"Oh my G… She wants Hope."
Kaminski shrugged. "That's about it, I reckon. Since the first moment she found out we'd survived without a scratch, she wanted control. After all, Ezrans have thought that way about us for a long time. We're the little guys, we don't even qualify for a mayor."
Hickman rubbed his hands down his face as if trying to wake himself from a dream. "I don't believe it. I've been played for a fool."
"You're not the only one, Paul. I thought she was one of the good guys. I spent a few hours in her company on the day after the firestorm, remember? Me and Devon. But I didn't see that her compassion extended to the city limits and not beyond.”
"So, what do we do?"
"We go home. And we'll bring these folks with us. They ain't got nothin' here. We go home and we pray we're not too late."
Hick nodded, then cursed. "What about Jenson? We need the Bowies on our side, and they ain't gonna take kindly to their favorite son being left in the care of the enemy."
"Well, I guess you'll have to deal with that, Paul. I'm sure you can figure out a way."
Hick drove back into Ezra, and parked outside the hospital. Armed guards stood outside the main entrance where so many had fallen, their rifles pointed directly at him. He didn't need to fake injury; his sore back hadn't eased up and every wince and exclamation was genuine enough.
They let him through as soon as he'd shown he had no weapons on him. His business was with Jenson and he hoped that Mayor Hawkins would be occupied somewhere else.
"Listen, son, I can't explain, but you're in danger here and we need to get you away," he whispered. "I found the sheriff, and he's on his way back home. Can you move?"
Bowie nodded, eyeing up the guard stationed at the door.
"What's going on here?"
Hick turned to see the female doctor enter, white coat flapping and clipboard in hand.
"I think it's time Mr. Bowie came back to his own people. His family can look after him now."
She shook her head. "No, he shouldn't be moved. He lost a lot of blood and the wound hasn't fully healed."
"Surely you've got more serious cases than him, doctor?"
He could see from her expression that this was true enough.
Jenson swung his legs over the side of the bed.
"My orders are that no one is to leave without the mayor's permission." The guard had moved from the door to stand beside the doctor. He ignored Hick entirely.
"Well, there you are then," she said. "You'll have to take it up with the mayor."
Hick rounded on the guard. "Are you sayin' he's a prisoner here?"
"Those are my orders, now please stand back," the guard said.
"You're gonna have to shoot me, son, 'cos otherwise, Jenson's comin'." He put his hand under Bowie's armpit and helped him take the weight on his legs.
Hick felt again the cold press of metal against the back of his head.
"I have my orders, sir. I will shoot if you do not comply. Return this man to his bed."
It seemed he'd misjudged again, his famed ability to take the measure of a person in seconds deserting him. Perhaps the new world had forged new people.
He sighed. It had been a long shot, and the only consolation was that Rusty was on his way back to Hope. But their only real chance was to unite around the leadership of the town, and that meant Martha and the Bowies.
Hick could feel the slight vibration in the gun's barrel—the guard was either nervous or unused to holding a handgun at arm's length for a long period of time. Or perhaps both. This didn't make him feel any better as an inexperienced guard was more likely to do something stupid than a veteran. It was now or never, do or die. Did he dare risk it?
He yanked on Jenson's arm and felt the tension in the metal pressed against his scalp, teeth grinding as he rolled the dice again.
"Stand down, Frank."
After an instant's hesitation, the pressure disappeared and Hick turned around to see Libby Hawkins standing in the doorway, hands to her sides and breathing heavily.
"But ma'am, the mayor's orders were explicit."
"I've just been with my mother. She wants the bed freed up and this Hoper on his way. We have enough of our own to treat, after all."
The guard arched an eyebrow as if something was being said openly that had previously only been whispered. Then he nodded. "Well, as long as you take responsibility."
"I will. Come on Mr. Hickman, time to get you and Mr. Bowie on the road."
As soon as the guard had resumed his post outside the room and the doctor had ambled off to see another patient, she hissed in Hick's ear, "We'd better get out of here before she finds out or we're all for the firing squad."
"She doesn't know?"
"Of course not! I've learned a few things since I came home that I didn't want to know. Seems my mother is even more ruthless than I thought."
Hick helped Jenson with his jacket and pants, though it seemed to be taking an interminable time. "Come on! We gotta hightail it outta here."
They almost dragged him down the single flight of stairs to the first floor and out into the parking lot. The cold evening air played across Hick's face, desiccating his eyeballs as he frantically searched for the unlock button on his key.
Jenson had been bundled into the back of the car and Hick was about to climb into the driver's seat when a familiar voice echoed from around the corner of the hospital building.
"Get out of the car and put your hands up!"
Libby, who'd opened the passenger door, called into the gloom, "Are you going to shoot me, mother?"
"Don't tempt me, you traitor!"
The squat shape of Mayor Hawkins emerged, flanked by two larger figures. Somehow, even though he couldn't see them clearly, Hick knew they were pointing weapons at the car.
"Get in the car," Libby said to Hick as they glanced at each other across the roof. Then she looked into the gathering darkness. "You're going to have to make your mind up, because I'm going with them."
