by Liscom, Sean
“Who told you that they were going to kill you?”
“Grinder. He keeps trying to get the other prisoners to rise up, to attack the guards but they won’t do it. He told us that When Ray comes back, they were going to line all of us up and shoot us anyway…… Said he’d be glad to be rid of us once and for all.”
Bill stood and began to pace the room. He would stop occasionally and stare blankly out the window every so often. Braden could tell that he was working things out in his mind and coming up with a plan. He was also sure that he wasn’t going to like it. When Bill finally stopped pacing, he was standing directly behind Torrance. He leaned down and put his lips close to the man’s ear.
“If I find out that you are lying to me, Torrance, you will live long enough to regret your decision. Am I clear about that?” he asked.
Torrance nodded his head to signal that he understood. Bill stood upright, took a deep
breath and blew it out slowly.
“Braden, when the Sheriff gets here with the other enforcers, I want them under heavy guard out on the lawn.”
“Okay, Bill. Where are you going to be?” Braden asked.
“Mr. Grinder and I are going to have a long conversation. The two of us will be in the other barn and I do not want ANY interruptions. No matter what you hear, DO NOT come into that building,” Bill said as he unbuckled his gun belt and took it into the back room. Braden heard the weapons locker close and Bill returned to the office. “NO Interruptions,” he said again and headed for the door.
After the door had closed, Torrance looked to Braden. “That dude is scary!”
“Grinder is about to find out just how scary he can be,” Braden paused to let that sink in for a moment. “Why don't you tell me what other information you have? Bill told me that you had a lot to say this morning.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you everything that I told him this morning. Most of my information is secondhand so I don't really know how reliable it is. Let's get that straight right now.”
“Alright, go on.” Braden crossed his arms again and leaned back in the chair.
“I've heard that there is supposed to be some high level meeting in Las Vegas on the 29th
of this month. That's why Ray hasn't come back yet. Well, that and the fact that Jason and Jill slipped right through his fingers. He wants the bounty that was put on their heads but if he can't catch them, he will be the laughing stock of the west. It will seriously damage his reputation if he can't bring them in,” Torrance took another sip of water.
“How did you know they got away from him?” Braden asked.
“Our radio guy, Marlon. He told Don what had happened and Don told me and Rob.”
“Okay, who’s supposed to be at this meeting?”
“Adolpha for sure, I don’t know who the other players are. Ray’s gotta be there because they have got plans that they are getting ready to move forward with. Big plans.”
“Tell me what you know about these plans.”
“Well, a lot of it I put together on my own, but here’s what I know…..”
Monday, August 21st, 2017
70 miles north of Duckwater.
“That smoke wasn’t there a while ago,” Jill remarked as they crested the southern ridge of the pit mine.
“You’re right. It looks like it’s directly in our path too. Let’s angle off to the west and see if we
can get out of its way. That fire is going to be moving fast with these winds.”
“I was just thinking the same thing. If we cut across this valley and over that next ridge, we should drop down into Eureka.”
“That sounds like a plan. We need to kick our pace up a notch though. I don’t want to get there after dark,” Dan said as he urged his horse into a trot. Jill followed suit. The rough, bouncy gait made it hard to carry on a conversation. By the time they reached the valley floor, the smoke column had doubled in size. The thick, boiling smoke turning the sun red a few times.
Monday, August 21st, 2017
5 miles north of Duckwater.
It took almost an hour to get the bleeding from my forehead to completely stop. In that time, the fire had burst from the canyon and raced away from me at a speed that I didn’t entirely believe possible. The walls of the canyon were blackened, the only thing left smoldering were the four human corpses that had gotten caught in its path.
A lot of the feeling had returned to my hands and my legs didn’t feel like mush anymore so I tried standing again. To be sure, I was sore
but it felt like I could continue my trek back to the southeast. I left my horse where she was and
slowly worked my way toward my rifle.
The intense heat of the fire had melted the stock and fore-grip and cooked off the rounds that were in the magazine. It was nothing more than a paperweight now. Angry with myself for losing such a valuable piece of equipment, I returned to my horse.
I hung the backpack on the saddle horn and struggled my way into the saddle. I turned her back up the trail, toward the top of the mesa. I didn’t bother stopping to inspect the bodies. That was something I didn’t really need to see.
The burning shell of the Hummer was still at the top of the trail. It was obvious that there was nothing left to try and salvage so I turned my horse to the south. The main front of the fire was now several miles to the north and it was putting up a huge column of thick smoke. I felt kinda bad for anything or anyone else that might be in its path but it was the only play I had at the time. Hopefully Melissa was well out of its way by now.
Monday, August 21st, 2017
30 miles north of Duckwater.
Melissa pulled in the clutch of the dirt bike and put her feet down on the blacktop of highway 50. If she continued north, she could be
back at the ranch a little after dark. If she turned east, she could be in Ely, Nevada at about the
same time. She glanced over her shoulder at the angry smoke column and said a silent prayer, hoping that Jason was alright.
