Mountain War: Defending Their Home (Mountain Man Book 4)

by Nathan Jones

  A few hours before dinner, he had to pause in his scouting when he ran into a broad, steep slope of loose scree that stretched all the way from the ridge of the slope he was on to the road below. It would probably take fifteen minutes of hard climbing to go up and around it, and maybe nearly as long to navigate back down the steep hillside to get to this level.

  Unless they wanted to try going directly across, of course; then they'd not only have to risk being visible to any unfriendly eyes along the road or anywhere in the surrounding area for several minutes, but he knew from experience that rocky slopes like that could be dangerously unstable. A single misstep could send his entire team tumbling down to the road, and bring half the hillside down on top-

  Brandon drew up sharply, seeing the obstacle in a new light. “Well how about that?” he whispered. Then he turned and hurried back to the rest of his team, wanting to get Pine's take on the situation.

  “Now that's what I call an ideal setup,” the explosives expert said, looking with satisfaction at the steep slope a few minutes later.

  Brandon nodded, glad his idea hadn't been stupid. “So what do you think? Can the grenades and explosives you were able to scrape together turn that into a landslide?”

  The older man stroked his bushy gray beard, looking amused. “Ideal, as in no need for that at all.” He motioned to some large boulders embedded in the hillside near the top. “We put a bit of manpower to setting those up to budge, and with a bit of encouragement digging out the hillside in other spots we can bring down a good chunk of the slope once we start them rolling.”

  Those boulders were all massive, and looked at least half buried. Much as Brandon liked the idea of bringing the hillside down on the road without using explosives, he wasn't sure how easy it would be. He looked doubtfully at the team he'd brought, and the shovels, picks, and other tools. “Why do I get the feeling you've got a different idea of “a bit” than I do?”

  Pine chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “This is the part where the old timer complains about how you young'uns can't handle “a bit” of hard work. Guess it's time to put you to shame.”

  * * * * *

  The work of setting up the landslide turned out to be less backbreaking than Brandon had feared.

  Oh the work itself was brutal, sure. But it was hard to put in enough time without interruptions to actually get anything done, since they had to work on a completely exposed hillside overlooking a highway bloodthirsty bandits frequently used. That meant they had to have people listening full time for the sound of engines, ready to give warning about getting into hiding before vehicles came into sight.

  Those scouts, always two, one up the road and the other down it at spots Brandon had picked out that had very good vantage points to see the surrounding terrain, also had to keep their eye out for foot patrols on the south end of the highway, who'd also easily be able to see them working. That didn't happen nearly as often as the passing vehicles, only once the first day, but they had to stay hidden for much longer when it did.

  So it was a frustrating process of working frantically for fifteen minutes to at most a half hour, then scampering across a dangerously unstable slope to their hiding spots. Then came a wait of several minutes, or sometimes an even longer amount of time than they'd managed to actually work, before the coast was clear and they were able to get back out there.

  There were some things they could do, like working at the crack of dawn and after sundown, when most bloodies had set up camp for the night and traffic went way down. Brandon would've liked to work into the night itself, so they could get some uninterrupted time to really accomplish something, but even with a good moon, it was too dark to do such a difficult task, not to mention dangerous.

  Unfortunately, at the end of the second day of work Pine announced that they might have to work in the dark after all, or seriously speed up their pace to get it done before any Sangue patrols showed up again.

  “We're to the point where what we're doing will be visible from the road below,” the explosives expert explained grimly. “Luckily there's not much left to do, mostly destabilizing the slope in a few places to make the landslide bigger. But once we get started on that, any bloodies who show up are going to immediately see what we're doing, unless they're completely blind.”

  Brandon nodded, not liking the news but accepting it. “So we have to set it up to go before we're interrupted again?”

  “Or resign ourselves to a subpar landslide we're forced to tip off when the next patrol comes by.”

  That was definitely something they wanted to avoid. He sighed. “Looks as if we'll be working through the night, then.”

  That was easier said than done.

  Even with the moon closer to full than not, and their eyes as used to the dark as possible, they were pretty much working blindly and hoping they were doing more good than harm. There were even a couple near disasters, where they almost caused minor landslides that would've effectively ruined the large landslide they were trying to create.

  It was an exhausting, frustrating night, and Pine was antsy the entire time, straining for the first sign of a glow on the horizon. He wanted to get eyes on the fruits of their labor as soon as it was light enough, see what the results were and how much of their hard work they'd have to undo.

  The low point was when the moon set and they had even less light. That was when Hank accidentally brought a shovel down on Stewart Colson's shin, with all the force needed to dislodge rocks from the hillside.

  The man screamed bloody murder, of course, which made them all certain he was seriously hurt, maybe even crippled. But thankfully a quick inspection determined that the injury wasn't as bad as it seemed: he was bleeding a bit and the cut needed cleaning and bandaging, but he could still walk on his leg, which was a huge relief.

  Still, at that point, Brandon gave up and called for them to set up camp, treat Stewart's injury, and get what food and rest they could before first light. He supposed that if they got at least a bit of sleep, they'd have more energy to work faster when they were actually able to do something useful. Although he had real concerns that it still might not be enough.

