Home Fires Burning (Walking in the Rain Book 2) (15 page)

Darwin’s face darkened at the mention of that name, but he did not try to play games with me.  Instead, he cut right to the heart of the matter.

“Larry Rufus is the Assistant Director of Emergency Services for Siloam Springs.  He’s the man who first approached us about supplying food to the city in exchange for diesel, right after the lights went out.”

“So he knows all about this place?”

“Yes.  I gave him a tour that day.  He also visited with some of our neighbors, who are now in jeopardy as well.  I feel like what happened to Sean Trimble and his family is my fault.  Which is why I plan on spending tomorrow trying to hammer out a mutual defense plan with all of our neighbors.”

With that, Darwin took another sip of his drink and gave a sigh.

“I’m sorry about the way things played out with your brother.  You don’t need the extra stress right now.”

Darwin disagreed.

“This was a long time coming.  Gary always wanted the farm, but he didn’t like doing the work.  I think it is an ego thing.  When our father died, he split the property and gave me the option of buying out Gary and Scott.  Gary took the money, but he acts like he still has a stake in the place.  Now, he would have others think he was responsible for all the preparations we made around here.  The reality is, he did nothing to prepare and showed up here with the clothes on his back.”

“How’s Glenn going to take it? What happened to his father, I mean?”

“Well, considering his father was campaigning hard to get these friends of his run off and left to starve, I guess we will see.  Honestly, I just don’t know Glenn that well since he went off to college and started working in Branson.”

I thought about that for a few minutes.

“Well, sir, you know I’m still planning on heading out soon, right?  I want to do everything I can to secure this farm, and I will come back for Amy when things settle down.  I’ve spoken to Nick about this and he’s promised to watch out for Amy for me while I’m gone.  I just don’t think it’s safe out there for her.” 

“Yes, Nick has mentioned this to me.  You’ve already done a lot around here, but I’ll bet you don’t feel you can leave until Larry Rufus is arrested.”

“No sir.  Not until he is dead.  Then maybe.  The thing is, I couldn’t let Gary say those kinds of things about Amy and feel safe about having her stay here.  He puts out those kinds of ideas, somebody might think there’s some truth to them.”

Darwin seemed to think about my reasoning for a moment.

“God, it seems so juvenile, but I see your point.  The fact is, if Gary doesn’t straighten his attitude up after this, he may be the one shown the road.  He is my brother but nobody else around here causes half the trouble he does.  I think Nick is about ready to do it anyway.”

“If you kick him out with the attitude he has right now, he’ll come back with a hundred men and storm the gates.  If he can’t have it, then no one will.  You know that is true, Mr. Keller.”

“Yes, I know it.  He’s my brother.”  Darwin Keller replied, and I left him sipping his whiskey and thinking dark thoughts into the night.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

              My stint on guard duty lasted until three am and nothing much happened.  After the week I’d been having, I expected to be overrun by an army of Mutant Zombie Bikers.  Instead, I heard coyotes in the distance, but nothing stirred in the woods.  Static watch can be boring but given the tension I was feeling, I never felt the urge to nod off. 

This night I occupied a foxhole up by the road, one of several emplaced by Nick, Scott and Mark in the days after the lights went out.  In the interval, someone had laid a circle of sandbags around the hole and fixed up a camouflaged tarp to keep the rain out.  I would have preferred a handy bush to crawl under and decided to add that idea to my list of things to discuss with Nick in the morning.

After Bruce came on to relieve me, I wandered back over and headed to the barracks.  On my way, I saw a shape sprawled on one of the wooden picnic tables and I slipped over carefully.  I saw it was Nick, and he was awake.        

              “What are you doing?” I husked softly.

              “Can’t sleep,” he replied.

              I gestured and Nick rolled off the table, still fully dressed.  He grabbed his rifle from where he leaned it against the bench seat and I led him over to the foxhole I’d just vacated. 

              “Didn’t I just run you off?” Bruce said softly when he noticed us coming his way.

              “Well, Nick couldn’t sleep, and I’m so young and strong I don’t need it,” I replied with a cocky little laugh.

“So you come to bug me?”

“Ha.  I came to keep you awake old man,” I shot back.  Despite our huge age difference, Bruce reminded me of guys I knew back home.  Laid back country boys, even into their fifties.  I might joke but I still respected his age and experience and I’d already started listening to his stories.  The man could spin a yarn, for sure.

“I’ll take Luke on a circuit outside the fence line to the north.  Take him back to where he got shot and see if he can do a better job of sneaking up on targets.”

Bruce nodded before muttering, “I tell you, this has been a crazy day.  Hell, crazy week,” he added.  He never stopped peering out into the dark.

“Is this how everything is out there?” Bruce finally asked, his question clearly directed at me.

I waited for a beat to think how to answer his question.

“Yes, pretty much.  There are big gangs in places, trying to set up their own little kingdoms, and fighting for food and water.  Other places aren’t so bad with the fighting, but everyone’s still hungry.  It’s why I suggested we try to integrate these folks who came in with Glenn.  If we can work together then you guys can hold the farm.  Adding them will give you another twenty or thirty shooters.”

“You think you can still make it out there?” Nick asked.

“It’s family, man.  You know how that can be.  Need to see if they are still alive.  I’ve come this far, less than five hundred miles to go.  Easy walk.”  I looked over at Nick, barely making him out by the weak moonlight.

“You can make it easier if you ask Scott to keep teaching me those ninja moves.”

“Only if you show us some more of that shit you used on Gary.  What the fuck?  Was that some kind of wrestling?”

“Nah, I just watch a lot of UFC.”

