Lionhearts (Denver Burning Book 5)

by Algor X. Dennison

  Finally she got up and walked across the street to the barricade. “Excuse me. Hello in there—don’t shoot me. I just need to talk to you for a second,” she called out.

  “Beat it, lady,” one of the men inside said. He sounded like he’d just been startled out of a doze himself.

  “Look, you know I’m not armed, I’m not threat to you or your neighborhood. Please just listen to me for a minute,” Tara continued. “I’m very sorry about what that guy who was with us did. Honestly, I only really met him yesterday for the first time, and I don’t agree with anything he did. Now that it’s just me and my roommate Gemma over there, do you think we might be able to talk to the family of her boss? I’m not asking you to let us in, just to talk to them briefly. Could you bring his wife to the gate, please?”

  The guard at first rebuffed her, but Tara was insistent. She kept pleading with the man, appealing to his humanity, and finally he sent a younger man to bring the family Tara wanted to speak with.

  She called Gemma over, and when a middle-aged woman came up to the gate five minutes later, they introduced themselves. Gemma offered her condolences about the death of her boss, the woman’s husband, and they commiserated for a moment about the frightening cruelty of what was going on in the city. The woman mentioned that she had a fifteen-year-old daughter and an older relative staying in her home, and so far they were healthy and safe.

  Tara told the woman about her little sister Amy, also fifteen, and how she hoped she was safe and well too. The woman expressed concern and kind words, and five minutes later they were in. It was as easy as that, just talking person-to-person. The woman vouched for them to the gate guards, declaring that the two young ladies were her house guests for the night, and the older man shrugged.

  “Keep an eye on ‘em,” he cautioned the woman. “You know the rules. If they mess around at all, they’re out on the streets. And it’s up to you to feed ‘em.”

  As tired as Tara was, she and Gemma stayed up late that night chatting with the other women in the large gray house inside the gated community. It turned out that they had more in common than just the link between Gemma’s boss. She also knew another couple in the neighborhood, friends of her own parents, and one of Tara’s coworkers had also lived in the neighborhood but had never made it home.

  They were all starved for calming, considerate conversation between women, and it did each of their hearts good. Tara fell asleep in a nice bed that night thinking of her mother and wondering how things were on the ranch.

  Sarah had spent the morning, after the initial chores were done, canning another batch of applesauce. That used up the last of the apples from their two trees in the back yard, and made seven jars. As she finished the canning job, she multitasked with a sheet of paper on the table next to her. It listed the herd schedule next to the amount of feed and hay and other supplies they had on hand, and then had notes next to it about the manpower she could get to help make hay and bring in additional grain from a neighbor’s field that had been made available to the Leonhardts.

  There was a knock at the door, and Sarah wiped her hands. She looked out the back window but didn’t see either of her girls. They were likely working out of sight somewhere, but it gave her a surge of anxiety to have a stranger at the door and not know where her girls were. She wished she could keep closer tabs on them, but the work had to get done and she couldn’t babysit full time.

  She went to the living room and looked out the front window to see two men standing on the porch. The face of one was obscured by cowboy hat, but she recognized the other as the husband of one of Sarah’s church friends.

  She opened the door and greeted them.

  “Hello, Mrs. Leonhardt. I’m Bob Constantinas,” the larger man said. The younger stood back and waited. “How are things on your ranch going?”

  “They’re fine,” Sarah replied. “How’s your wife?”

  “Oh, she’s good,” Bob said. He shifted uncomfortably and there was a moment of silence. The occasion called for a polite minute or two of small talk, but Bob couldn’t seem to think of anything else to say. Sarah waited him out, wanting to see what the men had come about before she would volunteer anything further on her end.

  “Well, listen,” Bob finally continued, “we wanted to visit you today to talk about some new developments in the organization of our community.” The younger man behind him silently nodded. “You’re a valued member of our community, and we’re going around today talking to people, valued members like you, about the new developments in our community.”

  Sarah listened, half amused and half dismayed. The man was talking in circles, clearly uncomfortable with whatever the errand was that he had come on.

