“We supposed to kill them all?” Ray asked.
“If that’s what it takes,” Mitchell said. “Somebody sent these people thinking we wouldn’t. We’ve got to show ’em, or Carl’s right, this is what it’s gonna be from now on.”
A shot rang out deep in the corn, then a volley of return fire.
“How many you got in there?” Ray asked.
Mitchell pointed north to a truck on the side of the road. “Six up there to flush them out. Two went in from this side.”
More shots. “You and Carl better give ’em a hand.”
Ray slid through the cut fence and jogged past the dead woman. Stepping into the corn, Ray felt immediately uneasy. The eight foot corn stalks blocked his view and left him disoriented. He moved ahead, Carl staying with him a row to his right. Sporadic shooting continued deeper in. Ray crept slowly toward the sound, bending, angling, trying to see more than a few feet ahead.
More shooting. Bullets clipped leaves beside him. Feet pounded the ground. Ray cut left and was knocked off his feet in a collision with runners. Rapid fire erupted from behind him. Ray crouched and searched for Carl. A bullet cut the stalk beside him. He dropped and rolled two rows left. More bullets whizzed over his head. He fired back then scrambled to the edge of the field and dropped to the ground. The shooting stopped.
Ray stood and stepped from the corn, a hundred feet from where he’d entered. Mitchell and Carl had taken positions behind a SUV. Another man lay prone at the edge of the road to their left. He spun and fired as Ray dove back into the corn and Carl shouted at the man to hold up.
Ray crawled a few rows closer. Mitchell yelled the all clear. Ray gave it a few seconds then emerged with his rifle raised and ready. Mitchell nodded and spoke into a walkie-talkie. The others stared into the corn. Ray covered the distance between them, counting eight bodies. He strode to the man who’d shot at him.
“Sorry,” The man was thirties and a bit flabby and also scared. He took a step back. “I saw the rifle . . .”
Ray got in the man’s face. “You better learn who’s on your team . . . before someone takes offense.”
Mitchell stepped beside him. “Ray, ease off. No harm done. Eddy said he’s sorry.”
“I’m not fond of being shot at.” Ray stared at Eddy. “I usually try and kill the people who do it.”
Two men carried one of their own to a truck. Ray was sure from the head wound the man was dead. Two injured men were helped into the vehicle with him. Three others dragged bodies from the corn, lining up nineteen dead on the grass, the trucks blocking the scene from the road. Ray stared at the bullet riddled bodies—three men, seven teenage boys, five women, four girls.
The injuries to the farmers testified that some of the dead were armed. “Where’s their guns?” Ray asked. “They’ll come in handy.”
“Handguns,” Carl snorted. “And only a few rounds left at that.”
Mitchell looked over the bodies to Carl. “You might want to put ’em in their truck and get rid of it. You sure don’t want them left on your land.”
Carl nodded. Ray peeled away and strolled toward his bike.
“Where you going?” Mitchell asked.
“Home. You don’t need me here.” He started the Honda, swung a wide arc and stopped on the opposite side of the intersection. He focused on four paper bags stuffed with corn sitting in the shade at the edge of the field.
Mitchell walked over, saw the bags, and called to two other men. He pointed into the field.
“Not ours,” Eddy said.
Mitchell stared into the swaying corn. “Two, three of them, running for all they’re worth. Jimmy, you and Ray head down half a mile. Cut in and find them.”
It took twenty minutes to root out a tall, skinny woman in loose jeans, and her daughter, a preteen copy. Ray and Jimmy checked the women for weapons, then walked them to the road and on to where the men had parked.
“Where you from?” Ray asked.
Neither answered.
“Gonna have a hard time getting you home, you don’t tell me where that is.”
“Mitchell wants them,” Jimmy said.
Ray shrugged. “What’s it going to be? You two jump on that motorcycle and I take you home, or you go with Jimmy to meet the boss man.”
