Rise From The Ashes: The Rebirth of San Antonio (Countdown to Armageddon Book 3) (19 page)

     Tom looked into the cab to get Jordan’s attention and slashed his hand across his throat.

    
Jordan set the bucket on the ground, killed the engine, and climbed out of the cab while Tom opened the thermos and poured them each a cup of coffee.

     “How does it look, Tom?”

     “It looks darn good. You’re doing it like you’ve been driving that thing for years.”

     “Well, I know it’s a little bit sloppy, but I’m getting better as I go.”

     “It looks fine. This trench don’t have to be perfect to serve our needs.”

     “Are you tired of driving stakes yet? Want to switch off?”

     “Nope. The stakes are all done. I used all I had. If I had another five hundred, I’d stake every damn tree, all the way around the property. But we don’t have that many. This is the place where they came in last time. It’s likely the place where they’ll return. So this was the logical place to use the stakes we had.”

     “Do you think it’ll keep them out?”

     “Nope. They’ve seen what we have in the compound, and you can bet they’re chomping at the bits to get it for themselves. They’ll come back, and the stakes won’t stop ‘em, just like the sign won’t. But hopefully it’ll slow them down and give us just a little bit more advantage.

     “I need to run back to the workshop for a little while. I don’t expect any trouble while I’m gone, because these
men are cowards. They’re the type who’ll attack only at night when they think they have the advantage. But keep an eye out anyway. If you see or hear anything that don’t look or feel right, you get on that radio and I’ll come running. Okay?”

     “Yes, sir.”

     “You’re a good man, Jordan. And you’re getting better every day. I’ll be back in half an hour or so.”

     “Okay. If we’re gonna be out here awhile, bring some lunch back, will you?”

     “You got it, buddy.”

     Back inside the fence, Tom headed to the workshop and Linda came out to check on their progress.

     “You can be proud of that son of yours,” Tom told her. “He’s left his boyhood behind him. He’s a man now, and a darn good one at that.”

     “Yep. I am proud of him. His father will be too. He’s come a long way in the last few months. Now, then, what can I do to help?”

     “Well, I’m not one of those men who’s gonna jeopardize his own life by asking his woman to go into the kitchen and make him some sandwiches. I’m too smart for that. So instead, I’ll give you a choice. I need to cut these two by twos into some spikes. I also need four sandwiches made. Do you have a preference?”

     “You’re not quite as slick as you think you are, Tom Haskins. If I knew how to make a spike out of a two by two, I’d send you in that kitchen in a heartbeat.

     “But what you fail to realize is, I don’t mind making sandwiches for you and Jordan. One of the things that’s kept us all going is everybody’s willingness to jump in and help wherever they’re needed, with no hurt feelings or egos to get in the way.

     “It’s worked well so far, and I suspect it’ll continue to work. What kind of sandwiches?”

     “Do we still have that chicken salad Joyce made a couple of days ago? That sounds good.”

     “Yep. We still have some. Four chicken salad sandwiches coming up. I’ll put them in a bag with some cookies and apples. Gotta keep your strength up, for all that spike making and tree dragging, and whatever else you two are doing out there.”

     “Thank you, dear. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

     She kissed him.

     “That’s good. Because I’m never gonna give you a chance to find out.”

     Half an hour later,
Tom returned to the work site to find Jordan almost finished with the ditch.

     On the back of the Gator were forty two by twos, each about four feet long. They were origina
lly eight footers, but Tom used a power saw to cut each of them in half.

     He made the cuts at severe angles, so one side of each piece ended in a very sharp spike.

     He also brought his six foot ladder.

    
Jordan killed the engine and stepped out of the Bobcat’s cab. The two had lunch together and Tom explained the rest of his plan.

     “The ladder is so I can get my old tired ass in and out of the trench. I’m telling you that so you can go ahead and start making fun of me.”

     “I could never make fun of you, Tom. I respect you too much for that.”

     Tom smiled, until
Jordan continued.

     “In fact, I respect all of my elders. The older they are, the more I respect them. And I have a
lot
of respect for you, Tom.”

     He said it with a smile and Tom knew he was kidding. It was another way of showing he’d become a man. He was no longer afraid to rib the other adults. He now considered himself a peer.

     “Smart ass.”

    
Jordan grinned, then asked, “What are the pointed sticks for?”

     “This is a trick I picked up from the Viet Cong many years ago. We’re going to put these in the bottom of the trench. These are night cowards who will only attack us when it’s dark. We can use that to our advantage by setting this little trap for them.

     “We’re going to put these in the bottom of the trench, pointy side up. If they figure out a way to get through the mesquite trees again, they’ll have to cross this field in the dark.

     “Hopefully, a couple of them won’t be able to see the trench in the dark and will fall into it. If we’re lucky, they’ll fall on one of the spikes and impale themselves through the heart. Or, at least hurt themselves enough to prevent them from going any further.”

     “Cool. You said this idea was created by who?”

     “Gee whiz
, Jordan. Don’t they teach history in the high schools anymore?”

    
Jordan smiled.

     “History, yes. But not ancient history.”

     “The Viet Cong were our enemies during the Vietnam war. They used a wide variety of jungle warfare strategies and guerrilla tactics to cause casualties among our troops. This was just one of the tactics they used.”

     “And did it work?”

