Renewal 10 - Blind Force (7 page)

Terry watched for the ripple of assent from his men. “Until then, get as many as we can into the barn. Leave the watch platforms up top free. Anyone who doesn’t fit in the barn hides on the slope behind the barn. Nestle into the grass and be invisible. If we are spotted early, I can guarantee that we’ll have to fight longer than the ammo will last. Ok? Now let’s work together and get the job done.”

There were a few arguments about space in the barn, but for the most part the men cooperated with each other. Soon, Terry had half an army packed into the barn like sardines, and the rest were lying in the tall grass behind the barn. From a distance, they were effectively hidden. Terry hoped that was the only way anyone would see them – from a distance. Terry finished his job of hiding the army by driving Bertha down the back slope and into the woods. He gathered up his stock of ammo from behind the driver’s seat, pulled his rifle from the rack, and locked the truck.

Before long, he and Seth were settled on the old watch platforms that Bill’s father had built. Terry could see a broad swath of land from the front watch. Seth was responsible for spotting anyone who decided to sneak in from the wooded side of the property. The men were restless below, undoubtedly too excited and nervous to sleep. Eventually, boredom would do the job.

Chapter 10 – 12

Gary Tucker was thinking in circles. No order had yet resolved in his mind. Garrett Cox had not returned with his men. Gary had faced the whole of his own army, and in the midst of spouting false theology about white superiority and God’s purpose, he had lied to his men. He had lied about information that had come from Garrett’s reconnaissance, when in fact no one had returned. Beyond that factual lie, Gary knew well that everything he said was a lie created by his dead father. Yet, he spoke the words, performed the ritual as if it were in accord  with his own beliefs, and somewhere deep within him, it was true. That was why Gary sat in the dark near the ruins of the Jenkins mansion, trying to discern the will of his version of God.

If the evidence of his arrival with only a third of his army meant anything, then God wanted him to pack up and head home. On the other hand, if the fact that he had arrived with even this much force intact meant more, then he should attack and trust in his white God to carry him through on his act of vengeance. The only way to resolve the paradox was for Gary to pull from the non-religious teachings of his father. The Grand Dragon had spoken often of us or them, kill or be killed, take what you want, and destroy anyone who stood in your way. These ideas had been pounded into Gary’s head from birth, reinforced with everything he saw, everything he was given, and everything he was forced to endure to prove himself to his father. In the light of those teachings, Gary finally decided. He would fight. He would take. He would have vengeance.

Just down the hill, Wyatt Jenkins was having his own set of concerns. The three burning crosses still smoldered and glowed amidst the ruins of the bunkhouse where Bill Carter had destroyed his family. This should have appealed to his own sense of vengeance and family honor. It did not. Instead, Wyatt was left with sixty men of his own and a sick feeling in his stomach. It was not even enough to control the Dragons, much less lead the fight for his own place in the power structure of the county. It was a county that his father, Jerry Doan Jenkins, had conquered over the years through determined application of wealth, force, and political leverage. In the first few days after his father’s death, Wyatt had managed to lose it all. Like Gary, he had a father who instilled a hard version of power into his son. Unlike Gary, Wyatt had never really bought into it. He had a weakness from the Jenkins point of view, one that wanted to get along with people, to treat people with respect. Unfortunately, the gifts of his father’s method flowed steadily in his direction, and Wyatt did not want to lose them. The trappings of power were, as always, a powerful drug.

Now he was stuck. Wyatt’s own instincts screamed for him to approach Bill Carter under a white flag and to work out a deal that might save him. He could not. If Gary Tucker caught the slightest whiff of Wyatt’s thinking, the Dragon army would roll over him on its way out the front gate. He began to dream up a hedge, a way out. Wyatt hoped, but he did not believe there was any escape.

Thanks to the unavoidable separation between the two groups, Wyatt could speak to his men without being overheard. He gathered them in close and outlined his plan.

