Valley of Vengeance: Book Five in The Borrowed World Series Page 14

  “We’ve fought off a lot of men,” Jim said. “Each time, we take the risk that we’re going to lose people we love. Fighting these men would be bad. I worry about the risks.”

  The sheriff shook his head in disgust. Not just at what Jim was telling him, but at the whole sorry state of the world. “Well, if you expect me and my last two deputies to come over there and save the day for you then you’re shit out of luck,” the sheriff said. “I can barely feed my family and that’s pretty much all I care about right now. I don’t care about you, I don’t care about Barnes, and I don’t care about this county. The only things I care about in this world are in that house back there.”

  Jim smiled at the sheriff’s singlemindedness. It was much like his own. “Then we speak the same language. And no, I’m not here to ask you to fight our fight for us. Someone just gave me the idea that your presence might shake some of the other men with Barnes. They might not be so quick to shoot if they knew another cop could be on the receiving end.”

  “I’m not in the private security business either.” The sheriff shook his head in disgust and turned to walk off. “Your fight, your problem. Now I got work to do.”

  “They want us to move into the valley with them,” Deel called after the sheriff. “They’re offering housing and food. You can bring your family.”

  The sheriff froze in his tracks for a moment, then turned around skeptically and regarded Jim. Then he turned his eyes on his men. “You all are buying his bullshit?”

  “I think he’s being honest with us,” Ford said. “What he’s saying matches up with what the old man told us yesterday.”

  “Which you manipulated him into telling you,” Jim said accusingly.

  Ford shrugged. “It’s part of the job.”

  “Who’s in this valley of yours?” Sheriff Scott asked.

  “Some of the people who lived there originally and weren’t run off, like the Wimmers. A few people from work. I tried to make it alone originally, but it was hard without having people around I could trust. One man can’t guard a place all the time and raise food and fix everything that breaks. You have to have help. We’ve all formed a group and we look after each other. We try to keep our neighborhood safe, whatever it takes. Picture a neighborhood watch on steroids.”

  “I guess having a fucking tanker of fuel helps, doesn’t it?” the sheriff said. He said it with an edge to his voice as if Jim had no right to keep such a resource to himself.

  “That’s apparently a hard secret to keep,” Jim said. He felt no need to explain or defend how he’d come to have that resource.

  “And what would our role in this group be?” the sheriff asked. “We have to start working for you? We the new hired guns?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Jim said. “We’re all just individual families working together. We share guard and security details because it’s less of a burden if you have several people sharing it. Some of us work together more than others but it’s just because we get along. There’re no rules, really. I don’t like a lot of rules.”

  The sheriff smiled. “You and I might get along after all.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Jim said. “I can be a dick sometimes.”

  “I’ll need to talk to my family,” the sheriff said.

  “How long you need?” Jim asked. “You need me to come back later?”

  “I’ll do it right now. You guys sit tight. You’ll probably have your answer in a few minutes.”

  Jim and the deputies stood around awkwardly while Sheriff Scott was inside his house. They discussed the weather and if the coloration of caterpillars had indicated what was in store for them this winter. The men asked about the valley and what other families lived there. The deputies recounted their visits to the valley over the years and what trouble had brought them there.

  In a few minutes the screen door banged again and the sheriff was back with them. He walked up to Jim, his face giving away nothing. The sheriff regarded Jim for a moment as if making some final assessment.

  “We’re going to take you up on your offer,” the sheriff said.

  Jim nodded. “I think you’re making the right choice.”

  “I have no choice,” the sheriff said. “My family is on borrowed time.”

  “When do you want to leave?” Jim asked.

  “My wife is ready to leave now,” the sheriff admitted. “She thinks we’re going to die here in this house. She thinks the children are going to starve. My mother had a stroke. It’s been hard taking care of her without help.”

  Jim nodded with understanding. “My truck is empty,” he said. “You can pack stuff in it. Do you still have a running vehicle?”

  Sheriff Scott nodded. “My department Tahoe still has fuel. We’ll pack it full first. It may take an hour or so to get everything gathered up.” The sheriff turned and headed off toward the house.

  “Can I be of any help?” Jim asked. “I can at least carry loads.”

  “Sure,” the sheriff said without even turning around.

  Jim looked at the deputies. “Are you all still interested in coming along?”

  Both men nodded.

  “Then go pack,” Jim said. “We’ll meet you at the 911 center when we’ve got everything loaded.”

  Chapter 28

  Jim

  Two hours later Jim pulled into the 911 center, his truck jammed full of items belonging to the sheriff’s family. The sheriff led the way, his own vehicle packed with gear, children, a nervous looking wife, and his frail mother. While his wife may have wanted to escape their barren farm, she didn’t seem comfortable not knowing what lay ahead of them. Jim hoped that the other wives might pitch in and help her unpack, which would do a lot to dispel some of her anxiety. The sheriff’s mother, disabled by a recent stroke, lay propped up in the back seat. Her face was pale and drawn, her eyes accepting the events of the day with the resolution possessed by one who has already experienced very bad things and has no expectation that life will get better.

