The Valley: A Lee Harden Novel, page 22
Lander winced at the word infected. Did they have to be so rude, right to his face? Time to play a little hard-to-get of his own. “I hate to say it, Colin, but your cattle are an important food source for my family.”
“Find another fucking food source. Those are mine. And those are my terms. You want the deal or not?”
Lander sighed and stretched his back. “How many head of cattle do they kill?”
“You don’t know?”
Lander frowned. He honestly had no idea. “They’re not puppets, Colin. They have autonomy, you know. I don’t know what every single one of them is doing all the time. Just ballpark it for me.”
Colin sucked his teeth. “One or two a week.”
Colin was low-balling the real number, Lander realized. He was anticipating that the number of cattle a week would be what they negotiated on. But Lander’s family didn’t actually need Colin’s cattle. They were just easy pickings.
Lander looked unsure. “You know, my family requires a lot of food.”
“They’re omnivores, ain’t they?” Colin grouched. “It don’t have to be meat, and it certainly don’t have to be my cattle.”
That was true enough, and a large part of the reason they didn’t need Colin’s cattle. Their hunting range was actually much larger than just the Valley, and there was plenty of wildlife, not to mention all the abandoned orchards that still produced a scavenge-worthy crop.
But Lander put on a pained face. “You’re asking me to starve my family.”
Colin barely restrained a roll of his eyes. “You came to me, asking for something. In order for me to give you what you want, I have to take serious risks. This is what will make the risk worth it. You know, you coulda gone and grabbed her yourself by now.”
Lander waved it away. “They’ll only hide in their boxes and wait us out. I can’t convince my family to lay siege to some metal boxes for a week. I have control over them, but they are still…well, like I said, they’re autonomous. They’ll lose focus after a while and go off in search of easier prey. It’d be a pointless endeavor.”
“So you need me,” Colin concluded. “And my price is that you keep your infected away from my cattle.”
Lander gazed skyward for a long, awkward moment. Then he lowered his eyes to Colin’s once again. “Stillborn calves, sick ones, and old ones.”
Colin frowned. “What?”
“That’s the deal I’ll make with you,” Lander explained. “I’ll keep my family away from your cattle, provided you give us your stillborn calves, and any other cattle that gets sick or too old. I mean, what do you do with them anyway? You probably just leave them wherever they die. Give them to us.” He flashed a smile. “Waste not, want not, that’s what I always say.”
Colin knew a good thing when he saw it. It cost him nothing, and it gained him security for his herd. “I’ll do that deal.”
“Splendid,” Lander said, grinning. “We’ll be back this evening. If you have what I want, then you’ll get what you want.”
No one in the Redoubt knew how it was going to happen—only that it was going to happen, and sooner rather than later.
Colin Horner’s patience had run out, and he was coming for them.
The tension had set like a bad pudding, making the air thick and worrisome. The energy was manic and tight-gutted, thin-lipped and dry-mouthed. People clutched rifles in ways that made it oh-so-obvious that they’d only been taught how to properly use one that very day. And they all knew there was a world of difference between being taught how to do something, and actually knowing how to do it.
“Well,” Abe said, smiling through the ominous atmosphere. “At least we got a half day of training in.”
No one in the gathering of recently armed and briefed residents found that sentiment particularly encouraging, and let Abe know how they felt with a fusillade of disbelieving and disgusted looks.
Abe doffed his smile and donned his customary frown. “Hey. Five hours of training is better than no hours of training.”
Still no takers, it seemed. Abe cast an evaluating look at Sam and Jones, who both discreetly shook their heads at him as though to say, maybe you should let someone else do the pep talks.
“You’re gonna have us set up for an ambush like we practiced,” a voice called out, all tinged and strained with worry. Sam was not surprised to find that it was Asher. “But what if they don’t come in that way? What if they don’t even attack us like that? What if they send the infected after us like they did to everyone else?”
To that, Abe offered a casual shrug. “We have no idea what they’re going to do, or when they’re going to do it. That’s why we’re going to set up to execute an ambush, but we’re also going to keep our friend Bea in the lookout, so if they come at us another way, we can respond. Adapt and overcome.”
