Fourth Quadrant: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book Two, page 26
Lauren watches Potts climb into the ruined vehicle; he is pulling out what’s left of Anna. Her remains come out like an elongated and sagging string. Like all the bones have been pulverized. The woman’s face is missing. Just a red skinless mass, holes where the eyes once were.
Lauren blinks.
Her heart pounds so hard it hurts.
She slowly sinks into the grass.
The inside of her head is blank. Thoughtless. Opaque.
She sees only the waving blades of grass; they bob slightly on the breeze. A grasshopper clings to one. He is yellow and green, eyes translucent, rising and falling on his blade of grass.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
2 PM
The fight at Alpha Alpha kept replaying in Lauren’s head as sped along, headed back to Cheyenne. A huge flock of crows and magpies exploded from the drainage bottom in a flurry of wings. She had to swerve the bike as the birds careened and squawked in front of her. Came close to crashing the bike, startled as she was.
“Goddamn it.”
She managed to miss them and watched the birds circle above the road. They must have dinner somewhere just off the shoulder. Lauren rode up the hill and down the other side, searching for the carcass that must be out there. Lauren was twenty-four miles east of Cheyenne. Wasn’t her usual route, it was Breeze’s, but Alpha X-Ray, off Thunder Basin Road, had been hit hard. Had to rely on Ma Deuce to save their asses. They’d needed a couple of boxes of fifty-caliber ammo. ASAP.
A quarter mile ahead, another motorcycle leaned on its side stand.
With a click, Lauren toed the transmission into neutral and let the bike roll to a stop. Checked out the dusty BMW 650. Breeze’s bike.
Shifting the M4 to her right hand, she scanned the surroundings for any sign of trouble.
Where’s Breeze?
OP Bravo Alpha sat astraddle Thunder Basin Road, maybe three miles south and east. OP Bravo Charlie stood on a low bluff just back from the state line, about three miles south southwest. From its sandstone-capped top it had a total view of Porter Creek valley. Maybe Breeze had run out of gas or broke down and decided to walk to one of the OPs?
God, let it be that. Tell me she wasn’t flagged down. Taken at gun point.
Lauren stayed on her bike as she cradled her M4. Heart beating slowly, she thumbed the fire control to burst and searched the landscape for an ambush.
Meadowlarks perched and trilled on the spiky clumps of yucca; green, pod-like flowers were on the verge of blossoming.
The sky overhead burned reddish-orange where the mid-afternoon sun penetrated the brown haze.
She shut off her engine and listened.
When the wind shifted, the buzz of flies reached Lauren, and she thought she heard someone gasp for breath.
“Breeze?” she called. “You down there?”
Lauren flipped the kickstand down, leaned the bike, and cradled the M4 in her arms as she threw her leg over and stepped off.
“Breeze?”
With her skin crawling, Lauren eased to the edge of the gravel road. The road bed was elevated here where drainage ran down toward Crow Creek; when it rained, water ran through a culvert buried in the embankment. More crows burst from the grass and wings filled the air. Dead bodies scattered the border. That’s what she expected to find.
Another gasp, like someone vomiting.
“Breeze?” Lauren shouted. M4 at hand, she stepped to the drop-off and looked over. “Are you hurt?
The bright yellow tent was completely hidden from view of the road. It had been pitched just across the barbed wire fence in the bottom of the dry creek bed and no more than four feet from the culvert.
A cobalt-blue backpack lay to one side of the tent, its pockets unzipped. Occasional articles of clothing were scattered here and there.
Lauren scaled the fence and jumped off the other side. Her M4 at the ready, she studied every dip and cranny that might hide a potential enemy.
A short distance from the tent, the dead woman lay on her side. The wind played with the mouse-brown strands around the bullet hole in her skull. Her eyes had been plucked out by the crows, her mouth agape and swarming with flies. She wore a flower-patterned blouse that hadn’t been washed in days. Filth covered her red pants.
