Battle for the Wastelands Read online

  John shook his head. “If we find them in time. And we don’t know where they are, if they will help us, or if they can help us.” Andrew gulped. “So here’s the plan. We split up. I’ll command the gap between the hills, while Clarence Jones will hold the hill to my right. Jack Welborn will hold the hill on my left. James will command the arroyo. When I’m through, we’ll divide you up. Any questions?”

  Andrew couldn’t think of any, but a young man with curly brown hair and bright blue eyes raised his hand. It was tall and skinny Elijah Welborn, Jack’s son and Taylor’s cousin. He was a sharp one, so it’d pay to listen.

  “How long do you reckon we’ve got to prepare?” Elijah asked. “If we’ve got time, we should lay traps.”

  John nodded. “What kind of traps do you have in mind?”

  “Well, we could start with holes with jagged metal on the bottom, nails and the like. Dirty jagged metal. The outhouses will be right helpful.” He smiled, a thin scar on the right side of his mouth widening his grin.

  John laughed. “I like the way you think. We’ll need shovels.” He paused. “The ground out there is hard. In the old days, they used giant powder to get anything done, but we used the last of ours fighting the Carsons.”

  Andrew smiled. That was Pa’s doing. Bury the giant powder — something the more learned called “dynamite” — and trick the Carsons into marching onto it. That ended their scheme to carve an empire out of the imploding Merrill realm.

  “Besides shovels, we’ll need flammables,” Elijah added. “If we set fires, the smoke might hide us and disorient the enemy.”

  John nodded. “Aye. I’ve used that trick myself.”

  Right clever, Eli. Put both together and the enemy would stumble blindly through traps, all while eating bullets. Elijah often found excuses to visit the Sutter home. Sarah denied any interest, but her vehemence confirmed Andrew’s suspicions.

  You’d make an acceptable brother-in-law, if we don’t all die.

  “Any other suggestions?” John asked. A moment passed. “Good. Everyone get home. Gather all your ammunition and anything that can be used as a weapon, as well as any shovels and flammables. Come back here and let me know what you’ve got. We’ll need everything we have and then some.”

  Andrew left the square with the rest of the men. He didn’t make it ten feet before he heard a young woman crying.

  Lily sat on the steps of her father’s spacious home on the edge of the square. Sarah sat beside her, arm around her shoulder. Lily wept despondently. Sarah handed her a handkerchief so the younger woman could wipe her reddened eyes.

  Lily’s desolation reminded Andrew of Pa’s death, how painful that was and how long it was until the tears stopped. And his father had been only thrown by a horse and broken his neck. Arnold likely suffered far worse.

  Andrew sat on the steps next to Lily, opposite Sarah. He put his arm around her.

  “Thanks,” Lily said through her tears.

  Then Taylor appeared. Andrew ceded his spot. The bigger youth nodded and took Andrew’s place. Andrew sat a step below Lily, near Sarah’s feet.

  Andrew did not know how long it had been before someone coughed, jerking his attention away from the despondent young woman. He looked up. James stood there.

  “Thank you,” he said. Though his expression was hard, there was softness in his eyes. “I’ll handle this from here. You boys get back to getting supplies.”

  Asshole. Your brother’s dead and your niece is grieving.

  Taylor glared at the older man. James stared right back, not blinking. Taylor looked away first, then rose and left.

  James sat on the steps where Taylor had been. Lily hugged her uncle. He stroked her hair. “There, there,” the older man said kindly, his face softening along with his eyes. He turned to Andrew. The hardness reclaimed his face. “You’ve got supplies to check on too. Your sister and I can look after Lily.”

  “Don’t you have work to do?” Andrew accused.

  “I went through my kit earlier. And I’ve got kin to look after. You don’t.”

  Andrew opened his mouth to retort, but Sarah sighed. “Andrew. Andrew, listen to him.”

  He sighed but obeyed. “All right.”

  Not long after sunrise the next morning, James rode back into town. The Flesh-Eaters were leaving the fort. Their horsemen chased him away, but he reckoned there were at least one hundred and fifty infantry. The enemy moved south along the ancient road, heading straight for Carroll Town.

  Andrew’s heart sank. No time to build any but the poorest defenses. The only good news was the Flesh-Eaters only had infantry and cavalry. No dirigibles, no big guns.

  Though he couldn’t keep the grimness from his face, John took up his position beneath the mooring tower. “Men of Carroll Town. We all know the odds’re against us. The enemy is numerous and fierce, well-trained and well-armed.” He paused. “But they fight because other men make them or because they believe their false god smiles down on them. We, on the other hand, are fighting for our homes and our lives.” He paused again. “Even if we lose, we’ll win. We’re buying time for our women and children to find safety elsewhere.”

  Andrew swallowed. The riders looking for Alonzo Merrill found tracks of what might have been a raiding party but no army to defend Carroll Town or shelter the non-fighters. The women and children would follow the tracks and hopefully find the Merrills before their food and water ran out. Better a slim chance than none.

  “Yes,” Andrew said aloud. The eyes of those assembled fell on him.

  Oh shit.

