Cold River Resurrection (18 page)

C
hapter
41

Smokey ran through the front door. A lamp on the end table in the corner shimmered through the smoke. Shreds of a blanket draped around the shade like a street person’s clothing. One end of the couch was missing, the remainder blown into pieces. Batting hung on the walls. The HDTV television
Kala
had been so proud of was a smoking ruin. Small fires burned around the room, one going fairly well in the corner where the television had been.

The house is going to go.

Smokey looked toward the kitchen and the back of the house. Smoke hung in the air, getting thick now, swirling up the walls and on the ceiling.

The lamp is on. Amazing. The bulb didn’t break and the
room is destroyed.

He was dimly aware of shouts and gunfire outside, and somewhere out front another blast shook the house. He started to move toward the kitchen so he could walk around the corner to the back door and get into the pantry off the laundry room.

Those men who came in will kill you and Jennifer and Laurel if you don’t get moving and stay frosty. You’ve done this before.

The sight of his mother’s house in flames, familiar belongings and surroundings slowed him down
. The war in Afghanistan was horrible, but at least it wasn’t his own turf, his own house.  

He brought his UMP .40 caliber assault rifle up and took a step toward the back. His radio snapped with his name.

“Smokey!” Nathan’s voice, a scream.

“Smokey, behind you, front door!”

Smokey threw himself down in mid-step, twisting as he fell, and a burst of automatic gunfire slammed over his head, inches away from killing him, the shock wave of the bullets buzzing over his right ear, and he flipped over in mid-air before he hit the floor and brought his gun up close, holding it against his chest, pushing the barrel around so he could shoot. He hit the floor and fired a long burst at the dark figures coming through the front door, a dozen feet away.

Shots and screams came from the back of the kitchen.

The pantry.

Five shots, a thirty
-eight.

Laurel’s gun.

Smokey’s burst caught the closest one up high in the chest and neck, and he dropped. The second dark figure threw himself down and out of the doorway, firing as he went down, a fusillade of bullets stitching the floor beside Smokey.

Shit!

The gunman was outside the doorway, the barrel of the gun now rounding the corner, lining up on Smokey.

Jennifer stretched her left leg out. The cans and boxes that had fallen from the shelves surrounded her as if she had jumped into a dumpster to hide. She held Laurel close and tried to give a hug, but Laurel shrugged her off, pointing toward the door, a foot in front of her leg.

“They’ll come through there,” Laurel whispered. She pointed to the door with the short barrel of the pistol. Another blast shook the house and Jennifer flinched. She held the flashlight up toward the door, her hand shaking, making the glow dance on the door. She tried to steady the light, and Laurel chuckled.

“Hey, keep the light still, will ya
h?” she said, and grinned up at Jennifer.

A burst of gunfire came from somewhere in the house, from the living room, Jennifer thought. Laurel reached over and touched Jennifer’s hand.

“Keep it on the door,” she whispered.

Jennifer was scared, and it would have been worse if she had been alone. She knew she must look strong for Laurel, but she was thinking that the nine year old was the strong one here.

Smoke. I smell smoke.

She was suddenly aware of smoke in the pantry, first the smell, and then a swirl of it around the light on the door.

“Laurel,” Jennifer whispered. Urgent.

“Yeah, I see it. The house i
s on fire,” Laurel said matter-of-factly. “Jen, we are going to have to move soon.” Jennifer tried to stand, tried to be quiet as the cans slid off her legs.

More gunfire came from somewhere in the house. Jennifer stood and reached down for Laurel. She caught the girl’s arm and pulled her up until she was standing next to her, slightly in front. Jennifer moved the flashlight toward the door again and Laurel brought the gun up as the door was thrown open.

Jennifer screamed. Her flashlight caught a hooded figure with a short, wicked-looking rifle. The hooded apparition backed up and brought the barrel of his rifle up to Jennifer’s face. She saw another figure behind him. Laurel fired, screaming, the flash from the barrel of the little gun brighter than the flashlight.

