by Benton, Ken
At least two known enemies were now in the same general patch of cover, and quite possibly all three of the fools.
Excellent.
Joel put two random shots about two feet off the ground in the brush.
Almost at the same time, he heard three shots from his AR-15 ring out from his cabin.
The situation was improving. Joel waited, glancing frequently to his right, where the driveway to the Dunn house could now be seen through an opening in the trees. He was uncomfortably exposed from that direction, and equally uncomfortably aware that one remaining member of their gang had yet to positively show himself. Joel would not make a fatal mistake of assumption. Plus there was always the chance additional foes from the Dunn compound would join the fray against him.
He didn’t have to wait long. Firing resumed from the brush in rapid repetition from at least two different weapons, including the shotgun. Dust clouds burst from the big rocks he crouched behind. Joel stayed low to wait for an ease in the blitzkrieg.
None came. The booms from the shotgun drew successively closer. The other gunshots moved west along the road, towards Sammy’s position.
The bastards were rushing them.
Joel reached to wedge his rifle in a crack between the rocks to make the barrel conspicuously protrude through the dust to the on-comer, hopefully slowing him. He then pulled his Glock from the holster, crept to the far edge of the outcrop, and rolled over the lower part of the mound out to the front side.
There came the greasy-haired scumbag he should have taken care of on the road, advancing and blasting at the rifle barrel stuck between the rocks. He couldn’t have many shells left in the shotgun, even if it was a high-capacity semi-automatic, which it appeared to be. Joel was tempted to call out to him in an effort to widen his target, especially when he saw the man pulling a pistol out of his pants, presumably to finish the job from the top of the rock. He was brazen if nothing else.
Joel settled for putting a 9mm round in the left side of his rib cage.
He got his wider target. The enemy spun involuntarily to face him. Joel placed two more slugs center chest. Then there was no more enemy.
Here, at least. Sammy’s gunfight continued, and before Joel could move to assist, the two sounds he least wanted to hear, ever in his life, detonated at the same moment—from opposite directions.
One was Sammy crying out in pain immediately after a shot fired near his location.
The other was Jessie’s scolding voice yelling Joel’s name.
Joel turned to Jessie’s voice, where the sight his eyes encountered threw his brain into temporary paralysis. She stood on the driveway between two men, glowering at Joel with every bit as much hatred as the enemy had for him. One of the men was Archer, bearing Joel’s Remington 870, albeit resting on his shoulder. The other was the big man, the leader of the U-Haul gang himself, apparently unarmed, wearing his usual cut-sleeve denim vest.
Another gunshot blast from Sammy’s location unfroze Joel. He knew that sound came from the Mossberg Shockwave blunderbuss. Five seconds later it boomed again.
Then crickets.
Joel pointed his Glock at the gang leader and stood. From this distance it would normally be a difficult pistol shot.
Normally. Joel’s outstretched arms locked as a statue. He knew he currently possessed the steadfast determination not to miss. The big man must have felt it as well, as his hands went in the air.
Jessie screamed at Joel again.
Archer’s shotgun stayed on his shoulder.
“Sammy!” Joel shouted stepping forward, keeping a dead aim.
“I got him, boss! You all right?”
“Yes! You?”
“I’m hit in the shoulder. Hurts like the devil! Bleeding and need help!”
“Hang in there, Sammy! One last problem to solve!”
Joel closed the distance between him and the driveway enough to all but assure another center-chest shot.
Now the big man shouted. “This was their fight, dude! I got no further beef with you! I’m a businessman.”
“Joel, don’t you do it!” Jessie yelled.
“Lay on the ground!” Joel ordered.
The big man instantly complied.
Joel motioned to Archer. “Archer, if he gets up, shoot the son of a bitch!”
Archer did not reply. He only stood in the same position with a wary look on his face.
That would have to do. Joel turned to run back to Sammy.
Before he could reach him, a speeding army Humvee appeared on the roadside out of nowhere, coming to a hard stop. Joel slowed and re-holstered his weapon.
But he found himself quickly ordered to freeze by fast-acting soldiers who meant business.
“I’m on your side!” Joel said with his hands in the air. “I have a man down who needs help. We need an ambulance!”
* * *
Back in his own front yard, Joel watched in considerable distress as the same scene played out here that had only minutes before occurred on the Dunn driveway. Part of the distress was from the effect of being outside in the growing darkness.
The rest was from being held at gunpoint too far a distance to be able to hear what was being said. The soldier who detained him, a stout sergeant who constantly bit his lower lip, didn’t appear happy about his patrol duties extending into the nighttime hours.
“Why are you treating me like a bad guy?” Joel asked him. “This is my house.”
“Because the lieutenant said to keep you here,” the sergeant answered. “Please remain quiet.”
Debra and Mick finished their testimony to the lieutenant, who seemed a level-headed officer. Thank God their turn came after that of Jessie, Archer, and the gang leader, or Joel would probably be arrested. Joel didn’t know what to make of Jessie and Archer at this point, other than to classify them both as unfriendlies.