  Stewart showed surprising reasonableness by insisting that he'd take watch for the rest of the night. “I might not be in any shape to work come morning, so I might as well make myself useful now.”

  Brandon felt a bit guilty at how relieved he was to take the man up on his offer. “Thanks. Wake me up if you need someone to take over for you,” he said, clapping Stewart on the shoulder.

  It felt like only minutes before he was shaken awake, although it had been a few hours; the faintest glimmer of light on the eastern horizon heralded the approaching sun. He helped wake the others and they all ate a hasty cold breakfast and took care of bodily needs, steeling themselves for another exhausting day.

  Then, while everything around them was still dim and grey, they made their way to a vantage from which they could see the results of the night's labors.

  Brandon mostly kept an eye on Pine while the others were staring at the rocky slope, and the expression on the old man's face wasn't encouraging. He felt his heart sink. “That bad?”

  “Afraid so.” The explosives expert sighed. “Not to disparage our hard work, but the result's about what you'd expect from a bunch of guys fumbling around in the dark, trying to do a delicate and precise task.”

  The others cursed and grumbled quietly. Brandon sagged against the shovel he was using to prop himself up. “Did we accomplish anything at all?”

  “Some,” the old man admitted. “Although that east trench is going to bleed off a lot of energy from the building landslide by diverting it, rather than increasing the effect. We'll have to fix that.”

  It was his turn to curse, and he glanced at the exhausted men gathered around him. “Will we have time for that before a patrol comes by?”

  “Maybe.” Pine gave him a wry smile. “Although it looks like we'll need to trot out the explosives after all. You
'd be surprised how many manpower problems you can solve by blowing things up.”

  The old man set everyone else to digging, trying to correct the night's mistakes and make what progress they could. Then he loaded Brandon down with explosives, which he wasn't terribly thrilled about, and after carefully inspecting the scree and scratching beneath his bushy beard for a few minutes, he led the way to the first spot where he thought a bit of help was needed.

  They all worked quickly, almost frantically, with Stewart on lookout to the east and the others spelling each other for lookout to the west. They all knew they had to get the job done before they heard the dreaded sound of engines.

  Ideally, get the job done, the rockslide set off, and them all bolting for safety before Sangue came nosing around.

  For a heart-stopping moment only a few minutes into the work, they thought they wouldn't finish at all. Stewart whistled frantically in warning, and everyone rushed to find hiding places. Brandon and Pine scrambled up to a hidden fold in the ridge they'd been using while working on rigging the big rocks to fall, the explosives expert cursing with every step.

  “Worst case scenario,” he muttered. “They spot the work we've been doing before we're ready to even try setting it off, with no more result than a few pathetic rocks rolling down, probably to bounce right across the road without blocking anything. Then we have to run, and they'll be ten times as wary knowing someone around here is trying to sabotage their way through the mountains in this area.”

  Brandon cursed as well. Just their luck that they catch one of the few convoys that traveled this early; usually the bloodies were pretty strict about moving during daylight hours, probably because they realized they were more vulnerable to random attacks at night. It was usually only couriers moving along roads they thought were safe and controlled that moved at this time of day, and those were small groups, only a few vehicles, and not all that common.

  He looked hopefully at the dim world around them. It was light enough to work, barely, but still pretty dark. Dark enough the vehicles might be using headlights, at which point they'd be blind to everything around them. And even if not . . . “Think it's possible they'll miss what we've done, in this lighting?”

  “Possible,” the old man agreed. “Guess we'll have to hope for it, eh?”

  It turned out their worry was groundless. The five vehicles that passed by were using headlights, and were also traveling faster than usual for the usually cautious enemy; Sangue must really be confident in their control of this highway.

  They passed by and out of sight in less than a minute, and Brandon let himself breathe again. “Come on,” he said, offering Pine a hand up. “Let's get this done before more decide they're in the mood for a nice scenic drive in the cool morning air.”

  The old man wasted no time getting the last of the explosives set up, with lines leading to detonators, and less sophisticated strings tied to the pins of grenades, all unspooled up to the hidden fold, where they planned to watch the rockslide and see if it went smoothly; Pine had assured them that it was stable up there, and they wouldn't all find themselves rolling down to the road getting crushed by countless tons of rocks after they set the landslide off.

  Brandon's and Pine's part of things was done, but the team below still had hours of digging left to do, at least until the explosives expert would be satisfied with the job. So they gathered up in the fold to discuss their options. All of them, since now that they were no longer making a racket with shovels and picks they could easily hear vehicles coming, so the lookouts weren't necessary.

  Pine spent almost five minutes wandering around looking at the various worksites, expression disgruntled but resigned. “Good enough,” he finally said. “I'm itching to get out of here.”

  There was a loud and insistent rumble of agreement from the rest of the team, and Brandon nodded. “Let's get up to the fold, then.”

