Daunting Days of Winter

by Ray Gorham

  Ty pushed himself to his limit, gasping for air but desperate to stop the truck. He turned as he ran, seeing he didn’t have the angle yet, and pushed harder, raising his gun to his shoulder. The truck was shifting gears when Ty finally had the shot he needed. He planted his feet, aimed, and pulled the trigger in rapid succession, shattering the windshield with the truck less than ten feet from Luther. Ty kept shooting until he ran out of bullets. The driver slumped forward as Luther rolled over and lobbed one of his grenades over the cab of the truck.

  In the fresh silence Ty heard the clang of metal striking metal, followed by frightened shouts and a deafening explosion, but the truck continued to roll forward.

  “Move, Luther!” Ty shouted, unable to stop the truck. There was a sickening, hollow thud and a scream, as the front wheel struck his injured friend. Ty dropped to his knees in shock. The dump truck careened forward, bounced off the rail on the side of the bridge, then collided with the same blue pickup it had tangled with earlier before finally coming to a stop.

  Overcome with emotion, Ty tried to stand but his legs buckled. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and sobs wracked his body as he looked at the broken form in the middle of the road.

  Sean gathered a group of men, and they approached the idling truck, now jammed against the railing. A gunshot from the back of the truck sent everyone diving for cover, but no one in the truck showed his face. Sean’s team waited thirty seconds after the gunshot, then resumed their advance.

  Ty watched as they skirted around the front of the vehicle and yanked open the driver’s door, ready to unload a volley of bullets, but the driver was already dead. With the others providing cover, one of the men climbed into the cab and turned the engine off, then they waited, listening for sounds of life from the back.

  While Sean’s team waited, several of the better shooters at the barricades trained their rifles on the far side of the river, scanning the area for any additional threats. The remaining members of the militia tended to the wounded while trying to deal with the emotional repercussions of the short-lived battle.

  Ty heard shots and turned back to the truck in time to see one of their men standing on the roof of the cab, firing shots into the bed of the vehicle, and then it was quiet. Fifteen minutes after the first shots were fired it was all over.

  CHAPTER 41

  Friday, February 17th

  Moyie Springs, ID

  Kyle knelt in front of the grave marker once again, trying to reconcile his emotions and guilt at not having been there in their time of need, weighed against the awareness that, under the circumstances, it was a miracle he’d made it at all. The lightly falling rain mirrored his mood, with hardly enough moisture to justify an umbrella but threatening, with dark, rolling clouds filling the valley, to turn the drizzle into something more torrential at any minute.

  “We should probably head back, Kyle.”

  Kyle turned towards his father and nodded. “You’re right. No sense in getting any wetter than we need to.” He stood and put his arm across his dad’s shoulders as they left the cemetery. “It’s still a shock to me that she’s gone. I always thought she’d live forever. Last time we talked everything was good. I never imagined it would actually be the last time I spoke to her.”

  Five days previous, Kyle had walked up to the front door of his parents’ house, unsure of what to expect. He had imagined every possible scenario while traveling. One second he feared they’d both be dead, then the next he’d convince himself that they were doing fine, then that they’d be at death’s doorstep, and he had arrived just in time to save them. Worst of all, he feared he’d frighten them, and they would unleash a volley of bullets that would cut him down after having walked thousands of miles.

  The walk through Moyie Springs with Sheriff Pratt, and the orderly situation he observed, had increased his hopes that all would be well, so it had been heartbreaking when his dad tearfully welcomed him home with the news that Kyle’s mother had succumbed to a stroke just before Christmas. Her blood thinning medication, which she’d taken for years, had run out in early October, and shortly thereafter, she had suffered a series of strokes, the last one, three days before Christmas, proving fatal.

  Since his mother’s passing, his dad, Gene, had been struggling, and was in a deep depression when Kyle’s knock sounded. The gun propped beside Gene’s recliner was there for defensive purposes, he promised, but Kyle worried, based on his father’s state of mind, that it might be put to another use some point in the not too distant future. Their reunion, however, had snapped Gene out of his melancholy, and each day Kyle had seen an improvement, to the point that he was close to again being the jovial grandpa Kyle’s kids knew.

  They were halfway home from the cemetery when his father broke the silence. “You can’t imagine how much I miss your mother.” His voice, full of emotion, was nearly drowned out by the sound of rain on their umbrella.

  “I know. You two were inseparable. How many years were you married?”

  “June would have been forty-one.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Sorry to get all weepy on you, but I haven’t had anyone to talk about it with.”

  “You’re fine, Dad. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you sooner.”

  “That last month was the hardest. She couldn’t do much of anything except lay in bed. I spent most of my time taking care of her, but she just got weaker and weaker.” He paused, but Kyle just listened. “I knew she was going to die. I could get her to drink water, but she wouldn’t chew anything. Even the doctor at the hospital told me it would just be a matter of time.”

  “Was she in pain?”

