Eden's Hammer (19 page)

“Damn, Adrian. We’re kicking their ass in spite of being hit by a tornado, and you’re going all pessimistic? What’s the matter? They are a bunch of ragtag, starving raiders that just got hit by a major ambush, and you know it.”

“Rex—that’s what’s the matter. Rex doesn’t go down this easily. He should have concentrated his men on one spot and charged his men straight at it by now. He wouldn’t just sit still and let his men be slowly picked off. Something’s wrong. Either we didn’t get Rex and all his men into the draw and he’s still outside somewhere, or he got out in the middle of the storm.”

“Or we got lucky and he’s dead,” Bollinger replied.

“Well, we can hope,” Adrian replied and squeezed off another shot.

“Look! They’re making a surge right at us!” Bollinger shouted.

Adrian began choosing target after target, firing almost continuously, as were the rest of his group. The raiders kept coming although they were being mowed down. The last ten men threw down their guns and raised their hands in surrender. They fell almost instantly as they were cut down by multiple rifles. Then there was only ear ringing silence, as all firing had stopped. Adrian watched and waited a full five minutes. The light fog from the storm’s aftermath still drifted knee high in wisps. Adrian had a continuing sense of foreboding.
Too easy, too complete
, he thought.

March 28, mid morning

Adrian rose from his position, stood surveying the scene. Muddy water was running swiftly down the draw from the rain, bodies were scattered throughout the draw. He carefully began moving forward, signaling for only three men to join him. Bollinger and two other men joined him, and they slowly worked their way down the draw, looking at bodies, checking every place that a still-living raider might be laying in ambush or hiding. There were raiders still alive, incapacitated by their wounds. A single bullet was fired into the head of those who were alive, and those whose wounds didn’t look mortal. There was no mercy in these shootings, only finality.

Adrian waved his men down from their positions, gathered them together, and said, “Rex is not among the dead, and the dead don’t total up to his full strength. There are at least twenty men missing, including Rex. The son of a bitch is still out there loose somewhere.” Before he could say anything else, they heard gunfire and then four huge booms almost together coming from the women’s position behind them. After the explosions, there was a scattering of shots, then silence again. Adrian raised his voice, “Stand. The women followed us out of the village, and that gunfire is coming from their position.” Signaling to ten of the men with him, he said, “You men come with me; the rest come up behind us slowly in a wide line. We have to close in carefully, or the women may start firing at us.”

Adrian told Bollinger, “Stretch the rest of them out and bring them on; look out for the raiders—they may still be between us and the women. We’re going to move fast.” Adrian then told his small team, “Follow me and don’t get ahead of me!” He turned and began swiftly running toward the women.

He rapidly gained on his men, running faster than any of them could. As Adrian began to close in on the women, he saw bodies strewn on the ground in front of the group. The bodies were mangled and ripped apart. He slowed and waved his arms, wanting the women to see him clearly. As he got closer, Linda yelled out “Come on, we see you.” Adrian picked up his pace and joined her. Without wasting time, he asked, “Did any escape?”

“A bunch of raiders came right at us that must have gotten around you. We hit them, mostly with Matt’s cannons, but a handful of them disappeared into those trees.” She pointed to a tree line in the distance.

“Casualties?”

“None—well, maybe some hearing loss from those cannons. Damn things are loud. No, they barely returned fire. Getting hit with those chains at close range with no warning rocked them back hard.”

“Why did you leave the village?” Adrian asked.

“Remember when you told me I had to act autonomously? It was my decision, and I stand by it.”

Adrian replied. “Turned out to be a good one. Could have been a disaster, but you did well.”

Adrian’s men arrived as he finished talking and heard what she said. Adrian said, “Linda, the rest of the men will be coming up soon. Send a runner to Bollinger and tell him where the raiders disappeared. Tell him to send his fastest men to cut them off in case they are heading towards the village. Tell those men to be damn careful who they shoot at, because we’re going to have men spread out all over the place to try and locate Rex.” Adrian quickly checked the bodies; he didn’t think Rex’s would be among them, and it wasn’t.” He counted sixteen bodies.

