by Jf Perkins
Then there were his morning conversations with the other heads of the families. George Talley had flatly refused to participate. Wyatt heard the story of what had happened and really couldn’t blame the man. Wyatt’s father had built a solid group of unscrupulous men to do the Jenkins’s dirty work and all of them, to a man, had been killed by Bill Carter’s raid. Wyatt had also lost his entire family, as far as he knew. Just days earlier, he had commanded enough force to compel the other families into line, but now he was like a beggar, pleading for the other families to follow his cause. It wasn’t a secure feeling.
Garrett Cox had waffled as well. He did not refuse Wyatt. He had simply cut his force in half, giving forty men to the fight, and keeping forty at his farm, in case Bill Carter decided to make good on his promise to burn it to the ground. What Garrett did not know was that his farm was already forfeit. He had not been able to spot Bill’s watch and concluded that it was just a bluff. It was not. As soon as his forty man force left the farm, word had been sent to Bill.
The Cantners and MacMillans had taken Cox as an example and had given half their fighting men to Wyatt. The end result was that he had an even hundred men working for him, but even that was a stretch. George Cox was on the premises and would likely take his men home if the battle turned against him. Meanwhile, the Dragons had lost almost two-thirds of their men in the disastrous crossing of Bedford County. Vehicles were a serious issue as well. It would be just on the edge of possibility to pile the remains of the army into the trucks on hand.
Wyatt had led a big effort to prepare for an extended battle, and had used his family’s money to do it. He had collected bundles of food and ammunition that could simply be handed to each man as the army set out for the north end of the county, but all that was gone now. In a short time, Wyatt would pile into a truck with the guns and ammo he had, and not much else. He wasn’t any kind of strategist, but even he knew that they had one shot at taking the Carter place, and then it would be over.
Speak of the devil, Garrett Cox approached from the bottom of the slope where spreading oak trees shaded his excuse for an army. “Hey, Wyatt. Thought I’d take my men to gather some intelligence while the Dragons are getting their shit together.”
“Garrett, I can think of ten reasons why that’s a bad idea. The first one is, if you get spotted your farm is gone,” Wyatt said, thinking that Garrett Cox gathering intelligence was an absurd contradiction.
“Aw, you don’t believe that horseshit, Wyatt.”
“Look around, Garrett. Of course I believe it. I’m telling you right now, Bill Carter said it. If one of his people sees you, your farm is gone.”
“Your daddy would be pretty sad if he heard you right now,” Garrett said with a sneer.
“I’m sure you’re right, but then he underestimated Bill Carter too. He’s dead,” Wyatt said coldly.
Garrett shook it off. “Well, I’m going. I’ll see you when you get there.”
“I very much doubt it, Garrett, but good luck.”
Garret stalked off, and began gesturing to his men. Three minutes later, they were crowded into six pickup trucks and heading out the gate. Wyatt shrugged as he watched them go.
The Junior Dragon saw them depart. He ran across the field to where Wyatt was standing. “What the hell are you doing, Wyatt?”
“Not me, Gary. Garrett Cox. I tried to talk him out if it,” Wyatt replied with another shrug.
“I thought those were your men,” Gary said.
“I did too. Cox changed his mind.”
“Well, shit.” The men stared at the sky for a few seconds.
“Yeah, so how’s it going with your men?” Wyatt asked.
“They were pretty messed up after yesterday, but I’m getting them back together,” Gary replied.
“Good. So we’ll be good to go in the morning?”
“Yep. We’ll be out there before the sun comes up, just like any good hunters.”
“You know, Garrett’s an idiot, but he’s right. We really don’t know anything. Shouldn’t we scout around before we head out?” Wyatt asked.
“Garrett wants to do it. Let’s let him do it.”
