Lionhearts (Denver Burning Book 5)

by Algor X. Dennison

  “It sounded like a lot of guys fighting each other,” Mike replied.

  Walt led them right at the next alley connection, along the front of the parking garage and out to another street. “Yeah, I think we blundered into somebody else’s battleground. Probably scared them into opening fire with our approach.”

  “Man, this place is dangerous!” Liam said.

  “No kidding,” Alma agreed. “Maybe we should get off the streets until morning.”

  “Nowhere to go,” Walt said.

  “Actually, my sister’s place is a couple miles from here. I was going to split off from you guys when we got to the park up ahead, but we could all shelter there for the night if you want. It’s not like you’re going to have much luck finding your daughter tonight anyway. Nobody’s going to talk to you until daylight, and you’re going to have a lot harder time finding your way across the city in this pitch black.”

  “I say we do it, Dad,” Mike said, and Liam nodded vigorously.

  “Okay. We’ll take you up on that, if you think your sister will have us,” Walt told Alma.

  Once they got out to a street that looked clear and quiet and led in the right direction, Alma directed them northeast block by block through an abandoned neighborhood. After fifteen minutes’ walking they came to a neighborhood with thick barriers erected across the streets and sidewalks from building to building. A man called out a challenge when they got close.

  “Who’s that? State your name and purpose, or get lost! We shoot intruders here!”

  Walt and the others crouched down. “Do we need to get through there?” he asked Alma.

  She shook her head. “We can go around. We’re trying to get to an area about a mile past it, and a little to the east.”

  They hurried away and continued on their route. Finally, after a half hour of walking, they came to a neighborhood Alma recognized. “This is it!” she said excitedly. “We’re almost there.”

  Another ten minutes of brisk walking brought them to a neighborhood with open streets. A couple of silent watchers that disappeared into the shadows as they approached.

  “It’s Alma Rojas! We’re friends!” Alma called after them, but there was no reply. “I think those were lookouts,” she explained to the others. “The others decided to post lookouts when I left, even though they didn’t have manpower to put up much of a fight. The lookouts were just to give everyone else warning time to get away.”

  “Sounds like good organization to me,” Walt said. “How many people were you and your sister with?”

  “About forty,” Alma said. “Minus the ones I took north. The group kind of coalesced around us when everything went down. I don’t know why they picked Estela and me. It’s a pretty poor neighborhood, but we all kind of banded together and helped out where we could.

  “The really bad guys, the ones that were shooting civilians and cops and just trying to take the city down, they never came into our neighborhood. But some looters did, and we had it pretty hard. That’s when I left, taking several others with me that didn’t want to stick around.”

  They were entering the heart of the neighborhood now, and the scent of woodsmoke hung in the air. Suddenly, they found themselves surrounded by several men armed with clubs, bats, and a pistol or two.

  “Drop your weapons and get on the ground!” one shouted.

  “Hey, hey, it’s me, Alma,” Alma quickly said in a loud but calm and reassuring voice. “Alma Rojas. I have a few friends with me. We came to see Estela.”

  The men stepped back at that news, and one approached close enough to look Alma in the face. “Oh, mira, you guys. It is Alma. Can you believe it?”

  “Hey! Welcome back. How in the world did you get here?” another man asked, lowering the crowbar he had been brandishing. He was an old man by the sound of his voice.

  “I traveled with these gentlemen,” Alma said, pointing at Walt and his boys. “We almost got shot in the middle of a gang fight earlier, but we escaped and got through okay.”

  “Hmm, I think we heard that one. About an hour ago? Lots of shooting about three miles from here?”

  “Yeah, that was it. They were shooting each other more than us, thank goodness,” Alma said.

  “Glad you made it,” the old man replied. “If it was who we think it was, you’re very lucky to be alive.”

  Alma and the others frowned at his ominous words.

  “Who are you talking about? We never really saw them, just their guns,” Alma said.

  “Bad guys. Lots of them,” one of the younger men said, putting his pistol back into his waistband.

