Holding Their Own: The Salt War (26 page)

Grim and Kevin were above it all, observing the town square from the third story window of what had once been a furniture store in the center of town. “Holy Mother of God,” Grim cursed when the shots rang out, the entire scene unfolding less than a 100 yards away.

The two Alliance men stayed low and back, shocked at how quickly things spiraled out of control.

In a matter of seconds, the security-teamsters were squaring off against the town’s deputies. Pistol shots filled the air as the two sides rushed for cover. Grim could see the occasional head pop up, followed by one or two hastily fired rounds.

Throughout it all, Victor and the doctor laid prone on the stage, both men still handcuffed and unable to bolt for freedom.

“Both of the town’s honchos are dead, and it looks like a civil war is taking shape right before our eyes,” Grim observed, watching the half-assed firefight between the divided security forces. “That’s not what we were supposed to accomplish on this mission. Nick is going to be pissed to high heaven.”

“No kidding. The two guys who are on our side are going to get hit eventually. I see more and more men joining both sides of the fight.”

It occurred to Grim that they might still be able to salvage the situation, but it would take well-known local figures to calm things down. “Let’s go pull those guys off the stage and save their bacon. Maybe they can help us reestablish order.”

Kevin looked at his superior as if Grim was insane. “Seriously? You want to go into that square and get our butts shot off?”

Grim smirked at the kid’s reaction, “What’s the big deal? It just a bunch of scared shitless cowboys plinking at each other. Hell, I’ve not seen a single man get hit yet.”

Shaking his head, Kevin said, “You’re in charge, sir. Lead the way.”

They climbed down the rickety old fire escape, more confident in the descent since the rusty metal had supported their earlier climb. Grim hit the ground first, moving to the corner to cover his partner.

Sensing Kevin at his back, the former contractor hustled across the street, zigzagging to throw off anyone thinking of sending lead his way. Once Grim was safe on the opposite side, Kevin zipped around the corner, and then the two men headed for the square, their weapons high and ready, sweeping both sides of the street.

When they approached the next corner, Grim shouted, “Cover me from that park bench,” and then sprinted onto the courthouse grass. Kevin was on a knee, using the thick wooden backrest as both support for his rifle and as a barrier against incoming fire.

When Grim was 20 yards away from the stage, he flipped his carbine around to his back. Rather than mount the steps to the platform, he leaped aboard head first, using Stan’s body as cover.

After waiting a moment to see if his movement drew any fire, Grim rolled over to the chief’s prone body, finding the handcuff key where all cops kept it. He belly crawled toward Victor and the doc.

One of the Stan’s security men noticed the movement, yelling, “Who’s that on the stage?” to his friends.

Someone answered, “They’re trying to flank us,” and just like that, several pistols began firing rounds in Grim’s direction.

Kevin saw it, sensing the change in sound and the brightness of the muzzle flashes. The outline of a shooter was in his crosshairs a moment later, the roar of his rifle echoing off of the surrounding buildings. He didn’t miss.

Both the cops and truckers realized the game had changed. An eerie quiet filled the square – the only sound coming from the platform when Grim grunted to lift Victor into a fireman’s carry. The doctor was able to walk on his own.

Kevin noticed another fellow rising from the cover of a parked car, his pistol arching in Grim’s direction. Again, the .308’s thunder cracked through the air, a cloud of red mist replacing the shooter’s head.

Burdened by the slow moving physician and the unresponsive Victor on his shoulder, Grim felt like he was watching a movie in slow motion. He heard, rather than saw, Kevin’s high-powered rounds doing their work. But in the mayhem, there were still rounds zipping past his head.

Spinning to give the doctor a head start, Grim fired several wild shots one-handed from the hip. He didn’t expect to hit anything with the poor technique, hoping only to force his enemy’s head down.  

A few seconds later, Grim dashed past Kevin, shouting out the instructions, “Cover me!” as Victor’s body bounced on his shoulder.

