bringing out a multi-meter. The kind with the removable probes.
“Yep.” I grinned and saw that Mel was grinning back at me.
“Go get the packs,” Jamie told her after she handed me the whole unit. “And find out if Luis and Courtney are ready to leave.”
“I uh… I got everything by the front door, they’re having some alone time in the…”
The front door opened, and Courtney was carrying one pack while Luis was struggling with the rest, almost dropping things. I rushed over and got my pack and another one from him before his knees buckled.
“Alone time huh? Don’t you know th
at it makes you weak in the knees?” I asked him.
Luis turned four shades of red when both Jamie and Mel busted out laughing. I turned to look at Courtney, who was avoiding my grinning visage. She put the pack in the truck and started walking back to the house.
“What?” she asked. “It’s not like we’ll have a real bed again any time soon!”
She was indignant, and I joined her in putting the packs in the back of the truck.
“That was the fastest two minutes of your life,” I said to Luis as quietly as I could.
“You’re not even funny. Come on, man, the kid is right there…”
“And she’s the one who fled the house because… how’d she put it… you two were having some ‘alone time’,” I said, using my fingers for air quotes.
“How about this, I won’t tease you about Jamie, and you drop this?”
“Deal,” I told him. “Come on, we’ve got the radio and guns to get last.”
It had taken us another fifteen minutes to pack, and I’d made sure everyone was armed and outfitted. The last to go in was the bikes. I didn’t believe in tempting fate, so I took them. Rigging the battery up had been easy as well. I cut one end off of the test probes, stripped the wire back, and wrapped it around the battery post before tightening it back down. The end with the sharp probe went into the battery terminal’s hole in the blade connection and was held down by tape. I was almost positive it would work, and within a good couple of hours, we’d have it all charged up again.
The other thing I did was apply duct tape to the headlights, leaving only a sliver near the engine uncovered. When we used the lights, I didn’t want them to light up the night’s sky. I did the brake lights as well, because pulling bulbs would have taken tools and too much time. The tape is what I had, and it’s what I used. Maybe there was something to what they said about duct tape.
“There isn’t much room back here,” Courtney grouched.
Yeah, nobody was happy with the seating arrangements but me. It was now full dark, and Jamie was driving with Mel in the middle and Luis riding shotgun.
“How am I going to see in the dark if you don’t want me to use the lights?” Jamie asked through the open rear cab window.
“Use Luis’s goggles,” I told her.
“Batteries are dead,” he told me.
Dammit.
“Here, take mine,” I said, pulling mine off and handing them in through the opening.
“Isn’t that the point of having you back there, to watch out for our six?” Luis asked.
Mel turned around and looked at us. Courtney and I were squished in by the back of the cab of the truck. The bags had been positioned on the outer edges of the eight-foot-long box, but the bikes had been heaped and tied down with some bailing twine I’d found in the garage. We had room, but not very much.
“As long as we don’t use the headlights, I’ll be able to pick things out.” I hope, I added mentally.
“Oh, ok,” Jamie said, adjusting the goggles so they fit her head. “How do I…” she flipped down the goggles and was feeling for the on switch.
“Here,” Luis said, showing her. “Dick showed me.”
“Oh wow, that’ll take a little while to get used to, but it won’t be bad. We ready?” she asked everyone.
“Fire it up,” I told her.
She did, and Mel let out a quiet whoop. I almost whispered for her to shut up, but I could see many members of the community walking our way. In the front, Pastor Horton was approaching us. Jamie cut off the engine and swore.
“We were just leaving…” she griped.
“I know, Mom,” Mel said.
I didn’t want to see this. I didn’t want to talk to the preacher, but we’d have to run them over to leave at this point. Many of the folks held candles to light the way, but in all, I would guess close to twenty of them were walking towards us. Jamie turned on the headlights, to better light them up. The tap worked, and small beams that traveled about twenty feet showed that Kevin, David, and their families were with the holy man.
“I just wanted to give you our thanks,” Pastor Horton said as he stopped near the truck, his followers half surrounding it.
Nobody was armed, which was the first thing I was looking for.
“I’m glad it turned out ok,” Courtney said. “It could have been a lot worse.”
Linda, David’s wife, walked over and stood on my side of the bed.
“Dick,” she said, the moonlight enough to make out her features. “I think I might have been wrong about you. When you came into my house with the boys at gunpoint, I thought to myself you were a crazy person. Especially after hearing about Chicago. I didn’t believe the girls’ stories until I was standing across from you. All I saw was a cold-hearted killer. You’re different, and it scared me. What you did, with the church and Chaz’s… I couldn’t have done that. I don’t think…”
“But you did do it,” I told her. “All of you did. My group hardly got involved.”
