Times What They Are

  “Go on, Carl. Let’s get this over with.”

  Carl handed off his rifle and moved toward Ray. Karla shifted to stop him and Herb yanked her away. Carl leaned in and pulled the Beretta from Ray’s belt.

  “Frisk him,” Mitchell called out. “Probably got a knife.”

  Carl shoved Ray to the garage wall and leaned him against it. He started the pat down with Ray’s shirt pocket.

  “Stop this!” Karla screamed. She shook away from Herb and ran at Mitchell.

  “Hold her,” Mitchell barked. Wes and Herb each jumped in and took an arm.

  Carl’s hands probed the pockets in Ray’s jeans. If he let Carl finish, and he left with these men, Ray saw no way this would end well. He swung an elbow and caught Carl’s head.

  Ray spun, hooked Carl’s neck with his forearm and dragged him backward, fighting for the Beretta as he did. It went off, kicking dirt at Mitchell’s feet. He hopped back. Herb, too, dragging Karla. Mitchell surprised Ray and fired with Carl still between them. The bullet smacked the wall a few inches from Ray’s head. Karla kicked Herb, slapped him, and kicked him again. Then she went after Mitchell.

  Ray moved fast, slamming Carl into the wall, then launching him toward Mitchell as he slid around the corner of the garage. Ray drew the .38 from the leg holster and held tight to the wall. Wes rounded the corner first. Ray shot him in the head, seized his .30-30, and sprinted onto the open lawn.

  Mitchell yanked a shot wide as Karla slammed into him. Ray dove behind the ancient burr oak. Mitchell shoved Karla to Herb, took another shot at Ray, then backpedaled down the drive. Carl staggered to his feet holding the Beretta. Ray shot him twice with the .38, then fired at Mitchell, now well down the drive, and missed.

  To the left, Karla wrestled with Herb. He smacked her head with the butt of a rifle, took a wild shot at Ray, and ran toward the barn. Mitchell, to the right, put a bullet into the oak then broke for the road. With the rifle, Ray popped a shot at Herb, steering him away from the truck and motorcycle. Herb disappeared behind the far side of the barn.

  Mitchell reached the gate. Ray pinged three shots off the crossbars as Mitchell went over, then hit his leg with the next shot. Mitchell crawled behind his truck. Ray dashed for his vehicles, unsure where Herb might pop out.

  Ray worked around his truck as Mitchell climbed into his. The truck backed from the gate. Ray emptied the .30-30, shattering the passenger’s window and hitting the door. He discarded the weapon and grabbed his own rifle. He got off two shots before the truck slipped from view behind the row of evergreens.

  Ray ran toward the corn crib, not sure where Herb had gone. The separation had given Herb a chance to regain his composure or possibly yield to his fear. Ray was certain none of the men had ever engaged in a fire fight. It was an unsettling experience and worked to Ray’s advantage. He rounded two sheds, covered a hundred feet of open ground, and plowed into a corn field. He crossed under cover to the back of the barn, then stopped and listened.

  A faint sound—rustling leaves in the still air. Ray sprinted to the barn, winded. He climbed to the sleeping platform and opened the loft door. Two hundred yards to his left, cornstalks swayed unnaturally. He watched the slow progress and sighted the rifle. He fired fifteen rounds tracking the movement. He slammed home a fresh clip and charged out of the barn and into the corn.

  Herb lay on his side, his front and back soaked in blood. From ten feet, he appeared to be breathing. With one more shot, Ray made sure he wasn’t. But it was Mitchell he really wanted, and he’d gotten away.

  * * *

  Karla sat in the grass, groggy, blood clotting where it ran down her face. Jessie stood beside her, crying. Ray helped Karla to her feet and into the house. He made an ice pack and fed her ibuprofen as she lay on the couch. He talked soothingly to Jessie, telling her it was all over and her mother would be fine.

  “You’ve got to go,” Karla said.

  “Yeah. Mitchell got away.”

  “Only him?”

  “The others are dead.”

  “They were going to kill you.”

