Hard Favored Rage

by Don Shift

  “So I know you’re peeved over the hit on the Sanchez place and the Anderson place, but what’s the deal? That’s been going on all over the county since September,” Hidalgo said.

  “Villareal said this was much more widespread than just Somis.”

  “True. Major trouble in Oxnard, some sort of gang operating out of there. So far, they’ve been staying local, plundering the city, but vehicle traffic has picked up. We guess they found a source of diesel fuel or gasoline that hasn’t destabilized so it is easier for them to raid outside the city.” He went on to explain that residents of the posh hillside homes in west Camarillo reported trucks driven by Hispanics checking out empty houses.

  “Any idea who they are?”

  “Hispanics from Oxnard.” Which was as helpful as describing a Viking raid as bearded white men coming from the sea.

  “Your intel sucks.”

  “Is yours any better? I send a foot patrol out every third day or night. How often do you go outside the wire Kyle? Just to distribute produce at the school? It’s time we collaborate. Frankly, I’m disappointed you didn’t come to me sooner.”

  Sibley patrols outside the perimeter were rare, further than the adjacent properties were even more rare. “Touché, Alex, but it works both ways. With all the chaos going on and the walkers coming into the orchards, I guess we suffered from bunker mentality, I’ll admit that. I wasn’t prepared for the utter collapse of everything. But lately, we have been going out further. I didn’t mean offense.”

  He nodded. “None taken. I haven’t been the best neighbor either.” He explained his reluctance to commit his men to keeping order in Somis and Camarillo, despite him effectively being the lord on the hill. “Everyone dropped the ball, from the government to the military down to us. The plan of ‘wait for the bad guys to die off’ isn’t working.”

  David raised his hand. “I’ve hung it out more than all of you, with the bite scar to prove it.” He was the last deputy on West County patrol. “Self-preservation is nice and all, but I didn’t become a cop for the paycheck, and I don’t want to have to spend the rest of my life living behind barbed wire. I’m ready to kick ass.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “I’ve got a few ideas,” Sam said. “Our HUMINT, human intelligence, is bad. Mr. Hidalgo, you have a beautiful signal intelligence setup here, but without boots on the ground, we don’t have the full picture. Reconnaissance is necessary.”

  “Are you volunteering, Sam?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  “First things first,” Hidalgo cautioned. “We have to figure out who these guys are.”

  Not sitting on their asses meant foot and horseback patrol. Taking the lead, Sam and David began to patrol the valley on foot. Hidalgo had committed two men to man an outpost high in the hills to cover the area northeast of Oxnard. On clear days and nights, visibility was measured in miles. For two weeks they had discovered nothing relevant to their case. That all changed with a radio call from the eponymous Observation Post West of a red truck headed north.

  “Foot patrol, vehicle is north on Santa Clara Ave.”

  “I hope this isn’t another wild goose chase,” David said. He and Sam were sitting in a copse of brush watching the state highway. “Roger. Advise if it turns east.”

  “Things going good with Mika?”

  “Well enough.”

  “Judging from the other night, sounds like they’re going really good.” David and Brooke slept on the wall opposite from Mika’s bed.

  “Shut up.”

  “I know you’re sensitive about those things, but—”

  “Foot, OP,” the radio crackled. “We’ve lost it behind some trees. We’re launching our drone.” A few minutes later, no vehicles had passed David and Sam. “Vehicle is in the country club, can you get there on foot and make identification?” the OP radioed. “We’ve got a battery issue and have to land the drone.”

  “En route,” Sam radioed.

  “That’s two miles!” David protested. It was useless. Sam was already up and starting to move. Sixteen minutes later, they arrived, popping out of an orchard across a draw that contained part of the golf course. At the end of the run, Palmer was not as winded as he expected to be. “I’ve never been in such good shape.”

