Harden

by D. J. Molles

  Closer now, Lee saw that it was a woman. She had a mean, hatchet face and she peered in at them with suspicion, but seemed friendly enough when she glanced to Trey in the truck bed.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  Trey leaned on the top of the cab, causing the sheet metal to thump and rumple. “These are the folks from Hurtsboro the other night. What’s left of them anyway.”

  “Hrm.”

  “We need to get to Paolo.”

  The woman leaned back and gave the pickup truck a glare from stem to stern. “The fuck you gonna do with this?”

  “Put ‘er in the woods. The usual spot.”

  “Hrm.” Her lips twisted from side to side. “Where’s Braxton?”

  “He’s got our car. He went to a town called Butler, in Georgia.”

  “The fuck did he do that for?”

  “Deliver a message.”

  “For who?”

  “This guy.”

  The woman squinted a single eye at Lee and his team. She wagged a finger at them. “You three. Let me have some deets. Who are you, where you from, and where you going.”

  Lee leaned forward into the space between the two front seats. “I’m Lee Harden. This is Abe. This is Julia. We’re a team from Fort Bragg, United Eastern States. Heading to the Gulf Coast.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “Hell, I didn’t think you guys really existed. That’s…” she leaned on her elbow. “Well, I don’t exactly know how I feel about that. The Gulf Coast you say?”

  “That’s what I say.”

  “Hrm. Well. Yeah. You definitely want to talk to Paolo about that.” She pushed off the truck, gave it another unsavory look, then addressed herself to Trey again. “Make sure you cover it good. You know the way.”

  Trey nodded. “I do indeed.”

  A slight pause. She nodded to him. “Glad you made it back okay.”

  The woman gave them a single wave.

  Abe started forward again.

  The four figures in ghillie melted back into the woods.

  “That’s Eileen,” Trey said, kneeling down to speak through the back glass. “She’s a bit much, but…good people.”

  “Where am I going?” Abe asked, both hands on the wheel.

  Trey motioned vaguely ahead of them. “Up here a bit. I’ll show you where to turn.”

  Trey guided them forward perhaps another quarter mile. There was a cut into the woods to the right of the road, and about a hundred yards down this overgrown path, the tall weeds tickling the undercarriage, there was a large area of trash.

  Lee was familiar with places like this. In rural areas with no trash service, it often cost money to take things to the dump. Not many folks that lived in regions like this had money, but they often had land, or at least knew of a spot of land, where they could dump random shit.

  Defunct washers and dryers. Baby strollers. Pallets of moldering roofing shingles. More than a few large, plastic containers that probably contained used motor oil. Etcetera, etcetera.

  Trey directed them between two mounds of old appliances. Lee noted recent tire treads in the dirt. Perhaps this was their customary spot for hiding vehicles.

  Abe nosed the truck into a thicket of brush, and that’s where they parked it.

  Abe left the keys in the truck, in the center console.

  Trey took notice of this. “You guys aren’t worried about someone stealing your truck?”

  Lee, getting painfully out of the back of the truck, irritable at his own weakness, shook his head. “We don’t know which one of us is gonna bite it next. If it’s me, and the keys are in my pocket, then one of my teammates has to come back to my body, either under gunfire, or while primals are circling, to try to get the keys out of my pocket. Puts the whole team at risk.” Lee stood on his feet and took a deep breath to steady himself. “No, the keys stay with the vehicle.”

  Trey nodded along with the thought process. “Interesting. Never looked at it like that. What the fuck are ‘primals’?”

  Lee glanced at the man, realizing that he’d used a term that was unique to the UES. “The primals are…the infected. But not the regular ones that died out. The new ones. The…mutated ones.”

  “Oh,” Trey said. “We just call ‘em ‘Big’uns’.”

  Lee managed a smile. “Well. That’s as good a name as any.”

  There were pre-cut pine boughs laying around. They used these to camouflage the truck.

  “We got about a half-mile hike,” Trey said when they were done. “You guys think you can make that? Abe, I know your leg’s fucked up. And Lee, you look like shit.”

