Chapter 6: Not alone
Bob worked his way through the darkness taking stock of his situation. He was on his own in a village for all intensive purposes occupied by an enemy army. He had a only his rifle, 100 rounds of ammunition in five magazines and the small day pack with minimal equipment. He had left both his 45 and body armor at home. His first thought was to get out of town and back home as fast as possible.
But what then? He could slip across the river and walk home. But that would only stave off the inevitable. The farm would be raided and the herd butchered to feed Hinkley and his tag alongs. But when the beef ran out, they would be searching for more and there would be nothing that an isolated homestead could do. There wasn’t even anywhere to run for help.
High above the town Carl Durkee’s generator kicked on for 5 PM milking. The lights from the milking parlor shone out in the blackness of the dark pastures surrounding the valley’s south side. It was like a beacon calling Bob. The farm was the only place he could find help.
He worked his way along the creek staying in the shadow of the saplings that had grown up along the edge of the water. He was nearly to the south end of the village when he saw the second vehicle parked on the road with men inside. They were parked in the center of the road facing the lane leading up to the farm gate. With the aide of his scope, Bob could just make out a dim slow moving figure at the gate. At least one guard was on post at the far end of the farm lane.
He worked his way in a wide arc around the parked vehicle and up the slope more than a mile from the gate. When he hit the barbed wire fence, he carefully crawled under it and made his way toward the sound of the generator through the darkness.
Sheriff Richard Jones watched the monitors in his makeshift security office. He only had electricity for a few hours each 12 hours. It was during that time that the electronics took the place of the roving sentries. Between 5 and 7 AM his deputies were free to eat breakfast and dinner at a leisurely pace. The security cameras and motion sensing floodlights mounted on the exterior of each building on the farm could pick up any movement within 50 yards of the house or barns. This was why when Bob crossed the darkened pasture he had no danger of encountering with the mounted deputies, but also why as he approached the homestead a blinding floodlight clicked on audibly and illuminated the entire barnyard he was approaching.
Sheriff Jones had radioed his men who raced to predetermined defensive positions. One of those positions overlooked the barnyard. Deputy Matt Lawrence had been in this position countless times before since he had accepted employment from Carl Durkee. He had long since memorized every shadow in his field of fire. Now there was a shadow that did not belong.
“STAND STILL AND SLOWLY RAISE YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD!”
Bob could feel the rifle pointed at him. “Don’t Shoot!”
He held his ground and very, very slowly raised both hands over his head holding the rifle’s neck in his right hand and the fore-stock in his left.
He heard a radio crackle and within what seemed like seconds he was searched and disarmed in a thorough and professional manner this time by the Sheriff himself while Deputy Lawrence covered him.
The Sheriff did not cuff Bob as he had expected instead he relied on his deputy’s rifle for security and asked “I asked you to leave politely. Why are you here?”
“I’ve come to warn you.”
“Of what?”
“Hinkley plans to take the herd by force at noon tomorrow. He has at least a dozen men on snowmobiles plus at least one machine gun. A real one. Not a semi.”
Sheriff Jones nodded. He had suspected that something like this was coming.
“Why are you here?”
“It’s just not right. And if this farm goes, then mine is probably next.”
The Sheriff turned to the Deputy Lawrence. “Matt I want you to let everyone know what is going on. Its time for us to get out of here.”
“What do you mean you’re leaving?” Bob couldn’t believe his ears.
The old farmer stepped closer to Bob. “Every man’s gotta make his own choice. You gotta do what you gotta do.” He loosened the revolver in its old fashioned leather holster. “Now - if we have until noon, I need to get these girls to finish the milking before anything else.”
Bob was at a loss. He couldn’t believe that the sheriff was taking his deputies off the farm, just when they were needed most. He couldn’t believe that the old man was concerned about mastitis instead of an M60 mowing down his front gate. The sheriff and all four deputies with all their rifles and gear appeared in the barn yard on horseback. They simply rode into the darkness without a word.
Bob found himself just standing at the door to the milk house unsure of what to do next until a small hand gently touched his shoulder. “Mr. Adams?” Amanda Fleisher looked concerned. “Mr. Adams, everything is going to be ok.”
