“That’s between you and him,” the second man said. “I don’t have time to fool with you. We’ve got work to do. Now get the hell out of here before I knock the shit out of you.”
They returned to work, and Hodge stood there fuming at their dismissal of him. These men had probably stolen his liquor for themselves. Either way, they seemed to think it was funny to make a fool out of him like he was nobody. He’d been treated that way before and it ran all over him. He might be a drunk but he had feelings. He slid his hand down to his waistband and removed the pistol he was carrying. He centered it on the back of the man in the checked shirt.
“You fucker,” Hodge spat.
He pulled the trigger, then kept pulling it, waving the barrel from man to man. Bodies fell and it meant nothing to him. Some of the men scrambled away, putting the truck between them and Hodge. He kept shooting what was in front of him until his head jerked violently and everything went dark.
Chapter 38
Wallace County
Baxter was summoned to the private conference room at the Glenwall clubhouse around noon that day. He was greeted by his employers, the Board of Directors of Glenwall. The grocery store magnate was there, as were several coal company executives, and a man who owned a chain of car dealerships. Between these few men, they probably had enough money to buy every single home on the property. They were seated around an expansive burled walnut table and appeared to be in the midst of a discussion when Baxter arrived. He had the distinct feeling that the discussion had been about him. His gut twisted. This felt like a job interview, or perhaps a termination.
He wondered why men with this kind of money would live in a golf course community. The houses were practically on top of each other and the views only consisted of more houses that looked just like their own. Why wouldn’t they buy a remote property or an estate in the country? A lakefront or mountaintop property? These men could have lived anywhere they wanted.
It was clear that living here wasn’t about privacy. It was exactly the opposite. It was about being seen. People lived here so everyone would know how wealthy they were and so they would receive the deference they’d come to expect. Baxter had never liked men like that. In fact, he hated them.
“We’ll get straight to the point,” the grocery man said. “We have a list of concerns that we’d like to discuss with you.” He was a CEO and obviously used to conducting business at meetings.
There was a chorus of nods around the table.
“What kind of concerns?” Baxter asked. These men owned him now, and they had questions. He better have some answers. He could always tell them to go to hell and walk out. Where would he be then? He would have to be careful. He may even have to grovel.
“First, what kind of shit happened at the front gate yesterday?” asked the car dealer. “I’m hearing all kinds of stories. My wife—hell, all the wives—are demanding answers.”
Baxter sighed. “Can I have a seat?”
“No, dammit,” the car man replied. “You can stay where you are. I want to know what happened.”
Baxter clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m not a hundred percent sure. I was not here on-site when it happened. I was out securing resources for the benefit of the community.”
“Are you going to answer the question or not?” the grocery man asked. “What happened at the gate?”
“I’m getting to that,” Baxter said. “You all know that this place only had a single guard on duty each night before I came along. We had no choice but to recruit people to come in and assist with security. I had no way of doing background checks on them. It’s not like we have a human resource department or any way to check references. I had one man who had been a security guard at the community college. I was able to confirm that. He knew a lot about emergency preparedness, and seemed like a good resource.”
“I know about that one,” the car dealer said. “My daughter said she’d heard about him before. Said he was always hassling the students at the college and behaving inappropriately.”
Baxter shrugged. “How could I have known that? We needed bodies and he was a body.”
The car dealer sat back in his chair, his mouth stretched tight, and didn’t respond. He didn’t approve of Baxter’s response.
“Anyway, I think the guy was nuts or something. I’m still not sure how he did it. He rigged some kind of explosive and baited some protestors to a cooler. They thought it was food. When they surrounded it, he detonated the explosive with a rifle.”
“Good Lord,” the grocery man said. “How could someone do that? They were just hungry people!”
“I don’t know,” Baxter said. “Like I told you, I think he’s nuts.”
“That would be fucking obvious,” the car dealer replied. “Where is this sick bastard now?”
“I guess, for lack of a better word, you could say I banished him.”
“Banished?” the grocery guy asked, his voice tinged with sarcasm. “That’s how you handle something like that?”
“What the hell was I supposed to do?” Baxter said, his voice rising. “You want him executed on the 9th hole? You want your families to see that? You want him hanging dead from a light pole? How would your wives respond to that?”
The car dealer cleared his throat. “Look—”
“Look at what!” Baxter erupted. “You think we can call the cops? You think they can put him in jail? We can’t do that anymore. I knew he needed to leave and I sent him away. It was a judgment call.”
The car dealer looked at him and fumed. He was not used to being talked to in such a manner.
The grocery man reviewed a yellow legal pad. “Let’s move on,” he said. “You tell us he’s gone and we’ll have to leave it at that for now. Onto last night. That breach was unacceptable. You gave us assurances that you had things under control. We took you at your word. I want to hear your plan for how you’re going to keep our families safe or we’re going to look at bringing in another security team. Some of us have connections in that department and have already made inquiries. We could have a new team here tomorrow.”
