Chapter
29
The fifty caliber continued to obliterate the rock face just below where Curtis had been. It was of no use. He was gone. There was a dirt road off Sager Road that led to the point where he had lain in wait for us. You couldn’t see the road from where we were, but I had no doubt he was already in the stolen van, on his way back toward the abandoned ranch.
That didn’t stop the Army. Captain Tuttle and the front seat passenger charged up the embankment, scrambling over the rocks. The turret gunner covered them as they advanced, daring Curtis to show himself and take a shot.
I was of no use to them with my dislocated shoulder. I moved to Matt. To my surprise, he sat up and looked down at his rifle. “I guess that one’s finished,” he moaned, holding the gun up. A bullet had hit the side of rifle. It had penetrated through one side of the receiver and bulged out the other side, but hadn’t passed completely through. “That’s about as close as it comes,” he said, rubbing his chest. The bullet impact had slammed the gun into him. His vest had absorbed most of the impact, but there was still enough force to knock him over and bruise his chest.
Tuttle and the other soldier reached the top of the embankment and yelled back down, “He’s gone! There’s still dust in the air along the road, but he’s not here.”
Just like Andy, Curtis didn’t have the stomach for a fight in which he didn’t have a huge advantage. He would happily put a baby in the road to ambush us, but as soon as that advantage was gone, so was he. “Connor, what is this?” Tuttle asked as he approached the dead woman sprawled out in the road. “What in the…?” he started in disbelief and drawled off without finishing his sentence.
I rounded the truck and realized why he had stopped short. The car seat was full of holes. The bullets that had been ricocheting off the pavement had passed through the car seat and the baby before they hit the pavement. True to his word, Curtis had shot the baby.
My stomach began to roil. Looking at the tiny miracle of life, punched through with at least a half dozen holes, caused bile to begin rising in my throat. I thought I was going to vomit from the rage that was overtaking me. Fifteen minutes ago, the two corpses before me had been full of life and vitality. The mother was doubtlessly full of joy and pride in her new daughter. Prior to the death of her husband, the night before, the thrill and mystery of parenthood had still been fresh and exciting. The little girl had just embarked on the journey of life. She hadn’t even had time to realize what life had to offer her. Now, that vibrance had been drained dry for no reason. Curtis had gained nothing by his actions. There are a few people in the world who are pure evil at the core and Curtis was chief among them.
Killing the woman was an accident. She had the misfortune of stepping in front of a bullet aimed at Matt. The baby had been different. Curtis had intentionally aimed at the baby, putting himself in further danger by doing so. Every bullet he had fired at the baby was a bullet that could have been fired at Matt or me. Whether he had shot the baby out of spite toward me, or some other reason, there was no excuse. His actions were unforgivable.
“I’m going to hunt him down and kill him,” I said slowly as a promise to myself and anyone else who was listening.
Matt, who was now standing beside me looking at the baby, broke the silence after ten seconds. “I’m with you,” he said, his voice cracking. “He had a lot to answer for before today. With this act, he signed his own death warrant.”
“My orders haven’t changed,” Tuttle stated. “In a day or two they are going to be irrelevant, though. From what I heard this morning, the infection has breached our quarantine.” He looked down at the shredded remains of the baby still buckled in the car seat and then raised his gaze to me. “If you wait for a couple of days, I’m in, too. If you need to go after him today, I understand. This behavior has to be put to a brutal end or society is going to revert to complete anarchy. I’ll send a man or two with you if you feel like you need to go after him now.”
I was torn between my desire for immediate justice and the understanding that Curtis probably wasn’t going to leave the cabin for the time being. He had a secure position that he wouldn’t be in a hurry to leave given the crimes he had perpetrated. He knew we would be looking for him.
Curtis wasn’t the only problem that needed to be addressed. We only had days of electricity left. People were going to start running out of food. In the big picture, Curtis was a relatively small problem for the time being.
“We have other problems that are probably more immediate than Curtis. I don’t think he’s going anywhere. We’ll deal with him when we get some other issues settled in town. And then, we will welcome your help.”
I put my pistol back in the holster and pulled my left forearm up to a ninety degree angle and grasped the elbow to take some of the strain off my fiery shoulder.
Tuttle’s eyes were drawn to the movement, and for the first time, he noticed that my shoulder was not where it was supposed to be. “Glenn, get over here,” he yelled toward the soldier manning the turret.
The turret gunner climbed out of the Humvee and ran toward Tuttle. His helmet jostled slightly with each step, showing short cropped blond hair at the sides of his head.
“Sir?” he questioned.
“Glenn, fix this man’s shoulder.”
The soldier turned toward me and visually assessed my situation. As he did, a smirk appeared on his face. “Looks like you got a good one,” he chuckled softly as he sat down and began unlacing his right boot and then removed it from his foot. “I can’t do this with you standing up. If you want me to fix it, lay on your back in front of me.”
I wasn’t impressed with his flippant attitude. My shoulder wasn’t a joke, but I also wanted the burning pain to go away, so I complied. I gingerly lowered myself to a sitting position and slowly lay on my back, every jolt feeling as if an agonizing burst of electricity was coursing through the joint.