  “I can make it,” Abe waved him off.

  Lee just nodded.

  “Alright. Y’all can keep your weapons, but do me a favor and let ‘em hang, and keep your hands visible.”

  Trey led them out.

  Lee kept his eyes on the woods. Not just scanning for primals, although that was the immediate concern. He also wanted to see if he could spot any more guards hidden in these woods. Whoever this crew was, they were cautious, and they were prepared, and they seemed well-organized.

  Lee didn’t know whether that made him feel better or worse.

  They’re cautious, Lee thought. But it’s a little more than that.

  These people seem like they’re at war.

  “I meant to ask,” Trey said, his voice low. He gestured towards Deuce, who was currently making wide circles around the group as they moved, constantly sniffing the perimeter. “What’s with the dog?”

  “Team mascot,” Abe answered.

  Trey glanced at Abe. Then Lee. Then Julia. Then Lee again.

  Lee nodded at him.

  Trey shrugged and left it alone.

  “You doin’ alright?” Julia asked him, about five minutes into their hike.

  At that point, Lee’s breathing was starting to elevate, which made him irritable all over again. A slow stroll through the woods shouldn’t have done that to him. It showed him the depleted state that his body was in.

  With the elevated breathing, his chest felt like someone was tightening woodscrews into his lungs. And he was sweating, despite the mild temperature.

  “I’m hurtin’,” he said, honestly. “But I’ll make it.”

  “Hurt-hurt or injury-hurt?”

  “Just hurt-hurt,” he replied.

  She watched him for a few more paces. “Well, let me know if that changes.”

  “Oh, I’ll let you know,” Lee said on a heavy exhale.

  The trees opened up suddenly in front of them, and Lee caught his first look at their destination.

  It was a series of three, long, metal buildings.

  Large vent fans that sat still and rusting in their cages on the sides of the structures.

  Three years ago, Lee would have smelled this place before he saw it. And it would have been the ammonia-stink of chicken shit.

  Trey angled for the central building. Lee surveyed the place with a strategic eye.

  Decently defensible. A few exits for emergencies, but easily guarded. And relatively secure against primals. As long as you kept the doors locked and barred.

  At the end of the building they were heading towards was a door, and above it, one of the enormous vent fans that kept the chickens inside cool and ventilated under the hot summer sun. Also kept them from choking to death on the fumes of their own excrement.

  Twenty yards from the door, a voice called out, “Stop!”

  Lee noted the metallic echo of it, and he stared into the shadows between the still blades of the vent fan. Thought maybe he saw the glimmer of a face in there.

  “That Trey?” the voice said, the edge coming off. Deep, down-home accent.

  Trey held up his right hand. “Yeah. It’s me.”

  There was some muffled banging around.

  The door below the vent fan opened up and three guys with guns came out, giving the newcomers a quick look over, and then directing th
eir attention outwards.

  “Come on, then,” said one of them, and Lee recognized the voice of the speaker from the vent fan.

  Most people don’t match their voices. This guy did. Sway-backed. A rangy walk. T-shirt. A mesh cap that had once been John Deere green, and was now a smudgy gray.

  He held a silver six-shooter, which he dropped into a leather holster, then grinned at them.

  Christ. Who’s this fuckin’ guy?

  The man strode forward, and jammed his hand out into the air. “Paolo.”

  Abe received the hand first and gave it a solid pump. “Abe Darabie.” He motioned to the other two. “That’s Julia. This is Lee. He’s the leader.”

  Paolo gave Lee a dubious once-over. “Shit, son. You alright? You look a bit green in the gills.”

  Lee made sure that his handshake was firm. “Right as rain, Paolo.”

  Paolo shrugged. Turned his attention to Julia. “Well. Ma’am.”

  He didn’t shake her hand so much as caress it.

  Her mouth tightened. Eyes staying locked on Paolo’s.

  Paolo seemed to realize that his attentions were not wanted and he quickly withdrew himself and changed the subject. He smiled at the newcomers. “Now, I’ll go ahead and address my name, because I know you all thinking it: Only blue-eyed Mex-ee-can you ever seen.”

