“That’s what I say!” Gayle declared with a laugh that morphed into a sob. “As long as I have breath in my body, those pigs will never lay a hand on my daughters.”
“Nobody here will allow it either,” Wren told her, checking her ammo. Four boxes. It would have to be enough. She didn’t have her cross bow with her here and missed it. If she had her bow, Gayle could use the rifle. She’d seen Gayle shoot; she was good. “That new girl, Rachel. She’s a piece of work. She’s spreading the word all down the line, getting everyone with a shotgun to make cut slugs, to be ready.”
“Thank God Tatman found them and brought them here, and tied her horse to the trailer. A chattering teen is the perfect cover. Remind me to give her a big kiss when this is all over.” Gayle stretched her neck, peering ahead. “I think this is it — the south gate.
Wren murmured, “Here goes.”
MATTEA PARKED his tranny well back from the new barrier. Wendy was huddled under her blanket, currently shaking so hard it would be impossible to miss her. He had to get her out of here before she blew the whole thing. The good news was these guys weren’t searching vehicles, they were looking for their money and to set the Bear Lake Outlanders up for what they had in mind for later. Time for a show of solidarity. He loped over to stand by Coru’s side. Coru was arguing with the head guy at this end, another muscle-bound skin-head with sweat running down the side of his thick no-neck. Mattea could smell him from six feet away …sour.
In contrast, Coru looked calm, even bored with their exchange, his stance relaxed. The guy had ice water in his veins. “No,” he reiterated, speaking slowly as if to a child, “The deal is, first my people go through, then I pay you the second half of your money, not before they go through.”
Two more of the Road Lords escorts pulled up on their bikes. “Al says to let them through,” one of them directed, switching off his machine and swinging his leg free with a knowing grin. An answering grin grew on No-neck’s slick face. Did they seriously think Coru didn’t know what they were up to?
No-neck waved the barriers to be lifted. His crew got to work. Coru motioned for Mattea to start ahead. “I’m heading to the back to make sure everyone gets through. Stay safe.”
“Stay safe,” Mattea repeated. He jogged back to the Beast and guided her quickly through the opening, counting on the exchange of smug nudges between the growing number of Road Lords to keep them from glancing into his tranny. It worked.
A steady stream of Bear Lake Outlanders began to pour from the opening, picking up speed once through. Mattea called to Wendy. “You can come out now, climb up front with me and show me this place we can defend.”
Wendy pushed off the blanket, saw they were out and broke out sobbing. Not that he wasn’t sympathetic — he’d been privy to Nicola and Catherine’s time with Topher while they’d all been connected through Wren. He could only imagine what Wendy was feeling. But he didn’t have the luxury of indulging Wendy’s breakdown just yet.
“Wendy. Pull yourself together. We aren’t home free. They’re coming for us before the end of today, you said so yourself. You said you know where we can hunker down. Tell me now.”
Wendy crawled over the back of the seat, and pointed ahead, though she couldn’t stop crying, and thudded into the seat beside him. She just pointed and sobbed, “About five miles out, t-there’s a t-turn then the r-road straightens. But where it turns, you can p-pull off the road to your right and d-drive into... T-there’s a grove of t-trees in front of a sheer wall. The w-wall is unclimbable. It’s all s-s-sand. It just collapses. They can’t come… down that way either, so you’re g-good. Y-you… w-we cut into that pocket, face our guns out, we can f-fight them off. It used to be a make out place, called Lovers Knot. We used to drive here on a Friday or Saturday night.” She’d stopped crying now. “Before everything went to hell on earth.”
It was windy out here in the open. There would be no whistling code out here. “How far out?”
“Just a few more minutes.”
“Can you shoot a gun, Wendy?”
“No. I’ve never touched a gun. But I know how you can get behind them when they come at you.”
His foot slipped off the accelerator, the Beast stuttering to a stop. He shook his head and got back to driving.
“There’s a little path that comes around from the back, dips down and follows a dry creek that swings up and behind…”
The highway was turning to the right now. She pointed, excited, tears forgotten. “There, there’s Lovers Knot, and there,” she pointed to a grove of trees about a kilometer beyond, “Is where the dry creek bed comes out. You catch them there, you can squeeze them ‘til their dead.”
