Take Back Denver (11 page)

McLean nodded and trotted off down the deer trail to his camp. Within a few steps he and Bosin had lost sight of each other. The moon had yet to come out, and the night was pitch black.

As McLean approached the grove he began to look and listen for his horse. The closer he got, the more concerned he became that he hadn’t heard a single snort or whinny. It was still too early for the animal to be sleeping. Had it wandered off? He’d double-checked his knot, but there was always the chance that his equine friend had found a clever way to tear it loose.

He froze just before entering the little clearing by the tree where he’d stashed his gun and bedroll. His rifle was leaning up against a boulder in the middle of the clearing, the spot where he’d rested his back while brewing a cup of tea that morning over a tiny, smokeless fire. But that wasn’t where he’d left it. He would never have been so careless.

Slowly, silently, he began to back away. Suddenly the sound of distant gunshots rang out, somewhere back in the hills toward the track Bosin had taken.

A man leaned out of the darkness and aimed a gun at McLean. “Don’t move!”

McLean turned and darted away, crouching low and throwing himself sideways into a dense patch of oak.

“
Shoot ‘im! Shoot ‘im!” a voice called out behind him, and a shot cracked and ricocheted off a trunk to his left. McLean stumbled and ran into an oak tree, leaving a lump on his forehead, and managed to crawl away several more yards through undergrowth without being shot.

He felt like an idiot. All his precautions were for nothing. They had his horse, his equipment, and his rifle. Even if he could live through the night, it would be a grim journey back to the ranch with no food, no gun, no horse, and no bedding.

He scrambled to his feet and hurried through the trees to the edge of the grove, then checked for movement out in the open. Seeing none by the meager starlight, he ran across the open ground and into another clump of woods.

He still had a folding knife and his handgun, along with a few bits and pieces of kit that he’d had on him for surveillance: his binoculars, a water bottle, a handkerchief, and some small items in his pants pockets. He took out his pistol now and readied it. He was breathing heavily and knew he wouldn’t be able to shoot straight after his frantic escape. He took a moment to steady himself and try to think. Which way should he go? Would they expect him to head west? Should he double back?

While he still stood there, a patrol of four men with guns came around a clump of trees and spotted him. The moon was just over the horizon now and it added enough illumination to the starlight that he wasn’t so invisible any more. These men were on his left, and the first ones to shoot at him were still behind somewhere. He could only go straight ahead toward a hill, or right into some dense brush. He opted for the brush.

Another crack rang out and he felt the whip of a bullet streaking by closer than he liked. The sound of crashing footsteps rushing through the woods behind him revealed his first pursuers’ proximity. It was a desperate moment; they were closing in on him, and if there were more in the hills ahead of him, he’d be completely boxed in. His luck had run out.

Reaching another deer trail that led around the side of a hill to the west, he sprinted. Stealth didn’t matter any more. He could be shot at any moment and needed distance more than anything.

As he ran, he wondered if Bosin had been killed or captured. If so, it was probably McLean’s fault. His horse must have given away the fact that someone was lurking in the hills around the prison, someone with an outlawed rifle. The patrol that found his camp had probably sent runners to bring reinforcements to flood the hills while a few stayed behind to ambush him. Apparently others had run into Bosin, hence the distant shots.

Crossing by the mouth of a small draw, he saw a man coming down the ravine toward him. It wasn’t Bosin. The man shouted something at him. McLean ran faster, trying to make some trees on the side of a hill ahead. With this new pursuer on his heels and the rest just behind, though, he knew he wasn’t going to make it. There were probably soldiers all over the area now, and even more forming a cordon at all the entrances into the hill country.

He needed to take out at least one of his enemies, the nearest one. That would give him a few precious seconds and slow the rest down; no one would be eager to be at the front of the line rushing through the darkness toward someone they knew was armed and ready.

He looked for a rock or hillock he could get behind for shooting cover. There wasn’t a good one. There was a small ripple in the ground ahead that he could lie in and shoot from, but it wouldn’t provide real cover. If the men at his back got into shooting positions of their own, they’d nail him in the back whenever he tried to rise and keep going. Or just plug him in the face as he lay there.

Instead of diving for cover he kept running up the hill and reached his gun backward for a few quick shots. He half turned and saw the man who had come down the draw stop and take a bead on him. McLean fired twice while still running, desperate to put the shooter on the defensive. Both two shots went hopelessly high, but out of the corner of his eye he nonetheless saw his pursuer go down.

Was his luck finally returning? That was impossible. He was sure his shots hadn’t gone anywhere near their target. A second later he realized he’d heard a rifle report from the hilltop above him, almost simultaneous with his own shots. He stopped and crouched, looking back to confirm that his nearest pursuer was down, and then looking up the hill. Who was up there? Could Bosin have come to the rescue with his scoped rifle?

He saw three dark shapes kneeling behind rocks and fallen trees near the crest of the hill. Two more came into view on the side he was heading toward, and he heard another approaching farther down the draw to his left. Had more Correctionists, boxing him in from the west, just shot their own man? The questions came fast and thick, and he had no answers, so he remained crouching where he was, unwilling to go up the hill into the arms of the shooters there, but pinned down from all other directions as well.

Expecting any moment to be hit with a bullet, he held his pistol tightly and tried his best to melt into the ground at his feet. He briefly wondered if raising his hands and surrendering would do him any good, but the adrenaline pumping through him wouldn’t allow it. He couldn’t bring himself to loosen his grip on his pistol or say anything at all.

The shooters on the hill fired again, four-five-six shots in quick succession. McLean flinched, but the muzzle flashes were aimed over his head to the trail behind him. He watched as the other soldiers that had been chasing him scattered. Two went back the way they had come. One got behind a boulder and returned fire, but another hail of gunfire from the hilltop convinced him he didn’t have as good a position as he needed to engage a group of sharpshooters on higher ground. He dived into a copse of trees and disappeared.

