Castroville: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 7 (12 page)

     Not necessarily because he felt a need to right wrongs and protect others. But because the hero always got the girl.

     He packed an extra AR in the long bag in case the first one jammed or became damaged. His leg pockets were stuffed with extra magazines. .556 rounds on the left side, 9 mm rounds on the right.

     The pouches on his tactical vest held more .556 mags. He expected to use the rifles much more than the hand guns.

     In the bottom of the bag were a pair of Bushnell binoculars, three boxes of ammunition in case he had a chance to reload his empty magazines, six hand grenades and four red smoke canisters.

     The grenades had come from a junkie who was trying to trade them for drugs.

     Robbie didn’t have any drugs. He didn’t need them. His mind was messed up enough as it was. But he claimed to know a guy who knew a guy who could get them.

     “How much do you want for them?” he asked.

     “An eight ball for the grenades,” the man said. “And another eight ball for the smoke.”

     “Can you come back in two hours?”

     “Sure. Don’t be late, man. I need the shit bad.”

     The man was twitching almost uncontrollably. Robbie probably could have taken him, but was nursing a twisted ankle he’d suffered when dropping into the giraffe enclosure the day before.

     And he happened to be unarmed that day when the two met, having just left the zoo long enough to steal a blanket from an abandoned house he knew well. The junkie was a mountain of a man or Robbie would have tried anyway.

     No, Robbie wouldn’t jump him. The man was a serious tweaker, in the midst of withdrawals. He’d be back, just as he said he would. And when he returned, Robbie would have a surprise for him.

     As the man had walked away that day, Robbie’s curiosity had gotten the best of him.

     “Hey,” Robbie called out.

     The man had turned around.

     “Yeah?”

     “Where’d you get them? The grenades and smoke canisters?”

     “The National Guard armory. The place was wide open and deserted. Shit all over the place, as much as I could carry.”

     Robbie knew that day that the tweaker would be back. And he’d probably be early. He wouldn’t want to wait a minute longer than necessary to get his fix.

     Robbie was armed up and back in less than an hour. The man came walking down the street just ten minutes later.

     Robbie watched him from behind the cover of an abandoned car. He wasn’t surprised to see a sense of joy in the junkie’s step. He was almost dancing. It was the walk of a kid on Christmas morning, of a dog with a bone. It was the dance of a strung out junkie, knowing that he’d soon have the dope his body hungered for.

     Or so he thought.

     Robbie had leveled his rifle that afternoon and taken aim wondering what the junkie’s last thoughts would be.

     It didn’t really matter much.

     He was just curious.

     As Robbie squeezed the trigger and the man’s head exploded, Robbie smiled. Killing had become something he rather enjoyed.

     He’d gone over to the body and picked up the backpack which lay beside it. He’d opened it up and rummaged through it, hoping to find other things he might be able to use besides the explosives. There wasn’t much. A couple of glass meth pipes, half a bottle of water and some hypodermic needles, all uncapped and probably used several times. A full pack of Marlboro Blacks and another pack with two cigarettes left. Half a bag of cotton balls and a couple of condoms.

     Robbie had dumped everything out onto the ground at the junkie’s feet, careful not to stick himself with the needles. He inspected the grenades and smoke cans to make sure they were weren’t training dummies, and smiled when he saw they were real.

     He’d retreated that day, carrying his new booty back to the zoo and debating whether he should make his way to the old armory to gather more.

     He decided against it, because he didn’t think his damaged ankle would take the six mile hike. And because he didn’t want to get that far away from the zoo which gave him sanctuary each night.

     Now, three weeks later, he wished he had gone. For now he was headed into battle, and didn’t know how much firepower he might need to accomplish his mission.

     He hefted his backpack onto his back. It held a spare Glock and a couple of mags, a couple of bottles of water and some snacks. Three bags of stale potato chips and some old candy bars. He’d just eaten a good sized meal of powdered mashed potatoes and squirrel, and that would sustain him for awhile.

     As long as it took, at least, for him to either exact some revenge or to die trying.

     If he exacted his revenge and made it back to the zoo alive, he could eat again while he celebrated.

     If he didn’t make it back it wouldn’t matter anyway. He’d go out in a blaze of glory, the rest of the world be damned.

     In a way he wished for death. He’d had enough of this miserable existence.

     He was bound for hell, he knew. He’d done a lot more harm in his lifetime than good.

     But he didn’t much care. Not anymore.

     He was ready for whatever this day had in store for him.

-24-

     The man on the Appaloosa, a young and excitable cowboy named Bennett, had gone to the main gate to ask the two sentries there what they wanted to eat for breakfast.

     Payton tended to favor certain members of his crew over the others. If someone struck him as particularly loyal, for example, he tended to reward them with choice assignments. Or extra days off. The same was true of men who tended to entertain him with their humor. Or their companionship.

     Sentry duty at the main gate was considered one of those choice assignments for a variety of reasons. Neighbors frequently came calling when they wanted to barter something. Or when they were having trouble with outlaws or looters and needed some heavy handed protection from Payton and his men.

