Firestorm: Book III of the Wildfire Saga (42 page)

Anse chambered a round in his rifle and slammed the bolt home.
 
He walked over to the closest window and punched it out with the tip of his barrel.
 
"Let's get this party started.
 
You take one step near my cabin with them torches and it'll be the last one you ever take!"

"Anse!
 
You ain't the one that makes the rules here!
 
In case you forgot, you're surrounded!"

"Fuck you!" somebody shouted from another window.

"Hey, he's coming closer!" the lookout on the east wall warned.

"Take 'em down!" shouted Anse.
 
He pulled the trigger and his rifle echoed like thunder inside the room.
 
Two more shots fired out in quick succession from the other window.
 
Denny pushed his way to Anse's window and spotted the sputtering torch as it died in the snow.

"
God dammit, Anse!
" shouted Townsen.

"
It's on, boys!
" someone shouted in the distance.

Denny dropped to the floor.
 
"Get down!"
 
The battle erupted in a deafening roar and crackle of gunfire that surrounded the little wooden structure.
 
Two men near the east window screamed and fell over in a spray of blood.
 
Bullets disintegrated both windows and curtains.
 
Plates and dishes, utensils, kitchenware pots and pans hanging on the wall—all tumbled to the floor and shattered in a spray of wood.
 
Men screamed and after a few seconds it stopped, the last echo of gunfire rolling through the hills.

"Now!
 
Shoot back!" Anse shouted.
 
The men closest to the windows stood and fired into the woods.
 

Denny barely heard the screams of the injured and dying over the gunfire.
 
He gripped the pistol in his hand with white knuckles and tried to crawl as close as he could to a wall.
 
The sound of rounds impacting the outside of the cabin reminded him of a heavy rainstorm.
 
He touched one log and felt it vibrate.
 
Anse was right—so far the small arms fire outside couldn't penetrate the thick logs.

As he stared at the trembling wood, a small hole appeared in the mud caulking between the two logs, not six inches from his hand.
 
Behind him one of the men screamed and fell to the floor, clutching his calf.

Not as safe as I thought…

The men inside hunkered down against the walls and shouted when they were low on ammunition.
 
Soon enough, a fire chain of sorts formed, and they passed spare bags of hunting rounds back and forth.
 
Denny was amazed at how quickly the ragtag group of hunters coalesced into a unified fighting force.
 
Those armed with semiautomatic AR-15s, moved into front positions and fired quick shots into the attackers while those with slower bolt-action rifles jumped up and fired at will.

Denny had an idea.
 
Only a few had AR's—most of those in the cabin sported bolt actions.
 
"You've got to set up in teams!" Denny shouted over the din.
 
A few of the heads in the room turned toward him and nodded.
 
"Shoot then duck—never stay still long enough to be a target," Denny said, moving quickly along the walls.
 
"When one of you ducks, the other stands and shoots from a different angle."

He ran from group to group, urging them to organize.
 
"Keep up a continuous fire—don't give them a chance to rest, but make sure you aim!
 

"Make every shot count!" added Anse.
 

Denny moved on to the other window and slapped the AR-toting hunter on the shoulder.
 
She fired four quick shots then ducked.
 
The man next to her stood under Denny's direction and put his hunting rifle through the window.
 
He fired once, then spun out of the way to be replaced by a third man.
 

"Good!
 
Keep it up!"
 
Denny shouted.
 
The defenders looked scared, but determined and more confident now that they were organized.

"Remember to aim!" Anse shouted.

Denny had to see what was going on outside.
 
He felt trapped.
 
The press of bodies against the walls kept him from being able to see through the ragged windows.
 
The ever present threat of bullets coming through the chinking between the logs was real.
 
Six men had already gone down squirming on the blood-slick floor.
 
Those who could helped reload and hand rifles to the shooters.

"I'm running low," called out one of the men with an AR.
 
"I didn't think I was going to need a lot of ammo!" he explained.

"Me too," replied Mary Winselm from under her window.
 
"I don't know how much longer I can keep this up."

Denny looked in the far corner.
 
Two bodies lay slumped over.
 
He looked back to Mary.
 
We're down to 16, including me.

He had to
do
something—he couldn't just stand around and wait to take a lucky hit.
 
He glanced up at the rafters.
 
It was an open ceiling—Anse used the beams across the ceiling to hold extra planks of wood and store fishing poles and supplies.

Denny tucked his pistol into his belt and ran to the washbasin, a steel tub attached to the wall near the front door.
 
Dented from multiple bullet strikes, the big steel tub still looked serviceable.
 
The mirror on the wall above it had fallen into the basin and shattered.
 
Denny found a shard as large as his hand and tucked it inside his coat, then jumped up to the closest rafter and pulled himself up.
 

The men around him ignored him as they continued to pour fire out into the attackers.
 
A woman's scream abruptly cut off as a body hit the floor where Denny had just been standing.
 
He didn't focus on the surrounding chaos—he threw his legs up and around the rafter and pulled himself vertical.
 

Once above the rafters, he looked down at the grisly scene below.
 
A pool of blood spread underneath Freddie Mell's head.
 
The man who'd lost his family to Townsen now went to join them in the afterlife.
 
A man next to Freddie picked up his discarded rifle and fired out the window.
 

Mary Winselm knelt by her husband, pressing red bandages to his chest.
 
He clutched feebly at her face as she leaned over him.

