“I’m going to check on them!” she said, sprinting out of the room.
“Make sure you take one of the guys with you!” he called. “It may not be safe yet!”
Exhausted, he turned to the other ladies, their faces unfamiliar. Hand-pressed against his leg and catching his breath, he said, “I know this is a hell of a time for introductions, but, ladies, I’m Trevor Hatfield.”
The women’s faces seemed to be floating back to earth after a trip through hell. They both managed smiles. “I’m Julia. This is Amy. We live here on the homestead.”
“Nice to meet you.”
The ladies nodded, then looked past him. He turned and saw why. His son and daughter greeted him with horrified faces; they hung on to a group hug with their mom as they moved toward their dad.
“Dad, you promise we’ll never have to have a day like that again?” Tami asked.
“I wish I could, Tami,” he said, roping all three into a hug. “I wish I could. I’ll do the best I can to make sure we don’t,” he said. “How’s that?”
She lifted her lips into a half-smile.
He went on. “If we ever do have a day like that, though, you promise you’ll be as strong and brave as you were this time?”
That time she could only nod. It was as if she didn’t have enough left for words.
17
Nathan and the guys waited, guns ready. The guys in camouflage began by marching inside exactly as the three strangers at the barn predicted they would. They knew the formation, the rhythm they’d be locked—even the order they’d be coming in.
So when the gunfire began, Nathan could barely stop himself from laughing.
The spray of ammo caught them off-guard, rocking their bodies into wild motions and haunted screams. Nathan watched in the back, safely away from the storm of bullets, his face on fire with amusement. Nothing brought him joy like witnessing the suffering of his enemy. And each body that hit the hallway floor lit up his face like a pinball. The rain of bullets brought down three guys right away. Closer to the rear, a few others caught a wound but backed away in time to avoid serious injury. The gang had instructions to aim for the fat guy in the back—the white-bearded one. That wasn’t easy. The troops were lined up in such a way to shield him. He was, after all—according to the strangers—the leader.
In the rattle of gunfire, it wasn’t easy to count how many had fallen, but it was at least five and many others getting grazed.
The homesteaders tried to recover from the storm of bullets by finding shelter as well, ducking behind equipment and squatting low. But it was too late. Too many had fallen already, and more combat only promised more casualties.
The white-bearded guy barked out orders, his voice frantic and breathless. They grabbed some of the equipment and pulled away in retreat. But the storm wasn’t over yet. The shots kept coming, taking down two or three more guys from behind.
One by one, their bodies dropped lifeless, slapping the hard floor as howls echoed through the hallway. They were howls of victory.
When the homesteaders reached the door and scrambled free, Nathan laughed again, knowing the onslaught wasn’t over. It was now on to phase two.
Phase two was a sprint to the second floor where they could see the frightened losers scurry away and fire more shots. From that angle, there were no barriers. The only challenge came from the distance. Some of the men were good shots. Some of them weren’t.
A few more bullets connected, mostly glancing blows. But the good news was that the fat, bearded one was one of them. They giggled as his flab-ridden belly shook and he struggled to stay on his feet, running away from battle like a sissy. Nathan loved every second of it.
HATFIELD STAYED HUDDLED with his family and the captured women, their collective breath racing in anticipation of more combat. Three homesteaders remained at the den room’s doorway, ready for anything.
“What do we do now?” Jess asked.
“We wait for Cecil and the others to get back.”
“If they get back,” a homesteader added. He dropped his eyes in shame seconds later as if the thought frightened him.
Frantic footsteps approached the compound, bringing everybody’s eyes to alertness. Hatfield sprang to this feet, scooping up his pistol.
But he’d forgotten about the wound on his hand, and the gun slipped from his grasp and clanged to the floor, leaving his hand stinging. “No, no, no!” he yelled as the footsteps drew nearer. Taking the gun in his left hand, he joined the homesteaders in the doorway.
A breathless voice in the hallway called out, “Hold your fire, guys. It’s us.”
Around the corner and into the hallway, Cecil hobbled closer, blood dripping from his ribcage. Roughly fifteen more homesteaders followed him, many nursing wounds of their own, a few carrying equipment.
Jess gasped. “My God, what happened!”
The captain started to speak, voice strained now, out of energy. He clutched at the wound and collapsed to the floor amid horrified screams.
“They got us good,” a homesteader said. “Too good.”
Noticing the bag garnered from the hospital, Jess ran down the hallway, face twisted by multiple emotions. She knelt next to Cecil first, then pulled the bag closer to her. “What did you guys get?”
“Don’t know the names of everything, ma’am, but if it looked like medicine, we grabbed it.”
“Good,” she said, picking up pill bottles and reading the labels. She also pulled out bandages and other stuff from the bag. “Yeah, this stuff should be helpful.”
“When you get done with the serious stuff,” her husband said, “I got a little scrape that needs tending to.” He lifted his hand, showing his palm.
“That looks pretty serious to me,” she answered. “You sure it doesn’t hurt?”
“It hurts like the devil. But this doesn’t seem like the time for crying.”
Jess bit her lip and gave him a soft smile. Then she looked down, saw something fading in the captain’s eyes. “You still hanging on there, big guy?”
He chuckled weakly. “Doing the best I can.”
She reached into the bag and found two white rubber gloves. After slipping her hands into them, she pulled out a bottle and held it up to the light to read the label. “This is gonna sting a little, Captain.”
“I’m ready, ma’am.”
A cough down the hallway caught her attention. She reached into the bag and pulled out another bottle. After checking it, she tossed it to the homesteader, who coughed. “Anybody still coughing, give this a try. If that doesn’t help, see me. I’ll see what I can do.”
She poured from the bottle, dousing Cecil’s wound. The leader sucked air through his clenched teeth, swallowing a scream. “That’s your idea of stinging a little?”
“Sorry.”
“No, no, don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“Need any help, Mom?” Tami asked.
“Yeah, honey. You and your brother go into that dorm room and do everything you can to clean things up. Make sure there’s no dust around.” She looked around at other wounds. “The rest of you injured guys, go ahead and wait for me in there.”
“Yes, ma’am,” one of them said on his way out of the hallway.
Hatfield asked, “You want me to help get Cecil in there, too?”
“No, I suppose this is just as good a place as any for him. If we’d waited any longer, he might not have—” She stopped herself before finishing her sentence. Then she added, “He might not have done so well.”
Cecil said, “Mrs. Hatfield, you can be as blunt as you need to be. If you want to say I would have had my hefty behind carried off to the great beyond, you have my full permission to say just that.”