by Nathan Jones
Gutierrez took a deep breath. “It's like this. Ferris called Razor in to talk to him after you brought in those three of his men robbing people west of town. Since then there haven't been any more reported robberies or other trouble beyond the town's borders, and more importantly all the complaints we were getting from refugees in the camp stopped. Completely. Razor's gotten the camp under his control, and as long as he keeps it that way we've been told to leave him alone and let him do his thing.”
Sam couldn't believe what she was hearing, although she supposed it explained why things had been so relatively calm for the last week. Not that it excused anything. “He wanted to be my pimp!” she said heatedly. “And he didn't sound like he was going to give me a choice. He threatened to do the same to Matt's sister when he robbed them, so you know he's probably forced other women to work for him!”
Gutierrez looked away. “No one's complained. Until they do we can't touch him, Ferris's orders.”
“Anyone who complains has to know they're going to get the business end of that nutjob's shaving razor,” Matt pointed out. “Do you have any idea what you're turning a blind eye to?”
The soldier's jaw tightened. “You should take her home,” he said sharply. “I need to get back to patrolling.” Without waiting for a response he turned and headed the same way Razor and his thugs had gone.
Matt's arm around her shoulder turned Sam back towards home, but she was angry enough that she shrugged free of him and started stomping down the street. “Can you believe that?” she seethed. “For all his faults I at least thought Ferris believed in justice and law. I never thought he'd make a deal with the devil, not even to keep peace in the refugee camp.”
After a few seconds Matt caught up to her. “Maybe he doesn't know the devil when he sees him. Back when Razor robbed us outside of town he did an awful good job of looking friendly and harmless. He might've fooled Ferris into thinking he wasn't so bad.”
“But you told him about Razor robbing you!” Sam protested. “You told him about Terry getting threatened with the razor and then getting sprayed in the face, and him and his goon robbing you at gunpoint, right?”
Matt hesitated. “I did. Ferris seems to have a problem with us “townies”, or at least a bias in favor of the refugees. Maybe he didn't believe me.” He took a deep breath and glanced over his shoulder. “The important thing is that we got out of that in one piece. At least the FETF soldiers are doing something.”
“You saved me, not Gutierrez,” Sam said fiercely. “I don't even know where you came from, you just swooped in from nowhere like a guardian angel.”
He flushed in embarrassment at the praise and hesitantly reached out to take her hand. “You have no idea how scared I was when I saw his thug holding you while he reached for his razor. I'd been sneaking up, trying to find a chance to get you out of that safely, but when I saw that I just bolted for him, and the next thing I knew I was tackling him to the ground.”
A tense silence fell between them as they contemplated just how dangerous the confrontation had been. To lighten the mood Sam nudged Matt on the shoulder. “Girlfriend, huh?”
He went pink with embarrassment. “Sorry, it just slipped out in the heat of the moment. Wishful thinking on my part.”
“Well we haven't even been on a date yet,” she teased.
“I know. I shouldn't have said it.”
Sam almost wanted to laugh, wondering if he was deliberately being dense. “That was a hint.”
Matt turned and looked at her, surprised, then smiled wide. “Oh. Well I can't exactly take you to the movies, and much as I'd like to take you to a restaurant they weren't really a thing in this town even before the attack.”
She slipped her arm through his. “I'm sure we can think of something. People were wooing each other long before technology showed up.”
He abruptly snapped his fingers in annoyance. “You know, the cousins had hard drives full of books, movies, and music in their shelter before Ferris took it from them and stripped it of anything of value, including the solar panels. We could've watched a movie there!”
Sam leaned her head against his shoulder. Terrifying as the confrontation had been, now that she was with Matt and Razor was long gone it was already starting to feel like just a bad dream. “It doesn't matter what we do as long as we're with each other. How about we spend the rest of the day doing our chores together?”
“I'd love to,” Matt replied. He shifted his shoulder slightly under her head, trying to make the motion seem casual, and with a start she realized she was putting weight right where Razor's thug had kicked him.
“Oh, sorry!” she said, yanking her head back. She immediately began fussing over him again, tugging at his shirt collar so she could see the shoulder beneath where a large bruise was forming. “Are you going to be all right? Do we need to talk to Terry?”
Matt shook his head, but he seemed pleased with her ministrations and let her fuss over him all the way home.
Chapter Three
Spirits of Huntington River
Trev stood near the northern end of the cliffs a couple hundred yards from the hideout, staring northward at Highway 31 at the point where it meandered into view in the direction of the earthen dam that formed Electric Lake.
Just coming into sight was a small huddle of dispirited refugees. There were thirteen as best he could tell, mostly women and children shivering beneath blankets, coats, and anything else they had to protect them from the constant flow of cold early morning air pouring down from the mountains all around.
He didn't know the signs well enough to guess whether it would be a harsh winter or a mild one, but he knew for sure that even a mild winter up here was going to be brutal. He really hoped those poor people managed to find their way through to the other side before they were trapped by the first major snowstorm of the year, or failing that managed to find a place of shelter and could gather enough food and firewood to survive.