  Deputies Deel and Ford were waiting on them. They had two police vehicles this time – the Ford Escape and an older Chevy Blazer with sheriff’s department markings. Both vehicles were packed to the point of having gear tied onto the top.

  Jim rolled down the window and called out, “You guys ready to go?”

  Ford and Deel looked at each other, shrugged, and went to their respective vehicles.

  The sheriff whipped his vehicle around until his driver’s window was aligned with Jim’s. “Which way we going?”

  “I’m going to drive right through town,” Jim said. “

  “To send a message?” the sheriff asked.

  Jim nodded.

  “What if it provokes a reaction?”

  “I can’t control what other people do.”

  “I guess you’re keeping a weapon handy?”

  “Always,” Jim said.

  The sheriff nodded. “Lead the way.”

  “We’ll have to take a diversion onto a farm road before we get to the valley, so don’t be surprised when I turn off through the creek,” Jim said. “The main road was damaged.”

  “Damaged?” the sheriff asked. “How?”

  “No idea.”

  Jim backed his vehicle around and shot out of the parking lot, setting a quick pace. He chided himself for habitually using a signal light to turn from one empty road onto another but he did have a cop behind him. He ran a dead stoplight where the secondary road joined Main Street and continued through town.

  Some people came into their yards to watch, a moving vehicle having quickly become a novelty. A woman tried to run toward the convoy of vehicles, her intentions unclear. She stumbled and collapsed in her yard. A man shuffled up one lane of the road, a garbage bag in his hand, sagging with some small item. He didn’t move for their vehicles and they swerved around him.

  In one yard, two bodies lay covered with sheets, the corners weighted down with old bricks. In another, a deer carcass hung from a tree beside a tire
swing. The muscles had been crudely hacked into cuts of meat, leaving much to waste. The organs were still present and strands of intestine hung from the cavity like bluish garland. Flies formed a dark and moving crust on the exposed flesh.

  Businesses along the street had all been looted. Few windows had escaped the stones of the angry and starving. Trash and discarded packaging, flattened by feet and weather, was everywhere. There was so much debris that the four lanes of traffic in this section of town were reduced to one passable lane. Jim removed his pistol from its retention holster and kept it in his hand, resting on the center console of the truck. He expected any minute that a crowd armed with sticks and rocks would surge from an alley and surround his truck like in some futuristic movie.

  As he passed the courthouse, Jim noticed that the flag had been taken down and re-hung upside down. The windows of the courthouse had been shattered and papers scattered everywhere. It looked as if people may have been taking the opportunity to try and expunge their court or tax records in hopes that the electronic version might not be accessible again. It was also possible that the scattered papers were just the products of bored teens and done with no intention at all other than spreading mischief.

  Past the courthouse was a cluster of older buildings that had all been remodeled into law offices. Someone had apparently seen this lawless period as a time to settle scores against perceived injustices. All that remained of the various offices were scorched foundations and the occasional brick wall precariously balanced against collapse.

  Two miles later, they were passing the shopping center with the superstore. Their drive took them on the frontage road along the parking lot. Jim slowed a little, actually wanting the attention of the residents. He wanted them to see what was happening, wanted them to know that he’d upped the ante and an attack on him would also now be an attack on one of their own. He knew there were people inside who didn’t care, but he hoped that there were at least some who would. Every one of them inside there who might question what they were doing and choose not to be involved would be one less person trying to kill him; one less person he would have to try to kill.

  Jim caught the flash of a scope on the roof and knew they were being glassed. He also knew it was an amateur sniper who didn’t understand what a killflash was, which would have prevented that reflection off his optic. A few people were milling around outside the main doors. A grill was smoking and a man he recognized from the Mexican restaurant was cooking. There was still a wall of parked cars blocking off most of the parking lot. Jim noticed a lot of broken windows in those cars now.

  In seconds, they were past the shopping center and less than a mile from where they’d dynamited a chunk out of the road. Jim knew the road a little better than the men following him and had gotten ahead. The cops also seemed to drive slower than he did when passing by the superstore. Perhaps they hadn’t seen what their former colleagues had constructed there.

  Just before the point where he would turn left through the creek, Jim rounded a curve and found a police car blocking the road. He couldn’t get past it to reach his turn. He checked his rearview to see if the sheriff and the two deputies had caught up with him but he couldn’t see through the items packed into the back of his truck. He checked his side mirror and found the road behind him to be empty.

  His eyes going back to what was ahead of him, Jim found one man sitting in the cop car. He wasn’t wearing any uniform but he had on the sunglasses. Cop sunglasses. The man made no effort to get out. Jim flipped his truck into four wheel drive. The three-quarter ton diesel truck would push the small car out of the road easily. Hell, he could probably drive overtop of it if he wanted but decided he’d wait and see what the sheriff thought. He didn’t want to start this partnership out on the wrong foot.

  It seemed longer but it was probably less than fifteen seconds before the sheriff and the two deputy vehicles rolled in behind him. Jim threw his driver’s door open and got out. He knew the door provided no ballistic protection but it at least provided some concealment while he stood waiting on the other men. Deel was the first to reach him, though his vehicle was the last in line. The sheriff had not gotten out of his Tahoe yet and Ford stood at his window talking with him.

