Defiance (The Defending Home Series Book 1) (2 page)

The new sheriff’s eyes traced over to the Mexican fella lying dead at Dale’s feet. “I could haul you in for murder, Dale, you know I could. If I wanted to. A jury would probably let you off, but who’s gonna put twelve men and women together at a time like this?”

Behind them came a squeal of fear as Brooke came upon the body. Colton pulled her in close.

Dale and Randy stood glaring at one another, the red and blue lights from the patrol car washing over them. For a moment, the only sound was the windmill over by the pumphouse and Duke’s barking from inside the house.

“With the local grid down for the foreseeable future,” Randy said, still scratching at Joe’s name on his chest, “that aquifer of yours is one of the few in the area still producing any water. I don’t need to remind you Arizona in June isn’t a pleasant place, especially when the heat climbs past a hundred, like it did today.”

“What are you getting at?” Colton blurted out, his arm still curled around a disturbed-looking Brooke.

Dale threw a sharp look over his shoulder. He didn’t want Colton’s hot-headedness giving Randy an excuse to do something dumb.

“I’m saying expect these attacks on your property to get worse. Might be wise to pack up and leave with your lives while you still can.”

“I thought you knew me better than that, Randy,” Dale said.

Randy cocked an eyebrow. “How’s that?”

“I don’t scare that easy and I won’t be run off my land by a bunch of thugs and criminals. This plot’s been in my family for over a hundred years and I don’t intend that to change.”

“Then just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

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S
heriff Randy Gaines spent the next few minutes photographing the dead before he headed back to his patrol car. His final instructions to Dale were to find a place and bury the bodies. The local morgue had been bursting at the seams for more than three weeks now after the county coroner himself had taken ill and died. Since then, the building had largely been abandoned with dozens, maybe even hundreds, of corpses piled haphazardly in corridors, offices and lunchrooms. After they were done speaking, Randy went back to his cruiser and pulled out of the long driveway, the sound of crushed gravel under his tires.

While these men weren’t the first group of criminals who had tried stealing from Dale, they were the first ones who had ended up dead. He’d shot at others, mind you, but they’d all fled into the dead of night, making it impossible to know whether or not he’d hit anyone.

There was a strange quality that came after you’d killed a man, Dale was beginning to discover, even one who’d deserved it. Once the adrenaline worked its way out of your system, you were left knowing you’d stepped over some invisible threshold. His pastor made no bones about it being a sin to take another man’s life, but Dale knew it was a bigger sin to let another man take yours. There was more than enough worth stealing from his property and someone desperate enough wouldn’t hesitate to do harm to anyone who stood between them and what they’d set out to take. No man should relish the death of another, nor take any pleasure in committing the act himself, but even Randy Gaines had to admit there was no harm and no foul when people came onto your land uninvited and with evil intentions.

As they prepared to suit up and dispose of the bodies, Dale couldn’t help recalling the sight of Randy wearing Joe’s old uniform. The Gaines family owned a body shop and crushing yard sprawled out on thirty acres of land. As local business owners they were known for two things: one was for being the only place in town you could get your car fixed and the second was for charging accordingly. But paying for work that needed to be done was one thing. It was another entirely when you preyed off folks’ ignorance by fleecing them for swapped-out parts that worked perfectly fine. That was where Dale and the Gaines brothers had felt their first incident of friction.

Now, dressed in disposable hospital gowns, latex gloves, glasses and face masks, Dale and Colton collected the weapons and then dragged the dead men into a hole they’d dug, dropping them inside. Brooke followed close behind, tossing in a shoe which had come off one of their feet, along with the cowboy hat. They were shoveling the dusty dirt back in the hole when Brooke bowed her head. Dale caught sight of her silent prayer, hesitated before stopping to do the same.

After they were done, Colton pounded the pile of loose earth with the flat end of his shovel.

“What now?” he asked, hints of morning light beginning to chase away the darkness.

“We burn this stuff,” Dale said, carefully removing the gown, gloves and then the mask and dropping them into the burn barrel. The others did the same before lighting it up.