The girl took a step toward the bike. The mother followed.
“Mitchell’s not going to like this.”
“He knows where to find me.”
Ray bungeed his rifle to the frame, ran his chain through the trigger guard and locked it. He stepped into his seat, and his passengers climbed on behind, daughter first, mother to the rear. Ray eased onto the road. In the mirror, Jimmy headed back to Mitchell.
Ray took the first turn south, toward Cedar Rapids, the next east, then south again. He stopped on an empty stretch of road in sight of the city limits.
“Unless you want to walk, you need to tell me where to drop you?”
“Noelridge Park,” the woman said. “We can get home from there.”
Ray revved the engine and headed into town. Turning west onto Blairs Ferry, he stopped at the store where he’d bought sandwiches. He ushered his riders inside and noticed now a man on a corner perch holding an assault rifle that protruded through a slot in a slab of protective glass. Ray paid for three sandwiches, then led the way outside to a shaded concrete half-wall. He rolled the bike over and passed around a canteen he extracted from a home fashioned saddlebag.
“I’m Ray,” he said.
The woman was Caitlin, her eleven-year-old daughter, Brittany. Ray took a seat on the wall next to Caitlin. “What’s going on in town?”
“We’re starving. The whole city is.”
“I don’t see a lot of people out.”
“Got to know where to look. Everyone turns up for soup. Once a day at dinner.” Caitlin lowered her eyes. “It’s all we have. Seems less each week.”
Ray glanced to the store, but he knew the answer.
“You’ve got money. When it runs out, you’ll be no better off than us.”
Brittany finished her sandwich. Ray handed her half of his. “You need to share that with your mother.”
Caitlin nudged Brittany. “Thank you, Ray.”
“The people out there your neighbors?”
Caitlin nodded.
“You’ve done this before?”
She nodded again.
“What I’ve seen, folks are hunkering down to protect what they have. I wouldn’t expect easy pickin’s.”
“We were farther out the other times. No one seemed to care.”
“Should have gone back.”
“No money, no gas. We all chipped in change for a chance at the corn.”
“They’re all dead,” Ray said.
Caitlin nodded.
A car with four young men slowed as it passed, then turned at the side street. Caitlin and Brittany slid behind the wall. Ray retrieved the AR-15. The car swerved into the lot and headed toward him. He vaulted the wall and sighted on the driver. The vehicle veered right and accelerated onto the street.
Ray stood and watched it go. Caitlin slipped her arm around his waist. “It’s not safe on the streets. The cops won’t come. Everybody knows it.”
Ray felt her arm, saw her fingers tucked into his belt inches from the Beretta. He dropped a hand to hers. “Why’d you leave your friends and go to the other side of the road?”
“They didn’t have the signs with the guns over there.”
* * *
Ray pulled into the driveway of Caitlin’s bungalow, half a mile from the park. She opened the door to a single car garage, and he wheeled in the bike, chaining it to the Sentra parked there through its door pillars.
“I have to tell a few people what happened,” Caitlin said. “They need to know.”
“I’d rather not go with you.” Ray turned and unlocked the bike. “It would be better for me if you weren’t specific about where you were.
”
She took his hand. “We can go in first. I can put it off for a while. But not too long.”
They entered the kitchen through the side door. The room was clean, well ordered, nothing left idly on the table or counters. Brittany placed the extra sandwiches Ray bought in an empty cabinet.
Caitlin offered water, then lifted a part bottle of Bourbon from a high shelf. “No ice. Power’s off. At least we still have water.”
Ray accepted the water and Catlin sat him on a low-back fabric couch in the living room. She herded Brittany down the hall to her room. He heard water running, then Caitlin reappeared in T-top and panties, her straw blond hair damp and curling to her shoulders. She was stick thin but not wasted. Blue-eyed with a pert nose and a disarming smile. She dropped onto the couch and snuggled against him.