  The intro had the flavor of something told and retold, but Lee also saw beyond the script. He saw someone that had spent a lifetime gleaning humor out of not fitting in. Barring anything else that Lee might learn about this man, he at least gave him credit for that.

  “Momma was a southern belle, Daddy was a migrant worker—God rest their souls. Fell in love on a peach farm. Cutest damn story you ever heard. And now I’m Paolo Johnson.”

  “Well, Mr. Johnson—”

  “Paolo, please.”

  Lee nodded. “Paolo, then. No offense, but let’s not fuck around. My people were ambushed in Hurtsboro. You already know that. I’m told you might know who did it. So let’s talk.”

  For the first time Paolo’s gaze went down to something less than the flamboyant congeniality they’d dished out so far. There was circumspection there. Calculation.

  “Right.” He said. “Well. Let’s get indoors.”

  Paolo and his entourage led them into the abandoned chicken farm, closed and bolted the doors behind them.

  Lee didn’t like the sound of those bars being placed over the door.

  Walking away from them, Paolo gestured to their environs, which were dimly lit by skylights. A big open area with a lot of moldering feathers strewn about and the ghost of pine shavings and chicken litter tinging the air. “Our humble home for the last month. No more chickens, unfortunately. But we make do. This way.”

  He led them down the length of the structure, which must have been a hundred yards long. Went to a room on the side of the building that Lee saw was once used to store equipment for the upkeep of the chickens. The door was open and Paolo went inside. There were shelves, but they were mostly empty. A few cots. A few chairs that looked like they might’ve been liberated from the trash heap where they’d parked the truck.

  Paolo gestured Lee and his team into the room, then gave a nod to Trey who had accompanied them this far. Trey returned the nod and retreated. Paolo closed the door to the room, so it was just him and Lee’s people.

  A show of trust, perhaps.

  Paolo took a seat in one of the chairs, motioned for them to do the same. “Take a load off, gents. And lady.” Then with a half-frown at Deuce. “And dog. Who is hopefully yours and not some stray that wandered in.”

  “He’s mine,” Lee said, then took a seat.

  Lee, Abe, and Julia sat erect, none of them relaxing and leaning back in the chairs.

  Paolo kicked one leg over the other and let his gaze scour over his guests. His eyes still held that cautious glint. “Tell me about yourselves and how you came to be in Hurtsboro.”

  Lee gave him the same rundown he’d given Eileen at the checkpoint. Finished with the ambush at Hurtsboro and the fact that two of their number had been captured, another killed.

  Lee said these facts like they had nothing to do with him. Like he was speaking about someone else’s friends. It was the only way he could remain even-keel. He had to pretend.

  Paolo listened, and stayed focused on Lee the entire time.

  Lee leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, his rifle laid across his lap. “Trey says y’all know these people. He says you might be willing to point us in the right direction.”

  Paolo’s propped up foot wiggled once. Then he was still. “Yeah. I might.”

  He didn’t give anything else.

  “Alright,” Lee said, one corner of his mouth quirking up in a wry smile. “It’s obvious you want something from us. So why don’t you tell me what that is.”

  Paolo shrugged, trying to sell a measure of indifference that Lee wasn’t buying. “We want the same thing, I think. Different reasons, but the same thing.”

  “To get rid of the guys who ambushed us,” Lee said. “Who are, apparently, enemies of yours as well.”

  Paolo’s eyes flashed serious for a moment. “We’re fighting a war. I think you probably gathered as much on the way in. But we’re the guerillas, and they’re the big army. We need help. You guys can give us that help. And the end result is something that we both want.”

  “Okay,” Lee said, allowing himself a few beats to gather his thoughts. “We’re willing to help. Especially for a common goal. So consider us a tentative ‘yes.’ But we’re going to need more information on what we’re dealing with here. Otherwise, we don’t know how much help you need.”

  Paolo pursed his lips, nodded slowly. But he didn’t speak.

  “You mentioned,” Lee probed. “That you’d been here for about a month. Where were you before that?”

