Reclamation (Best Laid Plans Book 4) (32 page)

“If wars were that one-sided people wouldn't fight them,” Sam said, slumping down onto the full box. She looked miserable, and he found out why when she abruptly changed the subject. “I didn't make it easy for him when he left. I told him not to go.”

“A few days ago?” From what Lewis had seen Matt had been way too carefree for that kind of encounter when he headed off with Williams.

She gave him a slightly impatient look. “No, that went great. But it was a
visit
. Back when he actually left I really let him have it, and now that's probably all he can think of.”

Lewis shifted uncomfortably. “That's not exactly unreasonable. You have the baby to worry about.”

Her dark eyes flashed. “Yeah well I
was
unreasonable! I told him the town and the military and everyone was being selfish, expecting him to go when I needed him here. I made him feel guilty about doing what he had to do when I should've supported him. I shoved all my own burdens on him when he was already dealing with so much, and now whatever he faces down south is going to be that much harder for him.”

The petite woman lowered her head until her dark hair covered her eyes, although not before he saw a tear slip down her cheek. “He'll be worrying about me when he should be worrying about himself. He might die thinking I was mad at him for abandoning me.”

Lewis crouched down next to her. Blast, he wasn't good at this sort of thing. “I think you've got it wrong,” he said quietly. “I think he understands what you really feel, no matter what you said to him when he left. You and the baby are the most important things in the world to him. You won't be a distraction, you'll be his reason to fight even harder so he can get back to you in one piece. And I'm sure he'll be thinking of the good visit he had with you, not whatever happened before that.”

Sam sucked in a sharp breath, then abruptly stood. “I need to finish packing so we can get out of here,” she said firmly. Still keeping her face carefully turned away from him in embarrassment, she bent over the smaller box and began neatly arranging the things inside once more.

Lewis straightened as well, bending down to pick up the big box. It was surprisingly light, probably mostly clothes and blankets. “I'll get this out on the cart. Let me know if you need help with that one.” She nodded, and he hesitated for just a minute before ducking through the curtain.

In the living area Matt's parents were still doing their own packing, and his friend's mom paused to give him a grateful look. Of course they'd heard everything. He only hoped he'd found the right things to say for his friend.

It felt selfish to think it, but he was grateful Jane was always there with him when things got bad. It was awful thinking about something happening to her, but at the same time it meant neither of them would ever have to leave the other behind in a situation like this. Whatever they faced, they'd face it together.

Or at least he hoped.

* * * * *

Lewis hadn't really paid attention to it before, but now that they were lugging heavy burdens up a steep road it was hard to ignore the fact that less than a third of the people in the shelter group were grown men, and of them only him and Terry were in their prime.

Everyone tried their best, of course, and there were enough people pitching in to get the job done. But it wasn't easy for anyone, and the farther they went up the canyon the more often they were forced to take breaks.

Linda summed up what everyone was thinking during the tenth or so break, when half of them were so exhausted they slumped to the road right where they'd stopped. “We have to do this
more than once
?” she complained. There were a few grumbles of agreement.

After taking the trip on a bike so often the slog seemed to take forever for Lewis, and in spite of the fact that they'd started in the early afternoon he was almost afraid they wouldn't reach the top by nightfall. Those fears turned out to be exaggerated, but the five hour trip wasn't fun for anyone.

Realistically they couldn't leave their most valuable stuff alone up there and all head back down. It wasn't that Lewis didn't trust his neighbors, but temptation was a tricky thing. It was hard to forget earlier in the year when Matt's family had come under attack in the shelter from former refugees, and many in the town were still in that desperate stage.

A surprising number of people volunteered to stay behind up in the meadow, to guard their tarp-covered possessions and begin setting up a more permanent arrangement for the group. Probably motivated by their desire to avoid another trip if they could get away with it. Lewis convinced his dad and Uncle George to stay as well to stand guard, while the rest determined to get back down to the shelter and pack up that night to make another trip early in the morning.

That one was going to be fun in its own way, since they'd be bringing the animals up. In a way it was good so many people wanted to stay in the meadow, since they could be put to work building a pen for the sheep. As for the chickens and rabbits, Lewis was almost tempted to toss the hutch and coop into the handcart and make an extra trip of it at some point.

It was a dispirited group that lugged their empty wagons down the canyon. Lewis could sympathize with Sam's frustration about having to move again, and he was sure they all felt it. He was glad he'd managed to convince her to stay behind with Mona and his mom and aunt to watch over the younger kids in the group and keep packing up. The move would be hard enough for her in her condition without having to haul a pack or loaded wagon.

The work of loading everything for the second trip up went by in near silence as everyone sank into their own gloom, and most seemed relieved when Lewis suggested an early night. Jane was already in bed after back to back patrols, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up with her and pass out.

Instead he hopped on his bike and made his way over to town hall to make sure the Mayor had all the help she needed loading the trucks and guarding them.

It turned out she didn't, not by a long shot. Lewis looked at what was going to be another major project and did his best to fight his growing dismay as he waded in. He had no idea how Matt had managed to juggle these duties for so long.

* * * * *

Word had gotten around to all the towns in the area about the approaching Gold Bloc forces, and the last several days had seen a steady stream of people fleeing their homes and heading into the mountains, most taking the Highway 31 route. Some were specifically seeking out the military camps up there for shelter, food, and protection, while others just seemed to want at least some sort of barrier between them and the hundreds of thousands of soldiers headed their way.

In his small camp up Cedar Creek Canyon Trev hadn't had any refugees actually come his way, but he and his squad were close enough to see the line of people heading up 31 through their binoculars, towards Davis's camp higher up that canyon. Some among those refugees had signed up with the sergeant as volunteers, a few dozen total, but most passed through and continued farther into the mountains.

