Home Fires Burning (Walking in the Rain Book 2) (25 page)

              “When you see your boy Randall in hell, you be sure and tell him who sent you,” she declared, her voice hard as flint, “because you, Mr. Rufus, have about ten seconds before you make that trip.”

              Then she looked over at us and nodded.  As she’d prearranged, Amy and I each took one of her daughters (Shay for me, Delilah for Amy) and hugged them tight and hid their faces.  Sarah Trimble jerked the lever, dropping the trapdoor.  Most of the men died quickly, their necks broken.

              I watched with a little smile on my face as Larry Rufus died slowly, strangled to death by an improperly tied hangman’s noose.  I should know. I did the job myself.

              After it was all over, I gathered up Amy and gave her a kiss before walking back over to one of the big school buses Stan and his gearhead cohorts finally got running.  By the time our little group reached the accordion doors of the bus, Sarah had retrieved her weapons and rejoined us.

I noticed I was one of the few males in the sea of ladies but every one of us was armed.  Most with pistols but a few of the more advanced students also carried a slung rifle as well.  I carried my CETME again, and all the way back to the Keller farm I never stopped scanning the trees and fence rows for threats.  When I glanced over, I saw Amy doing the same thing.      

We would be heading out the next day for Fort Chaffee.  Together.

I didn’t have a crystal ball and I couldn’t read the future, but it would be my steadfast intention to spend the rest of my days together with Amy.  Heck, maybe on the way to McAlester I could scavenge up a ring for her.  Or trade one of my pistols.  I now had plenty to spare.

THE END

Did you enjoy this book?  If so, please go to Amazon and leave a review.  For independent authors, good reviews are the lifeblood of our business.  Also, look for the next book in the
Walking in the Rain
series, coming soon. 

Here’s a Sneak Peek at
Hard Rain Falling
, Book Three in the
Walking in the Rain
series.

*****

The Colonel wasn’t what I was expecting.  From the way Captain Devayne spoke of the man, of how he managed to hold the brigade together through tough times and hard circumstances, I expected him to be a larger-than-life character, maybe a real, live Captain America.  Costume and all.

Instead, I found a flesh and blood mortal man, dressed in a clean but obviously work rumpled uniform, and I wondered he managed to mess up his clothes this early in the day.  Either he got up really early, or he was still working from the night before.

He had salt and pepper hair and dark brown eyes that regarded me with a sharp intellect.  Seated, I couldn’t tell his height but he had the greyhound lean features of a distance runner and the smooth mannerisms I’d seen in some martial arts practitioners.  As I was sizing him up, the colonel was likewise giving me a careful once-over.

“You’re a little bigger than I was expecting,” Colonel Hotchkins finally said, gesturing me to one of the guest chairs in front of his desk. 

“Reading Captain Devayne’s report, I pictured you as a half starved street urchin.  Maybe something out of Dickens.”

He added that last little bit with a good natured chuckle and I nodded, since it was just true.  In the last few weeks I’d actually managed to put on enough weight so that I no longer resembled a scarecrow.

“No sir.  I’ve managed to claw my way back up to skinny, instead of skin and bones.”

“That’s some feat, given current conditions, Mr.…I’m sorry, couldn’t seem to find a mention of your last name anywhere in this report,” said Colonel Hotchkins.

“Please, just call me Luke, Colonel.”

“Fair enough, Luke.  I appreciate you meeting with me this early but my schedule is pretty packed these days, as I am sure you can imagine.”

That was just Colonel Hotchkins being polite.  When you are a civilian refugee and the brigade commander requests your presence at 0630, you made darned sure you arrived early.  Or so I was told by the sergeant who appeared at my door and rousted me from a perfectly pleasant dream.

Of course, he wasn’t expecting the pistol I pressed to his head when he went to shake my arm.  I was curled up in a bunk with Amy in the transient enlisted barracks.  Those mattresses were lumpy and short and the beds were awfully narrow, but then so were we.  Well, my feet tuck out over the end but I was accustomed to such things.

