Midnight Skills Read online

“You want some company?” his father asked awkwardly, as a way of extending an olive branch. He hated getting in the middle of family squabbles, and he was pleased this one seemed well on the way to being defused. He clearly supported Luke and Amy in this matter, but he felt conflicted because all the parenting books said to present a united front to the children, even if one of them was wrong.

  “No, Dad, I think we are fine. Just a quick trip, and I’m hauling that load of potatoes for the Farrells as well when I go. We’ve got hands lined up to unload when we get there.”

  Sam Messner gave his blessing for the trip and went to find another problem around the ranch to wrestle. Nothing more was said about Luke leaving, and he knew the issue was tabled for the moment. They had enough challenges without bringing family drama into the mix.

  Billy was so good at this stuff, Sam thought with a fresh pang of grief and guilt. His younger brother, not having a wife or children, seemed to be a natural born peacemaker in the family because he could claim no personal bias. Which was funny, thinking of William Messner as a peacemaker, given how the man made his fortune as a mixed martial arts champion and later, a coach.

  “I miss you, bro,” Sam whispered when he stepped out into the chill morning air and headed for the machine shed. The days seemed a bit dimmer without having Billy around, he thought.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Hey, you! Stop! Boy, I’m talking to you!”

  After the tense council meeting and an even more emotionally draining family confrontation, Luke and Scott Thompson were returning to the Sheriff’s office in Center, after a frustrating meeting with the doctor manning the local hospital. Scott was still in pain, but able to put weight on his wounded leg, and the visit this morning amounted to a wasted trip for him.

  The sole doctor still working at the hospital couldn’t talk much about the state of his burned and shrapnel-ravaged leg, and without x-rays, he couldn’t do much more for him than Beth or Dr. Kamarsky, the community’s veterinarian, had done. The multiple gashes and tears were mostly healed over, the burns painfully debrided, and he could walk with a cane, but the doctor could do little more than examine the wound sites and comment on the skill of the repair work. That’d been the work of Beth Elkins, and Luke would make sure and pass on the praise. As much as the woman insisted she wasn’t a medical doctor, just like Doctor Kamarsky maintained she wasn’t a people doctor, they were what the Messners had at hand. Good enough for Scott, who was ready to get off the ‘injured reserve’, as he liked to call it.

  All of that was going through Luke’s head when he heard the voice call out. When he paused, five feet from the front door of the Sheriff’s newly refurbished office, Luke gave Scott a little shove to the wall while he spun on his heel. Scott stumbled, but as Luke had intended, was mostly out of the line of fire.

  The three men facing Luke, all looked close enough in resemblance under their wooly beards to be brothers, or kin of some type. The oldest appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties, and all they shared the same look with long, dark hair, prominent, hawkish noses, and ears that stuck out just a bit from that unruly thatch of hair. To the best of his recollection, Luke had never seen any of them before.

  “Yes, sir?” Luke replied slowly, trying to scan the area streets around them for more men. To see if they had backup.

  All three of the men wore wide leather gun belts with their revolvers canted low, gunfighter style, but that didn’t mean their sniper couldn’t use a state-of-the-art Remington 700, or an Accuracy International AS50. Luke thought of Clarence Buchanan and his gang of slavers but decided even if the Sheriff let any of them survive, they wouldn’t be confronting him right in front of Sheriff Henderson’s lair. No, this was something else.

  “What can I do for you gentlemen today?” Luke finally asked, tired of waiting for the three men to make their move. He directed his attention to the oldest of three amigos, and he saw the man blink. What, Luke thought, he expected me to try to run, or reach for my pistol immediately?

  “Well, boy, for one thing, you can answer a question or two for us,” the presumed leader of the trio finally said. As Luke studied the man, he could see how his clothes, dirty blue jeans and a patched plaid shirt, seemed to hang loose on the already slender frame. Luke realized his nose appeared so prominent because the rest of his face was sunken from malnutrition. The day wasn’t cold, but Luke could feel a slight chill in the air, and he noticed none of the three men had any type of jacket.

