Clyde filled with anger, spoke through clenched teeth so his voice wouldn’t carry, “Go or I’ll shoot you myself, and your pretty little wife.” Smith went.
“Lisa, come on.” Clyde held his hands up higher, still not advancing, his Cheshire grin widening. “Why won’t you share a little of your food? You know, some of us are starving. How can giving a little hurt you?”
“How do you know we have anything?” Lisa looked over to Bill, who hadn’t moved, keeping his eyes on Clyde.
“Come on, I was there at church too, when you offered the reverend some food. That was very noble of you. I’m only asking you to help some of those you know.”
Her certainty of what to do next was evaporating with every passing moment of this stand-off.
26.
Demands
A group of ten men in camo stood outside the eastern gate, just south of the University of Wyoming campus entrance. Their intentions were unmistakable. Each carried an AR15 or other semi-automatic rifle—although they could have been fully automatic—either slung to their side or held at the ready. The lead man stood tall. His features were dark, almost Middle-Eastern, curiously shaved of all facial hair. The black hair on his head was a groomed to perfection, with light sprinkles of white; he looked as if he had just come from the barber. His inky eyes chilled Edgar Raintree, who was charged with the eastern gate when he wasn’t running the town’s only nursery. The Middle-Easterner spoke, in a voice both terrifying and melodic. “I assume I have your attention. Either you let us into your fair city and allow us to take a few things peacefully and go, or we will come at you with everything we have. You may not know me, so you’ll have to trust me when I say that you do not want to mess with us. We will cut you down and kill every last one of your people. It will be as if your little walled town never existed. I will not ask you a second time.”
He turned and whispered something to a short man next to him, who stepped away and walked into the middle of 9th Street. The short man let go of his slung rifle, its deadly weight resting on his chest, and grabbed two rolled-up flags on sticks from his back pocket. He thrust them to the air. As each unfurled, he began to signal by semaphore, his body pointed toward some unseen point in the north. Then, he abruptly stopped, turned the other direction and repeated the same movements with flawless efficiency. Once done, he brought the flags down, twirled them around each other, and returned them to his back pocket. He then took his position next to the Middle-Easterner. Edgar could see several people moving toward their north-eastern wall corner. The opposite boundary was now crowded with another group walking west at the south-eastern corner of their citadel.
Edgar nearly jumped out of his skin when someone tapped him on his shoulder. “What do they want?” the out-of-breath Sheriff Ralf asked. He had just run the mile to this wall in record time.
“They want some of our supplies. If we let them take the stuff, he said they’ll leave, but if we don’t they threatened to level the town and everyone in it. That guy signaled others and now we’re surrounded.” He pointed to the pint-sized flagman. “I think there’s a lot more than the twe-twenty I saw. And Sheriff…” Edgar stopped to take a couple of breaths. “They seem well organized. The GQ Middle-Eastern guy,” Edgar now pointed to him, “told me he wouldn’t offer a second chance. What the hell should we do?” Edgar asked, hyper-ventilating so badly he felt dizzy and was pretty sure he would pass out if this kept up.
Sheriff Ralf’s face dropped, recognizing the leader immediately. He knew right then they were in trouble. Standing up, unprotected, with no weapons in his hand, hands and arms outstretched, Ralf addressed him. “Sylas Luther, how in God’s name did you get out of prison?”
“Sheriff Peterman, so nice to see you again.” The lead man sounded genuine. “The prison’s electric locks didn’t work very well when everything shorted out, and some love-your-neighbor guard didn’t want us to burn to death in the prison fires. So, here I am.” He grinned, satisfied with how this was going.
“The prison’s quite a few miles from here, and there are lots of houses and warehouses in between. So, why choose us, Sylas?”
“Enough small talk, Sheriff. You know what I am capable of. I’ll ask you a simple question. Are you going to give me what I want or would you prefer we kill everybody? It’s your choice.”
Immediately, Ralf said, “No, it is not my choice; it is the town’s choice. I have to put this—”
Sylas cut him off. “It is your choice today. I just need a yes or no answer. What’s it going to be?”
27.
More Demands
A man nobody recognized sauntered up the long, straight, private dirt road of Wilber Wright’s ranch. In most ways, he was very plain looking, of average height and build, with dark hair and a permanent worker’s tan. Yet, he carried himself with a certain confidence and walked with a purpose in his step as he continued towards them. At the top of their hilly compound, Wilber and the others watched from behind an old wall that ran around the circumference of the hill. The man stopped where the drive was bisected by a new fence just erected by Wilber that ran around the base of their hill. Wilber announced, “Stranger, state your business.”
The man held up his arms, probably to show he was unarmed. “I am Thomas, a disciple of the Teacher. Our group is passing through on our way west. All we need is some of your food and one or two days’ rest on your property, and then we will be off doing God’s work.”
Wilber’s face dropped in disbelief. “Do you believe this guy?” he rhetorically asked Steve who trained a rifle on Thomas, not sure what to trust or believe. Steve shrugged in response.
“Well, instead of that, you can just get moving along. If you need water, there is a trough full of it at the end of a path you passed on your way up my driveway.”
Thomas then repeated the words he was told to say. “I’m afraid, sir, you don’t understand. Do not mistake my words as a request. You have only two choices. You can accept us with open arms, and we will let you live and we may allow you and your people to join our quest; or you can reject us and receive the Teacher’s judgment. God grants you free will. This is the one freedom we will not take from you.”
Wilber’s face was much more serious now. He had no idea how big this group was, but obviously, based on this man’s comments, they believed they had the force to take what they wanted and either kill him, his family, and friends, or induct them all into this Teacher’s cult.
“Can we hold them off if we say no?” Steve asked, his voice betraying his concern.
“Unless he has more than, say a hundred men, we can hold him off with all our defenses. We’ll be fine.” Wilber’s tone held doubt salted with flashes of anger.
He stood up as high as he could over the four-foot wall, so that he could be easily seen. Then he yelled down to the stranger making threats, “How dare you come onto my private property and make demands? This property has been in my family’s hands for generations. So, I’m sure as hell not going to turn it over to some religious narcissistic freak who thinks he’s the Second Coming. Get out of here, and tell your Teacher if I see any of his people anywhere on my property, I will send them to hell.”
Thomas’s face didn’t change at all. Just before he opened his mouth to speak, Wilber was sure he saw a little bit of a smirk on it. “Then beware, as Jesus once said, ‘I came not to bring peace, but to bring a sword.’” He turned and walked away.