  “A large gang of brutal killers and looters,” the older man added. “They’ve been dominating other groups in the area, taking resources. But now they’re out for blood—our blood. Remember Mario, Estela’s old boyfriend? The moto racer? He’s with them.”

  Alma’s face went pale. “Is Estela around?” she asked. “I need to talk to her.”

  The men turned and led Alma and her friends up the street to a small apartment building that now had a few candles glowing in its upper floors. A few people were standing outside, and as the newcomers approached one of them lit a small improvised lantern made from a pile of tinder and a few sticks inside a coffee can. This provided enough light so the gathered people could see each other.

  “Estela! Hermanita, what a relief to see you,” Alma said.

  The other woman, who was taller than Alma and more slender with flowing dark hair and piercing eyes, rebuffed Alma’s attempt at a hug with one outstretched arm. “I want to know why you came back here, Alma, and what you think you’re going to do here,” she said in cold, authoritative tones. “Who is this that you have brought into the barrio, with all of these armas? We really don’t need any more trouble right now.”

  “Estela,” Alma said, her voice thick with reproach. “These are friends that helped me get into the city. I came to make sure you’re all right!”

  “I don’t believe that for one minute,” Estela said. She motioned to the men behind Alma and the Leonhardts, still carrying their weapons. “Stay close, guys. If these outsiders move a muscle, hit them hard and don’t stop.”

  Chapter 19: Alliances and Enemies

  Alma sighed. “Estela, this isn’t the welcome I was hoping for.”

  “What did you expect, hermana?” Estela shrieked, making several of those standing around flinch. The Leonhardts stood stock still, watching and listening to the fiery exchange. “You have no idea what we’ve been through since you walked out of here. Now you just waltz back in, and you want us to trust you? After what you did to me?”

  “I didn’t do anything to you!” Alma argued. “We all made our decisions, and guess what? Mine was the right one. We have a place in Boulder now, a safe home where the people that went with me are resting. It’s a lot safer than here!”

  “Anywhere’s safer than here,” Estela agreed. “You got that much correcto, genius sister of mine. But that gave you no right to threaten everyone’s safety by walking out on us when you did. I forbade it, and you ran off anyway with our food, our guns, and two of our men that we needed around here.”

  Alma snorted in outrage. “One gun, Estela. One little gun, and a bag of pasas. That’s it! And now you’re treating me like a criminal.”

  “These are desperate times, Alma. You don’t even know how desperate because you didn’t stick around to find out! We don’t have much, but we’re fighting for survival with it anyway. And I can not afford you coming back in here and throwing everything out of balance again!”

  Alma shook her head and held a hand up to her brow. “I’m so sorry about this,” she said, looking over at Mike. “Me and some of the others that were here, we decided it was better to look for safety outside of the city. My sister here disagreed, and we parted ways.” She turned to Estela again and held out her hands. “But Estela, mira, by coming here I just proved it can be done. You can come with me this time, everybody can come.” Alma turned and addressed
the others gathered around, speaking loudly enough for all to hear. “Everybody can come away with me this time. We have a safe place in Boulder. It’s not that far and we can get there safe if we go—”

  Estela, livid now, reached out and yanked her sister backward. “Cállate! How dare you defy me again, to my face, in front of everyone? I will not tolerate this, sister. Get out!”

  Alma regained her balance and held out her hands to placate her sister. “No, please, Estela. It doesn’t have to be this way. I just want everyone to stay safe, and if you stay here, you’re not going to make it!”

  Walt could see that Estela was about to go totally ballistic on the younger woman, and decided to take a shot at the situation before it got really ugly. Before he could open his mouth, however, Mike stepped up.

  “Ma’am,” he said, “I can see you and Alma don’t get along real well. I’m very sorry. But we can tell you a few things about what we’ve seen on the way in here that might help you get a better sense of where you stand. I promise you, we mean well, and if our presence here causes a problem for you, we’ll leave. But it sure seems like we ought to sit down and have a calm, reasonable chat before it comes to that, for both our sakes. Don’t you think?”

