The lead truck burned, spilling dark black smoke into the sky, and all was still for a moment. Vlad could hear men shouting and his own heartbeat as if his ear were to his own chest.
“Where are you, Colonel?!” he shouted out loud.
“Incoming!” came the radio call from the barricade…from the sky!”
Vlad could only hear the commotion from the north, like those old movies with the B-52 bombers all flying in pattern and the steady hum of war to surely come. A hail of bullets came from the first plane, peppering the barricade and Bert’s front hull and turret.
“Where are you, Colonel?!” repeated Vlad aloud, but this time into his radio. “We need you!”
Jake and I both heard the planes and couldn’t believe there were ten or more, all circling now and firing rounds at anything that moved. Remembering what the Colonel had said about not firing at anything in the air, I was pretty sure he didn’t mean these planes. I couldn’t just let them mow us down, like shooting wild hogs taking over a farmer’s ranch.
Crack! Crack! Crack! I fired as fast as I could, trying to hit anything shooting towards us. I fully expected to see not one but two or more planes smoke and dip from my well-placed shots, crashing into the ground. That didn’t happen, although I was sure I had hit something, with most flying within shooting range.
“That’s not going to work,” called Jake, as the planes did a wide circle around for another run. “Get to the fire truck! Go! Go! Go!” Jake said, grabbing me by the collar and running.
A hundred yards doesn’t seem that far when a football team is moving the chains ten yards at a time, but running it full out with a pack and rifle and not looking up was another story.
I ran with Jake, refusing to look up. “Where are you, Colonel?!” I yelled aloud.
We had a reprieve of sorts as the planes arced across the end of the Valley. With no shooting close, we just ran. I had forgotten about the Rimrock fire and those trying to come over on foot, now concentrating only on what I heard above.
My lungs were on fire, and I could see the truck 60 yards ahead…50 now…40…30...before I heard it—the low and slow sound of being stalked by a killing machine, with nowhere to hide. Thump! Thump! Thump! the rounds hit the dirt around us. I was in the lead, with Jake following close behind.
Against my better judgment, I did look up and behind; we both did, and I’ll never forget the scene as long as I live. The silver monstrosity had us in its sights when the first shells were fired.
The constant fire tracked us from behind, first ten yards back as we ran, then five…then...
Something hit me from behind that I couldn’t see, knocking me facedown into the dirt. I must be shot, I thought, trying to take stock of all my parts and waiting for the inevitable pain that would surely follow.
The men, already under the fire truck, scrambled out instructions I could not hear.
The pressure on my back felt like a 200-pound pack pinning me down. Thump! Thump! and one more, I could feel as the rounds hit my pack.
Why am I not feeling it? I thought.
* * * *
My mind flooded with visions of Joy and our boys growing up without a father. All the sacrifices we made just to get here, and now I wouldn’t be around to watch my boys grow up or to see my wife smile again, finally at home on free land. For a moment, the sound of the aircraft lessened as it made a wide circle over the Valley.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” they called from under the truck. “Let’s go, Lance—now!”
“Okay, buddy. This is it; we’re almost there…20 more yards, Jake. On the count of one-two...” but it wasn’t slugs holding me down. It was a man on my back, and he wasn’t moving.
“Jake, let’s go!” I shouted, slipping out from underneath him.
His body fell to the side and onto the hard earth. I looked into his open eyes and the same lady-killer shade of blue they had always been, but something was missing. Life was missing.
“Jake!” I yelled, as if he could hear me better. “Jake!” I cried again, begging him to stand up or crawl or something…anything!
* * * *
Looking up toward the now thundering sky, I saw airplanes and helicopters crisscrossing the Valley and recognized the Black Hawks from a run-in with the Colonel and Ronna that seemed years ago now.
Gunfire filled the Valley from high above, but I couldn’t hear it… It was just a loud humming sound—like an air conditioning unit in a large warehouse—drowning out the sound of men yelling for me to get under cover. Two ran out and grabbed me by the arms, pulling me towards the relative safety of the fire engine. I didn’t let go…wouldn’t let go…of Jake, with both hands now on the collar of his Flak jacket.
“Leave him; he’s gone,” said one man.
“No!” I screamed out, refusing to let go.
Only out of the corner of my eye could I see planes and helicopters zig-zagging across the Valley, with one occasionally leaving a trail of smoke behind.
“We take him, or you can leave me,” I yelled to the men on our side, not loosening my grip.
Without another word, they helped me drag my new, old friend—one I would count among my best—underneath the truck. I checked his pulse and breathing, finding none.