Adrian told his men, “We’re going to head west into those trees and see if they’re still there, the other men will be getting between them and the village. Come on, let’s roll.” He led the men at a slightly slower pace, since they had just sprinted half a mile across broken country and wouldn’t be able to maintain his own pace. Adrian was cursing with almost every step, “Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch.”

March 28, late afternoon

Adrian eventually sent his group out as runners to bring everyone back to the village. Rex and the men with him had disappeared; there was no indication where they went. Adrian waited while everyone trickled back into the village. Bollinger reported, “We lost six men, and fourteen were wounded. Of the wounded, three are critical and may not make it. We, plus the women, killed all but four of the raiders. For all intents and purposes the raiders are done. There’s no sign yet of the snipers, but I’ve got men out searching for them. We’ve retrieved all of our fallen. They’ll be prepared for burial tomorrow. All of the wounded are in the hospital being worked on. The raiders’ bodies are where they fell, and we stripped them of weapons and ammo. Do we plan to do anything with their bodies?”

Adrian replied, “No, we leave them there. They can feed the buzzards; it’s the best use they ever had.”

“Adrian,” Bollinger said with a sudden gravity, “Clif was killed. Took a bullet through his throat.”

Adrian stood stock still, his falling face giving away his pain at the news. “Aw, fuck!” he suddenly shouted.
Goddamn that Rex to a burning fucking hell!
Adrian walked away from everyone, his fists clenched. He stopped when he was out of earshot. For a long five minutes, he stood with his back turned. His shoulders were hunched, moving up and down. It was obvious he was crying, and just as obvious that he didn’t want to be disturbed. Finally, his shoulders eased as the crying ended. Wiping his eyes, Adrian turned around and came back to his men.

His face was as grim as Bollinger had ever seen it. His eyes were red and his cheeks were still wet. “Thanks for telling me. He was the best—the very best. We’ll have a wake for him when this is over. We’ll get drunker than shit and raise him up. But not now; now it’s time to finish this. I’ll kill that fucking Rex if it’s the last thing I do.”

Adrian raised his voice so that the gathering men could hear him. “We won a major battle today, but the war isn’t over until Rex is dead. The problem is that he can hit and run at his place of choosing and when he wants to. Unless he has turned tail and run off—which I don’t believe—he’ll be a major problem for everyone. If we send scouts out, he’ll pick them off. Even the best trained of us will be at a disadvantage because we’ll have to move around to find him. Even if a scout spots him, he can’t attack and win. Rex and his men will be too good for one man to take on. If a scout returns with information on where Rex is, he won’t be there when we go out in strength.

“Spread the word to everyone that we have a critical sniper situation. Rex is likely to come close, shoot one or two people, and then disappear, only to return sometime later to repeat. He can keep that up forever, as I well know. Until he gets what he wants, he’ll just keep on killing. He’ll kill women and children as quickly as men. In fact, he may target women and children specifically—that’s a more effective terror tactic than killing men.

“I have a strong feeling that his true target in this whole expedition of his has been me all along. The sick bastard couldn’t care less about the village; he just used that to manipulate his men to draw me back home. This is a personal vendetta that’s eating up his twisted mind. As long as I am here the villagers will never be safe. I have to leave, draw him away, and deal with him on my own. He wants personal, well, he’s going to get a lot more personal than he really wants. I’ll leave by morning, but we need to figure out some way to let him know I’m gone.”

Matt, Perry, and Tim were still near the ambush zone. They knew the battle was over, had closed in at the last minute and joined in the ambush. But Roman was still unaccounted for. Without a word to each other, they took off looking for him. They walked toward where they though he might have been, back behind the lines. They were afraid they were looking for his body, but no one would say so. Matt, an avid hunter, a good tracker, but the storm had wiped out any possibility of finding tracks. They moved spread out in as wide a line as they could and maintain visual contact. They had been walking for two hours when they heard three gunshots deliberately spaced out two seconds apart. It was a classic signal for help.

Tim said, “That has to be Roman. Told you he was lost!”

