The Valley: A Lee Harden Novel, page 23
“Yo, those are not good angles for us,” Jones’s voice sang out.
Sam rose to his feet, looking down at the Redoubters, and seeing exactly what Jones was saying. Almost all of the boxes in the settlement were aligned north to south, with their broad sides to the east and west. Positioned as the people were now for an ambush, they were exposed to the east. But if they moved, they’d be exposed to the south.
“Hey, Abe, I think—” Sam whipped his gaze to the east, just in time for his eyes to catch the tiniest little puff of gray from amidst the waving grasses on the eastern ridge. Then there was a zzzzip and a loud, wet, whap.
And then Bea screamed.
Chapter 22
The sound of the single, distant gunshot rolled across the sky.
Lee and Marie both came to an abrupt stop, their hearts immediately hammering, breath caught in their chests. They’d both been shot at enough to know that if you hear the gunshot with no accompanying zip-crack, then the bullet wasn’t aimed at you. Still, they both instinctively hunched, not quite squatting, but no longer standing erect.
Lee scanned the horizon ahead of them, where the gunshot had seemed to come from, but saw nothing. Then he glanced to Marie, his eyebrows arching.
She nodded. “The Redoubt.”
They were only a few hundred yards from the hill with the two trees that Lander Hollis had pointed out to them, beyond which he said they would see the Redoubt. And it suddenly seemed to Lee like there weren’t a whole lot of other explanations for that gunshot, aside from the one he didn’t want to accept: Colin Horner was attacking the Redoubt.
Still, Lee held up a staying hand. “It was only one shot. Let’s not…”
The air suddenly crackled with the sound of a gunbattle—hectic and arrhythmic.
“Motherfucker!” Marie took off at what was probably intended to be a sprint, but was much more of a rapid hobble. Lee couldn’t do much better.
They thrashed up the hill through the waist-high grass, forced to wade through it and high-step around clumps. Lee’s ribs screamed from the effort, made worse by his heaving breath. That hamstring started to squeal again, but it’d just have to wait, because Lee had no more time to pander to his broken body.
Marie hit a narrow game trail that seemed to lead up the hill to the two trees, and her pace quickened, Lee finding it just seconds after.
As they neared the top of the hill, the tempo of the gunfight in the distance abruptly changed, becoming slow and sporadic.
Lee knew exactly what this shift in tempo was. Everyone had unloaded during the initial clash, but now everything slowed as fighters dug into cover and began to choose their shots.
Marie hit the top of the ridge just ahead of him, and pulled up short, sinking towards the ground so that just her head and shoulders were above the grass. She held up a fist so Lee wouldn’t go barging past her. She was seeing something, and it wasn’t good.
Lee came abreast of her, hissing air and froth through his teeth, bent at the waist with his hands on his knees.
The ridge they were on was part of a line of hills that formed a rough circle around the Redoubt. The settlement lay in the center of that circle, perhaps a little over a mile south of them.
Of all the parts of his body that had failed him over the years, Lee counted himself blessed to be pushing forty and still have eyesight as keen as he had in his twenties. Of course, he only had the one eye, but at least it wasn’t nearsighted.
He spotted a mash of bodies, trying to hold a bit of cover on the far western side of the settlement. It was obvious that they were under fire, and equally obvious that they weren’t doing much shooting back.
“There!” Marie snapped, dipping lower in the grass and pointing a finger to the east of the Redoubt.
Lee sidled up next to her, aiming his good eye down her arm and spotting what she was pointing at. From their vantage point, Lee could just make out the top of a red pickup truck, positioned so that the circular ridgeline was between it and the Redoubt.
And then he saw movement in the grass. Right there on the very top of the ridge, just a handful of yards from the red truck: A man leapt up, sprinted a few yards, then went prone again, disappearing into the grass.
Like spotting one ant, and then realizing there are many more, Lee suddenly saw movement in multiple areas along that ridge. The tell-tale twitch as the grass was buffeted by muzzle blasts that spat out barely-perceptible plumes of smoke.
