“I didn’t make the world,” Clive said, “but I am damned determined not to lose control of my own. I know you have your limits, Pat, and I have mine. I do.” He looked at Pat to see if he believed him, and with the look, there was an overlong pause.
The other man smiled, but shook his head a moment. He let Clive know by the way that he shook his head and smiled that that he did believe him, but that the limits they were speaking of were way beyond any he could contemplate for himself.
“You know, Clive,” Red Beard said, “I think maybe you had to live down there, down in that prison,” he paused, “like I did.” He paused again, as if to say perhaps you needed all those years of research, to know what that really means.
Red Beard took in a breath, and looked as if he were about to speak out of anger, but then he caught himself and exhaled. A face came to mind—the face of one particular young man he’d met in the city. No one knows why such memories occur in such moments, but they do, and this one did. Red Beard thought of the young man he’d met on the bridge. Clay was his name. He thought of the nice talk they’d had together. It had been such a pleasant time of conversation, but the look in that young man’s eyes… Red Beard shook his head. He recalled that Clay looked odd. So hurt, so defeated. He thought of the pain in the young man’s eyes, and he thought of the authorities and the expression of brute power that had put that hurt there, and he felt a tear rise up in his own eye.
“Clive, I’m not ready to use that kind of power.”
Clive was going to argue with him, but he looked at his friend at that moment, and thought that he looked like Tolstoy, or Rasputin, or both. He was just a mad monk—a good friend, but not one built to make decisions.
The two pals had just reached an uneasy peace, when the shots rang out.
The APCs opened fire into the tree line that ran along the river’s edge. The single rifle shot that had felled Nick, seemed to have come from that direction. Elsie instinctively grasped hold of Charlie, who was pulling and fighting against her, trying to get to his father’s body. Peter shouldered his AR-15 and popped off two rounds for effect, hoping to keep any sniper’s head down as he pulled Elsie and Charlie towards the farmhouse.
Ace had started running as soon as he heard the first shot. He bolted towards the RV, deciding to use it as cover so that he could make his way behind the house. From there, he hoped to find some high ground so that he could use his rifle and bring some aggression to bear against the unseen enemy.
Running toward the RV, he spotted Clive and Red Beard, and he shouted for them to get down. When he reached the two older men, their only response to the gunfire had been to lean in to one another in a frightened bear hug. They were crouching down in surprise and fear, but they were certainly not under cover. Seeing this, Ace put the full weight of his body to use as he crushed into the two men, collapsing them to the ground.
Red Beard fell into the snowy gravel and he let out a howl—not out of pain—but out of sheer surprise.
“Wow!” he said. “Who is that firing at us?”
No one answered his question. Clive was now sliding backwards across the ground until his back rested against the RV.
“Thanks for the hit, Ace. We owe you one. I… I just froze."
“It happens,” Ace said.
“Why would anyone shoot Nick?” he asked. “It must have been a missed shot, or something.”
Ace checked his weapon and cycled a round into the chamber. He looked around the RV and fired a round in the direction of the tree line. By this time, there was fire coming in from at least three directions: from the tree line that ran along the river, from a cluster of trees and a high ridge just across the road to the west, and from the north—from an unseen sniper near the woodpile where Stephen had stepped on the nail.
“They didn’t miss,” Ace said.
“How do you know, son?” Clive said, spitting out the words.
“Because, I do this for a living. They don’t miss their first shot. That’s the shot they had all the time in the world to make.”
“Then why would they shoot Nick?” Clive shouted.
“From the age, size, build—I’m guessing that they thought he was you,” Ace said. He pulled his pistol and fired two more rounds into the thick trees along the ridge to the west.
Clive looked over at Red Beard, who was now pressing his body tightly against the black metal of the RV’s slick sides. Red Beard’s eyes were rolled up towards the sky, as if he were praying.
“You two get inside the RV and stay low,” Ace said. “If they came here to kill you, Clive, then it’s best that they think they got you.”
Clive reached up and pulled open the door to the RV. Rising to his feet, he pulled Red Beard up and hustled the man into the vehicle. The RV was armored, and the glass was bulletproof. Then Clive cursed, because if he’d been thinking, he could have gotten everyone into the vehicle. Too late now, he thought. They’ve all scattered.
Ace fired another shot towards the ridge, and then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He knew what a good sniper could do—even in a low-light situation like this one. Then he ran, sprinting as fast as he could towards the back of the farmhouse. Shots plunked into the snow and earth around him, but they were un-aimed shots, and desperate. The fire coming from the Armored Personnel Carriers was successful at keeping the attacking force busy.
Cole and Natasha made their way to the barn. Cole didn’t know if the barn was safe or not, but he figured it had to be safer than standing out in the open. When they got inside the barn, Natasha noticed several tractors, some with front loading buckets attached to them. She got Cole’s attention and pointed to them, and both of them dove behind the large buckets for safety.
Peter was able to get Elsie and Charlie up to the porch of the house, and Veronica held the door as Peter rushed them all inside.
“Come with me!” Veronica said, as she bolted into the drawing room. She rolled up the carpet, pulled up the flooring panel, and then yanked up the door that led down to the fallout bunker.
“Ah, man!” Elsie said, with disappointment. “I’m sick and tired of being underground!” Her protest was interrupted as bullets pierced the walls and windows, and Peter—not willing to discuss it—hustled them all down into the cellar. Veronica told Peter how to pull the floor back in place, and, when everyone was clear, Peter handed down his backpack to Elsie who took it from him, and then looked up to see that he was closing the door on the cellar.
Elsie looked at Peter and at last it occurred to her that Peter was not coming down into the bunker. “Peter!” she shouted, “you get down here!” It was more a plea than a command.
“I can’t, Elsie,” Peter replied. Veronica was standing at her shoulder. Peter continued closing the door, only slower now. “My friends are fighting out there. You know I have to go.”
Veronica put her hand on Elsie’s arm, as if to indicate that it would be foolish to argue with Peter, and also to remind her that there was a hailstorm of bullets pouring in through the windows upstairs. With that, Elsie smiled at Peter in a way that told him to be safe, and he closed the door. He pulled the flooring back over the bunker door and then rolled the carpet back to its place. He made sure it obscured the entire entry to the cellar.
Then he exited the drawing room and ran out the back door of the farmhouse, a bear of a man, facing a conflict he had only just begun to understand.