The Valley: A Lee Harden Novel, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by D.J. Molles Books LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
For permission requests, contact djmollesbooks@gmail.com.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Book Cover by James T. Egan, Bookfly Designs
ISBN Print Paperback: 979-8386061234
ASIN: B0C1FDJNJX
First edition 2023
For Jim Hetrick,
whose voice I still hear,
telling me to run faster,
fight harder, and shoot straighter.
Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
36. Chapter 36
37. Chapter 37
38. Chapter 38
39. Chapter 39
40. Chapter 40
41. Chapter 41
42. Chapter 42
43. Chapter 43
44. Chapter 44
45. Chapter 45
46. Chapter 46
47. Chapter 47
A NOTE FROM D.J. MOLLES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY D.J. MOLLES
Chapter 1
If there was one thing Bran Potter wished for that day, it was to discover some miraculous means by which he wouldn’t have to murder an entire settlement of people. But, as was so often the case, things were not looking good for Bran’s wishes. Like his ma always said: “If wishes were fishes, Bran, we’d all cast nets.”
If there was a bright spot to any of this, it was that he got to drive the little electric side-by-side ATV, which was always a blast. The sun was hot, and the wind was dry, so while he should have been sweating like a pig, he actually felt quite nice. And, of course, there was Kat to keep him company. Not that she was much of a talker, but they got on well enough.
He cast a sidelong look at her as he piloted the little vehicle through a field of corn that had lost its battle with the drought. She was young, but built like an athlete. Everything from the nose up was quite pretty—large, copper-colored eyes, and a mane of thick, reddish-brown hair. Everything from the nose down was covered by the blue bandana she perpetually wore.
Bran sighed, looking back out at the drought-stricken landscape as they emerged from the sad remains of the corn field into a big field of Bermuda grass that was only just staying green. When even the Bermuda grass is thirsty, then you know it’s a drought.
“Whaddaya think the odds are the old hag has the goods?” Bran asked. He didn’t even have to raise his voice much to be heard over the wind and the tires. Kat’s hearing was like…well…a cat’s.
She didn’t even twitch. Just sat there, staring straight ahead. Two words, in her usual throaty husk: “Dark Mode.”
Bran cringed. “Well, fuck, Kat. It ain’t always gotta go that way, you know.”
She grunted in response. Bran had become quite the expert on Kat’s various grunts, and successfully intuited what was meant: Fat fucking chance.
“It ever occur to you that I don’t like Dark Mode?”
She finally turned, those copper-colored eyes boring into him. Yes, they were a lovely shape and color. But damn, they had a ferocity to them that gave people the willies, and Bran was no exception. She arched a single eyebrow.
Bran huffed and shifted in his seat. The wind might be scouring the sweat from everywhere it touched, but it didn’t touch his back, and his sodden shirt stuck to his skin as he peeled it off the vinyl seatback.
“Yeah, well, I don’t. Okay? It’s not my idea of a good time.” He squeezed the steering wheel in his grip. “When I came to work for your dad after I got out, I thought it’d be all horseback riding through the hills and shit.”
And it had been. For a time. Until the world went to utter shit six years ago.
Bran shook his head. “Seems no matter how hard you run from your past, you always wind up right back where you started.”
Kat grunted. I wouldn’t know.
They drove on for a moment in silence. Bran checked the battery life on their little vehicle, as was his endless compulsion—nothing quite takes the wind out of your sails like a dead battery and having to hoof it ten miles back to the ranch. But it was still two-thirds full. Plenty to get to Camperland and back.
“I’m just saying,” Bran broke the silence, because, while Kat might not be a great conversationalist, Bran got chatty when he was uncomfortable. “Maybe this time you don’t get her little rat dog all fired up, huh?”
Kat didn’t respond. Which had its own interpretation.
She was going to stomp the little rat dog the first chance she got.
Poor mutt. Its only sin was being owned by the wrong lady. That, and being annoying as fuck to be around.
Up ahead, the rolling hills of the Valley fell away, and there it was: Camperland.
Eighty-four men, women, and children, all crammed into a collection of forty-some-odd recreational vehicles, including camper vans, pop-up campers, tow-behind campers, and one retrofitted school bus that some Godless hippy had intended to drive to Alaska before the world went into meltdown.
Camperland had been in the Valley for four of the six years since the plague swept society into the dustbin. It had started out as a handful of squatters—a Winnebago and an Airstream. But others had slowly coalesced around them over the years, and now the whole area looked like a blight. One big circle of dusty earth, trampled to death by a million footfalls.
And there, right in the middle of it all and watching them approach, was the old hag herself, bedecked in her usual sweat-stained, floral muumuu. The thing was big enough to fashion a five-person tent. But she didn’t fill it out as much as she used to—years of hand-to-mouth subsistence had leaned her out a great deal.
