War Zone: Homefront

by Thomas A. Watson

  “But, Sheriff…”

  “Mack, I don’t think she’s bluffing, and she’s got the drop on you. Nathan here says she’ll do it, and we don’t need the trouble. Not after everything else we’ve been through.”

  Turning his attention back to Nathan, the sheriff continued to speak, his voice steeped with resignation and pain.

  “Just give us a few days to find another place, Nathan, and we’ll be out of here. I know how much the homestead means to you, but there was just no way to keep them from reaching the barn or the machine shed when a group hit us last month.” Hargrove made a gesture with his hand, holding it with the palm flat while he signaled the other deputies to stand down.

  “We just don’t have enough men to hold this perimeter,” Sheriff Hargrove continued, his voice filled with regret. “With the women and kids all here, we have to keep some back to provide a guard force when the rest of us go out and hunt for food. When our scouts go out, they hit us while we’re short-handed.”

  Nathan grunted, his blood still boiling, but a new voice caught his attention then.

  “Pwease don’t make us go, mister.”

  “Leeann,” Sheriff Hargrove said, his tone more of a whine than a serious complaint. “Why aren’t you down with the other little ones?”

  Nathan didn’t know her age, but she definitely qualified in the ‘little one’ category. Judging from his own kids, he roughly estimated her as older than Emma, but younger than Casey. Maybe closer to Chip, he thought. So, maybe four years old, he quickly guesstimated.

  “I wanted to see, Mister Sheriff, sir.”

  “One of the deputies’ kids, Sheriff?” Nathan asked, knowing Hargrove’s two children were both teenagers.

  Hargrove glanced down again, and when he looked up, Nathan again saw the pain in the man’s eyes. “No. Her mother was Rachel Marshall. One of the dayshift dispatchers. She was off the day this all started. By the time we managed to get a patrol over to her neighborhood, she was, well, our boys found Leeann hiding in the shed out back.”

  Nathan flinched at the words. He vaguely recalled Rachel from one of the department cookouts. She had been a petite, blonde-haired woman in her late twenties. Divorced, Nathan remembered. He could guess what’d happened to the pretty woman when the town fell apart.

  “So, you took her in?”

  “What else were we going to do with her?” Sheriff Hargrove asked. He sounded offended by the question, and Nathan nodded. Crap, he thought. Things are really tough all over.

  Dropping his hard gaze from the sheriff, Nathan took another step back and released a heavy sigh. Rusty and Tim took a step back, seeing the red begin to fade from Nathan’s face.

  “Why didn’t you fort up at your office?” Nathan asked the question, even though he suspected he already knew the answer.

  “Too close to the center of town, and too many windows. We were under siege there within a week. People wanted us to feed them, get them clean water, and fix the power. Like we could even do that,” Sheriff Hargrove huffed with exasperation. “No, we couldn’t stay in town, and at least out here, we have water and can hunt for food.”

  “Did you bring in any others when you moved out here?”

  The sheriff seemed embarrassed when he replied.

  “Like I said, we’ve got a bunch of women and children under our care. In addition to our own wives and kids, we took in another sixteen. Either mothers with no husband, or children with no parents. They just showed up, either at the office or here, and what else could we have done?”

  You could have turned them away, Nathan thought. Left them to die in the streets or be taken as slaves, or worse. Plenty of that going around these days. Just take care of your own, and to hell with everybody else.

  Nathan ran a hand across his face and glanced back at his friends. Tim and Rusty. John and Jasmine. Only Amanda still looked ready to kill somebody, and Mack was staring at Nathan with a look that dripped anger and frustration over the situation. Nathan realized with a flash, this whole thing was going very differently than he’d pictured it in his head. Especially after he’d observed the damage done to the house and grounds.

  “All right, Sheriff.”

  “All right, what?” Hargrove asked cautiously.

  “You and your guys can stay here till we get this mess straightened out. But, I have some conditions.”

  “I’m listening. And what do you mean by ‘this mess’ exactly?”

  “Until we can get our country back, for one thing, and we drive out these foreigners occupying our country, for another. But you guys are going to need to do your part, too.”