Denny turned away from the scene below him and faced the roof.
 
He didn't hear anything outside over the noise of the men firing below.
 
He crawled up toward the peak of the roof and examined the wood there.
 
A spot of mold stained the peak black, and the wood gave when Denny pushed his fingers into it.
 

He pushed his fist into the underside of the roof and the plywood sheathing gave way into wet chunks that fell to the floor beneath him.
 
His fingers touched tar paper and after a few moments of pushing and prying, Denny created a rough hole in the roof.
 
He pulled the bits of shingles down through the hole so as not to attract any attention from Townsen's group outside.
 

The gunfire continued unabated below.
 
More men screamed in pain and death.
 
Denny risked a glanced down—between his feet, he saw the body pile in the corner was now up to five.
 

Five men dead, a dozen wounded.
 
I must hurry.
 
He pulled out the mirror shard with his left hand and stuck it up through the hole up at the peak of the roof.
 
He angled it down and spotted the reflected muzzle flash of men firing into the cabin.
 

He noticed a flashlight in the distance and watched a person moving through the woods tending the wounded.
 
When the light panned over the ground to the east, Denny counted seven bodies in the snow—three writhing around.
 
He turned the mirror to face north and saw more of the same.
 
Every direction he turned the mirror, he spotted at least one body in the snow.
 

The amount of gunfire pouring into the structure abated just a bit.
 
Denny pulled his hand back in before he could be seen.
 
He looked down into the cabin.
 
Three more men had been added to the pile.
 
Eight residents invited to his meeting were now dead.
 
He glanced around the room.
 
Only five men were still firing.
 
Both deputies, Anse and two others.
 
The rest were dead or wounded and doing their best to reload weapons.

"Keep it up!
 
There's only a few of them left out there!"
 
Denny shouted.
 
Anse looked up from the window and saw Denny in the rafter with the mirror.
 
He nodded briefly and fired another round.
 
Deputy Griswold took his place and fired next.

"Unfortunately, there's only a few of us left in here!" Anse said as he chambered another round into his rifle.

Griswold grunted as other deputy fell against him and dropped to the floor.
 
"No!" he called out.
 
"Hang on," he said, dropping down to help his fellow officer.

Denny stuck his hand back up through the roof and saw the orange glow of a torch coming through the woods from the north.

"Somebody's got a torch—out the north window!" he called out.

Through a bizarre happenstance, the fighting came to a lull as both sides reloaded and recovered dead and wounded.
 
In that span of relative silence, Anse called out "Got 'im!", his face pressed to the scope on his .308.
 
He pulled the trigger, and the rifle thundered.
 

Denny watched as the shadowy figure carrying the torch tumbled to the snow and the torch spun off to the left.
 
It hit the snow and fizzled, extinguished.

"Nice shot!" Denny called out.

"NOOO!"
rang out in the distance.

Both sides stopped shooting to listen.
 
Anguished screams of grief echoed through the woods.
 

That's Townsen…

Denny squinted at the mirror shard in his hand, squeezing too hard.
 
He ignored the warm trickle of blood drip down his left arm.
 
He picked out three shapes rushing to the man who'd been shot carrying the torch.
 
Someone shined a flashlight on the body.

"Oh, my God…" Denny muttered.

"What is it?" called out Anse.

Denny stared at the image in the palm of his hand and closed his eyes.
 
A child lay face down in the snow.
 
Jeb was just a teenager—not even a man, killed by his own gym teacher.

I can't do this…

"They're falling back!" called out a man from the east window.
 
"I can see them running through the trees!
 
There's only a few of 'em left…"

In less than twenty minutes it was over.
 
The men inside the cabin heard car doors slam and engines start.
 
No one moved until the sound of the last truck's engine disappeared into the distance and silence descended on the world outside.

"I don't see anyone," Denny said swiveling the mirror around.
 
"No movement, but there's a lot of bodies out there.
 
It could be a trick…"

"Why'd they leave?" someone whispered.

Deputy Griswold leaned against the wall, clutching his shoulder with a bloodied towel.
 
Denny dropped the mirror and lowered himself to the ground.
 
He ignored the pain in his hand and raced over to Griswold.
 

"Just relax, I'll find some supplies and get you patched up."

"Gimme covering fire—I'll check it out," said Anse.
 
Volunteers hobbled to the windows and took up positions.
 
Anse looked at Denny.

"Go—I'll see to the wounded," Denny said as he picked up a first aid kit from the floor.

Anse nodded and left, shutting the door behind him.
 
Denny focused on patching up Griswold's wound as best he could, cleansing it with bottled water and applying liberal amounts of hydrogen peroxide before wrapping the shoulder with gauze and tape.
 
It was the best he could do until they could find a doctor.

Townsen controlled the town which meant he controlled everything in the town—including the pharmacy and Dr. Granger's office.
 
He sat back on his heels, satisfied Griswold wouldn't bleed out and wiped the blood from his hands.
 
Glancing around the room, his eyes came to rest on the pile of bodies in the corner.
 
Wounded men stretched out on the floor, begging for water and help.
 
Denny wondered how many of those would be added to the pile in the next few days as infection set in.
 
The town had been without power and cut off from the outside world for over a month—he had little faith any remaining medical staff would have antibiotics.
 
He looked at his bleeding hand.
 

A scratch might be just as lethal as a bullet any more…