It took Stan’s thugs a few moments to realize that their game was up if Victor and the doc survived. Mere seconds after that, one of the faster thinking of their ranks began issuing commands and organizing their force.

More men were arriving all the time, drawn by the sound of gunfire and screaming. Kevin, trying to give Grim and Dr. Hines a reasonable head start, noted more and more long guns were amongst the forces now assembling on both sides.

The deputies and ex-lawmen were vastly outgunned, and they knew it. Stan’s truckers had numbered in the thousands, the able-bodied men in the hundreds. The majority had been drafted into the security force.

With their chief dead, an inferior sized force, and no clear leadership emerging, the lawmen seemed content to barricade themselves in one corner of the square and wait it out.

Stan’s security heavies, on the other hand, started moving toward Kevin’s bench.

When the kid fired the next shot, he hoped seeing one of their own fall would give the approaching shooters reason to reconsider. Firing into the teamsters had the opposite effect.

Rifles began pounding lead in Kevin’s direction, splinters and dirt filling the air. He dove, rolled, and crawled across the street.

Grim appeared at that moment, unburdened by Victor’s body, and dashing like a demon. In a flash, he was between the scuttling kid and the oncoming attackers. Like a drummer pounding out a cadence, Grim’s finger began squeezing the trigger.

At a rate of two to three shots per second, the battle-hardened man’s fire tore into the approaching skirmish line, shot after shot finding flesh, sinew, and bone.

Spewing 28 rounds in less than two breaths, Grim’s empty magazine was rattling across the pavement, a new one inserted faster than the eye could follow. Another volley of high velocity death then followed.

So accurate was Grim’s barrage, the gaggle of security men scattered, many of them running in retreat. More than a handful of moaning, withering bodies littered the sidewalks, another number unable to move at all.

And then like a ghost, the figure that had sprayed death into their ranks was gone, the swish of his shadow disappearing around the corner.

It took a moment for the terror and fear to morph into anger. As more and more reinforcements arrived, the security force began to regroup.

Grim, Kevin and the two locals didn’t have much of a head start, but they would take what they could get. Pushing aside his frustration at how slowly they were moving, Grim said, “The only thing I know to do is get the fuck out of here.”

They continued running, using a dark side street and trying to make their way north. At the next crossing, Grim announced, “We’re way outnumbered, and it’s going to take the friendly locals a while to get organized. We have to get our two friends to safety, and that means out of this town.”

For such a small berg, it seemed to the Alliance men like it was taking forever to reach the edge of Cartersville. Both Grim and Kevin knew they’d feel better once they reached a more rural environment.

Finally, three blocks ahead, Grim spied the same roadblock where he’d met Cory just the night before. “Now we’re cooking with gas,” he yelled between breaths. “Let’s get out of Dodge.”

Rather than respond, Kevin pulled up short and then dove for cover.

Several rifles opened up from the barricade, incoming rounds throwing sparks and chips of pavement into the air. Grim leapt as well, Victor’s limp body hitting the ground hard. “Sorry about that, bud,” he whispered as his rifle came up.

Just as Grim had centered the first man in his sights, more rounds began impacting around his position – these coming from behind.

Grim spun, catching a glimpse of several outlines moving up the street behind them. “Fuck, Kevin! We’re cut off! I got the rear; keep those assholes at the barricade off of us!”

Their position wasn’t ideal, tactically or strategically. With only two abandoned cars and a single utility pole for cover, Grim could think of a hundred other places he’d prefer as a Fort Apache.

Nor was maneuver an option, the nearest cross street now held by the enemy, oblong one-story buildings flanking both sides of the lane. There literally wasn’t any place to go.

Grim scanned both high and low between shots. There weren’t any manhole covers to open for escape, no trees to climb. He seriously doubted any angels or helicopters were going to swoop down and save them.

