"Rifles are better than handguns if you want to keep the enemy at a distance," Rusty said. "Where d'you want us to wait for you?"
Hick shook his head. "Don't wait. If they get past us, they'll head for the highway or they'll send their pals after you. Hightail it to Springs, and I'll see you there."
"Well, who'da thought it. A regular hero. Seriously though, Paul, you take good care of yerself, and the others. We'll see you in Springs."
They shook hands and, to his surprise and embarrassment, Hick felt a lump rise in his throat as they parted. This new world was making him weak.
"Come on," he said to the others as they gathered around him. "Let's get as close as we can, then we'll give them a helluva surprise."
Hick looked over his shoulder at where he thought the convoy would be but could see nothing. Good. The sun was still below the horizon, hiding the trucks as they crept along, but they only had an hour at most before it would be fully light, and they could be spotted by a blind man.
He hunkered down behind a pile of rocks that lay in the path of the approaching cars. They'd walked toward the lights and had found the end of the track they were driving up, no more than a half mile from where they'd left the trucks.
In the dark, he hadn't appreciated quite how far away the cars had been when they'd been spotted, but now they were close enough that Hick could see, even in this half-light, that they were three Land Rovers. So, Gert and Libby hadn't destroyed all of Ezra's vehicles.
Three cars meant a maximum of twelve fighters, though it would make life a whole lot easier if they were only carrying two each, like at the Corbett's farm. That was a shade over two months ago and in that intervening time, he'd found happiness and had it torn from his grip.
Hick leaned against the rock, a rough, cold texture against his cheek as he breathed the cool air of a Nevada sunrise, the zephyr zipping between the rocks as it chased the coming heat of the day. What a beautiful place this would be for a picnic, he thought. As he watched the headlights slow, his eyes lifted to the horizon beyond where the mountains that formed the valley Ezra sat in loomed on the horizon like gods around a celestial chessboard.
He glanced at his fellow pieces as they crouched, gripping their weapons and peering nervously at the oncoming cars. White had one king and four pawns, but what did black have to set against them?
The cars pulled up in a row. A figure climbed out of each, two wearing their black masks and the third pulling his down. The other doors opened as the first three casually inspected where the track ended. Behind them, the others milled around, at least two of them taking a leak. It seemed to be the most routine of routine patrols.
"Looks like a well," one man said, pointing down.
Another looked beyond where Hick crouched. "What about the lights?"
"Ah, it's just a wild goose chase." The first man had a Downton Abbey accent and a dismissive air. "I told Crawford that idiot could barely read a license plate, let alone see things miles away."
"That's probably why he sent you. He's not exactly in a good mood at the moment."
"Yeah, well, he's lucky he's still in charge. I asked the Leader to let me take over. The best thing for the movement where Crawford's concerned would be a bullet in the head."
The second man chuckled. "And that's why you're not a commander yet, Miles. You should know by now our Leaders don't like to feel they're being ordered around. Crawford's been with them from the beginning, and that means something, even though he's an incompetent ass."
Hick gripped the stock of his rifle tight as he listened to them talk. With any luck, they'd turn around and drive away.
"Hey, boss! Look, somethin' moving!"
On the other hand, luck had been in short supply lately.
A third figure had joined the others and was pointing into the distance. Hick swung around to see a cloud of dust rising into a lightening sky.
"Well, I'll be! Looks like they're heading toward the highway. Come on, we'll head back the way we came and cut them off."
They'd just turned to run back to their cars when Hick rose from behind the rock and opened fire. Adrenaline flooded his body as he saw the first man fall. He wasn't a good man—he knew that well enough—but he hadn't killed anyone who didn't deserve it. Mowing down people he didn't know at all, people who were about to drive away, now that was beyond the pale. And yet he did it, because if he stopped shooting, they'd ambush his friends (a strange concept in itself).