Debra gave Joel a concerned glance before returning to sit on the porch steps with, of all people, the redhead—where she helped him apply ointment on his hand. The three .223 rounds Mick fired must have been warning shots. Perhaps they had been hysterically ignored. In any case, Mick and Debra handled the predicament wisely. They must have concluded the redhead was not a threat warranting deadly force. Joel still seethed over his apparent role as an accomplice, but was glad under the circumstances that Mick had not killed an unarmed man and landed himself in hot water on Joel’s account.
Callaway watched the whole scene sitting cross-legged on the straw in the open doorway of the pen, petting the goat.
“Where did they take my friend with the gunshot wound?” Joel asked the lieutenant on his return.
“The same place we’re taking you,” he replied scratching his stubble mustache. “Only he’ll be treated first, and likely spend a few days in the hospital tent. I assume you are both diurnal?”
“Um, what?”
“Day people. You’re both day people? Not nocturnal?”
“Correct.” Joel glanced up at the brightening aurora borealis and fidgeted. “That kid is like a little brother to me, Lieutenant. But I trust he is in good hands with you guys, so I prefer to spend the night at home and come find him in the morning, if you can just tell me where.”
“Mr. McConnell, you are under arrest. Can I trust you to cooperate, or do we need to cuff you?”
Joel tilted his head. “I don’t understand. You are arresting the good guys. I am a reputable law-abiding citizen, and own a car dealership in Washington DC.”
“Yes, I’ve seen your commercials. That’s the reason I am offering you the option of cooperating.”
“But they’re the ones who came after us!”
“Sergeant,” the lieutenant said motioning to him.
The sergeant promptly produced a set of handcuffs.
“What I meant to say, Lieutenant, is I will cooperate fully, and not cause any problems for you, of course. I’ve always supported our troops.”
Joel shortly found himself sitting behind the lieutenant in the
Humvee, un-cuffed, next to the sergeant. The vehicle started off taking a route towards Knoxville, but soon veered Northeastward at every opportunity. The agitation of being outside at night began making it too difficult for Joel to track the route. All the members of the patrol also acted anxious to come to the end of their shift and get indoors.
“I was only defending my home,” Joel said as non-confrontationally as he could.
“You were off your property, sir, and approaching the neighbor’s house. Defenders are typically found on their own land.”
Joel stayed silent a moment, forming his response. After all, he had time.
“Any of you ever been to the middle east?” he shortly asked.
The sergeant un-bit his lip to answer. “The lieutenant and I served two tours in Afghanistan together.”
The lieutenant turned from the front seat to shoot the sergeant a reprimanding scowl.
“Thank you for your service,” Joel said. “But if defenders are only found in their own yard, how is it you thought of yourselves as defending our country there, when you were thousands of miles outside our property line?”
Crickets.
Joel shook his head. “I’m not blaming you guys. I know you are doing your job. But I don’t understand what crime you are possibly considering charging me with after talking to the eyewitnesses?”
“Actually,” the lieutenant replied, “it was the girl who informed me you were the instigator of the gunfight.”
Joel ground his teeth, picturing Jessie as his accuser. How could something like this have ever happened?
It then occurred to him that Debra made no attempt to come to him while he was being detained in the yard.
“Which girl?” Joel asked. “The redhead or the blonde?”
“Your own girlfriend, sir,” he responded with the tone of a prosecuting attorney presenting irrefutably condemning evidence.
Joel thought for a second.
“Which one?” he repeated. “The redhead or the blonde?”
The lieutenant turned in his seat again to face Joel, looking amused this time.
“To be accurate, she identified herself as your ex-girlfriend.”
Joel sat back in the seat with a sense of relief, but then flashed on how close Debra had been standing to Mick during the questioning.
“Which one?” Joel said again. “The redhead or the blonde?”
Chapter Twenty Three
The army prison camp resembled something from a holocaust movie. Barbed wire stretched tight between telephone poles enclosed the yard with what was essentially a taller and meaner version of Joel’s simple property line fence. Escape would be as easy as bending and twisting enough to squeeze oneself between the wires while avoiding as many barbs as possible, paying special attention to keep them away from the more tender areas of the body.
That is, if it wasn’t for the thirty military combat rifles guarding the perimeter, both night and day.
“Dusk is the time to run,” a desperate character said to Joel the second day. “That’s when most of them eat together, like us, when the shift changes. There’s half as many guards out then, and the ones going off-duty are just as stressed about nightfall as we are.”
“Don’t do it,” Joel told him. “Half as many guards is still twice the number needed to drop you in your tracks even at three hundred yards, with their weapons and training. And if you did miraculously make it, you’d have to be outside, hiding in the forest at least one whole night, and probably several, only to be recaptured in all likelihood, before you reach any kind of safe quarter.”
Joel had to admit, though, that the same thought did cross his own mind once or twice by then.
By the fourth day, ten or twenty times.
It was also the fourth day when Joel discovered a folded piece of paper in the inside pocket of the jacket he was wearing the night he was arrested. The weather was cooler that day, so he actually put it on instead of tying it around his waist. Joel didn’t remember what it was until he opened it—if he had, he certainly never would have taken it out while a guard stood near him.
“What have you got there?” the guard asked him.