  “Sure thing, mister,” Luke replied. He gave Scott a hand motion, meant to get the young man to proceed on into the office, but he shook his head subtly, and Luke knew from the way he stood, Scott had a pistol in hand, concealed for the moment by the side of his leg. Good man, Luke thought of his friend as he spared a split second to check Scott’s stance.

  “Is you the one that killed Congressman McCorkle?” the starving-looking man demanded.

  “No, sir, I did not. I take it, you were admirers of the late, unlamented legislator?” Luke answered truthfully.

  “He was a great man, betrayed by those he was trying to protect,” one of the other men, an older teen perhaps, piped up, clearly parroting something he’d heard elsewhere. “He was trying to save us from the godless Islamofascists. He was rallying the great state of Texas to defend our rights, and he was murdered.”

  “Godless Islamofascists? I’m not even going to touch that one,” Luke muttered before speaking up. “Gentlemen, I am afraid you have been misinformed. McCorkle was executed by the U.S. Army after being found guilty of treason. He had a court-martial, all fair and everything.” Luke paused, then lowered his voice conspiratorially. “You’ve heard about that massacre over in Maydelle? He ordered it. Those DHS bullyboys of his killed over twenty-five men, women and children.”

  “Why are you spreading these lies, boy? Everybody knows McCorkle hated that spineless President and his Internationalist agenda. Why would he do something like that?” This was from the third man, and despite his words, Luke was caught by the tone. He sounded like he didn’t even believe what he was saying.

  “Sir, you don’t have to believe me. The Sheriff here has a complete set of his e-mails, printed out and available for review inside. Just be warned, some of it is just plain filth, though.”

  As Luke tilted his head toward the side, gesturing to the office, he caught a deer-in-the-headlights look from all three men. They didn’t realize they were bracing me in front of Sheriff Henderson’s office, Luke thought with a touch of curiosity. The same sheriff who’d recently hung a half dozen rapists at the freshly-built gallows on Main Street.

  “How?”

  “What?”

  “E-mails?”

  The questions started to bubble, and Luke just waved a hand at the front door, suddenly bored with the drama.

  “Just go in and ask the desk sergeant to see the Archive. He’ll know what you mean. McCorkle might have talked a good game for America and Texas, but in the end, he was all about taking power. Oh, and be sure and check out the transcripts for Lieutenant Thackston. He was working with the National Guard and also murdering people for McCorkle at the same time. Nasty guy. They found a ten-year-old girl chained up in his closet.”

  The oldest of the three men seemed to deflate as Luke’s words struck him, each revelation a new hammer.

  “We heard he’d been assassinated,” he admitted, looking down and studying his boots, pointed toes scarred and heels worn down in back. “By some kid, the Administration brainwashed into doing the deed. I don’t know, now. Me and my brothers, we don’t have nothing to go back to in Zavalla. So, we came looking for justice.”

  He nearly spat the last word, but Luke said nothing while the older man stood with his shoulders slumped.

  “Nothing for you back home, you said? No other family?” Luke asked carefully.

  “Was just us there at the house, and our Momma,” the middle brother said, a hitch in his voice. “She took sick near on a month ago and wasn’t nothin
g we or the neighbors could do. No medicine, and food nearly gone, no matter how much we tried. Woods is hunted out, and fish aren’t biting.”

  A woeful tale, and one Luke had heard more times than he liked to think about. Looking the three men over one more time, he made a decision and cleared his throat.

  “Men, I know you felt like you were doing the right thing, but I’m giving it to you straight. McCorkle turned out to be a traitor, as bad as that asshole Chambers, and the Sheriff here has all the proof you need to satisfy your honest-but-misguided desire for vengeance.

  “But that doesn’t solve your other problems. If you’ll turn around, head over one street to the Millstone Restaurant, they’ve started serving meals, twice a day. Lunch should be starting in less than a half an hour. Go there, tell the lady at the front door that Luke Messner sent you, and she’ll get you men something to eat. Corn mush, most likely, and the same thing I had for breakfast and later, for lunch myself.”

  “Mister, we thank you for the offer, but we don’t cotton much to charity,” the older of the three men started, but Luke waved his hand gently.