The others rose and fired. All except Donnie Davis, who was keeping his head down, hunting rifle clutched to his chest. Three of the fighters had dropped in the initial volley, but the others, including their commander, had made it to the shelter of their cars. Most were crouching behind open doors, returning fire when the magnificent five (or four) let up.
Hick peered around the side of the rock to see someone creeping sideways. They were trying to outflank their attackers. For all he knew, there was another fighter circling around the other side, but he could only deal with one threat at a time, so he fired a couple of rounds at the cars, then darted out to the side, using the cover of the rocks to track the sneak.
Behind him, the crack, crack of gunfire ripped apart the peace of a glorious summer morning, but he wasn't listening. All his attention was on the man creeping in a wide arc around them. He didn't even turn around when someone screamed in anguish from the direction of the defenders. If this fighter got behind them, there'd be a whole lot more screaming.
Hick scrambled to the side. Dammit! He'd lost sight of his quarry. On hands and knees, he crawled from rock to rock, hands scuffing on the sharp sand and rough vegetation, praying that he wouldn't put his hand down on anything that would bite.
With a roar, a dark shape leaped at him. His vision flashed as he gritted his teeth, metallic blood in his mouth, dropping the rifle and falling backward under a blow that ought to have brought down a wild ox. But he'd always been told he was a thick-headed son of a gun, so he rolled away, grunting in fresh pain as his ribs hit a rock, using the agony to fuel a desperate leap upward that surprised his attacker.
Hick flung out his fist, connecting with a jaw as he searched the ground for his gun. A glint of steel. He ducked as the knife swept past him and brought his elbow up, connecting with his opponent's solar plexus, then rising as the fighter bent double, wrenching the knife away and stabbing down. With a scream, the figure dropped, metal slicing between the shoulder blades and Hick kicked the head, knocking the black mask away enough to see that he was fighting a woman. A big woman, to be sure. But all the hate left him as he watched her writhing on the floor trying to grab at her back.
More gunfire from behind. Unless he was mistaken, more and more shots were coming from the cars and fewer from the attackers. He had no time. She would have to look after herself, or hope her comrades came to rescue her. He kneeled beside her and took the handgun from her holster before getting up again and heading back to their position, grimacing against the pain in his head and chest.
At least some of the magnificent five were still firing. In the growing light he spotted Donnie, who had finally galvanized himself into action and was firing steadily from a relatively safe position between two rocks.
Six of the enemy were dead, but there was no sign of the leader.
Wait, there he was! He'd climbed into the driver’s seat of a Land Rover and, as Hick watched, he saw a cloud of smoke emerge from behind it as the leader started it up.
Again, Hick abandoned his position and headed at a tangent to give him a line of fire as the Land Rover began to move. But Donnie got there first. He calmly adjusted his aim and looked through the sights of his hunting rifle. Hick watched the muzzle dip at the last moment. Crack. And, above the sound of intermittent gunfire, the bang of a tire exploding.
Donnie adjusted his aim and crack, bang, crack, bang. All three Land Rovers were disabled at almost the same moment that Said was crippling his father's cars hundreds of miles away.
Another defen
der peered out from behind a door. Hick brought up his stolen handgun and punched a half-dozen shots into it, the window shattering as the body of the fighter appeared in the dust behind the car.
Hick glanced across at his fellow attackers. Aside from Donnie, he could only see one other figure, a woman he recognized but didn't know. Between them lay a body.
Suddenly, the remaining Sons burst from cover and charged toward Donnie's position. He ducked behind his rock, as if startled back to his default terror. The air around Hick exploded with dust as fire raked his cover. He knew that if he didn't act, their attackers would overwhelm them in moments and so he leaped up as soon the gunfire paused for a second and pumped two rounds into the chest of the fighter who was bearing down on him, dropping him instantly.
He turned to his left and shot at the rushing figures who were over where Donnie hid. The unnamed woman threw herself sideways and fired up, knocking the last defender from his feet.