“Adapt and overcome?” Asher echoed, as though the core concepts there were deep mysteries of the universe that he couldn’t fathom.
Jones swaggered forward, hips swinging like he had a six-shooter on each. Sam could almost hear the spurs jingling with each step. “Alright, check it out, folks. Y’all got all these big old metal containers. If he sends the primals again, then we’ll fall back to our Conex boxes. Until then, we’re going to remain outside, because if he sends anyone with guns, then those just become family-sized coffins. And if we’re going to remain outside of the boxes, we might as well use them as cover and concealment. And if we’re using them as cover and concealment, we might as well set up to spring an ambush. Yeah? See? It all works out.”
Jones seemed satisfied, though no one in the Redoubt seemed to share that feeling. He looked over his shoulder and nodded at Sam.
“What?” Sam furrowed his brow. “We all gotta say something?”
Jones gave him a severe look and jagged his eyes towards the crowd.
Sam sighed. I guess this is what we’re doing today.
He stepped forward reluctantly, raising his voice. “Guys, I know you’re all nervous. I know you think you’d feel better if we had a plan for every eventuality. That’d make you feel nice and secure. But that would be the wrong decision in this specific situation. Our best course of action is to remain loose and fluid, ready to change gears at a moment’s notice. Just pay attention to what’s going on around you, don’t get sucked into tunnel vision, and listen for a change in orders.” He offered them a smile, but unlike Abe’s, his was actually encouraging. “Trust us, guys. We know what we’re doing. Now, how about everyone get into position. You don’t need to be hard in the paint and rifle up and all that. Just find yourself a spot of shade and try to stay relaxed and hydrated and listen for commands. Aight?” Sam clapped his hands together and gave the gathered residents a sweeping, dismissive gesture.
Predictable murmuring followed this, but they began to disperse and move towards their assigned positions.
Sam caught Jones’s gaze, and then Abe’s, and jerked his head towards their recently-reclaimed pickup truck, now parked adjacent to Bea’s Conex box. Silently, all three trudged over and got in.
As soon as the final door closed, Jones said what they were all thinking: “We have no idea what we’re doing.”
Sam, sitting in the front passenger’s seat, turned to look at Abe in the driver’s seat. “Shouldn’t we be doing something about Lee and Marie?”
“Like what?” Abe asked, clearly frustrated.
“Like finding out what happened to them.”
“And just leave the Redoubt to their own devices?”
Sam made a grim face and shook his head.
Jones wasn’t quite so opposed to the idea. “I mean, Lee and Marie could be strung up in a slaughterhouse right now, waiting for a rescue. And these people? Man, I hate to say it, but is sticking around here really gonna do them any good?”
“Of course it’ll do them some good,” Sam retorted. “Three good rifles might make the difference.”
Jones made a doubtful noise. “We’re supposed to be calling audibles, but do you really think these people are up for that? They’re gonna be so amped up the second there’s a dust cloud on the horizon—” he mimed explosions next to his ears. “—poof. Auditory exclusion. They ain’t gonna hear shit. And even if they could, they’re gonna be too scared to do what we tell them.”
Sam twisted in his seat to glare at his friend in the back. “So just leave them? Abandon them? Like we did to Rampart on the Border?”
Jones winced, but leaned forward, elbows on knees. He looked earnestly into Sam’s face. “No, dude. This isn’t like Rampart at all. Because in Rampart, we had weeks to train them. We’ve only had basic instruction on one tactic over the course of five hours. And the shit is hitting the fan. Prognosis is bad, brother. We made the call to get out of Rampart, and as much as it may chap your ass to hear it, that was the right call. Otherwise we’d be dead with them.”
“So you’re just scared?” Sam challenged.
Jones only blew a raspberry at that. “Don’t even try that shit on me, Rough Ryder. It don’t work. I’m being a realist.”
“Alright,” Sam said. “Fuck you, then.” He glanced pointedly between Jones and Abe. “I’m fuckin’ stayin’. Y’all wanna poof, go right ahead. But I’m not leaving.”