  “Sir, I wasn’t quite done,” Luke continued, trying to muster a polite smile. “Go there and get a bite, then come back over here and ask for Sergeant Rawlson. You three look like men who can handle themselves in a scrap, and the Sergeant is looking to recruit some reserve deputies. Pay is three meals a day and bunks in the Department bunkhouse. I can’t guarantee he’ll hire you, but the chances are pretty good.”

  “Wait,” the middle of the three brothers said, holding up a hand of his own. “Messner? Like the man who outdrew Clarence Buchanan? And four of his men? I heard he was old, but really fast. That was you?”

  Luke caught the motion of the youngest, his hand darting for his holstered pistol, and the Glock was free of Luke’s holster before the young man’s barrel cleared leather. Before he could go further, the oldest brother grabbed at his youngest sibling’s arm and forced the revolver down.

  “No, for God’s sake. No!” the oldest brother cried, but before the word’s left his mouth, the confrontation was over. Scott, turning, brought the 1911 up even as Luke’s arm reached full extension. The three brothers stood frozen, but no shots punctuated the quiet morning air.

  “Mister, I don’t know why Charlie did that, but please don’t kill him,” the oldest brother asked with a shaking voice, and Luke saw the middle of the three was careful to keep his hands far away from his gun belt. Clearly, the older two brothers had no idea Charlie was planning to draw on Luke.

  “I don’t know,” Luke replied, his voice neutral. “I’ve never been one to leave business unfinished. Charlie, why’d you go for your gun?”

  “I knew Mr. Buchanan was a quickdraw expert, and if you’d killed him, you might be one, too. I was worried you might try to take care of that unfinished business, once we turned our backs.”

  “Well, he’s got a point,” Scott said, his voice as dead as Luke’s. “Luke, you do have a history of removing threats permanent-like.”

  Luke thought on that for a moment. “Yeah, I’ve never liked the idea of somebody coming back to bushwhack me. Thing is, I figured once these fellas understood they were being lied to about McCorkle, we were all square. Now, shit, what do I do?”

  “I suggest you leave that up to me,” boomed the voice behind the teenaged gunman. If he was surprised, he gave no reaction.

  “Howdy, Sheriff,” Luke called back over his shoulder. “Was just coming in to say hi when I met these newcomers. They wanted to avenge the death of the late, unlamented Representative McCorkle, but I thought I’d convinced them of the error.”

  “Yes, and I overheard the rest,” Sheriff Henderson replied drily. “Let’s just ratchet things down here a bit, shall we?”

  With that, Luke and Scott holstered their pistols and took a step to the left of the sheriff, so as not to mask his own drawn pistol.

  “You boys good?” the Sheriff asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Scott answered for the two of them. “Luke was just running me by the clinic to get my wounds checked out. We parked around back, and we can be on our way immediately.”

  At the sheriff’s nod, the two teenagers took off at an unhurried pace. Luke tried not to flinch when he heard the sheriff’s voice behind his back.

  “Just what the hell were you men thinking?! You just looking to commit suicide?! You know that young man? Luke’s a good man and fair, but I’m pretty sure he’s killed more outlaws than cancer since the lights went out.”

  Scott stifled a snicker, but Luke tried to keep the scowl off his face while he turned the corner and headed for the guarded parking lot.

  “Why the hell did he really go for his gun, Luke?” Scott asked, and his friend closed the passenger side door for him before walking around to take the driver’s seat.

  “I’m not sure, but I think it was because of Buchanan,” Luke replied, his voice tired from all the unexpected talking, plus feeling washed out after the adrenaline dump. “You’ve heard my dad say it a dozen times since the lights went out. This is like the Wild West. And in those days, gunmen developed a reputation. Often an incorrect reputation, but still, word got around. I think the dumbass was trying to make a name for himself. I killed Buchanan, and if he killed me, that might make him something.”

  “That’s screwed up.”

  “Which is why I was about to execute him and his brothers in front of the Sheriff’s office in downtown Center. To make a point.”

  “Wouldn’t do them any good,” Scott suggested, “with them being dead and all.”

  “Yeah, but it might have dissuaded the next one who had the idea.”

