Fifty Falling Stars

by Wesley Higginbotham

  Kirk heard a scuffle behind him and turned to see the deputy from the night before, the one who knew the young woman, kick Hunter behind the knees, forcing the man to kneel. The deputy had been part of Hunter’s guards for the trial. He put the barrel of his shotgun to the back of Hunter’s head. “Just say the word.” He growled.

  “No!” Kirk barked. “He’s not worth the bullet.” Kirk noticed the sheriff, the mayor, and the rest of council yelling at each other, trying to figure out what was going on. Kirk knew he didn’t have long to carry out his sentence before the council reorganized enough to stop him. Hunter looked back toward the deputy who had lowered his gun at Kirk’s command. Neither the prisoner nor the council saw Kirk slip the hatchet tied to his right side out of its restraint. Hunter turned back toward the gasping crowd just in time to see the blur of the hatched head streak toward his face. As he opened his mouth to scream, the outer tip of the blade sliced through the bridge of his nose, cut through his right eye socket, and exited his skull just behind his ear. The blow sent Hunter falling over backward. His legs kicked for a few seconds as his brain sent garbled messages to his unresponsive body. Blood pooled around the man’s head by the time that his legs stopped twitching.

  Kirk stared at the council, who were now quiet. The Methodist minister threw up. Mayor Clemens and Garry looked at him in utter shock. The sheriff stared hatred at Kirk, his face so red with anger that Kirk wondered if the old man might have a stroke. Kirk slipped his hatchet back into its loop. The crowd had mixed reactions. Women shrieked and men yelled. About half of the crowd looked on in shock. The rest cheered. Kirk thought it was as much approval as he needed. He walked away from the courthouse before anyone had recovered enough to speak. The crowd parted for him as he climbed down the steps.

  As Kirk neared the end of the crowd, Will joined him. The two men walked off in silence. Will finally asked. “So, where we headed?”

  Kirk didn’t look at him. He kept walking, eyes forward. “Lunch.”

  Chapter 31

  Kirk and Will sat alone, eating their lunch in the cafeteria. The rest of the town had taken the better part of an hour to filter back to their jobs. The lunch crew had arrived and began dishing out food. Will and Kirk had been the first in line. When the majority of the other people had filtered in to grab their rations, they had stayed clear of Kirk’s table. He didn’t know if it was out of respect or fear. He hoped it was the former. The two men hadn’t seen anyone from the sheriff’s office or the town council yet. Kirk was expecting that they would try to hold him accountable for the execution at some point. He just didn’t know when. He didn’t know what he would do when they confronted him, but he figured that it couldn’t be too bad. Maybe they’d exile him. He smiled.

  As if summoned by the thought, the sheriff, the mayor, and the Methodist priest opened the door and walked into the cafeteria. They spotted Kirk and Will and marched over to their table. “We need to talk about what just happened out there!” The sheriff said. “We’ve come to take you back to the courthouse for an emergency town council meeting.”

  “To do what exactly?” Kirk asked.

  “We haven’t decided what to do with you yet. The mayor here seems to think that we should try you for murder. I’ve been trying to explain the loose legality of what you did. They weren’t familiar with the UCMJ and its role between commanders and troops in times of war or martial law. I’m not entirely sure that everything you said wasn’t complete bullshit. That’s why we haven’t arrested you yet. While I don’t approve of what you did, and I certainly don’t want to defend you; I think we all need to sit down and discuss the rule of law in this town, how the martial law effected it, and clear up just who is charge of who and what.”

  Out of all the people in town, he had expected Terrance to be the first to jump on him for this. The fact that he was defending him planted a small seed of doubt in Kirk’s mind. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as Kirk thought he was. No, that had never been the problem. Kirk thought the sheriff was a good man. He just didn’t think he was handling things right. “Well, I guess we’d bet….” The radio at Kirk’s side sounded to life.

  “Eyes West to command post. Come in, over.” Jimmy’s voice cut Kirk off from the concealed lookout post on the top of the mountain seven miles west of town. Jimmy and Clay had gone out this morning to relieve the team stationed there.