The little boy lay face-down in the grass next to her. Lauren’s heart pounded as she walked closer. The kid’s hair had been blown away by the discharge of a firearm, and the star-shaped entrance wound in the back of his skull couldn’t be missed. She didn’t bother to turn him over. Gore puddled beneath what was left of his ruined face.
Beyond them, the man lay on his back, left arm flung out to the side. His right index finger remained inside the trigger guard of an old Model 10 Smith & Wesson .38 pistol.
Not hard to figure out how it had gone down. He’d killed his family, then himself.
Down the drainage, just out of sight where a creek bottom turned: Sobbing.
Lauren’s alert gaze scanned the grass as she walked toward the agonizing sounds. She saw the familiar motorcycle touring jacket. Hunched, head down, in the lee of a bunch of squaw currant.
“Breeze, are you hurt?” Lauren pulled up, still wary. “Answer me!”
Breeze straightened, stared sidelong at Lauren through glittering eyes, and seemed to come to her senses.
Swallowing hard, she leaned her head back to the gaudy sunlight and took a deep breath. “I’m all right,” she answered as she brushed off her sleeves and pants.
“You hurt? Let me look you over.”
“Not necessary.”
All emotion had vanished. In a matter of heartbeats Breeze became the same tough woman Lauren had come to rely on. Dressed in camo and wearing scuffed Lucchese boots, Breeze once again looked tough and lean. Only when close could Lauren see the tangled brown hair was matted wetly to Breeze’s cheeks, her eyes swollen.
Breeze squared her shoulders. Halting one pace short, she adjusted her gun belt. “Lauren, just get on your bike and ride away. Stay away from the tent. You hear me?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Lauren made a face. “That bad, huh?”
Without another word, Breeze stalked off, scaled the fence and climbed the hill. Lauren heard her BMW putter to life. The click when Breeze toed it into gear, and then the roar as she flogged it away. The big single rapped out every gear change until it vanished over the distant hill.
Lauren turned to frown at the yellow tent.
What’s in there?
At the sound of a truck engine, Lauren trotted back, scrambled over the fence, and got a look at the pickup heading her way in a dust cloud.
The truck approached slowly from the south. The Militia sign on the front bumper was prominently displayed. Three people were visible through the windshield. One of Agar’s behind-the-lines patrols.
When the truck stopped, the doors flew open, rifles leveled and steadied in the gap. Three people were in the Ford F-250’s cab.
“Who are you?” a man wearing a cowboy hat called as he popped up from the driver’s seat.
“Lauren Davis.” She slung her rifle and held up her hands. “Working for Captain Ragnovich in the Guard. I deliver supplies to the OPs.”
“Are you that Lauren Davis? From Buffalo Camp?”
Lowering her hands, she answered woodenly. “Yeah.” And then, “I’m her.”
“Where’s your pass?”
“On my bike.” She tilted her head toward the KTM. “Who are you?”
“Corporal Toby Eppson. Charley Company, Border Battalion, Wyoming Militia.” He stepped out from behind the driver’s door, his AR15 rifle at rest in the crook of his arm. To the others, he said, “You guys stay with the truck. Keep an eye out.”
As he walked up, Eppson said, “I’ve heard of you, Davis. Heard good things. What are you doing stopped out here? Isn’t this Tappan’s route?”
“Emergency run. Alpha X-Ray ran out of rounds for Ma Deuce. Too many bullets flying around today.”
Eppson walked toward her and glanced down at the bodies sprawled in the grass just past the yellow tent. “What happened here?”
“Looks like a murder-suicide to me. Got to be. No one would leave a gun behind. Come on, let me show you.”
In the lead, Lauren slid her way back down the embankment, scaled the barbed wire fence, and headed for the yellow tent. Eppson followed her.
When they reached the bodies, Eppson wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Mom, Dad and son? How long ago did this happen?”
“From the condition of the wounds, yesterday, late. Maybe last night.”
“What were they doing way out here?” Eppson frowned out at the hills. “It’s miles from anywhere.”
Lauren watched the crows and magpies who flapped down to roost on the fence posts and squawk to one another, waiting to return to their dinners. “They may have thought they could walk from ranch to ranch, begging food along the way. Others have.”