  Sheriff Frank Hargrove stared at Nathan like he’d grown a third eye, right in the middle of his forehead. “Son, I don’t know how much more we can do, but do you have any idea just how badly we’re screwed? There’s hundreds of thousands of these Russians and Chinese troops in our country already.”

  “More than that, Sheriff,” Nathan replied, but he decided, at the last minute, to delay briefing the man on just how many, or how he knew. He didn’t want anything getting back to the gangs or the Chinese, and Nathan knew if captured, any of the deputies would talk. “But we can do our part here in the county, and maybe more in Idaho. Eastern Washington, too. First thing, though, I need to talk to my people about how we can help you. For now, hold tight here. I’ll be back in a few days.”

  Sheriff Hargrove looked at Nathan again, more carefully this time. These past few months had changed many people, and most were changed for the worse. People he’d once thought of as friends and pillars of the community, turned to stealing and worse to feed their families. What had changed about Nathan?

  He’d known Nathan Owens a long time, having seen the local boy grow up to be a man. Or more properly, in the sheriff’s opinion, a man-child. Nathan always seemed to be coasting through life, dabbling in different pastimes or extreme sports that suddenly struck his fancy. He knew for a fact, there wasn’t a deputy in Idaho with as much tactical training as Nathan had put himself through. Nathan’s parents didn’t spoil the boy, but he’d always struck Frank Hargrove as being too unfocused in his personal life. And look at that string of beautiful women throwing themselves at him, while Nathan moved from one to the next.

  Yes, he was a good deputy, probably better trained than anyone else on the force, save for Rusty, the sheriff had to admit, but he’d always seemed too…something. Rusty was a natural cop. To Nathan, the job seemed more like a game. Not weak, never that, but somehow incomplete. Through his contacts in the county’s medical community, the sheriff knew Nathan had made a ton of money as a traveling nurse, but he could have made more, if he’d been willing to forego his volunteer duties with the department.

  This Nathan, however, struck Hargrove differently. Still had the petulant temper of a child, perhaps, but the man’s hard gaze spoke of something more, something forged in fire, but still ice cold. For an instant, Frank had seen a look of careful calculation in the former reserve deputy’s eyes. Frank Hargrove swallowed convulsively as he thought about that look, for he’d also seen his own death there as well.

  “All right, Deputy Owens,” Sheriff Hargrove managed to say, working his own less-than-subtle statement in there. “We’ll make our stand here. For however long that may last.”

  Nathan nodded, then cast a look over at Rusty and Tim. “Just give us a few days. We may have a proposal.”

  With that, Nathan stepped off the porch. Before he could turn to leave, Sheriff Hargrove couldn’t help himself and asked, “So, who’s the pretty girl?”

  “Her name is Jasmine,” Nathan replied, the anger slowly disappearing from his voice as he spoke. “Maybe I’ll introduce you next time. And if she’s still willing, I hope she’ll someday be my wife.”

  Stumbling into the door frame and nearly falling down, yep, Frank Hargrove thought, that boy has definitely come back changed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  While Rusty, Nathan, and Tim were occupied with their road trip to
visit Nathan’s old home, Bill Engvist and Aiden Conklin decided to act on Nathan’s suggestion to get some range time in with the kids. Originally, they’d just planned on taking the teens, but complaints by Aiden’s daughter Gina that twelve-year-old Shane Bertram, Rusty’s youngest, shouldn’t be left out and mindful of their own prior ruminations, Bill and Aiden had acquiesced. This resulted in quite a few tweens tagging along as well.

  Along with Bill’s two children, Tyler and Robin, and Aiden’s daughter Gina, they picked up the Bertram boys, fourteen-year-old Randal, along with Shane. Plans discussed in the dining hall that morning spread rapidly via word-of-mouth, and more than twice the expected turnout showed up for the morning’s session. Any of the teens that missed the word of mouth were alerted by crank phones.

  Each cabin had an old military crank phone wired in to call any guard station, cabin, or the reception hall. All you had to do was flip the labeled toggles beside each phone to who you wanted to talk to and crank the handle, ringing the other end.