Bran pulled the ATV up short of the dusty circle in which Camperland huddled in all its drab, derelict glory. The Jenkins family’s brood of half-witted, ill-fed children huddled in the shade of their tow-behind, peering out suspiciously, like feral cats. Bran grimaced and looked away from them.
Terrible children, but…
Still children.
He thrust open the little door on the side of the ATV and grabbed his chopped-down shotgun from between the seats. He didn’t bother to menace the denizens of Camperland with it. There was no need. His presence was threat enough. He held it casually in his right hand as he approached, Kat falling in step beside him.
The old hag—her name was Missus Beetle, just like Beetle Bailey—raised one tremulous finger at them. “You said two weeks! It’s only been ten days!”
Her other arm held the little rat dog that she called “Pooks” or “Pooksie-boo.” Wirey white hair, too thin to hide the sunburned skin beneath, and cloudy eyes that Bran wasn’t even sure could see much further than the end of its little black nose. But the nose worked well enough, and old Pooksie-boo caught the scent of Kat on the air and started growling and trembling.
“Yeah, well,” Bran scuffed his heels to a halt a few yards away from Missus Beetle. “That’s where you’re off by about four days. I told you two weeks, two weeks ago. Then I reminded you ten days ago.” He shook his head. “The two weeks doesn’t just restart every time I show up. And, in fact, it’s run out.”
“How’re we supposed to grow fucking corn when you keep driving through it?” Missus Beetle shrilled.
Pooks began to yap.
Kat stiffened. Bran glanced at her and saw the way she’d fixated on the dog. Jesus, what was with her and that dog?
Bran had learned long ago not to even bother telling Missus Beetle to shut the thing up. It wouldn’t, or she couldn’t, didn’t much matter which.
“Missus Beetle,” Bran said, rubbing his brow tiredly. “That corn is dead as fuck. Been dead for the last month.”
“Can’t grow corn without water!” Her voice, if possible, had pitched even higher. Any higher, and only Pooks would be able to hear it.
“Yeah, well. Drought’s been shit. What do you want me to say?”
“Look!” Her crepey-skinned hand trembled in a new direction, off to Bran’s left. He didn’t bother looking. “This ain’t about rain! Loo
“I’m not gonna look at the river.” It wasn’t a river anymore. Just a bone-dry ditch.
“It’s fucking dry!”
“I know it’s dry.”
“Does Colin know it’s dry? Maybe you should have Colin come down here and look for hisself and tell me how the fuck he thinks I’m supposed to water crops when he don’t open the goddamned floodgate!”
“Mr. Horner don’t open the goddamned floodgate until he gets paid.”
Missus Beetle’s wrinkly old mouth worked into a panic, her fatless jowls swaying like a chicken’s wattles, froth building up in the corners of her lips. “How…?” She seemed at a loss for words. And, admittedly, Bran knew it was a bit of a paradox. “How’m I supposed to pay him? He wants corn as payment, but I can’t grow corn without water. He won’t open the floodgates without the corn. But I can’t grow it until he opens ‘em.”
“Yeah, it’s quite the pickle,” Bran sighed.
It all seemed completely illogical. But it wasn’t. It was actually very simple: Colin Horner didn’t want them there anymore. Colin Horner was tired of the useless drain on his pastureland. The only thing that could possibly make Camperland’s continued presence worth it, was if they could grow enough grain to offset the loss of pasture. Which they couldn’t, never could, and never would. Colin knew that. Bran knew that. Presumably, Kat had some idea of it.
Only Missus Beetle seemed unable to connect the dots.
“Missus Beetle,” Bran said, gazing up at the sky and spotting a lonely little cloud that would never have a chance to grow big enough to precipitate. He smiled wistfully at it. Then dropped his gaze to the old hag. “I need five hundred pounds of corn.”
Missus Beetle provided him only with a frothy gob of spittle which landed too far shy of Bran to even be insulting. “You tell Colin that he can open up his fucking dam if he wants that corn. Shoulda known how all this was gonna go when he built the stupid thing in the first place. Who does that? Who cuts off water to settlements full of good people?”
“The guy that owns the river it comes from, I guess,” Bran answered.
“Nobody owns shit anymore!” Missus Beetle spread her arm grandly. “This is the earth! You don’t get to own the earth! It’s for everybody!”
“I’m not having this conversation again.”
“Colin Horner don’t own shit! He don’t own the water, or the mountain it come out of!”
“Jesus Christ.”
“We’re all free people here! Children of the earth and—”
And just like that, Bran went into Dark Mode. He’d wanted to avoid it, if at all possible. But these fucking people…they just kept pushing.
He fired his shotgun at Missus Beetle’s feet. He had no idea whether the buckshot skipped up and got her, or if it was just bits of rock and dirt, but down she went with a howl, poor old Pooksie-boo flying out of her arms and tumbling through the dirt.
