by Newman, AJ
She visited the cemetery several times to cry over her father’s grave. She was one tough lady but was very close to her dad. He taught her how to hunt, fish, and shoot as she grew up in the large outdoor playground of Arizona.
Missy walked around the town talking with anyone she had known in the past and kept getting the same story about her dad being killed by the Mayor and her people. The Meg she knew was almost like a mom to her after her own mom passed away and Mattie was like a sister. She kept trying to hate Meg but was deeply confused.
Missy stayed in Stony Creek for a couple of days without finding any new information. She went to her old home to find the new Sheriff lived there and she wasn’t welcome. She decided to go over to Clarkdale and see if anyone knew where Meg had gone.
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Chapter 3
The two convicts pounced on Lisa when she turned the corner heading away from Ann and Walt. She remembered the gunfire was intense, and she had tried to outflank a hidden shooter. The men grabbed her from behind with one holding her captive and the other stripping her rifle and pistol from her.
She kicked one man, cursed, and bit the hand cupped over her mouth. The man yanked his hand away. Lisa tried to yell again. “Hel…,” was all she got out when she was struck on the side of her head, and a hand covered her mouth again. She heard. “Let’s throw this bitch in the back of the truck and get outta here.”
She struggled as she was lifted to the tailgate and one of them tied her hands and feet. She remembered what Bob had taught her. She made her hands into fists and pushed out while the man tied his handkerchief around her hands. She also pushed her legs apart as the man tied her feet. She thought, “This jerk is a dumbass. He’s tying my hands in front of me and didn’t notice how I made sure there would be slack in the binding when I relax.”
The one that tied her up ran his hand up under her shirt and tried to cup his hand on her breast. Lisa snapped her head around and bit the man on the forearm. The man yelped in pain and struck Lisa on the head with the butt of his pistol.
Lisa woke up in the back of the truck with her hands and feet bound. She lay there naked under a cover sobbing and cried for a minute. She then got angry and strained at her bindings. The truck bounced along on a dirt road, and she could see the mountains getting closer as she struggled to free herself. It was twilight when she freed her hands. She quickly untied her feet and found her clothes at the front of the pickup’s bed.
She dressed under the blanket so the men wouldn’t know she had freed herself. She put her shoes on and then searched for a weapon. There was an old toolbox at the front of the truck where she found a ball peen hammer and a flat blade screwdriver. Lisa watched the men for a few minutes and then waited for them to come to a stop. They came to a T in the road and stopped.
Lisa was ready with the screwdriver and plunged it into the passenger’s throat as he turned to get out of the truck. She leaped to the other side with the screwdriver in her left hand and stabbed at the driver. She caught him on the side of his head ripping skin and flesh as the blade scraped along the unlucky man’s skull. He screamed in pain as the blade entered his left eye socket. Lisa shoved the screwdriver into his eye up to the handle and then whacked the man with the hammer ending his suffering.
She kicked the man in the groin. The other man groaned, so she ran to the other side of the pickup to see him trying to reach a shotgun. Lisa hit the man in the middle of his shoulder blades with the hammer causing him to scream in pain and fall to the ground. He bled from his neck and looked up at Lisa with a puzzled look on his face.
Lisa saw the man’s expression. “Yes, it’s me, and I’m going to make you wish you hadn’t messed with me. You asshole.”
Lisa kicked the man in the groin and then hit him several times with the hammer on his knees and elbows. The man screamed so to shut him up, she brought the hammer down on his cheek. Then she tired of hitting him and used both hands to drive the hammer into his skull.
Lisa calmly pushed the men away from the truck and sat down in the driver’s seat. She twisted the key, and the truck cranked but wouldn’t start. There were several rifles, pistols, and a 12 gauge pump shotgun in the cab. She also found a couple of boxes of shells for the shotgun and a box of .22s for a Ruger 10/22 rifle. The other guns weren’t loaded, and there were no bullets for them.