Chapter 10 – 9
Terry repeated his speech twice more. One group had responded almost as well as Jared’s neighborhood, and another seemed entirely indifferent to Terry’s plea. Unfortunately, he was unable to finish with the group on the square. A convoy of pickup trucks roared by just as Terry was running out of things to say to the frowning crowd. He quickly excused himself and set off in pursuit. Seth rode on the passenger side with his rifle set into the gun port in the base of the windshield. Terry once again sent a silent thank you to whoever had built Big Bertha. Terry drove in bursts. using the terrain to stay within sight, but hopefully without being spotted by the men piled in the beds of the enemy trucks. As a result, he only saw the small convoy three times on Highway 41. Terry was sure he had lost them when he saw the telltale cloud of dust where they had turned off the highway a quarter mile short of the Blanton Chapel turnoff. The convoy was driving up a long gravel track to the remains of a farmhouse that had once been the headquarters of a big dairy farm south of Teeny Town. Terry decided the only smart course of action was to give warning to the community. He put his foot on the floor and accelerated down the final stretch to the front guard houses. Terry drove through the ditch and around to the back of the first house in line, stopping just short of the row of tables that had been set on the grass. Terry, Seth, Sally, and Suze slid off the seat and up onto the porch.
Terry tried to tell the first person he saw, but the tall teenaged boy said, “We got it, Terry. Bill wants you on the roof.”
“The roof?”
“Yeah, this way.”
The young man led them upstairs to a ladder that had been set in a hole in the hallway ceiling. Terry climbed up and found himself next to a wooden platform, a smaller version of the fighting platforms on the backsides of the barn roofs in Teeny Town. Bill was sitting one of several folding chairs, resting his injured leg. Someone had strung a phone line up through the portal to the roof, and Bill was talking quietly on the massive old phone. Jeffry Hall was perched forward, behind the peak of the roof. He was using a quilt to insulate himself from the heat of the shingles and had his rifle pointed somewhere out in the fields beyond the road. One of his sniper crew was in a similar position on the far end of the roof.
Terry was afraid to interrupt whatever was happening. He stepped out onto the platform without speaking and sat in the chair next to Bill. Seth and Sally followed Terry up the ladder. When Bill saw Susanne appear, he covered the phone with his hand and asked Seth to take her back to her support group, and then come back. Seth complied without a word, waving Suze back down the ladder. He understood that Bill didn’t want Suze to see and hear the action in the field. Terry handed Seth his keys to the truck, but Seth handed them right back.
Terry was trying to help, but he realized that Seth was thinking ahead. The truck makes noise. He also wondered if Seth was just trying to extend his time with Suze before things became too intense. Terry stuffed the keys back in his pocket, and caught a glimpse of the pair walking back through the front gate to Teeny Town.
Bill set the phone handset back in its cradle. “Hey, Miss Sally. Hey, Terry. How’d it go?”
“Good, I think. I told them to meet us at Hickerson Station this afternoon,” Terry replied.
Sally spoke up. “He did great, Daddy. Too bad he doesn’t spend any of those pretty words on me.”
Bill smiled. “Good job, Terry. Sally, I’m sure he speaks more nicely than you do.”
Sally pouted in a way that just made Terry want to touch her, but given the circumstances, it would have to wait.
“What did you do with Ned and his people?” Terry asked.
“Well, they wanted to prove something to us, I guess, so we’re up here to see what we can see. Kirk’s over to the west in case they get in trouble. Bill pointed to the opposite end of the open
territory from the old farm house where the convoy had left the highway. In between the enemy and Kirk’s training ground was the old Carroll farm, with its barn still standing. To the left of the barn and farther in the distance was the patch of woods where the old Carter treehouse still clung to the maple branches. It couldn’t be seen from here, but Terry knew it was there.
Bill handed Terry a pair of binoculars, and lifted his own set to his eyes. Bill scanned across the scrub-filled fields until he caught a glimpse of movement. “Well, well. Can’t say I’m too surprised to see old man Cox out there.”
“Really? Where?”
Bill pointed and Terry worked the binoculars until he could see men working through the rough vegetation. Sure enough, Garrett Cox stepped into view. If they were trying to be sneaky, they weren’t very good at it.
Bill picked up his phone and passed along orders to the guard. When he set the phone down, he picked up his binoculars again and scanned to the right of the Cox men. He and Terry were both looking for Ned’s crew, who should have been moving into position.
