Gray ducked into the cab. He’d left the backhoe idling when he went to check the grave. He slid into the seat, popped the parking brake, and raised the hydraulic stabilizers to free the earthmover.
Seichan grabbed both rifles, leaving the driving to him. She pointed, and he understood. This was not a vehicle to attempt to flee in. Besides, they couldn’t leave Monk behind.
Gray raised the large front loader, using it as a shield across the windshield. He’d be driving blind, but at the moment he wasn’t worried about sideswiping a car. He trundled out into the lawn. Rounds banged into the loader. He slowly angled toward the rear of the log home while Seichan leaned low out the door and fired under the raised bucket, keeping the men pinned down behind the cabin.
Once they reached the shadow of the cabin, Seichan rolled out.
That was the easy part.
Monk sat in the grave, holding his shovel.
After he’d heard the real rifle fire, it was clear that his job here was done. He used the spade as a crutch to help him gain his feet. He wanted to see what was happening. With some effort, he stood up and peeked his head out of the grave — only to have it almost sheered off by a set of giant metal teeth.
Gray had returned with the backhoe, coming in low and fast with the front loader. The noise of the ongoing firefight had covered his approach.
Monk fell back as the scoop dug into the opposite wall of the grave, caving in a good section.
“Climb up!” Gray hollered.
Understanding dawned.
Monk hauled over, climbing through the dirt, and shoulder-rolled into the front loader. Hydraulics whined and raised the arm high while Gray twisted the hoe around. Monk slid inside the bucket, keeping hidden as shots were fired, pinging against the front loader.
Something bumped his shoulder.
He reached over and found an assault rifle.
And it’s not even my birthday.
After tossing the rifle into the bucket for Monk, Seichan had fled away from the backhoe and toward the cabin, keeping the stout log home between her and her assailants. But she couldn’t count on such protection for long. The team would eventually come at her from both sides, outflanking her.
That must not happen.
Besides, she had to keep the commando team’s attention on her while Gray freed Monk. So she sprinted toward the window on this side of the cabin. She raised her rifle and fired three rounds at the panes, striking the glass in a perfect triangle pattern. With the glass weakened, she leaped up, kicked out with her boot, and hurdled through the window. The rest of her body followed. She landed smoothly inside, sliding and skating atop the broken glass, keeping on her feet.
She raised her rifle while still moving.
She had burst into the cabin’s main room and had a clear view to the window on the far side. A soldier stared at her, momentarily frozen. She fired—pop, pop, pop—and down he went.
She dove to the side, seeking the shelter of a cast-iron stove.
A rifle barrel shoved through the broken window and blindly strafed inside. Seichan ignored it, merely waited, centering her aim. A head poked into view, checking for damage. She fired only once this time. A body tumbled past the window.
With her back to the wall and the stove for shelter, she readied to make a stand. Hopefully she’d bought Gray the time he needed.
Then a grenade flew into the room and bounced across the floor.
It looked like she’d overstayed her welcome.
Bent to peer under the raised front bucket, Gray rode past the cabin as an explosion blew out its windows and tore the door off its hinges. Smoke rolled out. He fumbled with his gears in surprise and worry.
Seichan…
Silence fell over the battlefield for a heartbeat — then the noise resumed. Two men popped around the cabin’s corner. Monk strafed from his advantage atop his steel castle tower, balancing the front of his rifle between two teeth of the front loader. A third assailant threw a grenade from where the commandos were hiding, lobbing it over the roof toward the backhoe.
But they didn’t know that Monk was an expert sharpshooter — or how pissed he was about getting tagged in the gut. Monk swiveled his weapon and pinged the grenade as if he were shooting skeet. It fell back behind the cabin. Another explosion blew back there, casting up dirt and smoke. A helmet rolled into view. It wasn’t empty. Screams followed.
Then gunfire.
It sounded like a brief firefight — a one-sided firefight.
After a moment, through the smoke, a figure appeared.
Seichan, covered in blood and with her clothes still smoldering, crossed into view. She must have dived out a back window as the grenade inside the cabin blew. She pointed toward the parking lot. She wasn’t indicating that it was time to go. A single figure remained, standing next to a Humvee.
Mitchell Waldorf.
The traitor turned toward the vehicle, but Monk was one step ahead of him. From his perch, he took out the truck’s tires and drove Waldorf back from the vehicle. If they could capture him alive — a Guild operative buried deep in the government — he could prove to be invaluable, a resource capable of exposing much about the workings of the organization.
Waldorf must have realized the same thing.
He lifted a pistol to his chin.
Gray swore, goosed the backhoe for more speed. Seichan ran toward him. Waldorf smiled and shouted at them cryptically: “This isn’t over!”
The single pistol shot rang brightly.
The top of the man’s head erupted in a blast of skull and brain matter. The body slumped to the pavement.
Certainly looks over to me.
Still, the sight of the man’s last smile stayed with Gray. A cold fear settled in his gut. What did the bastard mean?
Ten minutes later, Gray and the others were speeding down the Natchez Trace Parkway in the second Humvee they’d stolen that day. They’d taken one of the assault team’s vehicles, figuring they’d be less likely to be bothered that way. Plus, they needed the extra room.
Monk lay sprawled across the backseat, stripped to the waist, his belly bandaged in a pressure wrap from an emergency medical kit Gray had found in the back of the Army vehicle. Apparently the assault team had been expecting some injuries. He’d also found a morphine stick and jabbed Monk in the thigh with it.
His friend’s eyes already had a happy glaze around their edges.
Seichan, with her cuts and lacerations taped, manned the wheel, leaving Gray to examine the buffalo hide. He’d fetched it from the grave before leaving. The leather was brittle, but he was able to unfold it, revealing an image of a riotous battle dyed into the skin, showing Indians in the midst of waging a great war. Thousands of arrows flew, each delicately but indelibly tattooed into the skin. Elsewhere, pueblos tumbled from cliffs. Faces, feathered and painted, screamed.
Gray remembered Kat’s report from Painter, about the destruction of the Anasazi following the theft of sacred totems from the Tawtsee’untsaw Pootseev. Was that slaughter — that genocide — being memorialized on this buffalo skin?
This raised a larger question.
Gray had the buffalo hide open to the middle, spread over his lap. A large section was missing. He felt the surface with his fingers. It was much rougher.
“Lewis scraped this part of the artwork off the hide,” Gray said.
“Why?” Seichan asked.
“He’s written something here in the blank space.”