The bullets—at least three, maybe more—looked through and through from the back, creating wounds I felt no man could survive. Still, I started CPR compressions. “One and two and three,” I called out robotically, giving a breath after five and repeating the next set over and over again.
Next to me, the men looked on without a word, looking out from underneath the truck every few seconds to check the skies.
I called it out loud some time later, as I had seen in the movies, I guess—“Time of death, 12:38 p.m.”
Closing his eyes, I put my face to his.
“I’m sorry, my friend. I brought you here, and we almost had it; we almost had freedom. You are the reason we made it home. From the first time we met, you watched out for me, and now I will go home only because you chose not to. I’ll never forget that, not ever,” I added, with tears streaming down my dirty face.
The next faces forefront in my mind were Nancy and little Danny, who had already both been through so much.
“I’m sorry, Nancy,” I choked out loud. “You saved one of mine back on the trailer, but I couldn’t save yours.”
The Boom! overhead knocked me back to reality, as a biplane crashed into the earth not more than thirty feet from us, spitting out fire and chunks of metal and engine, crashing against the truck just above our heads. There was more of the same across the Valley over the next maybe thirty minutes, with two fire planes dropping the red slurry mix on any new fires.
I couldn’t see the Rimrock fire anymore but saw a few hundred people walking across from south to north, thinking it must be Ronna’s group. Random gunfire from no doubt small skirmishes came from over the Rimrock, and the thought of Baker had me seething.
“What happened?” I asked the two men with us under the truck. “What happened when we were running?” I added, checking my pack for bullet holes where I felt the impact. Sure enough, there were three, with two holes halfway through my Bible Joy had given me just last night.
“He fell on you,” said one man.
“Like tripped?” I asked.
“No. Like he knocked you down when the gunfire was coming at you both, and he covered you, taking the hits.”
“But I felt the thump of the bullets. Here is where they hit,” I said, pulling the Good Book out.
“Yes, a few did after going through your friend here,” said another.
I knew what he was saying but couldn’t compute it in my brain. Like I was stuck in a Jeopardy game live on TV and about to win the biggest cash prize in the history of the game, and the question was, “What’s your wife’s middle name?”
“What are you saying?!” I cried.
“I’m saying he sacrificed himself for you. If he hadn’t, you would both be dead right now
.”
Hearing it spoken out loud was a sucker punch in the gut. “Why me?” I asked aloud. “He’s the one who told us to run. Why didn’t he head to safety first? Why?!”
“We don’t know,” answered one quietly. “He just didn’t.”
“Get your mind right,” I heard in my head, like the very first time in the Albertson’s grocery store parking lot near my clinic on the very first day. This time it wasn’t my voice, but his…
“Get your mind right and get home to your family!” I heard him say again.
“But what about yours?” I asked aloud.
I looked out and up, seeing only smoke in the sky—some old and some new. Our people were walking about, looking in the air and on the Rimrock.
“Is it over?” asked one man near me.
“I think so,” said another.
The Rimrock fire had apparently burned out on its own somewhere on the other side. I was pretty sure because the smoke was no worse over the hill than here in the Valley.
I looked at my friend, my best friend after Joy and our boys, and promised him that I would get Nancy and his son home to their family safely.
* * * *
Our side slowly gathered on the main road by the Ranch.
Vlad pulled up in Bert, with a smile he couldn’t shake, at least not yet. A minute talking with me was all it took, and I felt bad that I took his victory lap away from him so abruptly. He told me we would be okay and always remember the group’s sacrifice as we traveled…and today.
* * * *
The Colonel sent word that it was done, and a full week later I would find out from Vlad what held up the Colonel at the start. The aircraft we saw was a small cross-section of what was parked near Masonville. Had the Colonel and his soldiers not taken them out first, the Valley would have been lost.
Ronna was interviewing what was left of Baker’s front-line men and women to determine if any were salvageable for his group.
The women and children would be taken to the nearest FEMA camp in Fort Collins for processing, and no doubt a better life than they had been living recently.
* * * *
Baker himself was an entirely different matter. Nobody had seen him since it started, and he was missing once again. Only Sergio and Mike had an answer.
An hour before the whole thing started, Baker sat quietly inside his new house, at least until tomorrow or maybe the next day. He wanted to give his men enough time to clear his new valley of anything that may be unpleasant, alive or dead.
He sipped tea alone, with his radio sitting next to him and a smile only he could know, pulling off a cross-country migration numbering more than he could count, but surely it was over a thousand by now.
How could a small-time country preacher only two months ago lead an Army of regular folks across the country, all while working closely with at least part of the Military and in direct contact with Beijing?