He grabbed my left arm as he placed his bare foot in my armpit. It felt like my shoulder exploded as he stretched it out. “Relax,” he said nonchalantly. “It’ll go back in a lot easier if you do.”
“Relax?” I yelled incredulously. “It already feels like I’m being drawn and quartered with you yanking my arm around! How am I supposed to relax?”
“It’s okay,” he said, still grinning, “just do the best you can.” Then he started pulling and twisting my arm while simultaneously pushing my torso in the opposite direction with his foot.
The pain increased ten-fold. Every muscle around my shoulder fought back, trying to protect the joint from the attack that Glenn was inflicting upon it. Relaxing was a nonissue. It wasn’t possible. I could feel sweat beading up on my forehead. My stomach became queasy. I was about to throw up. My shoulder suddenly popped and Glenn released his iron grip on my arm.
“See, that wasn’t so bad now, was it?” he said cheerfully as he reached for his boot. It still hurt, but the ache that remained was manageable. I stood up and swung my arm through its range of motion. Everything seemed to be in working order again.
After he had retied his boot, Glenn stood up and extended his right hand. “Zachariah Glenn at your service,” he said, still smiling. “Most people just call me Zack.” I grabbed his hand and gave it two quick pumps and released my grip.
“Thanks, Zack. It feels a lot better,” I said, trying to decide whether I liked him or not. He was friendly enough, but he was also a smart alec.
I decided that I was pretty sure I liked him.
Chapter
30
“Glenn, bury these two bodies,” Tuttle ordered. “That’s the least we can do for them. Zalinsky, keep your eyes peeled in case that reject comes back.”
Glenn trotted to the Humvee and came back carrying a short shovel with a folding handle. With the shovel unfolded, it was still way too short to use standing up unless he was bent over double. Glenn dropped to his knees and started digging at a furious pace. If he could keep up the pace, which I doubted, it was going to take a long time. If he couldn’t keep it up, it was going to take a really long time.
While Glenn was starting his hole, Matt and I examined my truck. The two minute gun fight had left pock marks up and down the right side. The front tire on the right side was flat. The good news was the engine was still running normally
Matt looked underneath and announced, “I don’t see any leaks. I think it’ll drive if we get the spare tire put on.” I reached past the steering wheel and, with a twist of the key, killed the engine.
I opened the tool box in the bed of the truck and removed a shovel I kept in case I got stuck in the snow during the winter. Within twenty minutes, Matt had the tire changed and Glenn and I had a three foot deep hole that was long enough and wide enough to accommodate the two bodies. After three feet, we had hit gravel and rocks. Going any deeper was going to be too much work. There wasn’t time to dig a proper grave for every body we came across.
After we covered the hole, I put the shovel back in the tool box and walked to the Humvee where Matt and Tuttle were bent over a map. Tuttle was questioning Matt about the landscape and where populations were centered in the county.
“Captain, thanks for the help,” I said as he turned to face me. “We need to head back to town and get back to work,” I added, putting my right hand out. He grasped it in a firm grip and gave it a brisk shake.
“You’re welcome, Connor,” he replied. “You have my cell number. If you need anything, give me a call. I will do whatever I can to help out as long as it doesn’t conflict with my orders.”
“Thanks, we’ll be in touch,” I said. “We’re going to take you up on your offer when we go after Curtis. You are much better equipped for that than we are,” I said, eyeing the fifty BMG on top of the Humvee.
“That may be, but we are outfitted pretty poorly for the mission they sent us to perform. They sent us out here with half the force we should have to do the job properly and lousy equipment. For a mission like this, we should have armored Humvees at the least. Somebody up the chain decided we would be okay with unarmored vehicles. I thought they would have learned their lesson in Sadr City back in 2004. A lot of good soldiers died unnecessarily because of a lack of armor. It’s not my place to complain, though. You two be careful.”
“Same to you,” I replied. Matt and I turned toward the truck. As I walked, my mind tried to understand what was happening and what it meant for my family and me. It was too much to fully comprehend.
The truck fired up without hesitation and we started back to town.
“Who do you figure Curtis has with him up in the hills?” Matt asked after a minute of silence had passed.
I considered the question as the alfalfa fields silently passed on the right side of the truck. “It’s hard to say.” I paused for a moment, silently ticking off names of his acquaintances and associates. I could come up with a little over twenty people. If you included women who ran in his circle, it was closer to forty. “After yesterday, I would imagine that all of his crank snorting buddies would jump at the opportunity to get away from town. The problem is feeding them all.”
Harold had told us that he and his wife had stockpiled enough food to last them for three or four months. If Curtis had taken a bunch of people with him, his food would go much faster.
“Curtis seems to be a pretty social guy. He always has people that hang out to get meth. He seems to like having them around, too. From what I’ve seen of him in the past, I bet he has at least ten guys with him. It seems like anytime he settles down anywhere, there are always at least that many hanging around. He probably has some of his meth whores too. As long as he has meth, they’re never far away. The more people he has up there, the faster his food supply will go.”