  “I don’t think we should sit and powwow too long,” Jim said. “This could be a trap.”

  Deel dismissed him. “Bullshit,” he said. “They’re not going to do anything with the sheriff here.” Deel went around to the front of Jim’s truck and stared at the other cop who sat in his car about twenty yards away.

  Jim heard a door shut behind him and saw that the sheriff had gotten out of the Tahoe and was approaching with Ford.

  “Hell, that’s Deputy Browning,” Deel said. “He rode with me when he was training.”

  Deel stalked off toward the car.

  “Get back here!” Jim said.

  He saw the man in the car raise his radio to his mouth and talk into it.

  “What the hell is this?” the sheriff asked.

  The sheriff and Ford bypassed Jim’s door and walked toward the patrol car. They were barely past Jim’s bumper when two quick shots rang out. Deel flinched, grabbed his midsection, and crumpled to the ground.

  The sheriff threw a hand out and screamed. “NOOOO!”

  The engine in the patrol car roared to life. Jim drew his weapon just as Ford drew his. Ford began firing through the window of the patrol car. Jim hopped onto the running board of his truck, dumping more rounds into the driver. The shots must have had some effect because the driver’s foot slipped off the brake and the car began rolling slowly forward.

  Ford and Jim quit firing. The car eased toward them, then veered to Jim’s left, getting a tire stuck in the ditch and blocking most of the road.

  “He probably called for backup!” Jim shouted. “We have to get out of here now!”

  Ford ran and checked the driver. “He’s dead!”

  The sheriff was at Deel’s side, feeling for a pulse.

  “There’s no time!” Jim yelled. “We’re not even a minute away from the shopping center. Throw him in my truck!”

  Jim pulled his passenger door open while Ford and Sheriff Scott dragged the unconscious and heavily bleeding man to his truck. He helped them heave the dead weight into the vehicle and then ran back to the driver’s side. If he took off, maybe they would get the picture and follow him. They seemed to be in shock at the loss of a friend. They weren’t used to these things. They were rural cops, not soldiers, not patrolmen from cities where gunfights were common. Jim could understand their feeling but knew that there was no time for it now or they’d be carrying more than one dead body out of there.

  The cruiser blocked a portion of the road. Jim eased into it, using his four-wheel drive and solid steel winch bumper to push the car to the side. When it was out of the way, he hit the accelerator, dropping over the embankment and fording the creek. On the opposite side, he opened the first of several gates and pulled through. The gate wouldn’t stop any determined vehicle so there was no point in waiting around to close it. He kept going, all four wheels spinning on the grassy road.

  He looked in his side mirror and saw the other vehicles behind him, easing through the creek and up onto the bank. Deel’s vehicle was in the very back and would provide a temporary roadblock but not for long. The keys were probably still in it. Thinking of the man’s vehicle caused him to look over at his passenger. Blood filled the seat and the plastic floor mat.

  Jim put his hand on the man’s neck. There was no pulse.

  Chapter 29

  Barnes

  Five vehicles shot out of the shopping center at dangerously high speeds, Barnes in the lead. In less than a minute, he rounded a blind curve and found Deel’s blazer blocking the road. He slammed on the brakes and tried to skirt around it but one wheel slipped into a deep ditch hidden by the overgrown weeds. Barnes slammed the steering wheel, cursed, and threw open his door. He slid out of the cruiser, his gun drawn.

  More vehicles
fell in behind him and he heard doors opening, the sound of running feet. Past Deel’s abandoned vehicle, he found Browning dead in his car. The windshield was spider-webbed from multiple rounds, the man’s face an unrecognizable pulp.

  “Son of a bitch!” Barnes hissed.

  The sound of a distant engine caught his attention and Barnes looked up just in time to see Ford’s vehicle disappear over a hill.

  “Should we go after them?” Sword asked.

  Barnes’ face was red, his heart pounding. “No yet,” he said.

  “But they killed Browning!” Sword said. “I never imagined the sheriff would murder one of his own deputies.”

  Barnes knew there was probably more to the story of why Browning was dead but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that these men would be more loyal to him if they thought they couldn’t trust the sheriff anymore. Having them lose faith in the sheriff could only help Barnes.

  “Let’s wait,” Barnes said. “They’re probably expecting us to charge after them. We need to pick a better time, when their guard is down.”

  “I can’t tell Browning’s wife about this,” Sword said, emotion rising in his voice. “She’s pregnant. “

  “I’ll tell her,” Barnes said. “Then she has to pack her shit and get out.”

  Sword looked at his boss, stunned.

  “She’s only there because of Browning. If he’s not there, she’s just a drain on resources,” Barnes explained. “I’m sure she’s got family somewhere.”

  “People aren’t going to like that,” Sword said.

  “Anyone who doesn’t like it can come see me,” Barnes said, “on their way out.”

  Chapter 30

  Alice

  They day after they buried half their family, Alice and Charlie accomplished very little. They kept a haphazard watch over the farm, both of them silently hoping that someone would stray onto their property. They wanted to kill someone. They wanted to avenge Pat’s and Terry’s deaths, even though there was no one to blame. No murder would ease their hearts, but both silently wanted to try.