More and more rounds shredded the cars and earth around them, an increasing symphony of pings, thwacks, and zings signaling their opponents were growing stronger by the second.

The air became harsh, difficult to breathe, polluted with a fog of cordite gun smoke, fragments of bullet-cut concrete, and snowflakes of lead-shaved metal. It burned the throats of the Alliance fighters, stung their eyes and denied their lungs.

Neither impending death nor fear burdened Grim’s mind. He was in his element, a state where all of his senses worked in harmony to derive an advantage, any advantage, to win the fight. The ricocheting scream of a near miss invoked a mechanical string of computations and commands, his carbine’s barrel adjusting to address the threat. The sharp stab of ear-pain from a heavy bullet just missing his head automatically adjusted his targeting priority.

Marathon runners often claimed to reach a state of mental euphoria called a “runner’s high.” Grim was now in a place his comrades called a “gunner’s high.”

But his internal, business-like calm of combat was about to be shattered.

“I’m down to 40,” announced Kevin’s frightened voice, informing Grim he was going to run out of ammo soon.

“Make ’em count, kid. Hurt ’em bad,” was the only thing he could think of to say.

Nick is going to skin my dead carcass for getting his boy killed
, Grim thought.
I’m sorry, my friend. I did my best. He went out fighting as well as any man I’ve ever served with.

Despite the deadly accurate return fire, the men at both ends of the trap were growing impatient. Grim saw them bunching up, ready to execute a multi-pronged assault.

“Here they come, right and left,” he yelled to Kevin. “I’ve got the left side.”

A blizzard of debris, glass, concrete, metal shavings, and hot lead filled the air around the two Alliance defenders. Despite every natural instinct to duck and stay low, Grim and Kevin rose and began returning as much hell as they could dish out.

It worked, the enemy’s charge faltering after three men in front dropped down, tripping others behind them. “Amateurs. You fucked up,” Grim whispered. “You were bunched too tightly.”

He also knew they wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“I’m out,” sounded Kevin’s excited voice.

Grim drew his sidearm, throwing the pistol across to his partner and then following the toss with his only spare magazine. “You’ve got 15 rounds. Make ’em count.”

Checking his own ammo supply, Grim frowned. He was down to three magazines, each holding 28 rounds. His hand felt for the knife on his belt, but the hilt didn’t generate much comfort.

The operator knew instinctively the opponents were regrouping for another charge. Without Kevin’s rifle covering the other side of the street, he figured the kid and he would be overrun in the next 30 seconds, maybe less.

And here they came.

With better spacing than the previous attempt and moving at a faster pace, they surged with twenty men on each side of the road. It was a mad rush at Grim and Kevin’s position. Again, a wall of bullets tore into the Alliance defenders’ cover.

Grim took his time, making sure every one of his precious bullets dropped a man. But the aggressors were too close and too numerous. Again and again, he dropped one of the charging outlines, but they kept coming.

When the combatants managed a position within 50 yards, Kevin started firing with his pistol. Grim wasn’t sure how accurate the kid could be at that range, but at least he would distract some of the blistering, incoming fire.

Grim noticed one, and then another man on Kevin’s side of the street fall. Then a third went down, immediately followed by a fourth.
Damn
, he thought,
I knew the kid was hell on wheels with a long gun, but that is some serious combat shooting with a pistol.

Returning to the cluster of attackers on his side of the road, Grim was amazed to see two of them fall as well. “What the hell?” he muttered, emptying another magazine.

Again, the assault stalled, confused men peering all around them as it trying to determine where the death was coming from.

A huge shadow appeared out of nowhere, bright muzzle flashes illuminating a new presence on the battlefield. Accurate, debilitating, fire began pounding into the flank of the clustered attackers. Down they went, one after another. Grim laughed, raising his newly-reloaded carbine to add to the carnage. “We just found your dad,” he shouted over to a wide-eyed Kevin. “Looks like Cory is with him as well.”