by Ric Beard
“Send your prisoners out.”
Bradshaw retrieved the key from beneath the marshal’s body and started fumbling with the lock.
“What are you doing?” Ruby asked.
“They ain’t gonna shoot their friends, are they?”
Ruby yanked her revolver out of its holster and leveled it on the man in the cell. “Okay, you. Don’t move or you’ll die on that spot. Believe me, I can hit you easy from here.”
Lucinda stood in the back corner of the cell, her wide eyes locked on the fallen lawman.
“Y’all have no idea who you’re messing with.” The cell door swung open, and she stood up. Raising her shoulder in a half-shrug, she stepped toward Jacob. After a whisper in his ear, he nodded and shot Bradshaw a long, lingering glare. But then he stepped back into the corner and raised his hands. “Let’s go.” Lucinda walked past Bradshaw and called out. “We’re coming out. Don’t y’all shoot now!”
Bradshaw shot Jacob a look on his way out of the cell. “Another time, then.”
“Looking forward to seeing you again in the very near future, asshole.”
“You’ll be sorry you did.” He raised his shotgun and shoved the barrels against the back of Lucinda’s neck. “Walk, bitch.”
“You don’t have to be rude.”
Lucinda led Sampson and Bradshaw out in the open, with Ruby bringing up the rear.
“Should’ve shot him in that cell,” Bradshaw muttered.
“There’s no telling what they’d do if we killed one of theirs,” Sampson said. “Don’t worry, we got who we needed. We’ll draw ‘em to high ground.”
A huge specimen of a man with a bald head and a long beard stood in the middle of the street with a big silver gun extended toward the ground on one side.
“Back off!” Bradshaw yelled. He shoved the sawed-off against Lucinda’s neck again, causing her to lurch forward. “I’ll splatter her fucking brains!”
The bald man holstered his weapon, but didn’t step back. Ruby scanned the area and saw only one other figure, standing in the distance, taking cover around the corner of the building across the street.
“We left your man unharmed,” Sampson said. “But don’t think we won’t kill Lucinda!”
They hustled up the street, sticking close to the walls of the buildings leading toward the truck.
Ruby held her revolver close and shot sporadic looks over her shoulders as they went. Her heart pumped in her chest and her legs felt like rubber beneath her, but she pushed on. When they reached the truck, Sampson pointed at the bed. Ruby, you’ll have to ride in the back. Proctor and Bradshaw can sit in the cab.
“Where’re you taking me?”
“I’m gonna feed you to my dogs,” Sampson said. “Now, get in the god damn truck.”
They mounted up, cranked the engine and spit gravel on their way out of town. Ruby eyed the road behind as they sped out of Blacksburg. It was a dark night with plenty of cloud cover, but she was relatively sure no one pursued as they rode toward the dark outline of a mountain in the distance against the night sky…and that made no sense, at all.
Chapter Sixty-Three
DAYS OF CHIVALRY
63
AAfter the transition from the smoother roads leading out of Blacksburg, Ruby scanned the road behind for an hour more as the troop carrier rattled and bounced along the potholed surface. Finally convinced that no one was in tow, she released her grip on the metal support pole and lowered herself onto the metal bench welded into the side of the cargo area.
While the hard shell might have covered the truck bed from rain or snow, it did jack shit for the wind—except create a tunnel for it. Ruby muttered quiet words about freezing her ass off while the men rode up front with Proctor.
Gone are the goddamn days of chivalry!
A harsh dip caused her to suddenly slide toward the cab. Though she grabbed the edge of the bench to stop herself, her ankle slammed into a metal supply box attached to the bed against the cab wall, and she winced.
“Shit!”
She rubbed her ankle furiously and shot eye lasers at the metal box with the silver top.
Memories of the conversation from the jail house tickled her mind, the accusations the man, Jacob, had lain at Sampson’s feet. Ordering the second raid on the Ellis farm, running drugs on the side, besides those he supplied in the less potent forms—those were bad enough. The implication that he’d ordered the Churchill family killed on their farm? Well, that was preposterous! Why would he order someone to tax a family and then have them executed? It made no sense.
