Rising Waters

by Chloe Garner

  “This is the part I ain’t gonna like, ain’t it?” she asked.

  “They came for us,” Jimmy said. “I could have left town out of it, but I wasn’t sure we could win.”

  She let the rifle fall again, hitting him in the back of the head with her gloved hand, now dark with Wade’s blood.

  “You didn’t know what they’d bring,” she said. “Don’t talk to me like you could see this coming.”

  “If that’s what you want to believe,” he said back, loud over the sound of the engine. He drew a gun from his waist and shot a nearby driver, the motorcycle tumbling behind them, and Sarah nodded, shooting at another motorcyclist, then turning as far as she could and returning fire from men behind them.

  “Hold,” Jimmy said, and she put the gun back in its holster and grabbed his sides with her hands. He cut the motorcycle hard to the side, stopping it. Sarah put a foot down, three shots, three kills behind them, then looked at town.

  “They’re burning it,” she said. She could only just begin to make out the black smoke coming up from the wood buildings, but she could smell it clearly enough.

  “We need to get to Doc’s shop,” he said.

  “Wade.”

  He nodded.

  “How are you feeling for balance?”

  “I’m solid,” she said.

  “You have shot?”

  She pulled the saddle bag from over her shoulder, reloading out of it as Jimmy took a couple of shots backwards at the remaining motorcyclists coming at them on foot. Town was beginning to notice them, and they needed to move.

  “I’m full,” she said, flipping the saddle bag over Jimmy’s shoulder to give her faster motion. He adjusted it, an indication he agreed with her.

  “Take mine when you’re out,” he said.

  “You want body armor?” she asked. He looked back at her, dropping his chin so he looked at her just over his shoulder.

  “Do you?”

  “Can’t move in it,” she said, and he nodded.

  “Keep moving.”

  “Let me at ‘em.”

  He started the engine back up again, and Sarah shifted, picking her feet up again and looking at the chaos in town just ahead of them.

  They could have gone around, tried to skirt the worst of it, only come at town from the end of Second Street closest to Doc’s clinic, but Sarah knew Jimmy better than that.

  The men were all over Main Street, hiding wherever they could find cover, fighting for ownership of the space underneath the boardwalks and inside the broken windows of the various shops. Men in black swarmed the center of the street, the walks themselves, making systematic, gruesome progress, their numbers thinning as they went, but with a sort of grim determination. They weren’t dying fast enough to try to dig in and defend themselves anywhere.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked.

  “Tactics,” Jimmy answered, revving the engine. She leaned hard against him as the bike accelerated, holding both guns against her thighs, their bodies rocking together through two gear changes, then they hit town and she picked up both guns.

  The speed didn’t matter when you were shooting point-blank.

  The men went by fast enough that it was all she could do to empty both guns and put them away, drawing Jimmy’s guns from his waist as they hit the turn. He slapped her knee hard and the bike turned sharply, dropping away underneath them as the tires skidded out, and she put her foot down as the ground came to a stop below her, the bike sliding on, going through two men in black before disappearing under the boardwalk across the street. Jimmy put a hand back and she gave him one of the two guns, turning her back to his. They did a slow circle, fifteen shots apiece, the count ticking in her brain mechanically without any numbers attached to it.

  They were moving along the street, men trying to form a ring around them but finding the two of them too lethal to actually organize it. The mercenaries hadn’t quite gotten this far, and they were still thin; the Lawrence men were hiding up and down the street, helping to pick off mercenaries as Jimmy and Sarah hit the bottom of the stairs up to the board walk.

  “Go,” he said. Sarah fired her last shot and went up the stairs in two strides, pulling the bullwhip off her hip to have something in her hand more useful than an empty gun and stepping back to the door to Doc’s clinic, waiting as Jimmy backed up the stairs. He fired his last shot and she opened the door, letting him slip past and darting in behind him, closing the door behind her.

  “That’s not gonna hold,” she said.

  “Reload,” he answered, throwing the saddle bags at her and turning to go in to where Doc and Sid were working. “How’s he doing?”

