War Zone: Homefront

by Thomas A. Watson

  Bill thought about the Gasmeyers, or the ‘Gasbags’ as his wife Janice referred to them, and simply shook his head. Anita was the sole heir to Raymond Bryce, one of the retreat’s founding members, and how that evil shrew of a woman could manage to be related to such an upstanding gentleman would remain one of life’s mysteries, but there it was. She was Raymond’s daughter, Bill conceded, but she had none of the old man’s spirit or intelligence. All she had going for her was a foul mouth, a store-bought pair of silicone sweater puppets, and a worthless leech of a husband.

  Oh, well, Bill thought with a mental sigh as he watched the kids at the ten-yard range. Again, the three older teens approached first and after calling the firing to action, Bill watched with understandable parental pride when his son and daughter smoked the targets with little difficulty. He’d started Tyler and Robin out on .22 Mosquitos when they’d been Casey’s age, but by now, both his children had hands large enough to use the Glock 17s without any trouble. For Randal, his dad Rusty had made sure the fourteen-year-old could handle his latest pistol with ease before gifting him with an Argentinian knockoff of the venerable Browning Hi-Power. Though Bill, Rusty, and Aiden preferred a larger caliber, they all thought 9mm was an adequate round for the kids.

  Again, Bill called the range and watched the shooters with an eagle eye while Aiden stood to the back of the group and worked with the youngsters still waiting their turns. Aiden reminded all the kids to keep their pistols with the chambers empty, and wait with magazines out of the weapons.

  Some of the younger participants were using semi-automatic pistols, many still in .22 caliber, but Tom and Natalie sported Glock 17s identical to those carried by Bill’s kids. Even though she wore a holstered pistol, Casey stood aside and didn’t have the weapon out.

  “Something wrong, Casey?”

  “Uh, I can’t…Nathan gave me this pistol and showed me how to use it,” the petite girl all but whispered, her cheeks shading to pink as she spoke, “but…he doesn’t know I can’t pull the slide back like everybody else. I have to cheat and use my knees to lock it back. I didn’t want to do that out here. Please don’t tell Nathan.”

  Glancing over at his own daughter, Aiden bit his lip to prevent himself from saying anything too strong. Gina might be a firecracker, but the thirteen-year-old could still dissolve into tears at the wrong word.

  “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. We’ll find you something else that works better for you,” Aiden replied with care.

  “No, that’s okay,” Casey reassured the man. “I’ve already shot someone in the face with this pistol, so I know it works,” Casey smiled, and Aiden almost puked when his mind provided images he didn’t want of the little girl fighting for her life. “I just need to work harder. Nathan gave me this pistol. He said it was mine, and he showed me how to take care of it and everything. I don’t want to disappoint him. Especially since Jasmine didn’t want me carrying a pistol, but Nathan said I could.”

  Hearing the sincerity in the little girl’s voice gave Aiden a lump in his throat, and he turned away to hide a tear that threatened to find its way free despite his best efforts. Her words confirmed Aiden’s earlier opinion of Casey as being a sweet, considerate child. Except, she had no choice but to change in this harsh new world.

  “I wouldn’t think of doing anything like that, Casey. But I’m sure Nathan won’t be disappointed if you take a little time to grow into your gear. I’ve known him a long time, after all. If you want to shoot your pistol next time, I’ll help you. Nathan would want that.”

  Getting a tentative nod from the girl, he turned to watch the next group of shooters step up to the line. This was the last pair, and he noted with interest, the shooters were Casey’s older brother and sister. Bill, standing far to the side and two steps back, called for Tom and Natalie to insert their magazines and then chamber a round. After getting verbal confirmations from both, Bill announced the range was hot and for the shooters to engage. This was a bit more formal than most ranges, but Bill successfully used this formula of giving his instructions many times, when dealing with younger shooters.