Joel had a deer-in-the-headlights moment as the guard stepped towards him. He managed to break out of it with some last-second thinking.
“This paper proves my innocence.” Joel extended it outward to the guard.
That did the trick. The guard waved it away saying, “Save it for your tribunal,” before pretending he was needed elsewhere.
“When will that be?” Joel called after him, which helped speed his departure.
The paper, in reality, did nothing of the sort. Quite the opposite, Archer’s note was the most condemning thing he possibly could have offered him. After the guard fully vanished from sight, Joel approached two teenage inmates at their appropriated smoking area on the far side of the bunkhouse to borrow a lighter. One of them reluctantly complied. Joel noticed they were being extremely conservative with their cigarettes, sharing one and taking only a few puffs before pinching it out. Smart boys.
“What is that?” the youth asked as the note went up in a bright orange flame.
“A written confession for three shootings,” Joel answered.
They both laughed, but then the one who owned the lighter said, “Cool.” His tone was one of belief.
Joel smiled at them. “You guys are smarter than the guards. How did you end up here?”
“Stealing,” the one with the lighter replied. “Both my parents moved into a house down the street with people that sleep all day and are up all night, like them.” He pointed to the bunkhouse with his thumb. “I had to run away just so I could be outside in the daytime. The only way I can get food is to steal it. It’s not so bad here. At least they feed us, and let us outside in the day.”
His friend then spoke. “My dad moved in with the neighborhood noctos. My mom is a day-person, like me, but I ran away because we still always fight. Hey, did you really shoot three people?”
“Highway bandits,” Joel said. “I only shot two. My new girlfriend shot the third.”
They both laughed again, but lighter this time, as if trying to decide if he was joking. Joel left them there for his usual afternoon routine of walking wide circles around the yard.
Time had a way of distorting in this place. While the monotony of the minutes going by could be excruciating, at other times the realization of how much accumulated time was being lost felt surreal. Hours became days before you could accomplish anything satisfying or even hopeful. The tragedy of a potential lifetime wasted like this was overwhelming to think about. Death was preferable. But Joel supposed homeless people who had nowhere to go and could no longer feed themselves, like the two teenage boys, found some benefits to their incarceration, at least in the short term under the current circumstances.
Meanwhile Debra and Mick lived together in Joel’s home, for what was already becoming a longer period than Joel had been with them there. The thought of losing her was painful, and Joel knew it was a very possible developing reality. Debra was the kind of woman who needed a man. Mick was undeniably a good one, even if he was noticeably younger. Every passing day undoubtedly brought them closer together.
Joel couldn’t figure out what was happening with the army prisoners, or get any kind of line on what their individual fates would be. Whatever process was established to handle legal matters in this place, whatever criminal justice system was being used, was totally elusive so far. It reminded him of a TV show he liked called Locked Up Abroad. That is, he used to like it. But even those prisoners eventually experienced some sort of due process. Here, who knew?
Nocturnal and diurnal prisoners shared the same yard and bunks. Two meals a day were served, partaken by everyone, at the beginning and ending of each “shift.” The diurnals all naturally gravitated to eat with one another in a certain section of the picnic tables, as did the nocturnals. The two clans largely avoided socializing with each other.
Outside the fence line, the soldiers acted in like fashion. The majority took their meals the same time the prisoners did. Joel soon noticed officers ordering the two groups of soldiers to mix together while they ate, however. The soldiers obeyed, reluctantly at first, but did interact and talk with each other across the solar social barrier. Perhaps their sense of duty trumped the natural polarity forming between day and night people.
After the meals everyone separated, both clans wanting nothing further to do with the other, especially among the prisoners—and definitely wanting nothing to do with being outside during the opposing solar period. Inside, everyone had to share laundry tubs to wash their clothes and bedsheets in, and take lukewarm showers with a tiny ration of soap before going to bed.
The only outside news the prisoners were privy to came from newly arriving inmates, most of which sounded ill-informed and highly suspect to Joel. But certain bits and pieces did make sense, such as early spring crop failures and tales of savage street fighting between nocturnal criminal gangs and law enforcement officers in Louisville, Nashville, and Atlanta.
One credible-seeming man claimed to be an airline mechanic who bugged out with most of his co-workers, since the airlines could no longer provide food for their employees. He reported that all airports were still closed, and not expected to resume operation any time soon. The majority of commercial jetliners experienced damage to their electrical components well beyond allowable safety standards, and needed replacement parts which the demand greatly exceeded the supply of, in addition to complete overhauls which would be slow in coming with much of the skilled labor scattered to the country and no way to communicate with them.
When Joel first arrived at the camp he was one of only a dozen diurnal prisoners, though the facility could hold ten times that many. Exactly where the camp appeared on a map no one knew, but the prevailing guesses were somewhere in southeastern Kentucky. Joel knew it wasn’t too far from his cabin, wherever it was. The inmate count grew daily, at a ratio of about 3:1 nocturnals to diurnals from Joel’s estimation. At this rate, overcrowding for the nocturnal side would be a serious issue in the foreseeable future. Perhaps that would help them obtain speedier trials out of necessity.