Liberty or Tyranny (3 page)

“I’m sorry you’re in this terrible position,” Nate said. “You’re doing the best you can, but someday soon your conscience is going to get you in trouble.”

Donovan shrugged. “No one alive today is without his problems, including those in Washington.”

Nate nodded. “And the way they’re trying to solve one problem is just going to cause a hundred more. There’s still no government at the local and state level, at least in our part of the country, and Washington’s control of things is tenuous at best. They need to think before they go too far and lose what control they have over what’s left of the American population. If that happens, there may not be a United States of America. A few years from now, when the survivors have organized locally and regionally, we may have five or six countries, instead of one.”

“Anything’s possible,” Donovan agreed. “If our enemies abroad were not in worse shape than we are, we might be facing an invasion already. We finally managed to deal with Mexico and their claims on the Southwest. It was a bloody job, but we beat – rather shot – them back to Mexico. Certainly, America hasn’t been this weak and vulnerable to military attack since our earliest days as a young nation.” He got up from his chair. “But right now, starvation is the most immediate danger.” Showing them to the door, he said, “You two should really think about leaving town as soon as possible. I could be relieved of command any day, and my replacement might be as crazy as the man I replaced. Get out while you can.”

Nate stopped before reaching the door. “We wanted to tell you about the murder of a woman that took place this morning. We were forced to kill the suspect in a gunfight.”

“I have someone on scene talking to witnesses.” Donovan spoke to a soldier waiting outside the storage container that was his office. “Escort them to the gate.”

Nate stopped in front of Donovan. They shook hands. “I have a feeling we might not see you again.”

Donovan tried to smile. “You’re probably right – if all goes well and you follow my advice. But
I’m
not going anywhere. Not until they send someone to get me.”

Deni blinked tears. “I feel like I’m deserting you.”

Donovan shook his head. “Don’t. You’re a civilian now. Go be a civilian. Hell, don’t bother with turning in your gear. Keep it. Go find a place to wait out the storm.” He turned and closed the door behind him.

Nate and Deni got into the Humvee. As she drove away, she started to speak several times but stopped.

“I know,” Nate said. “Donovan’s a good man caught between a rock and a hard place. The fact is, though, his problems with higher-ups in the Pentagon and Washington are his fight, not ours.”

Deni clenched her jaw. “You’re right. There’s nothing we can do to help him or the people here.”

Nate looked out his window. “That’s what I keep telling myself.”

She glanced his way and back to the road ahead. “What about leaving town tonight?”

He turned and gave her his full attention. “We’re not married yet. Also, I would like to see Chesty buried before we leave. We should talk to a preacher tomorrow, though. Certainly, we need to be ready to leave this town behind us soon.”

“Yeah. How do you feel about that?” she asked.

“Terrible. I don’t like leaving Donovan with this mess, and I don’t like abandoning the people here. But I usually let my mind do my thinking, not my feelings. My mind tells me there is nothing the two of us can do to change whatever is going to become of Donovan and the people of this little town. My main goal from the beginning has been to keep Brian alive. Lately, I’ve gotten off course. Some things have changed. You for example. But keeping Brian – and you – alive is still my main goal.” He thought of a black teen he had taken under his wing and friends he had met over the last year. “I doubt Kendell will be willing to leave the orphaned kids at Mrs. MacKay’s farm for any length of time, so he’ll probably decide to stay there with the children. I don’t know about Caroline. She may want to stay at the farm too. Whether they come with us or not, my days of trying to help everyone I come across are over. I can’t save the world.”

She looked straight ahead and gripped the steering wheel tight. “I agree, but have my doubts you’ll be able to live by those words.”

Nate jerked his head around and stared at her for several seconds. He started to speak of how seeing Brian close to death had cured him of getting involved with others’ troubles, but stopped himself.

