Walking in the Rain (Book 4): Dark Sky Thunder (6 page)

The hay barn was a perfect place for kids to build their forts and play out the elaborate skits we came up with from our imaginations. Pretending to be pirates and cowboys and even fairies (thanks to Paige), we would have a fine old time. Of course, Grandpa warned us about tearing up the bales and to watch for snakes, but at the time, we were kids and thus, invincible. The old man would fuss at us; I could tell he really didn’t mean it, but Paige still always cried.

Until she turned into a teenager, my sister had always been the sweetest little girl and always was very sensitive to criticism or correction. I thought she had a tender heart that way, but when she hit thirteen, that all changed. Now, I wondered how much of that sassy attitude was real and how much was for show. Maybe a cry for attention? Hell, what do I know?

“I’m here now, sis. Nobody is going to get you now,” I said soothingly as I stroked her hair.

“You promise?” Paige sounded more like a little girl now than a sarcastic teen.

“I’ll kill them before they ever have a chance. You have my word on that.”

And I would. The decision seemed simple and to the point. Give me a few more weeks to heal up, and I would be able to fight and run with the rest of the men here at the ranch. I had to. Everything I valued, my family, my love, and my friends, would all be counting on me.

Nick Keller once said I had a talent for violence. A gift. I still needed training and experience, but when the time came, I would give that gift for killing full reign if necessary. I would fight to the last breath to hold and protect what I considered mine, and pray that my soul survived the process.

I stayed with Paige until I heard the bell sounding for lunch, and then we both clamored down out of the hay barn and headed for Grandpa’s house.

“So you really let Sierra in on our secret hideout?” I asked archly.

“Well, she is Alex’s sister,” Paige replied defensively.

“I know. I was speaking on his behalf. He’ll have to find another place on the ranch to hide from her now. Little sisters can be such a pain, you know.”

I almost got a smile out of Paige for that comment. I decided to keep working on that.

After lunch, I had a moment to chat with Amy in private and I explained what had happened with Paige. She laid a hand on my shoulder and suggested we should go visit my grandfather’s grave. I agreed, though I’d been dreading doing so. I was saying goodbye to someone who had been such an influence in my life, and I was feeling my own guilt for not being here when my family needed me. When I asked Dad about it, he volunteered to take me to visit the family cemetery.

“Family cemetery?” Amy asked, her curiosity pricked. We were arming up in the hall, including the body armor and a small survival pack I’d upgraded since the Highway 40 ambush up in Oklahoma. Having a cool backpack filled with all the gear a man could want was nice, but if you didn’t carry it on your body at all times, it might not do any good.

The simple solution was a large fanny pack, situated on my belt opposite the sidearm holster and bracketed by magazine pouches. I’d made up one for myself and Amy and advised the others in my group as to what they needed to carry.

“Yeah, family cemetery. Just down the road and on the other side about a half mile down. That’s where the old home place used to be, and my family has a spot there.”

“Really?”

“Really. Remember, my family’s been here a while. There’s some law against private cemeteries, but this one has been in continuous use for over a century. Pre-dates that bullshit. My Grandma Alice is buried there, and so are Great-grandpa Bill and his wife, Florence. Along with several dozen great-uncles and aunts, and some from before then.”

“Wow. And how much land does your family own, exactly? I didn’t know that was Messner land across the road, too.”

I had to think about it. “A little over six hundred acres on this side of the road. Six hundred and forty acres is what is called a section. That is about what we have across the road, too. Grandpa bought it back in the 1960s, I think. His older brother owned the parcel where the old homestead sat and the cemetery. The rest of the property, we use for pasture and haymaking. Or we did before all this happened. Now I’m guessing it’s going back to weeds pretty quick. There’s some other land closer to Ripley, but I’m sure the situation is the same.”

“Why not use it?” Amy asked, and then did a cute facepalm. “Duh. If you can’t guard it, it cannot be used these days. Sorry but I spoke before I thought.”

“Yep. Good call. There’s water and fencing over there, but not like the fencing we have here. And the ranch lacks the manpower to patrol there. So Dad and Grandpa pulled everything over here for the duration. Hopefully, we can at least bale some of the hay over there at some point. We’ll have to get it before the weather turns.”

