Sheila jumped in the car, hit the garage door button, and backed out. Fast. Too fast. She almost hit the garage door, which hadn’t gone up yet. She hit the brakes and waited for the garage door to go up, which seemed to move in slow motion. Once she cleared it, she zoomed out. Fast. She forgot to close the garage door. Now he could get in and burn the place down, she thought as she sped down the road. But she didn’t care. She had Kellie and they were safe in the car. They were getting the hell out of there.
“Keep your eyes out for him,” Sheila said to Kellie, who had stopped crying by now.
“Wes. We need to go to Wes,” Kellie said.
“Where is he?” Sheila asked.
Kellie thought. “He’s at the Richardson house. Training or whatever.”
Sheila knew where that was. She drove there like someone was chasing them.
Sheila and Kellie raced up to the Richardson house. The dog team started barking at them. The Crew looked around and wondered who they were. One of them raised a rifle at their car.
Kellie didn’t care. She wanted to be with Wes. She got out of the car and started running toward the house.
“You’ll get shot!” Sheila yelled from the car. She couldn’t watch. Her daughter shot by mistake. Sheila shut her eyes.
Nothing. No shot. Sheila opened her eyes and saw Kellie hugging Wes and sobbing. Pretty soon, men started coming out to the car to see if Sheila was OK.
Sheila told the Team and Crew what had happened. The Team was getting their gear to go out and find Ethan. Sheila had the distinct feeling that the Team would kill Ethan if they found him. Good.
A truck came screaming down the road and bolted into the Richardson drive way. It was Ethan’s truck. Sheila cringed as low as possible in her car seat. This was it. Ethan was about to die. And Kellie would have to see it.
The truck stopped and Ethan jumped out. He was out of his mind with anger; yelling and screaming. He started walking toward them. He must have seen Kellie and Wes hugging and went insane. He started running toward them.
Ethan didn’t have a gun. There was no pistol in his holster. The Team and Crew realized that he was seemingly unarmed. They wouldn’t shoot him unless he was a threat.
Ethan got a few yards from the front porch where Kellie and Wes were and he stopped. He had about ten rifles pointed at his head and was noticing it for the first time He put his hands up and just stood there.
Ethan looked around and sized up the situation. He was powerless. Weak. He was humiliated. He had guns pointed at him and his girlfriend was in the arms of another man. He was weak and pathetic. He could never show his face in Pierce Point again. Never. He had nothing left to lose.
Chapter 193
Troop Discipline
“Shoot me!” Ethan yelled out. “Go ahead! Get it over with!” Then he started crying. Like a little baby. More humiliation. Ethan wanted to leave. He wanted to get in his truck and go, but he knew he’d be shot if he went back to it, so he just stood there. Humiliated.
Wes let Kellie go and started walking toward Ethan. Quickly. And gaining speed. In an instant, Wes was closing in on Ethan at a full run. He looked like a cougar pouncing on prey.
Wes tackled Ethan and started punching him wherever he could. Wes felt some of the punches land. A couple went into the ground and hurt his fists, but he kept going. He was an animal. Unstoppable.
After a few seconds, Wes felt arms pulling him up. He realized it was the Team and Crew pulling him off of Ethan.
When he got to his feet, he realized his hands hurt and he had blood on him. Ethan was standing, too and also had blood on him. Wes wondered if the blood on Ethan was his. He checked his face. No blood there. He saw blood coming out of Ethan’s nose, however. Wes smiled. He must have landed at least one on Ethan’s face. Hopefully he broke the bastard’s nose.
“Want some more, bitch?” Wes yelled out to Ethan.
“Shut up,” Rich said. “Both of you shut up.”
“Fuck you!” Ethan yelled to Wes.
“Shut up,” Ryan said as he pulled his pistol out and pointed it directly in Ethan’s face. “Shut up,” he repeated slowly.
“Cuff both of them,” Rich said.
“What?” Wes yelled. Why him? He was the hero here. Ethan was the bad guy.
“Shut up and calm down,” Rich said.
Bobby cuffed Ethan with the plastic cable zip ties they carried. No one on the Team would cuff Wes, a fellow member, so Rich cuffed him.
Kellie came running up and tried to hug Wes.
“Get her out of here,” Rich said. He pointed to Kellie and motioned for someone to take her into the house where she wouldn’t spark another fight.
Rich was in cop mode. It was his job to restore the peace.
Rich went over to Sheila to find out what she knew. Sheila told Rich about how she thought Ethan might down their door.
“Get Dan up here,” Rich said. He pointed to Ethan and said, “This is one of his guards.” Someone ran off to a radio.
Grant went up to Rich and whispered, “What the hell are you doing?” He whispered because Rich was in charge and he didn’t want to contradict him.
“Fighting isn’t allowed,” Rich said. “Troop discipline. We can’t have our guys fighting, especially over a girl.”
Grant couldn’t believe it. Ethan was the bad guy. Wes was just defending Kellie. “Wes didn’t do anything wrong,” Grant said in a whisper.
“Yes, he did,” Rich said. “He attacked an unarmed man.” Rich looked at Grant as if to say, “Duh.”
Grant wanted to help one of his guys. Then it hit him. “One of his guys.” Grant was taking Wes’s side because they were both on the Team. Wes had crossed the line by attacking an unarmed man. As understandable as it was, it still crossed the line.
“What are you going to do?” Grant asked Rich.
“Discipline both of them,” Rich said. “A couple days in the jail.”
“What?” Grant asked. That sounded preposterous. Jail? For Wes?
“Yep. To be an example,” Rich said. Then he looked Grant in the eye and said, “An example that the Team doesn’t get special breaks.”
Grant bristled at this. The Team was doing more than anyone else there. They were risking their lives all the time, raiding houses when the guards just stood there and BS’ed. The Team guys were the only actual badass gun fighters in this whole place.
Then it hit him. It was exactly the kind of division that Pierce Point didn’t need. Everyone with a gun was part of the community’s security; the guards, the Team, the Crew, the beach patrol, the comms people. No divisions. No cliques.
Grant started to remember how much emphasis George Washington put on troop discipline. General Washington was almost fanatical about it. Fighting and drunkenness were a constant problem for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, as were divisions between the regular army and state militias. Fighting and drunkenness were dealt with by flogging. Stealing was a problem, too. Depending on the amount stolen, the death penalty was administered. Deserters were shot. In fact, the story goes, when one unit tried to desert, Gen. Washington ordered that unit to count off. Every tenth man from the deserting unit was lined up. Washington ordered the deserting unit to shoot their own members who were lined up. Desertions went way down after that.
Grant had always thought that Gen. Washington’s discipline had been too harsh, but now he was beginning to understand why Washington had been so adamant about it. There was no way to fight a superior force with undisciplined troops. Look at how pathetic the Blue Ribbon Boys were, Grant thought. And a break down in order among the troops meant they could easily turn into a gang and terrorize the civilians, which was the very opposite of what they were trying to do out at Pierce Point. Maintaining order among the troops was more important than being precisely fair, he thought. Military discipline had to be fair enough to prevent a mutiny, but it didn’t have to be one hundred percent fair. Precise fairness was the goal for the civilian courts. They didn’t have the tough job the troops did, so civilians could afford to have precise fairness as the goal.