“They’re a bit wild, but they’re definitely women.”
“Can you signal them?”
“I could. . . . If you let me walk through the church, so I can assure them it’s safe.”
“Are you armed?”
Ray chuckled. “Where I’ve been, I’d be dead if I wasn’t.”
“You can’t carry a weapon into the church. If you will put it down, I will show you around.”
Ray nodded. “I’m going to unzip my jacket, then reach inside and lift out a handgun. Okay?”
“Go ahead,” the man with the gun said.
Ray lifted the gun with two fingers. He removed the clip and emptied the chamber, pocketing the bullets. He placed the gun on the grass next to the walk and stepped toward the woman.
“Grace,” she said, putting out a hand.
The tour lasted five minutes, and he met the rest of the group. Two women and five men total.
“We are all that is left of Craig.”
“Do you live in the church?”
“I do and Jacob. For the others, this is where we have our meals. Our community center. Except for the cold months of course. Then we all stay here. Too hard to heat the separate buildings.”
They stepped outside and the smell of roasting meat gnawed at Ray’s stomach.
“Would you like to try some elk, Ray? Or would you rather wait and eat with your family?”
Ray withdrew the handheld from his pocket. His eyes found the Beretta, where he left it. He saw that Jacob, the man with the gun, now had his holstered.
“Just considering my phrasing. You’ll understand when you meet Karla.” Ray pressed talk. “It’s a church barbeque. Roast elk, and we’re invited.”
“Okaaay.” Karla said.
“You can follow the smoke signals and be here in ten minutes.”
“Is it a large congregation?”
“The line won’t be long.”
“See ya in ten.”
Grace took his arm and walked him to the barbeque.
Jacob cut two small slices of meat and dropped them on a plate. He cut off a piece of one and popped it in his mouth. He handed the rest to Ray. Ray sampled it and rubbed his stomach.
“We are blessed with an unending supply at our doorstep,” Jacob said.
“I wouldn’t think it’d take many to supply a group this size.”
“For much of the year, it’s all we have. We ran out of vegetables before winter fully set in. This year will be the same. Next year, perhaps we’ll have enough.” Jacob paused. “Would you like to see our garden? It’s behind the church.”
They walked behind the building and Ray saw a garden not much larger than theirs in the mountains.
“You’re right. It doesn’t look enough.”
“It’s hard work. And so few of us are able.”
The handheld squawked as they strolled to the church.
“I’m going around in circles. How do I get there?”
Ray explained the turns.
“I’ve gone past ten churches. I don’t see anyone at any of them.”
“Follow the smoke.”
“Why don’t you ride over and show me?”
“Where are you?”
“Between the Seventh Day Adventists and the Catholic church.”
Ray looked to Jacob. “Maybe a mile,” he said.
“Stay put. I’ll be right there.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll send Jeff,” Jacob said. “He knows where that is.” Jacob waved Jeff away.
“She won’t be happy unless I go along.”
“Tell her a polite young man on a moped will be there in three minutes.”
Ray shrugged. “Change of plans. A young man on a moped will be there shortly. He answers to the name of Jeff.”
“He so much as says ‘hello’ to Brittany, I’m locking her in the truck.”
“I’ll pass it along.” Ray returned the handheld to his pocket.
Jeff walked around the church. He returned a minute later on a moped, cruised to the end of the driveway and turned left. As Ray followed Jeff’s path, he noticed a curtain move in a house across the street. Ray meandered closer to his gun. Grace stepped over and picked it up.
“I’ll take that,” Ray said.
She handed it to one of the men. “It will be returned when you are ready to leave,” she said.
“Thank you for the hospitality, but perhaps I should be on my way.”
“Please stay. Your family will be here soon.”
That’s what I’m worried about, Ray thought. He looked down at his boot and bent to retie it. Before he reached the .38, a sharp crack to his head sent him to the ground. As the stars in his vision settling out, he gazed up at Grace, a smile on her face and a blackjack in her hand.
Chapter 80
Karla lay on a hill half a mile from the church and watched through binoculars. Everything looked fine, but she hadn’t liked the conversation with Ray. She hadn’t liked splitting up in the first place, though Ray was right. They were too few to make it far. One ambush and they were done. She had given Ray ten minutes, then followed.
“Someone’s in the house across the street,” Brittany said.
Ray went to his knees then hit the ground. Karla’s view had been blocked. She hadn’t seen what happened. A big man helped Ray up, held him under the arms and walked him inside. A woman holding a stick trailed. Karla checked her open targets. They were unarmed and didn’t have Ray.
“Was it his leg?” Brittany asked.
Karla shook her head. “Ray’s screwed.” She slid a few feet down the hill. “I’m going to meet Jeff, try to make sense of this. If anyone comes out of that house, you need to keep them from interfering.” She handed Brittany the M24. “It’s sighted at six hundred. At this distance, it’ll drop a few more inches.”
Karla drove Ray’s truck, circled toward downtown, a few blocks south of where Jeff had been sent. She turned north on Taylor then right on Seventh, putting herself a block west of the churches. Jeff was stopped in the middle of the road, facing her. She drove closer. He turned and signaled her to follow. Karla stopped and climbed out.