  “Mitchell worked them up. Guess he was worried I’d tell the wrong person. Can’t see it any other way.”

  “Herb, Carl, Wes. I’ve got to call their wives. What do I say?”

  “Tell the truth, but they won’t believe you. Mitchell will say I ambushed them. That will be easier to accept. He may say you helped.”

  “He won’t run me off.”

  “I should go after him. I don’t want him sneaking back before I’m gone, or laying for me on the road.”

  “He’s got two children. You can’t burst into his house and kill him in front of his family.”

  “He deserves it.”

  “They don’t.”

  Chapter 50

  Ray quickly loaded his truck, then backed it to the house and went in. He left the men where they lay. No time for anything else. Karla had held off calling until Ray was ready to leave. Still, he expected the remaining eight men would have already been there. That they weren’t, he figured, meant they were waiting for him somewhere down the road.

  He found Karla on the couch, sitting now, the right side of her face a huge bruise. “I’m sorry,” Ray said. “If they’d just let things go another day, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “It’s them,” Karla said. “Mitchell. They came for you.”

  “I’m still sorry. More so to leave you to clean up.”

  “Go.” She was in tears. It unsettled Jessie.

  Ray leaned over and kissed Karla. “I wish I didn’t have to.”

  “There’s food in the garage. Not much, but it’s yours. Take it, please. We really have plenty.”

  Ray kissed her again, then squeezed Jessie, and walked out the door. Jessie caught up to him at the truck. “Mom says she’ll shoot you if you don’t take what she offered.”

  “She can’t get off the couch.”

  “It’s what she said, and she means it.”

  Ray followed Jessie to the garage. Stacked in a corner were twenty-five pounds of rice, fifteen of dried beans, a large jar of instant coffee and some assorted cans. He hugged Jessie once more and hefted the food to the truck.

  “Tell your mother thank you.”

  “Will you come back?”

  “I don’t know, Jessie. Maybe someday things will be better again.”

  He closed the door and started the truck. Jessie stood in the doorway. Ray rolled down the drive and sat. He still had one huge problem: getting away alive. Mitchell wouldn’t expect him in the truck. Ray had been using the motorcycle for weeks. That’s all they had seen. That helped, but only so far. They would surely block any way out, and there were only two, if they knew what they were doing, three if they didn’t. Eight men. Four should be watching the front gate. The others at the rear, where he’d come in that afternoon. Or, they could choose to block the road at the open end instead of the gate.

  He would have deployed in the corn across from the front gate and taken the easy target when the driver presented himself to unlock it. The back exit offered even more places for them to hide. The front was his best chance. His solution for the gate had a risk he didn’t like, but he took it. He rolled down the window.

  “Jessie, will you unlock the gate and open it, then walk to the house? You can lock it after I leave.”

  She nodded. He handed her the key still on his ring. He stepped out when she returned, took his keys and handed back Karla’s.

  “The truck that was here is up the road,” Jessie said.

  “How far?”

  Jessie pointed to a telephone pole. “Like to there.” Ray hugged her a last time. “You’ll always be my favorite niece.”

  “Goodbye, Uncle Ray.”

  He smiled and waved and pulled away. Within a few feet he regained his focus and stepped on the accelerator. He ducked as he hit the road and made the turn. Mitchell hadn’t gone with option one.

  Ah
ead to the right, a pickup sat by the side of the road. Jessie was right. It was the one Mitchell had driven away. Ray lay across the seat and picked up speed. The doors wouldn’t stop bullets. He was just less a target. He counted six and popped up. He had drifted to the left edge of the road and corrected. It wasn’t an ambush. That meant either Mitchell was badly hurt or the truck was. He slammed on the brakes and spun around. He wasn’t leaving Mitchell to come back on Karla.

  Fifty feet from the truck he slowed. It could still be a trap, but it was far too subtle for Mitchell. Ray lowered the window and raised the rifle as he stopped beside the truck. The window on Mitchell’s truck was blown out. Mitchell leaned awkwardly against the passenger seat. He didn’t respond to a tap on the door. Ray shot him twice in the chest and turned north.

