Shit.
Mel gave me a quick side hug and went outside, after grabbing a sidearm and putting it in a holster she’d been wearing on her belt.
“Oh, that’s what that was about?” Beth asked, startling us all.
I had forgotten she was still in the room.
“Pretty much,” Courtney said, moving to sit at the couch.
“So, you’re off your meds or something?” Beth asked me.
“I don’t even know what meds I need, Beth,” I said, giving her a weak smile.
“Well, if you’re half dead and you can do that,” she said, pointing out the door, “then maybe they should listen. Maybe they could learn something from you.”
I thought on that and nodded. “Jamie, Mel, Luis and Courtney all knew the shape I was in. They didn’t mention my issues, probably to make it easier on you folks. I just wish I hadn’t—”
“Dick, don’t blame yourself for everything,” Courtney interjected.
“But it’s my fault that Luis is dead, and those men have no idea what the other side is capable of. I mean…”
“Dick,” Jamie cut in, “Luis wasn’t your fault,” she paused as Courtney started to sob softly. “The people who died here were not your fault. Is that what’s got you so pissy?”
Partly. No, you are. Shit, I couldn’t say that. “I lost my shit, I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Dick, I told you, not everything is your fault,” Courtney said, wiping at her eyes.
I heard a thump and a groan from the stairwell and saw that Steve had made it all the way down, except for the last three steps where he’d sat, his bad leg bandaged and lying straight out in front of him. Had he seen it all, too?
“I don’t appreciate you manhandling my men,” Steve growled, “but you’re right. We’re not ready to handle them. Law Enforcement training is usually… less lethal than how the media portrayed us. We don’t have tactics and training on repelling armored vehicles and people using military strategies. What do you think of our situation here at the farm?”
I considered that carefully before answering.
“Unless we get proactive about defense, we’re out of luck.”
He nodded, and then stood.
“Dad, Doc said you couldn’t be up for another couple of days!” Mel said, running over to him.
“I don’t know how much time we have until they come back, kiddo. Might as well help get things ready, or at least deal with some of the younger men who’re unruly,” he said, shooting a glance at me, and then made a ‘come here’ gesture to Jamie.
She went over and he whispered something to her. She nodded and put an arm under his shoulder and helped him walk out to the porch.
“You still need some rest and food,” Beth said, coming back out of the kitchen, this time with two sandwiches on a paper plate, and handed them to me.
“I know,” I told her, “I just overdid it today.”
I moved to the couch and offered one of them to Courtney, who just shook her head. Beth looked like she was winding up to say something, but I put up a hand and gave her a nod, as if to tell her I’d work on it. She turned and went back into the kitchen. Within moments, I could hear murmurs and the banging of pots and pans.
“Sorry about that,” I told Courtney.
“What?” she asked.
“Popping that guy and putting him down. That might have put you in a bad spot, if they’d reacted badly.”
“They wouldn’t. You were just telling them the truth, as ugly as it was. He needed to know, even if the truth hurts.”
“My knee hurts. Getting old sucks,” I griped, biting into the sandwich.
Now, I’d never proposed to a woman because of her cooking, but having met Beth, I was quite tempted. Beth had somehow managed to make me the world’s greatest BLT on sourdough. The bacon was crisp, the tomatoes fat and juicy. On top of all of it was grated cheese and a piece of crisp lettuce. The produce wasn’t cold as if it had come from a fridge, but it was amazing nonetheless. I made a moan of pleasure and took another bite. I felt eyes on me, and I turned to see Courtney staring at the sandwich. She may have not felt hungry, but she could see what I had.
When I offered her the second sandwich again, she didn’t hesitate. She dug in as if she’d not eaten in days. We sat in silence until we’d both finished.
“I don’t know what to do,” Courtney said suddenly. “I had the rest of my life planned out. I mean, Luis and I were going to...”
Her words trailed off, and I took the plate from her and set it on the ground. She leaned over and I hugged her hard. She’d been crying off and on since I’d woken up, and at that moment, I decided we were going to get payback, no matter what. Something I’d mentioned earlier, but now I really meant it. That’s when I heard an air siren go off. Both of us bolted to our feet and ran for the door, forgetting everything.
“What is that?” Courtney asked me as we both got outside.
“The signal to get to the bunker in the barn,” Sebastian said as both he and Beth came flying out.
I stepped back, letting them go, before turning and walking back to the racks where the guns were. I smiled when I saw a vest, very much like the one I used to have before I was captured. I put it on and shouldered the AR-15 I’d carried earlier. I looked over to see that Courtney was following suit, putting on a vest of her own. These were heavier than mine though, with trauma plates in both the front and back. Nice. She tucked the pistol that she’d had on her holster earlier into the left side of the vest, so she could get to it with a cross-draw. I did the same with a 1911 .45 Colt, before grabbing spare magazines for both the carbine and pistol.
“I don’t see everyone running for the bunker,” Courtney said, looking out the door.
“Let’s go, it looks like someone’s at the gate,” I told her, moving to head out.
38
I stumbled, but Courtney and surprisingly, Doc were there to catch me before I ate dirt.