Abe gave a derogatory chuff and mushed Sam back into his seat. “Cool your nuts, Rambo, no one’s leaving.”
“Dammit,” Jones muttered. “Thought we were still hashing out our options.”
“Well, that ain’t one of ‘em,” Abe shot over his shoulder. “I’m just as worried about Lee and Marie as you, Jonesy, but Sam’s right. No way in hell I’m cranking this truck up right now and just driving out of here. I can live with a lot of cold-hearted shit, but that won’t be one.”
“You sure?” Jones sighed, staring out the side window. “It’d be super easy to do. I can do it for you, if you’d like.”
Sam rounded on Jones again. “Seriously, Jones? What’s gotten into you? I’ve never heard you sound like such a flake.”
“Uhhh,” Jones frowned at him, raising his fingers to tick them off, one by one. “Lee’s gone. Marie’s gone. The residents don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.” Three fingers. Then he raised a fourth. “And, going back to Lee and Marie being gone—our enemy is clearly not to be underestimated.”
Sam opened his mouth to retort, but Jones cut him off, putting all those fingers into a knife hand that jutted at Sam’s nose. “And you’re sitting here acting like I’m being a coward, but I’m not advocating we tuck tail and run—I’m advocating that we go find out what happened to Lee and Marie, who, I might remind you, could quite possibly be about to fucking die. You care more about these randos than your own team, Sam?”
Sam didn’t know how to answer that question, but Jones didn’t give him a chance anyway.
“And here’s another thing,” Jones said, switching his knife hand to Abe, who regarded it like a pro linebacker might regard the Pop Warner kid that’s vowed to run him over. “Strategically speaking, the best time to infiltrate Horner’s Peak and try to find Lee and Marie is when Horner’s got all his men on the warpath. And don’t even try to deny that that’s smart.”
“First of all,” Abe said, still staring at the knife hand. He pushed it back towards its owner. “Put that thing away. Second of all, you’re right—that’s literally the smartest thing you’ve said since I’ve known you. Third of all, it doesn’t matter, because we’re not leaving the Redoubt.”
“Bullshit,” Jones said, slumping back into his seat. “If you’d’ve come up with it, we’d already be doing it.”
“No, we wouldn’t,” Abe said. “And don’t be churlish.”
Jones’s face screwed up. “What does that even mean?”
“You,” Abe replied. “How you’re being right now. That’s churlish.”
“You mean practical, logical, and good-looking, with a dash of well-founded concern for my missing friends?”
“Even now,” Sam marveled at him. “You’re still making jokes.”
“No, I’m seriously advocating for going after Lee and Marie, because apparently I’m the only one in this truck that gives a shit about them.”
“Goddammit, we’re not going!” Abe suddenly roared, with a punctuating hammer-fist to the center console.
In the brief moment of silence following Abe’s outburst, they all heard it: Bea, in the lookout, yelling, “Contact! Contact! Contact!”
Immediately, the cab turned into a whirl of motion, the doors springing open, boots and gear and knees and elbows clattering in a mad rush.
“Well, we can’t go anywhere now!” Jones shouted angrily at them.
As Sam tumbled out of the truck, snatching his rifle from where it was leaning against the fender, he stole a glance at the Redoubters. Despite his best mental efforts, what Jones had said got his brain all tangled up, and he expected them to be flying off into a panic. But, lo and behold and thank the heavens, they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, on their points of cover, rifles shouldered.
Hell, maybe Abe had been right: Five hours of training was better than none.
Abe sprinted ahead of Sam and hit the supports of the lookout first, slapping it twice with a dull metallic ring. “Watcha got, Bea? Talk to me!”
Sam skidded in beside him, checking his bolt and mag.
“Dust cloud,” Bea said from above. “Dead east. Two hills away. Maybe three quarters of a mile.”
Abe’s thick, black brows scrunched together. “That the road straight into here?”
“No, it’s too far to the north of the road.”
Sam stared at Abe until the other man looked back at him. “Change of plans?”