“Whoa, whoa,” he’d said, the cold metal barrel dimpling his forehead.

“What do you need?” I asked, my brain still fuzzy with sleep.

“The colonel needs to see you ASAP, sir.  And you need to get that gun out of my face.”

“Sorry, sergeant.  I’ve spent too long out there,” I said sheepishly.  Of course, he’d been the fool who’d thought it was a good idea to invade my space. 

The sergeant acted suitably chastised and I made a production of passing the Glock off to Amy as I got up to splash some water on my face and slipping into my boots.  I’d slept in my pants and a tee shirt, so putting on a fresh long sleeved denim work shirt only took a second. 

As I sat with the Colonel, I remembered the hassle of just getting here.  Obtaining permission to get our weapons on base had proven to be a minor difficulty from the start, back at the armory in Fayetteville.  I’d refused to travel without them, and Captain Devayne was sympathetic to say the least.  So he’d figured out a loophole and hired us as civilian security contractors.  We got to keep our sidearms and checked our rifles and shotguns at the base armory.  Well, except for the crate of gear we were hauling.  Those items just stayed padlocked and we kept them with one of us at all times.

Then, upon arrival at the Fort Chaffee in-processing center, we’d produced our temporary ID cards and a copy of the contract signed with the captain.  The deal might have been a little shady, but by now the military was used to dealing with contractors of various sorts.  Even contractors who looked too young to drink, or vote.

The contract simply identified us as “Luke and Amy Landon” which was hilarious when Amy claimed that made us officially together.  She nearly cried when I told her it was our engagement announcement, but she managed to keep it together, barely.  Honestly, inside I felt the same way.  My identification card also read “Luke Landon” and I said nothing about it.

The thing about keeping my last name off the books was not me trying to be mysterious.  It was the same reason only Amy knew our final destination.  Whenever asked, I simply said Northeast Texas and left it at that.  I had a family out there to protect, and no intention of bringing scrutiny to the ranch.

“Hey, Luke, can you get us some breakfast?”

That was from Lori in the first bunk over ours.  Yes, Amy and I were not traveling alone for this leg of the journey.  But that was a worry for later.  Then I was off to see the colonel.

“I read all of Captain Devayne’s report, Luke,” Colonel Hotchkins said, jarring me back to the present.  “I was particularly interested in what you had to say about our counterparts in other states.  Are you certain it was Colonel
Paul
Abbott over the camp you observed outside Jefferson City?  What was the source of that name, if I may ask?”

“Certainly.  He identified himself as such every morning when he lined us up for inspection.  I’m not sure what was being inspected, but he always had a little speech prepared for us while the guards tore apart our tents looking for contraband.  This included him introducing himself to all the new guests.”

“Okay.  Got it.  And this bit about the ‘comfort girls’?  Was this a rumor you heard or…”

Colonel Hotchkins let the question hang for a long moment.

“We saw it going on, colonel.  The soldiers bunked in a separate, guarded section of the camp.  The girls were allowed to use the showers and eat in the military mess hall after the soldiers finished.  And no, these were not wives or other dependents.  Most of them barely had any clothes, for one thing.  They were treats the colonel rewarded his best soldiers with.  The ones that brought in the most salvage and such.”

Hotchkins nodded, his face expressionless.  I wondered if he was really that unaffected or if he was just that skilled at controlling his reactions.

“Well, this is most distressing news.  But not completely unheard of.  Reports have been circulated in certain circles about Guard units either disbanding or going their own way.  We had our own problems, early on, making sure our dependents were provided for while trying to do our jobs.”

“And the federal government is doing what in all this, colonel?”

Hotchkins gave me a grim smile before he answered.

“That is the question, Luke.  That is indeed the question.”

***

I hope you enjoyed this little sample of Book Three in the
Walking in the Rain
series.  Look for
Hard Rain Falling
early this summer.  Exclusively from Amazon.

Copyright 2105