Jennifer dropped the flashlight and held Laurel as the girl fired, firing all five rounds in succession, as fast as anyone could, one blast hitting the hooded figure in the face, blood and brain matter and bone spraying back on the second man. The hooded apparition
dropped out of sight. A bullet struck the second figure and he spun around and went out the back door so quickly that Jennifer thought she might have only imagined him there.

“Shit,” Laurel cried, “Shitshitshit.” She was shaking and crying, and Jennifer held onto the shaking girl. She hugged her and held her. More shots and shouts from the living room, and the smoke grew heavier.

We have to get out of here soon, Jennifer thought. This girl, this wonderful girl saved our lives.

“I forgot,” Laurel sobbed, and held up the gun with shaking hands, “I forgot where the bullets are,” she
cried, “and I only got one of them, and now Daddy needs our help, and he’s going to be mad at me for cussing, and . . .”

Laurel turned her head into Jennifer’s waist and sobbed.

“Here.” Jennifer took the box of shells from her jacket pocket. “I took them, remember?”

Jennifer crouched in the doorway and put her right arm around Laurel, trying not to look at the dead man on the floor, inches from them.

“Laurel, hand me the gun.”

Jennifer took the gun and looked at it. So small for so much damage.

“Now show me how to load it.”

Jennifer’s hand shook once, and then steadied. A week ago she would have refused to even look at a gun. To hold one. Now it seemed . . . it seem
ed so right.

Necessary.

Survival. No justification. No platitudes. No second amendment speeches for or against.

Survival.

Laurel helped her swing the cylinder open.

Jennifer began shoving shells in
to the cylinder, one by one. The smoke was making it hard to breathe.

Survival.

C
hapter
42

Smokey pushed himself backwards from the open doorway where one man lay dead in a dark shadow. He was vaguely aware of a fire somewhere outside that was growing in intensity, the shadows from the flames flickering inside the open front door. A sudden burst of gunfire from outside by the Suburban was followed by an enormous explosion from the side of the house in the direction of the barn.

Smokey covered the front door with his rifle and tried to push himself back into the kitchen to get some distance from the door, to get around the corner and get to the pantry. To stand up here was suicide, he knew, so he kept the door covered. The smoke was getting thicker, giving him some cover and at the same time, making it harder to breathe.

Smokey tried to remember how many rounds he had fired, most of a magazine, and as he watched the door, he pulled the magazine out from the rifle and slammed in a fresh one. A gun barrel slid around into the doorway on the right side and Smokey fired into the doorjamb. He jumped to a crouch, continued to fire, ripping bullets into the wall where the gunman must be, firing the full magazine, yelling, until the man fell into the doorway and crumpled.

No time to waste.

Laurel.

Jennifer.

Smokey reloaded as he crouched and ran to the kitchen. The corner of the living room was now engulfed and he quickly peeked around the corner through the smoke to the pantry door. He shook his head. Blood from a wound above his eye seeped into his eyelid. He wiped a sleeve across his face, smearing blood. A dark figure lay on the floor in the doorway of the pantry, the back door open, smoke rolling out from the living room fire.

Smokey covered the door with his assault rifle.

“Laurel!”

“Dad?” Her voice quavered. Then she yelled,
“Daddy?”

Smokey stepped into the doorway and there they were, Jennifer holding the gun
, looking up, and Laurel jumped into his arms.

“Daddy, I shot the gun, shot the bad men, and I –
.” and then she sobbed, clutching Smokey like a baby monkey holding onto her mother. Smokey looked at Jennifer.

“The second one ran out the door,” Jennifer said, and held the gun up for him to see. “You look terrible,” Jennifer said. She held her sleeve over her mouth.

“Been busy,” Smokey said, and let Laurel down to her feet. He looked back toward the living room. “We need to get out of here, now.” He reached out and grabbed Jennifer’s hand. He moved toward the back door, holding onto Jennifer with Laurel between them.

Nathan was just outside the door, his face covered with soot and blood. He motioned them to the deck. Smokey leaned against the tree and took a deep breath. Jennifer collapsed into a chair, the deck a surreal light show with f
lames from the front yard flashing over the roof. Light from the burning barn illuminated the trees.

“We get them all?” Smokey asked.

“Mostly,” Nathan said, looking up toward the hill behind the house.