  Paolo gave him a humorless smirk. “Astute. That’s good.” He took a big breath, and Lee saw the man thinking about what to say, and also how much to say. He smacked his lips, as though testing the flavor of his chosen words. “Well, we were at Bullock County Correctional.”

  Lee maintained a neutral expression. “So you guys were prisoners?”

  Paolo let out a laugh. “No. Well…” he waffled a hand in the air. “Not all of us, anyways. But truth be told, there’s several in our current crew who were inmates there. Don’t worry. They’re all good people. It was just a medium security, so, mostly drug shit. Some folks ran afoul of the slightly lighter side of the law, for sure. But no rapists or murderers or shit like that. I assure you.”

  Lee didn’t feel entirely assured. He had a memory of a psychotic man named Milo who had given him a lot of trouble when the world had first gone to shit. That man and his crew had also been petty criminals. And yet they’d become very dangerous.

  “Alright.” Paolo slapped his boot down on the ground and folded his hands in his lap. “Lemme explain, then. You’ll have to pardon my hesitancy to just drop trou and bare all to you folks, but I’m gonna go with my gut feeling here and say that we are indeed on the same team.”

  Lee gave him a nod of encouragement.

  “Most of the original folks, including myself, were residents of Union Springs. Little town a couple miles west of Bullock County Correctional. We did our best to hang onto the town but…well, you know how the story goes.” He rolled his hands over each other. “Skipping, skipping, skipping. Bullock was a safe place because it had fences and bars, and it didn’t take us long to figure this out. When shit hit the fan a few years ago, there’d been a break out from that facility, but some of the inmates chose to stay behind because they saw the writing on the wall and knew that their prison had become the safest place for them to be. It was them that took us in out of Union Springs when we hightailed it out of there.” A sniff. “Now, I’d be lyin’ if I told you there wadn’t drama when our two groups first came together, but we pushed past it. I was kind of in charge of the Union Springs folks, but the Bullock guys didn
’t really want to listen to me, they had their own guy, Little T. Of course, everyone from Union Springs didn’t want to be led by a convict—which I think is understandable—but anyways, once we settled down and differences were put aside, me and Little T kind of ran shit as a partnership.”

  Lee tilted his head back, discerning. “Until about a month ago.”

  Paolo nodded. “Yeah. Until about a month ago.”

  “What happened?”

  Paolo looked pained. “You ever hear the phrase plato o plomo?”

  “That Spanish?”

  Paolo nodded. “It means ‘silver or lead.’ Basically, ‘take the bribe, or get shot.’ That’s what we got offered at Bullock. By some group I’d never heard of before. Never heard of ‘em, but let’s just say…they were convincing. Little T and a good portion of the folks—even a bunch from Union Springs—chose the plato. I guess I chose the plomo. Though they hadn’t been able to plomo me yet.”

  Lee frowned. A cancerous feeling was beginning to metastasize in his stomach.

  Abe leaned forward. “So the ambush was cartel? Our guys were captured by cartel?”

  Paolo gave a small shrug. “No cartel I ever heard of. Nor had Little T. Nor had any of the other inmates at Bullock. But if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…” Another shrug. “They called themselves Neuvas Fronteras. It means ‘new borders.’”

  Lee shook his head, his jaw tight. “The fuck’s a cartel want in this world, Paolo? Drugs are a fucking commodity. Everyone’s just surviving. And what the hell do they have to gain?”

  “Well, based on what they choose to call themselves, it seems they want to gain territory. The United States must seem like a goldmine to them. And now the defenses are down. Have been down for a long time. Seems like a land-grab to me.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Lee said. “There’s no currency.”

  Paolo squinted an eye at Lee, like he thought Lee was missing something. “Currency is whatever gets you power, my friend. It’s whatever you can use to manipulate others into doing what you want. I can tell you this: these fucks showed up at our door with military vehicles and a fucking helicopter.” Paolo raised his eyebrows. “When’s the last time you seen that many gas guzzlers in use?”

  Lee felt like the wind had been taken out of him. He felt questions being answered, connections being made, but the picture that it was creating was not one that he liked.