He didn't know if there were other pockets of men lying in wait for him. They could be hiding anywhere. They could be waiting to jump him or to put a bullet in his leg. The flyer hadn’t said anything about the condition of the prisoner. They could both make him pay for the men he’d killed and leave him alive to collect the reward. He didn’t want to think about that.
Jim hit a bend and started down a steep slope to more gunfire. He was running full tilt now. He had to be gaining distance but that only made him more terrified that a tumble was imminent. It hit him that he should be in visual range of Pete and Charlie. If the new guns in the fight belonged to those boys, he hoped like hell they knew who to shoot.
A scream of pain behind Jim let him know the boys were in the fight and had their range dialed in. He thought he recognized the sound of the rifle as his Ruger Mini-14. Whoever was behind the trigger had figured out the correct holdover for the distance and began dumping rounds as fast as they could pull the trigger. The heavy suppressive fire achieved the desired effect. There were more cries, shouts, and men barking instructions to each other. Their pursuit was falling apart.
At the base of the hill, Jim was nearly running out of control. He stumbled, his ankle almost twisting. “Dammit!” he gasped.
He reached the electric fence at the foot of the hill and vaulted it, expecting a foot to snag on it and send him rolling ass over teakettle. He made it though, and was soon at the log landing with its giant stumps and discarded logs. He dove behind a big stump and threw his rifle over it, leveling it on the trail and anyone who might be pursuing him. He fumbled to extract his radio, dropped it, then picked it up and keyed the mic.
"This is Jim!" he shouted. "I'm not hit but I’ve got bad guys on my ass. Some are down but I got no idea how many. Does anyone have eyes on?"
“There were five in pursuit of you. We hit every one of them. Two aren’t moving. Two are down but moving. One is upright and limping back up the road, holding his arm. I’m sure I can hit him.”
Jim adamantly keyed the mic. “No! You don’t do that.”
“Dad, you said yourself that we can’t let these people get away. If we do, we just have to fight them again another time. We can drop the one trying to escape and finish the two still moving.”
Jim’s head sagged against his radio. He was pouring sweat and shaking, the adrenaline burning off with a vengeance. The idea of his son, his sweet boy, finishing off these men made him sick. He was aware Pete had been forced to kill before. There was no going back on that, no repairing the innocence that had been stripped from him. Yet he didn’t want him to become so callous that he could take that action without thought.
“You boys put your safeties on and stand down,” Jim said. “I’m going back up. Use your radios to guide me to each man and I’ll deal with it. Let me know if you see anything concerning.”
“Why is it okay for you to do it but not me?” Pete asked. “What’s the difference?”
“The difference is...”
How did he explain to his son that he’d already let the blackness into his heart? That he would feel nothing when he killed these men?
“Because I said so,” he finished.
26
It was nearly dark, mist rising from the ground and filling the lowlands, when Hugh came riding through the twilight like an apparition. Jim was sitting on the front porch wearing his full load-out and cradling his rifle. He looked out onto the world with resignation, a man fully expecting that death would attempt to claim him again before the day was out.
He was too paranoid at this point to go inside and relax with his family. Too much had happened. Pete and Charlie had been manning Outpost Pete most of the day. They said they were fine, alternating naps with each other, but Jim didn't want to leave them there any longer. It wasn’t just for fear of the danger they were exposed to but for fear of Pete and Charlie becoming disconnected from family. From life. Jim knew what that was like. It was the dark place he found himself in most of the time anymore.
Randi had offered to man the outpost with one of her daughters but Jim didn't know what to do. He thanked her for the offer and told her he might take them up on it at a different time. He questioned the best way to guard the valley and his family. He’d been thinking about it all day and had reached no conclusions. That they were in greater danger with each passing minute was without question. The lure of the bounty on Jim was too great. People would keep trying and more people would die.
"Evening," Hugh said when he broached speaking distance. “Glad to see you’re still on the sunny side of the dirt.”
"I’m glad of it too. It was too close for comfort.” Jim ran a hand through his hair. “You get any sleep? You've been on the go for over twenty-four hours straight."
"I took a siesta in the yard. Stretched out in a nice hammock under a tree and grabbed a couple of hours."
"That enough? You were up all night and most of the day."
"I'll be fine. Not sure I feel all that comfortable closing my eyes with so many unfriendly folks wandering inside the wire. Could you tell anything about that last group of attackers?”
Jim couldn’t hide his disgust. It crept into his voice like blood spreading in water. “They had that same fucking map leading right to my house. I’d even venture it was drawn by the same hand.”
“They may have been part of that wave that hit us in the morning. We just missed them and they laid low all day, waiting for the right opportunity.”
"Yeah, I considered that. You learn anything on the radio?"
Hugh dismounted and tied his horse off to a flowering cherry tree. Jim noticed Hugh was loaded for bear, literally bristling with weapons. Knowing Hugh, Jim wondered how many were concealed. Hugh adhered to the philosophy that for every visible weapon there should be just as many invisible weapons. Jim listened to see if his friend rattled as he walked. No rattle, but there was a chorus of creaks from leather sheaths, holsters, and overladen web gear.