  By this time, the silhouette targets had taken on a fairly ragged appearance, but even so, the pattern used by Tom and Natalie was one Aiden and Bill recognized immediately from their own training at one of Nathan’s many shooting clinics. Three years before, Nathan had talked Tim, Rusty, Aiden, and Bill into accompanying him to a three-day tactical pistol shooting class being held at one of the more exclusive, and expensive, indoor ranges in Spokane. None could turn him down when Nathan told them he had already paid for the course for them.

  For Nathan, attending these kinds of classes amounted to a day at the park, and Tim could easily set his own hours while working for the logging crew, but for the three full-time deputies, this excursion required submitting vacation paperwork and getting departmental approval. In other words, a real headache. Surprisingly, Sheriff Hargrove not only approved, but also kicked in some cash for the ammunition they needed, even for Tim who was only a reserve deputy, since each student needed a minimum of a thousand rounds for the class. The group was thankful they didn’t have to ask Nathan, since he’d already paid for the class.

  Despite their apprehension, this was Nathan after all, the training proved to be very useful for everyone involved. Three of the trainers turned out to be former law enforcement, two from Arizona and one from Texas, and before they got anywhere near the range, the instructors insisted on a half-day of classroom instruction. This wasn’t ‘death by PowerPoint’, either. Instead, the morning had passed quickly as the half hour segments, each taught by a different instructor, focused on various hypothetical but real-world scenarios faced by lawmen and civilians.

  But that wasn’t what prompted Aiden to exchange a quick look with Bill as soon as the two youths finished emptying the two magazines called for by the exercise. No, it was the pattern they both recognized.

  “Two to the chest, one to the head,” Bill observed, raising his voice so the two young shooters could hear him over the earmuffs. “Nice. Nathan teach you that?”

  “Yes, sir,” Tom replied respectfully as he ejected the magazine, then worked the slide to ensure there were no surprises waiting in the chamber. Showing the chamber to be empty, Tom holstered the pistol. “Nathan said to use that pattern if we absolutely, positively needed to kill somebody. Not sure what he meant by that, though,” the young man continued. “We would never shoot somebody unless we thought they needed killing anyway.”

  “Mozambique Drill. Two to the chest and one to the head,” Aiden continued, using the common term for the practice, intended to handle a hostile who might be wearing body armor.

  Natalie, repeating the motion of her brother, demonstrated the empty chamber as well and gave Aiden an eloquent shrug.

  Shoving the pistol in her thigh holster, Natalie furrowed her brow. “I don’t know, Mr. Conklin. I’ve never been to Mexico.”

  At this last innocent comment, the two men couldn’t maintain their composure and started chuckling, which quickly evolved into outright laughter. Tom looked to Tyler when the boy’s father continued laughing, but the older teen had no answers either.

  “I don’t know, man. Sometimes, parents are just weird,” Tyler shrugged.

  CHAPTER NINE

  After a day at the range for the younger crowd, and Nathan’s emotional return to see the damage done to his parents’ home, Bill suggested a quiet evening at home with a few friends might be just the thing for their peace of mind. His years as a deputy gave Bill the ability to read emotions, and Nathan was clearly upset. And he, along with anyone at the compound, would do anything to ward off a ‘Nathan Tantrum’, and that included pushing a sweet little old lady down a flight of stairs.

  Bill hadn’t yet heard the story of the confrontation between Nathan and Sheriff Hargrove, but he could see the tension between the posse group that had gone out. So, he volunteered to host a barbeque for them at his house, and Rusty and Aiden were quick to a
ccept. Nathan, still looking preoccupied, tried to beg off, but Jasmine, performing her new skill of wrangling her future husband, graciously accepted.

  “We’d be delighted,” Jasmine interjected, cutting off Nathan’s half-hearted litany of excuses. They were sitting in the great room of Nathan’s mountain home, what the kids were starting to call their burrow, and while the adults, now including John, were sitting and talking, the younger members of the clan trooped out for gun cleaning in Nathan’s well-appointed armory.

  “NAFAN!” Emma cried out, imperiously demanding the attention due a young crown princess. She’d escaped, again, from Amanda and was standing two feet from Nathan when she bellowed.