  “You see, Mrs. Leonhardt, times are dangerous and hard for a lot of people, and while our area hasn’t seen the chaos that some of the larger towns have, we definitely have a need to band together and fight off the difficulties that are looming over us all.”

  He paused to see how that line played with Sarah, but she just looked steadily back at him.

  “Now, some of those difficulties involve danger from outsiders coming in to try and take what’s ours, what our land has provided,” Bob continued. “And some of them involve simple problems like starvation and disease. There isn’t the infrastructure there once was, to provide for everybody’s needs. You take my meaning?”

  Sarah nodded once, slowly, but said nothing. She sensed that the more she let Bob talk, the sooner he’d reveal the true reason he’d come for.

  “The point is this, Mrs. Leonhardt. Many of us ranchers are banding together to pool resources, primarily self-defense but also supplies and equipment. And young Henry and I have come out today to talk to people about contributing what they’ve got. We’re not asking for donations—we’re trying to spread the word about the organization we’ve got going, and how it’s going to affect people going forward. You see, there’s some things our whole community will benefit from, like defense and preventing lawlessness. In exchange, it’s important for every member to contribute to sustain the whole operation.”

  Sarah spoke softly. “I’m all about community, Mr. Constantinas. Many of us have been working together and things are going just fine so far. What is it you need from me today?”

  Bob turned to the younger man, then swiveled back. “Look here, Mrs. Leonhardt. I’ve explained how things are now. The point is, you’ve got an awful lot of resources here on your ranch, things that a lot of other people don’t have. You’ve got, what, a hundred head of cattle out there?”

  Bob tried to peer past the corner of the house out to the north pasture. As he was distracted, Sarah’s hand silently moved to the gun that was propped against the wall, just inside the doorway. Neither of the men saw her movement, but with her hand resting on the barrel of the gun she felt slightly more confident.

  “We have some cattle, and some other things to see us through the winter,” Sarah said. “I’m in contact with many members of our community, and I certainly intend to share and help where I can. But whatever we give out will be on our terms, not anyone else’s. If this organization you’re talking about involves taking control of my herd, that won’t fly. Is there anything else I can do for you gentlemen today?”

  Bob frowned, obviously frustrated that Sarah had seen through him so quickly. The younger man scowled ferociously. “Come on, now, Mrs. Leonhardt, this isn’t how I wanted to come across. What I’m telling you is just that, well, you’re going to need a lot of protection soon. With your husband gone and just you women running this place, we need to defend what we’ve got here. Those cattle could be a major target for someone, and you’ll want a lot of help to keep them safe and well taken care of.”

  Sarah planted one foot firmly behind the door so it couldn’t be pushed open any farther than she wanted it to be. “I’ve got help, Mr. Constantinas. When I need more, I’ll let somebody know. Walt gave me good guidance before he left, and he’ll be back within the month. I will take care of
my cattle, and I’ll help the community meet individual needs as I see fit.”

  Bob put a hand on the door frame and leaned closer, his voice growing gruffer. “Now, Mrs. Leonhardt, don’t be difficult with me. You have to admit, there could be a lot of people interested in your herd, and you’ll need help defending it.”

  Sarah stared back coolly. “Just who do you think I should be defending my herd from?”

  Bob stepped back. “Well, there’s more than just wolves out there. If somebody runs off a few head of cattle, you’ll be wishing you’d cooperated with us.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I’ll manage my herd and my ranch, Mr. Constantinas, and that is final. Tell your wife I said hello. Now, I’ve got work to do. You gentlemen have a nice day.” She quietly shut the door and locked it, ignoring the beginnings of a rebuttal from the younger man. Then she grabbed her gun and checked it, flicked the safety off, and peered out the peep hole in the center of the door.

  The two men lingered for a few seconds, grumbling to each other and casting hateful glances at the door. Then they turned and sauntered off the porch and back out to the road. Sarah sighed and slumped down on the arm of the couch in front of the window, still holding her gun.

