by Reed, N. C.
“Any of the rest of you missing anything? Or know anyone this stuff belongs to? Unfortunately, it may have to go to next of kin, depending on how this bunch was operating. Gather around and help me figure it out if you can.”
-
“Everyone makes it up here once a week or so,” Garrett promised. “It’s how we can keep up with who’s okay or not. Anyone who comes in can claim whatever belongs to them or their folks. I honestly don’t know who any of it goes to, myself. Still, I can leave it in the glass case and folks can look.”
“Appreciate you doing that, Ransom,” Greg assured him. “I’ll do something to make it up to you, soon as I get the chance.”
“Could leave me that Blazer,” Garrett joked.
“Can’t do that, but I may can get you something else,” Greg surprised him. “You still got gas?”
“About three hundred, three hundred fifty gallons, give or take,” Garrett nodded. “Hadn’t been long past a top off when the lights went out. Got a five-hundred-gallon tank. Lost some to evaporation I’m sure, and it’s gone a bit stale by now, but a gallon or two of creek water will perk it right up,” he winked. ‘Creek water’ had long been a euphemism for moonshine.
“That it will,” Greg laughed. “Okay then. I’ll see if I can’t round you up a truck of some kind for the store. My only condition is that you have to help the community with it when it’s something really important. Maybe organize trips into Jordan or Lewiston at some point when things start picking up.”
“I can do that,” Garrett nodded. “Thanks for thinking of us like that, Greg. And for taking care of this,” he indicated the bodies on the trailer.
“That’s my job,” Greg slapped the older man’s shoulder. “What they pay me for,” he added with a grin.
“They’re paying you?” Garrett asked, eyebrows raised.
“Lord, no,” Greg scoffed. “That was a joke. What would they pay me with? See you around, Ransom.”
“Be safe, Sheriff.”
-
“Sounds like you had a full day,” Clay observed after Greg had summarized the day’s action.
“That and then some,” Greg agreed. “Thanks for the help, by the way. Titus awake?”
“He is, and got Marcy George chewing his ears off,” Clay grinned. “She’s waiting for you to get there, too.”
“Perfect,” Greg snorted. “Well, I don’t blame her. But for him I guess she feels all alone up here, nowadays.”
“I would imagine she does,” Clay turned serious. “We’ve got to fix that, somehow.”
“Got any ideas about how to do it?” Greg asked over his shoulder as he started to the clinic.
“No,” Clay admitted. “I don’t. I think I’m going to turn it over to the ladies and see what they can do. I feel certain they can do a better job of it than me.”
-
“I have thought about that,” Lainie said later that evening. “It’s not just her family being gone, either. It’s also a racial divide, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know,” Clay frowned. “Is someone causing problems along that line?”
“No one has to, Clay,” Lainie shook her head, hair swishing behind her. “It’s just a natural fact. There are just seven black people on this entire place aside from I think two children in the orphanage. Jose, Martina and her children are the only Latinos here as well. Tandi is the sole Asian. Jody the lone Native. I mean, technically it’s as diverse a group as you could ask for in the rural south I should think, but that doesn’t mean anything to the individuals in the group who are facing it.”
“While no one on this farm that I’m aware of has uttered a single racial remark at all, and I mean since the start of things, that does not eliminate the feeling of isolation that they may well be feeling because of the disparity. I’ve thought of this more than once, but I honestly don’t know what we can do that we aren’t already doing.”
“Stacey and John never seemed to have any trouble,” Clay frowned, searching his memory. “Tandi and Jose don’t either, at least not that I know of. Nor Jody neither, since you mentioned him.”
“All of them were part of your unit, Clay,” Lainie explained patiently. “All of you are as close, or closer than brothers and have been for some time. So no, they aren’t going to experience that kind of isolation in the same way civilians are likely to. That doesn’t mean they won’t feel it, or experience it, just that it will be unlikely to have the same impact on them.”