She found a small backpack and filled it with the bullets, a Glock 17, two cigarette lighters, a pocketknife, and a bag of mints she saw in the glovebox. She found a half-empty bottle of water on the floorboard and added it to the backpack. It was cold as the sun set, so she took one of the men’s hoodie. She knew she would be stuck out in the cold, so she looked in the back of the truck and grabbed the blanket she used to dress under.
The shotgun was loaded, and she loaded the Ruger 10/22. She found a short piece of rope, made a sling for the .22 rifle, and slung it over her shoulder. She hefted the shotgun and was ready to travel. Lisa kicked each man one more time and then walked away from the truck without a clue where she was heading. She was too busy clubbing, stabbing, and getting revenge to notice where the sun set. She looked up at the stars. “Crap, I should have paid more attention in school. The darn stars are winking and laughing at me.”
She headed entirely in the wrong direction to find her friends and walked into the middle of a dangerous situation.
***
As the sun set over the western hills in a blaze of fire, Roy spotted a nice doe walk across an open spot a stone’s throw from his camp. He was tired of spam and beans, so he grabbed his 30 30 and took off after the deer. The deer was in a hurry, so Roy had to ignore the pain in his knee and run to catch up to get a shot. He knew the area well and slowed when he saw the deer head into a box canyon. The canyon was small, no more than a hundred yards long, so he knew venison would be on the menu tonight.
Roy stayed close to the boulders on the side so the deer wouldn’t spot him in the shadows. What Roy didn’t know was that the deer wasn’t the only animal being hunted that evening. Roy leaned against a small boulder to steady his aim and pulled the trigger when an explosion lit up the area and rang in his ears. He fell against the rock and tried to get up when suddenly something heavy fell on him pinning him to the ground. The something growled. Roy’s raspy voice crackled. “Oh shit. It’s got fur.”
Roy struggled to reach his knife on his side when he heard two sharp cracks and the fury beast stopped trying to maul him. Roy tried to push the creature off but only freed one arm when he heard. “That Cougar was hunting you while you hunted that deer. You are lucky that deer led you into this canyon or you’d be dead.”
Lisa heard a raspy almost garbled voice. “Well, get the focken thing off me.”
Lisa thought the man ungrateful and started to leave the big cat on top of the jerk. The raspy voice said, “Purty, please. Wit some sugar on it.”
Lisa grasped one of the paws and tugged as the man pushed from below. The mountain lion moved, and the man squirmed free from the beast. “That der were a close one. Too focken close fer me. Darn, yer a girl. I thought you were a feller.”
Lisa had the shotgun aimed at the man as he braced himself against the boulder to get to his feet. He saw the shotgun and Lisa could barely understand his words due to his hoarse voice. “Fock, ya gonna shoot my sorry ass after saving me from that darn cat. What kinda heartless bitch are ya?”
Lisa looked at the old man and saw a tall, stocky man with a huge gray beard wearing dirty clothes and an old worn out Stetson cowboy hat. He looked like a hunched over mountain man. “I just killed two assholes that pissed me off; why shouldn’t I fill your ass full of buckshot?”
“Iffen you wanted me dead, why did you shoot that focken cat? Now be a nice girlie and help me cut the hams offen that deer, so we kin have some venison wit some beans and fried taters. I swear Girly, I ain’t agonna hurt you. I ain’t had no need fer a woman in years since my viagie run out on me. Ya got any viagie?”
Lisa had to stifle a la
ugh as she listened to this man’s rasping voice and words. “You sound like Billy Bob Thornton in Swing Blade.”
“Don’t know anyone like that there around here.”
“No, he was a movie star playing a role.”
The old codger replied, “Don’t git many movie stars out cheer in the mountains.”
Lisa laughed. “You’re joking with me. That’s not your real voice. Is it?”
The old man got very mad and cursed a string of invectives that always ended with my focken real voice. He pointed a finger at Lisa with a sneer. “Girly. …I was a sold...jer in…Irr …. Irrran and a focken bomb tore up me Hummer. Girly … A focken piece of dat Hummer tore my neck … out. My bushy … beard hides the scars. An … an … and you make fun of me focken talk. Fock you and the horse you rode here on.”
