Ever Onward (46 page)

“But that’s all the more reason for us
to cling together!”, she had told him. “In a world gone crazy,
that’s all we really have left!”

He’d smiled and turned away. “Maybe
later. Right now it’s just too soon.”

Jenny had left then, trying
unsuccessfully to hold back the tears. The lights of the mill had
drawn her and the sound of the stream had soothed her --- until the
shooting started. In a kind of waking nightmare she had watched the
Main House go up in flames, then she’d ran into the mill. Gustoph
Muller, the German baker who ran the mill, was lying on the floor
in a pool of blood. Then two men had stepped out of the
shadows.

Straw Hair giggled as Vince ripped
away her bra. “Nice jugs!” Vince grunted, warming to his work.
Jenny retreated further and further. After the double rape, the two
men briefly debated what to do with her. Straw was for cutting her
throat, but Vince wanted to bring her along.

“After all,” he reasoned. “One Arm
said he wanted all the young cunts alive. Trade goods. Besides, I
think I’m in love.”

They both laughed, Staw’s giggle high
and wild.

“Okay, but I get first dibs on
her!”

Vince winked. “Stand in line,
buddy-boy. Stand in line.”

Together they dragged the almost
comatose girl out of the mill. Behind them Gustave Muler groaned
and rolled on his side.

“What a royal fuck-up!”, One Arm
snarled. Clutching Mai-Ling to him as a shield, he looked around
and saw that half of his men were missing. They had a bunch of
prisoners, mostly women, but someone was still killing anyone fool
enough to be caught out in the open.

“Get the women loaded!”, Rambo yelled,
keeping Betty Sinclair between himself and the half leveled pine
grove.

Doc Gruber stepped up to
him.

“You can’t do this!”

“Ya? And who-the-fuck’s going to stop
me? You?” Without a warning he slammed his .45 into the side of
Doc’s head. The old man sank to the ground like a stone. Betty
turned and clawed at his face. Rambo, grabbing her shoulder, held
her at arms length and shot her in the head. At the same time Mrs.
Wang broke away from her captor and rushed towards her
granddaughter. The frail old lady was picked up and roughly shoved
to the ground. Sobbing, she crawled towards Doc’s unconscious
form.

“You heard him!”, One Arm roared,
kicking Mrs. Wang in the ribs and shoving Mai-Ling into the back of
the jeep. “Get ‘em loaded!”

As Gloria was pushed into the back of
a truck, she lashed out with her foot, catching her bearded captor
in the chin. He staggered back, giving Cobb a clear shot. Cobb
didn’t miss. Gloria was over the truck’s side in an instant. She
had disappeared into the night just as Vince and Straw Hair,
dragging Jenny Hiller between them, reached the group. As they
dumped Jenny in the front of the jeep, Vince suddenly pitched
forward, a large hole blown through his chest. The driver of the
truck leaned out the window and wanted to know ‘what the fuck was
taking so long?!’ Cobb gave him an answer in the form of a bullet
through the neck.The hollow point round punched the driver back
into the cab, leaving a rather startled yet somewhatwhimsical look
on his face.

One Arm swore and scrambled into his
jeep. Still holding Betty’s dead body, Rambo fired blindly into the
night. When the .45’s clip was empty, he let the girl slide to the
ground and jumped in with One Arm, squeezing Jenny between them
Mai-Ling lay bound and terrified in the back. One Arm sped off into
the night, the two remaining cars right behind them. Once past the
burning building, the darkness swallowed them up.

Those left behind looked around in
stunned silence.

Chapter 35
: ‘THE
SEARCHERS’

Mount Hawthorn

New York State

August
18
^th

Doc Gruber, his face swollen from
where Rambo had hit him, downed his drink. “You’ll both probably
get yourselves killed, you know that?”

Cobb sat staring out at the lake, his
own drink untouched. It was a dull, grey dawn, suitable to his
mood. Bobby, nursing a large bruise of his own, sat on the edge of
his chair.

Doc turned to Cobb. “You were a
policeman. You know the danger of confronting these killers. Hell,
we don’t even know what direction they went!”

