No sooner than he said those words, he heard the squeaky spring of the back door as it was being opened.
Darrick and Carissa looked at each other, wondering who might be opening it. They both took off running toward the house. Carissa entered the front door, grabbing her rifle and hiding around the corner from the kitchen door. Darrick didn’t go in, but instead, brought his rifle up to his cheek and walked a wide angle around the outside of the house. He was fully prepared to shoot another intruder, but when the back door was in his sights, he saw that it wasn’t an intruder at all. It was Tonya, and she was alone.
Darrick lowered his rifle. “Where’s Kara?”
“That’s it? I’ve been gone overnight and the first question out of your mouth is where’s Kara?”
“Where’ve you been?”
Tonya had piped off at the mouth so soon that she didn’t consider the various outcomes that might arise from the argument. “I don’t have time for this,” she answered, hoping to buy some time to think things through.
Darrick ran up to her and grabbed her by the arms. “Where’s Kara?” he asked one final time, sensing that something terrible had happened to her. Carissa heard Tonya’s voice and knew that she had made it back. Instead of opening the door to let them in, she began to eavesdrop.
“I don’t know. She took me to the Omen camp, and we lost track of each other on the way back.”
“Why did you go to the Omen camp?”
Tonya shied away from the question.
He asked again, only changing the question a bit. “Where’s the Omen camp?”
Tonya refused to answer.
“Tonya, what’s going on? What are you hiding from me?”
Carissa burst from the kitchen through the back door. “Tonya’s been acting funny ever since some man named Marcus stopped by.”
Tonya turned to confront Carissa. The stare was intense.
“Tonya?” Darrick said, pulling her back to face him. “Marcus? Who’s Marcus?”
“Marcus Guy,” she said, releasing her secret along with her anxiety.
“Marcus Guy from the Marines? He was here? When?”
Carissa butted in. “He stopped in here yesterday when you were out cold on the back table. He’s the one who shot the man you just buried. It wasn’t Tonya. She took credit for the kill because she’s hiding something that she doesn’t want you to know. She’s refusing to tell anyone. The only other witness to this was Kara, but Tonya seems to have come home without her.”
Darrick released Tonya’s arm. “Why wouldn’t you tell me that Marcus was here? Where is he now?”
Tonya was feeling cornered. She shrugged her shoulders and threw out the first thing that came to her mind. “I don’t know. He probably ran off with Kara.”
“I don’t have time for this right now. There’s a dead man in our driveway and I’ve got to get him in the ground.”
“What did I miss?” Tonya asked.
“If you would have been here with me and Carissa, you would have been a part of what was going on.”
Tonya gave another dirty look to Carissa.
“Don’t you be blaming me for your follies, Tonya. You’re the one who disappeared on us in the night. Darrick was being a good husband and watching for you from the roof with his rifle. He saw a trespasser and shot him dead. Anybody who trespasses on this land will be turned to dust.”
Tonya felt rage toward Carissa for telling her secret. Compounded with that was the issue at hand; she felt that Carissa was undermining her in front of her own husband. A jealous streak that had reared its ugly head with Kara was now rising against Carissa.
“You know what? The blame is on me,” Tonya said with a cynical tone. “A female stranger is welcomed into our home with loving arms, and that’s fine, but when a man gets shot, that’s on me. Well, halleluiah, I’ve seen the light,” she said, taking off her backpack and throwing it at Darrick.
He caught the pack as she stormed upstairs, presumably to be with Andy, who was still hiding.
Darrick placed the pack on the ground. “I’ve got another man to plant,” he said before leaving.
Carissa secured the back door.
Upstairs, Tonya was entering elder Mitchell’s room. “I’m hungry. When’s supper?” he yelled at her. She looked at the bowl on the stand and saw that Carissa had been caring for him over the last day. They usually shift swapped, even though Carissa couldn’t get him to do anything. “I’ll get you something,” she said.
“Wait a minute, hon,” he interrupted.
She stopped and looked back at him.
“Has Pudge come home yet?”
“Yes. He’s home, but he’s outside.”
“Have ’im break me off a good-sized switch and bring it to me. He’s earned another lesson in timeliness.”
The words broke Tonya’s heart. She’d been too hard on Darrick and realized that she needed to tell him the truth. She was about to concede to the idea when she considered the ramifications of Darrick knowing that Andy might be Marcus’s son.
Why couldn’t I have waited for Darrick?
An excruciating pain suddenly gripped Tonya’s abdominal area.
“Argh,” she yelled, grabbing herself. A second pain shot through her. “Argh.” She winced. Her diagnosis of ovarian cancer had come on Andy’s eighth birthday. She’d thought the painful sexual intercourse she was previously experiencing was a side effect of the difficult labor she’d had with Andy. Later she found out the pain was a symptom of a disease. For the past two years it had gone untreated. She’d felt these pains before, but not usually this intense. In times past, they were tolerable. This time they almost brought her to her knees.
It must be the stress, she thought. Telling Darrick the truth would only serve to make things worse.