Trev wasn't sure he blamed them. Davis had assured them that the Gold Bloc probably wouldn't push too hard along any of these smaller canyons once the roads were destroyed and any easy route blocked, but that didn't stop his nightmares about thousands of enemy soldiers converging on his canyon and flooding the mouth, climbing the hills to either side, and flat out overwhelming him and his squad of twelve.

The sergeant had also assured them that once the new volunteers arrived he'd be sending out more fighters to each location, ideally so they'd have enough people to not only guard the canyons but also patrol the foothills and low mountains along this stretch. He'd already sent the few dozen new volunteers farther north to reinforce the farther away canyons.

As for Trev's squad up Cedar Creek, they'd have to rely on the relatively close by fighters along Highway 31 to send reinforcements if they ran into more than they could handle. At least for now. Davis seemed confident they'd see even more volunteers from the locals now that the Gold Bloc was headed their way and the situation was more real, and the first of those volunteers would be sent along to Trev's canyon.

Until then they'd have to handle it on their own.

To prepare the squad, as well as so his people would have something to do besides sit around worrying, he'd stepped up the training schedule in the three days since the news came about General Erikson pulling out of Colorado. He'd even let them start using some of their precious ammo for more extensive live fire practice.

Unfortunately he was all too aware that even the best training could only do so much to prepare people for the reality of combat. Once they were in that life or death situation they'd have to hope that they were physically and mentally ready for it. And while good training could take them all the way up to the point where they were able to expose themselves to danger so they could pull the trigger and shoot an enemy, it couldn't give them the courage and determination to do either.

Although that was no reason not to try, which was why this morning he was doing something a bit different: he had his squad engaged in a mock battle with an enemy coming up the canyon, manning their foxholes and emplacements and dry-fire shooting at targets he'd set up earlier down below. At his signal he had his people ready to break from cover and retreat to the fallback positions they'd set up, doing it in organized fashion with a few going at a time while the rest covered them.

He was watching closely, both how much they were exposing themselves to fire down the canyon from their emplacements and how well they managed their retreat. A lot of those retreating weren't moving as quickly and erratically as he would've liked, considering they were supposed to be getting shot at, and almost nobody was sticking to the low crouch he'd recommended, instead doing more of a hunched trot.

Trev knew it was hard to take a mock battle 100% seriously, especially when they were pointing empty guns at imagined bad guys like he'd done a few times as a kid. But doing it properly when it didn't matter would make it more likely they'd do it properly when it did, and when it mattered it would
really
matter so they needed to do it properly.

He was about to halt everything and have them start over, but this time make them military crawl when they retreated to their fallback positions to see if they'd take that more seriously. Before he could a warning came on the radio.

Surprisingly it wasn't one of the current lookouts, Alice or Hans, who were calling in. Instead it was Private Abrams, in his own advance lookout post in the valley five miles northeast of them, whose voice came through his earbuds.

“You there, Smith?”

Trev flipped his radio's transmit toggle. “I'm here. What's going on?” It took him a few seconds before he remembered with a start to flip the toggle off again. He was still getting used to using the radio, which included actually remembering to wear the thing half the time.

Abrams sounded urgent. “We've got a truck approaching. Gold Bloc by the looks of it. They're headed right towards Cedar Creek Canyon from the northeast, going at least 40 on a small road.”

Nervous anticipation crawled its way down his spine. The main Russian force had barely gotten over the Colorado Rockies, clashing with Erikson's rearguard as the General retreated west. Trev really hadn't expected to see them any time soon, especially not a lone scout far behind enemy lines.

“One truck?” he clarified. Then he remembered he hadn't flipped the toggle and hastily did so, repeating the question.

“One truck,” the soldier confirmed. “It'll reach you in less than ten minutes.”

Trev looked around at his squad, most of whom didn't even have their radios with them. On the plus side thanks to the mock battle they were where they needed to be to set up an ambush. “We've got a truck coming our way,” he called. “Enemy by the looks of it. Everyone back to the forward emplacements!”

As his people burst into action Trev radioed advance notice to Davis, who agreed to send people and ordered him to only intervene if the truck tried to go directly up the canyon. From the sounds of it the sergeant didn't consider even an approaching enemy vehicle to be enough justification to use one of their own trucks, so Trev's reinforcements would be coming on foot.

It wasn't a terribly long walk from the new camp up Huntington Creek's canyon, but it was far enough given how rough the terrain was. Unless whoever Davis sent really hoofed it Trev's squad would have to handle this threat on their own at first.

As Trev spoke to the sergeant he'd been making his way to the nearer lookout spot, where Alice was crouched tensely with her binoculars in one hand, her M16 held in the other in a white-knuckled grip. In the blond young woman's hand the rifle almost looked like it should be a toy, and he hoped she'd be ready to use it after her limited training.

“I can't see it,” she said, voice shaking slightly. “I don't know where it is!”

He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, glad he'd made it standard practice to have lookouts wear body armor and he'd had the rest of the squad geared up for the mock battle. There was no way to tell whether they were ready training-wise, but when it came to their equipment they were as prepared as he could make them.

“No matter what happens with the truck, I want you to stay out of sight and keep watch for any other approaching vehicles,” he told her. “That's your role in this fight. And if I tell you to break away and retreat entirely you go, along the same route I've had you practice a dozen times. Okay?”

She nodded, still looking tense as she searched for the elusive truck. Trev pulled out his own binoculars and joined her.

It took longer than he'd expected to find the vehicle, which was coming from a direction closer to north than northeast, driving on a road that wound in and out of view between the foothills. When he did he immediately recognized it as a Gold Bloc vehicle, the same type as the one his family had captured to escape the internment camp.