Sunrise (7 page)

Several hundred yards past the gate, I saw a panel van slewed diagonally across the road. Behind it, the top of a semi was visible. Dozens of figures were clustered around the van and spread out to either side, aiming rifles back down the road toward us.

“Get your idiot ass out of the middle of the road,” Darla shouted.

“Take cover, sir,” Ed yelled at the same time.

I veered—putting the edge of the car wall between me and the guns—and sprinted the rest of the way to the gate.

“What’s going on?” I gasped.

“Right after I turned onto Highway 78 about halfway between here and Warren, a line of trucks came over the hill north of me,” Darla said. “They chased us all the way back here.”

“How many?”

“Two panel vans and nine semi tractor-trailers.”

“Same ones that were loading the pork from the warehouse in Warren?” Ed asked.

“Must be,” Darla said.

“This doesn’t need to turn into a fight.” I pulled my coat, sweater, and shirt up from my belly. My undershirt rode up too, exposing my skin to the frigid air. I yanked the undershirt down and started trying to tear off a hunk of it.

“What’re you doing?” Darla asked.

“I need a white flag,” I said.

“Are you crazy?” Darla exclaimed. “You’re not going out there.”

“We’ve got their leader, they’ve got our food.” I struggled with the shirt. It wouldn’t tear. “Someone’s got to go explain things—work out a trade.”

“Someone,” Ed said. “Not you.”

“I’m not asking anyone else to take a risk like that! What if they start shooting?” The shirt was incredibly frustrating. No matter how hard I tugged, it wouldn’t rip. I took the knife off my belt.

“I’ll go,” Darla said.

“No!” I jerked the knife so hard that I nicked my belly.

“That’s no good either,” Ed said. “Say they take you hostage. He’ll do anything to get you back.”

Darla scowled and stepped away, moving along the inside of the car wall.

“He’s right,” I said as I finished cutting off a chunk of my T-shirt.

Darla had reached an old Chevy Silverado. She grabbed a piece of conduit, ripping it free of the brackets that held it to the underside of the car. The wires inside the conduit didn’t break, though. “They made these old trucks too dang well,” she muttered as she yanked on the conduit, trying unsuccessfully to break the wires.

I stepped over to her. “He’s right, you know. I’d do anything to get you back. Anything.”

“Let me see your knife.”

I handed it to her, hilt first. She took it and started sawing away at the wire. I stood and watched quietly.

The chunk of conduit came free, and Darla handed back the knife. Our gloved fingers touched as I took its hilt. “I know,” she whispered.

“I’ll go,” Ed said. I hadn’t even noticed him following us. He grabbed one end of the hunk of cloth I was holding, but I didn’t let go. “If they take me hostage, nobody’ll care.”

“No,” I said, “I’d care.”

“He’s right.” Darla handed the conduit to Ed. It drooped from his hand, a bit too floppy to make a really good flagpole.

“I can do it,” I said, pulling on the rag.

Ed held the rag tight. “But you shouldn’t.”

“Alex,” Darla said softly, “let go.”

I dropped the rag, and Ed tied it to the top of the conduit. He handed me his rifle and held the improvised flag high over his head. He walked slowly toward the gate, waving it over his head. Darla and I followed as far as the gate so we could peek above it.

Ed’s march from the gate to the panel van seemed interminable. He held both hands above his head, one waving the white flag, the other open and turned out toward the enemy. When he was about twenty yards from the panel van, two guys ran up and patted him down. Then all three of them walked slowly around the panel van, disappearing from view.

That made me uncomfortable. What would I do if Ed never came back? Send someone else? Go myself? It wasn’t that I distrusted Ed; the last couple of days had changed my view of him forever. The problem with the past is that you can never truly escape from it. Ed would always be a former member of a flenser gang. But despite his cannibalistic past, he’d saved my life—probably twice— and been there for me in every way that mattered yesterday during the fight and its aftermath.

Darla was leaning against the car wall beside me. I turned and muttered to her.

“What if he doesn’t come back?”

“He’ll come back.”

“They might not let him.”

“If you don’t quit obsessing about it, I’m going to slap you.”

“But—”

Darla flattened her hand and wound up in an exaggerated gesture. I put an arm up to block. She changed direction and swatted me on the butt, far harder than necessary to make her point.

“What’s with the extra English?” I said.