A great cry of indignation went up from the Camperlanders all around them, but Bran didn’t bother to spare them a glance. They didn’t have the balls to do anything. If they did, they’d’ve done it a long time ago.
While Missus Beetle wallowed on the ground, and Pooks got unsteadily to his twiggy little legs and ran off, yapping like his tail was on fire, Bran pumped a fresh round into the shotgun. The smell of the spent shotgun shell hit him, acrid and sweet. God, he’d always loved that smell.
Missus Beetle seemed unable to rise from the ground. She looked as helpless as a turtle on its back. She wasn’t even injured all that bad—just a few bloody pock marks in her blue-veined legs. The cry of outrage from the others died rather quickly, as outrage has the tendency to do amongst cowards. Now they just watched.
Bran squatted down next to Missus Beetle, any semblance of diplomacy blown out like a candle in the wind. His face peered down at the old woman, expressionless.
“You don’t have five hundred pounds of corn, do you?”
“You shot me!” Missus Beetle keened.
“Only a little.”
“I’m dying!”
“Well, that depends.”
“My heart! I can’t breathe!”
“You don’t breathe with your heart, Missus Beetle.”
“I can’t breathe!”
“You’re talking well enough.”
She went into paroxysms of gasping.
Bran shook his head, reached down, and slapped her on the face. Didn’t like the texture of her skin across his palm. Didn’t like the old, sour smell of her. “Hey. Hey. Missus Beetle. You need to listen.”
She gasped some more. Eyes rolling.
“I’m going to kill everyone here if you don’t listen.”
“Oh Lord! Oh, Jesus!”
“Shouldn’t you call out to Mother Earth or some shit?” Bran mused. “Anyway. Missus Beetle, you have to go. You have to get your people and get gone, campers and all. I want this place to look like you were never here.” He considered this, and then shrugged. “Well. You know. Except for the big patch of Mr. Horner’s pasture that you’ve trampled to dust.”
“We’re not going anywhere!” Missus Beetle wheezed, her wild eyes honing in on him again. “We’ve just as much right to be here as your fucking boss!”
“No. No, you don’t.”
“The land don’t belong to—”
“Stop. Stop that.” He put his hand on her chest and leaned his weight on it, which set her to gasping again. Her arms batted at him, but they were weak and ineffective. “You’re going to leave, or you’re going to die. You and everyone here. No one will be spared. You know how this works.”
Missus Beetle worked hard to gather enough air past the weight he was putting on her chest. Her head rose up off the ground, greasy gray hair standing out in an unkempt corona around her pinched face. She thrust her wrinkly chins at him, the picture of geriatric defiance.
“Fuck you, and fuck Colin Horner.”
Ten minutes ago, this would have made Bran sad. Now he just smiled. Then shrugged.
“Whatever.”
Kat watched him work, and it was beautiful. He told her he hated going Dark Mode, but every time he did, he seemed so wild and free. Just like Kat wanted to be.
She wasn’t really paying attention to everything that was said. She understood enough to get by, but language wasn’t her strong suit, and when people got into a rapid back and forth, she struggled to keep up with their flapping tongues.
So, while Bran stood over the old sack of flesh and they yammered at each other, Kat paced back and forth, her empty hands clenching and unclenching, her savage gaze whisking back and forth between the faces of the people watching.
She could smell them, those people. Even through her bandanna. She could smell their sweat. Their unwashed bodies. She could smell the remnants of what they’d eaten, and the coating of woodsmoke over everything. She could even smell their fear.
It made her mouth water.
Bran said something that had the sound of finality to it. Missus Beetle said something back that sounded like a pathetic attempt to look strong, even as she was flat on her back. And then Bran shrugged and stood up and said “Whatever.”
Then he turned to Kat and nodded.
Joy welled up in her. Relief. Release. The feeling of running downhill on sure feet.
She tilted her head back and howled at the sky, long and loud, and the fear-stinking people all around them began to scream. Some tried to run, but they wouldn’t get far. Some tried to hide in their campers, but they would be found.
When all the breath had been expelled from her lungs, she lowered her head again, no longer Kat, Colin Horner’s daughter. She was just herself. She was free.
Now…
Where was that dog?
Chapter 2
Beatrice Drye stood in the lookout, peering west, towards Camperland, and searching vainly for even just a wisp of smoke. “It’s almost ten o’clock,” she said, spitting a strand of brown hair out of her mouth that the breeze had just tossed into her lips. “They should’ve started their cookfires a long time ago.”
Beside her, Ted Foley squirmed with obvious apprehension. He stood very close to her, and when she turned to glance at him, she had to crane her neck to look up. He was tall. But she was also a bit short. She could see straight up his nose.
He was handsome, though kind of bookish, which was made worse by the tortoise-shell glasses he wore. His features were all screwed up with worry. Mouth tight. Eyebrows drawn in.