  Kirk, glad of the interruption grabbed the radio and transmitted before the command post at the sheriff’s office could. “Eyes West, this is Scout One. Report.” The mayor shot daggers at Kirk for interrupting their conversation.

  “I have movement on the road. Three motorcycles carrying six men are headed toward the west gate.” There was a pause. Kirk was about to transmit again when Jimmy’s voice came back on. “They are armed and have strips of cloth tied to their upper arms.”

  “Roger, Eyes West. Hold position and observe.” Kirk said as he stood up. He faced the sheriff. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but we’re going to have to do this another time.”

  “Like hell we will!” The mayor said.

  Kirk ignored him. “Terrance, call in your guard leaders. We need an emergency meeting right now.”

  “Now, look, if there’s…”

  Kirk cut him off. “The last time I saw men on motorcycles with armbands was in Owensboro.”

  The sheriff trailed off. “You don’t think it’s the same group do you?”

  “I’m not taking any chances. If they are, those men are probably scouts looking for a place to raid next.” Kirk paused and turned back to Will. “We still have two guys patrolling up north, don’t we?”

  “Yeah.” Will said. The mayor and the Methodist minister looked at each other in confusion. The sheriff looked worried.

  Kirk pressed the transmit button on his radio again. “Scout Four, report location.”

  Seconds dragged by before a response came back. “Scout Four reporting approximately three miles east by northeast of Eyes West.”

  “You heard Eyes West’s report?” Kirk asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Rendezvous with Eyes West and prep the bush for return trip.” Kirk said.

  “Roger. Moving out.”

  “What the hell is all of this?” Mayor Clemens demanded.

  The sheriff grinned and turned to explain. “Mr. Chandler here is assuming that once the bikers hit the west gate, they’ll turn around and travel back the same way to report back to their findings. I think he just set up an ambush to them on their way back.”

  “Terrance, I need you to get back to the command post and make sure that Eyes West is notified when the bikers leave the gate.” Kirk said.

  To everyone’s surprise, the sheriff accepted the orders and left the cafeteria. “What are we going to do?” Will asked.

  “We’re going to the gate to get a good look at these guys if we can.” Kirk said.

  Clay leaned back on a tree next to the roadside as Jimmy lay prone, half concealed in a clump of bushes some ten yards from the roadside. They had made contact with Scout Four who held similar positions across the road. The plan sounded simple. Since Jimmy was the better shot, he would begin shooting at the bikers with the rifle when they got fifty yards out. Clay would pop out when they got within twenty yards and spray them with the shotgun. Scout Four would do the same. As long as the bikes weren’t too spread out and they maintained the element of surprise, they should be able to take the bikers out without much risk. Clay still didn’t like the odds, but he trusted Kirk.

  The soft crackle came over the radio. “West Gate reports that the envoy has just left along return route.” The ambushers tensed. All of them except for Cory in Scout Four had been forced to kill people since the collapse. They wouldn’t freeze. Cory was still an unknown.

  Clay took slow, deep breaths to calm himself. He heard the loud motors of the Harley-Davidson style motorcycles as they approached. He looked down to Jimmy. If he was as nervous as Clay, he didn’t show it. The sounds of the bikes grew
louder. Jimmy’s gun roared. Clay heard the sound of screeching tires as he spun around the tree and into position. The bikes had been moving fast. He saw the one Jimmy had hit sliding along the pavement, its occupants rolling down the road. Clay heard fire from across the road. One of the bikes swerved away from Scout Four and began heading toward him. The driver saw him an instant too late. He tried to swerve back again, but this only served to give Clay their broadside as his shotgun fired. The buckshot tore into the two unfortunate men, opening fatal wounds all along their body. They lost control of the bike and rolled to a stop a few feet from where Clay stood.