Abe bared his teeth, but shook his head. “Not yet.”
Sam heard the scudding of footsteps behind him and whipped around in time to see Ted tearing up, his ridiculous revolver in hand, pointed at the sky like an ’80’s movie cop.
“Are they coming straight in?” Ted said, breathlessly, and half at a whisper.
“What?” Abe shouted back, unnecessarily loud. “Why are you whispering? They can’t fucking hear you. Talk like you’re not scared. Your people are watching.”
Ted swallowed. Straightened a bit. “Are they coming straight in?” he repeated, louder. “Is it the ambush? Are we doing the ambush thing?”
Sam could see the way Abe’s face seemed to twitch and roil, and decided to step in before any semblance of goodwill was burned to ashes. “We don’t know yet, Ted,” Sam spoke quickly. “Get back on your position. If the plan changes, we will let you know, I promise.”
Ted nodded rapidly and started backpedaling. “Okay. Alright. Shit.” Then he spun and high-tailed it back to where he belonged.
“Hold up,” Bea said from above. “I got another dust cloud, this one way to the south now.”
Sam stepped out from under the lookout, took a glance up to see where Bea was now pointing her rifle, and then turned to follow her gaze. “Yeah, I see it,” he said. A tan smudge on the horizon to the south. A straight shot down the Redoubt’s main street.
“Bea, keep checking that horizon,” Abe instructed. “I wanna know anything else that pops up.” Abe snapped his fingers to get Sam’s attention, then hiked a thumb upwards. “Climb up there and put eyes on the east while she’s scanning.”
“Yup,” Sam acknowledged, slinging his rifle and catching the pair of binocs that Jones tossed to him. He swung onto the ladder and clambered up.
Bea stood in the center of the lookout, her feet straddling the hole Sam was coming up through. She turned in a slow circle, squinting through her scope. “Clear so far, except for the south and east.”
Sam squirmed past her, then knelt at the east-facing wall and propped the binoculars on the lip of the sheet metal. He controlled his breathing and turned the focus knob. The gently rolling hills to the east snapped into sharp relief.
“Eyes on the east,” Sam called down to Abe. “Got visual on one, red, midsize pickup. Looks like multiple armed subjects in the truck bed. Heading straight at us over the second ridge out.” He paused. Licked his lips. Tried to get a head count as the truck slalomed down the hill, the occupants jostling violently in the bed. “I see a lot of long guns. Can’t give you specifics. Maybe…eight dudes? They’re dropping into the valley between the hills.”
They dropped out of sight. Sam peeked up over the binocs, feeling his pulse in his throat, in his fingertips. When the red truck came up out of that valley, it would be on the nearest ridge, just to their east, maybe a third of a mile out.
“Looks like they’re trying for a pincer move,” Sam called down. “Bea, whatcha got to the south?”
“Large black dually,” she said. “I see people in the back, but I can’t tell how many. It’s coming straight on. No…wait…”
Sam tore his eyes off his own binoculars to steal a glance at Bea. She was leaning one elbow against one of the lookout’s supports, her face scrunched into a frown.
“I think they’re stopping,” she said, as though mystified. “Yeah, they definitely just stopped.”
“They stopped?” Abe called from below.
“Yeah, they stopped and the guys are getting out.”
Sam pressed his eyes back into his binoculars as he heard Jones’s voice, “They gonna try to take us on foot? I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“Well, that’d be fucking dumb,” Abe pointed out. “They’ll be exposed on the sides of the hills coming in. I mean, great for us…but dumb.”
Sam felt a sinking feeling that he couldn’t quite pin to a source, as he stared through his binoculars, wondering if he’d shifted out of line with his target. Because they hadn’t come up over the hill yet. He scanned the line of tall grasses cresting the hill but saw nothing. Not even a dust cloud.
“Hey, that red pickup never came up on the other side of the hill,” Sam warned.
“They’re not coming in,” Bea said, her volume climbing. For a moment, Sam thought she was talking about the red pickup to the east, but then she clarified: “All the guys—they’re taking positions on the ridge. They’re disappearing into the grass.”