Hugh settled down on the steps and leaned back against a post. “I finally got a response. It was there when I woke up from my nap."
"You going to keep me in suspense?" Jim asked.
"Only if it provokes a reaction,” Hugh said with a grin.
"Let’s pretend it doesn’t. It’s been a rough day. At this point, my reactions are pretty over the top.”
"In that case, in the interest of self-preservation, I’ll just go ahead and tell you. Scott said he had to pick up a crew tomorrow night. Their route will bring them in this general direction. He said he’d fly over the usual spot and if we want him to land we should mark an LZ with infrared beacons.”
That wouldn’t be a problem. Scott had left infrared beacons specifically for that purpose when he dropped some supplies off back in the winter. It always made Jim paranoid when he landed a chopper in their valley. He couldn’t help but wonder if it was drawing attention to them. He supposed it didn’t really matter. At this point, he didn’t think the spotlight on his valley could be any brighter. The bounty would already have him and his valley on everyone’s radar.
Besides, they needed any information Scott might be able to offer. They’d had some communication with him over the winter and spring but were pretty much operating in a vacuum. Jim hadn’t minded that most of the time. He didn’t want to know what was going on in the world. He wanted to be left alone, wanted to be able to shut out the world at large, but he couldn’t wear blinders any longer. He needed information. There was a price on his head and he had to know who had put it there.
"Tomorrow,” Jim said. “So I guess we just wait and hope we don’t have to kill anyone else before then."
“I guess so,” Hugh replied. “By the way, I’m sorry I wasn’t down here when you got ambushed on that hill. What did I miss?”
Jim reeled off a description of the events that took place after Ariel spotted someone from the garden.
“That’s awfully close,” Hugh said. “That’s practically in your front yard.”
“Yep. Makes it hard for me to close my eyes. I’m sitting here waiting for the next attack.”
“You think we should get an outpost on that hill where they jumped you? We could do it tomorrow. Call it Outpost Charlie. Then we’d control the only hills around your house.”
“That’s a good idea, Hugh.”
“On that same topic, I was wondering if you might want me to take over Outpost Pete for the night.”
“I’ve had Pete and Charlie out there all day. They like it, which worries me a bit. I don’t want them to go native, as the expression goes. They need to be able come back from this one day, settle into a regular life and have families. I worry about them becoming too wild. Too used to killing.”
“Call them in,” Hugh said. “Let them come back and get some family time. You could probably use some too. I'm sure your family is pretty torn up about everything that happened today."
"Definitely. There’s been a lot of tension around here this evening."
"All the gunfights today, all that shooting, has the sheriff shown up to ask you about any of it?"
"He's not said a word," Jim replied, the tone of his voice revealing his hostility at the sheriff’s lack of intervention. "He had to have heard it. He might not want to know what’s going on but burying his head in the sand isn’t going to work forever. The bodies are piling up."
"I’m really surprised he hasn’t checked in on you. Don’t be too hard on him though. I was thinking about this last night. It's got to be tough. There’s a lot more politics involved in being a sheriff than in other law enforcement positions. I’m sure he feels a burden over what the people in his county are going through. It’s got to bother him. They’re his people. They elected him."
"Sometimes I wonder if the killing should bother me more than it does," Jim said. “Every person I’ve killed bothers me a little less than the last one. I hate to say it but these folks I shot today didn’t get a second thought. All their bodies meant to me was the inconvenience of having to roll them in a hole. I hate for my family to see shit like that.”
"There is only so much you can let inside and continue to make the best decisions for your family. The sheepdog doesn’t care for the wolf. It doesn’t feel bad about killing it. Being a protector doesn't allow you to operate under the ideal of universal compassion toward your fellow man."
“But am I killing wolves?” Jim asked. “Or am I killing other sheep? Some days I don’t know.”
"The very fact that you worry about who you’re killing tells me that your head is in the right place,” Hugh said.
Jim sighed. “I didn’t think it could happen but shit has gotten even more complicated than it was before. People I would have seen as good guys a week ago are now bad guys because they’re coming after me with guns because of that stupid flyer. And because someone is waving food and supplies under their noses.”
“That doesn’t make you the bad guy,” Hugh said. “That makes the person who put the bounty on you the bad guy, as well as anyone who decides to take up arms against you.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself.”
“Things will level out, Jim. I really think so.”
“Or things might go ape shit crazy and get way worse. That’s where I’m putting my money.”
Hugh pushed off the steps and got to his feet. “Stay positive. Either way, I’m with you, brother. Why don’t you radio those boys to pack up their gear? Let them know I’m on the way.”
“I’ll do it,” Jim said.
While Jim made the call on the radio, Hugh climbed on his horse and disappeared into the dark. While he was replacing his radio in its pouch, the front door opened and Ellen stepped out.
“I heard you telling Pete and Charlie to come in,” she said. “That makes me feel better. I worry about them.”
“There’s a lot to worry about anymore,” Jim said. Not only was he tired of worrying, he was getting tired of talking about worrying.