  Lights approached from his left, on Burnett Station Road. Ray floored the truck, raced it to the intersection. He passed the stop sign at ninety. The other vehicle turned toward Karla’s.

  Chapter 51

  Karla answered her phone.

  “Mitchell’s dead in his truck,” Ray said. “He never made it home.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Alburnett. A car was headed your way. Whatever you want to say, there’s no one to contradict you.”

  “Nancy Riesman is outside with her son. The others are on the way.”

  “Thank you. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

  “I was trying to stop the bloodshed. I don’t mean it badly, but if I hadn’t interfered, there’d be fewer widows.”

  “I’ll try to call in a few days. If there’s trouble . . .”

  “I’ll deal with it. It’ll be harder here without the watch.”

  “Take care of Jessie,” Ray said, and he was gone.

  Karla struggled to her feet. She felt wobbly and suspected she had a concussion. She stepped slowly outside and found Nancy Riesman, crying beside the garage. Her teenage son Keith stood over his father. Another vehicle pulled in: Sandy Chambers.

  * * *

  Full dark and all four women had arrived, some with older children. Emil had come, too, with the remaining neighborhood watch. They gathered the dead and made phone calls. Then they sat in Karla’s living room, waiting for her explanation. Karla didn’t know how to tell the women anything that would comfort them. The men, she supposed, knew the truth. She decided to make them tell it.

  “Emil, why did Mitchell bring those men here with guns and against my wishes?”

  Emil hesitated, obviously not expecting the question. “They were to arrest Ray.”

  “And do what with him?”

  Emil took too long to answer. Karla continued. “Mitchell said they were going to kill Ray. Out of kindness, they weren’t going to shoot him in front of me and Jessie. Was that the plan?”

  “We just wanted to talk with him.”

  “They could have done that here. We offered.”

  “They were investigating. That’s not how you do things.”

  “Do you want to tell everyone here how it is done? About the women and children in the corn? I’ve seen the pictures, Emil.”

  “Karla, please . . .”

  “The men took Uncle Ray’s gun and shot at him. They hit mommy with a rifle.” Jessie had crept down the stairs. “I saw them.” She ran across the room to Karla.

  “You haven’t told us how the men died,” Peter Ordway said.

  Karla looked to Nancy, Karen, Sandy, and Grace. “Do you want to hear this?”

  They each nodded.

  Karla swallowed. “Mitchell and the others confronted Ray and me on the lawn beside the garage. We traded words. The men pointed rifles and took Ray’s gun. Mitchell said he was taking Ray to kill him. Ray fought as they tried to haul him away. They shot at him. Ray got a gun and shot back. He killed them.

  “Who hit you?” Grace Ordway asked.

  “Herb Chambers.”

  His wife, Sandy, began to cry.

  “I think you all have the picture,” Karla said. “Can we let it go?”

  “Did you have a gun?” Grace persisted.

  “No. I was unarmed on my front lawn.”

  “They did what they did for a reason.” Grace again.

  “I’m sure they did. But it wasn’t one any in this room would agree to in the light of day.”

  * * *

  They stayed till after midnight. Questions and answers. No resolution. Karla was a party to the killings in some undefined way. Grace remained hostile. She would never again speak with Karla. The others accepted the events, however unwelcomingly.

  Karla climbed the stairs to bed. She thought of Ray and wondered where he was, alone in the world because of her. Because of him, she had made a mess beyond repair. She fell into fitful asleep. Sometime in the night, Jessie joined her.

  Chapter 52

  A robin chirped. The river gurgled. Ray rolled from his bag, hauled it to the truck, and secured it. He’d slept amid woody shrubs beside the Cedar River near Vinton, up the road from where he’d buried Dee and his friends. Ray had wanted to be far from anyone and had done well. Only one vehicle passed in the night. It hadn’t slowed.