He draped her with an arm, comfortable with the unexpected pleasure. He had not set out to take advantage of her. He had driven them home because Mitchell would have killed her if he hadn’t. He bought them food because they were hungry and scared. He couldn’t save Caitlin and Brittany. He knew that. But he could make things a little better for an afternoon.
“Why did they do it?” Caitlin asked.
“Those men are scared of what’s coming. They’re trying to keep food on their table. They panicked and overreacted. There’s plain little to stop anyone, and that can bring out the worst.”
“Do you have a farm?”
Ray laughed. “No. I’ve got about what you see.”
She looked up at him, puzzled. “I saw you ride up, talk to the man who shot Olivia.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry to admit it, but I’ve met them.”
“You’re not afraid. So you’re not their hired help.”
“I’m staying at a farm. I don’t live there, don’t work there. It’s a complicated arrangement.”
“But you help those people.”
“I got a call, said they were in trouble. I went to have a look. They won’t get me out like that twice.”
“They’ll let you walk away?”
“Like you said. They don’t scare me.”
“I don’t understand you.” Caitlin slapped Ray’s hard stomach. “You have plenty to eat and money in your pocket. And you don’t care what the people around you think.”
“It’s the freedom that comes with having no roots. You can look at me as a modern cowboy.”
“You have no family?”
“Not the way you mean it.”
Caitlin smiled. “I like cowboys.”
She ran a hand across his jeans and smiled at his instant response. She kissed him, tasting of fresh mint. Her hair smelled of faint citrus. He ran a hand under her shirt and massaged a firm nipple. She unhooked his belt and released the top button. He kissed her long and hard, then slid his hand between her legs and let it linger in her dampness. He considered Brittany, just down the hall. He stood and pulled Caitlin to him.
As she guided him toward her bedroom, a figure flashed past the gap in the curtains. Caitlin shook her head and prodded Ray on. A second later, pounding at the kitchen door.
“Kate! Kate! Are you there?”
More pounding and Brittany’s door opened.
Caitlin slipped behind Ray then into her bedroom, leaving him in the hall. “Would you let Tracy in? I’ll be right there.”
Ray started for the door then stepped aside as Brittany came up behind him, and he realized she was who Caitlin had spoken to. He hitched up his pants and followed. The pounding continued until Brittany opened the door.
“Where’s your mother?” Tracy screamed.
Caitlin appeared, barefoot, but now in shorts.
“Warren said you were all killed!”
Ray looked to Caitlin. “We got separated from the group. We heard the shooting and ran. Who else came back?”
“No one. He says they’re all dead.” Tracy began to cry and Caitlin hugged her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Ray,” she nodded to him, “Brought us home only a little while ago. I wasn’t sure what to say. I was afraid for the worst. I hoped I was wrong.”
“Was he with you?”
“I found Caitlin and Brittany on the road,” Ray said.
“How did Warren get away?” Caitlin asked.
“Same as you, it sounds like.”
Chapter 47
Ray put the key in the ignition, guilt mixed with longing. Caitlin swung her legs over his and kissed him long and hard, facing him on the Honda. Another day, another time, he would have carried her inside. But today he didn’t. Perhaps not possessing quite the freedom he made out.
They remained intertwined a few minutes. Then Ray helped Caitlin off the bike. She kissed him again as he kicked the bike into gear. He idled into the street, reconsidering his choices, then slowly powered away. He felt guilt that he liked her, then smiled. What he liked was that she grew prettier by the minute and was there for the taking. He knew little else about her except she believed him when he said he would be back, and she wasn’t hurt when he left her ten dollars for food. She was in trouble, he knew that, too, and that he would soon be gone, and she would then hate him.
He turned into the farm, worked the gate, then rode the Honda past the house and up a ramp into the barn. Karla appeared at the door before he’d chained the bike and unhooked the rifle.
“Emil and Mitchell stopped down. They said you’d run off with a woman and her child who’d been stealing Carl’s corn.”