“Ah, shit,” was all Abe said from below.
“Find another fucking food source. Those are mine. And those are my terms. You want the deal or not?”
Lander sighed and stretched his back. “How many head of cattle do they kill?”
“You don’t know?”
Lander frowned. He honestly had no idea. “They’re not puppets, Colin. They have autonomy, you know. I don’t know what every single one of them is doing all the time. Just ballpark it for me.”
Colin sucked his teeth. “One or two a week.”
Colin was low-balling the real number, Lander realized. He was anticipating that the number of cattle a week would be what they negotiated on. But Lander’s family didn’t actually need Colin’s cattle. They were just easy pickings.
Lander looked unsure. “You know, my family requires a lot of food.”
“They’re omnivores, ain’t they?” Colin grouched. “It don’t have to be meat, and it certainly don’t have to be my cattle.”
That was true enough, and a large part of the reason they didn’t need Colin’s cattle. Their hunting range was actually much larger than just the Valley, and there was plenty of wildlife, not to mention all the abandoned orchards that still produced a scavenge-worthy crop.
But Lander put on a pained face. “You’re asking me to starve my family.”
Colin barely restrained a roll of his eyes. “You came to me, asking for something. In order for me to give you what you want, I have to take serious risks. This is what will make the risk worth it. You know, you coulda gone and grabbed her yourself by now.”
Lander waved it away. “They’ll only hide in their boxes and wait us out. I can’t convince my family to lay siege to some metal boxes for a week. I have control over them, but they are still…well, like I said, they’re autonomous. They’ll lose focus after a while and go off in search of easier prey. It’d be a pointless endeavor.”
“So you need me,” Colin concluded. “And my price is that you keep your infected away from my cattle.”
Lander gazed skyward for a long, awkward moment. Then he lowered his eyes to Colin’s once again. “Stillborn calves, sick ones, and old ones.”
Colin frowned. “What?”
“That’s the deal I’ll make with you,” Lander explained. “I’ll keep my family away from your cattle, provided you give us your stillborn calves, and any other cattle that gets sick or too old. I mean, what do you do with them anyway? You probably just leave them wherever they die. Give them to us.” He flashed a smile. “Waste not, want not, that’s what I always say.”
Colin knew a good thing when he saw it. It cost him nothing, and it gained him security for his herd. “I’ll do that deal.”
“Splendid,” Lander said, grinning. “We’ll be back this evening. If you have what I want, then you’ll get what you want.”
No one in the Redoubt knew how it was going to happen—only that it was going to happen, and sooner rather than later.
Colin Horner’s patience had run out, and he was coming for them.
The tension had set like a bad pudding, making the air thick and worrisome. The energy was manic and tight-gutted, thin-lipped and dry-mouthed. People clutched rifles in ways that made it oh-so-obvious that they’d only been taught how to properly use one that very day. And they all knew there was a world of difference between being taught how to do something, and actually knowing how to do it.
“Well,” Abe said, smiling through the ominous atmosphere. “At least we got a half day of training in.”
No one in the gathering of recently armed and briefed residents found that sentiment particularly encouraging, and let Abe know how they felt with a fusillade of disbelieving and disgusted looks.
Abe doffed his smile and donned his customary frown. “Hey. Five hours of training is better than no hours of training.”
Still no takers, it seemed. Abe cast an evaluating look at Sam and Jones, who both discreetly shook their heads at him as though to say, maybe you should let someone else do the pep talks.
“You’re gonna have us set up for an ambush like we practiced,” a voice called out, all tinged and strained with worry. Sam was not surprised to find that it was Asher. “But what if they don’t come in that way? What if they don’t even attack us like that? What if they send the infected after us like they did to everyone else?”
To that, Abe offered a casual shrug. “We have no idea what they’re going to do, or when they’re going to do it. That’s why we’re going to set up to execute an ambush, but we’re also going to keep our friend Bea in the lookout, so if they come at us another way, we can respond. Adapt and overcome.”