“You were the one to give us a kick in the ass,” David said, coming to stand beside his wife.
“I didn’t pull the trigger,” Linda told me. “But I supported your idea. As crazy as it was. I don’t think anybody but you could have convinced the community to work together to do that. I think you guys saved us, made it a place for Cassie to grow up in.”
“There’s still things your community needs to do. Fortify entrances, exits, security and—”
“Tomorrow the community is going to come to the church to decide,” Pastor Horton cut in. “And I’ve officially stepped down as the unofficial or official leader. I’ve given it over to David here until the community can vote. I’m getting weary, and I need…”
“You need somebody else to carry the burden awhile,” I finished for him.
He nodded.
“You have our thanks, and if any of you want, you’ll always have a home here,” he said. “But I understand you all have loved ones to get home to. Thank you.”
He held his hand out. Why would he shake my hand? Didn’t he know how much blood I’d spilled over the years? I shook it and asked him a question.
“Will you pray for us, a safe journey?”
“All of us will,” David said, putting his arms around his wife, pulling her close.
We said our goodbyes, and when Jamie fired up the truck again, people were moving out of the way. We used the headlights to navigate to where a shortcut had been made in the grass to go from the community to the overpass where we’d been waylaid. Two men were stationed there on guard, not tithing or tolling.
“Lights out?” Jamie asked, pulling the goggles down.
“Go ahead,” I told her, sitting down once the truck started moving at a clip.
“Do you think they’re going to be ok?” Courtney asked me, leaning close so I could hear her.
“They’ve got the best setup of anybody I’ve seen so far,” I told her. “So yeah, I think they’ve got a good shot.”
“I think they’ll be ok,” Mel piped up from in front of me.
29
I was being as vigilant as I could, but the shocks in the truck were missing or not working. Every bump or crease we drove across bounced the two of us around, often times together. After knocking noggins once, we both moved one of the packs into the middle, and I sat towards the outer edge of the truck so I could hold on to the side. It worked, but it was loud, and I really wished I’d brought something soft to sit on before we left that house.
The truck slowed down and came to a stop before Jamie turned off the ignition.
“What is it?” Luis’s voice floated out of the dark cab of the truck.
“There’s a campfire up ahead in the median,” she told him.
I stood, grateful to stretch, and looked ahead. Sure enough, a small glow was visible in the distance. The NVGs must have made it look like a bright white spot ahead, and she’d stopped well back. Still, we were probably within hearing range of them.
“One of the
m’s standing up and walking this way, Dick. He’s on the left shoulder of our side.”
“Just one?” I asked her.
“Yeah.”
“Give me the goggles,” I demanded and put my hand in the back window until I felt them thump into my grip.
I readjusted them and put them on. She’d left them on, and I could make out what she was talking about right away. There was a campfire with eight visible figures in the median of the highway. They were sitting in a semi-circle. Walking in our direction was a lone figure, carrying a rifle, held in the middle in a non-threatening manner.
“I’ll be right back,” I told them. “If you hear gunfire… turn on the lights. Use your best judgment, come and help, go… rescue mission,” I said and started walking.
“Be careful,” came out in a chorus.
I could hear the side windows rolling down, probably in an effort to hear me better. Still, I stepped into the grass part of the median where the gravel wouldn’t crunch underfoot and started closing the distance. As we both walked towards each other, his features grew more distinct. He wore some sort of dark colored pants, but what had to have been a solid-colored button-up shirt. His hair was long but still styled. He didn’t look dirty or smudged anywhere. Also, the way he held his gun was as if it was just along for the ride. He was too relaxed.
When we got within fifty yards of each other, I took two more steps and knelt down in the long grass. The moon was still out, but I could see him clearly. I hoped he couldn’t see me. He didn’t look in my direction, but instead more towards the center of the road where he had to have heard the truck come to a stop. Then I could hear the whistling. It took me a moment to place it, but he was whistling “Camptown Races.”
“Hey friend,” I called when he had walked to within ten feet from me.
That startled him, and he fumbled with the rifle. He lost the battle of being smooth and the rifle hit the gravel in a clatter.
“Hey,” he said, reaching for it.
I was ready, had my KSG up and had him sighted in. If he raised his rifle to fire at me, he’d be toast.
“Go slow,” I said, standing.
“Oh man, what are you?” he asked as he got sight of me.
The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark Page 30