“Dick, dammit, you’re not in any kind of shape to be doing this,” Courtney gasped as she shouldered part of my weight.
Doc was similarly burdened, but he was an elderly man and he stumbled. I pulled him close to me and it was a miracle that all three of us didn’t go over. Finally, I decided to go slower, instead of tripping and breaking bones. I felt a hand grab the back of my belt and saw Courtney bearing down.
“All right, you good now?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I told her.
“Damned fool,” Doc spat, “you should be headed for the bunker!”
“Wright’s at the gate,” I said, stopping. “Civilian trucks are parked on the other side.”
“How many men?” Courtney asked, giving my belt a tug.
“Dozen or so, armed with shotguns and rifles. All at ease. Looks like they are talking nice. Doc, you want to head to the bunker? You don’t need to get involved in this.”
“You ain’t the only one with military experience,” the old man paused, pulling up his shirt. Underneath was an old hog leg revolver, probably last used in WWII. I grinned evilly.
“Navy?” I asked him.
“About a thousand years ago. I can still shoot it, too. Now quit jacking an old man around. Let’s get to that gate.”
We moved, and as we got closer, I could hear their voices. They weren’t quite yelling at each other across the chain link, but it was a close thing. Still, nobody had their guns at the ready position, so it hadn’t turned violent yet. I could pick out Wright by his body language and the fact that he looked like an old cowboy in profile. Wide shoulders, narrow at the hip, with the broad hat of the Sheriff’s Department on his head.
“…All we want is someplace to hold us over for the night,” one of the men said, in a tone that was neither asking nor pleading.
“There’s no room here. Farm’s closed anyway. Just move on,” Wright told him.
“It might just be better if y’all moved on,” a familiar voice drawled.
I walke
d over and stood next to Wright and got a good look at the hombres across the fence’s big gate. I had been right about the numbers. Thirteen men stood there, armed with a hodgepodge of weapons. Most of them wore jeans and flannel shirts, with a few in sweat-stained t-shirts. A few old pickups had stopped in a line on the long driveway, sorghum planted on either side of the ruts.
“Maybe it’d be better off if you help folks. I mean, you’re the cops. It’s your job to protect and serve. We just need a place for tonight.”
Then, for the second time, I realized something. I’d been used to seeing the sheriff’s men, Steve included, being generally clean-shaven or at least with deliberate facial hair. These men not only were clean shaven, but their clothing was without dust or grime, and their haircuts were all close cropped.
“Where’d you come from?” I asked, startling the man next to me, “And what brings you to these parts?”
I felt Courtney give a little tug on my belt, letting me know she was still there to back me up, literally. The man next to me turned, and I saw the bruised and bloodied face of Scott from earlier. He blanched slightly when he realized he was standing beside me. I gave him a nod and turned to see what they had to say.
“We were just talking about that with the deputies here. Who the hell are you?” he snarled.
“The Avon lady,” I replied.
The thing about playing a good bluff is, you have to be willing to actually go through with it. My measured response to the man, while standing shoulder to shoulder with the deputies and I was in plain clothing, had to make them wonder who I was to these people.
“You in charge around here?” another man asked in a slightly accented voice.
It was supposed to sound Southern, but it was off. Everyone thinks they can pick out accents. What really throws things off is when a German first language speaker teaches a Russian first language speaker English. To make things worse, the garbled accent was trying to sound like a local dialect and it was making things all sorts of confusing. That’s what I heard though: somebody who spoke English with a British accent, trying to sound like a Nashville country singer. And failing badly.
“Nope, I’m not,” I said, almost jumping when a loud gunshot rang out from the farmhouse.
The shot hit the first truck in the grill. There was a shattering sound that echoed across the stillness, nearly drowning out the sound of the shot. Everyone on our side brought our guns up, hoping to back the play of whoever was at the house. There were only eight of us on this side, a handful of deputies, me, Courtney and Doc. The men on the other side had all hit the dirt when they heard the shot. The sound of fluid hitting the ground was the next thing I heard, and neon green fluid leaked out from the busted radiator of the first truck.
“Fucking sniper,” a man from across the fence said, standing and brushing himself off.
Curiously enough, he hadn’t tried hiding his accent. Definitely a British accent mixed with something else. The other men stood as well, though none of them were raising their guns when they saw us ready for them.
“That’s the man in charge back there,” I said, hooking a thumb over my shoulder.
I let the carbine drop to my side on the sling and pulled the .45, racking the slide. “Drop your guns.” I walked toward Wright, who was standing next to the chains that kept the gate shut.
“Yeah right,” one of the too-clean-cut but now slightly dirty men spat. “We’ve got rights. Besides, all we were doing was—”
“Lying to me,” I snapped coldly, raising the pistol so it was pointed in the man’s face, from a distance of a few feet, separated by the chain link gate. “Open it,” I said to Wright.
With one hand holding his gun, he managed to get the lock open. “Be careful,” he whispered as I rolled it back a foot and stepped out.
The men on the other side backed up until the man I had my .45 trained on was standing in front of an inverted v shape with the other men behind him.
“Who are you boys with?” I asked, seeing heavy canvas tarps in the back three trucks’ beds.