THE RED CIRCLE
The Glade
Darrick patted the loose earth with the back of his shovel to compress the top layer of Oliver Hecht’s grave. Now that he was done burying the trespasser, his mind was free to roam. He looked over at Jimmie’s grave and again at the graves of Russell and Max, the men who had been killed in his home.
There’s more out there, and they’re not going to stop coming. Darrick looked around at all the bald spots in the middle of the glade and pondered how many more holes he could dig before running out of room.
I’m going to bury every last one of them, so let’s find out how many I can plant.
With that thought, he thrust his shovel back into the earth and dug for the rest of the day and well into the night.
***
August 17th
The next morning came quick for Darrick. Asleep with shovel in hand, “Hey,” he heard with a gentle nudge to his ribs. Darrick opened his eyes, blinded by the morning sun. He’d caught about two and half hours of sleep. Hardly enough rest for the day he had planned. Carissa was standing over him. “Hey, big guy. Rise ’n shine.”
“What time is it?”
Darrick would normally hold his hand open-palmed and facing him, with his pinky touching the horizon, to determine what time of day it was. He would stack his hands from pinky to index finger and count each finger as fifteen minutes. It was just an estimate because he didn’t know the exact time of sunrise. With all the trees in place, he couldn’t see the sun, so it was a question he couldn’t figure out for himself.
“It’s about 6:30,” she said.
Darrick stood up. His back was stiff and sore from lying on the flat ground overnight.
“What’s with all the plots?” she asked.
“I aim to bury me some more people.”
“Are you going to start a fight?”
“Am I going to start a fight? Are you serious? These people killed my brother. They came into our home and threatened to kill us. They captured, tortured, and raped Kara.”
“I know, Darrick. You don’t have to keep reminding me about Jimmie. He was my husband. Remember?”
“I remember. I just realized last night that w
e’re only buying time. Eventually they’re coming for us. All of them against all of us. And believe me, the odds are not looking favorable for us. If we sit here and wait for them, we’re as good as dead.”
“Well, what’s the plan?”
“As you know all too well, I’m a man of action. The way I figure it is to take the fight to them. I aim to capture me a scout and interrogate him for intel. I can find the exact location of the Omen camp and take them out one by one.”
“That’s not going to work,” he heard Tonya’s voice saying from the trees.
Both he and Carissa turned and looked to see Tonya walking toward them.
“Why not?” Darrick asked.
“There’s too many of them. I was there. I know where they’re at and, although I don’t know their exact number, I know there’s too many for you to take out on your own.”
“I don’t know if I can trust anything you have to say,” Darrick said. It was a risky statement to say to his wife, but after recent events, he felt it was justified.
Tonya looked at Carissa and said, “Can I have a moment alone with my husband?”
Carissa looked to Darrick for approval.
“Go ahead,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”
Carissa gave Tonya a look of distrust that only Tonya could have seen as she walked out of the glade. Tonya felt that she wanted to give her a look back, but recent deep introspection had led her to understand that life was too short to be petty. She knew she was on borrowed time, and because of that, she decided to go ahead and bite the bullet.
“I’m sorry,” she said, leading the conversation.
“Sorry for what?” he asked, as if wanting her to admit to some shortcoming or fallacy.
“I’ve not been honest with you.” She sat down next to him and hung her legs over the edge of the grave plot. “You’ve been hard at work, I see.”
“Killing is a full-time job,” he answered.
“So you’re aiming to kill them all and bury them on your dad’s land?”
“As many as I can fit, yes.”
Tonya looked around at the morning sky. It was like a prelude to the bombshell she was about to drop. “You know that year you didn’t call, write, or email me when you were in Iraq?”
“Yeah.”
“It was the longest year of my life. I waited and waited to hear from you. I turned on the six o’clock news and hoped every day that I wouldn’t hear that your unit was ambushed or some crazy thing. Do you know that the news doesn’t cover what the units are doing?”
Darrick nodded his head in the affirmative. “It’s a good thing to leave the media out of war. When they’re embedded with us, it compromises the mission.” Darrick had never told her about the mission that went bad. She knew he went through a lot, but she’d never heard the story.
“I received a visit one day. Somebody knocked on my door, and when I opened it, it was Marcus.”
Darrick’s attention was caught. She looked into his eyes and felt awful that she was about to be so brutally honest. “He came to give me the message you asked him to give me. We developed a relationship.”
Darrick stood up. “What?”
“We connected on an intimate level, Darrick.”
“Are you telling me that you fell in love with Marcus while I was away?”
“He was in the house the day you knocked on the door. I could hardly believe it was you. When I found out you were alive, I made him leave. You’re the one I love, Darrick. It was never him. But he was there when you weren’t. It wasn’t love.”
Darrick had both hands on his head. He was pacing around the edge of the grave plots. “Andy was conceived the day I came home,” he added, with tears welling in his eyes.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Oh God.”
“I’m sorry, but I wanted you to know the truth.”
“Tell me the rest,” he said.
“When you were unconscious on the back table, he saved us from Russell. He was one of the three who came scouting from that Omen group. Apparently, Kara followed him, and he was caught and in the process of being judged for his offenses against them. She came back to solicit my help, and I assisted, eventually aiding in his escape.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. He left in the night.”