  She was still there, pondering the “developments” Bob Constantinas had brought word of, when the back door opened and Amy came in. She was crying again.

  “What is it now?” Sarah asked, putting the gun back by the door. “What’s wrong, is it something to do with that boy again?”

  Amy shook her head. “It’s Jess. She took off, Mom. She’s going home.”

  Sarah grabbed Amy by the shoulders. “What are you saying? Where is Jess?”

  “She took off on her bike a few minutes ago. She says she’s going home to Oregon. She doesn’t want to stay here any longer.”

  “Are you kidding me? What is she thinking, she’s just going to bike down the road and be home in Portland by dinner? Which way did she go?”

  Amy pointed out toward the country road. “She took a backpack full of her stuff and a little food. I tried to get her to stay, but she said she just can’t take it here anymore and she wants to be with her family.”

  “How long has she been gone, Amy?”

  “Just a couple minutes, but she was riding fast, she’s probably already half a mile down the road. You aren’t going to go after her, are you?”

  Sarah closed her eyes. She didn’t like the idea of Jess out on her own on the road, but she was seventeen going on eighteen and not as vulnerable as Amy. If she had chosen to take off, it probably wasn’t Sarah’s place to force her to stay. “I think she’ll be back soon; there’s no way she’ll make it more than twenty or thirty miles from here on her own. But I’m worried,” Sarah sighed. “It isn’t safe out there for a young woman alone without so much as a gun to protect herself. When Murph comes by this afternoon, send him to me. He lives out that way and knows the people along the road Jess’ll be traveling. We’ll see if one of them can tell us where she’s at and maybe we’ll send someone after her. But we can’t just abandon the ranch to go on a wild goose chase, not right now.”

  Amy wiped her eyes. “Who were those guys I saw leaving?”

  “Oh, just a couple of neighbors,” Sarah said.

  Amy eyed the shotgun by the door, but didn’t press her mother further on the subject. She hugged Sarah and asked, “Mom, why is everyone leaving us? Don’t they care about us?”

  Sarah smiled wanly. “Yes, Amy. They all do. Dad and Liam will be back soon with Tara, and Jess will come back too.”

  “What about Jaren?”

  “I don’t know about him. If he’s smart, he’ll leave whatever foolishness he’s gotten into and come ask for your friendship again. But you don’t owe him a thing. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of each other. Okay?”

  Amy smiled through drying tears, and Sarah fiercely hugged her back.

  Chapter 21: To Defend the Innocent

  Before sunup, Walt returned to Estela’s office. He hadn’t been much help the night before, being just as dismayed at the situation of her people as she was. But after sleeping on it he had come up with some ideas to slow down the oncoming wave of destruction.

  He intended to write up a quick plan that Estela’s people could follow to harden their city block, leaving exits open to fade away into the streets when the time came and they were overrun. Because it would come to that, eventually, and there wasn’t much Walt could do about it. Once they were loose in the streets with nowhere safe to turn, he knew, it would be the end of most of them. He resolved to impart whatever counsel and encouragement he could, and then go after Tara and vacate the city as quickly as possible.

  But instead of sitting down together in the office to go over the plans, Estela led him outside. She took him into an inner courtyard of the apartment complex to show him what was at stake.

  There was a crack in the curtain of one of the apartments’ front window, and through it Walt could see several children sleeping on couches and beds on the floor. Most were sleeping blissfully in the safety of the community’s most secure place, although one older boy who had just woken up peered out at him with bleary brown eyes. Another little girl’s tousled blonde hair hung off the couch where she was blissfully snoring.

  There were little Mexican kids from this neighborhood and others, there were blonde and blue-eyed kids from all over the area, there were older kids and toddlers. They looked very peaceful, if a bit ragged and dirty.

  Estela smiled. “This is why I’m still here, Mr. Leonhardt. I just wanted you to see what I am doing here, so you don’t think I’m crazy. Maybe I am crazy. My sister says I am. But if I go down at the end of the world, I want to go down fighting for someone besides myself.”