  “Jimmy,” Doc said. “I think you undersold what’s going on out there.”

  “She did this?” Sid asked.

  “I ain’t shot him, if that’s what you’re asking,” Sarah said, finishing reloading Jimmy’s gun and setting it on the floor to start on her own. She pulled the rifle strap up and over her head and leaned it against the wall next to the door, in case she needed it. There was a thump against the door, but her back was still to it. She squatted, in case someone got the brilliant idea to shoot the door. The wood ought to take it, but the splinters that could pop through were a pain, and while her duster would have shielded her, they’d go right through the soft fabric she wore underneath.

  “No, Doc says that this is your work,” Sid said. “You saved his life.”

  “When is he going to wake up?” Jimmy asked.

  “Patience,” Doc said. “She done him right, but there’s a lot of damage.”

  “What’s going on outside?” Sid asked.

  “Do I need to get him ready to move?” Doc followed.

  Sarah replayed the numbers in the street.

  “Jimmy, where is everyone?”

  “Retreating,” Jimmy said. “Where’s Rich? Would have expected him to come straight here.”

  “I’m here,” Rich said, his feet appearing on the stairs in front of Sarah. They came down toward the back of the clinic, so she could just see his boots in between the wood planks, but he was walking funny.

  “You hit?” she asked.

  “Not bad,” he said, getting to the bottom of the stairs and coming around.

  “Rich,” Jimmy scolded. “What happened?”

  “Lucky shot as I was gettin’ here,” Rich said. “Doc sent me up for more supplies.”

  “Do we need to move?” Doc asked again. There was another thump on the door, but mostly what Sarah heard was the sound of boots running on the wood boardwalk.

  “Best off here,” Jimmy said. “Glad Rich is here. You’re staying.”

  “Damned right,” Rich said.

  “Jimmy,” Sarah said, standing. “Where are all our men?”

  “Retreating,” he said, turning to face her. “Full, unorganized retreat. Toward the house. These guys are the decoys.”

  More footsteps.

  She put one gun back in a holster and pointed at Rich.

  “You armed?”

  He pulled a gun out of a holster and checked the magazine.

  “Full load,” he said.

  “Watch that door.”

  He gave her a sarcastic look, but went to lean against the post holding up the stairs and watched the door. Sarah went to go look down at Wade.

  “You guys should be safe here. No windows,” Jimmy said. “And they’re going to keep chasing.”

  “Jimmy. Why are you drawin’ ‘em back to the house?” Sarah asked. “Where all of your soft targets are? You hid everybody there, and you think it’s a good plan to bring the army straight at ‘em?”

  “It’s where I’m strongest,” Jimmy said.

  “Then why go through town?”

  “Slow them down. Lose a lot fewer men if they have to go through town rather than chasing them down and killing them all the way to the house.”

  “They’re burnin’ everything,” Sarah said. Doc lifted his head again.

  “Once more, Lawson,
do I need to get him set to go?”

  “No,” Jimmy said. “The buildings between here and there won’t burn.”

  “So you’re just gonna let the rest of ‘em go?”

  “I told you you weren’t going to like it,” he answered.

  “And we’re sittin’ here while all those men are headed straight for the house, with just Thomas and a bunch ‘a women with him?”

  “Rhoda’s a monster,” Jimmy said. “But, no, Petey and the rest of Lawrence ought to be there before anyone else gets there.”

  “It’s a good five, seven miles,” Sarah said.

  “And they’re in much better gear for it than the men off the train,” Jimmy said. “Except the motorcycles. I have to admit I didn’t see those coming.”

  An engine went by and Sarah turned her head to look at the wall, listening.

  “Gonna be a lot of dead men at the end of this,” she said. “All on account ‘a the absenta up there in those damned mountains. Ain’t worth it.”

  “Clearly a great many people disagree with you,” Jimmy answered.

  “Why in hell are we still sittin’ here?” Sarah asked.

  “Because I will not draw attention to Wade until I’m certain we can take out everyone who’s left.”