“And where is Kara?”
Tonya didn’t answer.
He asked again, “Where is Kara?”
“She didn’t make it,” she answered reluctantly.
“What do you mean she didn’t make it?”
Tonya was silent.
Again, he probed. “What do you mean she didn’t make it?”
“She was killed by some man,” she answered with ongoing reluctance.
Filled with rage and indignation, Darrick left the glade and headed straight for the house. He had no intention of forgiving or sparing the lives of any person associated with the Omen.
Tonya followed him out. “Darrick?”
Darrick didn’t respond.
“Darrick, I’m talking to you.”
At the second more assertive call, he stopped and turned around to confront her. “Oh, now you want to talk to me?”
“Don’t be like this.”
“Don’t be like what? Presumptuous?”
Tonya was speechless.
“Tonya, if you have anything extra you’d like to share, please do it now. Because you’re not exactly building a record of trust between the two of us.”
Tonya considered sharing with him what had happened at the dilapidated house, but she knew it would only complicate matters, so she remained silent.
“I didn’t think so,” he said, walking off. Her lack of responsiveness spoke volumes. He thought as he walked then stopped again to confront her. “If you know what happened to her, then why weren’t you killed or injured in some way?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“There you go again. The art of avoidance. Ignore it and it’ll go away.” Darrick turned and headed back toward the house. This time he was done arguing. He was convinced that she knew something more about Kara’s death, but was keeping it secret. The only rational explanation for Darrick was that she was somehow complicit in her death.
Otherwise, what’s there to hide? he thought.
When Darrick and Tonya reached the edge of the wood line, Carissa was there waiting. Tonya could sense that Carissa wasn’t so much waiting for her as she was for Darrick. It was nothing she could prove; she was, after all, family, but she was already tired of defending herself against other women who appeared to be interested in her husband, whether real or imagined. Tonya wanted to confront Carissa, but she held her peace. Darrick was her focus, but in the back of her mind, she was worried about Marcus and cared for his overall health and well-being.
Carissa didn’t jump in next to Darrick like Tonya imagined she was going to. Instead, she waited for both of them to pass and she followed in line. As she followed Darrick and Tonya, she stopped and took a good look at the old car parked on the edge of the property. “Darrick,” she said. Carissa didn’t see it, but Tonya rolled her eyes and turned around when he did.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“How’s your mechanic skills?”
“I took auto shop in high school. What are you thinking?”
“What’s the probability of getting that thing running again and just leaving?”
“Leaving? Leave our home, our land, our heritage. Basically, everything we believe in and are willing to die for?”
“What about a contingency?”
“As in, what if I can’t pull it off? What if I can’t stop the Omen?”
“Yes. We have to have a plan B. We can’t just assume that everything’s going to work out as planned; that everything’s going to go the way you think.”
“I don’t know…”
“Look at it this way – we didn’t expect Jimmie to lose his life. We didn’t know Kara was going to
disappear. We didn’t know strangers would be showing up on our land with ill intentions. All I’m saying is there’s a lot of what-ifs out there, and things happen that we’re not expecting. Let’s get the car ready and at least be ready to roll.”
Darrick considered her proposal. “I’ll take a look at it after breakfast. I’m half starved.”
Enclave Camp
Within moments of walking outside, Rueben called out, “Red Circle!” It didn’t take long for every fighting-age male to surround him. With pistol in hand, he asserted himself as the man in charge as he inquired into the disappearance of Marcus Guy.
“So nobody’s going to take credit for Mark’s absence?”
Caw, caw, the crows rang out, breaking the silence. The men on the ground had nothing to say. They each knew what was coming. Answering only meant an expedient death. Not answering bought some time.
Rueben looked around at the crowd. There must’ve been a couple of hundred men standing in the circle. Each of them happy to live under a heavy yoke if it meant having full bellies, which they did. “Very well,” he said, tightening his grip on the pistol. “Rev,” he called out.
“I’m here,” Cornelius said, stepping through the crowd and joining Rueben at his side.
“Go tell Denver that we have an incompetence issue in our ranks. Ask him how we should deal with it.”
“Sir?” Cornelius asked, confused about the request.
Rueben turned to face him. “Did I say something that was confusing to you?”
“No, sir,” Cornelius answered, knowing irrefutably that Rueben hated his guts.
Click , Rueben’s pistol sounded just as he brought it up to put it in Cornelius’s face. “Do it,” Rueben commanded.
Cornelius ran off, not knowing where to look for Denver.
“Rev,” he said, catching Cornelius’s attention.
Cornelius turned around to look at Rueben.
“The ranch house.”
Cornelius ran off toward the ranch house. Once there, he turned around to make sure nobody was watching him. The coast was clear. He hated it when Rueben sent him to speak with Denver. However, it was Denver’s decisions that gave Rueben power over every member of the Enclave. In doing so, Cornelius was also empowered. He lingered just inside the house for a few minutes before returning to Rueben.
After The Pulse (Book 1): Homestead Page 13