“Adapt and overcome?” Asher echoed, as though the core concepts there were deep mysteries of the universe that he couldn’t fathom.
Jones swaggered forward, hips swinging like he had a six-shooter on each. Sam could almost hear the spurs jingling with each step. “Alright, check it out, folks. Y’all got all these big old metal containers. If he sends the primals again, then we’ll fall back to our Conex boxes. Until then, we’re going to remain outside, because if he sends anyone with guns, then those just become family-sized coffins. And if we’re going to remain outside of the boxes, we might as well use them as cover and concealment. And if we’re using them as cover and concealment, we might as well set up to spring an ambush. Yeah? See? It all works out.”
Jones seemed satisfied, though no one in the Redoubt seemed to share that feeling. He looked over his shoulder and nodded at Sam.
“What?” Sam furrowed his brow. “We all gotta say something?”
Jones gave him a severe look and jagged his eyes towards the crowd.
Sam sighed. I guess this is what we’re doing today.
He stepped forward reluctantly, raising his voice. “Guys, I know you’re all nervous. I know you think you’d feel better if we had a plan for every eventuality. That’d make you feel nice and secure. But that would be the wrong decision in this specific situation. Our best course of action is to remain loose and fluid, ready to change gears at a moment’s notice. Just pay attention to what’s going on around you, don’t get sucked into tunnel vision, and listen for a change in orders.” He offered them a smile, but unlike Abe’s, his was actually encouraging. “Trust us, guys. We know what we’re doing. Now, how about everyone get into position. You don’t need to be hard in the paint and rifle up and all that. Just find yourself a spot of shade and try to stay relaxed and hydrated and listen for commands. Aight?” Sam clapped his hands together and gave the gathered residents a sweeping, dismissive gesture.
Predictable murmuring followed this, but they began to disperse and move towards their assigned positions.
Sam caught Jones’s gaze, and then Abe’s, and jerked his head towards their recently-reclaimed pickup truck, now parked adjacent to Bea’s Conex box. Silently, all three trudged over and got in.
As soon as the final door closed, Jones said what they were all thinking: “We have no idea what we’re doing.”
Sam, sitting in the front passenger’s seat, turned to look at Abe in the driver’s seat. “Shouldn’t we be doing something about Lee and Marie?”
“Like what?” Abe asked, clearly frustrated.
“Like finding out what happened to them.”
“And just leave the Redoubt to their own devices?”
Sam made a grim face and shook his head.
Jones wasn’t quite so opposed to the idea. “I mean, Lee and Marie could be strung up in a slaughterhouse right now, waiting for a rescue. And these people? Man, I hate to say it, but is sticking around here really gonna do them any good?”
“Of course it’ll do them some good,” Sam retorted. “Three good rifles might make the difference.”
Jones made a doubtful noise. “We’re supposed to be calling audibles, but do you really think these people are up for that? They’re gonna be so amped up the second there’s a dust cloud on the horizon—” he mimed explosions next to his ears. “—poof. Auditory exclusion. They ain’t gonna hear shit. And even if they could, they’re gonna be too scared to do what we tell them.”
Sam twisted in his seat to glare at his friend in the back. “So just leave them? Abandon them? Like we did to Rampart on the Border?”
Jones winced, but leaned forward, elbows on knees. He looked earnestly into Sam’s face. “No, dude. This isn’t like Rampart at all. Because in Rampart, we had weeks to train them. We’ve only had basic instruction on one tactic over the course of five hours. And the shit is hitting the fan. Prognosis is bad, brother. We made the call to get out of Rampart, and as much as it may chap your ass to hear it, that was the right call. Otherwise we’d be dead with them.”
“So you’re just scared?” Sam challenged.
Jones only blew a raspberry at that. “Don’t even try that shit on me, Rough Ryder. It don’t work. I’m being a realist.”
“Alright,” Sam said. “Fuck you, then.” He glanced pointedly between Jones and Abe. “I’m fuckin’ stayin’. Y’all wanna poof, go right ahead. But I’m not leaving.”