Immediately, Lee’s gaze snapped up and scanned the rest of the ridge, knowing what he would find even before he did. And there it was: Another pickup truck, this one not quite so well concealed, but much farther away, to the south of the Redoubt.
Lee’s heart slammed with nothing that had to do with exertion. His dehydrated body managed to summon enough moisture to wet his palms. “Shit. You see that other truck to the south?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“They’re pinning them down and picking them off.”
Marie’s head started shaking. “There’s no way we can make it in there without getting pegged on the way in.”
Lee had already deduced that. They were stuck. And in a horrific flash, memories of Rampart at the Border began to flood his mind. The feeling of powerlessness as you watched people being slaughtered, one by one. People you should have been able to protect.
Except that it wasn’t just the people of the Redoubt down there. His team was down there too.
His family—or at least the closest he would ever get in this life.
He couldn’t let Rampart happen all over again. And he sure as shit couldn’t leave his boys down there to get picked apart. Not today. Not ever.
But what was he going to do in his current physical state, with not a single weapon on him?
Growling, Lee set his teeth and slapped Marie on the shoulder. “Come with me.”
Sam’s first instinct as he watched Bea crumple to the floor of the lookout was to unload his rifle in the general direction of east. His second, more measured thought, was that doing so would only draw more attention to their little metal death box.
Instead, he immediately dropped, sending up a silent prayer that he hadn’t been noticed, and yelled to Abe and Jones below, “Bea’s down!”
A bullet punched a hole in the metal siding, just over Sam’s left shoulder, then another poked through the wall right above Bea’s squirming body.
Squirming—that was a good thing. Also, the fact that she was still screaming.
Sam wrestled the loop of the binos over his neck and crawled towards Bea, his rifle clattering and scraping along the floor underneath him. “Talk to me, Bea! Where you hit?”
She only seethed out another stretch of screams.
Sam skittered up next to her. She was writhing so violently he had to elbow one of her legs down to keep her from kneeing him in the face. She was half on her back, half on her left side, with her right arm flopping, and her left arm clutching her chest.
“Hey!” Sam shouted at her face, trying to pull her hand away so he could check the wound.
Bea’s eyes shot open, wide and pouring tears. “My back!” she snarled at him.
She was stronger than she looked. Sam expected her hand to come away from her chest more easily, but she was fighting him. He swore and put more oomph into it. Her hand pulled away, trembling in his grip, revealing a growing patch of blood spreading over the upper right side of her chest, just in the pocket of her shoulder.
“My fucking back!” she screamed at him, face livid and veins popping out in her forehead.
“Your fucking shoulder!” Sam yelled back, not at all surprised that she wasn’t clear on where her injuries were. He yanked her shirt open, popping a button that went pinging off the metal wall beside them. Caught sight of the wound. Saw the swollen flesh, with the uneven hole in the middle, bits of muscle tissue hanging out. That was an exit wound if he’d ever seen one.
Bea wasn’t wrong about her back—it was just that her brain was only processing the pain of the entry wound. By pulling her onto her side, Sam saw the dribble of dark blood coming from the much neater-looking hole, just between her spine and her right shoulder blade. It’d entered there, and then blown out the front of her shoulder.
They needed to get out of this death box, pronto. “I’m gonna move you,” Sam said, as gunshots reverberated through the walls. He grabbed her by her left arm and pulled her towards the hole, still trying to keep his body low.
He stuck his head through the hole, but couldn’t see anyone below. “Abe! Jones!”
“Yo!” Jones’s voice came back up, followed by the snap of five suppressed rifle shots.
“I’m gonna lower Bea down to you!”
Jones shouted something that Sam couldn’t make out. Didn’t matter anyhow. Sam was already pushing Bea into the hole.
“Don’t drop me!” Bea managed between clenched teeth, her bucking diaphragm causing her words to shake.
“I’m not gonna drop you,” Sam said. “I got you. I’m right here. I’m gonna hold on, and Jones is gonna take your feet.” He didn’t wait for her to be ready. He pushed on her left shoulder, sliding her lower body further into the hole. “Jones, she’s coming down!”