Lisa knew the man wasn’t joking as she saw a large jagged scar running from his right eye down into his beard. “I’m sorry. I would never make fun of a veteran. I … I.”
The old man laughed while slapping her on the back. “Got you der … didn’t I. Dis is me voice and a bomb blew me sorry ass through de air, and I landed on a focken razor wire fence. Cut my ass to pieces. The other story gets me beers in … bars.”
Lisa was relieved to know that she hadn’t insulted the man but wasn’t sure anything he said was true. This whole voice thing and the rest of the story had a bad smell to it.
“Come girlie. We need to place rocks over de cat and the rest of dis meat.”
Lisa asked, “Why?”
“So we’uns kin come back and get the meat and make a rug or blanket from the fur. Now hand me some rocks.”
They buried the rest of the deer and cat, and then Roy said, “Come on, Girly. Let’s haul ass back to me camp and eat some vittles.
The old man tied the back two deer haunches together and slung them over his shoulder allowing the blood to drip down his legs. He handed Lisa one of the front legs and carried the other one under his left arm like a football. “Now Girly, don’t worry about dem der germy things. We’ll cook de crap out of this meat when we git to me cabin.”
The old man picked up his bag, placed the strap around his neck, and then hefted his rifle. Lisa took the shotgun with her right hand and tried to keep the front deer haunch away from her to keep the fat and blood from messing up her clothes. The strain of holding the twenty plus pounds of meat away from her body had her muscles on fire.
The old man turned left around a boulder. “We be here, girlie. Ya kin sit that meat in the back.”
Lisa was dumbfounded. In front of her was a massive ATV with what looked like two sets of mufflers on the back. The vehicle was painted to match the rocks and had the old man not stopped in front of it she wouldn’t have noticed it.
Lisa pointed to the mufflers just as Roy cranked the engine. There was a low rumble that couldn’t be heard fifty feet away. “I guess that answers my question about the weird looking mufflers.”
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Chapter 4
Walt and Ann didn’t expect their friends to come back to pick them up until after the sun rose for the day. It was pitch dark when Walt awoke to the sound of the approaching trucks. The night had been silent except for an occasional coyote howl and a couple of cats mating in the nearby woods. The rumble of the diesel trucks and the whine of their tires on the pavement startled Walt from his slumber.
Ann’s eyes were open, and she had her pistol in her hand when Walt nudged her. “I’m awake Walt. Darn, that truck is getting closer.”
“Trucks. I can see their headlights darting around in the distance. They will be here in about five minutes. Grab your rifle. Tom knows where to stop, anyone else will drive right by us.”
Ann replied, “I don’t like this. Tom said they would come back after daybreak.”
The trucks slowed as they approached and then stopped on the side of the road where Tom had stopped the other day. Walt saw several people highlighted by the truck’s cab lights when the doors opened. It was his friends. “Hey Tom, you might want to take the bulbs out of the truck’s cab lights. All of you were silhouetted by the lights.”
“Great idea.”
“I was just getting comfortable. Why are you back so early?” Walt asked.
Tom patted his friend on the back. “We need to cross the Verde south of Cottonwood so we can go cross country up to Highway 89 and avoid Carlos’s men. I think it would be best to do that in the dark while people are asleep.”
“Are we heading over to Sedona?”
“Yes, I want to find a place to hide a mile or so from the city. It’s far enough away from Clarksville that Carlos won’t stumble upon us there." Tom acknowledged.
“What about Luke?”
“Walt, if he were coming, he’d be here by now. I’m afraid we lost that entire family. Grab your gear and let’s roll. Where is the best place to ford the Verde between here and Cottonwood?”