Mattea looked at her for a long moment before tearing his eyes away to watch the road ahead. “I want you on my side, Wendy Stark.”
She smiled at him and began to sob again, relief and terror flooding from her body like a geyser. Mattea decided Wendy could take all the time she needed to cry out her emotions. She’d just given them a fighting chance.
CORU WATCHED the last of the Bear Lake Outlanders cross through the gate. Not in any hurry, he watched the space between himself and Doug — who’d sent his horse ahead with the others and insisted he would stand with Coru in the end — and the tail-end of the caravan widen. The bigger the distance, the better he liked it.
“Okay, man. Where’s the cash?” No-neck mopped his greasy face with a stained cloth. “Quit your stalling.”
Coru sauntered over to Beastette, and rummaged around for the bag for a bit. Doug, who was trailing him just a little too closely muttered through clenched teeth. “You’re going to make them mad. Just give it to them.”
Coru looked at him and laughed out loud, as if Doug had just told him the best joke ever. “Doug, Doug, Doug. What I’m doing is giving our people every damned minute I can give them.”
Doug blinked, his face still for a moment as he absorbed Coru’s words, then he too broke into raucous laughter. Coru saw a couple more Road Lords had drifted into the gated area on their bikes. They looked surprised to see him still here.
Coru rummaged around some more, found a couple of bottles of water, tossed one to Doug, uncapped his own and chugged down half. Leaning back against Beastette he gazed up at the gathering clouds. He asked, “Tell me, Doug. What did you do in your former life? Before the flu.”
Doug leaned back next to him and gazed up at the same stormy sky. “Well, Tatman, it’s like this. I’m a confirmed bachelor, so it didn’t take much to keep me in pizza and beer.” He rubbed his flat stomach. “Kinda’ miss the old beer belly, I gotta admit. Nobody’s fat anymore, not on the new “Après Pandemic” diet. I was a music teacher. Taught the violin, guitar, banjo, piano. Didn’t make a lot a dough, but I had a happy life. Owned my own place, so had no bills to speak off. I was doing good. Played at weddings, funerals, the few annual outdoor events we had in and around Tumbler.”
“So, you’re from Tumbler Ridge.”
“Yup.”
No-neck had partnered up with two other Road Lords and was huffing toward them, his face flushed. Coru glanced down the highway, still saw the Outlander’s caravan in the distance, then switched to watching No-neck and friends as he finished off his bottle of water. “Show Time,” he murmured.
The three bikers stopped in front of Coru and Doug, too close, crowding them.
Coru giggled. “Oh, it’s like that is it fellas? You shoulda’ told me earlier. I’m a friendly sort.”
Alarmed, the three backtracked hastily.
Coru laughed. “Kidding.”
“We want the money.”
“And you’ll get it. It’s in here somewhere.” Coru burrowed inside the tranny, searching around for the mysterious money bag. After an extraordinary amount of time, he stood up with a grin and produced the illusive bag. “Ah. Here it is.” He tossed the bag to No-neck, who instinctively batted it away as if it would bite him. The other two Lords laughed at No-neck, grabbed the bag from his feet and turne
d away. No-neck narrowed his eyes at Coru and Doug. “You’re not going anywhere ‘til we’ve counted it.”
Coru raised his hand in capitulation, his eyes wide. “I would not dream of taking one step out of your sight, Gorgeous. You go on now and count it. We can meet up later.”
No-neck looked horrified and hurried back to the others.
Doug snickered. “You’re gonna get it if you keep baiting him.”
“Do I look worried?”
A quick flick of his eyes and Coru saw the last of the Outlanders had disappeared around the corner. “Okay,” he breathed. “Every minute we can buy them gives them another minute to set up. I sure hope Wendy was telling the truth. We’re betting all our lives she is.”