“Hurry the fuck up! My ass is in the wind down here!”
Sam wrapped his arm around Bea’s left, gripping her tightly just above the elbow and then pushed her all the way through.
She grunted as gravity took her body. The weight came down on her shoulder. Sam lurched and spread his feet, straining to keep himself from being sucked down with her. She gasped, and then squealed, so high-pitched that Sam found himself rattled.
“It’s alright! You’re okay!” he shouted, though there was no way she could have heard him over her own screaming.
“Bring her down more!” Jones yelled.
Sam shimmied his body. Both of his arms were now through the hole, the edge of it biting into his armpits. He tried to peek down but only caught a flurry of limbs—Jones’s hands trying to harness Bea’s thrashing legs.
“Stop fucking kicking me!” Jones roared at her, then managed to hug her legs to his chest. “I got her!”
Sam let go.
Jones had tried to position himself so she’d flop over onto his shoulder, all nice and tidy. She did not, instead pitching sideways and pulling Jones off balance. He stumbled, trying to stay under her, but he was going down and knew it. He twisted as he did, turning his own body into a crash pad for hers. The two of them went down in a wallop of flesh.
Sam scrambled his legs through the hole and dropped the ten feet to the ground. He hit the dirt in a forward roll that was anything but graceful, his rifle swinging around and clocking him in the groin. He groaned, but didn’t have the time to take a knee and wait for the branching pain to abate. He immediately scrambled towards Jones and Bea, sliding down to one knee, his rifle shouldered.
“Get her to cover!” Sam shouted, then dumped his mag at the eastern ridgeline. He’d hoped for some muzzle flashes to aim for, but there was nothing. He was just spraying and praying.
“Reloading!” Sam shouted, sparing a glance behind him as he dropped his empty mag and went for another. A flurry of suppressed gunshots ripped over his head. Jones had pulled Bea up onto her feet, holding her with his left arm while he backed up, hip-firing his rifle—not towards the east, but straight down the main drag towards their attackers to the south.
They were exposed on both sides.
Sam seated the new mag and dropped the bolt. “I’m up! Crossing!”
Jones held his fire as Sam surged to his feet and put himself between the enemy to the south and his retreating friends. In the distance, he could still make out the very top of the black pickup truck on the southern ridge, and—there! A little puff of gray and a twitch of the surrounding grass.
He shouldered his rifle as he backpedaled, then paused just long enough to bear down on a breath and squeeze the trigger in steady procession—five rounds right on that spot he’d seen. He had no clue if he’d hit anything, but spun around and cut the corner of the box after Jones and Bea.
They now had cover from their attackers to the south, but were still exposed to the east. Sam turned his back on Jones and Bea, right shoulder to the wall, backing up as he covered the eastern ridge.
“Stop fucking dragging me!” Bea shouted with encouraging gusto.
“Then use your fucking feet and run!” Jones yelled back at her.
Sam heard their shuffling stumble turn into pounding feet and figured they’d ghosted for cover, so he gave the eastern ridgeline one more sweep, then turned and sprinted the last few yards to the end of the box.
Sam turned the corner and saw that they were in a convenient nook…with about ten other people. It was the corner between two boxes—Bea’s, which happened to be one of the few oriented east-west, corner-to-corner with one of the others which was oriented north-south. The corners didn’t touch, leaving about a foot of gap that everyone shied away from, but it was the best bit of cover, given the angles that their attackers had on them. Unfortunately, it was already overcrowded.
Sam scanned the faces for Abe, but he wasn’t there. Where had that asshole run off to? Sam reached for the PTT button on his chest, and realized—far too late to do anything about it—that they’d left their radios charging in the pickup.
No contact with Abe.
Bea and Jones were against what would have been the back wall of Bea’s Conex box. She groaned and slid down the wall, leaving a smear of blood behind, while Jones shouldered his rifle again and inched towards the gap in the corner.
“They’re shooting at us through that gap!” someone said, clearly trying to dissuade Jones.