  “Ahhhh!” Nathan exclaimed, once again caught off-guard by his ninja child. Not only could she control minds, Nathan realized, but she could also turn invisible.

  “What?”

  “NAFAN, SIPPIE,” Emma demanded, waving the plastic container emphatically. What followed was a string of gibberish that apparently only Nathan could decipher. Having seen this show before, none dared interrupt the young princess, or face her wrath.

  “Yes, I’ll refill your sippie,” Nathan replied in a more reasonable tone. “But you can’t go with us tonight. This is big people business.”

  “NO!” Emma hollered in protest, stomping her tiny foot with considerable gusto. Then she proceeded to release another torrent of babble, complete with arm waving, and what could only be interpreted as rude gestures.

  “Grrrrrr,” Nathan growled, mimicking a black bear with a sore tooth. Emma, for her part, replied right back with her own feral growl. One that sounded more like an enraged rodent than anything else. They locked eyes, each exerting their own will with a glare.

  “Oh, stop antagonizing the child, Nathan,” Jasmine finally said. “She missed you like crazy today. Of course, Emma can come tonight. I’ll just be a second packing her bag and we can go.”

  “Missed her designated butt wiper, you mean,” Nathan grumbled, and folded his arms in a show of protest. Emma copied the move, after a few false starts, and gave Nathan her patented teeth-baring grin.

  “Weird kid,” Nathan muttered to himself. Jasmine, with ears like a predator, gave Nathan a smack on the arm that stung more than he wanted to admit. Rubbing at the red spot, Nathan offered a patently false smile to Bill and finally bowed to the inevitable.

  “Bill, we’d love to have dinner with you and your family tonight.”

  “Great!” Bill exclaimed, trying to keep the laughter inside, and failing. Only Nathan could get into a staring contest with a two-year-old and lose. “I’d better get going, so I can get the steaks out to thaw. Jasmine, are you okay eating elk? It’s really good.”

  Jasmine grinned. “Since meeting Nathan, I’ve eaten all kinds of things. Elk sounds great. Are you sure you want us to bring the whole herd? That’s going to be a lot of food.”

  “Hey, I’m sitting right here!” John interjected in mock indignation. The young man had come a long way from the morbidly-obese gamer kid Nathan had picked up along the side of the road. After simultaneously hitting a growth spurt, at the same time he began to drastically drop weight, Jasmine could barely remember the old John. However, he retained the same sweet, low-key demeanor that made him so popular with the other kids. Though less than four years separated their ages, Jasmine looked upon John as one of her kids. Well, stepchild, since John had once dubbed her as his ‘hot stepmom’.

  “Oh, honey, I didn’t mean anything by that. If anything, Amanda still out-eats you most meals.”

  “Sorry,” John replied sheepishly ducking his head, realizing Jasmine hadn’t meant anything hurtful by the comment. He should have known, but after years of enduring the taunts, John still felt the occasional stab of insecurity.

  “What did I miss?” Rusty asked, still trying to wrap his head around the idea of little Miss Amanda turning into a full-blown gangster right in front of his eyes. No, not a gangster. Most of those guys couldn’t shoot for shit, and Rusty fully expected Amanda could back up her threats.

  Aiden, for his part, didn’t have the same problem, after hearing about the incident from Tim. He had a teenaged daughter, after all. He might never expect Gina to make the same threats, but he suspected she might be just as hostile if someone were ever to threaten her father.

  “Remember, John had a bit of a weight problem at one time,” Aiden supplied helpfully to Rusty, hoping he would remember the deluge of pictures of John when Nathan had first found him. Nathan simply nodded, just the once, where John wouldn’t see.

  “Yeah,” John simply agreed. “I was as big as a house when Nathan and Amanda first found me. But Nathan still took me in and taught me how to take care of myself. How to do something besides eat when I got stressed.”

  “I still can’t see it,” Tim chimed in, reaching out an arm to accept an embrace from a silent Sherry when she joined the rest of the group in the great room. “I think those photos Nathan took were altered.”