     “Oh, yes. It worked quite well. For them, anyway. It was hell for the good guys. A lot of our guys got killed outright. They’d fall in the pits and take a spiked stick through the heart or head and die quickly. Others might get poisoned and die in a field hospital later on, or get an infection serious enough to keep them laid up and off the battlefield for awhile.”

    
Jordan looked at him for more explanation.

     “They used to make their spikes out of bamboo shoots and other sticks. They’d sharpen
them to points like pencils so they’d tear right through flesh, and sometimes even bone. Then they’d dip the points in all kinds of nasty stuff. Poisons, the waste from water buffalo, even human waste sometimes.”

     “Wow. Do you think it’ll work against our intruders?”

     “Well, we’re not going to poison the spikes or put animal waste on them. Hopefully one of them will fall into the hole, and the others will decide this is just too much for them to chew off and try to swallow, and they leave again. And even if they don’t fall in the hole, maybe it’ll make them stop and think. Maybe they’ll decide that we’ve got nothing worth them dying for.”

    
Jordan was impressed. He saw a side of Tom he’d never seen before. A man of ingenuity. A man who was willing to do anything he had to do to protect his family. And it occurred to Jordan at that point that Tom was indeed part of their family. He wasn’t related to any of them by blood, but that didn’t matter. He was related to them by desperate circumstance, and in a way that was more of a bond than mere blood.

     “Why don’t you finish up the ends of the trench while I bury the spikes? Try to get rid of the loose dirt at each end so they can’t
use it as a ramp to walk out on. It’s only five feet deep, so it won’t hold em for long, but we don’t want to make it easy for them to get out, either.”

    
Jordan climbed back in the cab of the Bobcat and followed his instructions. Tom took the first of his spikes, placed it point down on the ground at the bottom of the trench, and hit it three times with his sledge hammer. It was buried about a foot deep. Then he placed the sledge hammer aside and carefully moved the spike back and forth until it was loose enough to pull back out of the ground.

     Then he turned the spike over so the pointed side was up and shoved the blunt end back into the hole. It was upright, sturdy and dangerous.

     When they went back to the compound that day, Tom personally sought out every single person in the group and told them, “Jordan and I built some booby traps in the north field, close to the fence line. Do not go out there unless Jordan or I are with you, so we can show you what to watch out for.”

-36
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     That wasn’t the only surprise Tom wanted to leave for any intruders who were bold enough to break into the compound.

     The day after they’d dug the trench and buried the deadly spikes in the ground
, Joyce went outside to find Tom and Jordan atop two wooden ladders, twelve feet apart, drilling small holes in the top of the wall.

     “Good morning, you two. After you spent all day long together yesterday, I’d have thought you were getting tired of each other by now.”

     Tom laughed his easy going laugh.

     “Oh, hell, no.
Jordan’s my little buddy. That’s why we put the ladders close enough for us to talk while we work. If we didn’t like each other we’d be working on different sides of the wall.”

     “What kind of work are you doing, exactly? If you don’t mind me asking, of course?”

     “Oh, we don’t mind at all. You tell, her, Jordan, while I go get another battery for my drill.”

     Tom scrambled down off the ladder and walked off to the workshop.

     “Do you remember when we emptied out that Walmart trailer, and we came across several cases of screws?”

     “No.”

     “Well, you may have been in the feed barn at the time, organizing what we were putting in there. Anyway, we found four cases of three inch screws on one of the pallets. We weren’t sure what to do with them, since at the time we couldn’t think of any reason we’d ever need thousands of screws. In fact, we almost threw them in the trash pit with the cardboard boxes and wooden pallets.

     “But it turns out that Tom had a better idea. So I’m glad we kept them.”

     “So, what was Tom’s idea?”

     “We’re drilling holes along the top of the fence, every six inches, all the way around the compound. Then we’re going to screw all of those screws into the holes, with the pointy ends on the outside of the top of the fence.”

     “I see. And just what is the point of all this?”

     Tom walked up behind her at that point, a freshly charged battery attached to his drill. He took over.

     “The guys that came the other night had my six foot ladder. It was tall enough for them to look over the fence, but didn’t go all the way to the top.

     “They no longer have access to my ladder. I brought it back over here and put it in the workshop. But once they discover it’s missing, they’ll likely go back and find another one that will enable them to scale the fence.

     “But here’s the deal. The fence is ten feet high. Whether they bring a six footer or an eight footer, they’ll still have to climb from the top of the ladder and over the fence. Then they’ll have to drop ten feet to the ground below.

     “We plan to make that experience as painful for them as possible. I’m sure they’ll attack at night again and it’ll be dark. Hopefully they won’t see the black screws protruding from the black fence u
ntil they scramble over the top of it.

     “Hopefully the first one will take three inches of screw right in his abdomen. It won’t kill him, but it’ll damn sure start him bleeding real good. Hopefully it’ll make him cry for his mommy and make the men behind him think it’s not such a good idea.
”

     “Do you think it’ll stop them and make them go away?”

     “No, I don’t, unfortunately. But I think it’ll help us out in two other ways. First of all, it’ll slow them down by giving them something else to worry about. Instead of scrambling quickly over the fence to avoid getting shot, they’ll have to take their time and climb over it deliberately. That means they’ll be in my sights a little bit longer.

     “The second thing I’m banking on is reducing their numbers. Say they attack with six men. If we can injure two of them going over the wall, that’s two fewer men they’ll have shooting back at us.