In many ways, he had done her a favor by kicking her loose and sending her off on her own. What had started as a simple, information gathering mission a couple of months ago had spiraled out of control in the last couple of weeks. Hopefully her contact in Ely would still be there. Imagine his surprise when she showed up in person instead of a late night, clandestine radio call.
She put her foot on the peg and put the big bike in first gear. She eased out on the clutch and quickly got up to speed. Speed was the one thing she really needed now. Well, speed and a little luck couldn’t hurt. With the setting sun at her back, she rode as fast as she dared to the east, toward Ely.
CHAPTER 27
Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017
5 miles east of Ely, Nevada.
Just after midnight, the dirt bike sputtered to a halt. Melissa put her feet on the ground and cursed at herself for over estimating the gasoline that she had in the tank. She got off and pushed it into the sagebrush on the side of the two lane highway. Satisfied that it was well concealed, she tightened the straps on her backpack and started jogging along the shoulder.
Thankfully, the pack was fairly light and her plate carrier had ceramic plates in it and not the heavy steel ones used at the ranch. Being in excellent physical condition, she made short work of the remaining miles into Ely proper. There were no lights to be seen and she only heard the occasional barking of a dog off in the distance.
Knowing exactly where she was going, she made the first left she came to and then the next right onto High Street. Two and a half blocks later, she stopped at the corner of third and took a moment to allow her heart rate to drop back down. She eyeballed the red brick house on the corner and could see no signs that anyone was awake. She was about to change that.
She slipped between the house and the
garage and made her way toward the back door. She put her hand on the door knob and listened intently for a moment. Still no indication that anyone was awake. She slowly twisted the knob and found t
he door unlocked. “Thank God,” she muttered under her breath.
Slowly pushing the door inward, she slipped inside and closed it again. Pausing momentarily, she allowed her eyes to adjust to the near total darkness. There were two doors, one on either side of the narrow hallway. The door on the right stood open and there was the slightest hint of light coming from that room.
Easing along the wall, she stopped at the doorway and risked a peek into the room. There were two forms lying on the bed under the sheet. One male and one female. On the man’s side of the bed, a lone candle flickered.
Covering the six steps to the foot of the bed silently, she stood for a moment before grabbing a handful of sheet and ripping it off the bed. Both people stirred. The man was wearing boxer shorts, the girl was wearing nothing at all. After trying to find the sheet, the man finally jerked fully awake when he realized she was standing at the foot of the bed.
“What the….. Jesus, Mel! What the hell are you doing here?” He exclaimed.
“Cory Rockwell! You never stop, do you?” she asked, nodding toward the woman who was
frantically trying to cover herself.
“You know me, can’t keep my fingers out of the cookie jar,” he said with a grin.
“Get your ass up, Cory. I need your help,” Melissa said.
“Who the hell are you?” the woman asked indignantly, finally covering herself with a pillow.
“Melissa. My name is Melissa. I had a boyfriend once that insisted on calling me “Mel”. Best move I ever made was to kick him to the curb. And you are?”
“I’m Joy,” she said.
“I’m sure you are but I’m not here to discuss your prowess in the bedroom,” she said completely deadpan. “Come on, Cory! Get your ass up, we have work to do!” she returned her attention to Cory.
“Wait. Why aren’t you at the ranch?” Cory asked, finally sitting upright.
“It’s a long story and I’m short on time. I need you to get a message to the old man.”
Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017
Eureka, Nevada.
Jill glanced at the luminescent hands of her watch, 1:22am. The ride across the valley and over the mountain range had taken a lot longer
than expected. Now they were sitting on a ridge just east of Eureka. She shrugged off her pack
and set it in front of her and pulled out a small flashlight and a folded map.
Before turning the flashlight on, she put her thumb over the lens to attenuate the light from it. She clicked it on with her other hand and allowed he tiniest sliver of white light to shine on the map. With no moon in the sky, it was almost impossible to see any further than the head of her horse.
“I’m pretty sure that’s Eureka down there, about another half mile,” she said quietly to Dan.
“Okay. I don’t want to get any closer than this tonight. What do you say we back down the ridge a little and see about getting a little shut eye?” he asked. She turned and looked back to the south, the glow from the fire was still as intense as it had been a couple of hours earlier.
“Yeah, the horses need a break and I could use a bite to eat anyway,” she replied as she turned her horse to head back the way they had come. They went about a hundred yards before she stopped and dismounted. She began taking the saddle off her horse.
“What’s on your mind, Jill? You’ve been really quiet since we left the mine,” Dan asked, he too was removing his saddle.
“I don’t know. That whole thing has me bothered.”
“How?”
“Well….. I don’t really….. I can’t put my
finger on it.”
“Was it the bodies?”
“No. I’m kinda numb to that. It was…..”
“It was what?”