  Cory shot twice, but the remaining bike had sped up rather than slowed down. It had flown past the ambush too fast to get a good shot. Clay raised his gun and fired at the retreating men. He thought he saw the man on the back move like he had been hit, but he didn’t fall. Clay watched the bike speed down the road with a mixture of anger and relief. A gunshot from behind him broke his concentration. Bark from the tree next to him sprayed through the air. As he ducked and turned, he saw one of the men from the first bike had recovered. The man staggered in the middle of the road, pistol in his right hand. As Clay raised his shotgun, he heard a shot from behind him. The man in the road fell like a puppet with its strings cut. Clay glanced back and nodded to Jimmy.

  The ambushers approached the remains of the bikers, wary that they may still be alive. One was. He had been on the first bike to go down. Clay examined the man and removed a small revolver from his waistband while Cory covered him. The man seemed to have a busted left knee and a little road rash, but otherwise looked very much alive. Clay stood up, walked over to Jimmy, and collected the radio. “Command Post, Eyes West and Scout Four report four down, three dead and one prisoner. Two escaped.”

  “Roger, Eyes West. Truck is on its way.”

  Ten minutes later, several of the sheriff’s deputies pulled up in a pickup truck. They loaded the prisoner and one of the bikes into the bed of the truck. Clay had punctured the gas tank on the one he had shot. He counted himself lucky that the damned thing didn’t explode and unlucky that his shot had wasted the gas. Cory rode the remaining bike back into the town, following the truck. Clay and Jimmy climbed back up to the top of the mountain and reclaimed their watch.

  Kirk walked into the courthouse where the deputies had brought the prisoner and placed in him in one of the old holding cells. He and Will approached the deputies, Cory, the sheriff, the mayor, and others of the town council who were waiting outside of the room. “He’s in there?” Kirk asked.

  “Yes.” Terrance answered.

  “He said anything yet?” Kirk asked.

  “Nothing so far.”

  “I wish we had gotten the other guys too. I think we have to assume that the ones that made it past the ambush have, or are heading back, to report on our town.” Kirk said.

  “If they are reporting to anyone.” The mayor chimed in.

  “I don’t think it matters if they get back or not.” The sheriff said. “We found a radio on one of the bikes. If they were sending a message back to someone, they probably sent it before they started heading back.”

  “Mr. Pae heard anything on the radios?” Kirk asked.

  “Nothing so far. They were using a different channel than us.”

  “Well, I better get to work.” Kirk said.

  “We’re not letting you in there. Nurse Baker and Doctor Williams are tending to his wounds right now.”

  Kirk looked around at the uncomfortable faces of the town council. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me? What are you guys planning to do, give him a goddamned cupcake and a glass of milk? We need to get him talking, yesterday.”

  “We want to ask you some questions first.” The mayor said. “Let’s start with why you ordered your men to attack six total strangers who were just riding down the road? They didn’t do anything to us. From what the Sheriff has told us, they just pulled up to the gate and turned around. What gives you the right to go killing random strangers just because they approach the town? We’re not that kind of people…”

  “Cover me Cory.” Kirk said. He walked up to the guard on the door and punched him in the gut, dropping the man to his knees. Before the others could recover, Kirk opened the door and stepped into the room, locking the door. Cory and Will were confused, but they followed Kirk’s orders and stepped in front of the door.

  Kirk startled Jenny and Doctor Williams when he burst in. The doctor was bent over, treating the cuts and scrapes on the man’s leg. “That’ll be enough for now, doc.” Kirk said to the man.

  “But we’re not done here.” Doctor Williams said as he pushed his silver rimmed glasses back up on his nose.

  “That’s ok, doc. If this shitbag doesn’t answer my questions, I’ll make sure to take the pain away.”

  “You can’t expect us to sit here and let you harm him?” Doctor Williams said.

  “Given that we’re locked in here now and I have two guards stationed outside the door to make sure that we aren’t disturbed, that’s exactly what I expect. I know this won’t be easy for you to watch, so why don’t you two go sit over in the corner and try to ignore what I’m about to do.” Kirk said as he reached into the front section of his cargo pants and pulled out a pair of channel lock pliers.

  The Doctor started to speak again, but Kirk silenced him by pointing for him to go to the corner. Jenny had been around Kirk enough to know when he was serious. She went to the corner but turned to face Kirk and the prisoner. The Doctor followed her.