In the sudden silence, Hick nodded to her, then checked that all their opponents were dead. "Where's their leader?" he called.
The woman pointed into the distance where a shape took a zigzagging trajectory from cover to cover as he ran away, heading for distant Ezra.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Hickman," Donnie said, looking up from where he crouched, rifle held to his chest.
Hickman sighed. "You did the right thing, shooting at the tires."
"I didn't realize, but it's awful hard to shoot someone dead."
He should have been right about that, but Hick had found that the more you did something unpleasant, the less you hated doing it. He shook his head as his thoughts went where he didn't want them to. He wasn't a monster; he was a goddam hero.
"Well, I didn't expect to survive that," the woman said as she kneeled beside a body. "Poor old Tom wasn't so lucky." She shut the eyes of the corpse. The old man would have looked as though he were peacefully asleep if it hadn't been for the slick of blood leaking into the soil beneath him.
Hick put his hand out to her to help her up, grimacing as pain lanced his ribs. "I … I prob'ly should know your name, but you sure are a good shot."
"Well, I know well enough who you are. I recall you weren't exactly in favor of me and the rest of us comin' to Hope."
"You're from Ezra?"
"Yeah, came with the last shipment of the sick. I was one of the nurses, but I caught the virus myself. Figure I owe Hope, and I always pay my debts. Name's May Petty."
They shook hands. She was a black woman in her fifties with gray shoulder-length hair tied in a ponytail. With her plastic glasses and slight frame, she looked more like a bank teller than a killer. But there was no mistaking the determination in her eyes. Or the threat.
"Earl's dead," Donnie said, kneeling beside what remained of a human body. "He got the jitters and jumped up. Killed one of them before the others got him. He was a good man. Played poker like a pro."
May went over to Donnie and put a hand on his shoulder. "What are we going to do now? We've given the convoy enough of a head start to get away, but where do we go?"
"Well, luckily for us, we've got transport. We can swap the wheels over on one of the Land Rovers, so we've got four good tires," Hick said.
May gestured at Donnie. "We have to bury Tom and Earl first."
Gritting his teeth, Hick nodded. "Sure. There may be tools in one of the cars. Why don't you take a look?"
"Help … me …"
The cry was coming from where Hick had fought the masked woman. "Dammit," he muttered. She'd attacked him, cracked his ribs and given him the mother of all headaches, and she hadn't had the decency to die nice and quiet over there in the rocks.
But one look at May told him she'd heard the cry. She looked over to where it was coming from and, for a moment, he thought she might ignore it. They'd survived a gun battle and saved the refugees from Hope; the last thing they needed was to be burdened with a wounded soldier, much less an enemy fighter. His hopes were dashed, however, when she shook her head and strode toward the sound, leaving Donnie to search for a spade in the cars.
The woman had rolled, leaving a trail of black-stained sand and a tidemark of small rocks where she'd kicked her legs. She was on her side, her chest rising and falling like an excited dog.
May kneeled beside her. "My name's May, and I'll help you if I can, as long as you promise not to do anything stupid. The fight's over and you lost."
"Never … was … my … fight. Just following … orders."
Hick scoffed. "Folks have used that excuse for centuries. It don't count for nothin' in my book. You always got a choice, and you chose to attack me. Bad move, lady."
She looked up at him from ground level, half her face encrusted with sand and grit. "You got lucky."
"So did you," May said. She'd removed the woman's jacket and was examining the gash to her back. "Looks like the blade just missed the thoracoacromial artery. If there's a first aid kit in any of those cars I'll be able to clean and stitch it and bandage it, but you've lost a lot of blood."
She glanced up at Hick. "We'll have to take her with us."
"I knew you were gonna say that," he groaned. "What d'you suggest? We just ride up to the barricade and ask them to take her off our hands and let us go on our way?"