That night, a cold front charged down from the north, blown in by powerful winds. Heavy rain pounded on a window on the other end of the bedroom, and cold penetrated the thin wool blanket Nate had over him. He lay there shivering and looked around the dark room. But it wasn’t the cold that had awakened him. Thunder? Or was it gunfire?

It was then he realized for the first time he had already reached for the Kimber 1911 that he kept on the nightstand beside the bed. It was in his right hand, his thumb on the safety and muzzle pointed at the window.

His sleeping bag was tied to his backpack in the closet. It offered warmth the thin blanket couldn’t, so he tossed the blanket aside and sat up in bed.

Thinking of his son Brian and Kendell, he got up to search the house for more blankets to bring to them. Kendell was in another bedroom. Brian had insisted on sleeping on the living room floor behind a couch, his rifle beside him, saying something about how the terrorists, who for some crazy reason feared the rebuilding of society and were willing to kill to stop it, wouldn’t expect anyone to be sleeping on the floor. Considering the fact a close friend had just been murdered in bed, Nate couldn’t argue against his son’s precaution. In some ways, things were getting better, but they still lived in a deadly, lawless world. He would never argue against putting safety first. Sleeping on the floor wouldn’t hurt him, and forgoing the comfort of a bed for added safety made sense.

Nate found Brian already awake in his sleeping bag, unzipped so he could get out fast and grab his rifle that lay next to him. He sat up. “What? Did you hear something?”

“I’m getting a blanket for Kendell,” Nate whispered. He went on to the room Kendell slept in and found him looking up, his rifle in his hands.

“Trouble?” Kendell asked.

“No.” Nate dropped two blankets beside him. “I brought you these. Go back to sleep. There’s nobody around, as near as I can tell.”

Kendell ignored the blankets. “I thought I heard a shot a few minutes ago.”

Nate hesitated for a moment. “I think it was thunder.” He left the room and checked the front and back doors, peering out into the rainy night through every window, one at a time, his pistol in his hand. Then he went back to bed and slept fitfully, wishing Deni had not insisted on staying at the Army base one more night to learn what she could about what the Army was up to.

When dawn broke, he got up to put his boots on, first putting on the thickest wool socks he had. He glanced at his dead friend Chesty’s badge on the nightstand, just before slipping it into his jacket pocket. The thought came to him that he should not bother carrying it. Why pretend he was something he wasn’t? He was no lawman. He was a vigilante, plain and simple. Tyrone was the only one in town who had been a real lawman (a deputy) before the plague killed most of the human population around the world. Chesty had been town marshal before everything went to hell, but he was dead.

The void Chesty had left behind – the town people’s need for law and protection – had to be filled by someone. Nate knew that it wasn’t him. He had planned to do what he could until Deni got out of the Army, but he was becoming ever more convinced they needed to get out of town soon and not wait. Donovan gave her permission to leave as soon as possible, and he felt she should not turn down the offer. The people would have to find another sheriff. Tyrone was certainly the man for the job, the only man. He would need help, but it was time for others to step up and carry some of the load. He still remembered the look on Deni’s face the night he agreed to carry Chesty’s badge. At that moment, he had decided that two weeks was all they were going to get of him. No matter what might happen, he was going to marry Deni and they were going back to the farm. “Sorry,” he said to no one, “but even two weeks is too long.”

Nate wore his .44 magnum revolver under his jacket in a shoulder holster a former gunsmith had given him only the day before and had the 1911 .45 on his right side for fast access. He carried two speed loaders for the revolver and four magazines for the pistol. If someone killed him, it wouldn’t be for lack of shooting back. The thought he should put on his poncho lived and died in less than a second. He would rather get wet and cold than not be able to get to his handguns if needed. Besides, the courthouse was only two blocks away, and it wasn’t raining all that hard at the moment. His clothes might not even be soaked through by the time he got there.