“That? That was a love pat. Wait until I’m feeling better.” Her grin was wide and wicked. It faded suddenly, and she leaned in to kiss me. “Alex, you’re doing great. Ed’s going to come back. Try not to worry so much.”

I smiled despite my churning thoughts. The arguments we’d had with Uncle Paul about my age when we first reached the farm seemed like scenes from a previous lifetime now. Whether Darla and I could share a bed seemed utterly trivial in comparison to the life-and-death decisions we were making now.

When I turned back to the wall, nothing was moving. A few dozen guys pointed their rifles down the road at us. We pointed our rifles back. No one shot. The wait stretched out forever.

Darla leaned close. “I brought our food stash with me. The stuff we brought back from Iowa. It’s in the truck.” Good thinking,” I said.

We passed the time by sharing the food with all our fighters. Those trucks contained Warren’s whole supply of frozen pork—I’d be willing to bet anything on it. Soon we’d either have plenty of food or we’d be dead—it didn’t make sense to save anything.

Finally Ed emerged from behind the panel van, walking slowly, flanked by two guys. They dropped back, and he hoisted the white flag over his head again, trudging across the no-man’s land between us.

“What’s the word?” I asked Ed a few minutes later as he clambered over the log gate.

“They want proof. That we’re holding Red.”

“Guess we can go get him.”

“Alex,” Ed caught my arm, leaning close and speaking softly, “they’re terrified of him. Even though we’ve got him and he’s tied up. I don’t know what kind of hold he’s got over them, but—”

“He’s certainly vicious enough,” I said.

“Maybe that’s it,” Ed said.

“It doesn’t matter right now. Take the truck. Get Red and his lieutenant.”

“Yessir.”

“Don’t yes—”

“Nosir.”

I started to protest again, but Ed and Darla were already on their way to the truck. Instead, I went to explain what was going on to Nylce and the rest of our people manning the wall and gate.

Half an hour later, Ed and Darla were back. Red and Johnson were in the bed of the pickup, huddled under a blanket. I lowered the tailgate, climbed up beside Johnson, and drew my knife. Johnson flinched. Red smiled, looking at the knife the way I might look at Darla after we’d been apart for a few hours.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said. “I’m going to cut you free, and you’re going to march out to those trucks and tell your buddies that I’ve got Red, alive and unhurt. He’ll stay that way if you play along. Got it?”

“Yeah,” Johnson said, eyeing me warily.

“Then you and whoever’s in charge over there are going to walk halfway back to us—unarmed. Darla, Ed, Red, and I will come out to meet you. Three of us, three of you. No weapons. Anything goes wrong, either side can kill everyone out there. Got it?”

Johnson turned to look at Red, waiting.

“Do it, Johnson. Like he says.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

I sawed the rope off his ankles and wrists, handed him the white flag, and helped him out of the pickup and over the log gate. He moved stiffly, his feet dragging in the thin layer of snow that had blown over the icy road.

About fifteen minutes after Johnson disappeared around the van, he came back, walking alongside another guy. Neither of them was carrying any obvious weapon, but they could have hidden an arsenal under their coats.

I cut free Red’s ankles, leaving his hands bound, and Red, Ed, Darla, and I headed for no-man’s land. Ed and I had to lift Red over the gate, but it was easy—he didn’t weigh much.

When we’d finally gathered in the approximate center of the kill zone, I gestured at Johnson and the new guy, telling Ed, “Check those two for weapons.”

“Yessir.” Ed stepped toward them, but they each took a step back.

“Why don’t we check you?” the new guy growled.

“Go right ahead,” I replied. I still had two knives on my belt—I hadn’t thought to leave them with my rifle— but I didn’t mind giving them up. I’d taken them from Red, after all. I put my hand on the gladius’s hilt.

The two guys took another step back, fumbling under their jackets for something. Ed and Darla moved toward them. Johnson pulled a pistol from under his coat, but Ed was on him before he could bring it to bear, twisting his arm so hard that the elbow audibly popped.

I was three steps away, Darla two. The other guy got his pistol from his back. I slipped behind Red, wrapping one arm around him in a confining embrace and raising my knife so the tip rested just under his chin. My hands shook with adrenaline, and the knife made a tiny cut in his skin, adding fresh blood to the scabs I’d left there earlier.