At that, I heard Uncle Billy’s deep voice break in on our conversation.

“And that’s why I never wanted to be a rancher. Or farmer. Too dependent on the rain. Or the temperature. Or the winds. You know, stuff we got no control over.”

I turned and saw Uncle Billy standing there, decked out in his web gear and holding an M1A rifle with a suppressor attached. He looked like he might have gotten a bit more sleep, but his eyes still looked a little bloodshot with bruised patches showing under them. Not from drinking, I knew, but from too many late nights and too much stress. It was the look of a survivor these days.

“Only game in town these days, Uncle. Farm and ranch, or starve. And plenty of people are doing that right now.” My words came out a little harsher than I intended, and my uncle held up a hand in submission. Something he never did inside the ring.

“I got it, nephew. That’s the new normal, but don’t mean I have to like it. I miss my loft downtown, you know. And the nightlife, which used to mean something other than the coyotes and wild dogs scheming to dig under the fence.”

Since I’d lived with my uncle one summer, I knew what he meant. Out the window of his loft, you could see the rooftop pool of the apartments next door. And the hot young ladies who liked to lie out and catch some rays by that same pool. Yes, I would be missing that view as well, if I were Uncle Billy. Among a million other things I miss from before the lights went out.

Then I saw my father, similarly decked out in body armor, check rig and tactical gear. He was carrying a rifle as well, and I saw it too had a suppressor. Wait a minute… “Dad, is that your 300 Blackout?”

“You don’t miss a trick, do you?” he replied with a bit of snark in his voice that had been conspicuously absent since I’d gotten home. I took that as a good sign. Dad hadn’t been the same person as when I left, and I wondered if all of that was due to losing Grandpa. I had a feeling there was more to it than that.

“Well, I thought you were still waiting for your stamp to come back for your suppressor. That’s all.”

Contrary to popular disinformation, suppressors weren’t illegal in the United States. Just in certain states, where any kind of a “silencer” makes politicians of a certain persuasion piss in their silk panties. Or at least, that was what Mr. Windsor claimed. But, in order to purchase, you needed to pay a big chunk of money for the suppressor, a bit more for the muzzle adaptor, and write a check for $200 for a tax stamp from the federal government. Oh, and wait nine months for the paperwork to come back from the ATF.

“Yes, Lucas. Still waiting on that. No, I got this from a secondary source.”

My confusion must have been evident because my father started laughing at my expression. “Lucas, what does Mike do for a living?”

Ah, there it was. This conversation was getting curiouser and curiouser. “Inconel?” I asked. If I recalled correctly from my reading, that was the preferred material for the job.

“Yes. Part of our contingency plan, you see. He made up some, sealed them in a box, and buried them. Just in case.”

“Sorry, guys, I don’t get it,” Amy said. From the little smile, I was guessing she was thinking something about boys and their toys.

I pointed at my father’s rifle, a standard AR pattern setup with rails, tac light, and scope. “Dad’s buddy Mike, the one you met here, is a machinist, and he whipped up some suppressors for us in case we ever needed such things.”

She still didn’t get it. I could tell.

“Without a tax stamp, they are illegal. Like, violates Federal law, ‘go away for twenty years’ illegal,” I explained briefly, and Amy nodded.

“Are they useful?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dad said. “In the right circumstances. Besides reducing the noise, they also make it harder for the enemy to find you. Pain in the butt on the 5.56 ARs because the subsonic rounds are either hard to get or they don’t cycle properly. Fortunately, I reload and I’ve got a good recipe for them.”

“And Mike made enough to go around?” I asked dubiously.

“Affirmative. Tomorrow is range day for all you new folks. We’ll see then. But right now, we have another errand,” my father said, and his voice turned somber at the end of his sentence.

We loaded up in Dad’s pickup and headed out for the gate, where Scott and Mike were manning the defenses. I thought that was a good match. Scott was still hurting from the death of his parents, and Mike was a wise choice for a partner for him now.