The soft rustle in the undergrowth behind him turned him around to see Lewis approaching. He nodded as his cousin came up alongside him behind the thin screen of foliage he stood behind, which allowed him to see anyone below but effectively hid him from sight.
“Things must be bad down in Sanpete Valley if they're sending refugees over the mountains,” Trev said quietly.
His cousin grunted. “Where else can they go? Without vehicles south is a death march into desert wastelands and so is west. North takes them back into the chaos of the cities and whatever violence is still happening there. That just leaves east by whatever way they can make it over the mountains.”
Trev nodded. “Nowhere else to go, but they're going to be disappointed if they're hoping for anything better when they reach Huntington on the other side.”
Lewis was silent for a while as they watched the refugees make their slow progress along the highway. “What a mess,” he finally muttered. “We could just as easily see refugees coming the opposite way, fleeing Emery and Carbon counties for Sanpete. Larger highways have a steady flow of refugees fleeing population centers, but along 31 they're going from nowhere to nowhere.”
“They won't be going anywhere for long once the snows really start to fall.” Trev felt deeply saddened by the sight of the poor people below, but he couldn't look away.
“We should scout around our hideout,” Lewis abruptly said after a few more minutes of watching. “They might not all be down there, and however peaceable their intentions running into people can only be trouble, if for no other reason than they might tell other people where to find us.”
“You think starving refugees would trailblaze across steep slopes covered by dense forest and deadfall when they've got an easy road below?” Trev asked. But he was mostly pointing it out for conversation since he agreed that they should definitely be looking around just in case.
In the week since they'd arrived at the hideout they'd been steadily building supplies, fishing and gathering edible plants and keeping an eye out for
more game to bring down. Progress had been good and Trev was feeling optimistic about having enough to survive the winter, but if bandits managed to steal anything, whether those bandits be lawless criminals or desperate starving refugees, they could find themselves in as desperate circumstances as the miserable group below.
Lewis seemed to understand his unspoken agreement, because he abruptly turned to their right. “I'll swing around the southwest, you take the northeast. Meet you on the other side.”
Trev nodded. That would take him along the mountainside in the direction of the refugees for a bit, before it was time to loop up towards the logging road above the hideout and follow it to where he'd meet his cousin. He got out his binoculars and began scanning the slope, pausing every now and again to check the refugees, then picked his way around the end of the cliffs to a vantage point that would allow him to check spots he couldn't see before.
Everything seemed normal as he worked his way around, then began climbing his way up the steep slope to the road above, still pausing to listen and to scan the area with his binoculars. He'd almost reached it when the faint sound of unfamiliar voices made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
Trev went completely still, then slowly eased down behind the log he'd been walking on to get over a particularly rough patch of deadfall, eyes riveted on the slope above. He could only see a small strip of the logging road farther north from this position, the rest obscured by the trees around him or the shoulder of the road itself. As best he could follow the voices they were talking at a normal tone, which meant they were close, and coming from somewhere above which almost certainly meant the logging road.
To his dismay he wasn't able to get a view of anyone approaching from the strip of road he could see. The voices continued to get louder until finally he saw a head and shoulder appear through the trees on the road almost directly above him, less than thirty feet away. Trev had been still before but now he froze, gripping his rifle in preparation to bring it to bear, as the head passed out of sight and was replaced by another, then another, and the barest view of another man walking beside the third on the other side.
Please hear them coming, Lewis, he thought, dreading the thought that his cousin might already be heading up the road and would walk right into them. That fear spurred him to action, and once he was sure they were past him he began slowly picking his way up the hillside, doing his best to make no noise. He reached the road and poked his head up enough to see along it in time to watch the group rounding a bend up ahead.
Seven men, assuming they didn't have hidden scouts out. Three were carrying visible guns, two rifles and a shotgun, while another had a machete hanging from his belt and the man next to him had an axe strapped to his backpack. The other two men weren't armed that he could see, which could mean pistols. Then again they were loaded down with the heaviest packs so they might've been muling for the group.
Luckily they didn't seem to be scouting the area at all and there was small chance of them discovering the hideout: from what Trev could see before they disappeared their eyes were on the highway below and the refugees walking along it. Although Trev couldn't really call that lucky, at least for those poor souls.
He paused for several long moments to look around in all directions and listen carefully for any sign of hidden watchers, then unslung his gun and loped up onto the road, crossing it to the other side to climb the slope there and get to a game trail they'd found that ran parallel to it about a hundred feet above. Once on the trail he moved quickly but cautiously, still looking and listening as he hurried to catch up to the men below.
The trees were thick enough on this slope that there was little danger of him being seen, especially in his tan coat and brown pants, and he could barely catch glimpses of the road downslope through the branches. He once again heard them before he saw them, and as he quickened his pace he was relieved to see Lewis crouched on the game trail ahead staring down at the road. His cousin had his HK G3 out and balanced in a firing position with his elbows on his knees. Before Trev could get too close Lewis must have heard him coming, because he abruptly stiffened and began to pivot his way, bringing the larger caliber rifle to bear.
