The man who set off the claymore ran back towards the rest of the group but was shot before he could reach cover. Patton instinctively raised his rifle and scoped the canyon below him. He scoped the sniper and took him down with his first shot. Two men approached their fallen comrade and Patton shot them also. He scoped the mouth of the canyon but didn’t see anyone else coming so he turned his attention to their front position.
As he expected, a large pickup was slowly making its way towards their line, probably a hundred yards away. Behind the truck was a skirmishing line made up of about dozen men, using the truck as cover. Patton told his people in the front to fire the claymore when their attackers were within twenty-five yards, but they were badly outmanned and outgunned. Patton had to do something quick to even out their odds.
Deciding that the truck was the enemy’s biggest advantage, Patton took aim and shot out the front passenger tire. He took aim again and shot out the rear tire and then the front driver’s front tire. With the truck now out of commission, Patton targeted the skirmishers, who were now ducking for cover. Patton took two of them out before he started receiving return fire. He packed up his gear and made his way towards the carnage to his rear. He descended the slope about halfway. As he was about to settle into a new position, Patton heard the second claymore go off, followed by a heavy volley of gunfire. From where he stood, Patton could see their pursuers’ bullets hitting rocks and boulders, sending shards of rock shrapnel through the air.
Patton slapped a magazine of his non-lethal ammunition and started picking off targets. Although the sun was bright, he could still easily pick out the enemies’ muzzle flashes. He targeted one man, who was trying to use the pickup truck as cover, and shot him in the shoulder. The man began screaming and writhing in pain, but he was still alive and was no longer a threat. Patton picked out another target and hit him in the ribs. He hit another, then another. Finally, once the attackers saw that their numbers were dwindling rapidly, they gather their wounded and started to retreat.
“Cease fire!” Patton yelled. Once the search party retreated, Patton descended the hill and made his way to their forward defensive position. Patton wiped sweat from his eyes. “Good job, guys. They will probably think twice about coming after us again.”
Patton smiled, pleased that they had held off the attack. Then he remembered the man who’d been shot. He handed his rifle to a young man and sprinted to where the man was lying. He was still alive, Patton could tell, but looked to be unconscious.
Placing his hand on the man’s shoulder he said, “You okay?”
The man’s only response was a groan. Patton turned him over as gently as he could manage and saw that the man was holding his side, just above his right hip. His trembling hands were covered in blood and he was moaning incoherently. A sudden surge of guilt hit Patton. It was far from the worst wound he’d ever seen, but he’d never been so directly responsible for someone getting hurt before.
“I’m sorry,” Patton said, patting the man’s arm.
The man tried to respond but Patton couldn’t hear what he was trying to say. Patton leaned in closer.
“Water,” he rasped almost inaudibly.
“Okay,” Patton replied quietly. “We need some water,” he yelled towards the rest of the group.
A woman, went to their makeshift camp and retrieved a water jug and brought it to where Patton was tending to the wounded man. Patton talked to him to keep him calm. He found out that his name was Jerry and that he’d been a machinist from Ohio. He had a wife back in Blue Creek and had been in the prison because of a pro-Patton Larsen blog post. The realization that the man had been in prison because of him added to his deep sense of grief and guilt. He assured Jerry that he would be fine, that his wound wasn’t serious, and that he would take care of him.
Once Jerry was stabilized, they built a makeshift field litter to carry him. Patton instructed the group to gather as many weapons and as much ammunition and food as they could find. The raiding party didn’t have much, but anything would help. Once he had everyone settled, Patton walked around the battlefield to survey the damage. There were three dead from the first claymore blast. Yet another had been shot through the head. Altogether, four of their attackers had been killed. Jerry was the only one to sustain a serious injury. A man in his group badly sprained his ankle while trying to find cover. One of the women had a cut on her head, likely from rock shrapnel from a stray bullet or one of the explosions. Other than that, they were mostly in good shape.
Patton had no delusions that this was the last of their troubles. He was grateful they were all alive and relatively mobile. They needed to get Jerry to Portage and hopefully to a hospital, but that was still another few miles over difficult ground. It would be very slow going. At this point, though, they had no choice. Their beloved governor was going to keep coming after them until they were all back in custody or all dead.
CHAPTER 30
There was no way for the government to stop the news of the ambush and the deaths caused by Patton Larsen and his band of followers, but Asher’s people did everything they could to spin the story and make Larsen the enemy. The media did their best to push the story, even touting a new reward for the rebel leader’s killing or capture. Despite this, many of the survivors had a different story to tell their friends and families.
Many of the survivors wanted to broadcast the fact that Larsen and his “gang” used non-lethal weapons. Some of their men had been killed, yes, but it was due to bad luck. Many of the bullets extracted at the hospital were made of a composite plastic instead of lead. Also, Larsen and his people had disabled the search party’s vehicle and had merely tried to stop their attack. In the opinion of most of the survivors of the ambush, the escapees were only acting in self-defense. A series of secret arrests were made after it was discovered that the true story of the “Ambush at Bloody Canyon” had been revealed by some of the survivors.
Things only got worse after another party was sent out and repelled. Asher was beyond enraged now. If he had access to a bomber jet, he would have sent it out to bomb every inch of the eastern hills. Luckily the Governor had no such weapons. He had to rely on poorly trained and poorly motivated underlings. There was nothing worse than sending people out on a mission who didn’t believe in the mission to start with, he realized. One night, while thinking of possible solutions, the words “I wish Anna was here” popped into his head. Guilt and regret surged through him but he fought the emotion.
All of his carefully-laid plans were falling apart. The only thing keeping it together now was his loyal media, the naiveté of the people, and the culture of fear that he’d developed. That was not going to last. He understood that now. He had to return some stability to his town or he was going to find himself hanging from a tree. He just had to get Patton Larsen out of the picture before he could do that.
Patton scanned the horizon from west to east with his binoculars. To his north, over four-hundred feet below where he was crouched, was the town of Portage, Utah. It wasn’t as if the town was an exciting metropolis, but the idea of civilization made Portage seem like an oasis. Despite all of their problems, Patton’s group was hanging together. They’d been attacked by Asher’s men twice, they were running out of food, but perhaps the worst thing was the turning of the weather.