  “Well Davy, now you know how those goat-humpers in Afghanistan could get up and down those hills so fast.” They watched, concealed by the cactus and brush that grew along the edge of a lemon orchard opposite the estates on the Saticoy Country Club. About an hour after arriving, they saw a red truck back into a driveway. Two Hispanic men were trying to hook a truck up to a fifth wheel trailer. “Do either of those guys look like they live there?”

  “Remember what they taught us in the academy? Just because they don’t look like they belong in the neighborhood doesn’t mean that they are suspicious.”

  “David, I’m not racially profiling, okay. They look out of place and it’s not like they’re going on vacation.”

  Palmer studied the men through his binoculars. “True, I don’t think a couple of pisas own a fifth wheel. I’ll call my dad over with his drone.”

  ***

  Mr. Sibley heard David’s radio call and ran to get Mr. Palmer. “Buck, this is it!” Both of them piled in Amy’s diesel Jetta and raced the two miles by road to get to where Sam and David were at. Mr. Palmer bailed out of the car as soon as it stopped and lifted his drone out of the trunk. He handed Mr. Sibley the remote extended range antenna and lifted the drone off the ground. Sam and David saw the men disappear into the house again as the soft buzz of the drone passed over them.

  The drone hovered at four hundred feet several hundred yards away from the house, orbiting in a slow circle. Sure enough, a red Dodge pickup was hitched to the side of the fifth wheel and boxes of stuff were sitting outside. The men reemerged from the house carrying more stuff.

  “Looters?”

  “Gotta be.”

  “Can you read what it says on the side of the truck?”

  “Not unless I get closer.” David, with his excellent binoculars, radioed that the truck was facing grille on, so he couldn’t read it either.

  The two men came out of the house, loaded the rest of the boxes into the trailer, and got into the truck. When the door opened, David caught a glimpse of the logo. “It’s them! It’s our guys.”

  “How do you know?” Sam asked and Mr. Sibley radioed simultaneously.

  “How many trucks have friggin’ ‘Coyote Ranch Horse Boarding’ on them?”

  “Roger, get to the car, now!”

  The two young men ran as fast as they could to the car.

  “Get in, they’re moving!” Mr. Palmer yelled. “Here, one of you hold the antenna out the window.” Sam grabbed the antenna and the car began to move at high speed towards the highway.

  “Buck, what’s the range on that thing?”

  “A mile in this terrain, if Sam keeps the antenna pointed towards the drone,” he chided.

  “Sheesh, sorry,” Sam apologized.

  “Okay, where are they going?”

  “South towards the highway. They’re leaving.”

  “I’ll go down the Mesa curves and wait out of sight,” Sibley said.

  When the car stopped, Sam had no idea where the drone was, so he pointed the antenna towards the west in its general direction.

  “Okay Kyle, they’re at the highway. They’re turning east, right for us.”

  “Calm down. They can go in two directions and we have plenty of time to get out of the way if they come north to us.”

  “Sam,” Mr. Palmer snapped. “Turn the antenna southwest.”

  “Okay.”

  The truck and trailer turned south on Santa Clara, headed towards Oxnard. “The terrain is pretty flat from here. I don’t want them to see us, so Buck, let me know when the signal gets staticky and I’ll start rolling.”

  “Gotcha.” The truck was moving fast and approaching the outskirts of the city. “Kyle, close it up. 50% battery li
fe.”

  The truck kept going south towards the freeway, crossing it over the bridge where Santa Clara became Rice Ave. “I’m gonna parallel ‘em.” He didn’t want to come over the bridge behind them. Mr. Sibley jerked the wheel and made a left turn, traveling the opposite direction of the truck to get to the next road.

  “Hey, don’t get far away.”

  “We’re half a mile east. We’ll be fine. Your signal still good?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then relax.”

  They followed the truck back west until it parked in front of a house. Again Mr. Palmer kept the drone hovering far off, close to its maximum ceiling of 1,500 feet.

  “Anyone get the address?”

