Miles moved into position. The men, moving like a school of fish, followed.
“Sheriff Hodges, we need to have a word,” Miles’ voice rose to fill the silence. His words were filled with anxiety at the start. But, by the time he’d finished the sentence, confidence had displaced that. That a boy, Miles!
Hodges looked confused for a moment, but then recovered. He moved to stand directly across from Miles, but from the higher position, looking down. The guards moved into a large semi-circle around the crowd of nearly forty men. Cooper and Dranko were outside of that line, giving themselves a strategic position. No one had yet drawn a weapon or unslung a rifle, but every hand was ready to do just that.
“What is this about?” Hodges demanded, his words coming out strong and forceful.
“We have a dispute to settle,” Miles answered.
Someone from the crowd added, “Damn right we do.”
Hodges mouth tightened and his eyes grew sharp, “Well, what is it? I don’t have all day.”
“We know you aren’t aware of this,” Miles started. Damn smart to build in a graceful way for Hodges’ hands to be clean in this, even if they aren’t. “But, yesterday Junior Hodges came and kidnapped Keith’s wife Valerie as ‘payment’ for his levy. She hasn’t been seen since.”
Cooper saw genuine shock flash across Hodges’ face. He could tell it was taking the man the force of will not to turn and engage with his son. His son lacked such discipline.
Junior’s reedy voice rang out, “I didn’t take nobody, she wanted to come along and have some fun…”
“You son-of-a-bitch! That’s a damned lie,” Keith shouted vehemently. A friend on his right grabbed his arm with both hands to prevent him from ripping his pistol from its holster. Cooper couldn’t see his eyes, but he could only imagine how they burned in furious hatred.
Now, Hodges turned to his son, “Keep your mouth quiet, boy.” Junior slinked down like a dog that had just been kicked across the room. He backpedalled until he disappeared behind a partition.
“Continue, Mr. Stott,” Hodges said, turning back toward Miles.
“We have three simple requests, Sheriff. First, we want your commitment that people will never be asked for or accepted as payment for our levy. Second, we want the levies reduced by ten percent. On top of that, we want ten percent of the remaining levy to be diverted to Keith and Valerie as compensation for this terrible crime. Third, we want a fair, no weapons allowed, fight between Keith and Junior.”
There was no hesitation from Hodges, “Done.”
Like a popped balloon, the tension hissed out of the room.
Then, a shot rang out.
Cooper first saw Keith crumple to the ground in slow motion. His face went slack in surprise. Hands clutched to his chest. A rush of scarlet cascaded past his fingers and began forming a violent blood fall down his chest.
Then, the thunderous boom smacked his ears. His eyes swung toward the direction of the shot. Junior held a hunting rifle in his hands, the smoke curling haphazardly upward. He was racking the bolt to chamber a fresh round. The dull metallic clanging was heard from across the room. Cooper was surprised he could hear it, given the deafening roar of the single shot that had just been fired. Cooper’s hand went for his pistol. He wasn’t the only one.
Hodges’ face went wild in panic. He waved his arms in a wide, circling, gesture. His lips formed the word, “No,” but Cooper couldn’t hear him.
At first, those wielding the faster-to-deploy pistols had the advantage. The room descended into a fusillade of gunfire. Cooper drew on a guard that stood less than twenty feet in front of him, to his left. The man, youngish-looking in his twenties, had a frail-looking growth of hair on his face. He had a shotgun slung on his shoulder and he was desperately trying to bring it into his hands. The sling got caught up on a metal stud that was protruding from his leather jacket. The man’s head jerked around to assist himself in the detangling and his eyes drew back in shock when he saw Cooper’s pistol muzzle bearing down on him.
He fired. He hit the man square in the forehead. A neat, dark hole appeared instantly and Cooper tried to avoid seeing what exploded outside the back of his head. The man teetered on his feet, his vacant eyes locking onto Cooper’s for an instant before he slumped to the ground, like a puppet whose strings had just been cut. Cooper shuddered at the look the man had given him in death.
He wheeled to his right, anticipating that the guards from outside would come piling in. As he did so, he saw several guards falling down, apparently hit by the cavalcade of gunfire spitting across the room. Cooper knelt as he turned, to gain the scant cover offered by a nearby table, piled high with metal tools. As he’d expected, two men were swarming inside, pushing past the glass door and coming in with an AR-15 and a shotgun, respectively.
Cooper fired rapidly at them, not taking proper time to aim. His shots went wide. His fire, from twenty yards away, was close enough to force the men to go tumbling to ground, seeking cover.
From behind him, and to his left, the sound of an angry buzzsaw cut loose. It lasted all but a few seconds and then an odd silence descended upon the room except for the dull moaning of the many wounded. Cooper couldn’t avoid turning his head. On the raised platform, Hodges stood out in the open, a smoking machinegun in his hands. The machinegun was a Thompson, straight out of a 1920’s gangster movie with a fifty round drum magazine attached. Miles’ group of men had been decimated. At least a dozen men lay slumped on the ground. Some were silent and unmoving, but most were writhing in throes of pain.
“Truce!” Hodges’ voice thundered across the room, as he held up the machinegun above his head, using both hands.
Miles was still standing, despite the many fallen to his right and left. He echoed the word, “Truce!”
Hodges looked down upon them, “We are neighbors here. Let us attend the wounded!” It was then that he noticed that Junior was not among the standing. Someone must have gotten the bastard. I hope for good.
Cooper was mesmerized by the scene as it unfolded. Men who had only moments before had been shooting at one other were now gingerly moving past one another to assist the wounded from their respective ‘sides’. The vendors formed a neutral group in this equation and some remained unmoving, while others helped those closest to them. He was amazed that the hastily arranged peace had even happened and more so that it was holding. He attributed it to the power of the bonds these men had held for a long time as residents of a common community. While recent events had quickly driven divisions between them, those bonds still lay below the surface.
Cooper’s assessment was that half of the guards were either dead or wounded from the first wave of gunfire. He and Dranko exchanged a look and nodded to one another. They avoided joining the larger group, seeking to maintain their charade of not belonging with Miles’ group. Instead, they dithered in place.
With hasty bandages applied to those still living, Hodges’ deep baritone rang out again, “Retire with your dead and wounded, Mr. Stott. Meet me here at three today, in the parking lot. You and two men. I will do the same. We cannot let the sun set on this day without resolution.”
Miles nodded to him, “Agreed.” His voice was shaky and he looked to be unsteady on his feet. Cooper knew that seeing bodies riddled by bullet holes and the blood and gore usually untethered the uninitiated. He saw the dark stain down his pant leg and recalled reading once how common it was for soldiers to wet themselves in combat, but that was rarely talked about.