  When Nathan’s kids heard about the outing, nothing could stop them from attending. Well, not after Tom asked Sherry so very politely, who declared they would be allowed to go once they’d finished their chores. Sensing an opportunity for these youngsters to begin integrating into the community, Sherry thought it was a good idea. The three oldest of Nathan’s kids left Chip and Emma with Sherry to watch, along with little Nolan. Sherry thought about teasing the kids while they prepared to leave, but stopped when she caught the look of determination on Casey’s face, looking entirely too mature for the typical ten-year-old as she strapped on tactical gear.

  Unlike most of the kids their age, Tom, Natalie, and Casey showed up at the range carrying their own weapons, rather than having them transported by adults. Each one also had on a tactical vest loaded with gear. They arrived on foot. Bill saw the trio come running at a steady jog, and when he caught their movement through his field glasses, he gave a low whistle.

  He had to admit to himself, the three kids managed to cover the ground in good time. From Nathan’s recessed tunnel home, his kids ran a half mile to reach the designated shooting range. The range, which amounted to a staggered series of small, covered stations, open-sided shacks really, nestled up close to a sheer fifty-foot cliff face. Bill noted none of the three, even little Casey, appeared winded by the exertion. Then they reached the last dip in the valley floor, one of several scattered undulations, and momentarily disappeared from view.

  “What’s up?” Aiden asked, gesturing to the binoculars.

  “Nathan’s kids must’ve heard we were shooting today. They didn’t bother using buggies and just hoofed it over. Give it a second, and they’ll come back up. Right about there,” Bill replied, pointing where he thought the three kids would reappear. Except they didn’t stick with a straight line, and their boonie-clad heads began to appear a good fifty yards farther along the rise.

  “Ah, they tacked a bit as soon as they got under cover. That’s smart,” Aiden remarked. Despite his own daughter’s shooting skills, he still felt leery about the more aggressive training favored by some of the other parents, most notably Nathan. These are just kids, darn it! Aiden kept saying in his mind.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Tom rasped to the adults when the trio came trotting into earshot, fighting to get his breathing under control. Some of Nathan’s drills demonstrated how hard it was to hit a target if you were winded. When the three stopped, Bill and Aiden stared hard at the kids dressed out in full ‘battle rattle’.

  “No problem, Tom,” Aiden replied, gesturing. “We’re going to start out on the rifle range first, then move over to the pistol range for some plinking.”

  “Yes, sir. We’d like that,” Tom responded politely. “Haven’t had a chance to shoot since we got here.”

  While the adults were focused on the three newcomers, their children and the other two dozen or so offspring of the retreat dwellers stood in small clumps, sharing small talk and gossip. Over the years, these children had been drawn together for periodic camping trips, house-raisings, and cattle roundups. As a natural result, a number of cliques had formed, just like they’d experienced in school. The three ‘Owens’ kids stood off to the side, and since they’d arrived last, the trio took the last spot in the three lines set up for rifles.

  Bill acted as range master for the first three shooters. Everyone donned their shooting glasses and ear protection, known universally as their ‘eyes and ears’, while Bill explained the rules for safe gun handling. Next, he went over his commands, explaining what each call meant and what the shooters should do when they heard one. This was a much-repeated litany, but Bill, his voice hard like a drill instructor when he acted in this capacity, fired off several hypotheticals and straight-up questions to his three would-be shooters, two of them being his son Tyler and daughter Robin, and the third being Rusty’s oldest, Randal.

  Bill and Aiden stacked the deck with these first shooters, not out of nepotism, but because all three teenagers had years of shooting experience under their belts. Tyler Engvist, at sixteen, was already a juniors Three Gun regional champion, and his sister Robin was always his closest competition. Randal might not be in the same league yet, but he still spent a good deal of time punching holes in paper and dinging steel with his father and friends at the range. Best of all, the three had excellent range sense and practiced better etiquette than most adults.

  Indeed, the three shooters blew through the first stage, stationary shooting at a known distance, and then progressed dynamically along the next segment, knocking down steel plates with mechanical precision. Since this was supposed to simulate real world shooting, rather than “Three Gun” rules, the trio stayed on their rifles the entire way and blazed through the targets with barely a bobble. No one was running a stopwatch, but Bill had to admit, the kids ran a fast pace with a nearly flawless round.