“
Friendly?” McLean called out, voice quavering horribly.

“
Bosin, is that you?” one the sharpshooters called back.

“
I’m not Bosin,” McLean replied, relief flooding his system. “But I’ve been with him all afternoon. Are you on his side?”

Two of the gun-toting figures ahead of him on the hill came toward him and at this closer distance he could see they weren’t wearing uniforms. One was a short woman carrying a hunting crossbow. The other was a large bear of a man with dark paint on his face.

“
I thought Bosin was alone,” the man said. “We were supposed to rendezvous with him at some point. Who are you?”

“
Name’s McLean. I ran into him while scoping out the prison, and we worked together for a while. Then we split up again.”

The man turned around. “Anybody know a McLean?” He turned back. “Did you escape from the prison or something?”

Before McLean could answer, another figure came rushing toward him along the side of the hill. It was another woman, taller this time and carrying a rifle, with a black scarf wrapped around her face to hide it from the moonlight. The way she moved was familiar, and when she pulled the cloth down around her neck, McLean recognized her. It was the one woman he most wanted, but least expected to see, in the whole world.

Carrie paused a few feet from him to verify that her ears and eyes weren’t just giving in to wishful thinking, and then slammed into him with a hug so fierce that he almost went over backwards.

“
Carrie?”

“
McLean!”

He dropped his pistol on the ground in his shock and gripped Carrie by the shoulders. “Is it really you? What in the world--”

“
I came to find you! Well, to find these guys, but I hoped-- I can’t believe-- oh, McLean!” She buried her face in his jacket and clung to him desperately.

“
Okay,” the large man, who was Carl Walsh, said, putting up his hands. “I’m going to assume that Carrie is vouching for you, Mr. McLean. Do you need a firearm?”

McLean stooped and picked up his fallen pistol. “I’ve got this. They took my rifle, and my horse, and my kit.”

“
Our plan was to knock over the prison tonight, hit and run, see what damage we can cause. You with us?”

McLean nodded. “If Carrie’s with you, I’m with you. How many are you?”

Carl shrugged. “Enough to give these peckers a run for their money. By the time a coordinated response arrives from Colorado Springs, we’ll be dust in the wind.”

“
That sounds good to me.” McLean turned to Carrie. “Darren Bailey’s in there. If we can get him out--”

They all heard a coyote howl, curiously loud and close.

“
That’s Bosin!” the short woman said.

“
Bosin! Come in, we’re having a chat with your compatriot here,” Carl called out.

A few seconds later Micah Bosin emerged from the trees at the bottom of the hill and made his way up to the group.

“
Glad to see you,” McLean said, shaking his hand. “I was afraid I’d messed things up for you really badly.”

“
They tried to get me, but I gave ‘em the slip,” Bosin replied. He nodded at the others. “Carl. Marie.”

Carl gestured down the hill. “Sounds like you ran into some trouble. Do you have anything to report? We decided to move in early and just find you in the field.”

Bosin nodded. “Bad move, Carl. The general was here a few hours ago.”

Carl scowled. “This raid was supposed to be done in his absence. If we hit the prison now, he’ll be after us like a cat on a carp.”

“
Yeah,” Bosin continued, “and while the prison is understaffed and could probably be taken, there are a lot of prisoners and they’re not in too good of shape. If we spring ‘em all now, they’re likely to get rounded up and shot by morning. If we shoot up the place but leave it intact, the general will have it locked down tight next time we come.”

As they stood there in the moonlight talking, a low sound rolled over the terrain that started as a low mutter and progressed into hum that couldn’t be ignored, then became a distant thud-thud-thud.

“
Chopper!”

“
Okay, that’s it,” Carl told the others. He waved the arm that wasn’t holding his gun in a circle. “Full retreat, all the way back home. Make yourselves scarce! I don’t know if that thing has a search light, but we need to get out of here as quickly as we can. Stick to the trees, and spread out. If it gets near, find some cover and hunker down.”

McLean and Carrie immediately started moving off with the others. The sharpshooters on the hilltop were already down and booking it along the trail.

“
Wait, what about the people in the prison?” Carrie asked. “We have a friend in there.”

Carl shook his head. “Your boyfriend here seems to have really roiled the hornets’ nest. We’re nowhere near ready for an extended battle against a helicopter and troops with General Maughan at the head. He’s a canny bastard, selected for this region specifically to clamp down on our efforts. No ma’am, now is most definitely not the time.”

They hurried down the hill and into a patch of woodland. “So if not now, then when?” McLean asked Carl. “Bosin said this general will tighten security. Are we ever going to be able to break open this prison?”

Carl shook his head. “I don’t know. We don’t have the manpower to take General Maughan head on. We’ve just been harassing him, making sure they know we’re not going to bend over in this region. But with winter coming on, and Maughan staying close with a chopper and ground armor in the area… I honestly have no idea when we’ll be able to get in there.”

“
What about Denver?” Carrie asked. “You told me these troops were heading toward Denver. Is there any hope of stopping them?”

“
Slowing them down, maybe. Stopping them would take a lot more firepower than I have access to. But at this point, any pitched battle out in the open is going to end up with us being slaughtered.”

Bosin jogged beside them. “Denver’s a lost cause, lady. Your friend and I witnessed the city’s old mayor cozying up to the general. He’s sold the place out. They’ve beaten us to it.”

Carl grunted. “Come spring, maybe we can stage a counterattack. If we can get a lot of people behind us, coordinate it all somehow. For now, we melt away into the mountains and try not to die.”