Ellen went to the porch and leaned over, resting her arms on the rail and listening to the night. “I’ve been thinking a lot today about whether we should just pull up stakes and leave. I can’t imagine us ever being safe here again.”
Jim was mentally exhausted, beyond the point of finding any new solutions. “I don’t know we could find anywhere to go or have any way to get there if we did know of a place. We might be able to scrape up enough fuel for a short truck ride but it would only be enough for a single trip. We’d be living off what we could fit in one load. I’ve considered the same thing but leaving most of our supplies behind would really reduce our odds of survival.”
“The odds of our survival are impacted by staying here. They seem to drop every day. And assuming we make it past July 4th without you being kidnapped, what will they try next? You think they’re just going to give up?”
“No,” Jim said, defeat creeping into his voice. “It won’t be over.” His words were flat and soulless.
“We need a strategy. The reason we have all this survival gear, the reason we’re doing so well now, is that you didn’t accept things at face value. You wanted backup plans and contingencies. You still need to think that way. We need a plan. We need a backup location. I don’t care what kind of hassles and inconveniences are involved. We need something in place so we’re not caught flatfooted if we have to leave.”
“I’m working on it,” Jim said. “Scott from the power restoration authority is choppering in tomorrow night. Hugh reached out to him over this bounty on my head. He’s going to see if he can find out anything and let us know tomorrow.”
“That’s something. I need to get back to Ariel before she comes looking for me. You coming in or you spending the night out here?”
“I’m going to wait on Pete and Charlie,” Jim said. “When they get here I’ll come in for the night. Hugh is out there watching over us. We’ll be fine.”
Ellen slipped back through the screen door. Solar lights were being illuminated in the house now and their yellow glow spilled out onto the porch. It gave the place a sense of warmth that pushed away the world, even if just for a moment. Jim listened to the sounds of his family inside. Nana was teasing Ariel over a game they were playing. Pops was telling Ellen a story about his great grandfather, a seven-foot tall captain in the Civil War. Something about that story jarred a memory loose in Jim’s head.
He got up from his chair and went inside. He stood there a moment, blinking against the light.
“Everything okay?” Pops asked.
“You talking about the Civil War reminded me of a story,” Jim said. “About Beartown Mountain.”
Beartown was the looming giant of the local section of the Clinch Mountain range. It was the seventh highest peak in Virginia and one of the most inaccessible peaks in this part of the country. While there was no road or trail leading to the top of it, it dominated the view from Jim’s backyard.
“There was a cave up there,” Jim said. “In the Civil War, deserters from both sides supposedly hid up there because it was so remote no one would come for them. They stayed up there until the war was over. You ever hear about that?”
“I did,” Pops said. “Not sure where it was located but it’s supposedly a true story.”
“What are you thinking?” Ellen asked.
Jim shook his head. “Nothing. Just thinking about that cave so high up on that remote mountain. It might be our last stand, if we could find it.”
Nana frowned. “I’ve had enough of caves.”
“Are we moving into a cave again?” Ariel asked.
Jim smiled. “No, sweetie. Daddy was just thinking out loud.”
“Daddy needs to think quieter,” Ariel said, bobbing her head in a snarky girl thing.
Jim couldn’t help but laugh at her. “I thought you liked being Batgirl and living in the Batcave?”
Ariel looked at him like she didn’t know what planet he’d come from. “No. I didn’t.”
“I’m going back to the porch,” Jim said.
“The boys should be back soon and we’ll settle in for the night.”
The expression Ellen gave him wasn’t much better than those that Ariel and Nana had given him. She didn’t want to live in a cave any more than they did. Jim hoped it didn’t come to that.
27
Although the next day was calm, no one was relaxed. And while there were no attacks, everyone expected them, waiting for the next shot or the next wave of men to come rushing through the fields like the Mongol horde. There were no challenges at the outposts, and not even a glimpse of movement within the dark woods.
People went on about their daily lives, undertaking the tasks that piled up faster than they could be checked-off their lists. They collected firewood for cooking and in advance of the winter chill, tended gardens, cared for their livestock, performed repairs, and did laundry.
Early summer vegetables were being harvested and this new infusion into their diet was appreciated. Jim focused on caching supplies at various points, accepting the offers from folks who had volunteered to cover sentry duty so he could get it done. In between strenuous trips, rolling or carrying plastic drums, he stared at the imposing presence of Beartown Mountain. He could not help but revisit the idea that he might have to retreat there with his family to survive.
They were tough and resilient. He suspected they could do it if they had to, though it would not be easy. They would not have the conveniences they had now. He’d spent years putting in solar improvements, a dairy with a spring box, gravity fed water, and a million other things that would make their life easier in a dark world. They would lose all of that.
He decided to relegate that to the most distant of possibilities. It was his “scorched earth” plan, only to be undertaken if all else failed and they lost the valley. If there was any chance of keeping and protecting their farm, even if it meant living in the barn or his cave, that was what he needed to do. For now, he would continue establishing caches, making sure he had redundant stockpiles of gear, and that they did not have all their eggs in a single basket.
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