I did what I was told, the sudden voice of a ghost paraded through her mind. He set me up…
The day Sampson had sent Ruby to Bradshaw at the plantation the justice used as his southern headquarters, she’d been so focused on the gun leveled at the lieutenant’s head, that she’d lost the words. It’d been weeks before the vision of the explosion of blood and tissue had dimmed enough that his cries started to slip out of the deeper annals of her mind where she’d suppressed them. Even then, the memory that had stuck had been Bradshaw’s facial response to her horror, the judgment in his eyes at her weakness.
But it wasn’t weakness, it was inexperience.
Sure, she’d seen her share of violence in her lifetime, living in the shantytown of Redmond, carrying water from the well as men came and hauled off the boys. One had even raped her, left her bleeding and crawling home, the image of the overturned water buckets stapled onto her mind’s eye. But the sheer power of that massive pistol as it blew the man’s head off was fresher…
More alive.
The truck jerked and bounced, but Ruby was ready this time, using the side of her leg to brace herself against the box and gripping the seat before she could slide down and into the cab.
How do these guys ride around on these things?
She eyed the box again.
This was Sampson’s truck. His protectors rode back here when he navigated the MidEast, rolling from town-to-town, making appearances, checking in with his lawkeepers, and ensuring the people knew their governor was on the job. It was one of only two trucks bearing covers. The other was used to move the drugs purchased from OK City in exchange for the various forms of taxes collected by the enforcers. Whether one appreciated his methods or not, Ruby had to admit that the stimulants had changed the MidEast productivity levels, but she also wondered what long-term effects of all those fifteen-hour days would have on people.
The truck bounced, and somewhere beneath, metal scraped metal and squeaked. She flexed her leg muscle against the box again, and this time, she didn’t even need her hands to steady herself. Leaning on the bench seat as they rolled up into the hills toward the compound in Shawsville—Sampson’s enforcement training facility—her eye caught the motion of something dark fluttering in the wind. She peered down at the edge of the box and ran her hand under the edge. A swath of cloth protruded through the crack between the edge and the lid. Lifting it, she pushed the cloth inside and let it slam shut. Bracing her leg against the box again, she leaned back.
…Doing what I was told…
Ruby was used to seeing road grime on the back windows of the troop carriers, but the glass in the rear of this cab was relatively clean, probably because the truck bed wore a hard shell. She flicked her eyes to the back of Sampson’s head, a few loose strands of his yellow hair hanging on his shoulder as they’d escaped from beneath the black cap. She remembered the way those strands parted to rest on his shoulders in the jail an hour earlier, when she’d seen the skin on the back of his neck turn red as his temperature turned up beneath the accusations of the small man in the cell.
What had the lieutenant who’d conducted the massacre been saying? What orders was he given? Sure, the Churchills had caused trouble the previous year and the men had taken their stocks by force, but they’d taken them. They could’ve repeated the effort the next year, but instead, they’d wiped out the parents and two daughters, even set the dogs on them.
<
br /> Her eyes flicked over to Bradshaw, sitting with one arm wrapped around Lucinda Proctor’s neck. Ruby wondered if the shotgun was across his lap or on the floorboard between the seat and the door.
Did Bradshaw order him to kill them? To make an example? That could very well be. Bradshaw was just the type to make examples. What if he ordered the lieutenant to kill those people, and when Sampson got wind of it and ordered the man punished, Bradshaw had sealed his lips and executed the governor’s warrant?
I’m sure that hard ass would love to take Sampson’s place after things were more settled and established.
