Home Fires Burning (Walking in the Rain Book 2) (10 page)

“Yes sir.  Partly.  You haven’t seen the mobs of starving city dwellers yet, but I fear they are coming.  You may have some time before those mobs work their way into the countryside around here.  And Mr. Keller, I don’t know how to say this, but I think you have another problem I hadn’t anticipated.”

“Well, that can’t be good,” Stan muttered under his breath.  The words were clearly not meant to be overheard, but in the silence he could quickly tell he was wrong.  His blush of embarrassment almost made me smile.

“Nick, I didn’t want to ambush you with this news, but Mrs. Trimble was so scared she only dared to discuss this subject with me right before we headed out.  Frankly, I need to ask her more questions, but here’s what I suspect right now: somebody tied in with a city government nearby has been trading with at least this one gang of raiders.  I think this person or persons are responsible for selling the locations of farms that are still inhabited.  Further, I think this is why we had our buddy Murray snooping around.”

Well, that sure set them off.  I sat quietly while the elders discussed the possibility of a betrayal by the very people they were aiming to help.  The volume quickly rose to a dull roar until Darwin cut off debate with a sharp word.

“Hold!  Luke, that’s a pretty darned inflammatory thing to toss out in this meeting.  What exactly did Mrs. Trimble have to say?”

“Four days ago, somebody showed up at the camp shortly after she and her family arrived.  She did not see them drive up, and she did not hear a name mentioned, but the man she saw arrived with two bodyguards dressed as police officers.  This man met with the leader of the gang, someone named Randall or Randy, and afterwards her youngest daughter was given to the man as entertainment for the night.

“The next morning, when Delilah, battered and bleeding, was returned to their tent, she thought she saw a gang member leaving the camp.  She heard his name mentioned.  It was Murray.  That’s all she said, but she might know more and not realize.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Sid Stevenson muttered softly.  I sounded more like a prayer than a curse.  “What she saw, no wonder she was worried about confiding in you.  If this person is dealing with these raiders you described, he would not hesitate to kill her and the rest of her family to keep that connection secret.”

“Uncle Sid’s right,” Nick said, joining in the conversation.  “That information can’t leave this room until we know who can be trusted.  Luke, do you think she could describe this man?”

“I reckon.  Once she’s had some time to recover.”

“Actually” Scott chimed in for the first time, “if we want as accurate a description as possible, we need to collect her statement immediately.  Maybe she can give us a description of the uniforms she saw as well.  Could be imposters, or guys wearing rent-a-cop outfits instead of actual law enforcement.”

That made a lot of sense, and reminded me we actually had unused resources right here on the farm.  Scott was not, as I suspected, a professional hunting guide or a poacher.  Nick had revealed he was actually a game warden, which in addition to chasing poachers and hassling drunken boaters, also meant he had law enforcement training.

“Yeah, well that’s why I held off on repeating anything she said over the radio.  No sense in broadcasting what we know.  By the way, is Murray still alive or …”

“He’s alive.  For now.  Tied up and dumped in a drainage pit over in the hog barn.” Nick said angrily.  “He’s still got questions to answer and now we have more information to work with.  I wonder why he told us the location but lied about their numbers?”

  I shrugged.  “Maybe he was hoping we would just roll in there and get ourselves killed.  That would lead his friends straight back to the farm.  Maybe you can ask him that very question.”

“Bet on it.  We went easy the first time.”  Mark chimed in, and I saw the dark cast to his eyes.  Seeing what Murray’s friends had done meant the gloves were off for the younger Keller brother.

“We’ll find out what he knows, Dar” Scott agreed.  “What is the plan for tomorrow?”

“Tonight.  We still have a little daylight.  Nick, you and Scott should go have another talk with our guest.  Mark, will you and young Luke take care of unloading the weapons and ammo from the truck?  Looks like ya’ll hauled back enough weapons to start a war.”

Darwin’s two sons and his youngest brother all agreed and stood as if to leave, but the old man wasn’t done.

“Tomorrow, you all need to go back out there bright and early.  Take more trucks and as many men as you think you need.  Bring back those poor innocent victims for a proper burial here.  Then I want to visit with each and every neighbor within a ten mile radius.  We won’t say anything about what Mrs. Trimble confided, not directly.  But, Nick, if you and Scott can do it, I want a name.  Find out who is willing to trade with raiders and rape little girls, and we will see about getting a little justice.”

Pounding the table once with a big, work scarred fist, Darwin Keller was letting off some of the steam that had accumulated during the discussion.  Nobody had anything to say after that.  What was there to say?

I was the last in line to exit and once out in the hallway, I found Amy waiting for me once again.  She looked at the bandage on my arm but I shook my head.

“Just a burn.  Nothing to it.  I’m sure you’ve done worse with a curling iron.  How are you?”

“I’m fine, now.  The first thing Scott did when he got back was let everybody know ya’ll were okay.  I thought Mark’s wife Candace was going to have a heart attack she was so worried.”  Amy said, taking my hand in hers so naturally I didn’t even protest. 

I looked over this girl I had grown so attached to and gave her my best smile.  She was clean and smelled nice and appeared happy.  I realized at that moment there was no way she would be accompanying me on the next leg of my journey.  If the Keller family would agree to it, I would leave Amy here while I continued on to Texas.

“What’s wrong with Mark’s wife?” I finally asked, my attention coming back to the here and now.

“She’s about six months pregnant, silly.  She was worried about her man.”  Amy explained.  She waited a beat before adding, “We all were.”

“Well, we are back safe and sound,” I replied, “and now I’ve got to get to work before Mr. Darwin comes looking for me with a switch.”

Amy gave me a wry smile before leaning in close to speak again.  She spoke softly, her words for my ears alone.