  Estela fixed her piercing eyes on the young man and heard him out even though her chest was heaving and the flush in her cheeks made it plain how close she was to venting her wrath on the people in front of her. When he finished his short speech, she just continued to stare at him. Everyone else watched her, holding their breath.

  “I’m sure you could use some information about what’s out there, both in the city and beyond it,” Mike added. “We can tell you that much. We came all the way from Montana to find my sister. That’s what we’re going to do, just as soon as we can get out of here. But right now, it would be really nice if we could just sit down for one minute. Do you think that might be possible, ma’am?”

  Estela let out a long breath. “At least you’re more respectful than my idiota sister. But why should I trust you? We’ve had other guys in here, other dudes with guns. That didn’t go so well for us.”

  Walt held out a hand to shake Estela’s. “Walt Leonhardt, Miss. This is my son Mike, and my other son Liam. We just met Alma last night, so I guess we’ll have to vouch for ourselves. But I will swear to you that we have no bad intentions, we just need a spot to rest for a bit. Come daylight we’ll head out after my daughter. In the meantime, we’re more than willing to help you and yours however we can.”

  Estela slowly took Walt’s hand and shook it. “What is it you think you can do for us, Mr. Leonhardt?”

  “Well, for starters,” Walt said, scratching his head, “we have our rifles and we know how to use them. It looks like you could use a few shooters around here in case you’re visited by the kind of bad guys we ran into a few miles back. And then there’s the intel my son mentioned—we can show you the lay of the land, in case you do need to move out of here for some reason. Also, I do have some military experience and I’d be happy to advise you on how to make this neighborhood more defensible, if that’s something you haven’t already handled yet.”

  Estela looked into Walt’s eyes for a moment. Then she turned on her heel and spoke with a long sigh as she walked back toward the apartment building she had come from. “Alma, show these gentlemen where they can rest for the night—your old place—and then bring this one to my office. I like him, and his older son. Maybe if they really can help us, you’ll be redeemed.”

  Two of the people with Estela accompanied her back into the apartment, but the one holding the little torch-can stayed to provide the others with light.

  “Her highness has an office now?” Alma asked the old man with the crowbar. He grinned sheepishly back at her.

  When Estela was out of earshot and her door had closed, Mike let out a low whistle. “That is one power-tripping woman! But she is also really hot. Really hot!” He turned to Liam and grinned, raising his eyebrows. Liam chuckled. Alma wasn’t so amused.

  Walt ignored them. “Alma, when you convinced us to bring you along for the ride, you didn’t mention that your sister wanted to kill you and dance on your grave. It might have been good to know.”

  “Well. I can’t say I deserved all of that,” she replied. “But I wasn’t as surprised as I probably looked, either. My sister and I have a… fiery relationship. She’ll be friendlier in the morning. Come on, I’ll show you the apartment I used to live in, it’s around the corner.”

  In the empty apartment Alma showed them, the little group refreshed themselves with a jug of water and some small cornmeal cakes the old man brought to them. Then Walt and Mike walked over to the apartment where Estela was working. Alma stayed behind, pointing out that given the outcome of their earlier conversation, the Leonhardts would probably get by just fine without her involved. She and Liam stood on the balcony overlooking the neighborhood while Alma told stories about growing up in Denver and how things had gone down in the city when the power went out.

  When Walt and Mike knocked on the door of Estela’s office, they heard her call for them to come in. Inside there were enough candles to illuminate the place at a comfortable level. Estela was sitting at a kitchen table with papers, maps, calendars, and medicine bottles spread across it. In the corner the old man leaned a chair against the wall, his crowbar at his feet. Another woman, older and much fatter, sat behind the kitchen table tallying something on paper. A young man with a large, fresh scar on his scalp stood nearby, waiting.