The new guy leveled his pistol at me. “Drop the knife. Now,” he said. “Or I’ll shoot.”

“Go ahead and shoot,” I replied, glad that the quaver in my hands wasn’t evident in my voice. “Maybe I’ll have enough strength left to jam this knife into his throat, maybe not. Either way, both sides will open fire, and we’ll all die. That what you want?” I was surprised nobody had started shooting yet. Looking past the handgun leveled at me, I saw the stopped trucks—men peered past their edges, gripping their rifles, wide-eyed and tense.

Red tried to say something, but when his throat tensed, my knife pushed deeper into his skin, and he abruptly shut up.

“Put your gun down!” I yelled. “Now, goddamn it!”

The new guy just stared at me. Then I realized: he was staring at Red.

Red’s head twitched—a barely perceptible shake.

“Can’t do that,” the new guy said.

There was no reasoning with them. Whatever hold Red had on them was insanely scary. I had to negotiate directly with Red. “Lower the gun to your side. I’ll ease off on the knife enough so he can talk.” I slid the knife downward about half an inch. My fist was against his chest, the knife thrust upward, its point toward his throat.

“Let me go now,” Red said, “and you can all leave here alive.”

“We’re not going anywhere without our food,” I replied.

“My food,” Red said emphatically. “Possession’s nine-tenths of the law, as they say, and I am the law. So I own ten-tenths of that food.”

“If that’s the case, then I own you. And your town.” I briefly pushed the knife tighter against his throat to emphasize the point.

“Temporarily, maybe.”

I could hardly believe his sangfroid. My hands were shaking—the adrenaline was starting to wear off, and I was fighting an internal battle with my stomach. “You

need a solution worse than I do. This goes south, my people at the gate will start shooting. We’ll all die out here. And my people will still have your town. They’ll—” “My people will have the food,” Red said.

“Their families are in Stockton. They’ll be more willing to work out a deal than you seem to be.”

“You haven’t proposed anything.”

“Your people at the trucks lay down their weapons and move a few hundred yards off. We’ll leave Stockton, take the trucks, and go home.”

“And we’ll starve for certain. I’d rather take my chances on a firefight.”

“Without our food, we’ll starve.”

“Not my concern,” Red said. “But I’ll allow you to take one truck. My choice of which one you keep.”

“I’ve got the upper hand here,” I said. “I’ll allow you to keep one truckload of our food. And I’ll choose which truck you get.”

“We split them, six and five. I choose which five you get.” We haggled for half an hour more. Finally we settled on an eight/three split. Red would choose which three of the semis or panel vans he’d keep. Neither side would disarm, but we’d keep Red captive until the last minute, as insurance for his side’s good behavior. In addition, we’d keep both the remaining pickups. Red also insisted that I return his knives, Julia and Claudia.

It took most of the day to make the trade. Red’s people sorted the trucks out, getting eight of them in a line facing back toward Warren, and the other three facing Stockton. I thought Red would choose three semis to maximize the amount of food he could keep, but he picked two semis and a panel van. Later I found out that the van held all the weapons, ammo, alcohol, and seeds his people had looted from Warren.

It was a miracle nobody got shot. Ed collected all our people from Stockton, and we moved past Red’s men— both groups eyeing each other warily across the sights of their rifles. Finally by late afternoon, we were all loaded in our idling trucks.

I turned Red loose and gave him his knives. “Be seeing you,” he said with a smile that held more threat than mirth.

“Jesus, I hope not.” I slammed the pickup’s door, and we pulled out—a motley column of seven semis and one panel van led by our captured pickup truck.

As we turned from Highway 20 onto Highway 78, toward home, the tension and stress finally overwhelmed me. I’d been awake for nearly two days. My whole body shook. I rolled down the passenger window of the pickup and barely got my head out in time to spew stomach acid all over the side of the truck.

Chapter 11

I returned to my uncle’s farm a hero. Not that there was a ticker-tape parade or anything. Nobody knew when we’d be back or whether we’d even make it back at all. But they knew what the line of trucks trailing behind us meant.

Folks dashed out to meet us even as I climbed out wearily from the pickup. My door was still smeared with streaks of vomit. I trudged to the rear door of the panel van now parked in the road. By the time I reached it, I was surrounded by a crowd. I twisted the handle and opened the door.