  Kirk pulled out some of his last five-fifty cord and replaced his pliers. The prisoner sat in a wooden chair up against the wall. As Kirk approached the man, he lunged at Kirk. Kirk stepped back, shifted his weight, and kicked the man’s busted knee. The prisoner fell to the floor screaming in pain. Kirk grabbed the back of the man’s shirt, pulled him up, and slung the man back into the chair. The prisoner tried to rise again and strike Kirk. Kirk slammed his fist into the man’s nose with a satisfying crack as the man’s nose broke. Kirk punched him in the solar plexus, stunning the man. Kirk wasted no time wrapping the cord around the man’s neck. He made several loops before running the cord under the chair and around the man’s kicking legs, securing them to the chair legs. Kirk ignored the weak strikes the man landed as he flailed his arms about. Kirk tied off the cord and removed another. He went behind the man and grabbed his right arm. He pulled it back and twisted. The man screamed as Kirk came close to dislocating the man’s shoulder. He tied the man’s wrist to the back of the chair and made a few loops around the man’s torso to keep him from thrashing about.

  Now that he had the man loosely tied down, Kirk made a second set of ties around the man’s legs, torso, and free arm, making the knots painfully tight and secure. The doctor turned his head away, sickened by the treatment of the man. When Kirk was satisfied that the prisoner was secure, he pulled his pliers back out and held them up for the man to see. “Listen good, you degenerate fuck. You and I are going to play a little game. I’m going to ask you a question. If you don’t give me the right answer, I’m going to take these,” he wiggled the pliers, “and I’m going to pull off your fingers, one knuckle at a time. When we run out of knuckles on this hand, we’re going to move to the other. If you make it through that, we move to the toes. If you make it past that,” Kirk smiled, “well, let’s just say that you’ll wish that your dad had pulled out of whatever whore gave birth to you. You got it?”

  The prisoner spat in Kirk’s face, blood from his ruined nose sprayed the room. “Wrong answer, asshole.” The last knuckle of the man’s pinky crunched as Kirk squeezed the pliers. The prisoner screamed. Kirk twisted the pliers and yanked, pulling off the last section off the finger. The prisoner screamed again, this time in a higher octave. Jenny and the doctor turned to the corner to escape the whimpering sound the man made as Kirk prepared to ask his next question. Jenny felt a tear slide down her cheek.

  “Ok.” Kirk said. “Now that we’ve had trial run, le
t’s start with something simple. What’s your name?”

  “Open the damn door!” The sheriff shouted. He looked to his deputies. “Get that door open! Now!” The two deputies on scene stepped forward. Will caught them in a stare that said he wasn’t about to move. The deputies hesitated. They had agreed with what Kirk did with Hunter. They had seen how hard the scouts had trained and respected and feared them.

  The sheriff was beginning another shout when he heard someone running down the hall. Sherry ran up to them and hysterically asked. “Oh my God! What’s going on?”

  “Why are you here, Sherry?” Will asked.

  “I ran into the messenger that came to get the doctor. He said someone had been hurt out at the scout lookout west of town. My son was out there. Is it him? Is he ok? Why didn’t you bring him to the hospital? Why…”

  “It’s not your son, Mrs. Chandler.” The sheriff said. “Your son and a few other scouts staged an ambush and captured a prisoner.”

  Relief washed over Sherry. She saw Will standing guard by the door. “Where’s Kirk?”

  “He just went inside to question the prisoner.” Will said.

  “I still don’t get it.” The mayor said. “Why is Kirk so crazy about this? I don’t know him very well, but he seems to be scared of these guys.”

  “Kirk, scared?” Sherry almost laughed.

  “I don’t know who these guys are, but if he’s not scared, why did he order his scouts to ambush strangers on the road? We can’t just go around killing people just because they come up to our town. If we did that, you nor Kirk would be here.” The mayor stated.

  “I don’t know.” Sherry said. “I trust Kirk. He can be a little intense, but I know he’s doing what he thinks is best for the community.”