“Huh,” Clay sat heavily into his recliner, staring at the wall in front of him. Of all the things he had worried over and planned for, this had not been one of them. Clay didn’t think in terms of race himself, and apparently had decided that meant no one else did, either.
What else had he missed that might be having a negative effect on someone that was at least nominally under his care?
“Stop that,” Lainie knew the signs that were playing across Clay’s features. “We’ve already covered this ground, Cowboy. You can’t think of everything, and the rest can think about these problems as well as you can. Let them deal with some of that. You’ve got enough on your plate as it is. I loved Leon like my own family, but he handed you a mess when he died. You have done a remarkable job dealing with it, but it has taken its toll, too.”
“Still, I should have at least been-,”
“Stop it, I said,” Lainie cut his protest off cleanly. “I’ll gather some of the others together and see if we can have a real discussion about this. For all we know, no one is suffering from it at all, other than possibly Marcy, and we don’t know for sure about her. She has the added trauma of what happened with her and her family to deal with as well. There may not be a problem at all, even for her, so don’t borrow trouble. If there is a problem, we’ll figure it out.”
“Sure,” he didn’t sound convinced, his confidence shaken by having overlooked something so basic. Of late he had felt more confident, really, having thought he was dealing with things much better than he had early on. Now, he had to go back and reevaluate his job performance. Lainie was right in that Leon had left a bit of a mess behind, but it was more than that. With Leon gone, there was no one to warn him about things just like this.
“Hey,” Lainie was suddenly standing over him, and he honestly hadn’t even seen her moving. “Enough,” she ordered, leaning down to put herself face-to-face with him. “No more of this tonight. Understand?”
“I’ll try,” he promised, mustering a weak smile. “Best I can promise.”
“I bet I can distract you,” she smiled softly.
-
“You know, it ain’t like I did it on purpose,” Titus said wearily to an irate Marcy George. “And Greg, he made me do it!” he added as the latter walked in.
“What?” Greg almost yelled. “You were the first one out of the truck, Titus Terry!” the offended Sheriff of Calhoun County bellowed back. “Don’t try to foist your failures off on me!”
“Foist?” Jaylyn Thatcher chimed in from across the room. “Awful big word for a Marine, ain’t it?”
“And no commenting from the peanut gallery, either!” Greg shot back, laughing. “They tell me he’ll live,” he added.
“I had thought so until she got here,” Jaylyn nodded toward Marcy as she continued working. “Now? Not so sure.”
“Well, I guess I’ll just be going, then,” Greg snorted. “If he ain’t gonna make it anyway, there’s no reason for me to waste the time and effort talking to him.”
“See?” Titus exclaimed to Marcy, as if that exchange proved his point. “Absolutely no regard at all for my well-being!”
“If I didn’t know you like I do, I might be more inclined to believe that,” Marcy replied somewhat flatly. “Since I do, however, I’m forced to give the county official the benefit of the doubt in this case.”
“Guess that told you,” Greg said firmly, smirking at Titus. His look grew more serious after that, as he looked down at Titus.
“You look like you’re goin
g to be in good hands but is there anything you need?” he asked.
“Nah, I’m okay,” Titus promised. “Shouldn’t be laid up more than three months or so-,”
“Two weeks,” Jaylyn corrected without bothering to look up. “Two weeks and he’ll be more than able to do at least light duty.”
“But another three months or so before I can-,” Titus kept trying.
“A month at best before he’s back to full battery,” the doctor had heard all of this once already. “He’s fine. Honestly, he’ll need more time to build his blood back than for the wound to heal.”
“So, I’ll be too weak to do any-,” Titus tried one more time.
“Give it a rest, you goldbrick,” Marcy was the one to cut him off this time. “Here I was scared half to death, and you had basically cut yourself shaving.”
“He shaves?” Greg feigned surprise. “I had no idea!”
“Har, har,” Titus affected a hurt look. “Just go ahead and kick a man while he’s down, why don’t you?”