Mike Elkins was a big guy, a bear of a man with a bit of a beer belly that didn’t detract from his solid strength. He was also a genuinely nice guy, jovial and friendly to just about everybody. Dad had confided once that Mike had been the class clown, but nobody ever minded since he was often the butt of his own jokes. Scott was funny too, but there was just so much darkness in his humor these days.

“Ya’ll going over?” Mike asked, his voice solemn for once. He was leaning on the window, giving each of us a nod as he looked around the cab of the truck.

“Yeah. Lucas wants to visit. Might be good for all of us to go. Claire’s got the kids working in the garden still. I think they’re canning tomatoes today. Seems like we just did that last week.”

Mike nodded. “We did. Those women kept adding to the garden, so the thing’s more’n five acres if you count the sweet corn and the potatoes. And then there’s all those field crops, too.”

“I guess they are serious about keeping us fed. You still think we need to put up the greenhouse?” Dad asked.

“Structural stuff, sure. We can skin it when it gets closer to winter. Do it after the harvest, anyway.”

Dad nodded. This wasn’t out of character. Food was a constant concern and I heard folks here talking about this crop or that, because if we don’t grow it, we most likely won’t be eating. What we didn’t eat would be preserved to help get us through the winter.

The drive was short and uneventful. Dad parked under an old oak that might have been around since Texas belonged to the Spanish, and we all dutifully filed out of the truck. I spotted Grandpa’s grave easily enough, since it was the only recent addition, and I removed my ball cap and we approached to pay our respects.

The grave marker was a simple wooden cross with Grandpa’s name, Augustus Messner, and his date of birth and date of death. I did the math and realized Grandpa was almost seventy-five when he died, which seemed really old. Of course, I was still wishing we had another seventy-five years together, so maybe it wasn’t so old after all. And now, he was resting next to his beloved wife, the grandmother I barely remembered.

Amy was wiping back tears as we walked up, and I could see Dad try to wipe his eyes without being too obvious. I looked down at the tops of my boots and composed my final farewell for this crusty, ornery old man who taught me so much. I loved him unreservedly, and as I stood there with the Lord’s Prayer on my lips, I heard Uncle Billy break down into soft sobs.

I didn’t cry. I wanted to, I think, but I couldn’t. Maybe all my tears had been used up. I did feel a powerful urge to go kill something. I was standing there feeling sorry for myself and suddenly I felt the urge to talk with Paige again.

As we rode back in silence, I took Amy’s hand in mine and caught her eye with my own. “You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m all right. Just got to thinking about my folks. I got them buried but didn’t think to put up a grave marker over them. I was in too much of a hurry, in case those thieving assholes were coming back.”

Well, shit. That put my loss in perspective, I guess. What was that old saying? I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet. Amy never talked about her family, and I hoped her new openness would allow her some peace for what she has endured.

“When this shit all settles down, we can go back. Put up a headstone, and all, for your parents. And make sure your uncle’s really dead.” I whispered this to Amy and that last bit got a snort that was almost a laugh.

“You are a caution, Lucas Messner,” was all she said out loud, but it was enough. Even Uncle Billy managed a chuckle at that declaration.

The next day started early, like always on the ranch. After breakfast and the inevitable morning chores were done, Dad announced his plan to open up the rest of the shelter area for additional sleeping accommodations. With our new numbers, this was a logical choice, and Mom agreed that moving the untrained women and children into the bunkrooms “under the hill” made sense.

“Under the hill?” Amy had asked as we discussed the matter the night before.

“Yeah,” I admitted sheepishly. “That’s what Paige and I started calling the shelter space built into the hill. It sounded way cooler when I was twelve.”

Amy accepted this bit of information with a shrug. I think she already suspected there was more to the house than we talked about in public.

So Dad and Mom led the newcomers on a tour of the two floors of paranoid perfection. The upper level was built at the same elevation as the rest of the house and boasted four separate bunk rooms, each with eight sets of doubled bunk beds bolted to the walls and an equal number of sealed storage chambers. There was a kitchenette, a library, communications shack, and a small first aid station, all concealed behind a fake closet and then a Swiss blast door. Except for the blast doors, everything else was something either purchased second hand, at auction, or reclaimed from the scrap heap.