Again, her eyes flicked back to the boss’s head, as it bounced in its black cap with the truck’s motion on the uneven road. The book he’d been fiddling with when that Carson fellow had visited…Ninjutsu: The Dark Arts. She recalled her thought from the previous day, how Sampson read as much as she did, how he studied his opponents. That book would help him to know his enemy, these Black Ghost bastards like the one who’d sat in that cell with Proctor, the ones who’d killed two lawkeepers now. The caps were adaptation; he’d used his enemies’ tricks to sneak into Blacksburg this very night.
Smooth.
She smirked at the back of his head and smiled.
The marshal had struck a deal with Sampson. Ruby should know, she’d struck it. If Proctor was replaced, the marshal would keep his place in the trading town, which relinquished a lot of power to the man in a town as profitable as Blacksburg. In return, Sampson could tax the town.
A boon, indeed. God, he’s smart.
She turned her eyes from the back of his head as the truck bounced yet again, and quickly swerved from side to side before stabilizing again, as Sampson commanded the wheel. Ruby’s eyes flicked down at the box against which she braced her leg, and her eyebrows furrowed. Her eyes danced back and forth from Sampson to the box a few times before she bent down and slowly raised the lid. She pulled the black cloth sitting on top over to the side and squinted, trying to make out an object beneath. But it was nearly pitch black under the shell at night. Reaching down and grabbing it, she raised it a few inches above the box and ticked her head to the side.
Why would he have…
Ruby’s heart thumped. Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped open. Her head swiveled toward the cab, certain Sampson’s bright eyes would be glaring at her in the rearview, but they weren’t. She stuffed the object back into the box, lowered the lid carefully, and jerked her hands into her lap.
Looking up again, she saw the deep blue eyes of the man she called ‘boss’ staring back at her in the rearview, and a cold wave of terror surged through her. Her heart was suddenly racing, and in spite of the cold winter night, sweat formed inside her shirt. She forced a smile onto her face as their eyes met in the mirror, and Sampson gave a subtle nod of his head before turning his attention back to the road.
Her head spun with all the different visions: the man in the jail cell, the execution of the lieutenant, Proctor, the Churchill massacre, the Ellison raid-gone-bad because of the Black Ghosts…
Her eyes ticked back to the box.
Chapter Sixty-Four
LOOKS LIKE A MINE
64
The motherlode.
The tracker Ella had placed on the truck in Blacksburg had allowed Lexi and the rest of the crew to follow the truck carrying Lucinda Proctor from a few miles back. When they’d passed a sign announcing the nearby town as Shawsville, Moss hadn’t so much as grinned, and no one in the other vehicles said a word. Lexi presumed they understood she wasn’t in the mood, with her brother off in the wind, and her mind itching to go wreak havoc on those who dared to take him.
Jacob and Sasha sat across the ridge to the east and south. Lexi and Moss sat under the cover of shadows cast by a patch of trees near the edge of the northern ridge while Cage held position near the access road, to the west. Spreading out ensured they had eyes on the front and rear doors of all the structures in the valley below.
The buildings were reasonably-maintained relics of a long-gone mountain community. Lexi imagined places like these were probably the last to be impacted by the fall of civilization, evidenced by the fact she saw lots of open, lush, treeless land that might have been used to grow crops before the world went to pot.
The real points of interest for Lexi were parked in a pattern of disarray in the open field separating the structures. She counted seven trucks, each probably capable of carrying ten men, but there were no men. The place appeared deserted, except for a solitary, glowing orange light emanating from a window of the largest, red barn-house in the circle of buildings below.
The second phase of the mission could be largely accomplished by wiping the trucks out, but now that Sampson had led them here, she wasn’t sure the trucks were important anymore. How ironic, that the end of all this was going to come, one way or the other, in the way she’d originally proposed.
By cutting the head off the snake.
Jenna wouldn’t be pleased at the proposition, but when she found out Sean was in OK City, something told Lexi she wasn’t going to be to averse to getting it over with. They’d clean up the MidEast on the backside.
Maybe if we can get Proctor out alive, she can help.
Lexi tapped the throat mic nestled in the flat strap that encircled her neck.