“I gotta take a leak. Be right back.” Doug wandered over to the side of the road and jumped across the ditch into a stand of birch trees. After a moment he was back, his eyes big. He strolled back to Coru and turned to lean against Beastette beside him like before. “There’s a trailer load of ammo over in the bush.” He pulled a box from under his shirt and showed Coru, careful to shield his actions from the trailer where all the Lords were roaming around, talking, heads together, gazing after the Outlanders. “There’s got to be some way we can take it out.”
Coru glanced over at the trailer where they were still counting the money. “It’s a long shot, but let’s try.” He reached into Beastette, grabbed up a couple of t-shirts and a book he’d been reading and said, “If anyone asks, say I’m in the weeds taking a leak.”
He darted into the bush, found the trailer Doug had stumbled across and opened the door. It was loaded with thousands of rounds of ammo. And paper and geez… firewood? Were these guys seriously all there? He tucked the paper and wood around the bases of the stacks of ammo, lit the paper and darted back to the edge of the brush. Nothing had changed. He walked out casually, and climbed into Beastette, jerking his head for Doug to follow suit.
“We’ve got about ten, twenty minutes, if we’re lucky. I don’t want to be anywhere around when they find their ammo going up in smoke.”
He gunned the tranny up to the gateway, braking with a squeal. “Hell, you guys are too damned slow. We’re outta here.”
No one stopped them. No one cared.
Coru and Doug headed down the highway as fast as Beastette could carry them. Rounding the corner, they saw at once what the rest of the Bear Lake Outlanders were putting together. Wendy had been true to her word.
They raced through the tall dry grass to the center of the gathering. As soon as they did, three trannies worked together and pulled the last of four trees they’d just felled across the opening, creating a two-and-a-half foot tall barrier around the new tent city. Doug and Coru hopped out, Doug exclaiming. “You felled trees? You had time to fell trees!”
“Just the four.” This from a sandy haired man who hadn’t been a big talker back at Bear Lake. “I was a logger, back in the day —”
Doug wrapped him in a hug. “You’re brilliant is what you are.”
“What’s the plan. Is there a plan?” Coru wanted to know, seeing men and women already positioning themselves, weapons and ammo behind the new barrier. The tree branches wouldn’t stop a bullet, but they were good camouflage. He stooped to grab up one of the giant pine cones the trees produced. “I love these trees,” he murmured.
He turned and saw men unspooling barbed wire twenty feet out from the wall of trees. He thought, good idea. Who came up with that? Who carried barbed wire in a camper?
Mattea darted between the crowded campers and trailers, followed by Wren, Tony, Wendy and Millman. “Good, you’re here. Listen to this and tell us what you think.”
Wendy stepped forward and in a rush of words told him of their plan to follow the dry creek bed to a grove of trees in the distance and wait for the Lords to assemble before the Outlander’s obvious camp. Once they were in position, they’d open fire from both sides.
Coru added, “There’s a good possibility we could be shooting one another. You’ve thought of this, I hope?”
“Already ahead of you,” Mattea confirmed. “We’ll use the walkie talkies. When we say drop, the camp side will stop shooting, drop to the ground, taking cover and we’ll open up. It’ll only work the once, but that once might be enough.”
“Who handles the walkie talkies?”
“Me on our side, Millman on the camp side. We’ll be out in the open when they clue in they’re surrounded, but surprise will be on our side. We figure this is our best bet to make this as quick and painless as we can.”
“Who are you sending out?”
“You, me, Tony and the Hansen twins. We’re the best shots and the fastest. We leave everyone else here to protect the kids.”
Coru added. “No one stays inside the trailers. A bullet will go through them like a tin can. Everyone on the ground, smallest children in the back, with as much between them and the front line as we can manage.”
“Already taken care of.”
Doug nudged Coru and pointed to the sky. A dark cloud of smoke billowed from back at the south end of Prince George. “Huh?” he smirked. “You like?”
Coru grinned back and punch Doug in the arm.
“What?” Mattea asked, looking from one to the other.
“Parting gift,” Coru answered. “We’ll explain later. I need some grub, some water and we’re outta here.”