“Got the ones in front and at the barn, two in the front door, one at the pantry, and one a runner up the hill, from the back door.”

“I winged him,” Laurel said from under Jennifer’s arm.

“Yeah, I know, precious child,” Nathan said.

“He was behind the other one, I think I hit him in the shoulder,” Laurel said, sitting up, her arms around Jennifer.

A muffled
whump
from the living room caused them all to jump. Smokey looked to Nathan.

“The runner?”

“Got three after him. Good blood trail. They’re maybe a minute behind.”

Smokey lowered his voice, looking at his daughter and Jennifer. He moved to the end of the deck. Nathan moved with him.

“Their orders.”

“Find the runner, quiz him.”

“How?” Smokey knew it wouldn’t be pretty. He would let his people protect him. Someone had declared war on us, and now they were going to find out what war was like here. We fight as a family.

Nathan, the older brother I never had, a man I love as much as I love my life, a man who stood between death and my family was waiting for me to answer. I couldn’t tell them to be easy. And they weren’t about to hear
that from me now.

“Boss,” Nathan said. “Smokey, Little Brother.”

Smokey waited.

“Boss, we ain’t gonna water board him. Besides, that’s illegal now.” He gave a short laugh. “We
do not plan to invite the fucking congress to the interview. These pieces of shit came here to kill us all, and they found out that it just wasn’t quite as easy as they thought. We killed them all, except for the runner.” Nathan turned and spit on the ground. Smokey waited for him to continue.

“He will tell us all he knows, up there on the mountain when we catch up with him, any minute now. Then we’re gonna let him join the others in the front yard.”

Nathan drew his finger across his neck. “Dead.”

Smokey nodded.

“Meet me here, five minutes,” Smokey said, and the older man moved to the corner of the house and disappeared around the side.

“Jennifer.” Smokey looked over at the two of them in the chair. They looked up.

“I’m going back inside, and . . .”

“No, Dad, you can’t do it, it’s burning down.” Laurel looked wildly around at the house, flames visible now through the kitchen window.

“I’ll be one minute, less,” Smokey said. “You two wait by the tree.” He helped Jennifer to her feet and kissed her on the lips. Her eyebrows went up as he held the kiss.

“Thanks for being with my daughter,” he said as he pulled away. He reached behind her and pulled Laurel up and kissed her on the head. Smokey led them to the tree off the porch.

He ran into the house, lurched for the bedroom, grabbed their packs and ran back for the door as the kitchen burst into flames.

He stumbled onto the back deck and coughed up black gunk, gasping and coughing as Laurel and Jennifer came to him.

“Get ready to move,” Smokey gasped. “We’re gonna find the woman on the mountain.”

When they found her, Smokey wished he had gone alone.

Or not at all.

C
hapter
43

Smokey led Jennifer and Laurel around the house away from the kitchen, and stopped when he heard Laurel cry out.

“Dad!”

She pointed to the barn. It was fully engulfed in flames, and Smokey dimly remembered an RPG hitting the siding, one burying itself on a wild shot in the haystack. The hay was burning on the end, and it would be a total loss.

“Dad, the horses, I’m go
ing.” She started to run around Smokey, and he caught her, grabbed her arms.

“Laurel, they’re out, Nathan let them out, ouch, stop, stop!”

She turned her head and looked up at him, her face covered with soot. A single tear rolled down, and she shuddered.

“Can’t let go now,
Miyanash,
we have a long way to go.” She nodded, and reached out for Jennifer’s hand.

God, what she’s been through. What have I done to my Miyanash, my child?

And then he had another thought.
I didn’t do this to her, and the people who did are gonna pay.

When they got to the front of the house in the drive, Smokey knew that he couldn’t make it any better for Jennifer and Laurel. The front drive and yard area was littered with the casualties of war – bodies lay crumpled where they died,
a body next to a dark Suburban was on fire. Both vehicles that brought the assault were on blazing, the house burning with two bodies in the doorway, the hair of one burning, the smell something that Smokey had smelled many times before.

The amazing thing was that Smokey’s
Suburban was intact.

“Go,” he said, pointing to the Suburban.