“We’re just private citizens. We have the right not to be detained and if you take away those rights—”
I shot him when I was standing about three feet away, the top of his head disappearing in a spray of gore. The gunshot echoed and I heard murmuring and a struggle behind me.
“He can’t do that,” I heard somebody say, and then a slapping noise.
I didn’t turn to look, but instead held my pistol on the next closest man.
“You don’t have rights here,” I growled. “You’re on private property. You drove up this driveway of your own free will. Now, who are you? Why are you here? AND IF YOU DON’T DROP YOUR FUCKING GUNS YOU’RE ALL DEAD!” The last came out as a scream of rage.
A couple of the men knelt down and placed their deer guns or shotguns on the ground in front of them, but most didn’t.
“Stop him, Wright,” I heard Scott say from behind me.
“Shut the fuck up,” I heard Wright growl.
“One,” I said, leveling the .45 in the next guy’s right eye socket and pulling back the hammer.
“Two.” He swallowed, his Adams apple bobbing up and down.
“Three.” I pulled the trigger again and was hit again by the spray of pink mist.
Two things happened immediately, two gunshots rang out and I was punched in the back by a very large fist, twice, right in the main trauma plate, and the tarps on the trucks pushed themselves to the side as more men began boiling out. I fell and the world seemed to continue in slow motion. I fired as I fell, knowing I’d been shot. Several rounds hit the men closest to me, but as the slide on the .45 locked back, I hit my left side, pinning my arm. My whole world exploded in fresh agony.
I hadn’t even been awake and conscious from my drying out for a full day, and I’d already gotten into a fist fight, been shot, and had to execute two men. The ground exploded around me as somebody opened fire with what sounded like a demonic buzz saw. I heard screams from both side of the fence. Pulling my carbine close and trying to catch my breath, I started trying to fire one-handed toward the threats in front of us. A heavy punch in the gut sent me rolling back, almost senseless.
“We have to quit meeting like this, Doc,” I said, peeling my eyelids open by sheer effort and the knowledge that I cheated the Reaper once again.
“You look like hammered shit,” he said, a wry grin covering his blood-spattered face.
“What happened?” I asked, seeing that I was still where I’d fallen.
My entire body felt like one ginormous bruise. My chest hurt from both sides, and I started pulling at the Velcro straps on the vest so I could take deeper breaths.
“It was an ambush,” Courtney said, also gore covered, thankfully none of which seemed to be coming from her or Doc. “They had a SAW in the last truck. It wasn’t until whoever got the Barret up toward the house started firing on them, that they broke and ran.”
“Any casualties?” I asked.
“Too damn many,” Doc said, “some of which the two of us caused.” He motioned to Courtney with the old hog leg revolver.
“What?” I pulled the vest off finally and rolled over so I could get a good look.
I could see that two of the three trucks were still there, large holes punched into the hood or the grill. Somebody up the hill had a Barrett .50 by the look and sound of it, a round that was known to be accurate to over a mile and able to crack the engine block of unprotected vehicles, or just tear a human in half, depending on the shot.
“Scott started pulling his gun, aiming it toward you. I tried to wrestle it away from him. That’s how I got this,” she said, pointing to an eye that was beginning to swell.
“Then I pulled my piece and tried to stop Scott from doing more. Instead, after you shot the second guy, he turned and fired at you. The blood’s his,” Doc said, pointing to his face. “A couple others trained their guns on us. I don’t know what they were thinking, but we had to.”
“I opened up on the ones who turned on us, going for headshots,” Courtney said, “It wasn’t until the SAW opened up on all of us and you were shot again, that the rest of the deputies turned and started firing back at the men. We cut down most of the first group, but the ones hiding in the trucks got away in the last one. Backed out before whoever was up on the hill back there shot the machine gunner.”
“Wright’s dead,” Doc said. “He caught lead right in the beginning. He might have been able to stop the other guys from shooting at us. I know we had to have ended up killing some men who thought I’d killed Scott for no reason. They were protecting their own. I was protecting ours.” Doc’s words burst out in an almost sob at the end.
Funny that he’d been pissed at me moments earlier for teaching the young deputy a lesson, and now he was on my side? The old man’s chest started to hitch, and I heard a motor fire up. I looked back toward the barn and saw a quad approaching at a fast clip. On it were two men, one of which had a leg sticking out to the side at an awkward angle.
“Scott was bad news anyway,” a deputy said, going over to stand by Doc. “But I saw it. I was about to draw on him after he punched the lady.”
“Thanks for having our backs, Deputy…” Courtney paused, questioning. The blood spatter covered most of her face, and her lips were a dark red as a result of her trying to wipe her mouth clean and simply smearing it around.
“Crowder, rhymes with chowder. I just wish the others had been paying more attention. I know Wright had a look of shock on his face when Scott shot Dick, but it was probably cuz most of us have never had to fire our service weapons, and you just blasted those two away. I think, with what happened earlier, Scott snapped.”
“Deputy Crowder, thank you,” I said aloud and then to myself, at least there’s somebody who can explain the shit show to Steve who he might trust.
The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark Page 42