“But all the places around here are either abandoned or burned,” Eppson said.
“Doubt they knew that.”
Distastefully, Eppson said, “Man, I never saw a dead person outside of a funeral home until all this happened.”
Lauren frowned at the yellow tent.
“Davis, can you help me document this site, so I can speculate on what happened here in my report? Can you believe? Civilization’s cratered, and the Guv’s already got us doing paperwork.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
A recent scatter of trash lay in the grass around the yellow tent; Lauren found a piece of paper rolled and stuffed in the top of an empty water bottle. She pulled it out and unrolled it.
“What’s that?” Eppson asked.
“Note. Written in blue ink, says, ‘Lost. No water in three days.’”
Lauren handed the note to Eppson and squinted at the tent. She wondered if Breeze had ridden past yesterday and seen this family waving, desperate to get her to stop. If she had, she would have assumed the same thing Lauren would have: The family’s a distraction for an ambush. Pin the throttle and get past them fast, before the guns come out.
What would it have taken to save them? A couple of bottles of water? Couple of MREs?
Eppson glared at the bodies. “The pistol is still in the man’s hand.”
Lauren adjusted her slung M4, and took in the sprawled bodies, idly wondering what the man felt when he shot his wife and son. What thoughts were going through his head? Did he shoot the wife first, so she couldn’t object to him killing the boy? Or did Mom hold the child for as long as she could, telling her son everything was going to be okay, before she stepped away to make room for Dad to blow the boy’s brains out?
Lauren spread her feet. “Looks like he couldn’t stand to see his family suffer any longer.”
“Yeah. Ground’s not torn up. No sign of struggle. Contact wound on the side of the woman’s head. No, I’d say she was in on it. Boy died first. Then the woman.”
Death was now regarded with a whole new, and totally callous ambivalence. After all, the number of human corpses south of the line so overwhelmed the senses that it was like seeing a foregone conclusion. You just swerved to miss the carcass and drove on by.
Eppson walked over and used the toe of his boot to roll the man over, then he pulled the billfold from the guy’s back pocket and flipped it open. “Matthew Hammond Grant, date of birth, June 12, 1990, lived at 4467 Smith Street, Boulder, Colorado. And here’s his business card. Senior technician, diagnostic repair, L & M Computer Solutions on 28th Street, Boulder. No cash, of course. Just useless credit cards.”
Lauren waved away the swarming flies and knelt to examine the blue backpack. She dug through every pocket, pulled out a red toy car and a tiny plastic doll. “Nothing in the backpack but kids’ toys.”
“Okay.” Eppson tucked the wallet into his coat pocket. “Have you checked inside the tent?”
When she rose to her feet, Lauren suddenly shivered. Breeze wouldn’t have told her to stay away unless…
“No.”
“I doubt that little boy was playing with that doll.”
It was as though Lauren’s soul heard a voice that her ears did not. She squinted at the yellow tent. The front was zipped closed. Trying to keep something in? Or something out?
Eppson extended a hand to the tent. “Could you check it out while I roll over the woman to see if she has any ID?”
“I...I’ve got to get back to Cheyenne, Corporal.”
Irritated, he said, “Yeah? You think I might have other things to do, too?”
Lauren clenched her jaw, thought about Breeze. “Sorry, you’re right. I got it.”
Lauren walked over, knelt. The tent had been zipped all the way to the top. As she pulled the zipper down, an angry swarm of flies burst out right into her face.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Silverware clinked. Lauren barely heard it where she hunched over a glass of stout in the Plains Hotel bar.
Like flipping a light switch, she was just suddenly there. Had no clue how she’d gotten there. What she’d been doing.
“Was I out on The Line?” Flashes of memory, like some disjointed druggie’s action film flickering in her head. Shooting. A detonation, as the Alpha Alpha Humvee was blown up. People dying behind the MTV as they tried to overwhelm her and Mike. Potts, laughing. Corporal Eppson, of the Guard…
Eppson. Staring into her eyes.
