lol, you guys are great :D
Good point on the trust factor. I may modify later drafts to that affect.
Meanwhile, here's a little more to keep you coming back
Chapter 8
The Sheriff called his team into the church through the basement window and swapped places with one of his younger deputies who was given a crash course on how to fire the M60. He would at least be able to fire the first belt and God willing they wouldn’t kick up a hornets nest needing any more than that! The machine gun now in their hands was the last ace in the hole. If shooting started they could mow down the men coming out of the house, perhaps even ignite the tanker truck into a giant improvised fire bomb as a last resort.
The two prisoners in the church were relocated to the church basement and cuffed to support pillars in the boiler room.
Shortly after 9 PM the two porch sentries were relieved and went inside and four men came out of the house and walked toward the snowmobiles. A terse radio call warned Deputy Terry that he probably had sleds coming his way. He had just minutes to come up with a plan.
Deputy Terry couldn’t risk a rifle shot at this time of night. At the same time he couldn’t allow the relief sentries to find the prisoners cuffed in the back of their own vehicle. Either one would compromise the whole operation and the security of the entire town with it. This called for fast, desperate action.
Not far from the bridge an electric wire fence ran on plastic insulators tacked to fence posts set in the frozen ground. In warm weather strands of thin wire kept pastured cattle from wandering into the road. Holding is rifle tightly with both hands upright in front of him, Bill sprinted through the fence pulling the wire with his rifle, tearing it from insulators and insulators from posts until finally some weak point in the wire snapped. He ran across the pavement letting the loose wire snake between his rifle and gloved hands. When he saw the broken end approaching him as he trotted away from the road, he slowed and grabbed it. The wire was now attached to fence posts on the far side of the road, lay in the snow on the pavement and ended in his hands. He stepped quickly to the nearest electrical pole and wrapped the wire twice around it four feet high twisting it around itself. Then trotting back to the fence side of the road he double wrapped the first fence post with wire. With the sound of the snowmobiles rapidly approaching he sat at the base of the fence post, grabbed it with both hands and leaned back.
The first rider hit the wire with the face shield of his helmet at 30 MPH. The helmet saved his life. But the wire shattered the face shield and swept him backward off the sled bouncing the back of his helmet on the snow covered pavement. The next rider saw his companion yanked off the sled. He looked like he’d been shot. The second man swerved violently to avoid the flailing body sprawled in the road. Rather than run into the stream bed on the left, the rider veered right and took the still standing portion of the fence at 30 MPH. He kept his seat but the wire tangled with the sled and dragged the machine to a stop. Bill had managed to avoid getting tangled in either the wire or the fence and now covered the second rider with his Mosin. He ordered him off the sled to check on the downed man struggling to get up in the road. He had him bind the man with the smooth fence wire. Bill then had his unbound prisoner lay facedown on the pavement and lock his fingers behind his head. This gave Bill a reasonable edge so that he felt comfortable binding the man’s wrists and later ankles. He searched both men and double checked their bonds before helping them into the now crowded backseat of the vehicle on the bridge.
Back at Hinkley’s house Sheriff Jones had came out of the church after swapping his coat and hat with a prisoner in the church. He moved openly across the lawn and up the wide steps where the two fresh sentries guarded the house. He turned his back and lit a cigarette from a pack in the coat’s pocket as if shielding the flame from the wind then with his back toward the slowly pacing sentry the Sheriff strolled along the porch toward the back of the house as the sounds of the snowmobiles returning from the farm lane road block returned to the house. The sleds swept into the yard drawing the attention of the guards on the porch. When the man patrolling the back porch looked toward the sleds at the front of the house, the Sheriff put the muzzle of his revolver into the man’s back and whispered
“Around the back, real slow.” A few steps put them out of sight of the men in the front yard. When they reached the steps the Sheriff guided him into the yard and into the side door of the church where his deputy took custody. As Hinkley’s men returning from their watch left their snowmobiles and went into the front of the house, the Sheriff took the place of the back porch sentry.
Inside the church Deputy Lawrence received the report from the road block at the bridge. In the past three hours Hinkley’s force had dwindled from 22 to 15.
Shortly before 10 PM, the lights began to go out inside the house. A number of people living in the village left the house with Dick Hinkley as the gracious host bidding them goodbye at the front door. This provided a completely unplanned opportunity for Sheriff Jones to let his nearest two deputies into the house through the back door.
His whole plan had been to gain control of the machine gun and move it back to the farm so that it could be used for defense instead of against them. But the isolated sentries at the road block and tower had allowed him to disable much more of Hinkley’s force than he anticipated. If he pulled in his deputies from the bridge and the tower it would boost his team to a total of 6 men. By Bill’s count Hinkley had 15 men still in action and two were at the farm lane road block. 6 to 13, just over 2 to 1 odds. If they kept the element of surprise. They just might pull it off.
Back at the farm Bob’s radios were tuned to a variety of channels. He heard the warning that sleds were coming meant for Bill Terry and minutes later his monitors showed two snowmobiles arrive at the road block near the farm lane gate. He made the natural assumption that the warning had been meant for him. He watched the men in the vehicle had traded places with those on the snowmobiles and ridden back toward town. Later he heard Bill terry’s voice reporting “Four in custody.” Bob thought that report had to be good news but he had no idea what else was going on until he heard Deputy Lawrence put out a call for all team members to meet at the church. Having assumed that the warning of sleds en route was meant for him, Bob assumed that the call to assemble was meant for him as well.
He woke Carl Durkee with a radio call and explained what he had heard. The old man was clearly undecided about whether to answer the summons himself or stay with his otherwise unguarded herd. He gave Bob his blessing to go and took over Bob’s post at the monitors himself.
Poll