  She closed her mouth. There was no arguing with that, even if she had disagreed. You didn’t tell Jimmy to take risks with his family, even if it was in his best interest.

  “There’s a window upstairs,” Rich said. Jimmy jerked his head at Sarah to go, but she looked down at Wade again.

  “Talk to me, Doc,” she said.

  “Heartbeat is strong. Don’t think he lost so much blood to be in danger, there. Gonna need a lot of reconstruction to get that lung working, but we’ve just clamped it off, for now. He can make do on one.”

  “I’m about done here,” Sid said. “How did you get the bullet out?”

  Sarah glanced at him.

  “Tweezers.”

  There was a long, silent moment. Wade’s chest rose and fell. His skin near his shoulder had a sort of orange-y pigment to it where Sid’s antiseptic swab had extended, but other than that, he looked whole.

  “He’s going to live,” Jimmy said. “That’s what I need to know.”

  “She saved his life,” Sid said. “With tweezers.”

  “She knows what she’s doing,” Doc said. “Seen a lotta men go down to bullets. Knows how to give ‘em their best shot.”

  Sarah gave Doc a firm nod, then went to the stairs, going up to look out the front window cautiously down at the street.

  She could see the handlebars of the motorcycle across the street, but that was about it. The window didn’t open - anything that voluntarily shifted was at risk of doing it involuntarily in a sandstorm - so she couldn’t listen well, but she waited a full minute, watching, and saw nothing.

  “I say we go,” she said, taking the stairs back down quickly. “Don’t like the idea of everyone bein’ under siege like that without us there.”

  “Neither do I,” Jimmy said. “I just needed to be sure Rich was here and that he could handle it.”

  “I got ‘em, Jimmy,” Rich said. “Go finish this.”

  Sarah looked at Rich.

  “You need to go look for survivors,” she said. “Put a bullet to them’s that need it, get the rest of ‘em in here to Doc and Sid.” She looked at Doc. “You’ve got the gear for this?”

  “Jimmy told me to order extra a month ago. It’s all upstairs in storage.”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t play loose, but if town’s done with the fightin’, we owe it to them boys to do right by them. They stood by us.”

  “I’ll send men back if I can, to help,” Jimmy said.

  “Sarah,” Doc said. “How’s your kit?”

  “Wouldn’t mind a top-up,” Sarah said. He pointed.

  “That cabinet, there.”

  She opened the door and found a shelf of foam canisters and a bunch of other stuff she wouldn’t mind having.

  “Used up all the bullets,” she said. “May as well replace ‘em with patch kit.”

  “What do you mean you used them up?” Jimmy asked.

  “Got one more full reload, maybe,” she said. He drew a deep breath and nodded.

  “Then we need to get to the house on that.”

  She nodded.

  “Good luck,” Rich said. Jimmy nodded.

  “See you on the other side.”

  --------

  The road to the Lawson house was a proper road, at this point, and it was littered with bodies. Sarah would have stopped to help, or check that they were dead, but she knew there were a lot more ahead of them, and stopping was just going to cause more of them. They rode on.

  “I underestimated what he would send,” Jimmy said at one point as they passed a motorcycle with three bodies around it.

  “You went all or nothin’,” Sarah answered. “We lose, we all die.”

  He shook his head.

  “I won’t let it come to that.”

  She wondered what it was he thought he could do about it, but she didn’t ask.

  A couple miles from the house, they started hearing gunshots, and Jimmy veered off the hard-trod path that went directly toward the house, off to the right, away from the foothills, accelerating as much as the bike could manage on the rough ground. Sarah put an arm around his stomach to make sure the bike didn’t shimmy out from under her like a wayward horse, feeling the tension in his body as he controlled the machine, willing it over loose sand and stone.

  “Let me at ‘em, Jimmy,” she murmured in his ear, and the bike accelerated more. She watched the sand devoured behind the bike, the way the world just rolled, one hard shake.

  He turned as they got close to the foothills again, following them and gradually heading up, ditching the motorcycle before they were in sight of the house.

