Cover Of Night

"If I didn’t, I scared ten years off his life." Cal took the flashlight from Neenah and clicked it off, slipping it into his own pocket. "This is going to be tricky, at least the first part, because even if I got that one, the others still have some good angles on us when we start moving. We have to go that way," he said, indicating the river. "Get more houses between us and them, plus distance."

Cal was shaking with cold as he helped Creed upright, positioning himself on Creed’s left to take the weight off the wounded leg, then picking up the shotgun with his left hand. Creed would have been worried if he hadn’t seen Cal shoot left-handed before. All of his men had cross-trained, for circumstances such as this.

"He can’t walk!" Neenah said with alarm.

"Sure he can," Cal replied. "He still has one good leg. Neenah, put my wet jacket over your head. I know it’ll be uncomfortable, but it’ll block a lot of your heat signature." Not all, but maybe enough to momentarily puzzle a shooter.

"Come on, Marine," Creed said, bracing himself for what he knew was going to be a long, cold, and painful trek. "Let’s get moving

Cate and the others had made it to the Richardsons’ house without sustaining any injuries or losses, though several times the whine of bullets nearby had made them hit the dirt. Stumbling, running, falling, and immediately jumping up to run again, they were like panic-stricken refugees – which wasn’t far from the mark. They carried what they could, the blankets and coats Cate had grabbed, the first-aid box Cal had left behind. Cate carried that, despite its weight and despite how it banged against her legs. She hoped the kit didn’t make the difference between life and death for someone, but was painfully aware that it might, and she didn’t dare leave it behind.

The Richardsons’ house was built on land that sloped down toward the river and, as a result, was the only house in Trail Stop that had a full basement. Some of the older houses had pits dug beneath them for storing vegetables, but the root cellars didn’t qualify as basements and, if push came to shove, would hold a handful of people but not the twenty or so who made their way to the Richardsons’. The house loomed before them in the night, all pale walls and dark windows.

"Perry!" Walter called as loudly as he could as they approached the house. "It’s Walter! Are you and Maureen all right?"

"Walter?" The voice came from the back of the house, and they turned in that direction. A flashlight shone across the rough ground, danced briefly across their faces as if Perry wanted to reassure himself of their identities. "We’re in the basement. What in thundering hell is going on? Who’s doing all that shooting, and why is the electricity off? I tried to call the sheriff’s department, but the phone’s dead, too."

The lines must be cut, Cate realized, shivering with horror as she realized the lengths to which Mellor and Huxley had gone in their quest for vengeance. This all seemed so unreal, so out of proportion to the provocation; those men couldn’t be sane.

"Come on in with us," Perry said, indicating the way with his flashlight. "Get in out of the cold. I lit the kerosene heater; it’s taking the chill off the air."

Gratefully the group stumbled forward, crowding through the basement’s outside door. Like most basements, this one was filled with a jumbled assortment of cast-off furniture, clothing, and outright junk. The smell was musty; the floor was bare concrete. But the kerosene heater was putting off wonderful heat, and the Richardsons also had an oil lamp lit. The yellow light was dim and threw enormous shadows into the corners, but after the cold darkness the light seemed miraculous. Maureen hurried forward, a short, plump, gray hen of a woman, clucking in sympathy.

"My goodness, what do you make of this?" she asked of no one in particular. "I have some candles upstairs, and another lamp. I’ll get those and some more blankets – "

"I’ll do it," her husband interrupted. "You stay down here and help them get settled. Do you know where that old coffee kettle is? Might take some time, but we can make coffee on top of the kerosene heater."

"It’s under the sink. Wash it out good – no, wait, we don’t have water. We can’t make coffee. Like everyone else in Trail Stop, the Richardsons had a well, and an electric motor pumped the water from it. No electricity, no pump. Walter Karl had a generator that he used when the electricity went off. and then he generously allowed his neighbors to get water from his well; but his house was on the side that was closest to the shooters and going there now for water was too dangerous.

Pern Richardson wasn’t stymied for long. "We have a bucket," he stated, "and there’s some rope around here somewhere. I reckon I still know how to draw water. If someone wants to help me. we’ll have that coffee going in no time."

He and Walter went off to accomplish that chore, and Maureen promptly took a flashlight and disappeared up the stairs. Cate hesitated a bare moment, then followed.

"I’ll help you carry things, Mrs. Richardson," she said as she got to the top of the stairs and stepped into the kitchen.

"Why, thank you, and call me Maureen. What is going on? What was that loud noise? It shook the whole house." She set the flashlight on a cabinet, balancing it on end so it was shining at the ceiling and illuminating the whole room, then got an empty laundry basket from a room off the kitchen.

"Some kind of explosion. I don’t know what they blew up.

" ‘They’? You know who’s doing this?" Maureen asked sharply as she bustled around the kitchen gathering supplies and putting them in the laundry basket.

"I think it’s those two men who pulled guns on Neenah and me last Wednesday. You heard about that, didn’t you?" Belatedly