Cobb looked at the kindly old man.
“The garbage truck has ‘City of Plattsburg’ on it. The man I
interrogated said they have a base there.”

Doc sighed deeply. “Well then, I
suppose you must go. But just the two of you? If you took more men
---”

“They’d only slow us down,” Cobb put
in. “Besides, there’s not many left to take.”

“What about Brad? I gave him a
sedative, but when he wakes up...”

Again Cobb cut the older man off.
“Brad’s got a bullet in his shoulder. Besides, he’s needed here.
Along with Josh, the two of you are what holds this community
together.”

Doc nodded sadly. “I just wish Josh
was here.”

“So do I,” Cobb said. “But he isn’t
and we can’t around wait for him. If we want to get those girls
back alive and whole, Bobby and I have to leave right
away.”

“Not without me you aren’t,” a voice
said. Three set of eyes turned towards the door. “And if you do,
I’ll just follow ---and if you hit me again, Cobb, I’ll hit
back.”

For a moment Doc thought he heard the
father, not the son. Jessie, not Josh, stood in the doorway. Blood
from his split lip still covered his chin. He looked older than his
sixteen years. Much older. Cobb held the youth’s defiant gaze,
noted his cool, controlled stance. He’d seen that look on men’s
faces before, and always chosen them to watch his back. Josh may
not like it, but Jessie had earned the right to go. Kenneth had
been the boy’s best friend as well as his cousin. Besides, Cobb
knew he’d have a hell of a time stopping him.

“Jessie”, Doc said through a sigh.
“Your father wouldn’t want you to.---”

“You’re right, Doc”, the tall youth
cut in. “My father wouldn’t want me to go. He’d probably even
forbid it. But I’d still go anyway. Ken was like my brother. His
killers won’t go free.” This last was said calmly, without boasting
or bravado --- just a simple statement of fact.

“Okay,” Cobb said. “Get your
gear.”

Jessie lifted a pack he had left just
outside the door. A 30/30 Marlin was strapped to its side. “I’ve
got it.”

Bobby gave Jess the thumbs up sign.
Doc slowly shook his head.

A half an hour later the
three left The Shire in an landrover, the back filled with food,
camping gear and a large number of weapons.

When One Arm’s rag-tag convoy of one
jeep and two cars roared off into the night, they had fled
northward, taking any road that led them away from Mount Hawthorn.
As a result, they soon got lost. By the time they made it back to
the main road, other problems had arisen. With two of the five men
he had left wounded, wrecked cars blocking the roads and the bloody
jeep overheating, One Arm had stopped for the night at a small
motel outside the town of Essex. He was only twenty-three miles
north of Crown Point. He’d planned to get new wheels and an early
start the next morning, but once inside the motel, one drink had
led to another and by dawn he and his remaining merry men were
snoring off a drunken stupor. Mai-Ling and Jenny Hiller had been
left tied in the jeep.

At quarter past eight the next morning
they were still in the jeep when Cobb, Bobby and Jessie came along.
Bobby, unable to believe their luck, started to yell out. Cobb
silenced him with a look, then cut the motor and let the landrover
roll to a stop on the edge of the road.

“Could be a trap,” he whispered,
reaching for his rifle. “Bobby, take the shotgun and get behind
that Buick. Cover the door. Jessie, sneak in and cut them loose.
Move up behind the jeep and keep them quiet. I’ll cover you from
here.”

“But we can take them all!”, Bobby
said. “They deserve it!”

Cobb nodded towards the motel.
“There’s eight or ten rooms down there. Do you know which ones
they’re in? I don’t. We get caught in a firefight and we all
loose.” He attempted a smile. “Get the girls first, then we’ll
see.”

Bobby nodded. Jessie was already
creeping towards the jeep; knife in one hand, a Browning 9 mm. in
the other. During the drive he’d switched his .22 target pistol for
the heavier semi-automatic. Cobb had noted the change, but figured
the young man could handle it.

When the landrover appeared, Jenny
Heller thought she was dreaming. She ached all over; her wrists,
her legs and her groin from where those animals at the mill had
raped her. When she saw Jessie approaching, a whimper of joy
escaped her parched lips. Jessie made a sign for her to keep quiet,
and soon he was beside them, cutting them free. Mai-Ling’s eyes
widened when she saw him, her pretty face lighting up. He squeezed
her hand, then led them back to the landrover.

