Invasion USA (4 page)

Why?

4

On the CD player in the F-150's dashboard, Chris LeDoux sang about how the cowboy was still out there ridin' fences. “You just can't see him from the road,” Tom Brannon sang along when the song got to that part.

He knew he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. His wife Bonnie had told him that often enough. Brannon didn't care. He liked singing along with his favorite songs. But out of consideration for others, he confined it to the times when he was alone in the pickup.

He was east of town, driving toward Little Tucson. He had been out to see his folks, who still lived by themselves on the family spread at the edge of the Sierritas even though they were getting on in years. Herbert Brannon had to use a walker to get around most of the time now. His wife Mildred took care of him and wouldn't hear any talk about putting Herb in a home or some such foolishness like that. But her health wasn't as good as it had once been, either. Tom didn't know what he was going to do about the situation, but the time was coming when he would have to do
something
. He had a couple of older sisters, but one of them lived up in Flagstaff and the other over in California, in Bakersfield. He was the one still close to home, so he was the one who had inherited the job of looking after their folks. He tried to check in on them at least three times a week.

The spread wasn't a working ranch anymore, of course. All the stock had been sold off long ago. But it was home to Herb and Millie, and naturally they didn't want to leave it, even though it would have been easier on Tom if they lived closer to town. He had a business to run, too. Luckily, he had a good manager in Louly Parker and a couple of dependable part-time employees. They kept the auto parts store running pretty smoothly. Of course, business wasn't what it had once been. Ever since the SavMart had moved in on the western edge of town, Tom's sales had declined. He had enough loyal customers to keep him going, though, at least until they all died off. When that happened . . . well, he could always go to work for SavMart himself. If they didn't need anybody in the auto parts department, he could stand at the door and say howdy to folks when they came in. He wondered idly if he ought to practice asking, “Need a buggy?”

That was when a flash of red caught his eye, and he noticed the little car parked on the dirt road, a couple of hundred yards north of the highway.

A frown creased Brannon's forehead. He saw a faint haze of dust hanging in the air along the dirt road. The red car had just driven along there and stopped within the last few minutes. Brannon had to wonder what the driver was doing out there. There was nothing around at that spot, no reason for anybody to stop.

Brannon kept his left hand on the wheel of the F-150 and in a habitual gesture ran his right hand over the close-cropped sandy hair that was starting to turn gray in places. He had kept the short haircut ever since he came back from Vietnam. It was simple, and Tom Brannon was a man who liked simple things. That was one reason he had never left Little Tucson except for a few years at the university in Tempe and his hitch in 'Nam. He was a small-town man, always had been, always would be.

And folks from small towns still looked out for their neighbors, even in this day and age when it seemed like nobody trusted anybody. Maybe whoever was in that little red car was having trouble. Wouldn't hurt to go take a look.

Brannon turned the F-150 onto the dirt road.

He was less than halfway to the car when he realized that he recognized it. He slowed to a stop. The car was a Nissan and had a distinctively shaped bumper sticker on the rear bumper. Even though Brannon couldn't read the words from this distance, he knew the bumper sticker came from the Torres Insurance Agency. The Nissan belonged to Carla May Willard. A week earlier, Brannon had sold her a bulb for her license plate light so the car would pass the annual safety inspection. He had gone outside the store and replaced the bulb for her, too, so she wouldn't have to fool with trying to do it herself. Just a friendly gesture. He liked Carla May, and there had been a time when it had looked like she would wind up being his daughter-in-law. She had dated his son Brian all through junior and senior year in high school and they had talked about getting married after they got through with college.

Of course, it hadn't worked out that way. Carla May—she had been Carla May Stevens at the time—had gotten mixed up with that no-account Danny Willard. Brannon could have told her that she was making a mistake. She would have been a lot better off with Brian, and that was just unbiased fact, not opinion. Young people had to work out these things for themselves, though. A couple of years later, Carla May had married Danny. She stuck it out for eight years, putting up with the drinking and the running around with other women that the whole town knew about, and likely she would have still been married to him if he hadn't up and left her.

When Danny left town, Brannon had thought about calling Brian up in Phoenix and sort of casually mentioning that Carla May was single again. In the end, though, he had decided not to meddle in his son's life. Brian would hear sooner or later that Carla May was divorced, and if he wanted to do something about it, he would.

Those thoughts flashed through Brannon's brain in a matter of seconds even though they had nothing to do with the question of what Carla May's car was doing parked out here in the middle of nowhere. It looked to be empty, yet it hadn't been there long. Carla May couldn't have gone very far.

Then Brannon's eyes, still very keen despite his fifty-four years, spotted movement inside the car. A little hand waved in the air in the back seat.

Good Lord! The baby's still strapped into her carseat
, Tom thought. Now he
knew
something was wrong. Carla May would never go off and leave little Emily alone in the car like that. The day was already heating up. Kids died from being left in cars like that. Brannon gunned the F-150 forward.

He brought the pickup to a stop behind the Nissan and got out quickly. At least the windows were down in the car; that was something, anyway. Emily couldn't have gotten too hot already. She smiled up at Brannon as he reached in the open window and tickled a finger under her chin. “Where's your mama?” he asked. The car was empty except for the toddler.

“Gone wi' men,” Emily gurgled.

Brannon looked in the front seat. His eyes narrowed as he spotted a small drop of red on the upholstery. Was that blood? His gut told him that something was very wrong here.

“What men?” he asked Emily. “Where?”

She stuck her thumb in her mouth and didn't answer. But she lifted her other arm and pointed.

Brannon turned toward a clump of paloverde that sat fifty or sixty yards off the dirt road. He knew there was a dry wash on the other side of the trees. The wash ran full of water every time it rained, and enough of that moisture was trapped under the ground to keep the trees alive.