“Where’d they go?”
“Northeast side. Behind that smaller, flat-roofed building. See the doors leading into the hillside? Looks like a mine.”
That’s Jacob.
They’d sprung him from the jail before leaving town, and though Lexi was used to Sasha and Moss’s stony expressions, she could tell Jacob was good and worked up about Proctor being taken. At least, that’s what she thought it was. The Black weren’t exactly forthcoming.
Moss ran a tight ship.
“How many went in?”
“Seven or eight. They came from those buildings in the circle carrying sacks over their shoulders.”
After a second of silence, Sasha whispered, “Contact. Third building, north side.”
Lexi zoomed her SmartGlasses. A man with a rifle slung over his shoulder led a dog, similar in breed to Sasha’s, away from the building and toward the open field where the orange embers of a fire crackled.
Lexi nodded, pulled her rifle around from her back, and checked the charge level.
Moss and Lexi each tapped their throat microphones in succession.
“I’m guessing you want to go in, guns blazing.” Moss whispered.
“I won’t ruin the op,” Lexi said. “I’m aware of my bias. Your call.”
“Is Jenna en route?”
“I sent the message, told her where we are. Do you think we should wait for backup?”
“Hm. Maybe. Scruff and Jenna are good in a fight, but I’d like to see if we can get Proctor out quietly.”
“Agreed,” Cage’s voice grumbled in Lexi’s ear.
The man with the dog stood next to the campfire and looked up at the ridge line. He raised a walkie to his lips and spoke.
“What do you think that’s all about?” Lexi asked.
Spotlights bloomed to life around the enforcer down in the valley, and tiny specks of light ignited high across the ridge in three different places. Her shadow was suddenly cast on the rocks in front of her as a light engulfed her from behind. Lexi’s heart thumped.
“Yo.”
Lexi’s head swiveled, and the light flashed in her face.
“Don’t move, lady. My orders don’t necessarily call for me to keep you alive.”
As the light lowered to her chest, Lexi counted four men in camouflage leveling their rifles on her.
“Compromised,” Lexi whispered. Her eyes flicked over to Moss.
He was gone.
Chapter Sixty-Five
CARSON GOT HIS MAN
65
Ruby decided she’d rather take her chances with the short guy than scuffle with this one.
The tall one’s hair flared in the white glow of th
e spotlight as if it were on fire. Her skin-choking suit with the thin, solid-looking armor pads, gave the impression the design was intended for hand-to-hand combat. Wiry muscles budged like oblong stones in her shoulders and biceps. A perpetual glare, bright even with her back to the lights, shone as if powered by machinery set behind her perfectly oval face.
The statuesque form didn’t flinch in the slightest when Sampson stepped up, reached out with both hands, and pulled the sleek, framed lenses off her face. He turned them and placed them over his eyes. Ruby spied the two strange blades spiked into the ground a few feet behind him.
“Holy shit!” He reached his hand out in front of his face and splayed his fingers. “This makes OK City tech look antiquated!”
The other two black ghosts stood with their hands behind their backs, their expressions equally slack. Their fancy glasses were slimmer than the tall woman’s and lacked the yellow trim. Lucinda Proctor sat in a folding chair to the tall woman’s right, flipping her long golden locks over one shoulder as if she were sitting on a law council.
Bradshaw stood behind the shorter man with whom he’d almost scuffled at the jail, arms folded across his chest. He glared at the back of the shorter man’s head, wearing a homicidal snarl. A platoon of no fewer than thirty men surrounded the inner circle of prisoners, all armed to their chins.
Sampson stood poised in front of the one with the flaming hair, his own head bobbing as he scanned her form, like Ruby.
“I think I know who you are,” Sampson said, tapping a finger in the air between them. “I believe you spent some time tied to a pole recently.” With a theatrical turn of his head in each direction, he flipped his palms up by his shoulders. “Where’s your friend?”
Crystal blue eyes peered back from beneath lowered lids.