  They were halfway there, debating whether to lead Sangue on a chase north after this, which Andy was strongly for and Brandon was leaning towards, or skulk back home by a roundabout route, which all the townspeople wanted to do, when Pine abruptly stiffened. “Here's a question,” he drawled, waving at the road below. “Now that we're ready to make a mess for Sangue to clean up, do we set it up to drop on the first bloodies that drive by?”

  Brandon frowned and glanced at the half dozen other men with them. Four of them weren't even volunteers, just folks from Camptown who'd liked the idea of blocking off Highway 29. Although they were all armed.

  Still, they were here to destroy the road, not go picking any fights, and it seemed like a bad idea to try to turn an already doubtful rockslide into some sort of trap for a convoy. Lots of ways that could go wrong. “I don't think so. Better to just set off the landslide and get out of here.”

  “Ah. Then we'd probably better think about doing it soon, or waiting a bit,” the explosives expert said. “That distant drone in the air isn't insects.”

  Cursing, Brandon motioned for silence and turned east towards where the older man was looking, even going so far as to cup his hands behind his ears to hear better. Sure enough, there was a distinct rumble, almost at the edge of hearing but growing quickly louder.

  Chapter Six

  Improvising

  “Engines,” one of the townspeople said, drawing more curses from the rest of the group.

  Brandon stared down at the slope they'd laboriously prepared for the landslide. Pine had assured him that once they dropped it on the road it would probably look natural, but at the moment it looked suspicious as all get-out.

  The area south of the road was still swarming with Sangue patrols, one coming by every few hours in the days they'd been working here, and if these passing vehicles spotted the attempted sabotage they'd immediately call it in, starting a manhunt. Brandon was fairly confident he could evade a manhunt like that, even with seven other men with him, but he wasn't completely confident.

  So did they set off the landslide now and bolt, maybe buy themselves a few minutes before the hunt was on? Did they leave it and hope the bloodies passing by didn't notice anything suspicious?

  Or did they go with Pine's idea and drop the hillside on the approaching vehicles?

  Brandon whirled to look westward, towards the far end of the slope beyond the landslide. There was a dense stand of trees just beyond the scree that grew right down to the highway. “Andy, with me,” he snapped, hurriedly taking off his pack and shoving it at Hank, although he kept his weapons. Then he grabbed a couple axes, shoving one at his friend once the man handed off his own pack. “Pine, get up there with the others and get ready to drop this hill on those vehicles, then if necessary shoot any survivors as they're trying to get clear.”

  The older man scratched his chin through his bushy beard. “Gonna be awfully hard to time it for just as they're passing.”

  “No, it won't, because we're going to stop them.” He motioned to Andy and bolted headlong down and across the slope of loose scree, clutching the strap of his rifle with one hand and the axe in the other.

  He came close to breaking his neck in a few spots, but he was racing the increasingly loud rumble of the approaching vehicles and time was running out, so if anything he ran even faster. “You going to clue me in on your plan?” his friend puffed from behind him.

  “We're going to find a dead or dying tree that's already leaning over the road, and drop it across to stop them long enough for Pine to set off the landslide.”

  Andy cursed as a rock rolled out from under him and nearly sent him down the hill, hopping for the next dozen steps as if he'd slightly hurt his angle. “I hate your plan. Are we even going to have time to get down there before the bloodies show up, let alone get away after dropping this convenient tree?”

  “We'd better hope so, or they'll see what we've been doing here and we'll have a bunch of trucks full of them after us.”

  Luckily, this convoy seemed to be following the usual pattern for patrols, moving very slowly and inspect
ing the terrain around them, especially ahead, as they passed. That wasn't great for his hopes of them not seeing the digging on the scree slope, but it bought him and his friend time to get to the copse of trees.

  In another stroke of good fortune, they quickly found a fallen tree leaning drunkenly against a dead tree over the road. The dead tree was on the point of falling itself, its roots showing as they were tugged up out of the ground by the combined weight; he and Andy didn't even need to use the axes, just both got their shoulders against it and heaved until with a low groaning sound and a few deafening cracks, the trees crashed down across the narrow two-lane road.

  Brandon anxiously looked back towards the noise of the approaching engines. So far he still didn't see them, but from how loud they were they could be coming around the bend any second.

  What now? Was there anything else he could do? He'd anticipated that the Sangue patrol would be wary about a fallen tree on the road. Those happened all the time, of course, especially after winter snows and spring thaws knocked dead trees down. But it was high summer now, a somewhat less usual time for trees to fall, and fallen trees across roads were also a convenient way to set up an ambush.

  Such as this one.

  That's why he'd picked a tree a good distance ahead of the slope. His reasoning was that at worst, the bloodies would drive right up to the tree and the landslide would take out the road behind them, pinning them in place so Brandon and his people could snipe them. But it was more likely the drivers would stop their vehicles a safe distance away, which would put them smack dab in the path of the landslide.

  Apparently, Andy had been thinking along those same lines. Unfortunately, he thought of something Brandon hadn't. “Hey, bud?” he asked, looking nervous. “How long does it take for a landslide to take out a road?”