He smiled, knowing nobody else but him could have pulled this off. Soon he would be in his forever home, carefully planning his next steps. As an orphan, a forever home was all he ever wanted, just like the rest of them in his 33-bunk orphanage. He would never see that, getting out at age 18 and bouncing around from one church to another as a usually part-time pastor. But now, at age 69, he was days…or maybe even hours…from his dream—however it came to pass.
“I told you, don’t bother me!” he said, hearing a knock at the front door. Ten seconds passed and he heard it again, softer but distinct nonetheless.
“Whatever it is, take care of it!” he yelled across the room. Ten more seconds and the knock came again, once more infuriating the man most called “Colonel Baker.”
“Incompetent sons of...” he spat, standing and glaring at the door.
He heard the unmistakable click of the back door closing…and started to panic. He knew all the doors were locked; he had checked them several times.
“Hey there, not-so-much a Colonel,” said Mike in a casual, almost friendly tone.
“How did you get in here?” Baker asked, looking around frantically for someone or something to defend himself with.
“The back door, wouldn’t you know it. The darn thing just popped right open,” he said, holding up a crowbar.
“Where’s that other traitor you hang out with?” asked Baker, sounding a bit cocky to Mike.
“I don’t know anyone like that—except, of course, for you, sir, betraying your country when she needed us all the most.”
“I mean Sergio, you idiot!” Baker spat.
Mike, of course, was unfazed. He had been called much worse by men he did respect.
“Ah, Sergio,” replied Mike. “Good fella, don’t you think? One heck of a chap, if you ask me,” he continued in his best British accent. “I know the women like him. Not the ones you keep like slaves, of course, but the others—the ones with minds of their own and a free will, women like that. I’ve saved more than a few of those from you and your cowardly men already.”
“What are you talking about?” Baker retorted.
“Back on Raton Pass, I saved a girl named Katie, who watched your men torture innocent women and children. I even saved a little girl named Darly, but her mom called her Darling. You remember her, don’t you?”
Baker was silent but seething.
“She’s the one…sweet little Darly,” Mike continued, “that your men put out on the front line right before we kicked your asses.”
“That was you?” he asked gruffly.
“Yep, you’re looking at him. Now back to Sergio for just a minute, if I may. He’s a little embarrassed about the brand you put on him.”
“I didn’t do it!” responded Baker defiantly.
“Of course not…your guys did. You would never consider getting your own hands dirty, would you? Mine looks like crap too, don’t you think?” asked Mike, pulling back part of his shirt to display the crude marking.
“Hurts like hell, the first hour or so, but you wouldn’t know that, would you? Don’t have one, do you? Have a seat until it’s ready,” said Mike, getting deadly serious and walking toward him until he nearly fell backward into an easy chair.
“You want me to sit here until this fight for the Valley is over? Is that it?”
“No. Sit until it’s ready,” Mike restated.
Sergio burst through the front door with a red-hot poker and the letters TPKP glowing bright orange under the flame of a medium-sized log.
“No! No! Now wait just a minute!” cried Baker. “Getting that thing was your choice; you didn’t have to do it!”
Mike was ready to hold him down and expose his shoulder for the event.
Baker, a coward, sank deeper into the chair, refusing to offer his shoulder at Sergio’s commands.
“Have it your way, commander!” With that, he pressed the red-hot poker deep into Baker’s chest, right through the expensive white linen shirt, like the ones he always wore.
Mike had joked with Sergio only yesterday that Baker must have knocked off the men’s section of a Neiman Marcus store on his migration across the country and only wore the most expensive of wardrobes.
Baker didn’t take the pain as well as Sergio, Mike, or any others before him, passing out onto the floor.
“That’s a wrap,” said Sergio, grabbing the gas can just outside the front door and quickly dousing the floor, emptying the five-gallon can. He dropped the brand and the still-burning log, tossing both over his shoulder behind him. The old wood farmhouse lit like a stack of matches, with flames quickly crawling up the drapes and onto the ceiling.
Both Sergio and Mike instinctively touched their arms where the brand would forever stay.
“I thought you wanted his head on a stake?” asked Mike.
“I will if he walks out of there,” replied Sergio.
Ten minutes later, it was clear he never would.
* * * *
Sergio and Mike made their way through women and children, occasionally locking eyes with a grandfather most like
ly. All were void of expression, with death in their eyes. Most didn’t even notice the fire, and nobody guarded them, figuring they had nowhere to go.
“How long have you been carrying around that branding iron?” Mike asked, as they headed back towards the Ranch unopposed.
“Since right after they marked you. I took it the next morning and vowed the next recipient would be Baker himself. And wouldn’t you know, I was right!”
Next World Series | Vol. 6 | Families First [Battle Grounds] Page 18