The steel-reinforced concrete walls of the silos managed to contain much of the force of the detonations that followed the breach of the towers. To those at ground level, it appeared as if intercontinental ballistic missiles were launching from underground bunkers. Prodigious forces vomited columns of roaring inferno into the heavens. With each thunderous blast, other towers were breached and each, in turn, erupted in an orgy of fire.
The forces tore apart smaller distribution bins in the complex and grain cascaded out of the building and smothered the tracks. Chunks of concrete and flaming debris rained down off the structures and slammed into the ground and onto equipment.
The Sweetly coop complex was reduced to hollowed-out concrete chambers, each belching acrid smoke from flames now consuming the dry grain remaining in the mammoth bins.
Jim Bottomly, at his home on the far side of the community, heard staccato explosions and raced out his front door. He knew before he reached his steps what had happened. Catastrophic grain elevator explosions were the things of legend on the Plains. Such events were revered and feared at the same time and were fodder for barroom embellishment one generation to the next. On the edge of town, he watched Sweetly’s newborn monstrous roman candles launch hellfire into the sky.
Harland, knocked down into the ash by a shower of small debris, watched the horror above while lying windless on his back. He sensed he was at the center of a nuclear firestorm. As he bore witness to the conflagration, pieces of building landed with a thump on all sides. Somehow he was not impaled by the larger pieces, but the intense heat of the blasts forced him to roll off the top of the ash berm and down the far side.
The Sweetly grain war was over in a single minute. Its tarnished souvenir was a tortured hulk of concrete and tons of smoldering grain. With no possible way to fight such a fire, the grain would likely burn for weeks, even months.
Harland stumbled to his feet and stood unsteady in the flame-flickering dark. He idled emotionless. There had been a purpose to all this, right? He had come to safeguard the grain supply, to save it for the citizens of Sweetly and to keep the federal boys from getting their hands on it. He had meant to do well by the local citizens, but what had he done? He had destroyed the very thing he came to save, and likely his old friend’s life. Now there was ruin, corruption on all sides.
Harland raised his rifle before his eyes and held it at arm’s length, studying the thing. It was useless now. Best to toss it away. It had been folly to use it, after all.
Down the tracks at the bucket loader, a Guard solider, protected from the violence by the equipment’s steel, noticed something moving in the distance. He raised his weapon and took a look through the mounted scope. The troop saw a human form hoist a rifle toward its shoulders.
A tiny flash of light erupted from the equipment steel.
Chapter One Hundred-Eight
Harland held his rifle up before his eyes, as if to inspect it. Misery engulfed him. Despite meticulous planning, he failed his neighbors and friends terribly. He hefted the gun to toss it away into the ash.
Someone unseen fired a shot. A blunt force rammed his left flank. Harland hurtled from the ash mound through the air. No chance to break his fall, the farmer landed heavily on his back in the shadow of the grain elevator towers. His cranium pounded down into the ash, the concussion stunning him. Struggling for a breath, something pounced on his chest, a black creature. It was inhuman, the thing, grabbing at his clothing with four arms. It pulled at him, dragged him on rough ground until sensation left him.
Dim light from a kerosene lantern was all Harland could make out when he opened his eyes. Dead silence permeated the formless space he occupied. His head throbbed abominably.
“Here, take these. Pain killers,” someone said.
A cup of water and several tablets were offered. Harland accepted the pills into his mouth and took a swig of water. Someone cradled his head and placed a jacket under his skull to keep it off a cold concrete surface.
Five minutes elapsed.
“What is this place?” Harland whispered.
“You’re in the old Sweet Spring Brewery.”
“Brewery?” Harland could manage nothing else.
“We brought you here. We thought you’d be killed or captured.”
“Killed? Uhh. What happened to Percy?”
“Who?”
“Percy. He was in the headhouse over the silos.”
“The coop silos blew up, Harland. Grain dust explosion.”
“What?”
“If you had a man up there, you’ve lost him.”
Images of the night rushed back to the Swede. Suddenly the grain elevators were alight, launching columns of fierce flames into the night. Harland pushed himself up to a sitting position and discovered three dark figures weakly illuminated by the single light source.
“What is this? You Reserve boys?”
One of the figures laughed. “No, Harland. We’re not the Guard. We’ve got nothing to do with them.”
“What do you want with me?”
“We wanted to be sure you didn’t die out there.”
The farmer sat speechless for ten seconds. “Who are you people?”
A figure reached for and clutched the kerosene lamp. He brought it over to Harland, just to one side of him, and set it down. The farmer could now see the faces of the three men before him. He recognized one.
“God in heaven, you Whittemore?”
“That’s right, Harland. The man on your right is Max Zimmerman, on your left, Oleg Knudsen. We’re all from the bluffs.”
“Holy sweet savior, you stay away from me.”
Harland scrambled to his knees, his head vibrating with pulsing pain. Abel placed a hand to the farmer’s chest.
“Be at ease, sir. We’re not here to cause you harm. Sit. Sit. Have some more water.”
Harland scowled, but sat back down wearily on the jacket. A look of defeat made the rounds of his face. Abel noticed the farmer’s cheeks still displayed the angry red rash, the same one the farmer had sported on the porch of the family homestead several weeks earlier.
“It’s over, isn’t it? You saw the silos go up, eh?”
“Yes, Harland, most of them are burning.”
The farmer covered his face with his hands. “That’s not what I wanted. I thought sure we could protect the grain, get the Guard out of here and leave us be.”
“They’ll be going, Mr. Sven,” said Oleg, “empty-handed.”
“It’s all gone, then, isn’t it? All burning up.”
“That’s what the Guard’s thinking out there as we speak,” Abel said. “I imagine they’ll assess things in the morning, then pull the train out of here sometime tomorrow if the ash dust isn’t too terribly bad.”
“So they’ll have nothing. Do you know what that means?”
The three men around Harland remained silent.
“That means….” Harland’s demeanor turned surly suddenly. “What in Christ’s name do you care? You don’t know shit about these things.”
“Quiet yourself about this, Harland,” Abel remarked in a calm, parental tone. “The Guard will be leaving without your grain. But it’s not ruined. It’s safe.”
Harland squinted in the dim light and grimaced. “It’s out there burning. It’s going to burn forever and ever and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
“Some of it will burn, that’s a certainty, Harland. Some of it, though, can’t burn. It can’t burn because it isn’t in the silos.”