Jeff swung back and turned twenty feet in front of her. “Follow me.”
Karla started toward him. “How do I know who you are?”
“I’m Jeff. Your man’s at the church. He sent me.” He scooted away as Karla closed to ten feet.
“Why are you afraid of me?”
“I just want to get back. Jacob told me not to fool around.”
“Go on, then. I’ll find it, eventually.” Karla began a turn, then drew a gun from her belt and charged toward him. He froze.
“You’ve got five seconds to tell me what’s going on at the church.”
“I just came to get you.” Jeff sounded legitimately peeved.
Karla smacked him in the head with the butt of the gun, then took the keys from the moped. “Try again.”
“Jacob said to get you. I just do what he says.”
“And what’s he going to do with me once I’m there?”
Jeff hesitated too long and she had her answer. She shoved him with the gun, and walked him slowly to the truck. She reached inside and tossed him a roll of duct tape. She had him tie his feet together then wrap one hand and hold it next to the other, behind his back. She finished the job, one handed, then did a much more secure job, lashing him to a light pole, legs, waist, and neck.
* * *
Three men and two women stood outside the church. Karla turned into the drive and parked a little past the Honda. She climbed out slowly, jeans, and a leather jacket to hide her guns. She started for the group, smiling.
“Where’s Jeff?” the man she guessed to be Jacob said.
“Probably halfway to Hayden. I told him Brittany went that way looking for clothes. She didn’t, of course, but I didn’t want those two together.”
“Where is your daughter?”
“Have you ever tried getting a thirteen-year-old girl to go anywhere with her parents?” Karla glanced at the elk. “Ray said you had food. We haven’t eaten in two days.”
Jacob rested a hand on his gun.
Karla froze. “You’re not planning to shoot me are you? Seems like that’s all anyone thinks about anymore. Three times since yesterday morning.”
“You’re safe here, Karla,” the older woman said.
Karla withdrew a hand from the jacket pocket. It held a 9mm. “Then Jacob won’t be needing the gun.”
“Don’t be rash,” Jacob said. “We have your man inside.”
Karla moved closer. “And I have you here. I’ll trade a couple of you for Ray, and we’ll be on our way.”
“How far do you think you’ll get without food?”
“A hunk of that elk will hold us a week.”
“And then what? We can feed you and protect you. You have this all wrong.”
“All you have to do to prove me wrong is send out Ray.”
“He’s injured. You know that. He’s weak from loss of blood.”
A curtain moved in a window across the street. “Who’s in the house?”
“No one.”
The window shattered. Karla grabbed Grace and put the gun to her head. “I forgot to tell you. I also have the two time Texas junior marksmanship champion. Now, gently drop the gun and step away.”
Bullets tore into the truck from two directions, flattening tires and spider-webbing the windshield. “You have no way to leave,” Jacob said.
Karla turned the gun from Grace and shot Jacob three times. She shoved Grace, stumbling, toward the church door. A man stepped into the doorway with a small pistol. Karla shot him and pushed into the building.
Ray sat in a wooden chair, his legs and hands bound to it. A bald man with a full beard backed away from Ray. Karla shot the man.
“Oh my god!” Grace screamed. “You’re killing everyone.”
Karla slapped her. “You’re not dead yet. Untie Ray. Then we’ll talk about what’s going on here.”
* * *
Karla, Ray and Grace sat on the floor in what had been the front of the church, before the pews were removed.
“You don’t seem like bad people,” Ray said. “Why did you grab me?”
“It was the men.” Grace wiped away tears. “They came last spring and took three of our young people. They said they would be back in the fall and would take five more. They left it to us who’d they be. There were fourteen residents alive at the time.”
“So you decided to substitute anyone who came through?”
“There aren’t so many. We roast elk every week. Before today, we had only four travelers who met the criteria.”
“Who are the men?”
“I don’t know. Men, with guns.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-five? I never saw them all at once.”
“Did they say where they were from?”
“Not to me. Jacob thought it was Denver.”
“They’ve been here only once?”
Grace shook her head. “They came back, took the three we had and reminded us that if we didn’t hand over five suitable people next time, they would kill us all.”
“You didn’t think about leaving, or planning a defense?” Karla asked.
“Where would we go? Here, we have shelter, food, and water. They left the impression they had many hundreds under arms. How would we fight that?”
“Did they tell you what would happen to the people they took?”
“Laborers on their farm. They said they needed young people to work.”
“And you believed that?” Karla said.
“I know it is cruel to sell people into labor. But they would have food and shelter. Longer lives than travelers like you.”
“Don’t.” Ray slapped Karla’s hand, forcing down the pistol. He turned to Grace. “What’s going to happen when we go to leave?”
“Our hunters won’t let you. We need only one of you alive. After what you’ve done, they’ll kill the other.” Grace looked thoughtful. “Of course when Jeff finds your daughter, neither of you will be needed.”