He helped Jennifer into the passenger seat, and she pulled Laurel in on top of her. The girl curled into Jennifer’s lap and put her arms around her neck.

“Go do what you have to, and come back to us,” Jennifer said, and Smokey touched her hair and shut the door. The SUV was facing the house, off to the side of the burning
assault vehicles, and it looked to Smokey that Jennifer would have a ringside seat, like an old outdoor theatre.

Jennifer and Laurel watched as the roof fell in. A shower of sparks shot up into the dark sky. It reminded Jennifer of a video of an active volcano, except this wasn’t a volcano, this was a home for people she was coming to care about.

“Jennifer?” Laurel pressed against Jennifer’s chest, her voice muffled.”

“What, Honey?”

“Sorry about Nanna.”

“What . . . oh, my doll, Nanna, oh Honey, wait, she’s in my pack.” Jennifer twisted and reached around, pulling Nanna from her pack in the back seat.

She’s thinking of me when her house just burned down.

“Now she’ll be our doll,” Jennifer said, and handed Nanna to Laurel. “We’ll share her. After all, your
daddy bought her.”

Laurel nodded, and clutched Nanna much the same way Jennifer had, and closed her eyes.

Smokey jogged to the back of the house, the flames bright and hot on his skin.

Nathan waited in the trees behind the house. He looked at Smokey, then peered closer.

“What?” Smokey said.

“You looked in the mirror lately, Little Brother?”

“Nope. You?”

“Well,” Nathan said, looking within inches of Smokey’s face, “you got a lotta blood on your face, looks like a couple of bullet zips in your right arm, other stuff. You might want to wash up so you won’t scare the ladies.”

Smokey snorted.

“Scare you, you mean.”

“Little Brother,” Nathan said, quiet now. “I will protect the little one, my daughter as well as yours. You know she shot those two?”

Fight as a family. We fight as a family. Used to, anyway.

Now we do again.

Smokey nodded, not allowing himself the time to think about putting his daughter into a situation where she had to kill or be killed. He pointed to the trees.

“Let’s get it done.”

They walked to the men crouched in the trees, fifty yards up from the house. It was hot even this far from the flames.

The overall effect of the flames from the barn and the house made the men look like demented demons. Camouflage paint and blood from wounds made them look like they had just journeyed from hell. 

Smokey stood close to his team. They were all dirty, some with blood on their battle dress utilities, their own or the enemies’, he had no way of knowing. Most he had known for years. Nathan, his friend and older brother and uncle; Lamebull, long braided hair, quiet, grim face. He nodded, ever polite.

“Lieutenant.”

“Sergeant,” Smokey said softly.

He looked over the group in the dark, and felt a love for them he couldn’t describe, and he knew that those who had been in combat would know how he felt. But these people were more than that to him, they were his own, they were family fighting for his family. The
Šiyápu here, officers Kincaid and Burwell, they were his brothers. They had been before today, Smokey knew, brothers in arms in uniform, but today, they became his brothers for life, fighting for his family, putting their lives in harm’s way for his home.

“El Tee.” Sarah leaned forward and spoke. If Smokey hadn’t known her from when she was a toddler, he wouldn’t have recognized what he saw. Her face was painted black and green with camo paint, then covered with soot, dirt and blood. A cut below her right eye was oozing blood down her cheek. She took a swipe at it with her left hand (the right one held a UMP in a sling) and he noticed a deep cut on the back of her hand. The swipe made her face look more fierce and terrible, frightening, except that her Kevlar helmet had slipped down over her forehead, looking too big, her face small and fragile. And dirty. He had never seen her look more lovely.

He looked around. All of them. Lovely.

“Sorry about your house, El Tee,” Sarah said.

Smokey nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He cleared his throat, and spoke to Sarah.

“Officer Greywolf, give me your report.” He raised his voice a little and addressed all of them.

“I’ll take verbal after-action reports here, now, and then you will write about what happened. All reports go to Sgt. Green, period. Go ahead, Sarah.”

“Well, me and Plug here,” Sarah said, “we surprised them, that’s for sure. We were at the side of the haystack.” Plug, Officer Danny Smith, stood behind Sara
h, his face a mirror image of hers. Danny was short and squat, hence the nickname “Plug.” He held a UMP submachine gun, wore a Kevlar helmet, had long braided black hair down his back, over his pack.