“Well since you seem to be doing fine,” Greg snorted, “I’m going to get cleaned up and turn in. I’ve had a long day myself. Get some rest, since you’re all crippled and what not,” he took one last jab at Titus.
“He will, as soon as I’m done talking to him,” Marcy promised.
“I’m awful sleepy…,” was the last thing Greg heard Titus saying as he left.
-
Greg’s swift action in dealing with the murder and robbery at Garrett’s spread along the radio circuit, and more importantly, through the gossip grapevine. People who had avoided his patrols up to that point began to remain in the open when the Sheriff’s Patrol came through, often waving Greg down to report on something or other, or else just to ask what was happening around the area.
It had taken the twins less than a week to decide how to handle their idea for a radio news show. Using the amateur bands as well as the citizen’s bands, they would be able to broadcast what news there was to everyone within hearing distance but focused primarily on the people of Calhoun County. They were careful to prepare ahead of time to ensure that they weren’t putting anything over the air that might give criminals any more information than they already had access to. They chose Friday evenings at six o’clock to make their broadcast, and Greg began spreading the news to anyone he encountered in his travels, as well as warning all those with radios to be listening in.
The first show lasted only eight minutes by Leon’s watch. There was not a great deal of information to share so early on, and most of that was limited to announcing that yes, the National Guard was present in the area, and yes, it was the real National Guard this time, and that they were trying to help restore order as much as possible. They had also announced that Greg had been made Sheriff, and that the patrols that had been seen were also real and could be flagged down for help or for information.
Leanne had already spoken to Doctor Thatcher and to their Aunt Patricia about the possibility of doing short talks on how to maintain better health and what could be used as alternatives for various medicines and hygiene products. The idea was to gradually add as many types of helpful tips and tidbits as they could, hoping to help as many people as possible.
After the first week, Leon had hit upon the idea to allow each of the stations to have five minutes of time following the initial news show to send messages for family members separated by long distances, to advertise community get-togethers and also goods and services that were available. Anything that would serve as a morale booster and also help return life to at least some small semblance of normal. Doing that had extended the show to a half-hour more, depending on what each ‘station’ had to say.
By the time Thanksgiving was approaching, the radio ‘shows’ had become a big hit, with everyone gathering around the nearest radio to hear what was being said, even if they already knew whatever it was. The simple act of hearing someone talking over a radio helped isolated families and communities feel less cutoff from the rest of the area. It wasn’t a true replacement for what had been lost the year before, but it was something.
It was a start.
CHAPTER TEN
It was the day before Thanksgiving and the weather had turned colder, with what appeared to be rain on the horizon. ‘Perfect pneumonia weather’, the older folks called it.
Greg had decided to make a long patrol on both Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving trying to cover as much of the county as possible before the holiday. Tuesday had gone by without a hitch and Wednesday was well on the way to doing the same.
“I’m not complaining about anything being boring,” Amanda said as the Hummer sped along, “but-,”
“Shut up!” Gordy, Greg and Shane all said at once, startling her.
“Sorry,” she shrank down a bit in the rear passenger side seat. “Just saying.”
“When you say it, it screws everything up,” Gordy said from behind the wheel. “It’s uncanny.”
“But still true,” Shane nodded.
“How you guys making it back there?” Greg smiled at the antics around him as he checked on the MRAP following them. Stacey Pryor, Tandi Maseo, Heath Kelly, Janessa Haynes and Devon Knowles were riding there, Janessa taking a turn behind the wheel.
“We’re chopping in tall cotton as my grandma used to say,” Stacey replied with a chuckle. “Had to bust up a card game earlier, though.”
“I’d rather we play cards than have trouble,” Greg laughed. “At this rate, we may make it home in-,”
Whatever Greg hoped to make it home for would remain forever unsaid as the windshield of the Hummer stared in six different places within the space of two seconds as bullets impacted all over the vehicle.