Trev froze, hoping his cousin wasn't trigger happy. Luckily Lewis looked before he aimed, and recognizing him he immediately lowered his weapon. His cousin gave him a relieved smile and motioned, and as Trev caught up he led the way along the trail, ghosting after the interlopers.
They tailed the group for over a half hour, well past the hideout, and then once he was satisfied the men below planned to continue following the logging road Lewis found a spot where they could see the road for a ways from behind cover and posted up there. Trev settled in beside him, taking out his binoculars to follow their progress.
What he saw didn't please him. His earlier suspicion that the men were tailing the refugees was correct, since although they were moving faster than the huddled group on the highway below they were constantly passing a few pairs of binoculars between them and looking through the single scoped rifle they possessed. Their eyes were always either on the refugees or on the road farther south, and from the way they kept pointing that way as they talked Trev had the unsettled feeling they were planning something.
And soon.
When he expressed these fears to Lewis his cousin frowned. “Maybe they're guarding the refugee caravan and they were using their binoculars to make sure their friends are all right.” But as he said it he lifted his rifle to look at them through the scope and see for himself.
Trev shook his head. “They didn't look like guards. Believe me, they've got nothing good planned for those people down there. I think they're planning on setting up an ambush where the valley narrows a few miles south of here. They could position themselves on the slope directly above the road and the people below would be sitting ducks.”
After a moment Lewis sighed and lowered his rifle. “Maybe you're right. If so what do you plan to do about it, go down and warn the refugees? By the time you got there it could be too late, or you could end up getting ambushed along with them.”
Trev couldn't believe what he was hearing. “What are you saying, that we should just head back to the hideout like it's not our problem?”
“It isn't our problem,” his cousin said patiently. “And that's lucky for us, because if it was it'd be two of us against seven of them. Your aim may be a bit better after some practicing this last week but you've never been in a gunfight. Neither have I for that matter. What if those guys down there are retired soldiers or deserters from the Armed Forces? 99 times out of 100 we'd be committing suicide.”
“They aren't wearing fatigues or anything,” Trev pointed out. “And their weapons didn't look standard issue either. I think they're just a bunch of hoodlums searching for easy pickings. Maybe rioters down from the cities to the north now that they've been picked clean.”
“It's still seven against two and we don't know what we're doing in a fight. Those sorts of numbers will get us killed.” Lewis looked at his face and made an annoyed sound. “Look, I can guarantee you they're not staying in the mountains, and once they get through to the other side we'll probably never see them again. Let's just head back to the hideout and let them do their thing.”
His cousin had a point, but at the same time Trev didn't think he'd ever be able to forgive himself if he let those refugees get attacked without doing anything about it. “Can you just really walk away from a bunch of innocent people who are about to die?” he asked quietly.
“Do you really want to die trying to stop them?” Lewis shot back, although the question had clearly gotten to him.
Trev shook his head. “Of course not. But maybe it's not as bad as you think. If they're following the road looking for an ambush spot then once they arrive their eyes will be on their victims. If we can get behind them then they'll be the ones who're sitting ducks.”
“What if their ambush spot is a copse of trees that covers them from all sides?” L
ewis argued. But his cousin was wavering.
A surge of relief filled Trev. He knew Lewis took responsibility for keeping them both alive, but he hadn't believed his cousin would just walk away from innocents in danger. “We can at least go and check, right? We know this area better than them and we've got more practice making our way quietly through this terrain. They'll never see us coming.”
“If they do we're dead,” Lewis predicted gloomily. But he motioned in the direction of the slope above the logging road. The game trail had long since petered out, but they'd found a narrow strip of relatively flat land they could follow.
Grinning with relief, Trev took the lead and hurried to catch up to the men below.
They caught up to the group and trailed them for about an hour to a spot where the mountainside sloped down steeply to the river below, which flowed swift and narrow right next to the highway. The seven men had left the logging road behind and descended most of the way down the slope to a flat clearing. It had a large log at one end overlooking the road less than 50 yards away, and as Trev and Lewis watched the bandits positioned themselves behind the log, readying their weapons.
Along with the two rifles and a shotgun one of the bandits produced a massive revolver that had to be a .44, while the other one he hadn't seen with a weapon pulled out a heavy knife that looked like a small machete and prepared himself to rush down and corner any refugees who tried to flee. There was a narrow wooden footbridge across the river below, available for the use of fishermen to reach good spots farther up and down the river, and it was obvious they planned to use it.
While the slope down to the road was fairly barren, making it ideal for an ambush, the slope above the clearing was just as thickly wooded as anywhere. With the seven men lined up behind the log Trev couldn't think of a more ideal situation for them.
He glanced back at Lewis, and his cousin gave him a resigned look and nodded as he spoke some last advice. “Remember, even if you hit the thoracic cavity your .223 might need two or three shots to bring an enemy down.” He reached out to grip Trev's shoulder. “Don't die.”