“Do you see Ned’s people?” Bill asked.
“No. I’m looking.” Terry slid his view continuously. The Coxes stood out like a sore thumb, but Ned was nowhere to be seen. “Wait a second. Is it just me, or are some of the Coxes missing?”
“I didn’t have a good count, but it does seem like there are fewer men out there.” Bill’s lips moved as he tried to count silently.
“Where are they going?” Terry asked and looked at Bill for an answer.
“Beats me. I think our new friends are professionals.”
In Terry’s magnified view, the Cox crew walked behind a heavy band of brush, and failed to come out the other side. He heard a piercing whistle, and saw Ned’s hat rise from the scrub. The man waved to the west, and Kirk’s men began to move in Ned’s direction.
“Looks like it’s over,” Bill said with a note of awe, “But I’ll be damned if I know what happened.”
“So, Ned’s got maybe twenty-five, and they took down roughly forty of Cox’s men without a single gunshot?” Sally asked in a thinking-out-loud voice.
“Looks that way, Sweetheart,” Bill replied. “Let’s go see what happened.”
The trio scrambled down the ladder, leaving Jeffry and his companion to watch from the rooftop. They met Seth on his way in the kitchen door just as they were heading out. Sally motioned for Seth to follow. All four of them climbed up into Big Bertha and Terry started the engine. He dropped the gearshift, and circled around the far end of the three guard houses. Big Bertha bounced through the ditch and onto the broken pavement. Terry didn’t bother to accelerate. The left turn into the field was less than two hundred feet to the west. It was the same road that Terry had taken to get to the training ground and he was familiar with the dust and ruts. However, he wasn’t aware of the track that crossed the field parallel to the main road. Bill pointed it out, and Terry made another left turn. After they had traveled three hundred yards, Terry could see John Hall waving them to his location. Terry slowed down a bit and angled off the narrow track. Except for dodging a few tree-sized shrubs, he made a beeline for the point he had seen.
Based on what Bill could see, the Cox’s men had been taken over a hundred yards or more. The tracks where they had been dragged into a packed clearing were apparent. After Bill looked past the blood, the method became clear as well. A large portion of the Cox’s men were pierced by arrows. Several others were simply cut to disable. None of them were dead, and Garrett Cox himself was untouched, other than the leather straps that bound his hands and feet.
Bill slid down from the cab and walked over to where Kirk was talking to Ned Stamps. Terry, Sally and Seth were close behind. Bill took his time, surveying the outcome of the silent battle. He noticed that Kirk had piled all the Cox’s weapons over at the edge of the clearing, and two of his men immediately began loading them into the back of Terry’s truck.
Bill turned to face Ned. “Bows and arrows. Impressive.”
Ned shrugged and said, “We’ve been using them for a long time. We never knew when we would find ammo.”
“Makes perfect sense. We have a few folks who use them, but we have always gone in for the ‘never take a bow to a gunfight’ theory.”
Ned grinned. “That makes perfect sense too. Use what you have, you know?”
“Absolutely. But what shocks me is the accuracy. You all shoot like Robin Hood,” Bill said, returning the grin.
“Not all of us, but enough. If you do anything for thirty-five years, you’ll get good at it,” Ned replied.
“Truer words never spoken, Ned. Well, let me just have a few words with Mr. Cox, and we’ll get you folks set up with a place to sleep. Thanks for the help.”
“No problem, Bill.”
Bill turned and took the three steps to where the head of the Cox family was sitting. “Ok, Garrett. I see they were kind enough to leave you un-punctured. I guess you didn’t hear me too well when I told you what would happen.”
Garrett Cox just looked up at Bill.
“I told you if you left your farm, I would burn it to the ground, just like the Jenkins farm.”
“Yeah. So?” Garrett decided to reply.
Bill pulled an antique pocket watch from his pants pocket and flipped the face open. “So... I’d say your farm has about three minutes left.”
“Bullshit! There’s no way...”