From the top of the hill, Gary began his own preparations. Having settled the matter in his mind, the Junior Dragon turned to logistics and whatever vague idea of tactics he could muster without knowing anything about his target. Just after midnight, he had his men, trucks, weapons, and ammo in order. He had turned his ecstatic worshipers of the burning cross into a weapon, and once the weapon was aimed, it was very difficult not to fire. At one o’ clock, he walked over the hill to have a final talk with Wyatt.

“We’re ready to go, Wyatt. Are your men ready?”

“I thought we were going at three,” Wyatt said.

“My men are ready. They’re restless. We need to go now.”

“I think we need some daylight. We don’t know the ground.” Wyatt unconsciously looked over his shoulder to the northwest.

“We’ve got the maps. We’ll be set up when the sun comes up.”

“Ok then. We still planning on walking in from the highway?” Wyatt asked.

“Yeah, same plan as before. Just a bit earlier is all.”

“All right, Gary. We’ll be ready in five minutes.”

Wyatt took the lead, on the theory that he knew the county better, and he did - up to a point. Unfortunately, the part of the county they were planning to attack was beyond Wyatt’s usual stomping grounds, and he knew that he would be just as dependent on the old maps as anyone. Just the same, he had no choice. His trucks passed through the Jenkins gate, and turned towards Manchester. Wyatt’s vehicles were in good shape, and once committed to move, he was frustrated by the speed limits of the Dragon trucks. Staying in first gear was pure torture.

The convoy crawled through Manchester. It wasn’t that Wyatt expected people to be out on the streets in the middle of the night, but something was different from his usual Saturday night excursions into town. He couldn’t quite put his finger on the feeling, but whatever it was, it piled on top of the rest of his anxiety.

The rest of the trip was a slow ride down the darkened highway. A sliver of moon was falling to Wyatt’s left, and cast a faint bluish tint to the fields as they passed in the night. He finally spotted the end of the trees that marked the broad swath of overgrown fields that lay south of Teeny Town. Wyatt told his driver to stop before the end of the covering trees. His eight trucks followed suit, and the engines went quiet. His small band of men dropped from the truck beds and gathered with Wyatt at the end of an old driveway, the same driveway that Garrett Cox had used hours earlier. They waited nervously for the Dragons to hike from the end of the convoy.

Twenty minutes later, the largest army seen in Coffee County since the Breakdown was assembled. Wyatt took Gary’s signal that they were ready, and began the march into Bill Carter’s territory.

Chapter 10 – 13

Terry was miserable. Not only had he spent the night on a six-foot plywood platform, he had spent it wide wake. His best guess at the time was three in the morning when the muggy silence was broken by the deep rumble of engines. The low pitched sound was hard to locate, especially from inside the barn. Terry looked over his shoulder and saw Seth’s dim silhouette rise from the other platform. It looked like Seth was leaning out of the ragged hole in the barn wall. In a few seconds, Seth’s arm indicated the direction of the sound, and Terry understood that the enemy was approaching from the highway. Terry was no tactician, but he couldn’t help but think that was the most obvious approach, and the most stupid. Terry pulled up his mental map of the area, and understood that it would take a fair amount of time before the enemy was anywhere near his barn.

Meanwhile, he was picking up the sounds of his own men from below. They had obviously heard the convoy as well, and were getting jumpy. Terry spoke in a low voice that he hoped would carry across the barn. “Remember. We stay hidden. Be quiet and still, men. Seth, remind the men out back.”

Seth repeated the instructions and to Terry’s surprise, the men became quiet again. He could almost feel the anxiety wafting up from below and hoped that they could stay still long enough.

Bill was still perched on the roof of the front guard house when he heard the trucks. He was tired, and his wounded leg was throbbing from his long lack of real motion. He picked up his phone and made a call that was quickly relayed to a half dozen other posts on his domain. As he sat in discomfort, his watch post on the highway was making a count of the enemy and preparing to send a runner with the information. Outer patrols were making rapid sweeps to make sure no other groups were in play, and inner patrols were orienting on the Dragon army. Two main forces of less than two hundred men each were being called to positions. Gate guards were seeking covered positions, treehouse posts were being shuffled to the appropriate side of the community and the defensive barns were being checked to make sure the last of Bill’s forces were ready. As for Terry and his group of Manchester’s finest citizens, Bill didn’t know.