Abe gave a derogatory chuff and mushed Sam back into his seat. “Cool your nuts, Rambo, no one’s leaving.”
“Dammit,” Jones muttered. “Thought we were still hashing out our options.”
“Well, that ain’t one of ‘em,” Abe shot over his shoulder. “I’m just as worried about Lee and Marie as you, Jonesy, but Sam’s right. No way in hell I’m cranking this truck up right now and just driving out of here. I can live with a lot of cold-hearted shit, but that won’t be one.”
“You sure?” Jones sighed, staring out the side window. “It’d be super easy to do. I can do it for you, if you’d like.”
Sam rounded on Jones again. “Seriously, Jones? What’s gotten into you? I’ve never heard you sound like such a flake.”
“Uhhh,” Jones frowned at him, raising his fingers to tick them off, one by one. “Lee’s gone. Marie’s gone. The residents don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.” Three fingers. Then he raised a fourth. “And, going back to Lee and Marie being gone—our enemy is clearly not to be underestimated.”
Sam opened his mouth to retort, but Jones cut him off, putting all those fingers into a knife hand that jutted at Sam’s nose. “And you’re sitting here acting like I’m being a coward, but I’m not advocating we tuck tail and run—I’m advocating that we go find out what happened to Lee and Marie, who, I might remind you, could quite possibly be about to fucking die. You care more about these randos than your own team, Sam?”
Sam didn’t know how to answer that question, but Jones didn’t give him a chance anyway.
“And here’s another thing,” Jones said, switching his knife hand to Abe, who regarded it like a pro linebacker might regard the Pop Warner kid that’s vowed to run him over. “Strategically speaking, the best time to infiltrate Horner’s Peak and try to find Lee and Marie is when Horner’s got all his men on the warpath. And don’t even try to deny that that’s smart.”
“First of all,” Abe said, still staring at the knife hand. He pushed it back towards its owner. “Put that thing away. Second of all, you’re right—that’s literally the smartest thing you’ve said since I’ve known you. Third of all, it doesn’t matter, because we’re not leaving the Redoubt.”
“Bullshit,” Jones said, slumping back into his seat. “If you’d’ve come up with it, we’d already be doing it.”
“No, we wouldn’t,” Abe said. “And don’t be churlish.”
Jones’s face screwed up. “What does that even mean?”
“You,” Abe replied. “How you’re being right now. That’s churlish.”
“You mean practical, logical, and good-looking, with a dash of well-founded concern for my missing friends?”
“Even now,” Sam marveled at him. “You’re still making jokes.”
“No, I’m seriously advocating for going after Lee and Marie, because apparently I’m the only one in this truck that gives a shit about them.”
“Goddammit, we’re not going!” Abe suddenly roared, with a punctuating hammer-fist to the center console.
In the brief moment of silence following Abe’s outburst, they all heard it: Bea, in the lookout, yelling, “Contact! Contact! Contact!”
Immediately, the cab turned into a whirl of motion, the doors springing open, boots and gear and knees and elbows clattering in a mad rush.
“Well, we can’t go anywhere now!” Jones shouted angrily at them.
As Sam tumbled out of the truck, snatching his rifle from where it was leaning against the fender, he stole a glance at the Redoubters. Despite his best mental efforts, what Jones had said got his brain all tangled up, and he expected them to be flying off into a panic. But, lo and behold and thank the heavens, they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, on their points of cover, rifles shouldered.
Hell, maybe Abe had been right: Five hours of training was better than none.
Abe sprinted ahead of Sam and hit the supports of the lookout first, slapping it twice with a dull metallic ring. “Watcha got, Bea? Talk to me!”
Sam skidded in beside him, checking his bolt and mag.
“Dust cloud,” Bea said from above. “Dead east. Two hills away. Maybe three quarters of a mile.”
Abe’s thick, black brows scrunched together. “That the road straight into here?”
“No, it’s too far to the north of the road.”
Sam stared at Abe until the other man looked back at him. “Change of plans?”
Abe bared his teeth, but shook his head. “Not yet.”