“It’s okay,” Jones said, testily. “I’m a professional.”
Sam fervently hoped that Jones hadn’t just jinxed himself. Keeping one eye on his friend, Sam squatted in front of Bea and took her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him. Her eyes were cinched with pain, the tears still coming, but she wasn’t fading.
“You’re doing great,” Sam said, slinging his rifle off to his left side and ripping the IFAK from the side of his plate carrier. “Bullet went all the way through. I know that sounds bad, but it’s actually a good thing.”
To which Bea only responded, “Motherfucker!”
He wasn’t sure if that was directed at him, or whoever had shot her. “That’s good,” he said, his hands working rapidly, pulling a pack of hemostatic gauze and two chest seals from the IFAK. “You stay mad. Stay awake. Keep talking.”
Bea’s version of talking was to unleash every swear she knew.
But that was a good sign. Clearly she wasn’t having trouble breathing, so hopefully the bullet had missed her lung. He grabbed her shirt and ripped it so the rest of the buttons came flying off. Sam pulled the shirt down her back and fully off of her limp right arm. It left Bea in only a bra, but she had bigger problems than exposure.
“Can you move that arm?” he asked, as he set the two chest seals on the ground and ripped open the gauze.
If she tried, he couldn’t tell.
“I can’t move it. Is that bad?”
“Hon, you’ve been shot,” Sam said. “It’s definitely not good. But I’m here, and I’m gonna patch you up. I got you. I’m not gonna let anything bad happen to you.”
The second those words left his lips, he instantly regretted them. What kind of bullshit was that? He couldn’t make those kinds of promises.
He pulled a length of gauze out and wadded it into a ball around his index finger. He caught Bea looking at the gauze, and then looking at him, clearly terrified. He nodded, sympathetically.
“This is gonna suck. Bite down or scream. I gotta do it to stop the bleeding.”
“Waitwaitwait!” Bea’s good hand shot out and grabbed his. “Don’t you have something for the pain?”
Sam hesitated. Just long enough for Jones to let out a yelp as a flurry of projectiles pinged off the corner where his head had just been and lanced into the dirt, sending up a wash of dust.
“I told you—” someone started to shout.
“I don’t wanna hear it!” Jones snapped, rolling onto his knees and coming up breathing hard in Sam’s face. “They’re not pushing on us,” he said, his tone full of dread.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” one of the other people huddled close to them asked.
“The adults are talking!” Jones shouted over his shoulder, then whipped back to Sam. “Why are they not pushing on us, Sam?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Oh, yeah. Something for Bea’s pain. He looked at her seriously. “I got morphine, but it might knock you out.”
She was breathing hard and fast and shallow.
“You want me to hold her down?” Jones asked, to which Bea looked horrified.
“Bea, I gotta stop the bleeding, and that means packing the wound. I don’t think—” He was about to say that he didn’t think she should take the morphine in the middle of a fight, but she cut him off, grabbing a handful of his shirtsleeve.
“Give it to me.” Her eyes were pleading.
Shouldn’t have even told her I had it, he thought, even as his hand dipped back into the IFAK, his fingers finding the set of four, single-use injectables. He pulled one out. Thumbed off the cap, and, without preamble, stuck it straight into Bea’s shoulder, right next to the wound.
She winced. Then she frowned, eyes darting between the injection site and Sam, like she thought it should have hit her immediately. By the time Sam got his ball of gauze ready again and placed a steadying hand on her shoulder, it did. Her eyebrows arched as though surprised, all the tension suddenly leaving her face.
“Oh…shit,” she murmured.
“Great,” Jones grumbled, rising to his feet. “She’s a lightweight. Now we’re gonna hafta carry her.”
Sam pressed the thumb of his free hand against the hole in her shoulder. She didn’t react to it. He could feel her blood seeping around his thumb to the rhythm of her pulse.
“Sam,” Bea slurred.
He positioned his index finger with its ball of gauze right at the wound opening, but paused long enough to look her in the eyes. Which were half lidded and fluttering.