  “Petey’ll shoot us just for having it,” he said as he tossed it on its side and drew a gun. Sarah put her arm across his chest and squatted, fingering at a set of wires.

  “These look important to you?” she asked, pulling out a knife and severing them.

  “Waste not,” he murmured, hurrying toward the house.

  “Motto of the desert. You have water for everyone?”

  “Been storing it for weeks,” he said. “That’s how we win this.”

  She nodded.

  Seven miles in the desert was enough to make it hard to walk, if you were working hard, which all of the men would be, Lawrence natives, invaders, and mercenaries alike. Breathing got hard, and your brain started making ploys on your sense. They’d need a gallon of water apiece, over the course of maybe an hour, maybe more, to recover.

  Problem was, there was gonna be a gunfight going on that whole time.

  “Thomas and the women know,” Jimmy said. “They’re all Lawrence, except the Lawsons.”

  “And Lise ain’t gonna be serving water, nowise,” Sarah said. Jimmy didn’t even bother to grunt.

  The house was in view, now, and they were early, but not that early. There were motorcycles scattered around the yard and men laying on their stomachs, shooting at the house.

  “Need to get in there,” Jimmy said, taking a step to the side. “This is you.”

  “My pleasure,” she muttered.

  The house was returning fire, but she could see men on the road, ones in various shades of brown and tan, Lawrence men, and they needed refuge when they got to the house. Immediate refuge and the precious moments of recuperation before the mercenaries arrived behind them.

  Sarah raised her rifle and put the sight to her eye.

  “Count ‘em,” she said.

  Her mind’s eye could see the way he’d tip his head back, the flare to his nostrils and the set of his jaw as he forced his mind to engage the scattered shapes and count them individually.

  “Thirty-two,” he said.

  “Gonna need both boxes I took from Doc’s,” she said.

  There was the s
ound of leather sliding down his shoulder.

  “Why does a healing man need boxes of ammunition that suit your rifle?” he asked.

  “He’s taken to packing ‘em with his kit same as I pack a patch kid,” she answered, taking the first shot. “Sometimes you gotta do both.”

  “One hit,” he said.

  “One kill.”

  --------

  The house was defending itself, but the sound of the rifle rolling up the hillside drew attention. They were pinched, and as Sarah took them out, systematically and brutally, people shooting out of the upstairs windows started to get a better look. Sarah was cover fire, as much as anything, and in the end, she only had to hit twenty-three of the men.

  “Confirm kill,” she said, sweeping her sight down the road. “The men are going to be there almost the same time we are.”

  “Petey will do it,” Jimmy said, taking her elbow and pulling her forward. “I need you in the house.”

  She frowned at him, letting her feet keep up with him.

  “Why?”

  He nodded toward the road.

  “Same as what you told Rich. Those men aren’t all going to be healthy. I need you figuring out who gets treatment and who doesn’t.”

  She gave him a grim look, and he nodded.

  “We’re strong here,” he said. “It had to be here.”

  She shook her head, speeding up again. She stripped rifles off of the two men they passed nearest to, taking them into the house with her. There were maybe a dozen women in the entryway and front room, running around making last-minute preparations.

  “Sarah,” Kayla yelled. “Sarah, you’re here.”

  Sarah paused, watching to see where Jimmy went but not following him. Kayla grasped her elbows.

  “How is Wade?” Kayla asked. Sarah noticed Sunny standing on the stairs, arms crossed to grasp her own elbows.

  “Wade got shot,” Sarah said. “Doc’s seein’ to him, and says he’s gonna live.” She turned her head up to look at Sunny. “Rich is with him.”

  Sunny gave her a solid nod, turning to go back upstairs, but Kayla put her hands over her mouth.

  “He got shot? How bad?”

  “Bad,” Sarah said. “I was there. Did what I could. Like I said, Doc says he’s gonna live.” Sarah carefully removed Kayla’s hands. “I need to go, Kayla. We got a herd ‘a men comin’ in here like as dead, and they’s gonna need a hell of a lot of help, if we’re gonna beat the army what’s comin’ behind them.”