Frontier Justice - 01 (12 page)

She thought for a moment.

“Would a child’s swimming pool work?”

“Better than a roasting pan,” he said, laughing.

“I’m sorry, what, Marshal?”

“I said it sounds perfect.”

“I can’t thank you enough. Please don’t give up on me. I’ll get stronger and more capable. I promise.”

“Kate, I’m not going to give up on you. You and Jack are the closest things I have to friends in this entire world.”

A deep rumble, like that of a large boat propeller sputtering through choppy waves, sounded from far away. Mason pushed it from his mind, dropping down once again into the dark abyss. Something wet touched his ear, and his eyes shot open.

Bowie bumped him again with his giant nose. Mason sat up, straining to see through the darkness. Bowie turned to face the bedroom door, his growl growing louder and more menacing.

Mason reached down and put his hand on the dog.

“Shh,” he said.

The dog quieted, but the growl still rumbled deep in its chest.

Mason slid off the bed and grabbed his Supergrade from the night- stand. He approached the bedroom door, walking lightly on the balls of his feet. Bowie followed closely beside him, his claws clicking against the aged wooden floorboards. Mason paused and listened at the door. For several seconds, he heard nothing. Then, just as he thought Bowie had disturbed his sleep for nothing, there was a loud metallic clang that sounded like a large spoon falling off the counter.

Mason told himself that it was probably just raccoons. He reached for the doorknob, but stayed his hand before turning it. He listened and waited.

A sharp whisper sounded from the cabin’s main room.

“Quiet!”

Bowie turned to him as if to ask if he had heard it, too.

Mason patted him and nodded.

The door to the bedroom was made from two-inch thick, solid oak planks, more than enough to stop a pistol bullet or even shotgun pellets. A high-power rifle or shotgun slug might get through, but not without first losing much of its punch. As with most doors, however, the lock itself could easily be destroyed. Fortunately, in his experience, intruders tended to ignore locks and shoot for the center of doors instead.

Mason considered his options. He could take cover in the bedroom. Even if they managed to breach the door, he would have a decent chance at pegging them in the doorway. The problem was that if he didn’t take them all out quickly, they’d use the walls of the cabin as cover, making for a prolonged gunfight. With only nine rounds in his Supergrade and no spare magazines in the bedroom, that scenario didn’t bode particularly well for him.

Option two was to slip out the bedroom window and hide out in the tree line until they left or he could initiate a successful attack. The risk there would be that they might hear the heavy window slide open and try to intercept him around back. Also, there was the problem of leaving Bowie to fend for himself, something he was not prepared to do. Taking the dog with him wasn’t possible either because, even in his wildest dreams, he couldn’t imagine Bowie fitting through the small window.

His mind made up, Mason quickly slipped on a pair of blue jeans, a black tee shirt, and his boots. He also secured his pistol in its holster, and double-checked the knife on his hip. He squatted down beside the dog.

“I need you to make some noise.”

Bowie stared at him and then turned back to look at the door.

“That’s right,” he said. “Good boy. But wait until I’m ready.”

The dog turned back to the door, its ears standing straight up.

Mason moved to the window, unlatched it, and gave it a light tug upward. As he suspected, it was stuck. He looked back at Bowie.

“Okay, boy, get ‘em!” He raised his voice with the last two words, and Bowie got the message. He charged to the door and began barking wildly.

Mason jerked the window upward, and thankfully, it came free. The cool air spilled into the room like icy water into a submerged vehicle. He wasted no time, leaning out the window and falling forward. He hit the ground, rolled on one shoulder, and quickly scrambled to his feet. It wouldn’t have earned him many points in a gymnastics competition, but it did get him out and ready to fight very quickly.

Mason ran around the cabin while keeping close to the wall to avoid setting off the flood lights. When he came to the front, he hopped over the railing onto the porch and peeked around the corner. Not fifteen feet from him was a man standing at the top of the stairs. He was holding an assault rifle at the ready, but his back was to Mason.

A man with long dreadlocks charged out the cabin door, looking back the way he had come. The two men exchanged words, and the man with the rifle shoved him back toward the cabin. Dreadlocks reluctantly re-entered, pistol in hand.

The man outside the cabin brought the rifle to his shoulder and watched intently at what was happening inside. Mason drew his knife and held it low, at the ready. Staying in the shadows for as long as possible, he charged across the porch.

By the time the man saw Mason approaching, it was too late. He barreled into him, sending both of them down the stairs to slam into a large red Hummer that was parked out front. They bounced off the truck and fell to the ground.

Landing on top, Mason thrust the knife up under the man’s rib cage. When it hit his backbone, he jerked it out and stabbed again. With the second blow, the man immediately grew limp, his arms falling away to his sides. Leaving the knife sticking out of him, Mason snatched up the rifle and rolled onto his back to face the cabin door. The door to the cabin was still open, but no one came out to check on the commotion.