  She’d been chopping up green beans for canning and still had a smudge on her cheek, which Tim wiped away without commenting. She caught the move, correctly interpreting what he was doing, and offered her husband one of her dazzling smiles.

  “See what, sweetie?”

  “That John used to have a weight problem,” Tim whispered softly into her hair.

  “Really?”

  While that interplay was taking place, Aiden, Rusty, and Bill were making their farewells and heading for the door. If Bill was going to be doing the grilling, then the other two men knew they should be heading home for their own signature dishes. Over the years, Rusty and Libby had learned to make a mean coleslaw and Aiden’s wife Penny relied on a cherished family recipe for the best potato salad any of the group had ever eaten. Aiden, for his part, scrubbed potatoes and stood back while Penny worked her magic.

  “Well, if we’re doing barbeque, I guess I need to go get my old standby ready,” Nathan said, heading for the kitchen. Jasmine and John went to follow, but Tim shooed them back with a wave while Sherry tried to hide a snicker before turning to pursue Nathan. He would need her help, and she wanted to check on Nolan in his playpen. Her little man was being quiet. Too quiet, in her experience.

  “Why’d you stop us?” Jasmine demanded with a hiss of exasperation.

  “Because when the boys do barbeque, everybody has their specialty dish,” Tim explained patiently. “For Nathan, it’s his baked beans. Except, well…I take it, you’ve noticed Nathan will eat just about anything, right?”

  “Uh-huh,” Jasmine and John replied in unison.

  “Nathan can make decent meals out of simple trail rations and a pot of water, but he isn’t what you might call ‘adventuresome’,” Tim continued. “Basic and to the point is our boy Nathan. But, he takes pride in his beans. He really just opens a can of Bush’s Baked Beans, heats them up, and calls it good. Not that there’s anything wrong with Bush’s, but like I said, there’s a bit of pride involved. Sherry will help Nathan season them just right, and everybody will be happy.”

  John shrugged. “I’ll eat whatever Nathan fixes, Tim. And he does really good with fish, too.”

  “Oh, sure,” Tim nodded along in agreement. “You bring him the fish and he’ll fry you up a mess, or bake them. I prefer them grilled, myself. ‘Course, Nathan hates to fish with a pole. His ADD kicks in and he gets bored something fierce.”

  “Well, that explains some things,” Jasmine whispered to herself before continuing out loud, “Anyway, thanks for the information. For someone who claims to be so simple, I’ve found Nathan Owens to be much more complex than he lets on. Funny though, for someone who looks as good as he does, he doesn’t even seem to notice. Instead, his cooking is one of his vanities.”

  Tim laughed and waved his new friends to join him in the kitchen.

  At Bill’s house later that evening, the guests broke down into fairly predictable groups, as were common at such gatherings. The adults gathered around outside watching Bill work
his magic on the grill, and the older kids clustered up in Tyler’s room.

  “You guys did good on the stages today,” Robin commented. At fifteen, she wasn’t especially happy with the name her parents had stuck her with, but it beat her middle name all to pieces. She’d been named for her grandmother, her mother’s mother, so she couldn’t complain much, since the old lady was pretty cool. She just got tired of being asked when Batman was getting there.

  “Yeah, that was good for not having any more training than you’ve gotten,” Randal added.

  “I couldn’t even use my pistol,” Casey groused, taking on a pouty attitude at odds with her normally sunny outlook. “That sucked.”

  “Hey, you just need to get a little bit bigger,” Gina responded. “We’ve all been there, even these guys. Right?”

  “I’m sure you did great, Casey,” John added, his sincerity winning him a smile from Casey. She liked John, but then, just about everybody did. He never said mean things, and always tried to protect them just as much as her own brother Tom did.

  Since Tyler didn’t have enough chairs in his room, the kids decided to sprawl out on the floor, hanging out while Tyler set up his game console. They only had two controllers, so the planned video game marathon would need to be done in stages.

  “How did things go at Nathan’s house?” Natalie asked, no longer able to contain her curiosity. She wished Nathan had allowed her to go as well, but John and Amanda really were further along with their training.