Kyle heard the despair in the man’s voice, recognizing that he was emotionally frantic. As the man bounded closer, Kyle slid across the ground towards Stacy, drawing up behind her. Blood continued draining from the large open wound in her back, a sight that would have sickened him in times past.
He rested the barrel of the rifle across his left forearm and just above Stacy’s underwear-clad hip, and waited, his finger poised on the trigger, ready to shoot when the opportunity arose. He saw movement and fired, missing, but not by much. The man dropped to the ground and rolled, then bounced back up and kept coming. Kyle fired again and missed again. Stacy tried to shift beneath him but was too weak to move much. The man was getting closer, making Kyle more anxious, knowing he didn’t have unlimited ammunition.
Kyle kept the sight of the rifle on the man as he rushed forward through the trees. The man fired wildly towards Kyle, and the shot flew far overhead.
Stacy mumbled something, but Kyle, focused on the onrushing man, failed to understand her. He flattened himself to the ground, getting as low as he could behind the woman this man was rushing madly towards, watching the man approach through the sights of the gun. The man didn’t slow at the fallen tree, instead leaping onto it with one foot and launching himself through the air, landing thirty feet away.
As his feet hit the ground, the man paused for a brief second with his gun extended, unwilling to take a shot towards Stacy. That was all Kyle needed. He pulled the trigger several times in rapid succession, the bullets punching a tight cluster of holes in the middle of the man’s chest, dropping him in a heap on the ground.
Kyle waited, breathing heavily, unsure whether it was all over or if someone else would come charging down the hill in a suicide rush like this one. He raised himself up on his knees, ears ringing from the gunfire, eyes scanning the area for anyone else intent on his destruction. He got to his feet and went to the second man, now lying motionless in the dirt. Kyle pressed his fingertips to the man’s neck, then pulled him over onto his back.
He was young, somewhere in his mid-twenties Kyle guessed. A thin, blonde beard and a crooked nose were his only distinguishing features. His eyes were open, and Kyle, never comfortable looking at the dead, released his grip on the man, then quickly patted him down, finding nothing of value besides a magazine for the handgun.
Kyle crawled back to Stacy, who was half-conscious and watching him. “Is there anyone else?”
Stacy bobbed her head up and down. Kyle, unsure, knelt down beside her. “Who?!” he demanded, placing his ear near her mouth.
She struggled to speak. “My…brother…log cabin…up the…dirt road.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Kyle said, not sure if he believed her. He leaned back to look around, searching for this brother who might be coming his direction. He felt something on his wrist and looked down to see Stacy’s hand. Fresh tears filled her eyes as she tried to explain.
“No…young…please help,” she pleaded, barely getting her words out.
Kyle knelt closer, sensing she was finally sincere. “Say again?” he asked.
“Little brother…cabin…please. Help.” She coughed, spraying blood on his face.
“Is there anyone else there?” he asked, wiping away the blood.
A barely perceptible shake of her head indicated no. She swallowed, obviously in pain, and closed her eyes for a second.
Kyle reached out and touched her shoulder. Her skin was soft and warm, and she opened her eyes at his touch. “What’s his name?”
She grimaced. “Collin,” she said. “Collin Lee.”
“Is the cabin close?”
She closed her eyes and nodded slightly. Kyle could see her struggle for breath. He rose to his feet and walked over to the first man, grabbed his gun then searched the man, again finding nothing but additional ammunition. He went to the second man, grabbed him by an ankle, and dragged him next to the other two, then took Stacy’s hand and placed it in the palm of the man who’d been so desperate to save her and whose devotion to her was obvious, even under threat of death.
Kyle was surprised to see Stacy open her eyes, still clinging to life. When she saw what he’d done, she smiled and mouthed the words “thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, then took her jacket and lay it across her shoulders. He knew it was pointless, that she’d be gone in a few minutes. In fact, he was surprised she was still alive, but that didn’t matter. Regardless of what had occurred, a life was still a life and deserved to be treated with dignity.
“Good bye,” he said as he stood, trying to sound sympathetic. “I will check on Collin, and I’m sorry.” He noticed that she flinched slightly at the mention of her brother, then he turned and walked cautiously towards the highway.
CHAPTER 35
Saturday, February 11th
Deer Creek, MT
Jennifer kept an eye on the Dutch oven in the fireplace, lifting the lid occasionally to stir the wheat. Grace’s store of grains was a life-saving resource for both her family and the community, and Jennifer knew she should be grateful to have access to it, but it was hard to get too excited about another meal of whole grains, flavored with a pinch of salt and a dash of sugar.
At least Spencer had finally stopped crying each time wheat was served, having come to the realization that something, no matter how plain and repetitive, was better than the hunger pains he felt when he had nothing to eat. David and Emma had long ago accepted their plight, and while they didn’t talk about it much anymore, Jennifer knew they both wanted, more than anything, the foods they loved – a bowl of Fruit Loops, a hot dog or hamburger, some chocolate ice cream – not the constant repetition of a subsistence diet.
Jennifer had never been a connoisseur in the kitchen. While she considered herself to be a better than average cook, she was not one to labor over meals or obsess about flavors and techniques. Now when she had extra time in her days, flavor and variety was something she thought about and longed for, and the lack of it was driving her crazy, like a powerful itch in the middle of her back that was just out of reach.
Jennifer’s knowledge of wheat, prior to her introduction to Grace’s food storage, had been limited to whole wheat bread and the white flour she baked with. A wheat berry sounded like a healthy fruit you might find growing in the wild next to a patch of raspberries, not a dried, hard grain that farmers harvested from their fields. When Grace and her seemingly never-ending stream of cans filled with stored wheat had moved into Carol’s house, Jennifer had expected to find flour in them.
Grace, seeing Jennifer’s confusion when she first opened a can, explained that they were looking at an actual kernel of wheat, the thing that flour was derived from when it was processed at a mill. Jennifer had asked why she hadn’t just bought flour instead, saving the trouble of grinding it down. “Flour only has a storage life of about a year, but wheat will last decades, even centuries if it’s stored well,” Grace had said without any sense of ridicule, going on to explain that if temperature and oxygen levels were controlled, the wheat would still provide nutritional benefit even when it was decades old.
Nutritional value aside, Jennifer longed for the day she could stop by Costco and pick up a fifty-pound bag of flour or, better yet, stop by a bakery and pick up loaves of fresh-baked, white bread, or a chocolate sheet cake, iced with thick buttercream frosting, and a gallon of ice-cold milk to wash it all down.
She closed her eyes and daydreamed for a moment, then shook her head to bring herself back to reality and the wheat berries that had started boiling. She lifted the lid of the Dutch oven and stirred. Just a few more minutes she thought, then she’d let it simmer while she woke the children, and they got ready for breakfast. As she placed the lid back on oven, she heard a noise at the front door.