“Partly true. Did they tell you what they did?”
Karla glared at him. “Mitchell said the thieves killed Artie Comer and shot Dwight Bingham and Gordon Havilchek. A dozen of them died in the fight and you rode off with the survivors.”
“Also partly true.”
Karla grabbed his arms and tried to shake him. “Quit the damn games. What part makes it okay for you to join the other side and figure it’s fine to stay here?”
“Did Mitchell mention he and his friends shot dead five unarmed women and their eleven children?”
Karla’s eyes grew large.
“Mitchell shot one boy in the head while he clung to his mother. He shot a woman in the back for running away. He killed several more when his men chased them out of the corn. They killed every single person they could find. I counted nineteen, mostly bullets to the head and heart.”
“If they were all dead, who are the two you rode away with?”
“Caitlin and Brittany. Mother and daughter. They were across the road, stealing someone else’s corn. I got them out of there before Mitchell put a bullet in their brains, too.”
“You’re not serious?”
“I watched him. He enjoyed it. After nineteen, it would have been nothing to put down two more.”
Karla pursed her lips. “Jessie told me about you, the first day here. How’s that different?”
“Those were men. They were armed. They broke into your house and stole your food. Two of them tried to kill me.”
“And the third?”
“He lost the popular vote.”
“So you just shot him.”
“I’m not proud of it. But I didn’t kill anyone who wasn’t a threat to my life, or Jessie’s. Those people today. I might have inflicted some hurt, made them pay for what they did, but I wouldn’t have executed them—not unarmed women and children.”
“I’ll speak with Mitchell. You need to assure him what you did won’t bring more scavengers.”
“Caitlin and Brittany didn’t take anything from your friends. They won’t be a problem down the road.”
“Not to us, you mean.”
Ray let out a breath. “Maybe you don’t want to face it, but there are people who don’t have money and don’t have food. When the kitchens close, I don’t believe they’ll just curl up at home and die. It’ll turn ugly, but they won’t have gas, either, and will likely be too weak to walk this far. But hey, none of that is your problem.”
&nbs
p; “Don’t lay your guilt on me!”
Ray stepped away and sat on a bale of straw. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault or mine. And not much either of us can do about it.” He pulled a thick blade from the bale and stuck it in his mouth. “I’ll leave tonight if you want. Come back for the truck when I can.”
Karla was silent as she stared at him, searching for a decision. “You can stay the night. Tomorrow depends on what Mitchell says.”
Ray shrugged. “Maybe you should talk with Carl, too. He had to have seen some of it.”
Chapter 48
Karla parked her truck in the garage and walked into the house. Jessie looked up at her from the kitchen table, where she sat coloring. She put down the crayons and took on a strained expression.
“Is Daddy going to come?”
“No. He wouldn’t dare.” Karla thought about the question and added, “Why do you ask?”
“You look like he is.”
Karla shook her head. It wasn’t Roger who had upset her. She had gone to see Carl Riesman and Mitchell Ordway. Paul Hardesty and Jimmy St. Clair, too. Jimmy had pictures on his phone—a string of bodies laid out beside the road, wounds as Ray described them. Paul said the men had handguns. Carl told her the women refused to leave. Jimmy said someone had shot at Ray in the confusion. Mitchell alone stated it was life or death, and he wasn’t in the corn.
“It’s nothing, Jessie. Mommy just got some bad news, that’s all.”
“Is someone sick?”
“Yes, they are.”
Karla put together supper from their garden. After they ate, she wandered to the barn. Ray sat in the doorway, as though expecting her. She dropped beside him, saw his gear packed against the wall by the Honda.
“They want you gone,” she said.
“No surprise. Pretty much what Emil and Mitchell said from day one.”
“They can’t count on you.”
“To execute women and children, no, they can’t.”
“Did you know Jimmy took pictures?”
“Not him. But someone always does.”
Times What They Are Page 18