  Gene shook his head. “Not that it seemed, but she couldn’t communicate, so I don’t know. I hope not. I tried to keep her comfortable. That’s when we moved out to one of the rental cabins. It was smaller and had the wood stove. There wasn’t so much to take care of or keep warm. I could just focus on her. I’d comb her hair and rub her arms and her legs. She didn’t talk, but I could see in her eyes that she knew what I was doing. That was something I guess.” He laughed. “I tried to paint her fingernails for her once, but I wasn’t very good at it. Just made a mess of her hands.”

  Kyle smiled as he wrestled with his own emotions. “I bet that made her happy. We all knew how much she loved you. I wanted a marriage like yours when I married Jennifer. We’re not there yet, but we’re trying.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Son. I never walked home from Texas for your mother.”

  “But you would have if you needed to. You know it, and don’t say otherwise.”

  Gene smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “You’re right. I suppose I would have walked as far as I needed to for her. Florida to Alaska, if that’s what it took, though I’m glad I didn’t have to. My hips would have made it tough.”

  “Are they still bothering you?”

  He nodded. “They are, but I think a replacement is out of the question now. The best our doctors can do is sew a few stitches or give recommendations on how to stay healthy. I hear they’ve done a couple minor surgeries, but it’s only the essential stuff —removing bullets, or delivering babies, that kind of thing. At this point I expect I’ll die with the hips I was born with. Guess that’s the way God designed it.”

  The Bed and Breakfast was in sight, and they could see smoke billowing from the cabin’s chimney. Gene motioned to the cabin. “You haven’t said what you plan to do with the boy.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” Kyle said, shaking his head. “He doesn’t talk, I don’t know where he’s from, and I killed the only family that I know he had. I’ve been trying to think of something, but I’m at a loss.”

  Gene put his hand on Kyle’s arm. “If we can’t figure anything out, let him stay with me. I spent a lot of years with kids, and I think it would be better for me than being alone, since I’m pretty sure you’re going to head back to your family at some point.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am,” he said dec
isively. “I’ve thought about it for the last couple of days. I need to have someone around, and he can’t take care of himself. Plus, I think he’s on the verge of opening up. I can see it in his eyes when I talk to him. There’s a spark there that’s gently flickering back to life. He even smiled at me this morning. If we get something better figured out for him, that’s fine. But if not, I’ll take him.”

  “That would be good for him to have someone that cares. I don’t think he was in the best environment where I found him.”

  They reached the cabin and pushed the door open. Collin was reading in a chair by the window and looked up when they came in.

  “We’ve got lunch, Collin,” Kyle said, holding up a slab of venison he had purchased at the market. “You like deer meat?”

  The boy shook his head vigorously. “No,” he said, defiantly putting the book down on his lap.

  Gene looked at Kyle and whispered, “He speaks.”

  Kyle turned back to Collin. “I’m really sorry, but it’s what we have. What do you like?”

  “Pizza.”

  Kyle stopped in his tracks. Gene’s eyes opened wide. They had tried to get Collin to talk for the five days since arriving in Moyie, but they had never gotten more than a grunt out of him when he was awake. During the night he would talk in his sleep, but that was it.

  “I think I can get some flour at the market tomorrow and try to make a pizza,” Gene said. “Is there anything else you like?”

  The boy looked up at the two men, the wheels in his head turning. “Hamburgers,” he said hopefully. “And spaghetti.”

  “Oh, those are delicious, aren’t they?” Gene crossed the room and sat in a chair facing Collin, eager to engage the child. “I like broccoli and carrots. Do you?”

  Collin shook his head. “No, they’re gross, but I like corn, and Corn Flakes.”

  Gene peppered the boy with questions about food, discovering his preferences on anything a person could eat—Chinese, Italian, Mexican, candy, snacks, fruit, and on and on. They talked about food for thirty minutes, with Kyle listening while he stewed the venison in a pot on the woodstove.

  Kyle indicated to his father that the food was ready. Gene stood and smiled at the boy. “Lunch is ready,” he said, “but I wonder if I can ask a favor?”

  Collin nodded cautiously.

  Gene bit his lower lip. “My wife died a few weeks ago, and it’s been really hard for me. I miss her a lot, you know. Anyway, she would always give me these big, long hugs. I wondered if you would do me a favor and give me a hug, to help me not miss her as much.”

  Kyle held his breath, watching, waiting to see how Collin would respond.

  Collin looked nervously around the room, then up at Gene, and nodded. He stood and moved to Gene with his arms out wide.

  Gene knelt in front of the boy and embraced him, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Oh, thank you, Collin. This makes me feel a lot better. It’s really hard when you lose someone you love, isn’t it?”

  Kyle’s eyes blurred as the boy’s head bobbed vigorously up and down against Gene’s shoulder. They held their embrace, arms wrapped tightly around each other, both crying, until Kyle finally broke the silence. “The food’s going to get cold, guys,” he croaked out. “Let’s eat.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Monday, February 20th

  Deer Creek, MT

  Jennifer escorted her brood through the front door of the house and instructed them to go down stairs and change out of their good clothes, then read or play quietly so she could take a nap on the upstairs couch, hoping to get rid of a headache that had been tormenting her for two days. Their family had just returned home from the funeral service for the men killed on Thursday, while Carol and Grace had gone on together after the service to help tend to the injured men, each recuperating in their own homes and attended to by their families. Six had been wounded, three seriously, but Carol was only really worried about one of them, a woman who had taken a bullet in the stomach.