Assembled along their newly created barrier, the Outlanders waited, poised. They waited, expecting. They waited, drained. Adrenaline took them only so far, then dumped them into the weeds. Soon Wren struggled against the almost overwhelming need to let her eyes close, to drift away if only for a moment. They’d been awake for more than twenty-four hours, much of that time at heightened alert and it was beginning to show.
The children were cranky and restless and kept wandering into the unsafe zone.
The adults grew careless, no longer crouched, but sat on the felled trees. They talked, they snacked, they brushed away annoying insects, they regretted they hadn’t just carried on down the highway.
This was silly. This was a false alarm. They should just pack it in and get some rest before tomorrow, when they could pull back out and head to Freeland.
Who was this girl Wanda; was that her name? Why insist the Lords were going to hurt them? If that was their plan, why wait? They’d had lots of opportunities in Prince George and they hadn’t raised a finger.
By three in the afternoon, many of the defensive posts had been abandoned as mothers put tired children to bed for a much-needed nap, and made cold lunches for their families. Husbands gathered fire wood and set up unlit campfires for tonight, ready to light when the temperature dipped as it always did now. Teens returned to their tablets and played pretend war games.
Wren was tired. She’d long since laid her weapon down. She’d comforted Deklin again and again, leading him back into the save zone only to find him back beside her at the felled pine, craving her company. Finally, she could not reject him again and let him stay, let him lay his tired head on her shoulder as she stroked his thick hair. She listened to Tammy Dearborn’s amusing anecdotal tales of when she’d danced with the Vancouver Ballet company when she was younger. She listened to the wind rustle the tall grass that grew all around them. She wondered when Coru and his team would trickle back to camp. It was obvious they’d over-reacted.
This not knowing what was happening, not being able to read other’s thoughts was stifling. Never before had she felt so cut off from the people around her. It was as if she’d lost a limb. For all her complaining, moaning and groaning about her ability, she now realized she’d been blessed. She’d give anything to have her abilities back.
A bullet pinged off the tree, buried itself into Tammy Dearborn’s side. A strange silence followed. Tammy fell without a sound in front of Wren and Deklin. She stared up at Wren, her brown eyes blinking in surprise. She opened her mouth to say something and it flooded with blood. She blinked again, her eyes dilated and she wa
s gone. It happened so fast, in a heartbeat. One minute Tammy was here, breathing, laughing, entertaining them with funny stories, the next she was gone.
Another bullet whined, thumped into the camper behind where Doug and Millman were stationed, eating their cold supper and telling jokes. They tossed their plates and forks in a clatter and scrambled into place.
“In-coming,” Millman shouted. “Stations, everybody. Stay low.”
When the Lords came, they came in waves, waves of vicious bullets in the low, late day setting sun, impossible to squint into, impossible to find the Lords, impossible to aim a weapon.
They had assault weapons. They sprayed the campsite, leaving trails of holes in the sides of the campers and trailers, opening their sides like a can opener clamped to the side of a tin can. Caught standing in the open, Stan Lemon’s spasmed as a trail of bullets tore through him, driving his body back into a camper before he slid, lifeless to the ground. With the first salvo, the Bear Lake Outlanders who’d drifted into groups by the campfires panicked, screamed for their children to run, to hide. A few stumbled to their posts, forgetting everything, their training, Millman’s instructions to stay low. They took bullets, fell onto the sandy soil, some crying out in pain, most silent. The few that reached their posts aimed their weapons into the glaring sun and saw nothing. They shot wild, they wasted ammo.
Millman roared. “Hold your damned fire. Be smart. Wait ‘til you can see something!”
Beside Wren, Gayle cried out, “The young ones—they’re inside the campers!”
“Get them the hell out!” Millman ordered through clenched teeth, sighting movement and squeezing off his first answering shot, taking down a Lord. “Through the windows in the back.”
Gayle crawled across the dirt, pulling herself with her elbows, sobbing as she was forced to crawl over Ted Drummon’s dead body, around Reenie’s still form and behind the first row of campers. Wren prayed the children inside were untouched.
Lost Sentinel: Post-Apocalyptic Time Travel Adventure (Earth Survives Series Book 1) Page 41