Sheriff Jones and his deputies left the lights of the farm far behind. They avoided the farm lane and the road entirely cutting cross lots through back gates until they left the horses behind the last wooded ridge before reaching the village from the north. From this ridge they made their way along a trail that they had all travelled in the dark before. When it reached Fish creek they dropped into the gully it had washed from the graveled banks and walked on ice and rocks until the last curve before the stream bed would come into sight of the vehicle parked on the bridge. They keyed their radio twice without speaking and the signal was answered in kind. Given that all clear they advanced to where Deputy Bill Terry lay on the river bank in earth colored coveralls. A long Mosin Nagant Rifle and a pair of binoculars were nestled into a comfortable rest in front of his carefully screened observation post.
Bill had kept an eye on the far side of town for Sheriff Jones for the past several months. Both of them had felt it was wise to keep the fact that they were working together close to the vest. The Sheriff figured that having a man available in town that no one knew was working with him would keep him better informed of what was happening in town. And should Mr. Durkee get out of hand, it didn’t hurt to have an ace in the whole that the old farmer didn’t know about either. He had told the farmer that he had a plan for dealing with Hinkley, but even now he hadn’t mentioned that Bill Terry was part of it.
Bill had broken radio silence to alert the farm to the same news that Bob had brought. Then he had resumed his watch on the traffic in and out of the village. By his count. Hinkley had 22 men already in town. Half had come with Hinkley and half on snow machines which were now gassed up and parked at the Hinkley mansion. There was a convoy from Sawyerville expected to arrive in the morning with several dozen men to help overwhelm the farm but no one wanted to travel on the roads in the dark. So the trucks probably had not yet even started to move.
One of the guards in the truck was already asleep and when the other looked away Deputy Lawrence began his approach. With warning on the radio every time the guard looked his way, Matt was within yards of the truck when the man picked up his binoculars to scan the distant moonlit roadway. When he heard movement and lowered the binoculars he was looking down the muzzle of a 12 gauge riot gun just feet outside the window. The 69 caliber tube looked the diameter of a sewer pipe to the man staring down the barrel he realized that the deputy was just far enough away to avoid any sudden opening of the car door, yet plenty close enough to send death with a squeeze of the trigger.
In a moment Hinkley’s force was down to twenty as the two men were stripped of their over coats, cuffed and blindfolded. The vehicles radio was disabled and once they were searched and disarmed they were warned that they would be under observation should they attempt to escape and locked in to the back seat of the state police 4x4s. The vehicle would protect them from the worst of the weather as well as detain them. Deputy Terry would continue to maintain his observation of the road from Sawyerville and radio the Sheriff if anyone approached.
Back on the hill above town Carl Durkee sat across an ancient Formica kitchen table from Bob Adams. With the milking done, the cattle had been fed and water pumped to them before the generator was shut down. Now without the noise of the engine and milkers the farm seemed quiet despite the sounds of over a hundred large animals quietly settling down for the night. The eight teenage girls sat around the room or leaned against the faded counter tops.
“You all know what is going on.” The old man’s voice growled as he began.
“It might get ugly before this is over. I want you to know that none of you have to come back tonight if you don’t want to. Sheriff Jones and the deputies have left the property so I don’t know how safe it will be here. When you leave the farm, I suggest that you stay together and go across the side pasture and come in to town behind the hardware. That will keep you off the roads. Either way I want to thank you for your hard work and give you something before you go home tonight. Call it a New Year’s bonus!”
Bob realized that he didn’t have any idea what day of the week it was let alone where they were on the calendar. Mr. Durkee pulled himself to a standing position with a scarred and gnarled hand on the edge of the table. He opened a door leading off the kitchen. The room had once been a formal parlor. His wife had displayed her fine china on the mahogany side board that matched the uncomfortable and somewhat fragile chairs still in place but now covered with a thin film of dust. On top of the dust the eight chairs held eight nearly identical piles. “There’s one for each of you. I’ve shown each of you how to shoot when you started working here just in case we ever needed to defend the place. Now these are for you to take home and defend yourselves.”
Across each chair seat lay an SKS carbine, users manual, and cotton chest bandoleer with a single ten round stripper clip of 7.62x39 ammunition in each of the bandoleer’s ten pockets. The small rifles were incredibly sturdy and simple to operate, yet light and short enough to be operated by small framed shooters. The girls all started to talk at once. But it seemed that the old man had suddenly gone deaf. He turned to Bob. “Follow me.”
Poll