  David was flipping through a map book, his finger tracing across the page until he read out a name. “Does that sound right?”

  “Let me see the book.” David held the page up for his father. “That’s it.” On the small video screen, a woman walked out of the house and embraced one of the drivers. The two men and several other people started to unload the contents of the trailer. “I’m at 20% power now.”

  “How long can you stay?”

  “About two minutes, probably less.”

  “Okay, just do a quick survey with the camera over the neighborhood so we know what the houses and area look like.”

  “Got it.” Mr. Palmer made a quick, wide orbit slowly spinning the camera 360 degrees as he did so. “I gotta land it now!” He told the drone to home in on his signal, so it flew back as quickly as possible. “Five percent and it’s still too far off. We can’t lose this thing.”

  “Set it down in the street, we’ll go get it,” Mr. Sibley said.

  “Okay.” The drone landed near the intersection half a block down. No one seemed to notice it landing in the abandoned business park. The next time they came would certainly escape no one’s notice.

  Latte and Yoga Pants Morality

  Mr. Sibley rode to the jail alone this time and went directly to the sheriff. “Tino, I think we’ve found our suspects.” He recapped what happened.

  “The victims’ pickup truck being driven by looters. No horses?”

  “No horses.”

  “Not enough for probable cause.”

  “I’m not asking for a warrant.”

  “Kyle, it’s not enough to implicate them in the murders.”

  Mr. Sibley let out an exasperated sigh. “We know something big is happening in Oxnard, not just indiscriminate carnage and anarchy.”

  “But we can’t prove it,” Villareal interrupted. “A hunch built on rumors is all we have.”

  “So let us grab one of them for an interview. I want to do a reconnaissance in force.” He explained his plan.

  “I can’t approve that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m the sheriff. The stars on my collar don’t make me a general.”

  Mr. Sibley threw up his hands. “What are you afraid of? History will be your judge. We’ve gotten so darn civilized over the last century and forgot that the world is a place where only the toughest sons-of-bitches survive. You’re a fan of “The Walking Dead.” In the real world, you think Rick would worry about letting that turd Merle be eaten alive? The things that man did with badge on his chest weren’t kosher, but at least was a force for good.”

  “Why come seeking my approbation? I can’t stop you any more than I can stop them.”

  “I need your Bearcat.” Neither Sibley nor Hidalgo had an armored vehicle, oddly enough, given their money and eccentricities.

  Villareal drummed his fingers on the desk, silently thinking. His reluctance to do what must be done was based on a lifetime of living in a highly privileged, soft society. Six months ago, if a deputy shot a man charging with a knife, the public would ask “why didn’t you shoot him in the hand?” Now the same people who would have asked that would now beat someone to death for stealing a bag of food. That bag of food meant the difference between starvation and life. Lack of violence and total comfort so divorced man from harsh reality it became easy to criticize and second guess police after the fact.

  California was the prime example of this. It complained when the mentally ill were institutionalized but called the police when an untreated schizophrenic attacked people who didn’t give him change. No one wanted the homeless around, but lawyers were paid to appeal bums’ trespassing and loitering charges to the state Supreme Court. The prisons were overcrowded, so the solution was to make less felonies, even though crime went up. And may God have mercy if a cop shot a kid of the wrong color. Good was now evil, and evil good. Society was so decayed and civilization so fragile that just turning off the electricity for good knocked out the underpinnings of it all.

  What side are you going to be on, Tino? A quote from his academy class all those years ago popped into his mind. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Hiding and letting the rot continue was not an option.

  People expected him and his deputies to protect them, not to go through the motions of a criminal justice system that had totally dissolved. He would be condemned for doing nothing rather than how he fought back. The latte and yoga pants morality of the much-lamented world would no longer constrain him. If history was to be his judge, then it would have to be his guide for the rectitude of his decision.

  The sheriff met Mr. Sibley’s eyes. “I’ll give you the Bearcat and throw in a driver too.”