“Me and Plug, we pretty much covered the driver’s side of the cars, and when they came out shooting, we opened up, mostly on the second Suburban, got two coming out, and then one in the lead car. But those rockets, Jesus.”

“Plug, you talking?” Smokey asked.

Plug shook his head. Sarah smiled, and continued.

“One of the ones in the front car, back seat, came around and ran toward the haystack. He made it about halfway, and we got him. He never saw us, you think, Plug? But you told us to hold, and we knew you were fighting on the other side, and in the house, but we held there. Okay?”

Smokey nodded.

“Oh, and Smokey, sir?” Sarah looked at Smokey and he nodded.

“Did Laurel really shoot the guy inside the back door?”

“Yeah,” Smokey said, looking down.

What the hell have I done to my baby girl?

“And she shot the runner,” Nathan said.

“Smokey, El Tee,” Sarah said, touching his arm, “she’ll be okay, this family will take care of you all.”

Smokey didn’t trust himself to speak. He pointed at Detective Johns, who was in assault gear like the others.

“Uh, Kincaid and Burwell and I were on the north side, in the trees, the passenger side of the vehicles, not nearly as close as the haystack. We put some fire into the second Suburban, but the first ones were out and engaged before we could be effective. I think Kincaid came up and got one of the rocket shooters.”

Smokey looked around.

“Okay, Sergeant Lamebull.”

Sergeant George Lamebull, at sixty-three, the oldest in the group, had always deferred to Smokey, even though he had twenty years more police experience. And for that, Smokey was grateful.

“Lieutenant,” Lamebull said, his voice deep and soft, “Lieutenant, we have Cubby, Two-shoes, and Stoneface up the hill, after the one your
miyanash
shot. Stoneface is out front, tracking. We get what we need, we put him where, in the yard with the others?”

Smokey shook his head. “No. We take his gear, leave him on the hill.”

Jesus, what did I just say, what did I just do? Give an order to kill a man when they catch him? As a cop, you can’t do that, buddy. War. We’re in a war, and we didn’t start it, and this intruder was going to kill my miyanash, my Laurel. Fuck him.

Smokey looked back at the house. The heat was reaching out to them, even at this distance. If he thought now what he and his mom had lost . . . he shook his head.

“Sergeant Lamebull.”

“Sir.”

“You take care of the hill. Get verbal reports only, replace all gear of the officers involved, get their weapons.”

“Uh, they won’t use guns, sir.”

“Replace their gear, then.”

Lamebull reached over and touched Smokey’s arm, and walked up the hill and disappeared in the darkness. Smokey watched him until he couldn’t see the figure, and turned back to the others.

“Sergeant Green.”

“Boss.”

“Check all gear, replace ammo, get after-action reports in writing, to you only, go to the Simnasho fire-hall and get some sleep. Get ready to go again. This ain’t over. But first, wait for Chief Andrews, bring your cars up and wait at the edge of the trees by my driveway. Oh, and have the medics check all injuries. Sarah might want to get a date again.”

Sergeant Nathan Green laughed, as did the others.  Sarah stuck her tongue out at him.

They started to file past Smokey, and Sarah stopped.

“El Tee,” she said.

Soft, with care, concern. Love.

Smokey gave her a smile, wanting to encourage her, so she could finish. He knew her.

“El Tee, the others want me to tell you something. This is from all of us, me, Plug, Kincaid, Burwell, Johns, all of us.” The others nodded, murmured.

“This was for the hospital.” Her voice grew husky, cracking at the end. She waved her hand. “Let me finish. We love you, all of us, even Burwell,” she laughed and blew her nose on her sleeve.

“We love you, your
miyanash
, your baby girl, and we will always protect you, but this was for Tom. They executed him at the hospital, and he was one of ours.”

Sarah grabbed Smokey and hugged him, and walked past. Each in turn,
Burwell, Kincaid, Plug, and the rest, gave him a hug, and left him alone with Nathan.

What have we done?

What are we about to do?

When he thought about it later, he would have stopped it here.