“Save it, Garrett. While we were in the parking lot having that nice little chat, one of my teams was busy wiring your entire place with some nice incendiary bombs made from your own supplies. Right now, a large group of my men is telling yours to get out of the house before we set them off. If they listen, they’ll be disarmed and told to go far away. If they don’t... They’ll die. Thing is, I think your son will listen to reason a lot better than his old man.” Bill waited for an answer. He didn’t get one. “Ok, Kirk. They’re all yours.”
Chapter 10 – 10
Bill never did quite shake his double standard. There was everybody else, and there was his daughter. After they returned to Teeny Town, handed Ned’s people over to Aggie’s hospitality, and ate some lunch, Bill sent Sally to get some sleep. He was expecting a long night, and knew that she would insist on working with her normal unit. Seth had his orders to gather his full armament, grab a couple of hours of sleep and return for further orders.
Bill and Terry moved to the shade of the front porch as the full August heat built through the glass doors of the Carter’s kitchen. The men sat with icy glasses of water, and passed the time. Bill knew that Terry would not sleep, just like Bill himself would never be able to relax until this whole event was over.
“Ned’s gonna steal my thunder,” Bill said.
“Not likely,” Terry replied. “Everyone loves you.”
“Not that thunder. I’m sure he’d like to retire as much as I would. I’m talking about his story. I expect that once he starts talking, I’ll never find you again.”
“Sure you will, Bill. You’ll be the guy sitting right next to me,” Terry said with a snort of laughter. “But that’s beside the point.”
“Oh?”
“He hasn’t started talking yet.”
“I guess that’s my cue,” Bill said with a smile.
***
We were a week short of two full years since the world had ended. The middle of May was a little cool and blustery, but nothing that Sally Bean couldn’t handle. In the weeks leading up to the hints of real warmth, she had converted her greenhouse from a cold crop paradise into a seed starting operation. While we prepared the soil outside for planting, she would perform her daily ritual of checking the soil. From what I could see, she was just sticking her hands into the loose dirt and dibbling it through her fingers, but she must have had some kind of system.
Starting at the end of April, she would declare a certain type of plant ready to be moved outside, and would proceed to supervise us in planting them in her locations, in her order. It
wasn’t really hard work, compared to caring for livestock, but she wanted to make sure that all of us knew something about growing crops, and she worked everyone through her work rotation a few times per week.
For Joe and Arturo, the time was spent in preparation for departure from our safe haven. Joe was intent on doing what he wanted, but Arturo was determined that Jones should learn as much as possible about growing food before they were out to fend for themselves. She worked in the greenhouse every day, and Sally Bean was diligent in focusing her efforts on Jones. Meanwhile, Dad and Arturo were spending many hours working on the station wagon, tweaking and tuning, packing and repacking, until finally they decided that Arturo was as well prepared as possible.
At first, there were many attempts to leave the back seat open for Joe, but he settled the argument when he loudly declared that he would walk. He wanted nothing to worry about except the pack on his back and the food in his belly. Most of us secretly considered Joe to be committing an elaborate form of suicide, and my dad spent long hours trying to change the old man’s mind. It didn’t work. Joe’s fifth and final supper table speech about why he was planning to walk out in the world finally stopped the attempts to dissuade him. Even Sally gave up after that.
The one distraction to our all-out effort was on Saturday, the 17th. Dad had spent several evenings preparing his words by lantern light, and on that afternoon, everyone put on their best clothing. No one would say we were well-dressed, but we were clean and that meant something after days in the dirt. Dad stood in the center of a hastily built, arched trellis laced with flowers from the greenhouse. Joe turned out to be very good at fine carpentry for the trellis, and Sally clearly had put her heart into the flower arrangements. Dad was facing the house with Arturo and Joe on his left, and Mom and the other women on his right. Aggie served as Jones’s flower girl, which she did well, and her dress helper, which didn’t work out so well in the muddy yard. She walked twice down the aisle, which was a gap between two garden beds. Once to scatter yellow blossoms on the ground, and then again to help Jones with the homemade dress.