“If you’re right,” Matt said as he looked down and rubbed his temples, “If he has, say sixteen people with him, the food he stole from Harold will last around two weeks. He’s very calculating. He knows the food in town will disappear fast. He’ll be back to town within a few days to build his stockpile before all the food is gone. He needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later.”
“How many of his buddies do you figure are worth anything in a fight?”
“Well, Mike and Phil were both assigned to infantry units in the army and did time in Afghanistan before the army kicked them out. Other than those two, I have no idea if any of the rest of his buddies would be worth anything in a gun fight. Mike and Phil might not even be with him. It’s all assumption at this point. It would be nice to have some intel about what we’re up against before we go after him.”
“Yep, it would be nice,” I agreed as we passed the city limit sign. “I think we might have to do a little reconnaissance tonight if you’re up to it.”
“Count me in,” Matt said. “What else is there to do around here on a Thursday night?”
We drove the remaining two minutes to Harold’s house in silence. I parked the truck in the driveway. Before I had a chance to shut the engine down, Cindy was running out the door. When she saw that both Matt and I were in the truck, her face relaxed and at least some of the pent up worry washed away.
“Did you get Curtis and the baby?” she burst out as soon as my door opened.
“It’s a long story,” Matt answered, shaking his head back and forth, “but the short of it is, no.”
“Well, you have to go back! You have to save the baby from him! There’s no telling what he will do to it.” Cindy’s eyes searched the back of the truck. As she turned back to me, her eyes squinted in a quizzical look. “Where’s the baby’s mother? I thought she was with you?”
I let out a long, audible breath as I searched for the words to explain what had happened. “Curtis put the baby in the middle of the road and we stopped to pick it up. The mom got out and stepped in front of Matt as Curtis took a shot at him from the rock outcrop above the road. The bullet hit the mom. Then Curtis shot the baby and got away.” As I spoke the words, it sounded so simple, so sterile. After a single day, I was well on my way to becoming calloused to the death and tragedy all around me.
Cindy hadn’t reached that point. Her eyes began to sparkle in the morning sun as they filled with tears. As the first drop streamed down her cheek, she slowly turned and, without speaking, walked into the house.
Matt and I followed after her. The repair to the door frame caught my eye as I passed through it. Harold had fixed the damage in less than an hour. The threat of the infected outside had been strong motivation. From looking at the rest of the immaculately maintained house, I was struck that Harold was a very proactive man and didn’t let things remain in a state of disrepair.
Harold was sitting on the couch next to his wife in the living room. “Did you catch him?” he asked hopefully.
“No, he got away,” I explained for the second time in a minute. I felt a certain amount of shame at having let Curtis outmaneuver and elude us. “But we know where he is.”
“Then why are you here?” Harold asked, allowing the clear accusation that we weren’t doing our job to stand.
“That’s a fair question,” I answered, unoffended by his comment. “He isn’t going anywhere right now. After what he’s done, he is expecting us to come after him. It’s to our advantage to let him sweat for a while. His level of alertness and preparedness will naturally decrease over time no matter how hard he tries to maintain it. We need to take care of some things in town this afternoon, but he is still at the top of my list. Matt and I figure it’s better to go after him on our timetable rather than his. He has dictated the where. I am going to maintain control of the when.”
“I can live with that,” Harold stated. He grinned slightly as he added, “I like the idea of him sitting there worrying about when you’re coming.” Then his eyes brightened. “Do you need some help? I try to get to the range at least once every other week.”
“Harold, you’re too old for that and you know it,” his wife muttered from his side on the couch. “He still thinks he’s twenty-one years old,” she said, redirecting her attention from Harold to Matt and me. “He was awarded a silver star in Korea, you know,” she said with pride in her voice.
“Harold, I’m sure you would be a huge help to us, but I couldn’t take you away from your wife. She needs you here to look after her and the rest of the neighbors.”
“There’s something else I need to talk to you about,” I said. Harold leaned forward in his seat. “It’s about Nick.” Sensing what was coming, Harold leaned back against the couch cushion and took his wife’s hand in his. His face hardened to an unreadable blank slate as he awaited the news of his grandson.
“Nick was with Curtis when he attacked us outside the house.”
Harold’s wife put her hands over her mouth and tears filled her eyes.
“When Curtis crashed into a tree a few blocks from here, Nick was in the car.” I paused. I was never quite sure how to deliver the final crushing blow. “Nick didn’t survive the crash, but he didn’t die instantly. Before he passed, I talked to him. He said to tell you how sorry he was about what he did to you.”
Harold wrapped his arms around his wife. She buried her head in his shoulder and wept. I had no consolation to offer. There was no way to ease the pain of the loss of their grandson. Straying from the way he should have gone and turning against them did not change the way they felt about his death. He was still their grandson, their flesh and blood. The crimes he had perpetrated against them faded away with his passing. All that remained now was the fact that he had been theirs. They had loved him and he was gone forever.
I stood up and silently walked toward the door. Matt, Cindy and Kimiko followed. When I reached the door, I pulled it open, revealing the unpainted wood that made up the new frame. I allowed the others to pass. I turned the lock on the handle and pulled it closed behind me, leaving Harold and his wife alone in their grief.