After slipping into his load bearing harness that held six magazines for his M14, he put on his boonie hat, grabbed the rifle, and quietly walked into the living room to wake Brian. He didn’t want both of the boys sleeping while he was gone. Someone needed to be awake and guarding the house, in case trouble showed up.

Brian sat up and took a drink from his canteen. “I’m awake. Don’t worry about us.”

Nate stepped out the front door, locking it behind him.

Out on the sidewalk, he kept his eyes busy, looking for signs of trouble. The wind-blown rain hit him in the face, feeling like hot needles, a strange contradiction, since the rain was ice cold. He turned a corner and headed for the courthouse. The first item on his mind was to check his dead friend’s desk and maybe find a note or something that might lead him to Chesty’s murderer. The young man who’d killed Chesty Johnson while he lay in bed had himself been killed by his victim. They had shot at the same moment, each killing the other. But the assassin had been sent by someone, and Nate wanted to know who. He told himself once again that it was about protecting the townspeople from a terrorist group. It didn’t matter. He could lie to himself a thousand times, but he knew it was personal. What’s more, he knew Deni knew. Hell, his friends Tyrone, Mel, the National Guardsman, and old Atticus knew. They had the same mind-set. Trouble was he had little time to find the killer.

Running most of the way, the wind driving rain at his left side and soaking him, Nate made it to the courthouse in less than three minutes. To anyone who might have been hiding in ambush, it may have appeared he wasn’t all that aware of his surroundings as he ran, but he had seen the man watching from a window on the other side of the street and was ready to jump for cover if he had seen any hint of a rifle in the man’s hands. He also knew Mel was watching from his own sniper’s nest, somewhere on his side of the street. Mel was a good shot, but it wasn’t the National Guard that had taught him the finer points of accurate shooting. It was his late father. Still, Nate rushed through the courthouse door and had it closed behind him as fast as he could manage it.

The lobby was empty and dark, nearly as cold as outside, but a lot less wet and windy. There was no power in the building, of course. The only buildings with electricity were those the Army had taken over, including the clinic that had been turned into a small hospital, complete with three emergency rooms. Nate went through what had been the security guard station. A metal detector that people once had to walk through before getting past the security guards stood useless. Being a small town in a rural county, the courthouse wasn’t as large as most in the state of Florida. Still, it was three stories and contained many rooms. He headed down a dark hall and turned right, where he opened a door and stepped into the room that was being used as the temporary sheriff’s office.

Sitting behind a desk in the dim glow of a kerosene lantern, Tyrone looked up and reached for a shotgun at the same time, not relaxing until he saw who had just barged in. His intense eyes appearing very white in his black face as he looked across the room at Nate, he was obviously ready to kill if need be. Recognizing Nate took only a fraction of a second, and he put the shotgun back on the desk without ever having actually aimed it at him.

Ignoring his friend’s precaution and noticing that Tyrone was in the process of going through Chesty’s desk, Nate asked, “Find anything? I woke early to go through his desk for anything that might lead us to any others involved with his murder, but I see you beat me to it.” He took his hat off and slipped out of his load-bearing harness, then shed his wet jacket, hanging all on a hat rack standing near the entrance. The cold in the unheated room immediately penetrated his thin shirt.

Leaning back in the seat, Tyrone took a few seconds to answer, “Nothing so far. I haven’t been here long.”

Nate rubbed as much water from his face as possible with his bare hands and wiped them on the driest side of his jacket. “We have a few hours. The funeral’s not until 9 AM. I sure would like to know for certain if his murder was related to the terrorists or if it was something else entirely.” He walked across the room and stood beside the desk.

Tyrone pulled a stack of papers out of the top right desk drawer and handed it to Nate. “Well, start with this pile. Maybe one of us will get lucky and find something. I don’t hold out much hope, though. We knew as much about the terrorists as he did, and if he was working on something he would’ve let me in on it. The fact is anyone could’ve killed Chesty and for any reason, sane or not.”