“Silly, nobody is going to come after you with a switch.  They’re all too scared of you.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“At Saw Creek.  I heard Scott telling Mr. Keller about what happened.  They were in the cattle barn and didn’t know I was there feeding the calves.  He told his father that you killed half those men by yourself, with nothing but your knife.  I think word got around pretty quick after that.”

“Great.  They went from thinking I’m a no-good drifter to worrying I’m Billy the Kid.  Or worse.”

Amy frowned, her tanned features drawing up in a look of concern.

“Luke, I don’t think it will be like that.  Not for most of them.  Not even the homebodies believe you’re a threat.  Not after they saw the condition of those poor girls you brought in with Doc Cass.”

“Homebodies?” I asked stupidly.

“You know, the people who haven’t been off the farm since the world came unglued?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that description.  I figured that label applied to most people here until today since Nick, Scott and Mark did the bulk of the scouting and handled the milk and egg runs into town.  Maybe Bruce.  Stan and Ruth definitely knew the way the world was trending outside the front gate. 

Shaking off my woolgathering, I asked Amy if she had a few minutes to help me with something.  She agreed without hesitating.  No surprise; Amy was always willing to do her part and more.  Taking Amy’s hand again, I guided her out the back door and around to the garage where Mark was already waiting.

“Hey, Mark.  Sorry I’m late but I enlisted a little assistance here,” I said, and gave a wave to indicate Amy.

“Well, thanks, Miss Landon, but some of these guns are nasty and need a thorough cleaning and the ammo cans are really heavy.”

Amy laughed.  “I’m not here to do any of those things.  That’s for you big strong men.  Luke asked me to come supervise.”

After leaving Mark to stand dumbfounded for a second or two, I finally stepped up to explain.

“Mark, she’s going to inventory what we unload.  I figure since it has to be done anyway, why not handle that little chore now?  Just keep tally of what you are pulling off the truck and tell Miss Smartypants here.  For example, this is one can, 420 rounds, 5.56x45, 62 grain, full metal jacket.”

Amy, pencil in one hand and notepad in the other, jotted down the particulars as I listed them for her.  Mark watched and nodded along before climbing up in the truck bed to start handing down more boxes.  I stacked the metal cans neatly while Amy checked another hashmark on her list.

“Wow, that’s a lot of ammo,” Amy said when we finally finished uploading the cans.

“Let’s see, 420 rounds by 20 cans equals…8,400 rounds” I said, doing the math quick in my head.  “Mark can tell you, this is not really all that much in a fight.  There’s probably another 10,000 rounds of mixed 5.56 and .223 in a bunch of different boxes.  We’ll want to keep track of the weight in grains and also if it is FMJ or what.”

Mark finally spoke up.  I could tell all the stuff he’d seen and done today was weighing on his mind.  He nodded absently in my direction, as if conceding something, before his words come.

“Yeah, you can burn through a basic load of 210 rounds in before you know it.  Now, full auto stuff is where you really chew it up.  Dad said we picked up enough guns and ammo to fight a war.   After today, something tells me we are going to need it.”

I didn’t bother to speak, but I didn’t disagree.  The war had already started.  Maybe it started five minutes after the lights went out, but some folks hadn’t seen the fighting yet.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Up well before dawn yet again, I joined the crew as Nick led a convoy of three trucks and eight men back to the site of the Battle of Saw Creek.  That’s what the other men were calling it.  For me, this was just another tick mark on my map.  One more place I’d been forced to end lives.  To kill some mother’s son.  Funny, I didn’t feel even a tinge of regret this time.  I kept that little tidbit to myself, but it was still just the truth.  I’d learned some men just needed killing.

So, after scouting the camp and surrounding area for returned raiders or other vermin, Scott ground guided in the first of the trucks.  He directed Bruce to park over past the middle of the raider camp and near the location of the body dump he found.  This truck was lined with plastic tarps and would serve as the hearse for the dead we would be taking back.

I’d volunteered to help wrap and load the dead, and Scott worked with me to get the corpses sealed in several layers of plastic sheeting.  Using plenty of duct tape, we tried to fold and generally make them airtight because the bodies were already well into decomposition from the summer heat and the humidity.

Scott threw up twice.  I managed to keep my meager breakfast down and succeeded, but only by focusing on anything but the bodies I made myself handle.  We wore rain slicker suits and thick kitchen gloves that would be burned once the chore was completed.  That wasn’t for some silly ceremonial reason, either.  Doc Cass worried about contamination. 

Once the bodies were carefully stowed in the designated truck bed, Scott and I stripped out of the gear and took a break to rehydrate.

“Doesn’t the smell bother you?” Scott finally asked.  He was digging through his small scout pack for a replacement t- shirt for the one he’d already sweated through.

“Oh, yeah.  I hate that smell.  I’ve just learned to, well, sort of turn off my sense of smell.”

“Seriously?  Can you teach me how?”  Scott asked, his voice serious.

“Sure, it’s only a focus thing.  Just retraining your brain.  Try to think about something else and ignore your body’s reaction to the scent.  Before long, you will be aware of the smell but not really notice.  Keep your brain working to ignore the stink long enough and it will.”

“How long did it take you to learn how to do that?”

“About two weeks, more or less.  The thing is, you have to do it carefully.  Don’t filter the scent out completely or you might miss a clue.  Sometimes, the scent of death in the air could save your life.”

“True, true.  Like Stan says, is that something you learned as a Boy Scout?”

Laughing seemed out of place around all this death, but I forced a grim smile.

“No, just a talent I picked up on the road.  Now that I’ve revealed one of my secrets, I want you to teach me how you can manage to move through the woods like a ninja.”