Taking a moment to examine the rifle, he saw that it was a cheap, Chinese-made AK-47, not something he was willing to let his life depend on. He tossed it aside and drew his Supergrade—not as much firepower but much more reliable. He waited another ten seconds, but no one came out of the cabin. Seeking a better fighting position, Mason stood and quietly advanced to one side of the door.

From inside, he heard Dreadlocks say, “That damn bedroom door must be a foot thick. I don’t care what Ricky says. We’re not getting through it without a grenade.”

“Let’s just take what we can and get the hell out of here,” said a second man. “I got a bad feeling about this place.”

“Ricky thinks there might be a woman hiding in there. Remember how sweet that peach was from the Zippy Mart.”

Both men laughed, the unmistakable sound of lust in their voices.

“You know that Ricky will take her first,” said the second man. “He’ll probably hurt her a bit, too.”

“Long as she’s still kicking, I’ll get mine.”

Both men laughed again.

Mason leaned around the doorframe just far enough to peer into the cabin. Dreadlocks was standing with his back toward Mason. The other man was facing him, but his view was mostly blocked by his partner. Both were carrying handguns and flashlights. The man further away was wearing either a down vest or some form of body armor.

With just his hand and part of his face exposed, Mason raised the Supergrade and shot Dreadlocks in the hamstring. As Dreadlocks fell, the second man raised his pistol and blindly fired two rounds in Mason’s direction. One bullet splintered the top of the doorframe, and the other passed through the open doorway. Mason shot him twice in the groin and once through the left eye. He fell back against a small table, draping over it like a dirty rug.

Dreadlocks screamed in agony, clutching his leg and rolling around on the floor. He still had his pistol in one hand, but his flashlight had fallen away.

“Throw the gun away,” Mason ordered, taking aim at him.

Dreadlocks rolled to his side to see who had shot him. He started to raise his pistol but decided against it.

“Okay, okay. I’m throwing it,” he moaned. He tossed the gun several feet away. “Don’t shoot me again.”

Keeping his pistol aimed at Dreadlocks, Mason stepped into the cabin. A shape suddenly rushed past him from outside. The giant creature descended on the prone man, tearing into him with horrible ferocity. Mason instinctively jumped back and raised his weapon. Only then did he see that it was Bowie.

He moved to grab the dog, but stopped when he realized there was no point. Dreadlocks was already dead, his throat torn out with one powerful rip from Bowie’s massive jaws. Mason stood back, watching as the huge dog shook the man from side to side like he might a child’s doll. When Bowie was satisfied that the man was dead, he dropped the lifeless body to the floor. He turned back to look at Mason, the fur around his mouth wet with blood.

Mason gestured for Bowie to come to him, and the dog immediately obeyed. He bent over and patted Bowie on his side.

“That’s a good boy.” There could be no mixed messages. When it was time to fight, it was time to fight. “All I want to know is how you fit through that window.”

Bowie looked up at him and licked the blood off his lips.

Mason rolled the last body off the bed of his truck, watching as it tumbled down the steep mountain pass like an out-of-control skier. It settled several hundred feet below, not too far from the bodies of the other two men he had killed on the roadway. He rolled up the plastic sheeting that lined the bed into a tight bundle and secured it with a length of black paracord. He suspected that it might come in handy again one day.

He sat down on the edge of his tailgate, and Bowie immediately flopped down beside him, taking up nearly half of the truck bed. With all three men dead, Mason had no way of knowing how they had found his cabin, where they were from, or whether they were part of a larger group. His best guess was that they had come from Boone, since it was the closest town, but it was nothing more than a guess. What was clear was that they were bad guys out doing bad things, and that was enough for him.

He reached down and scratched the dog’s thick neck.

“We got lucky this time.”

Bowie’s hind leg bounced up and down with excitement from each scratch.

“From here on out, we’re going to need to be more careful. Let’s start by making the cabin a bit less accessible. We can drag a few dead trees across the driveway and make the turnoff a bit harder to see by obscuring it with brush. Also, I’ll start parking the truck around back. That will help some, but the truth is we need to think about securing more than just the cabin.”

Bowie raised his head and watched as squirrel ran up a nearby tree. When he was satisfied that it was outside his reach, he flopped back down on Mason’s lap. Unlike his newfound master, he didn’t have a care in the world.

“We could turn this place into a fortress and try to ride things out until the government gets back on its feet,” Mason continued. “A good defense is sometimes enough, yes?”

Bowie looked up at him and gave a short
woof.

While it sounded logical, Mason wasn’t entirely convinced. For one thing, the condition of the government was unclear. Some officials had almost certainly been sequestered in time. The broadcasts seemed to confirm as much. But when and how they would emerge to take charge was anyone’s guess. The lack of broadcasts on the police scanner suggested that law and order had broken down, at least in his immediate area. People were operating in survival mode with every person out for himself. The stability that had taken hundreds of years for the country to establish was destroyed in a few short weeks.