“We’re taking fire!” Greg yelled into the radio as Gordy fought to get control of the vehicle, having momentarily lost it when he had been startled by the gunfire.
“Fire flashes coming from that barn ahead to the east of the road,” Heath Kelly informed him from the turret of the MRAP. “Range, two hundred twenty yards.”
“Stop or go?” Gordy shouted, finally having the Hummer back in hand. He was now weaving from one side of the road to the other, reminiscent of how stock car drivers would drive when trying to save their brakes while following a pace car.
“Anyone hurt?” Greg asked rather than answer.
“Does my underwear count?” Shane tried to joke.
“I don’t actually feel so good,” Amanda said from beside him. She brought her hands away from her abdomen with blood on them.
“Amanda’s hit!” Shane called, moving to pull her vest and blouse away from the wound. “She took a round on the lower left side, above the belt line!”
“Find us a place where we can cover long enough to get Tandi in here or else get her in the MRAP!” Greg told Gordy.
“Doc, we got a casualty up here,” he then called back to the MRAP. “We’re hunting cover so we can do a transfer. Heath, can you still see gunfire from that barn?”
“Nothing since the original flashes,” Heath replied.
“Can you-,” Greg’s request was cut short by a booming rifle from behind them as Heath Kelly opened fire on someone in the distance.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Greg said as Gordy began to slow as he pulled behind a heavy stand of trees. “Shane and I are going to move to the Cougar while Doc, Devon and Janessa move up here. Gordy, you stick here and as soon as they’re on board, you take out for home and don’t spare the horses. We’ll take the Cougar and move up on the barn, throwing suppressing fire on them as we go. Everybody got that?”
“No one to work the gun in here,” Gordy reminded him. Greg thought about that for all of five seconds.
“You take it and put Janessa behind the wheel,” he ordered a quick solution. “Okay, let’s move!” he ordered as the vehicle pulled to a halt.
Behind them, Doc, Janessa and Devon were already moving forward. Greg and Shane both bailed out of the passenger side and ran for
the Cougar as Doc crammed into the back seat with Devon Knowles, while Janessa Haynes slid behind the wheel even as Gordy made his way into the turret.
“We’re good, let’s go!” Doc yelled as he tore his bag from his back and dropped it in the floor below him. “Let me see,” he told a trembling Amanda. “Move your hands, Amanda, and let me see,” he repeated as she continued to hold her hands to her side.
“Dammit, Mavis, move your fucking hands!” Devon screamed, fear and anger giving her voice strength. That got a reaction as Amanda’s eyes narrowed.
“I have asked you, repeatedly, not to call me Mavis!” she ground out through clenched teeth, allowing Doc to pull her hands away. Shane had already unclasped Amanda’s harness and vest, so all that remained to do was pull it over her head. Devon took care of that, fighting for balance as Janessa whirled the vehicle around in the road and began speeding back the way they had come, weaving the vehicle from white line to white line just as Gordy had done. Gordy rotated the turret around so that he was facing back toward the barn, though the odds of his hitting anything with the M240 with them maneuvering like this were limited.
Tandi tore Amanda’s blouse open, exposing her torso and learning that Amanda had not deigned to wear a bra or shirt beneath her uniform today.
“Laundry day,” the red-faced Amanda explained. Tandi had ignored her bare chest anyway in favor of looking at her wounded abdomen. Rinsing the blood away with distilled water, he managed to get a look at the wound. He felt carefully behind her for an exit wound and breathed a slight sigh of relief when he didn’t find one. Anything strong enough to go through her vest would have destroyed her back on the way out. As it was, her vest had apparently slowed the round enough that it could not do near the damage it might have.
“Okay then,” Tandi muttered to himself. “Devon, check the plates on her rig. I need to know if any of the material is missing. It could have fragmented into the wound and-,”
“It didn’t,” Amanda didn’t look at him as she spoke.
“How do you know?” Tandi demanded.