Silent up to this point, one of the coal men, Lester Hurt, nodded, and Baxter assumed him to be the one who had made inquiries. The coal business could be rough and these men were of a different cut than the grocery guy and the car dealer. They could be trouble for him.
Baxter couldn’t have another team come in yet. There was no way he’d be able to pull off his plan of siphoning off resources if his authority was subordinate to another group. The residents here would not need him at all if they brought in another security director, and he’d find himself out on the street with nothing.
“My people have assessed the situation and determined that the security situation in the town has deteriorated quicker than expected,” Baxter said. “We suspected this might happen. This community was built with a six-foot tall fence around it that was designed to provide privacy, not security. I have men out now procuring the supplies to add barbed wire to the wall. We should have it ready in a day or two. There’s a lot of fence and not a lot of manpower for doing such things. We can secure the perimeter with a little work.”
“Are you sure you have enough men?” the car dealer asked. “Maybe we should look at adding additional forces.”
“I’m working on getting more,” Baxter lied. “We are trying to check these guys out a little more thoroughly. I don’t want to bring in another guy like that college security guard. I don’t want to have any more incidents like that.”
“None of us do,” the grocery man agreed. “I expect to see a significant change quickly. We cannot fuck around with this. This is the safety of our families.”
“Give me a few days,” Baxter said. “You’ll see a change.” The truth was, in a few days Baxter and his men would be gone. The residents here would definitely see a significant change, for the worse. They would lose their resources and their security.
One of the coal men leaned forward in his chair and rested
his arms on the table. “Look, we don’t want to be pointing fingers so I’ll throw it out there. Some folks are saying that supplies are moving out of here. Those supplies belong to our community. We paid for them. The people around this table paid for them. I want to know if there’s any truth to that.”
To emphasize the seriousness of his point, he pulled a Glock from below the table and laid it in front of him, focusing his hard gaze on Baxter.
Lester cleared his throat and held up a handheld radio. “To be honest with you, Baxter, I’m pretty damned concerned about this. We dealt with a lot of theft in the mining business and I can’t stand a thief. I’ve got a team available on the other end of this radio. If I’m not satisfied with your explanation, all I have to do is put in a call and you’re out of here. We’ll have a new security director by the end of the day and you’ll be out there eating grubs and twigs.”
Baxter’s mind raced, yet he maintained his cool. The wrong answer, the wrong reaction, and he wouldn’t be walking out of his room. He’d convinced himself that he was operating under the radar, but these were men who’d risen through the ranks by paying attention to details. He’d not been fooling anyone.
“I’ve had a project going,” he finally said. “It’s top secret. I didn’t want any word of it getting out. I think you’ll agree it’s a worthwhile effort.”
“Will this address our concerns about the missing supplies?” the grocery man asked.
“Without a doubt,” Baxter said. “I need you all to take a short drive with me.”
The board members at the table looked at each other.
“This some kind of bullshit?” one of the mining execs asked. “We don’t have time for bullshit.”
“No sir,” Baxter replied. “In fact, I’ve invested significant time into a fallback plan. I think you’ll be pleased. Give me thirty minutes to get the work crews here squared away and meet me at the maintenance building.”
Chapter 39
Wallace County
Baxter stormed into the house that Valentine was staying in with several of the other men. “Valentine!” he yelled. “Valentine!” There was no response and he went room-to-room continuing to call. He went into the kitchen, turned the corner, and was startled to nearly run into him.
“What the hell?” Baxter asked. “Why didn’t you answer me?”
“I was in the basement packing my shit,” Valentine replied. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be doing since I’m being exiled?”
“There’s been a change of plans.”
Valentine raised an eyebrow.
“The founding fathers here at the golf course are accusing me of stealing from them,” Baxter said.
“You are,” Valentine replied.
“Dammit, I know that,” Baxter said. “I don’t want them to know that, though.”
“What are you going to do?”
“They put me on the spot. I kind of pulled a story out of my ass,” Baxter said. “I made up something about being concerned that we might be overrun and wanting to have a fallback position in case it happened.”
“That’s not far from the truth,” Valentine said. “Except that you don’t plan on taking them along.”
“Right. That’s another thing that they don’t need to know,” Baxter said.
“How is this my problem?” Valentine asked sarcastically.
“It’s your problem because you’re still here!” Baxter snapped. “As long as you choose to stick around and share in the rewards of our project, you can expect that you may have to share part of the burden.”
Valentine stared flatly at him.
“I have to take them to Russell County and show them the fallback location,” Baxter said. “And you can’t be there since I told them that I sent you packing.”
“I thought I was supposed to head over there today?”