  He stepped to the river and splashed his face, then finger combed his hair. He was packed and ready and could leave right now for Colorado. But Caitlin remained the wild card. She was anxious to join him and for good reasons. He imagined her working beside him in a garden or in building a shelter, then warm at night in their bed. She was an opportunistic survivor. The epitome of flexibility. What he didn’t know was whether she actually liked him. Maybe she hadn’t yet figured that out.

  He pictured Karla in Caitlin’s place—saw her correcting his shoddy work with a frown, standing her turn at watch, and informing him coldly what needed to be done and when. Karla was afraid of little and likely tougher than he was. He’d take her along without question. She, however, was not on the menu.

  He drove to Vinton, stopped at the 218 Cafe, parking in front where he could see the truck from his table. He ate pancakes, drank coffee, and thought hard. When he finished, he continued north on the highway until he saw a pay phone at a convenience store. He stopped and called Karla.

  She was slow to answer and sounded sleepy when she did.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked.

  “The whole neighborhood turned out. I’ve got some new enemies, nothing I can’t handle. I’m betting on Mitchell’s wife to call the police. It remains to be seen what they’ll do or whether Emil can stop her. I’m pretty sure he won’t approve.”

  Ray thought about that. “She wasn’t there. She wouldn’t know me if I knocked on her door. Don’t see what she can say that will hurt me. Might leave you in a tight spot, though.”

  “I was just a witness.”

  “You still think you can hold out alone?”

  “If you come back, they’ll kill you.”

  “That’s not really an answer.”

  “Emil is more scared than me. He’ll find recruits. He’ll try to leave me out of his protected zone, but it won’t be easy.”

  “You could join me.”

  “Are you leaving today?”

  “Headed for the Rockies as soon as I can get it together.”

  Karla was quiet for a few seconds. “Call me if you can. Jessie’s already bugging me about where you are and how you’re doing.”

  “She’s special,” Ray said. “She really is.”

  * * *

  Ray backed the truck into Caitlin’s driveway, leaving the tailgate an inch from the garage, impossible to open. Caitlin pushed aside a curtain and looked out. She wrapped him in a hug thirty seconds later.

  “I said I’d be back.”

  “I thought I scared you off, the way you left.”

  “I really did have a lot to do. And we still need to talk.”

  “I’m not changing my mind. I pictured a jalopy when you said your truck wouldn’t run—me on a chair in back like on the Beverly Hill
billies. I was okay with that.”

  “Let’s go inside a minute.”

  Caitlin led the way to the kitchen, past boxes of clothes and bedding neatly stacked by the door.

  “There are militias in other places, like the one from the cornfield,” Ray said.

  “I’ve heard about them.”

  “We might not get fifty miles.”

  “Then we find another way.”

  “If we had to turn back, after a couple days, the way you’ve talked, I’m not sure what you’d have to return to.”

  Caitlin leaned in and kissed him. “I talked it out with Brittany. We understand we need to leave. We’re not going to get another chance.”

  Ray shook his head. “Let’s see what you’ve got we can use.”

  He let them take a single suitcase each. The sleeping gear was okay and the camp stools and another box with two large pans, three plates, and utensils. In the cellar he grabbed hand tools and assorted supplies. He found a chainsaw, asked if it ran, and took that, too. He staged everything in the driveway and noticed people watching from across the street.

  When all was ready, he pulled the truck forward and lowered the tailgate. He shifted the tarps then stood the motorcycle to make room. Caitlin and Brittany hoisted boxes to the tailgate, and he stacked them, filling the remaining space. Neighbors wandered over, eyeing the activity. He signaled Caitlin with a head toss, hoping she could keep them away.

  Ray leaned the Honda and secured it.

  “There’s food in the truck,” said a teenage boy, suddenly there, glancing in the bed.

  Ray ignored him, pulled the tarp over the load, and tied it down.

  “What’s in there, Caitlin?” A fortyish woman in a flowery dress asked. She’d been across the street only seconds earlier.

  “Personal effects and a little food,” Ray said.

  “Aren’t you going to share?”

  “No soup kitchens where we’re going,” Ray answered. “This runs out, we’re dead.”

  “You can still spare a little, can’t you?” The woman looked to Caitlin.