Karla fingered the pistol. “I guess the same could be said of you.”
* * *
Ray joined Karla at the front door after he bound and gagged Grace and secured her in a converted bedroom.
Where’s Brittany?”
“On the hill, watching. She has the M24.”
“And Jeff?”
“Tied to a light pole, downtown.”
“Jacob took my radio. If we talk to Brittany, they can hear what we say.”
Karla passed him her handheld. “Jacob’s dead.”
Ray pressed talk. “What do you see?”
“Are you okay?” Brittany asked.
“Yes. How about them?”
“House across the street and one behind the church.”
“Distance?”
“A hundred yards either side of you.”
“They’ve shot up the truck. We’ll have to walk to you.”
“I saw.”
“Can you help, come dark?”
“Uh huh.”
“We’ll be back to you.” Ray handed the device to Karla.
“Time me.” Karla pantomimed raising a rifle from a window sill, aiming and firing. She repeated the process eight times.
“Two seconds.”
“Add a touch for them to notice me: two and a half.” Karla sucked on her lips. “Five seconds to run a hundred feet. Halfway to the garden they’ll start shooting. A partial moon, a moving target, someone shooting at them. What do you think?”
“Hit the ground at two. Roll and stay low,” Ray said.
“If he has a bolt action, he’ll only have one try, and I’m better on my feet.”
“I’ll call over and ask.”
“Can you land a bullet or two close enough to unsettle them?”
“That distance with a handgun? Might hit the broad side of a house.”
“I’m counting on you to make him flinch. Brittany can’t see this side of the house. She’ll have to fire blind and through at least one wall.”
“When are you going to go?”
“After the moon sets. Based on two nights ago, around two. Wish I had the internet.”
“Try to get some sleep. I’ll keep an eye out.”
“I’d like to go now. Waiting only makes it harder.”
“You have nerves?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Ray nodded. “I would if I thought about it. Best advice: don’t. Know step by step what you’re gonna do, then do it.”
Karla searched for food and found none. She drank water and sniffed the overcooked elk. She took careful glances at the house, the garden, and her path. She had to be fast and lucky. She caught the sunset and saw the moon high in its trajectory. She sat against the wall and closed her eyes.
A few hours later, Karla nudged Ray. “Now.” He passed the word to Brittany.
Chapter 81
Ray flung open the side door and Karla was gone. One, two. Ray opened fire. Karla hit the ground and rolled twice as a bullet whizzed over her head. She scrambled to her feet and dove behind the corn. A pause from Ray as he changed the clip. A thud to the side of the house from Brittany.
A bullet zipped through the corn. Ray pounded off five shots. Karla tucked low and ran ninety degrees from the corn. A shot from the house. Another, half a second later. Ray finished fifteen rounds. Karla hit a row of shrubs and went through. She moved along the bushes, went around a fence, and ended in more shrubbery thirty feet from the house. She pulled the hand grenade from her pocket. The other two they had taken from the men lay in the cab of her truck.
She crawled toward the house, approaching from the south. Ray was west, Brittany north. Ray fired a quick burst of three. The house fired back. One man, this time. Karla pulled the pin
. She tossed the grenade through the window of the corner room and ran.
Windows on two sides blew out along with a hunk of the wall. Karla sprinted to the side door and shot her way into the kitchen. Smoke and dust poured from the central hall. A man came toward her, coughing. She shot him and took his gun.
A low keening came from the back of the house. Karla crawled toward the sound, a pistol in one hand, a flashlight, flicked on as she needed it in the other. On the left, one man sprawled on the floor of a bedroom, a huge gash to his neck. A second man lay in a pool of blood, his legs all but shredded.
Across the hall, the wailing woman held a rifle as she sat trembling on a bed. Beside her, the open window faced the church. Karla shot her, and she slumped to the floor. Next to her, the other woman from the church stared vacantly, a gaping hole in her side above the ribs. Karla played the light across her to the entrance wound. Score one for Brittany.
Karla took the rifle and a box of shells from the bureau. She left them in the hall for later collection and finished her sweep of the house. They were all dead. She wished she had her handheld. All she could do was retreat to the garden, call out to Ray, then sprint for the door.
* * *
“One down.” Karla loaded the rifle with an occasional flick of the flashlight.
“Now that we have a rifle. You can keep them busy while I get the one from my bike.”
“We can walk straight out the back, cut through a couple yards, and hike to my truck.”
“I want my bike, my things, and the truck if we can find a few tires.”
“I’m not running a gauntlet when I can stroll away in peace.”
“My turn, anyway.”
“You can’t run with a hole in your leg.”
“If you and Brittany do your jobs, I won’t have to.”
“Please, let’s just go.”
Ray spoke into the handheld, “Target in back clear. Across the street in front. One minute. Do you need a new position?”
“Hold on . . . . Okay. Got it.”
Karla pushed past Ray and crawled onto the front porch, the faint light from the stars brighter than in the church. She lay prone behind a column on the cool concrete and scanned the house: four windows and a door along the front, two windows on the side. All with a view of the church.
Times What They Are Page 33