The three shapes halted a dozen yards from the car. "Don't think I won't!"
"Oh, I know exactly what you're capable of, Mother. But, unlike Dad, I didn't find out too late. Now, you either let us go or I tell your friends there exactly what sort of a person they have for a leader."
Hick, who'd ignored Libby's instruction and was still standing half in, half out of the car, tried to focus on the indistinct shadow of Mayor Hawkins, trying to divine her reaction.
Then, quite suddenly, she turned and began walking away followed an instant later by the two figures beside her. "Goodbye, Olivia. I shall mourn the loss of my daughter. Watch your back."
Hick slid into the driver's seat. "C'mon, we gotta go now, before she changes her mind."
The slim form of Libby Hawkins remained standing, half illuminated by the car's internal lights.
"Libby!"
Then she was inside, and they were off. Hick took the exit at the other end of the parking lot, in case Hawkins senior changed her mind, and then picked his way through the clear streets of New Ezra before emerging into the rubble-strewn carcass of the former city.
"You okay?" he said.
He got a sense of movement in the reflected light from his headlamps. "She'll see me dead if she can."
"They're just words, ain't they?"
Again, a swish of hair. "My mother's an unusual sort of person, Mr. Hickman."
"Paul. For heaven's sake, we've been through enough to be on first name terms."
"Sure. But she's not like other folks. She's binary."
He glanced across at her. "You mean like a bisexual or trans?" He suddenly felt lost in a new age landscape.
Libby chuckled humorlessly. "No, nothing like that. I mean she is either black or white, yes or no. There is no gray area with her. She either loves you or hates you. She wants you in her life, or she wants you dead. She's binary: one or zero, off or on."
"I see what you mean. And you're 'off' to her now?"
"I'm dead. It's only a matter of time."
They met the two-truck convoy beneath the casino sign on the outskirts of old Ezra. Hick was touched by Rusty's obvious relief until he realized that it was reserved almost entirely for Jenson. But there was no time for small talk. After the encounter with Mayor Hawkins, Hick was anxious to be on the road to Hope as soon as possible.
It would be near midnight by the time they got into town again, and that would mean he wouldn't find out if it had all gone to hell in a handbasket while he'd been away until the morning.
He got his first hint that the old order was still in place as they reached the intersection in Main Street. The checkpoint was manned, and it was Waydon Downs who walked to the driver's window. Two others in military uniforms stood in the shadows beside the burning brazier.
"Mr. Hickman! I sure am glad to see you. And Jenson!" He swung the flashlight into the car. "What a sight for sore eyes. But you got back in the nick of time." He glanced sidelong at the figures behind him, one of whom had begun moving toward the car. "Can't say nothin'. Come see me in the mornin'. Sheriff's office."
He raised his voice then, gesturing at the trucks that had rumbled to a halt behind the car. "What's in the trucks? Supplies?"
Footsteps on the asphalt and Rusty's gravelly voice. "Hello, Waydon. I hope you ain't flushed my shiny new police department down the pan while I been away?"
The relief in Waydon's face was obvious, but Hick didn't want to hang around for the reunion, so he drove the car around the barrier and took a left past Bowie's Stores and the community center.
In his panic at being woken, Joe Bowie almost blew Hick's head off when he knocked on the gate of their place.
"Put the gun away before you hurt someone, Joe! I got someone here you'll be happy to see!"
Ten minutes later, having delivered Jenson and a cache of drugs to the boy's ecstatic father, Hick slumped back into the car and rubbed his eyes. Never had he wanted sleep so badly.
"You okay crashing at my place tonight?"
"Sure. I'll be as safe there as anywhere."
Hick grunted, put the car into drive and pulled away. "I'll take that as a compliment."
Hope was a small place, and even in his exhausted state he threaded his way through the maze of little residential roads flawlessly until he was outside his house.
"There's a light on!" Libby hissed as they pulled up.
Hick cursed and pulled the gun from the door pocket. "Follow me. If in doubt, shoot."
His mind was racing as he imagined Gert Bekmann or one of his cronies rifling through Hick's stuff. Or maybe Ward McAndrew had finally grown a spine and had broken in to find some dirt on him. Most likely, it was an opportunistic thief. Well, the only thing he'd be taking out of Hick's house was an ounce of lead.
He crept around the back and crouched beneath the kitchen door, pushing gently on it. No evidence of being forced, so the burglar had found the spare. Clever.
He put his fingers to his lips theatrically, and slid into the widening gap as the door yielded.
The light was coming from the living room; he could see it under the door. If Buster had been here, he'd have been barking his head off. Well, if Buster were here, the thief would've been lucky to get away with two intact butt cheeks.
He was beyond exhaustion and his patience had run out thirty miles away in Ezra, so he got to his feet, raised the gun to his eyeline and, in one movement, threw the door open and leaped into the room, scanning left and right for the intruder.
A figure sprang up from the sofa, eyes wide with terror as a blanket fell to the floor, bringing a gun that had lain hidden on the floor up in a sweeping arc.
"Sam! Oh my God. Sam!" Hick cried.
LAST CITY Book 3
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