  Four Deer Creek men had been buried. All were given hero’s farewells for their willingness to protect the community, no matter the cost, and Jennifer was emotionally and physically drained. She couldn’t remember a more difficult period in her life than the previous three and a half weeks. She had thought the first weeks after the EMP were tough, and they were, but now they seemed comparatively easy.

  Kyle’s arrest, near execution, then banishment, the death of Madison’s mother, caring for the baby under tough conditions, the assault on the community, and the terror of losing her son as the gunfight raged within earshot – after all that, the funeral was almost a break. But even then, to see the grief of families who had lost husbands and fathers just added even more to her own emotional toll, and she felt like she was reaching her limit.

  Thursday’s battle had been a complete nightmare. She’d waited inside during the confrontation, trying to focus on the baby, who still didn’t love goat milk but would eventually finish her bottles. Jennifer had tried the milk and didn’t love it either, but the Shipleys had assured her that it was fine, if not delicious, so she forced the milk, the baby’s best hope to stay alive, on Madison. When the shooting had started, it terrified her, knowing that not only was David in immediate danger, but the community as a whole was on the brink as well.

  As the shooting had built to a crescendo, with hundreds if not thousands of shots fired, she was sure that there wouldn’t be any survivors, and thinking of David injured, bleeding, and alone, ripped her heart out. Sending your son off to war was one thing. Sending him to war and listening to him die was something altogether different. The fighting seemed to go on forever, and Carol, Grace, and Jennifer, along with the children, had knelt in a circle and prayed until the guns went silent.

  As soon as the shooting was over, the women had rushed to the bridge, searching frantically for the injured and, more specifically for Jennifer, David. No one had known where he was when she got there, the regular militia units having been split up. She had headed across the bridge, having just passed Luther’s twisted body and fearing the worst, when Ty had called her over to where he sat with his wife, nervous tremors still wracking his body.

  He’d just explained that David had been sent to Clinton for reinforcements when gunfire erupted out on the highway towards the East. Sean had quickly dispatched a squad to investigate, of which Jennifer insisted on being a part, and they hurried down the highway to find David and some men from Clinton carrying the bodies of two men in fatigues who had fled. Jennifer was so overcome with emotion when she saw David that she had to be helped back to town.

  The rest of the day was spent recovering from the assault. Deer Creek had lost four men: Luther at the bridge, Anderson West at the East berm, and two men in the militia house, cut down by the machine gun when the walls of the house had proved to be inadequate protection against the heavy weapon.

  None of the group that had attacked the town appeared to survive. A total of twenty-two bodies, all of them men ranging in ages from early twenties to late forties, had been buried in a mass grave on the north side of the river. Sean had reported at Friday’s militia meeting that more than two dozen weapons, forty-one thousand rounds of ammunition, a moderate amount of food, silver, gold, fuel, and an assortment of crowbars, sledge hammers and other tools had been recovered. There were no plates on the bus or dump truck, but a registration document in the bus indicated an Oregon origin.

  None of the men had identification, at least beyond a variety of tattoos and scars, and Jennifer’s heart broke a little for the mothers and wives who would never know what happened to their loved ones, even though she was glad the men were dead.

  She had just drifted off to sleep when a knock sounded at the front door. Jennifer sat up and looked out the window, rubbing her eyes. A man and a woman stood on the porch, with a pair of horses out by the street. She got up from the couch and opened the door as Emma came upstairs with Madison, who had just woken.

  The man turned as she opened t
he door, and she recognized him from the community. “Hi, Tom. Can I help you?”

  He smiled. “Hi Jennifer. This lady here, Rose, is looking for your husband. I told her he was gone, but she wanted to talk to you.”

  Jennifer looked closely at the woman, but didn’t recognize her. “Hi,” she said. “You’re looking for Kyle?”

  The woman smiled and nodded. Her face was weathered, but pretty, her teeth white and straight. She was tall and thin, with sandy blonde hair that spilled out from under a water-stained cowboy hat. “Yes. He’s a friend. I needed some help, so I came here.”

  It was chilly out, and Jennifer could see that the woman was tired and cold, so she invited her in, then went to the kitchen and filled a cup with warm water. After sending Emma downstairs with the baby, she handed the cup to Rose, who had perched on the edge of the couch. “Here. We don’t have coffee or tea, but the water is safe and warm. Tom said your name was Rose?”

  “Yes. Rose Duncan. You’re Jennifer, right?”

  “I am. I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you at all. Should I know you?”

  The woman shook her head. “No, we’ve never met, but I know a lot about you, though Kyle didn’t tell me you were expecting. I only knew about your older children.”

  “The baby’s not mine,” Jennifer explained. “Her mother died, and I guess I’ve kind of adopted her. How do you know us so well?” She looked at Rose warily, not comfortable with her level of familiarity.

  “I can’t believe he didn’t tell you about me. I helped him in Wyoming when we had a big snowstorm back in October. He stayed with me for several days, before the roads cleared and he got back on his way. You don’t know how glad I am to find out that he made it safely. I’ve worried about him for the past four months.”