This was it, the point where Bill discovered if all his plans paid off, and if Teeny Town’s organization could triumph over brute force.

Kirk was standing on the western end of the open land. Behind him, the training ground structures were displaying the only blazing electric lights in the entire community. The hope was that the enemy had no idea where Teeny Town was located, and would come to the lights like mosquitos to a bug zapper. Kirk had also taken the step of letting his prisoners know that their friends were nearby, in the hope that they would help draw the Dragon army into a trap. The trap consisted of eighty of Kirk’s best sharpshooters hidden among the numerous tree platforms that comprised the training ground. So far, the runners were telling him the enemy was heading in the right direction.

The Dragons took their time crossing the semi-open fields. Bill watched through a massive pair of binoculars, as the intruders worked from cover to cover, displaying better discipline than Bill had expected. Bill was sorely tempted to turn Jeffry loose on them in hopes of rushing them into a mistake, but Kirk’s plan depended heavily on leading them into a very bad position. If it worked, Bill expected Kirk to do massive damage in a very short amount of time. Just to satisfy his urge, he asked, “Got a target, Jeffry?”

“Plenty of targets. The range is still extreme. I’d hit somebody, but no telling who,” Jeffry replied.

“Wait until they are past the barn, and tell me what you see.”

“Ok, Bill.”

Eventually, the Dragons flowed into the lower scrub surrounding the Carroll’s old property. Bill would have given a great deal to have one of the community-built Gatling guns at his fingertips, but they were mounted on the barn roofs in Teeny Town as one of the last lines of defense. On the opposite side of the Dragon army, Terry was having similar thoughts. From his post, the enemy was passing from right to left in a mass that stretched almost two hundred yards in length. He was sure that his men could pop out of the barn and do some damage while the enemy was less than a hundred yards away. He was also sure that he would only get one volley before the Dragons returned fire and wiped him out. He waited, controlling his breath against the close proximity of danger, and the thudding of marching boots. He prayed that no one in the barn needed to sneeze.

Gary Tucker was alert, as alert as he could ever recall. He was also cocky in the knowledge that Teeny Town was directly ahead, brightly lit up without a care in the world. What morons, he thought. He extended his confidence into thinking that he had managed to infiltrate the settlement without being noticed. He looked forward to the slaughter that was surely to come and the love of a God who clearly wanted him to win. Then, he caught a flash of light to his right. Off to the north were three identical houses. He held up his hand to stop the advance, and watched carefully. There it was, on the roof of the house to the right, a bounce of light from the electric glow ahead. He quickly passed orders and split his army.

Bill responded to the new pattern with the first item on the checklist. He said, “Oh, shit!” He picked up his phone as he spoke to Jeffry, “They’re coming this way. We need to get some distance between the two groups, so hold fire until I tell you.”

“Got it,” Jeffry replied quietly, concentrating on the world through his rifle scope.

Bill spoke rapidly into the phone, calling the second main group up to the front guard and requesting light signals to redirect the outer patrol in from the east. When he replaced the phone handset, Bill dropped from his chair and grabbed his rifle. He slid forward to the peak of the roof, peering over the ridgeline from his new position to Jeffry’s right. The second sniper was to Bill’s right, and two more pairs were positioned on the other two houses.

Bill was thinking at high speed. The spur of woodland held the nearest treehouse, over his left shoulder, but it was also lower in elevation and would not be able to provide a clean line of sight into the immediate area. There were men in the houses, of course, but certainly not enough to hold off the four hundred men on approach. In any case, the front guard was as safe as it was possible to be in this situation. When they had first begun the real effort of building a long term settlement, and tore down the other houses, Bill had made sure that the last three were armored with hidden steel plate in the front. Unless the enemy had explosives, they should be safe. Of course, that was assuming they were not completely overrun, or that the house didn’t burst into flames.

He could hear the quiet approach of his second main group as they filled in behind the fence surrounding the houses. The fences were covered in honeysuckle and Osage Orange to hide the fact that they too, were armored. If the Dragons somehow got through, then Mr. Hall would get the chance to play with his toys.