  “Ahh, now I get it,” Scott replied, his voice tinged with sadness at the state of the world, and nothing else was said on the drive home.

  CHAPTER 5

  Scott, for once, said nothing about the confrontation in town when the duo reached home, and then it was a mad dash to prep the vehicles and personnel for the recon mission Mike proposed. Much to his dismay, Mike found himself grounded from the mission by none other than his wife, Beth. If he was going to lead the follow-up mission to Kingwood, she wanted her man to be home for what she saw as a sideshow.

  David Metcalf stepped up with no problem, and Sam Messner approved. David was a solid leader with not only military experience, but also first-hand knowledge of how to survive in the wilds. He was taking his man, Angel, but leaving the rest of his kids behind. Luke, after telling both his little sister and the Thompson siblings they were staying behind as well, felt better about that decision. Yes, they were just going sightseeing, but David planned on rolling heavy, and Luke liked that idea.

  “Two trucks,” David explained, “with one being the five ton my people brought in and the other, one of your Surburbans repainted in a less-threatening color.”

  “Use the SUV as a scout car,” Sam Messner said, and Luke saw the heads nod around the room. This meeting was limited to Sam, David, Angel, Mike Elkins, and Luke. Well, no one had invited Amy, but Luke brought her anyway, and she was proving her usefulness within thirty seconds of the start of the meeting.

  “Bringing the five ton to haul back any cargo you might find?” Amy asked innocently.

  “Yep, that’s the idea,” David agreed.

  “Well, I was thinking, you might want to get one of those attachable forklifts, so you can haul more, but I don’t know the cargo capacity of that particular model,” Amy pointed out, then gave a little shrug. “We were using five tons and seven-ton trucks at Fort Chaffee, but I learned it could vary.”

  “Yes, that is a great idea, Amy,” David agreed, and could see the other men looking back and forth at this tidbit. “When were you working at Fort Chaffee?”

  “Oh, we did volunteer work for a week. This was before we caught the ride to Oklahoma. I volunteered to work with the logistics team there, since I was already doing that on a smaller scale at the Keller’s farm. The lady in charge there actually offered me a job to stay on, b
ut I had to leave. The girls wanted to work in the chow hall, but I convinced them that supply was a better thing to study.” Lowering her voice, Amy confided, “No offense, but that wasn’t even cooking. Just standing the line like a lunch lady.”

  “What did Luke do?” Luke’s father asked. “I’ve never asked him about that, and he’s never mentioned it.”

  “Oh, he worked with the mechanics, getting those APC things and some Bradleys up and running,” Amy said without hesitation.

  “They only had a few fixed before I left,” Luke confirmed, “but I think, if they can work out a deal between the four states, they can get more parts. I know the Colonel seemed excited.”

  “Which states, Luke?” David asked quietly.

  “Oh, well, Arkansas and Oklahoma are already trading parts, but I am hoping we can get Texas and Louisiana in on the deal as well,” Luke replied immediately.

  “Ah, Luke, no offense, but how do you know about this plan?” David asked.

  Luke glanced around the room, his face suddenly serious while he scanned the same library where he’d so recently had the blowout and possible reconciliation with his mother. Time would tell on that one.

  “Uh, I was there when Colonel Hotchkins met with Major Vanderpool from the Oklahoma National Guard. In their meeting, I mean. I know they had a plan to distribute ammunition stockpiled at McAlester Ammunition Plant, and I worked security when we hauled maybe two dozen rebuild kits from the stored parts at Fort Chafee as part of the exchange. I was also there when Lieutenant Colonel Forche arrived, with plans to take back Camp Gruber from the Homeland occupiers. Not in that meeting, though. I didn’t have a ‘need to know’, I think my dad would call it.”

  David sat back and looked around the room for a moment with a look of unconcealed surprise. “I’ve been listening in on the radio. After they lost Camp Robinson, Colonel Hotchkins is essentially running the state of Arkansas, along with a committee of civilian leaders. Lieutenant Colonel Forshe is doing the same thing in Eastern Oklahoma, while the western half of the state is currently being administered to by a Regular Army brigadier general. You got any contacts in Louisiana, Luke?”