  What she said stirred something in Walt, and as he stared at the children, sleeping what might very well be their last peaceful hour of sleep, his heart and mind began to expand and his outlook to change from what it had been during the preceding days.

  Mike and Liam stayed on the mattresses where they had laid out their sleeping bags, gleaning every last minute of sleep they could. Finally Mike got up and gave Liam a kick. “C’mon, man. Dad might need us. We’ve got a seriously long day ahead of us today.”

  They did their best to wash some of the road-weariness off of their faces and bodies with the jug of water that had been left for them, and then went out the door with their gear.

  The sun had just risen enough to bathe the city in a clean glow, and they could see some of the surrounding area from the second-story balcony they were on. Most of the buildings were quiet and still, but in several places they could see wisps of smoke from cooking fires rising into the sky to join the haze that covered most of the region.

  “I wish we had a fire and something to cook on it,” Liam yawned. “Probably too dangerous, though. It would attract unwanted attention, I’m sure. What did you and Dad learn last night, anyway?”

  Mike outlined the bleak situation Estela’s people were facing. “Apparently this neighborhood was overlooked in most of the fighting, looting, and burning that took place over the past couple weeks in Denver. Nobody thought it was worth seeking out. But that’s changed now, and you’re right about not lighting a cook fire. Things are getting dicey around here.”

  “Why?” Liam asked.

  “For one thing, by now so much of the rest of the region has been picked over and decimated by fire, disease, starvation and all the rest, that this neighborhood isn’t looking so bad. They have a water source, an old rain cistern under one of the buildings that remained clean and untouched.

  “They don’t have much food, but the neighborhood is in kind of a sweet spot where there aren’t too many dangerous groups nearby. And there are some factories and supply warehouses half a mile away that they’ve been mining for the raw ingredients and equipment. It was kept mostly secret until recently, but now there’s at least one bad gang headed this way.

  “Estela’s old flame, who’s now the secon
d-in-command of a major gang of looters, came to find her and offer her a place with him in the gang, but she stuck it to him. He didn’t like her suggestion that he go screw one of his gangster friends instead, and when he got angry she shot him in the arm. Now he’s vowed to bring his whole crew here to pillage.”

  Liam whistled. “That lady is dangerous. We should just steer clear of her.”

  Mike shrugged. “She’s got a certain allure, though, you know? I think she’s about my age. About my height, too.”

  Liam was about to attempt to dissuade his brother from whatever romantic notions he’d begun to entertain, but at that moment the door next to the one they’d emerged from opened and Alma stepped out, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Mike said. “I kind of thought you’d be up early, reconnecting with all your friends here and making plans to get them out.”

  Alma scowled at him. “Don’t talk so loud. My head hurts,” she muttered. “What day is it? Do you guys have any coffee? Water will do if you don’t have any coffee.”

  Liam gave her the water from their apartment and after Alma had gone back inside the other apartment to change into a fresh shirt from her backpack, the trio headed down the stairs and around the corner to the apartment from which Estela had been running things.

  Walt was outside giving instructions to Jorge and a few other men and women. He had a checklist he was working from in one hand and a map in the other. “I really, really wish we had a couple rolls of barbed wire,” he was saying to Jorge. “You think we could scavenge some from one of those factories you said were in the area?”

  Jorge shook his head. “No sé, man. I haven’t seen any around here. But we can look while we’re out today.”

  When the others walked up, Walt nodded at Alma and then at his sons. “Okay, you guys. We have a lot of work to do to help these people. I’m working on an evac route with Estela, but to slow down these bad dudes that are coming, we need to get obstacles as far out around the neighborhood as we can. Mike, Alma, I’m going to need you two to take Jeremy when he gets back and start setting tripwires, noisemakers, little booby traps of all kinds out along a perimeter two three blocks from here. I’ll show you how to make some of those. They probably won’t stop anybody in their tracks, but the idea is to slow their pace, make them think twice about storming in here, and give us a heads up on where they’re at.