“Yeah,” Nate said. “But it’s the first place to look, since we have nothing at all to go on.” He found a chair and went to work, scanning his dead friend’s notes. He spoke while he read. “You’re the only one here with law enforcement training and experience, and I fully understand that.” He looked up from the notes. “You and I both know you’re the boss here. I’m just trying to help out. Also, I may not wait two weeks before heading back to my farm. I’m sorry about deserting you, but that’s the way it is.”

“I figured that.” Tyrone didn’t even look up. “I just hope I can find two or three good people before you leave.”

Nate regarded Tyrone. “You don’t hold it against me?”

He shook his head and looked up. “No. You said two weeks, but things have changed.”

The two exchanged glances.

“Something I don’t know about?” Nate asked.

“No. Donovan has told me the same thing he told you. Said he has given Deni permission to leave anytime she wants. I guess he was warning me I’m going to be short on help soon.” He tossed a pile of papers aside. “A lot can happen between now and the time you leave. I hope what
does
happen is we get every SOB that was involved in Chesty’s murder. And I hope that’s
all
that happens. Deni’s not going to be too happy with me if you get shot.”

~~~

Two hours later, the men had found nothing in Chesty’s desk that produced any useful information.

“That’s the last of it.” Nate set a stack of paper on the desk. “Nothing there that could help us. It was mostly ideas on how to build a new sheriff department someday and how the deputies could patrol at least part of the county on horseback, if fresh supplies of fuel for vehicles never materialize. It appeared to me most of the ideas came from you.” He walked across the room to the hat rack and grabbed his load-bearing harness. “I don’t have a watch, but I expect it’s about time for me to go get my son and a few others, then head for the cemetery.”

Tyrone’s chest heaved. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. “Yeah. It’s time to bury one of the best men I ever knew.”

They stepped outside onto the sidewalk together. The cold rain had slacked off, but the wind had strengthened considerably, and the temperature, if anything, was colder.

Nate pulled his boonie hat down tighter on his head and scanned the street in both directions. He took note that Tyrone had also taken a rifle with him, an M4. They walked to the next intersection, where Nate looked up at a third-story window and pointed at his left wrist, as if he were wearing a watch. He caught formless movement back from the window in the shadows of the room and knew Mel would be appearing at the ground floor door in a minute or two.

“I wonder if he saw anything suspicious while he was up there keeping watch,” Tyrone said, thinking out loud.

Nate kept his eyes busy, scanning the streets and peering into windows. “He can give you a full report if you ask. Soldiers are trained to observe everything while on post.”

“Just the important stuff. That’s all I’m interested in.”

An office door with a broken lock swung open and Mel stepped up to them. He spoke before the other men had a chance. “Two hours before sunup, two skinny young guys wearing black hoodies came ambling along, trying to appear nonchalant. The fact they were out at night in this miserable weather tells me they weren’t out for a stroll. They kept their hands in their sweatshirt pockets, but they were damn sure casing the area. Seemed to be really interested in the courthouse.”

Nate ignored his freezing ears in the howling wind. “I would suggest we move our little office to the Army base, or at least find a building that’s more secure. They could plant a bomb while we’re at Chesty’s funeral and set it off when we come back.”

“Yeah.” Tyrone glanced down the street at the courthouse. “What we need most are more men. Several people to keep 24/7 watch on our base of operations.”

Mel tilted his head in a futile attempt to get more wind protection from his helmet. “What you guys need is a real squad of deputies, not untrained civilian volunteers. There must be more cops who survived the plague, perhaps in surrounding counties. We just have to find them.”

“Right now we have a friend to bury.” Tyrone walked away.

~~~

Almost everyone who attended Chesty’s funeral was armed, despite the Army sending a squad to provide security. Many teens attended, but no small children. The cold and damp was too much for mothers to risk their children getting sick. Weather or no, the crowd of adults was large. There were not many in the town of Glenwood who didn’t feel indebted to Chesty.