“Well, they may choose to poison the food. It might be better to let our captives eat first. If they survive, we all eat.”
Hoping to keep his tough negotiator’s face intact, he swallowed a grin. So he nodded and turned back to the guys behind the fence. Grabbing the woman by the hair once again, he yanked her forward. “Here’s the first dinner guest. If you’ve decided to get cute and she winds up not surviving the meal, that means the deal’s off. And that means we come after you all guns blazing.”
Nathan backed away slowly, scanning the faces of the homesteaders. Nothing in their blank stares gave anything away.
Someone from the middle of the crowd stepped forward with a steaming hot plate, the chili and cornbread looking tasty. “Like we said, guys,” he called. “You come one at a time, no guns.”
“Okay, guys,” Nathan called. “Let’s back away and wait our turn, guns down.”
IT TOOK OVER an hour to make sure all of them got fed. Hatfield stood there at the fence next to the guard on duty, watching as they backed away, heading for the barn.
“How long you think the peace will last?” the guard asked.
“Probably until they find another food source,” he answered. “And as they don’t seem like the most resourceful guys in the world, that may take a while.”
“That’d be my guess, too. What happens after that?”
Hatfield paused. “I don’t know, but we’d better have a plan B in place for when they do.”
“The way I figure it,” the guard went on, “if they simply get impatient with the whole thing, they could just—”
But Hatfield spotted something in the distant weeds. He dropped to the ground and yanked the guard with him, pulling his pistol from the holster.
“What do you see?”
He pointed at three moving figures, their bodies unsteady, maybe elderly. They moved closer to the compound. Within seconds they were well within view. A woman and two teenage kids. “What the hell?”
“Looks like a mother and her kids. Not sure what that’s all about.”
Hatfield gestured to the bullhorn near the compound wall. He said, “Why don’t you get on the horn? Let them know this isn’t the place for them to be.”
The homesteader crawled over, scooped the makeshift bullhorn out of the grass, and announced. “Please stop at once. This is private property.
The three figures—now fifteen, maybe twenty feet away—stopped and raised their hands in surrender. “Please!” the woman in the center shouted. “We need your help!”
“I’m sorry!” the guard went on. “I’m afraid this is private property, and you will be—”
Hatfield stopped him with a lifted hand. “Let’s just hear what’s going on. They’re not going to hurt us.”
The homesteading guard nodded, dropped the bullhorn to the grass, then waved them forward.
The two of them rose to the feet, guns still in their hands but aimed at the ground. The closer the trio got, the sadder their story seemed to be. All three of them seemed frail and weak, bones nearly poking through their skin. The woman in the middle held the frightened hands of the kids that flanked her. Both seemed somewhere between twelve and fifteen—just like Hatfield’s kids. Also, one was a boy, the other a girl. In this case, the ages were reversed, with the boy seeming to be older. The woman spoke, her voice fragile. “We’re so sorry. It’s just we’d been watching you for a while, seeing you handing out food. I suppose we just assumed you’d be able to help.”
“No, ma’am,” the guard said. “That food was in service of a special purpose. Our policy is that we cannot—”
Hatfield pulled him aside, keeping his voice low. “Do we have any food leftover from the exchange?”
“Probably a little, but Cecil told us—”
“Do we have enough for three more plates?”
An uneasy pause. “Probably.” But he gave Hatfield a glare.
“Come on. What could it harm?
“All due respect, sir, it could harm plenty. The way the captain explains it, with every meal we give away, we get another hand out coming to the compound expecting theirs. We can’t afford that.”
Hatfield turned, saw the three faces, slack, hoping for the best. “Go and get three more plates of food.”
“But Cecil—”
“If Cecil has any questions, he knows where he can find me.”
The homesteader huffed away as Hatfield moved back to the fence. “Where are you staying?”
“Well, sir, we’ve got a bunker. Well protected and everything. My husband was very meticulous about putting everything together. He was military, in charge of weaponry and whatnot, so we’ve got plenty of everything we might need—although I sure hope we never need those missiles because I sure couldn’t imagine ever firing them at anybody. But yes, the place is well-stocked.”
“Then why no food?”
“Things in the bunker have been in disrepair.
“And your husband isn’t able to…” As soon as the words came from his mouth, the woman’s face went ashen, eyes red.
“I’m afraid he didn’t make it,” she said. “He went out for one final trip on the night of the storm and…”
“I’m sorry.”
Footsteps from behind told him the guard had returned with the plates. He turned to see Cecil, a bag of food in his hands. The captain’s face remained casual as he hefted the bag over the fence and let it drop to the family.
“Thank you so much!” The woman gushed. “If you don’t mind, we’ll just eat it here.”
“Go right ahead, ma’am,” Cecil replied.
As the family squatted in the grass, the captain pulled Hatfield away for a quiet word. “You do know that was a break in policy, don’t you?” he said.
“I do, and I’m prepared to accept whatever you feel I must accept.”
Cecil’s icy face melted into a smile. “Mr. Hatfield, you have some integrity. It takes intestinal fortitude to challenge a man in authority when he disagrees with him, and it does indeed seem you have your share of that.”
“Thank you.”
“But,” he went on, “intestinal fortitude is not enough. I’m prepared to make you my first lieutenant. Now I know you’re not a military man, so that means—”
“It means I’m next in charge after the captain. I may not have served, but believe me, all those years under my dad taught me enough.”
“Good. From now on, I’ll respect what you have to say and I’ll listen. There will even be times when I sense we’re involved in an area that is more up your alley than mine, so I’ll step back and let you take the reins. But none of this will happen if you don’t understand the protocol around here. If you wish to question me or challenge my word, you pull me aside privately and discuss it. You undermine me once, and… well, you may well end up where your friends the VVs wound up.”
Hatfield laughed a little but then looked over to see the Captain wasn’t. “Yes, sir.”
“Very good. And one more thing. With respect comes responsibility. That means we know where to look when your call sends things astray. You have a good night.”
“‘Night, Captain,” he said. The phrase echoed in his head for a while. “With respect comes responsibility.” It sounded like something his father would have said, making it a little scary.
The family sat and ate in silence, faces glowing and eyes at peace for the first time Hatfield had taken a look at them. He stepped to the fence, asked them, “Everything okay?”
“It’s just wonderful!” the woman called. “Thank you so much.”
Within a few minutes, they were finished, handing over the bag and their plates with face-splitting grins. “What do you kids say to the generous gentleman?”
“Thank you,” they chimed in unison.