Sam heard the scudding of footsteps behind him and whipped around in time to see Ted tearing up, his ridiculous revolver in hand, pointed at the sky like an ’80’s movie cop.
“Are they coming straight in?” Ted said, breathlessly, and half at a whisper.
“What?” Abe shouted back, unnecessarily loud. “Why are you whispering? They can’t fucking hear you. Talk like you’re not scared. Your people are watching.”
Ted swallowed. Straightened a bit. “Are they coming straight in?” he repeated, louder. “Is it the ambush? Are we doing the ambush thing?”
Sam could see the way Abe’s face seemed to twitch and roil, and decided to step in before any semblance of goodwill was burned to ashes. “We don’t know yet, Ted,” Sam spoke quickly. “Get back on your position. If the plan changes, we will let you know, I promise.”
Ted nodded rapidly and started backpedaling. “Okay. Alright. Shit.” Then he spun and high-tailed it back to where he belonged.
“Hold up,” Bea said from above. “I got another dust cloud, this one way to the south now.”
Sam stepped out from under the lookout, took a glance up to see where Bea was now pointing her rifle, and then turned to follow her gaze. “Yeah, I see it,” he said. A tan smudge on the horizon to the south. A straight shot down the Redoubt’s main street.
“Bea, keep checking that horizon,” Abe instructed. “I wanna know anything else that pops up.” Abe snapped his fingers to get Sam’s attention, then hiked a thumb upwards. “Climb up there and put eyes on the east while she’s scanning.”
“Yup,” Sam acknowledged, slinging his rifle and catching the pair of binocs that Jones tossed to him. He swung onto the ladder and clambered up.
Bea stood in the center of the lookout, her feet straddling the hole Sam was coming up through. She turned in a slow circle, squinting through her scope. “Clear so far, except for the south and east.”
Sam squirmed past her, then knelt at the east-facing wall and propped the binoculars on the lip of the sheet metal. He controlled his breathing and turned the focus knob. The gently rolling hills to the east snapped into sharp relief.
“Eyes on the east,” Sam called down to Abe. “Got visual on one, red, midsize pickup. Looks like multiple armed subjects in the truck bed. Heading straight at us over the second ridge out.” He paused. Licked his lips. Tried to get a head count as the truck slalomed down the hill, the occupants jostling violently in the bed. “I see a lot of long guns. Can’t give you specifics. Maybe…eight dudes? They’re dropping into the valley between the hills.”
They dropped out of sight. Sam peeked up over the binocs, feeling his pulse in his throat, in his fingertips. When the red truck came up out of that valley, it would be on the nearest ridge, just to their east, maybe a third of a mile out.
“Looks like they’re trying for a pincer move,” Sam called down. “Bea, whatcha got to the south?”
“Large black dually,” she said. “I see people in the back, but I can’t tell how many. It’s coming straight on. No…wait…”
Sam tore his eyes off his own binoculars to steal a glance at Bea. She was leaning one elbow against one of the lookout’s supports, her face scrunched into a frown.
“I think they’re stopping,” she said, as though mystified. “Yeah, they definitely just stopped.”
“They stopped?” Abe called from below.
“Yeah, they stopped and the guys are getting out.”
Sam pressed his eyes back into his binoculars as he heard Jones’s voice, “They gonna try to take us on foot? I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“Well, that’d be fucking dumb,” Abe pointed out. “They’ll be exposed on the sides of the hills coming in. I mean, great for us…but dumb.”
Sam felt a sinking feeling that he couldn’t quite pin to a source, as he stared through his binoculars, wondering if he’d shifted out of line with his target. Because they hadn’t come up over the hill yet. He scanned the line of tall grasses cresting the hill but saw nothing. Not even a dust cloud.
“Hey, that red pickup never came up on the other side of the hill,” Sam warned.
“They’re not coming in,” Bea said, her volume climbing. For a moment, Sam thought she was talking about the red pickup to the east, but then she clarified: “All the guys—they’re taking positions on the ridge. They’re disappearing into the grass.”
“Ah, shit,” was all Abe said from below.