“You stay here,” he told Emily unnecessarily. The child couldn't get out of the carseat, so she wasn't going anywhere. Brannon stepped back to the F-150, reached into the cab, and took a tire iron out from under the seat.

He walked with long strides toward the paloverde trees and the dry wash beyond them. His pulse raced. He had seen his share of action in Vietnam, but that was a long time in the past. He was in good shape, always kept active, did plenty of hunting and fishing, and when his kids were young he had hiked with them all over this part of the country. He thought he could handle himself all right in case of trouble. But it had been a lot of years since he'd had any proof of that.

He worried about what he was going to find when he got to the wash. Carla May could have been kidnapped and brought out here by somebody who intended to rape and murder her. Brannon hated to think that such a thing could happen in this generally peaceful area he had always called home, but he wasn't wearing rose-colored glasses. This was an era in which bad things happened all the time, in just about any place you could think of. Why, just a few days earlier, members of that M-15 gang had killed two of Brannon's friends and customers. Louly had even witnessed one of the killings, just as she was about to open up the auto parts store. She had seen Burt Minnow gunned down in front of his printing shop.

There was just no telling what might happen these days.

Brannon stiffened as he neared the trees and heard sobbing. His hand tightened on the tire iron.

Moving quickly but silently, he glided into the trees, a big, fair-haired man, light on his feet for his size, maybe a little thicker through the middle than he had once been. He wore jeans and a faded blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was about as common-looking a man as you could find. Stick him in a crowd and nobody would notice him.

There was no crowd out here now. Just Tom Brannon. Just one man.

He crouched near the edge of the wash and looked past the trunk of a paloverde. The wash was about six feet deep, with a relatively flat, sandy bottom. Carla May was sprawled down there with a man on top of her, his bare ass bobbing up and down as he pumped away between her thighs. A gun lay on the ground beside them. Brannon recognized it as a high-powered machine pistol, though he couldn't have said who the manufacturer was.

Another man stood over them, watching avidly. He had the same sort of gun in his hands. More than likely, he was supposed to be keeping a lookout, but he was too interested in what his friend was doing to Carla May. He didn't even glance toward Brannon.

Carla May still wore a short-sleeved blouse, but her captors had ripped the rest of her clothes off of her. She lay there stiffly, sobbing, as her attacker finished up. He pushed himself off of her and got to his feet a little shakily, leaving his gun lying on the ground. As he reached down to pull his jeans up, he said something in Spanish to the other one. Brannon was fluent in the language, and his jaw tightened in anger as the two men laughed at the vile comment. The second one set his gun down and reached for his belt, eager to undo his trousers and take his turn with their helpless victim.

This was the time, Brannon knew. Neither of them was holding a gun, but that wouldn't last very long. He had to
move
.

Coming up out of his crouch, he lifted the tire iron over his head in both hands and sprang out into the wash. He didn't yell or anything but rather attacked in silence. He drove the heel of his right boot into the small of one man's back and swung the tire iron at the other man's head.

That one turned and managed to fling an arm up to block the blow. The tire iron struck it solidly with most of Brannon's two hundred pounds behind the blow. The man's forearm snapped like a stick, breaking with a sharp crack. He screamed and staggered back.

Brannon landed awkwardly on the floor of the wash, stumbling a couple of steps before he caught his balance. He twisted around and saw that his kick had knocked the first man onto his hands and knees. Brannon lunged after him, slashing downward with the tire iron. The tool slammed into the man's side. Brannon hoped it broke some ribs. As the man collapsed, Brannon hit him again, aiming at his head this time. He fully intended to cave in the bastard's skull, but his aim was off a little and the blow was only a glancing one. It still landed hard enough to open up a gash and knock the man senseless.

Whirling, Brannon saw that the man with the broken arm had recovered enough to be going for the guns. Brannon was closer, though. He slung the tire iron at the guy, making him duck. That gave Brannon time to scoop up one of the guns. He hoped there was no trick to firing it, like some safety that was hard to find.

He didn't have to worry about that. The gun chattered and roared when he pulled the trigger.

It also nearly got away from him. He had to steady it with both hands. Dirt flew in the air near the feet of the man with the broken arm as a stream of bullets plowed a furrow in the floor of the wash. The man reversed course with frantic agility to avoid running right into the torrent of lead. He scrambled toward the bank of the wash. Brannon hosed another burst after him but missed again. He grimaced. If he'd had his deer rifle or his old Army automatic, that son of a bitch would be on the ground with lead in him by now.

As it was, though, the man disappeared over the bank. Brannon went after him, reluctant to let him get away. But the man was sprinting toward the mountains, never looking back as he cradled his injured arm against his chest with his other hand. He was injured and unarmed, and Brannon decided that he was no longer an immediate threat. The way he was taking off for the tall and uncut, he looked like he might not stop until he got to New Mexico.

Besides, one of the scumbags was still here, and there was no telling when he might regain consciousness. Brannon had to do something about him.

And about Carla May, as well. She had scooted over to the edge of the wash and now sat there with her legs drawn up and her back pressed against the bank, watching Brannon with wide, horror-filled eyes. When he took a step toward her, she cried out and flinched. He realized that she might not recognize him.

“Carla May,” he said in a quiet but urgent voice. “Carla May, it's all right. You know me. I'm Tom Brannon. Brian's dad, remember? I put a light bulb in your license plate light last week?”

She stared at him for a long moment. Finally, some of the blind terror faded from her eyes and was replaced by awareness. “M-Mr. Brannon?” she managed to gasp.

“That's right,” he told her. “You're okay now, Carla May. Nobody's going to hurt you anymore.”

Her eyes widened again. “Emily!”

“She's fine. She's still in the car. Might be frettin' a little by now, but she ought to be all right.”