Walt thought for a minute. “I know the perfect place, but it’s on the edge of Cottonwood-Verde Village. Do you remember last fall when the environmentalists were raising hell about that developer who placed a bunch of huge concrete pipes in the Verde and made a bridge? Well, it’s been tied up in court and is still there. We can break through the barricades and cross there.”
They drove slowly along the outskirts of the city but still saw lights from several lanterns flicker to life as they passed houses. They stopped long enough to move the barricades and then raced across the bridge and onto a dirt road that intersected Highway 89 about five miles east of Cottonwood.
Tom drove about three miles and pulled down a side road into a small valley covered in trees. “Let’s stop here and rest until we can send scouts out to look for a place to hide northwest of Sedona. We might be here a couple of days so get comfortable.”
Ann volunteered to take first watch while the others slept. Walt brought his jacket to her. “Here take this. The morning air is colder than a well digger’s ass.”
Walt placed the jacket over her shoulders. “I’m going to walk back to the road and watch for visitors. You keep everyone safe. Don’t shoot me if I come running. I’ll hoot like an owl before I enter the camp.”
“Thanks for the jacket.”
Walt saw a few headlights in the distance and wondered why anyone would waste the fuel running around in the dark. A pack of dogs wandered by as the sun peeked above the mountains, but a couple of rocks chucked in their direction scared them off. Walt’s eyelids were heavy, and he nodded off a couple of times before something poked him in the back. Walt turned but only felt a searing pain above his ear before he blacked out.
Ann thought she heard something rustle the grass on the other side of the trucks and went to investigate. She turned the corner around the front of the lead truck, and nothing was there. She felt something brush against her boots and tried to move away from the truck. Her feet were trapped by something, and she fell like a tree hitting the rocky ground. She pulled the trigger on her rifle just as it was ripped from her hands. The safety was on.
Suddenly she felt cold steel against her neck and heard. “Shut up or die,” and then she felt a man’s hands roam all over her body searching for weapons. She wanted to kill the man because he took some liberties during his protracted search.
Ann could see half a dozen heavily armed men in the weak morning light. She saw them take the weapons from the others as they slept. She felt she had failed the team and that she would be responsible for their deaths.
“Wake up and stay where you are. If anyone tries anything we’ll shoot all of you,” Yelled the leader of the crew.
Tom tried to pull his pistol from under his blanket, but a boot kicked it from his hand. Another man clubbed Tom with a baseball bat and knocked him out. The others were told to sit up while their hands were tied behind their backs. Ann heard the men arguing about what to do with their captives. The only disagreement was if they should shoot the men or slit their throats. The men were in complete agreement on what to d
o with the women.
The sky lit up as the red ball of fire showed above the hills and Ann could see that these men weren’t from Carlos’s group. A fight broke out between the leader and a huge man because the large man didn’t want to kill the men or abuse the women. The leader drew a knife and sliced at the other. The large man caught the leader’s hand, bent it back to the leader’s chest, and plunged the blade deep into the leader. Blood ran down the man’s shirt before he fell to the ground.
The large man pulled his pistol from his holster. “Anyone else disagrees with me?”
All of the men changed their bloodthirsty and lusty minds very quickly. The huge man said, “Give them some food and water. Take all of the rifles and leave them two pistols. We’ll drop the magazines for the pistols up the road apiece. Thanks for the trucks and supplies. Your lives are my gift to you. Don’t squander them.”
The men pitched a couple of duffel bags loaded with food from the trailer to the ground, and the leader dropped two 9mm pistols on top of the bags. Meg saw her .45 Colt stuck in one of the other men’s belt. “Can I have my old .45? It belonged to my grandfather.”
“Damn woman. You sure have a pair of balls. I just kept these degenerates from passing you around, and you want a favor?”
Meg had tears flowing when she replied. “Please.”
The new leader snatched the pistol from the thug and tossed it down to Meg’s feet. He drew his knife, walked to Meg, and cut her bindings. “Lady, you are one hell of a woman, and under different circumstances, I’d like to get to know you better. Unfortunately, I am a criminal, and you are a lady. Goodbye.”