     Of course, Payton wasn’t always in a mood to entertain neighbors with their piss ant needs and insignificant problems. So he relied on his gate guards to weed out the whiners and wasters of his time. Their standing instructions were, “If there’s something significant for me to gain, let them in. Otherwise, send them on their way.”

     Over recent months those instructions morphed into a new set of instructions that only the regular crews at the main gate knew about. The new and unwritten instructions went something like,
if the boss can benefit from the visitors, let them in. Otherwise, take advantage of them any way you can.

     For female visitors, that frequently meant on-the-spot sexual services before they were allowed in. And sometimes even if they weren’t. Payton didn’t mind. Because he had the same taste in women, and usually required the same types of favors when he met with them.

     Men and old women were frequently charged a silver coin or two as a “visitation fee,” which was not refundable even if the boss chose not to see them.

     Two or three times a day, the front gate guards would exact such fees, ride off toward the house to ask Payton if he’d confer with the strangers, then ride back to deny the visit.

     What most of the visitors never knew, of course, was that Payton wasn’t even told of their presence. The guard merely went to the house, got a drink of water or used the restroom, then pocketed the silver.

     Yes, working the main gate was a choice assignment. Payton tended to take care of his friends and loyal subjects.

     Another benefit of working the gate was Payton’s habit of having someone deliver meals to them. Not because he was nice guy and not because they were truly his friends. But because he needed some of his men he could rely on to side with him if there was ever trouble in the ranks. And, indeed, to quell such trouble before it started.

     One of Bennett’s daily chores was to ride out to the main gate three times a day: just before breakfast, lunch and dinner, and take food orders for the elite guard. Then to deliver their dinner orders to the women in the kitchen, and to take the food out once it was completed.

     There was nothing glamorous about the job, and there was no prestige in it either.

     What Bennett actually wanted to do was to be an elite gate guard himself. He’d campaigned for such a position for many months, but Bennett had always refused his requests.

     “The only thing you’re good for besides fetching food for my men is kissing my ass,” Payton had told him publicly to the bemusement of the others. “I only put the best and most dependable men on the gate. You’ve got a long way to go before I consider you either of those things.”

     The rebuke had hurt. But Bennett was undeterred, and was determined to get one of the gate guard positions he coveted eventually, one way or the other.

     On this particular morning, Bennett finally saw his chance.

     When he arrived at the main gate, neither guard was anywhere in sight.

     Had they been a couple of other sentries Bennett knew in particular, he might have thought they were over in the woods, frolicking and having fun.

     But these two men had no such proclivities that Bennett had ever suspected. And they had reputations for being dependable. Certainly not the types of men who’d leave their posts.

     To give them the benefit of the doubt, he gave them a few minutes to return from wherever they’d gone. He even called each of them by name.

     When five long minutes ticked by with no sound other than the crickets chirping, Bennett turned his horse and high-tailed it back to the ranch house.

     Laughing the entire way.

     For even though he wasn’t the brightest of Payton’s ranch hands by any means, there were several things Bennett was absolutely sure of.

     He was sure that Payton always rose at four a.m. sharp. He had his main servant, the one he called “house monkey”, rap on his door at that time each day, seven days a week.

     He was sure that Payton liked to hear bad news in person. He’d told everyone so a thousand times.

     He was sure that Payton sometimes made rash decisions. Frequently so, in fact.

     And he was sure that Jack Payton hated deserters. Hated them worse than rattlesnakes. Than syphilis. Than cattle rustlers and thieves other than himself.

     In Bennett’s mind, the missing gate guards presented Bennett with a golden opportunity.

     He, Al Bennett, would be the one to break the news to Payton that two of his best men deserted their posts.

     And perhaps Payton would make one of the rash decisions he was famous for by instantly naming Bennett a replacement, and dispatching him back to the main gate.

     Perhaps this was the chance Bennett had been hoping for to get his foot in the door and secure his coveted gate guard duty.

     Perhaps.

     As Sara was making her way back across the hayloft toward Randy, Bennett was dismounting and tying his horse on a rail in front of the ranch house.

     As Sara lay upon the hayloft floor, her head sticking out the door into the open air so she could whisper her findings to Randy, Bennett was softly closing the front door behind him.

     As Sara was explaining to Randy there was only one additional guard in the barn, lying down with his face covered, Bennett was rapping on Jack Payton’s door.

-25-

     Shiloh laid comfortably upon his haystacks, whistling his little ditty, groaning as the occasional stomach pain caused him to place a hand on his midsection.

     He half hoped the whistling would wake up his sleeping prisoner, so he’d have someone to talk to. He lifted his hat and looked over at Tom, still curled in the fetal position and softly snoring. He pitied the wounded man, beaten bloody and broken and forced to lie on the cold hard floor. He wondered where the man might have come from, what he was all about, why Payton hated him so.

     And he wondered how much longer he’d be there before Payton killed him as he’d done the others.

     Shiloh had been present for six of the killings. Most of the time, he felt nothing but relief. For by the time Payton had pulled the trigger those six times, his victims were barely alive anyway. In almost every case, Payton was doing them a favor by putting them out of their misery.