The place looked calm, and he wouldn’t have known a gunfight had taken place less than an hour ago if he hadn’t heard it for himself.
“Everything looks pretty hunky dory in there,” Danny said next to him. “What gives?”
“Two possibilities,” Will said. “Either the fight’s over, or it’s just getting started.”
“Which one of those is better for us?”
“That depends on who was doing the shooting and who was being shot at, and if Gaby is involved. And if she is, that means she made a run for it.”
“That’s a pretty big leap, chief.”
“What else could it be?”
“Maybe the boys in uniforms were just letting off steam with some target practice.”
“Could be. But it was pretty short for target practice.”
The lack of activity around the town was disturbing. A place filled with that many people shouldn’t be that calm. There was no one running around, no one shouting or pointing, and no men with assault rifles searching buildings. It made him wonder if he had been wrong about Gaby being involved somehow. But if it wasn’t her, then what was the gunfire all about?
It had to be her. The Gaby he knew would try like hell to escape, even if it cost her everything.
The girl’s a born fighter.
“It’s gotta be Gaby,” Will said after a while.
“If she did make a run for it,” Danny said, “wouldn’t we have run across her? The first thing she’d do would be to head for the interstate.”
“Maybe. They could have been keeping her on the other side of town. Kellerson didn’t know her exact location.”
“I’m glad we finally ditched that guy. Terrible conversationalist.”
They hadn’t really ditched Kellerson. He was still waiting for them in the cellar behind the house. Not that he had much of a choice. Will had left him on the same patch of dirt floor he had been sleeping on last night, still duct taped. The look on Kellerson’s face had been a mixture of concern and elation when he saw them leaving without him. It wouldn’t be long now before he realized they might not come back. Whenever Will started to feel sorry for the collaborator, all he had to do was think about Mercy Hospital, and it went away.
Clop-clop-clop.
Will looked up. “You hear that?”
“Are you kidding me?” Danny said. “What is that, a posse?”
Two men on horseback rode down the town street, the clop-clop-clop of metal horseshoes against cobblestone echoing in the quiet morning. The riders wore camo uniforms with assault rifles bouncing against their backs. Neither man looked entirely comfortable on top of the animals.
“Horses,” Danny said, as if he couldn’t quite believe it. “What is this, the Dark Ages? What’s next, guys with bows and arrows? Pooping in the woods?”
Two more riders appeared from down the street, meeting the first two halfway for some kind of powwow. After a moment, they turned and headed off toward the other side of town, picking up speed as they went.
“That’s definitely a posse,” Will said, lowering his binoculars. “And they’re headed to the other side. What’s back there?”
Danny took out a folded map from one of his pouches and spread it on the ground. “Woods. Lots of woods. So many, they should call the place Woodsville. And there’s a lake.”
“The lake would explain why they chose this place. It gives them a water supply.”
Danny folded the map back up and put it away. “What’s the plan, Kemosabe?”
“Wait and see?”
“I’m not good at waiting and seeing. I’m more of an action man. That’s what they used to call me back in college. Action Danny.”
“Skirt around the woods, see what’s happening on the other side, then?”
“Sounds like a better plan. Action Danny approves.”
“Glad to hear it,” Will said.
He got up and began moving alongside the clearing while still sticking to the woods. Danny kept pace behind him.
“You didn’t tell me we’d be running this much,” Danny said.
“Hey, I’m the one with bullet holes in me.”
“Stop yer bitchin’. Those bullet holes are already a few days old. Plus, I was thinking…”
“Uh oh.”
“Shaddup. Anyway, I was thinking, we shoulda brought Kellerson along. I’ve always wanted my own personal pack mule. You think he could have carried me, too?”
“Not without two fingers. Hard to get a grip.”
“Yeah, well, whose fault is that?”
“He hesitated when I asked him a question.”
“He said, ‘Huh,’ just before you cut off his pinky finger.”
“What are you, Amnesty International?”
“I didn’t tell you? They even sent me a membership card. That shit was laminated and everything.”
It took them another twenty minutes of steady jogging before they reached the highway. It wasn’t much to look at — two lanes with fading yellow dividers. There were steel guardrails along the sides that they had to climb over before darting across the open to the other side.
Back in the comfort of the woods again, they continued around trees and bushes before risking a run across open ground with L15 fading to their right. After another thirty minutes, they finally reached the other side of the woods.
Will didn’t breathe easier until he had trees around him again.
They hadn’t come to a complete stop when they heard gunfire from somewhere further ahead. The unmistakable clatter of assault rifles, and this time it wasn’t a one-sided fight. There was clearly a back-and-forth gun battle going on.
They went down on one knee and listened.
“AK-47?” Will said when the shooting finally stopped.
“And at least one other rifle,” Danny said.
“How many shooters?”
“Two, possibly three.”
“Sounds about right. If it is our girl, it’s four against one. I don’t like those odds.”
“She’s a lot tougher than you think, Danny. You should have seen her at Mercy Hospital.”
“Yeah?”
Will nodded.
“Damn,” Danny said. “We should definitely open up that school we’ve been talking about. Danny and Will’s School of Badassness. My name goes first, of course. Purely based on awesomeness, you understand.”
“That goes without saying,” Will said.
They got up and moved forward, toward the source of the gunfire.
More gunshots, this time coming from a different section of the woods, which told him they were going in the wrong direction and had been for some time. Either that, or the action was on the move.
There was something odd about this new round of gunfire — there was just a volley, the very clear indication of a single rifle firing on full-auto.
“AK-47?” Danny said.
Will nodded. “Yup. Plus, we’re going the wrong way.”
“That’s the last time I let you drive.”
They changed course, heading even deeper into the woods.
There was blood on the ground. Fresh. Small splatters that led them to a brown horse grazing on grass next to a big oak tree, shading itself from the morning glare. The animal lifted its head when they approached, nostrils flaring in warning. When they didn’t do anything, it went back to blissfully feeding.
The blood belonged to a man in a camo uniform sitting against a tree. His eyes stared off at nothing in particular, face frozen with an oddly perplexed expression. A still-wet pool of blood seemed to originate from his bottom.
“Ass shot,” Danny said.