“You are. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m transporting the Board of Directors in the Humvees. After we leave, I want you guys to hook a semi to a cattle trailer and bring it over. That will further add to the impression that we’re using the Russell County location as a place to gather resources for the benefit of Glenwall. You can pack any shit you need to take into the cattle trailer under some tarps. I want you hid in the sleeper of that truck and I don’t want you showing your face until those board members are gone. Got it?”
Valentine shrugged. “Do I have a choice?”
“No.”
“Then I guess I better get packing and get my shit loaded,” Valentine said.
Baxter started down the hall. “You’ve got twenty minutes. You better get cracking,” he called back over his shoulder.
When the front door slammed Valentine stood in the kitchen and thought about the recent events in his life. He didn’t like Baxter. It wasn’t him in particular. It was more what he represented. Valentine thought of himself as a capable man and a hard worker. All of his career he’d worked for men like Baxter. He’d had to kiss their ass and laugh at their stupid jokes. He had to do the work while they got the credit. All that time, he knew that they were phonies. He knew that many of them could not do the things he did.
He was willing to play along to a point. For now, the smart move was to do what Baxter said. Valentine was sure he could survive on his own out there but this place had resources and staying with those resources was the smart play. He would continue running that play until a better one came along. He had a little loyalty to Baxter for keeping him around against the wishes of the board, very little. He knew Baxter only kept him around because he needed men like him. He needed someone to do the work that had to be done if things turned ugly.
Baxter certainly couldn’t do those things. He wasn’t only a phony, he was a coward. He could rant and yell, put on a good show, though that only worked on people who respected his title, his position. Baxter’s position was meaningless now. It was as clear to Valentine as the nose on his face. He wondered if the others could see it as plainly.
Chapter 40
The Valley
There was no better way to describe the societal structure of the valley at this point than to say that tribes had developed among the residents. The word had come up at various times and the accuracy of it became clearer every day. The folks associated with Jim had formed one tribe. They had come to realize that food resources were used more efficiently when they cooked as a group, so they’d all taken to eating at Jim’s house with various members of the group contributing to each meal both in the form of labor and ingredients.
The Wimmers, who were more numerous than cedar trees in the valley, had formed a tribal group, taking their meals together. The Birds had aligned themselves with families closer to their end of the valley. It was not a divisive move. All of the tribes worked together and communicated with each other, but it was as if families now extended themselves beyond their blood borders. They expanded to include those who circled around them.
As a tribe or family group, Jim’s people had developed a protocol of making sure someone at Jim’s home knew if they were going to be out of touch for some reason. Whether they were hunting, gathering food, or going to visit someone, they left a message at Jim’s house. Ellen had put an old cork board on the porch for that very reason. If no one was home, a message could be tacked onto the board letting the others know of their plans.
As Buddy, Lloyd, and Randi rode past Jim’s house on their way out of the valley, they stopped to leave a note. Randi grabbed a blank Rolodex card from the stack by the cork board and scribbled a quick note that the three of them were going to check on her brother and would be back that night.
“Where are you going?” someone asked from the dark interior of the house.
It was Ariel, watching through the window screen as Randi wrote her note.
“You startled me,” Randi said, and heard a giggle of satisfaction.
“Where are you going?” Ariel repeated.
“Nunya,” Randi said.
“Where’s that?”
“Nunya business,” Randi said.
“Does Daddy know you’re leaving?”
“Your daddy is not the boss of me,” Randi said.
“He’s not the boss of me either,” Ariel said. “I’m the boss of him.”
Randi finished her note and stuck it to the board. “I’ll see you later, Ariel. When I get back, we need to talk. I have a project you may be interested in. It’s kind of an art project.”
“A project?” Ariel asked. “I would love a project. Tell me now!”
“I can’t,” Randi said. “I have to go. We’ll talk later.”
“Okay,” Ariel agreed glumly.
“Bye now,” Randi said.
“Bye,” Ariel said. “Bye, Buddy.”
“Bye, sweetie,” Buddy replied.
“Bye, Ariel,” Lloyd said.
“Yeah right,” Ariel replied, raising laughter in both Randi and Buddy.
They rode down the driveway and turned left toward the Rockdell Farms end of the valley. Knowing that their valley was mostly safe, they remained on the road as they passed Randi’s house and the Weatherman house. As they passed Gary’s house, Randi saw with some satisfaction that Charlotte was in the yard with her mother and sisters, watching her children play on the old swing set. She even raised her hand and waved at Randi.
“Think she was waving at me?” Lloyd asked.
Buddy and Randi both responded with laughter.
“I get no respect,” Lloyd mumbled.
Beyond those houses, their plan was to cut across a pasture owned by Rockdell Farms, then across Route 80. They were still on the road, lost in the beauty of the day, when the eruption of gunfire startled them. The horses flinched and they reigned them in.
Buddy looked around them for a place to take cover but they were surrounded by open, treeless pasture. This particular section of road was fenced right up to the shoulder with no gates in sight.
The Borrowed World (Book 4): No Time For Mourning Page 17