They were half-way there when a man
dressed in a bloodstained t-shirt and boxer shorts opened the door
of #5. He stood scratching his stomach, squinting into the morning
sun. Then he saw Jessie and the girls.

“Hey!”, he yelled, taking a step
forward.

From the landrover, Cobb squeezed the
trigger of assault rifle. The M-4 had a thirty round clip and could
fire at single, a burst of three and full auto. Cobb only needed
one shot. The built in baffle made a sound like a cough, yet the
5.56 mm. hollow-point slug punched the man back through the open
doorway. “Shit!”, Cobb swore, flicking the setting from single-shot
to triple-burst.

The rest happened fast. Jessie and the
girls sprinted for the landrover. Another man appeared in the
doorway. Bobby fired quickly. Too quickly. He missed the man but
blew a hole in the door. Someone yelled. Shots were fired. The
window in #7 shattered and automatic fire raked the parkinglot.
Bobby cut loose with the 12 gage’s second barrel, then ducked down
to reload. The Buick he was behind was hit from several angles.
More glass shattered. Jessie pushed Mai-Ling behind the landrover,
then turned and fired his Browning as Jenny sprinted past him. Cobb
switched to the tear-gas launcher he had picked up at the Crown
Point Police Station. The first shell went through smashed window
of #7, the second through the open door of #5. Some sporadic firing
continued, then petered out. A smell like rotten eggs filled the
air as whitish-yellow smoke leaked out the windows and doors. Cobb
ordered everyone into the landrover, then handed Jessie his assault
rifle.

“Slow and steady, Jess. It’s on triple
burst. Just keep them pinned down.” The large tires spun gravel as
Cobb drove towards the Buick. Bobby climbed in just as Jessie
emptied the clip. Bobby had time for a parting blast before the
vehicle hit the pavement and sped back the way it had come. Out of
range now, Bobby fired the remaining barrel just the
same.

His good eye streaming
tears, Rambo came through the riddled door of #7 with the Uzi on
full Rock ‘n Roll. Hot, 9 mm. led sprayed out in a killing arc, yet
there was nothing to kill. He kept firing anyway, drowning out the
cries and coughs of the men behind him. Two spilled out of #5’s
holed door. Both were gasping. Straw hung in the doorway, his face
the color of a dead fish. One Arm crawled past him on his knees,
puking up last night’s Scotch. When the Uzi at last ran dry, Rambo
tossed it away and stood glaring at the empty road. The look in his
good eye was a long way from friendly.

By ten o’clock the landrover was once
again passing the stone gatehouse that marked the beginning of The
Shire. Minutes later Mrs. Wang had her granddaughter in her arms,
tears of joy running down her lined face. The others gathered round
to welcome back the kidnapped and the rescuers both, each one eager
to hear just how they had pulled off the impossible.

Two days later Josh, Flame and Eddy
returned.

Josh and Doc sat talking on the large
patio overlooking the lake. Doc seemed far from happy.

“Fist Cobb, now you! Christ, Josh, we
got them back! Why can’t you leave it at that?!”

“Because they won’t.” His voice had
taken on that soft, sharp tone that sent shivers up the older man’s
spine.

“Why?”

“Because their warped, macho code
demands it. ‘Take what you want, an eye for an eye and revenge at
all cost’.”

Doc shuddered. “That’s
sick!”

Josh sighed. “I agree, but that
doesn’t make it any less true. We can sit here waiting, or we can
go after them. At least my way we’ll have surprise on our
side.”

The old man looked keenly at the
younger. “Are you sure you don’t have another reason?”

“Like what?”

Doc drew a deep breath. “Oh, I don’t
know. Maybe some ‘macho’ feelings of your own? Before the world
went crazy you taught history and literature. Myths and legends
were your stock and trade. I may be just an old country vet, but
I’ve seen my share of John Wayne movies. I’ve also seen that rifle
you carry and I’ve heard Eddy and a few of the others refer to you
as ‘The Duke’. It could be that a part of you is living out some
macho legend of your own.”