  “Come in, have a seat,” Estela told the Leonhardt men. “It’s getting a little late, but if you don’t mind staying up long enough to work out a few things with me here, we can all get some rest while Jeremy carries a message to the Pinetree neighborhood.” She nodded at the young man in the room, who looked all of sixteen. “We have kind of an agreement with them. An alliance, I guess you could call it. They’ll want to know whatever we decide here, because whatever happens to us, they’re next on the chopping block.”

  Mike grabbed a chair, and Walt sat in one directly across from Estela. “Okay. What exactly did you want to decide?”

  Estela drummed her nails on the only clear patch on the table’s surface. “A couple things. First I want you to tell me what you went through to get here, how things are west of here, and what options you think we have based on that. Then I’ll tell you how things are here. Our situation is worse than Alma knows, and we have to make a plan or we are not going to make it through the next week. God knows we need help, so whatever expertise you have, we’ll take it.”

  Walt nodded gravely. Then he began summarizing the relevant parts of their journey through Boulder, down to Golden, into the city, and told how they had nearly been caught in a shootout.

  “It’s great for open country, but traveling in the city by night doesn’t seem to be such a good idea,” Walt finished. “So we wanted to wait until morning and then we’ll go and comb the area where my daughter lives. If she’s not there, we’ll ask around after her, follow up on leads, question anyone that might have seen her or knows where she went. After we find her, we’re going to take the quickest route out of this city we can find, that doesn’t run us into another massive shootout. Then it’s back up north for us.”

  “That may be trickier than you think,” Estela said. “The gang you narrowly escaped, I know a little bit about. People call them the Carniceros, and they are bad news. Basically the biggest, most bloodthirsty mob of looters, rapists, and killers in our area. If you run into them when they’re not busy fighting someone else, well, that will be the end of you. But I wish you the best, and I thank you for the info about the streets west of here. It may come in handy.”

  “What else did you want to tell us about your situation here?” Walt asked.

  Estela breathed out another of her long, deep sighs, betraying the depth of her cares and stresses.

  “Here’s how it is,” she began. “In a couple of days the Carniceros are going to descend on our neighborhood
. They’re coming this way because, according to the rumors, an even worse group is pushing down from the north side, a bunch of ruthless ex-military guys that don’t waste time with little people that get in the way. The Carniceros are being pushed this way because they need a more defensible area that the other group won’t be able to wrest away.

  “We can either evacuate, or find a way to pay them off, to bypass us for the time being. But we have nothing to pay them off with, absolutely nothing. And we can’t run for it, because we have thirteen little kids and four elderly people with us—not counting Jorge over there.” Estela smiled at the old man. “You may be a mature man, Jorge, but you have the strength of a young stallion.”

  Jorge smiled back, tapping his toe on his crowbar.

  “We’re mostly women and children, Mr. Leonhardt,” Estela explained. “We’ve hidden that fact from outsiders so far. But it doesn’t matter anymore, because in a couple days—maybe even tomorrow night—all hell is going to come here and drive us out. It’s a simple matter of time.”

  Walt closed his eyes. “Where did all the kids come from?”

  “From the street. We can’t leave them behind, but they can’t travel through the warzone that is our city. And we are running out of time and options, Mr. Leonhardt. Got any suggestions for us?”

  Chapter 20: Refuge and Runaway

  It was quite dark on the street outside Crestwood now, but Tara and her roommate had nowhere to go. Gemma lay stretched out in the grass, eyes closed. Tara sat against a tree next to her, wondering what to do.

  The men behind the gate had shouted at them a couple of times, trying to get them to clear off. But Tara and Gemma didn’t think they would open fire on two innocent girls across the street, and there wasn’t anywhere safe to go. So they just stayed there.

  Tara’s eyes drooped. She was uncomfortable and had the sickening feeling of real, well-substantiated fear lurking in her belly. But she was exhausted and had nothing better to do than sleep. Only the thought of what might happen to she and Gemma if they were found sleeping in the street by one of the nasty characters they’d run into that day kept her awake.