  While Tyler, Randal, and Robin ran the course, Aiden stood with the other children and offered tips and advice on how to handle their firearms. Safety was emphasized and reinforced as Aiden repeated the rules for safe gun handling. Aiden watched all the young shooters, but he couldn’t help paying particular attention to the three orphans adopted by Nathan. According to Nathan, none of these youngsters had any prior shooting experience before he’d adopted them into his clan. He’d explained how he’d worked with all his crew, repeating and demonstrating basic rules of handling firearms, but the need for at least some suppressive fire from the children had meant pushing the kids, and hard.

  Indeed, when their time came, the trio of newcomers didn’t have the speed of their older, more experienced counterparts. And smaller fingers, especially for little Casey, meant magazine changes took longer, but while Aiden was watching these details, Bill took note of something else. When the three older teens ran the course side-by-side, they were each acting alone. With the Owens, Tom, Natalie, and Casey, the maneuver proceeded with a very different flavor.

  “Out!” Casey cried, dropping her magazine and slamming a fresh one home, then fisting the bolt back into the battery with a firm smack. “Up!”

  They moved as a team, taking the targets under fire when they came to bear, and though they moved slower than the more experienced kids, Bill also noticed one of them always seemed to be watching their rear. No one had thought to set up targets that way, but the experienced deputy saw how they moved and gave a short whistle under his breath anyway.

  As the group policed up their dropped magazines and took turns scooping up the expended brass into a waiting five-gallon bucket, Bill pulled Aiden aside for a quick conference.

  “So, what did you think of Nathan’s kids?” he asked softly, keeping his head turned, so the inquisitive little devils couldn’t read his lips.

  “Pretty good for beginners, I’d say. They actually impressed me with their teamwork. Isn’t there a saying you always use, ‘shoot, move, and communicate’? Nathan seems to have impressed that for sure,” Aiden concurred, but he caught Bill’s eyes and s
topped.

  “What?”

  “Our kids move like this is a sport or some competition,” Bill explained. “Them? They look at this like serious training. Did you notice how they were constantly looking around? Keeping their heads on a swivel?”

  “Yeah, and it did affect their time, but I didn’t see any impact on their accuracy. Let’s face it, they haven’t been shooting as long as the others, so they aren’t as fast,” Aiden agreed, but he could tell Bill had something else on his mind. Again, he repeated, “What?”

  “Yeah, they don’t move as fast as Tyler or Robin, or even Randal. Our kids were focused on their times and knocking down targets.” Bill winced, thinking back on some of their previous discussions, before he spoke again.

  “Nathan’s kids, though, are looking for more tangos. Covering their six to put hate downrange. His kids are preparing for war, not practice time on a range. They move like they’ve spent the last six weeks patrolling in Fallujah. Think about that for a while, Aiden. That littlest one, Casey, she’s ten years old, and she should barely be strong enough to pull back the charging handle, but she doesn’t seem to have that problem. Heck, man, she’s still getting over a bruised spleen from being shot. She still maintained pretty good situational awareness.”

  “Yeah, I get it. They’re hardcore, but they still have a lot to learn,” Aiden protested weakly. He’d seen his own daughter run through the course earlier, and for the first time he could remember, Aiden felt a troubling pain in the pit of his stomach. Uneasy at seeing his little girl, who was just in pigtails the other day it seemed, now trotting to the next shooting station with an M4 clutched in her grip.

  “That they do,” Bill murmured in agreement. “But I think they may also have a lot to teach. Nathan said he tried to shield them from the worst of the shit out there, but he also admitted sometimes, there was nothing he could do.”

  With that, the two men moved on to the pistol range. Here, only about half of the children and young adults possessed parental permission to participate. PC-cubed, Rusty once dubbed it. Some parents, who were okay with their children learning to handle long arms, balked at the idea of their ten or twelve-year-olds being allowed to practice with pistols. None of the firearms instructors complained. That was the parents’ prerogative, after all. The retreat’s covenants merely required all adults over the age of eighteen to possess firearms proficiency, and no one had ever even suggested taking Floyd or Anita Gasmeyer to the range.