The three men quickly headed for where the sound had come from. The shots had been fairly close. Within half an hour, they heard three more shots, much closer this time. They tried to hurry, but they were now working their way directly through the path of the tornado and it was strewn with broken trees, making them detour or climb over them often. Well before dark they found him. He was pinned under a tree, laying on his stomach, and looked like he had been run through a meat grinder. He was covered with blood from what looked like a dozen cuts and scrapes. He had a large splinter sticking out of his shoulder, but he was alive and clearly alert.

Roman said in a hoarse voice, “Did we win? What the hell took y’all so long to get here? I thought I was going to have to gnaw this damn tree off of me.”

Perry said, “We won; not sure if they got Rex or not, though. Grit your teeth—I’m going to pull this splinter out.” Perry pulled it out and Roman grunted at the sharp pain.

“Damn good thing we won, or I’d be sorely pissed.” Roman said.

Tim asked, “Any broken bones or bad cuts?”

“Naw, I think I’m okay, just a little skint up and stuck in the mud under this damn tree. It just pushed me down into the mud. Lucky thing I was laying in this depression to begin with. Dig me out, will you?”

While the men dug mud from under and around Roman, Matt asked him, “How the hell did you get under a tree, you old fart? What were you doing way back here, anyway—you get lost again?”

Roman turned his head and gave Tim the stink eye. “You been telling them about me getting lost in San Angelo?”

“Yep, told them you got lost three times in three days,” Tim said with a wicked grin. “But I didn’t tell them about you getting lost on the golf course in Abilene.”

“Well, you just did, you fucking retard,” Roman replied with a growl.

Tim laughed; Roman was definitely okay.

Roman explained what had happened as he was being eased out from under the tree by six not too gentle hands. “I snuck through their lines yesterday and started hitting them from behind, thought it would give them even more to think about. Couldn’t get back across their lines, so I stayed back of them and kept hitting them. Then, just at dark, I saw them setting up a camouflaged wall tent, and figured it would be Rex’s since it was way bigger than anyone else’s. But it was too dark to do anything, so I sat there waiting for daylight. Thought I might get a chance to pick him off in the morning. Because of the damn storm it never did get light enough, but for a moment, I thought I spotted him during a series of lightning flashes. Big, tall blond-headed guy walking around like he owned the world. Tried to get a shot, but it started raining real hard, so I hunkered down to wait some more, hoping for a shot.

“Did you fellas see that tornado? I didn’t see it coming where I was, just all of a sudden I could hear it, and then the damn thing seemed to be right on top of me. I laid as flat as I could in the lowest spot I could find, even though it was full of water. Whoo-whee, but the wind was blowing hard, hail was hitting me, trees were flying by, grass was being sucked up into the air roots and all. Thought the wind was going to rip my clothes off. Never seen anything like it. Scared the crap out of me; I thought I was a goner for sure. Then this damn tree fell across me and got me stuck, it might have saved my life, keeping me from being sucked up into the air. Tried, but couldn’t reach around to dig myself out, so finally I started shooting, hoping we’d won and someone would hear me. Figured if the bad guys showed up and shot me, it would be better than starving to death.

“Boys, thank you very much for finding me. When we get home, drinks are on me. And lots of them.”

As he watched Roman rubbing his lower back and limping toward home, Matt said, “You better let one of us lead the way so you don’t get lost again, don’t you think?”

Roman replied, “Screw you, Matt. Just remember who makes the whisky.”

March 29, pre dawn

Adrian spent the rest of the day arguing with everyone about going after Rex alone. Every single man—and Linda, too—wanted to go with him. He had to make the same case over and over. “Look,” Adrian said to Linda, “Rex has a disadvantage: he has two or three men with him. That makes it extremely difficult to move quickly. He has to stop to explain everything to those men, and hope they understand. He has to move swiftly and quietly, but with four men, there are four times as many mistakes that will be made. I wouldn’t be surprised if he kills them. They’re a burden now. I don’t want that disadvantage. I don’t want to have to constantly explain the next move or to have to watch out for anyone else’s life. What I have to do is best done alone.”