"Don't be an idiot, Mr. Hickman. You know what they say about sarcasm. No, we'll have to keep her with us until she's strong enough to go her own way. If we can get enough fluids into her, it might be a couple of days, but if the wound gets infected, then it could be a lot longer."
Hick sighed, then took the first aid kit from Donnie, who had a folding spade in his other hand. "I guess we'd better get digging and let Mary Poppins here work on our new friend."
He loped off, looking for a spot where the soil looked diggable. He gazed south in the direction the leader had run, but saw no sign of anything. Hope lay to the north under a pall of smoke that he prayed was only coming from the barricade, and, off to the west, he imagined that the trucks of the convoy were now making their way along the highway to Springs.
He'd intended to go there to regroup, but he felt himself tugged in all three directions. Crawford was an unfinished job, and he hated the idea of the enemy walking the streets of Hope—his streets. But, oh, how he wanted just a couple of days of rest. Not yet, though. For now, he had a grave to dig.
Chapter 14: Occupation
"Name?"
Devon glanced at Jessie before returning his gaze to the man in the black mask. "David Murphy. This is my wife, Jane."
"And you are?" He pointed at the slight figure on the couch.
"Ariana."
"She's our daughter," Devon said.
"Really?"
"She inherited her mother's color," Devon added with what he hoped was a winning smile.
The man looked around the small apartment. "And you live here?"
"We hadn't been planning to stay long in Hope, but I guess we're stuck here now."
Nodding, the guard consulted his clipboard while his colleague stood against the door, hands on his assault rifle. "Do any of you have medical conditions that make you unfit for work?"
"No."
He pulled three credit-card sized pieces of plastic from his pocket, scribbled their names and gave one to each of them. "These are your temporary IDs. Go nowhere without them. They qualify you for rations. Report to the community center at noon for an announcement from the governor."
He turned to go, but Devon couldn't help himself. "What would have happened if any of us wasn't fit to work?"
"Rations are given out strictly based on contribution, except in the case of young children."
"So, if we were an elderly couple?"
The man shrugged. "It might be possible to find a function for some who are unfit for manual labor, but if not, then they would not qualify for rations."
"They'd be left to starve?"
"Mr … Murphy," he said, looking down at the clipboard again, "everyone must contribute as we build a new world. I
f others wish to feed those who cannot feed themselves, then that is their business. But each ration pack requires one unit of work."
The guard at the door added in a thick African accent, "The fit survive, the weak do not. It is the way of things."
Jessie opened her mouth, but saw the look on Devon's face and, for once, relented. He knew what she was thinking. Something about how that might be the way of the jungle, but it certainly isn't civilized.
The man who'd taken their details looked from one to the other again. "Take care. There is much to be gained in this new world by those who are willing to work with us, but for those who oppose us there is only death. Choose your side wisely."
With that, he spun on his heels as his partner opened the door.
Devon breathed out as they left, but only fully relaxed when he heard a knock on the door of his neighbor and knew they couldn't be listening any longer.
"You know, maybe we've got an explanation for those shots we've heard," Jessie said as she flopped onto the sofa.
Devon went over to the window and looked down on the street below. Being on the second floor had always lent the view an odd separation, as if he were watching a webcam feed rather than the world just beneath his feet, and this was only enhanced by the alien nature of what was out there. A Vietnam-era Army truck sat at the intersection as soldiers built a roadblock out of beer barrels they were taking from the bar. A roll of barbed wire lay on its side waiting to be draped across the construction to completely block the north-south highway.
Their tactic was obvious: divide and conquer. He'd given up trying to work out how many troops this new "governor" had at his command, but given that he was able to send them in pairs to every occupied home in Hope suggested at least hundreds, if not a thousand or more. An overwhelming force. But why here of all places? When Crawford had attacked from Ezra, he'd had a couple of hundred fighters, but only a core of trained soldiers. It made sense for someone like him to establish a base in the county city and then extend his area of control from there, but what had happened the previous night was nothing short of an invasion. A blitzkrieg.
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