Saying...? What?
It was as if the memory faded.
I’m all right. I’m in the bar.
Things were normal. She had a full glass of stout clasped in her hands. Felt warm. She lifted it, savored the taste.
All around her, normal-looking people chatted and ate sandwiches, while Lucy took orders and delivered food. Most of the patrons were military, wearing National Guard camo or the dark gray shirts of the Militia. The civilians must be state employees.
What the hell happened to me?
“Lucy? Can I order?” she called as the waitress walked by carrying plates to another table. The tight high voice didn’t sound like hers. “I’ll have the bison chili, please.”
“Got it!” Lucy called back. The woman spared Lauren a worried glance as she delivered her plates.
A corporal at the table across from hers smiled when her gaze drifted across him, then he let it fade at the hateful look she gave him.
Lauren propped elbows on the table and dropped her head into her hands. Exhaustion and defeat weighted her shoulders. More images replayed in her head. She’d seen plenty of awful things: Shrieking infants crawling alone through the grass. Huge pile of bodies covered with black fluttering wings. Growling dogs pulling out intestines. What the hell was the matter with her?
She needed to get her head screwed on straight.
In the near future, she and everyone else in Wyoming would be in a fight for the life of their country. That’s what she needed to think about. For all they knew the west coast wouldn’t hold, and the Chinese would be moving across Idaho.
Yellow tent. There it was, an image, like an orphan in her mind.
She sipped carefully, slowly. The tortured knot in her gut began to unwind. She should know that yellow tent. Something horrible. If she could just place where.
Closing her eyes, images formed. The ones from her nightmares. The ones that not even an ocean of alcohol could drown.
Little girl in a tent. Arms stick-thin from starvation.
Just a drink, please. I’m so thirsty.
“Davis?”
The captain’s voice startled her. She glanced up when Ragnovich came striding toward her with his cover tucked under his left arm.
He tramped across the restaurant and slid in opposite her. “Corporal Eppson said he gave you a ride to town. That something had happened to you. Maybe a concussion. Said you were just out of it. Almost like a zombie.”
Lauren gave him a hollow stare, frowned. I was?
He removed his cover from under his arm and placed it on the table beside her M4. “Breeze said she was worried. Asked me to check and make sure you made it home.”
She leaned back in the booth. Struggled to find something to say. Anything. And then the words came from somewhere. “Heard the people at Charlie Echo had trouble last night. Shot up an armored dump truck.”
Yes. She knew that. That was real, wasn’t it?
“Understatement,” Ragnovich ran a hand through his stringy hair. “Figured they could smash the Humvees out of the road. Maybe they forgot to scout it out. We’ve got two Brownings out there.”
“Guess even armored dump trucks can’t stand up to Ma Deuce, huh?”
I took fifty caliber ammo boxes out to Alpha X-Ray. I remember that.
She could see their relieved faces as she unstrapped the ammo cans from the KTM’s luggage rack.
“We lose anyone?” she asked, surprised by the fear in her voice. In addition to the guys, Charlie Echo was manned by four sixteen-year-old women who had a special place in her heart. They were all too brave, too grownup.
“Two wounded. They’ll be off The Line for a couple of weeks.”
Lauren shook her head at the news. “We can’t afford to lose them.”
“Don’t have to tell me that. And we’re losing Tappan, too. Her dad and grandfather are in town. Unless I miss my guess, she’s heading back to the family ranch tomorrow.”
A sense of panic, as if she were drowning, rose in Lauren’s chest. Breeze? Leaving? She couldn’t breathe.
Ragnovich ran fingers through his hair again. “They’ve got their own trouble up in the Bighorn Basin. There’s going to be a showdown with Edgewater.”
Lauren took a swig of beer, managed to get a breath. Struggling, she tried to understand what that meant. “You going to let me ride Charlie sector?”
The captain arched a knowing brow. “Come on, you know how the whole Line feels about you. Every man and woman along the Fourth Quadrant would die for you. They think you walk on water, but you’re not a god-damned god. What happened today? Was it the yellow tent?”