“Bullshit,” Bruce declared, not looking away from the dark.  “That looked like that Krav Maga stuff.  I saw a gym in Little Rock where they teach it.”

“Maybe that’s where I saw it before,” I conceded.  “I’ve never had any formal training, though.  Seriously.  I’ve been in some tussles since all this started happening; you guys know that.”

“Shit,” Nick muttered under his breath.  “You really let a girl beat you up in the third grade?”

“Yeah, well I’ve gotten better.  Plus, I’ve learned not to hesitate before I strike.  And I don’t stop.  Honestly, I was afraid I was going to kill him.  Or gouge out an eye.” 

“Okay” Bruce said.  “I heard you completely disarmed before even going outside.  Was that so…”

When he paused, I filled in the blanks.

“If I’d had a weapon on me, I would have used it.  That’s just instinct.”

“Fuck” Nick said under his breath, “remind me never to spar with you.”

We headed out after that, finding a game trail about a quarter mile into the trees and handrailing it for an hour or so as I wandered loosely around outside the fence line.  I found a downed tree and settled in with my back to the bark.  Seeing this, Nick chose a position on the other side where he could sit facing the opposite direction.

“So, what’s on your mind?” he finally asked.

“That transparent?” I replied.

“Pretty much.  First, what’s the problem with Sid this morning?”

“He froze up. Near as I can tell.  You set up such a sweet ambush and he never fired a round.  I don’t know why, and I’m not bitching now.  We got the job done without him.  Maybe he just didn’t have a target.”

“Bullshit, and you know it,” Nick replied.

“Well, I’ve already got one of your uncles riled up at me.  No reason to add another, but if he can’t be relied on to do the job, then…”

“He’ll need to be replaced, or retasked.  Do you think he just froze, period, or was it because we were bushwhacking those men?”

“I started to ask if there’s a difference, but obviously there is one.  Killing them from hiding is cowardly and lowdown.  Also the right thing to do.  Maybe he’s just seen too many Westerns.”

Nick said he’d talk to Sid, and for now his uncle was off the security team until they had that conversation.

“So what’s bothering you?” I asked in turn.  “Something had you out there staring at the stars.”

“Just thinking of better days, you know?”

I did.  I still looked up at the stars at night.  I didn’t say anything. Waiting for Nick to get to the real reason he was awake at three in the morning.

“We’re going to have to go get the rest of those girls.”

He didn’t have to say which girls.

“Yep,” I said.

“They got nobody looking out for them and their parents are hundreds of miles away.”

“Yep,” I said again.

“Is that all you can say?”

“Nope.”

“You aren’t very funny kid.”

I finally got serious.  “We need to get them out, arrange for a change in management at the refugee center and take out Larry Rufus.  All the while avoiding being overrun by the starving hordes streaming out of the cities.  That about cover it?”

“What about Uncle Gary?”

“Well, just between me and you and the fencepost, unless your uncle undergoes a pretty drastic change of heart, he’s not going to make it.  One way or another.”

“That’s cold.  I know you can’t stand him, and I understand why you kicked his ass, too.  But he’s family.  Like you said before, that has to count.”

“Well, Nick, you might want to discuss that with your father.  I think he’s seriously concerned about your uncle trying to stage a coup, or something.”

I sighed.  My ribs hurt when I did it.

“I guess we need to see about getting in contact with the ANG.”

“The who?”

“The Arkansas National Guard. I’ll bet they are still mobile because a bunch of their vehicles are so old they don’t have anything computerized in their engines.  You know that had to be who the little girl was talking about at the school.”

“Carrie, yes.  You know, probably a dicey idea.  But they could help with several of those problems.”

“You don’t sound enthused, Luke.  What, did you have to top a squad of national guardsmen to escape one of those FEMA camps?”

Nick said it as a joke, and I didn’t move a muscle.  Couldn’t move at that moment as it all came rushing back.

After a full minute of silence, Nick whispered, his lips close to my ear as he was suddenly struck by a sense of caution.

“Are you serious?”

“I ain’t saying nothing, boss.  Just don’t go expecting them to be the same boys you knew from the Army.”

We sat in silence for a while after that, until Nick rose and headed back to the farm.  I know Nick was burning to ask me for more details of my unfortunate dealings with those assholes in Missouri, but I wasn’t ready to volunteer that information.  Killing anybody is bad enough, but killing uniformed military at a time when Martial Law was the law of the land?  Right or wrong, that might not be something that could just be ignored.  The powers that be hate when their thugs are made an example, instead of the other way around.    

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

I slept late the next day, until around eight am, which meant I still managed to squeeze out another three hours of much needed sleep.  I showered, enjoying the cold water on my sore muscles, and checked my face in the mirror.  A few bruises, and a tiny patch of skin missing on my chin but nothing too noticeable.  My shirt would cover the damage to my chest, back and sides.  Gary’s fists definitely left their marks.  I wondered how he looked this morning. 

I missed breakfast, too, but that was okay.  I’d last until lunch.  Not the first meal I’d skipped in the last few months.  I think I was even gaining a few pounds since Doc Cass stayed on my tail.  She’d given me a check up last night before I laid down to nap after the fight.  I turned down the offered pain medication, even though it was just Tylenol, telling her I’d gotten hurt worse at football practice.

Darwin, I found out, had gone over at first light and had a sit down with James and Glenn.  Stan filled me in as we sorted the loot “liberated” from the raider camp.  No one knew the details yet, but Darwin had asked Stan to get my help in sorting.  We were using the big horse barn since they were out grazing for the day and everything would end up either added to our supplies or hauled across the road.

I also found out Stan was the reason I got those few extra hours of sack time.  As he put it, he was doing prep work and didn’t need me getting in the way.