  Mr. Sibley returned from Todd Road with orders. “Okay, adult discussion time men.” Sean, Tyler, Sam, David, Marco, and Auggie all met up in the shop. “If anyone has any reservations, just say so and I’ll understand. No shame, no recriminations. Now, that being said, here’s what’s up. First, we all know that things aren’t normal. Several of us have had to kill since the EMP. The criminal justice system has collapsed. We can’t go to a judge. There is no jail.”

  Marco held up his hand. “Mr. Sibley, cut the crap.”

  “I respect that.” He cleared his throat. “We are going to kill the bastards responsible and any one of their friends we think might be a threat. Anyone got a problem with that?”

  No one did. “Short version is, no jail and no courts, it’s impossible to arrest these scuzbags and try them. Even if we did, there would be a problem with evidence, warrants, and that kind of thing. We’re dealing with murdering, thieving, raping bandits and the only solution is to kill them, so they don’t do it again.”

  “So I guess all those times we joked about putting the gang members and dirtbags in a stadium and allowing them to kill each other means we have to put up or shut up now,” Tyler said. His father nodded.

  “Does this make us bad cops?” Auggie asked.

  “Did you steal, lie, or beat people before?” Mr. Sibley asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you want to live in a world where you don’t have to this stuff?”

  The heads bobbed in the affirmative.

  “Then none of us are bad now. You were all honest, hard working guys committed to public safety. You played the game by the rules, but now both the game and the rules are gone. We’re not just cops anymore. We’re members of the biggest, baddest posse in town and most of us don’t want to see good, normal people living in misery.”

  “Besides,” David said. “You know we all fantasized about having the gloves taken off at one time or another.”

  It was true. Over countless beers, plenty of deputies and officers they knew had shot the breeze about what they would do if they had the restraints removed. The answers were all the same off the cuff “shoot the bastards” comments that ordinary folks make all the time, knowing full well they didn’t have the ability to much as put handcuffs on whatever miscreant they were complaining about.

  Mr. Sibley stood up. “We’re going tonight, so get ready. We’re briefing at ten, that’s 2200 hours. I’ve got to go over to Hidalgo’s to round up some extra guys. Need a couple drivers, a van, and some dudes to cover our place while we’re
gone.” He explained the plan and afterwards the room was all smiles.

  Shovel and Shut Up

  Alex Hidalgo had readily consented to letting a few of his men go, donating a van with a driver and three ex-soldiers to guard the Sibley homestead. The rancher himself had offered to drive, but Mrs. Hidalgo held veto power. Stackhouse and Detective Price, who split time coordinating intelligence at the ranch and tracking crime in the Camarillo area, volunteered to be shooters. After briefing in the Sibley shop, the van and Bearcat left at midnight, headed for Oxnard.

  Local gangs entirely controlled Oxnard. Policing had collapsed early on. Many Mexican residents simply left for Mexico, which they heard was less affected. Other stayed and did their best to survive. Already predominately Hispanic, without modern America propping it up, the city devolved to the lowest common denominator of its citizens and became a slice of the third world.

  As the force of deputies neared the jumping-off point, the van slowed down to a few miles per hour and the boys in back opened the door. As the van drove between two businesses, all eight men jumped out and ran for the shadows. This place was chosen specifically because the sightlines were obstructed from the streets, so no one saw the men get out. The van would continue on and do several fake drop-offs, in case they were being watched, before leaving the area to wait further away. The men split into two groups and moved carefully towards the objective.

  It was pitch black under the marine layer. It was not cold enough for the dense ground fog that they would have preferred, but in the absence of moonlight it provided total darkness. The only sound was the crunch of loose asphalt beneath the men’s boots. As they approached the alley that backed up to the house, both groups took up their positions; one at the alley and another at the street fronting the house. Mr. Sibley set off on his own down the alley, since he could move most quietly.