The pig flu, as some called it, had swept into Encendido with the speed of the Four Horsemen, causing most of its damage within the first two weeks. Dale watched the flames rise and quickly begin to taper, thinking about how the virus too had burned itself out of fuel before disappearing. But while the threat of infection was largely gone, Dale knew a new threat had moved in to fill the vacuum left in its place. The danger of men and women desperate with hunger and, above all, thirst. He’d read somewhere that under normal conditions, the human body could last three weeks without food, but only three days without water.

By no means was Dale a conscious prepper. Not that he disagreed with the notion of preparing for disasters—an inevitable fact of life. His largely self-sufficient lifestyle on the outskirts of a small Arizona border town had been more a product of upbringing, knowhow passed down through generations of resilient Hardy men and women. It was his great-great grandfather Samuel Hardy who had staked out this land in 1900, twelve years before the Arizona Territory would eventually become part of the Union—the last continental state to be added.

His ancestors had opted for a quiet life, never knowing that one day an interstate would be built not far from here, bringing with it a town and over ten thousand souls. But that amount wasn’t quite right, not since the flu had culled those numbers to somewhere just over three thousand.

Nobody knew for sure where the virus had come from. The internet and news reporters were full of ideas, some more wild than others. But in the end, Dale didn’t see how it made any difference whether it had started in China, the Middle East or right here at home. Attributing blame was about as useless an act as getting upset with a friend for giving you a cold. Most of the time, folks didn’t have a clue where they’d caught the flu, since it took twenty-four hours before symptoms were visible. Within forty-eight, most folks were dead. Like the Spanish Flu of 1918, it liked to target the young and the healthy, which was why the country’s—probably the world’s—infrastructure had been so severely devastated. To think how those glib pundits on TV had cheered that the mortality rate was less than they’d expected, by most estimates close to seventy-five percent. And yet their optimism had failed to take into account that even the comparably meager losses from its sister virus H1N1 had still managed to wreak havoc in some areas.

The reason was simple enough. We lived in a society of compartmentalized knowledge. Folks only knew as much as they needed to in order to get by. Which was why a guy like Randy Gaines could get away with fleecing car owners out of their hard-earned cash and also why a week and a half into the crisis, the power had gone out and never come back on. It was barely a week after that Dale’s sister Lori had died.

•••

T
hey were heading back inside when Duke started barking and tore off toward the road. He was going after a man who was walking up the long driveway. Dale shouted, ordering the dog to return.

“What now?” Brooke wondered, concerned.

Shotgun in hand and mask back over his face, Dale went out to meet him, the others not far behind, also taking similar precautions. As they drew closer, Dale studied the man’s face. He didn’t recognize him.

“You’re on private property,” Dale said, not bothering with pleasantries.

“I’m not looking for trouble,” the stranger said. “I heard you give water to folks in need.”

The man’s clothes were ragged and he smelled like he’d been sleeping in the back end of a garbage truck. The flesh on his face was paper thin. He was suffering from dehydration. But more importantly, there were red rings around his eyes, a sign that he’d been infected and lived.

He began to reach into his pocket when Dale raised the barrel of the shotgun. “Keep your hands out of your pockets.”

The man removed his hand slowly, his fingers pinching the end of a dog biscuit. “My Roxy passed away three days ago and I had some of her treats left. Thought your dog might like a snack.” He extended his arms toward Duke, who barked at the motion, but otherwise, Duke didn’t budge.

“He won’t take food from strangers,” Dale informed him. “Not unless I tell him it’s all right. As for the water you came to get, I don’t know what you might have heard, but I’m afraid you got your facts wrong, friend. If we were FEMA there’d be a big ol’ sign across the front of the house.”

The man’s hand with the biscuit disappeared back into his pocket.

Brooke cleared her throat. “I may have given out some water here and there.” She glanced up at Dale with a guilty look.

Her father sighed. Not because his Brooke had a kind heart, but because her good intentions were putting them in danger. Now Dale was forced to deal with a man who would die and probably soon if he wasn’t given something to drink. Dale had killed three men who’d deserved it. He wasn’t anxious to add another who didn’t.