“They were executed!” she finally blurted out.
“And you want to know why?”
“Yes! It doesn’t make any sense.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m at a loss too. I can’t explain what we saw back there,” Dan said as he dropped the saddle and blanket on a nearby rock.
“That doesn’t help,” she replied as she put her saddle next to his. “Nothing fits as to why or what was going on there. First we see that Hummer speeding away, headed south. Then we find eight men who had been bound and shot, the fuel truck full of holes….. Seriously, what the hell happened?” she sat on the ground and leaned against the rock.
“I’ve got a theory.” Dan offered, sitting next to her.
“Let’s hear it. That’s more than I’ve got.”
“Alright, my theory goes something like this; I think that was a refueling station that was used by Ray and his men. It would partially explain how they were able to move so much equipment north in such a short amount of time. Like we talked about earlier. You with me so far?”
“Go on.”
“Okay. We know that Ray has been taking every drop of fuel that he can get his hands on. I mean, all of that equipment drinks a lot of fuel. Without it, his forces are dead in the water, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I think one of two things happened. The refueling station had run out of fuel and was no longer useful OR somebody else figured out what it was, and destroyed it so that he couldn’t use it,” Dan finished. Jill pondered that while she pulled an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) from her pack.
“My gut is telling me that it might be the first theory,” Jill said.
“Why’s that?”
“There were no signs of a struggle, no signs of a gun battle….. Nothing to suggest they were attacked.”
“You’re right but that brings us back to the original question.”
“The enforcers,” she said around a mouthful of cold macaroni and cheese.
“What about them?”
“Let’s build on your first theory a little. What if it was his enforcers that executed those men? We know he uses a lot of conscripted soldiers in his army, right?” she asked, setting the
packet of food in her lap.
“I’m listening.”
“I keep going back to my conversations with Don and his friends. They were treated rather poorly by all of the enforcers. Sure, they were fed and armed but they were also forced to be there against their will. Would you want your army made up of people that didn’t have a horse in the race? What if he is beginning to eliminate them?”
“It would mean fewer mouths to feed and it would actually galvanize the rest of his forces.”
“How so?”
“If we go with your train of thought, he would essentially be removing the weakest links in his little army. It would mean more food, weapons and ammo for the remaining men. A bigger portion of the spoils of war too.”
“I’ll buy that but my next problem is his armor. You said it. All of that equipment uses a lot of fuel. I’ve also seen how labor intensive our MRAP’s, Hummers and five-tons are. I can only imagine that those tanks and APC’s are a logistical nightmare to keep running…..”
“There is a good reason that any armor column usually has a support column not too far behind them,” Dan interjected.
“Right! I haven’t seen any evidence of that though. Maybe that explains why he left so much behind when his men left Elko.”
“You think that he has run the equipment into the ground and is leaving behind what they can’t fix?”
“Hear me out for a second. We know that he’s got fuel troubles…..” she paused mid-sentence and looked thoughtfully at her food for a moment. “Wait. His fuel problems have become our fuel problems.”
“That’s true.”
“So, he’s taking all of the fuel and putting it in his vehicles. He’s running them as far as he can and when they run out of fuel they become useless, for everyone. I’d be willing to bet that he has taken all of the fuel between I80 and Vegas…..”
“In essence, even if someone wanted to mount a counter-offensive, there would be no way to cross the state because there is no fuel,” Dan finished her th
ought.
“Exactly!”
Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017
Ely, Nevada.
Melissa was sitting at the dining room table, writing as quickly as she could on the notepad that Cory had given her. He had gone into the room across from the bedroom to warm up the old radio set. Joy had taken a seat at the table
opposite of Melissa after she had put on a bathrobe.
When she was done writing, she put the pencil down and picked up the pad. Leaning back
in her chair, she re-read what she wrote. Positive that she had all of the details, she put the pad back on the table, face down.
“How do you know Cory?” Joy asked.
“Cory? We went to school together.”
“That’s it? You went to school together?”
“We dated for a couple of months after high school.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I ditched him because I couldn’t deal with his carpentry problems.”
“What do you mean? He built stuff?”
“No. He’d nail anything that wasn’t already nailed down. Do yourself a favor, Joy. Don’t expect a whole lot of commitment from Cory. You’ll be disappointed every time.”
“You mean….”
“I mean that if you’re looking to get laid, he’s your man. If you’re looking for someone to have your back in a fight, he’s your man. If you’re looking for marriage material, you need to be looking somewhere else,” she leaned forward in the chair and put her elbows on the table. “He’s a good guy, don’t get me wrong. He just has a hard time keeping it in his pants.”
“What’s in my pants?” Cory asked as he came out of the hallway, still wearing his boxer shorts.
“Trouble.” Melissa quipped. “Are you ready to send this message yet?”
“Yeah,” he said as he took the notepad that she offered him. He read it over and then looked at Melissa. “Seriously?”