Gene Larimore was on a rooftop a few blocks north of Grand on 1st Street, and his wife Sue was a few blocks south. They waited patiently at their vantage points to “dispatch the targets,” as Frank Patton had instructed them. It was Frank’s method of detaching the reality of killing a human from the actual action of pulling the trigger, to make it more palatable. Sue preferred this kind of talk, but Gene didn’t. “Let’s call a damn spade a spade,” he’d yelled at both of them earlier today.
Both received a vintage Browning automatic rifle; each BAR had already dispatched many Nazi adversaries during World War II. Frank was quite the history and gun buff and supplied most of the town’s weapons for today’s battle. Were it not for him, the town would have had a mishmash of hunting rifles and handguns to hold back the invading hordes. Frank also selected their vantage points, two of the tallest buildings with the best cover and view along 1st Street, where today’s adversaries would be traveling.
“And how in God’s holy name do you know this?” Gene had grilled Frank in front of his wife earlier. Stress and Frank’s simple military logic ran counter to Gene’s paradigm.
“Simple, we’ve blocked every street in town with cars and debris except 1st Street and Grand Avenue.”
Gene’s anger boiled up. “Fine, but what makes you think they won’t just hop over your little barricades? If you’re wrong, they’ll come up from behind us and then me and my wife will pay for your mistake with our lives.”
“My wife and I,” Frank corrected, feeling a little surly. He didn’t have time to wag the dog with this stupid person, but he promised Sheriff Ralf he would try his best not to be acerbic. “I’m sorry, Gene. Look, Sheriff and I believe these people will either be very organized or just blood-thirsty. This is our best shot if they make it into our gates. Can we work together on this?”
Gene conceded, his head down, unwilling to look Frank in the eyes. “All right, sorry for being such a prick.”
Sue just smiled the whole time, mostly to cover her own dread, but also because she was embarrassed by her husband’s outburst.
“Okay, so with this plan, we can better focus our defense on the enemy in one place. But, once you start to fire, they’ll scatter. So, wait until you have the maximum number of potential casualties and spray them with your BARs.” They were nervous, but they were ready and felt like they were in a much better position than many of their fellow townspeople.
They both listened and watched intently at their own lookout points, rifle butts against their shoulders and ready to fire. They had shot these twice now, and felt comfortable enough with the weapons to be sure to strike what they aimed at. Because BARs are quite heavy and rest on their own bi-pods, Frank had explained, Sue and Gene would be less likely to miss when they were nervous.
Cannon and gun fire—even a few explosions—assaulted their senses from all sides; then, just periodic gunfire. Now, other than the occasional yelling and screaming of men around the town’s periphery, there was little evidence that they were under attack.
Sure as shit, after a time, the enemy was doing just what Frank had said; they were coming his way, having been diverted from all the other streets to 1st Street. About twenty men surrounded a horse-drawn, flat carriage, with a large gun mounted on its back. All the men walked slowly, their heads, bodies, and weapons rotating like individual radar antennas searching the streets and buildings for targets.
Some poor unfortunate resident had been hiding in the recesses of one of the cars making up the western wall. He must have been hoping to wait out this battle, but when he heard the men coming closer, he panicked. He dashed across 1st Street attempting to make it into an alley directly across from his hiding place. His arms and legs pumping in unison, he chanced a look at the troops, hoping they either wouldn’t see him or wouldn’t shoot since he had no weapon.
One of the intruders raised his automatic rifle, focused his sight, and let loose a spray that cut the man down instantly into an unrecognizable tangle of legs, arms, and blood, and sent his ball cap flying. The gunman’s laugh brought a few guffaws from his fellow murderers, which clattered off the buildings. Gene looked away, nauseated.
Sue jumped, startled by the gunfire behind her, close to Gene’s position. The cold sweat of anxiety slapping at her senses was not from this, but from the two cannons and twenty-five men coming from the other direction, marching her way on 1st Street.
As if reacting to Frank Patton calling out battlefield instructions over a radio (which wouldn’t have worked even if they had one, it occurred to her), both Gene and Sue clicked off their safeties and hovered their forefingers over their triggers.
There was a low rumble, like a distant summer thunderstorm, starting outside the city. It rolled their way until it boomed through Fort Laramie, and then everything vibrated in a deep-throated roar. All heads, whether antagonist or protagonist, popped up in an effort to see and comprehend what their senses were telling them. One of the intruders near Sue bellowed the one word rattling in many of their minds. “EARTHQUAKE!”
36.
Death Has Found You
John Parkington heard frantic clanging from the wind tower. That was the agreed-upon signal that Buck had spotted someone. John watched the flashes, Buck’s Morse code message sloppy but passable.
“C O N T A C”… “N O R T S I D E”
What followed were the unmistakable little cracks of Buck’s .22 with suppressor, three times and all three times followed by a brief thump — all three of his shots connected, but where or with whom? Then John heard a thud and felt a shudder from the pig-shed that was his lookout point. It was then he realized, the contact Buck signaled about and fired at was here. Adrenalin hit. He briskly spun around, attempting to make no noise, bringing his Mini-14 tactical rifle to bear, sight to his eye. The front sight’s red blade led his vision toward his target: the flash suppressor poking over the lip of the roof immediately above where he believed the enemy was.
“God dammit,” said the man below him.
The red blade covered first his foot, stuck out at an odd angle, then his leg, and then the top of the man’s head. He was feeling around the bloody clump of cartilage that used to be his ear lobe. Buck had struck pay dirt.
He had the gun trained right on him, barely a shake. He announced, somewhat triumphantly, “You’re beat—put your hands—”
The man dropped his hand from his bloody ear, looked up to see John, and swiftly rolled, bringing his rifle up.
John’s finger pulled hard on the trigger. Nothing happened. Shit, the safety! his brain shouted. A split second later, he moved his finger forward, pushing the safety to the fire position, and then his finger traveled the long distance from front of trigger guard to trigger, and squeezed off several shots almost instantaneously. He was shocked at the deafening noise of his gun and a small explosion below. He was knocked back, he thought from his own gun’s report, but then realized that something was wrong. He knew he hit the man at least a couple of times, but he felt a sharp pain in his chest and arm. He had been shot.