Dale turned and started walking away, the ever-obedient Duke in tow. Then he stopped and planted his feet, fighting the anger surging up from within. “We’ll get you something to drink, but on two conditions.”

“Anything,” the man said. “My name’s Jason, by the way.”

“Don’t tell me your name, just focus on what I’m about to tell you. Once you’ve had your drink you’re going to turn around and walk away. If I see you back again the only warning you’ll hear is the sound of the bullet about to kill you.”

Jason swallowed hard.

“You’re also going to tell everyone you know that if they show up here, they better be ready to die. You want more handouts? You wait for FEMA and the army to show up, but you leave us in peace.”

Dale realized later, long after the man had guzzled what they’d given him and left, that he’d meant what he said. He would also have a talk with Brooke to remind her that if she’d had any lingering doubts about what desperate folks were capable of, the bodies they’d just finished burying out back should put an end to that. No doubt she would ask him whether help was really coming, whether he’d meant what he said about FEMA and the army. And he would probably tell her yes, as he’d done many times before. But the truth was they were on their own, battling for survival in a hostile environment filled with people who wanted them dead, even if they didn’t know it yet.

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“I
need to borrow the truck,” Colton said to Dale once the man in tattered clothing had left.

“What for?”

“After my mom got sick and passed away”—he paused, his eyes turning glassy as he struggled to fight back the tears—“I wasn’t able to get all my things.”

“There’s nothing there you need,” Dale said dismissively. “Nothing that’s worth dying for anyway.”

“You said once I got settled in, I could go back and get whatever I needed. I’ve been here over a week now.” Colton was at least Dale’s size with the toned muscles of a young man, but with none of the sense that came with age.

They headed into the kitchen. Like much of the house, it was open with large rooms. Along the kitchen counter were a set of stools. The long living room made the space feel larger than it was. “You’re worried your old house is gonna get broken into?” Dale said. “Is that it?”

“If it hasn’t been already,” Colton replied. Red patches were forming on his cheeks, the way they did whenever he grew upset. “You said we only had room for whatever food and supplies were left and that the rest could wait.”

It was true, Dale remembered saying that. “Listen, Colton, after last night, it may not be safe in town, not anymore.”

“Then come with me,” Colton said. “We won’t be long and besides, you can check on Shane and Nicole.”

He was talking about Dale’s brother and his wife, who’d opted to bug out to his bungalow on the edge of town and wait for the feds to show up and relieve them. Dale thought the idea of waiting for anyone to come and save you was a dangerous one, but he’d spent many years bossing his younger brother around, as siblings tended to, and knew that nothing he said would shake his brother’s staunch conviction.

As soon as reports of the virus began to surface, Shane had started gathering food, stockpiling whatever supplies he could. His brother was confident he could hold out for a month or two if need be and that Dale, Brooke and Colton were welcome to join them if they found themselves in a jam. Dale appreciated the offer, even if his younger brother had made it with a bit of chest-puffing.

Eyeing the serious look on Colton’s face, Dale relented. “Okay, twenty minutes tops.” He looked at Brooke as she walked into the room. His daughter knew her way around firearms and he was more than confident she could take care of herself, especially if Duke was there to help protect her.

“Take the Ruger SR45 out of my night table. Colton and I won’t be long.”

She nodded, reluctantly.

“If anyone approaches the house you don’t recognize, fire a warning shot. If they don’t leave, then they don’t mean any good.”

He then handed Colton the pistol they’d taken from the dead thief. “You keep this on safe until I tell you otherwise.”

Colton nodded.

Before they headed for the truck, Dale stopped to ruffle the dark brown and beige fur on Duke’s head. “You protect my little girl while we’re away, got it?”

Duke tilted his head.

•••

D
ale and Colton made the short trip into town in Dale’s Chevy pickup, bringing the shotgun along with a handful of spare shells just in case. Neither of them had been into town since the death of Colton’s mother, Lori, a week and a half ago, and Dale wasn’t sure how safe the area would be.