  The townsfolk would no doubt expect him to give a rousing speech. Andrew scrabbled for words. “I agree with everything he just said.” He forced the quavering from his voice. “We do have more to fight for than those bastards.” He paused. “Those ugly, man-eating savage bastards.”

  John laughed. “You’re just like your old man.” That didn’t bother Andrew this time. John returned to the crowd. “Remember the plan. Don’t let fear fuck it up.”

  The men who would fight formed up in front of John and James near the gate. The women and children remained close to the square. The horses were divvied up. There were barely enough to carry everyone in opposite directions, even with many doubling up.

  “We move out in five minutes,” John ordered. “Say your goodbyes.”

  The thought this would be the last time he saw his mother and sister nearly sent Andrew to his knees. He grit his teeth and forced himself to remain upright. His stomach churned.

  All around, the men embraced their womenfolk and youngest sons. Much weeping broke out.Andrew walked over to his mother and sister like a man going to the noose. They freely wept. Tears stung Andrew’s eyes. He blinked them back.

  I’m the man of the house. I can’t cry, not in front of them.

  The trio held each other for a long time.

  Andrew felt the sudden urge to confess. If this was the last time he’d see his family again, he didn’t want anything to go unsaid.

  “Sarah,” he began, pulling away from his mother and sister. “Do you remember that doll you had when we were seven? The one the pikeys brought, the one with the red hair?”

  Sarah looked oddly at Andrew. “Yes. That’s a queer thing to ask right now.”

  “Well…” Andrew paused. “It wasn’t Taylor who’d filched it. It was me.”

  Despite the gravity of the situation, Sarah laughed. “I figured that out right quick.”

  Someone tapped Andrew on the shoulder. It was Cassie, her brown eyes wet with tears. She pulled him into her arms, hard. Andrew hugged her back.

  As he and Cassie embraced, Andrew felt eyes on him. Vernon Wells, Cassie’s tall father, looked appraisingly at Andrew. Appraisingly, nothing more. If Vernon knew what Andrew and his daughter had done, he didn’t show any disapproval. A quick glance showed Elijah talking to Sarah and Ma.

  Andrew returned his attention to Cassie. The two held onto each other for a long time. Then they were interrupted.


  “Now,” John’s voice rang out. “Now we ride!”

  Andrew forced himself to pull away.

  “Goo…” Andrew’s voice failed him. He swallowed. “Goodbye.”

  Cassie started crying again. He wanted to hold her, to comfort her, but the men were mounting their horses.

  He turned away from Cassie. He took one step, then forced himself to take another. His mother and sister receded from his vision. Cassie moved to follow him. Her father stopped her.

  “Go to your grandfather.” He pointed at a one-legged old man with the women and children. Tom Wells would make a poor infantryman, but he could ride and help protect the ones who couldn’t fight. Cassie cried, but obeyed.

  “Andy!” Sam called from atop his horse. “Up here!”

  “Thanks,” Andrew said, climbing up behind his friend. He’d given his gelding Clinton to his mother and Sarah for their escape.

  The mounted men streamed out beneath the blazing sun, heading for war.

  Onslaught

  As the dust column announcing the coming Flesh-Eaters rose high, the militia spread out. Most marched up the hill, shovels in their hands to at least dig something. Andrew and several other young men under James’s command descended into the arroyo behind the hills, beneath the skeletal and rust-streaked Old World bridge. They hunkered behind a heap of rocks and waited.

  The distant, quiet, insistent tramp of the marching Flesh-Eaters thundered in Andrew’s ears. Despite the bridge’s shade, the burning sun and Andrew’s own fear pulled beads of sweat from all over his body. He unscrewed the top of his canteen and took a swig. “See anything?” he called up to Thomas, one of the two atop the ancient bridge.

  Thomas looked down from his perch and wiped the sweat from his red head. “Nope.”

  Andrew’s gut clenched. When they came, he’d have to kill again. Elsewise, he’d die.

  He grit his teeth. He’d hesitated before. That let a Flesh-Eaters escape. That may well have doomed everyone. Not again. Never again.

  But if the enemy did not attempt to flank the hills, if they stubbornly pushed up into the townsmen’s teeth, it would be a spell before Andrew had to fight them. He and the others would sit in the gash in the ground and wait.

  Of course, if the others were doing the fighting, the others were doing the dying. Andrew swallowed. He didn’t want to die.

  Distant rifle fire shattered the quiet. Andrew jumped, the sweat from his forehead running into his eyes. The fight was starting already? He wiped his eyes with a bandana and took another swig from his canteen.

  Elijah fidgeted beside Andrew. “I hope John didn’t bollix it leaving us down here.”

  Andrew shook his head. He was no general, but he recognized John’s wisdom. If the enemy came and the arroyo wasn’t guarded, they could attack the militia on the hills from two directions.

  Elijah rose. “Someone should go see if anyone’s coming. We might not be needed here.”

  Andrew could see his side. If they joined their rifles with the men on the hills, they might make a difference. If the Flesh-Eaters took the hills, they were all dead.

  But John was a real soldier. And if Elijah went investigating abisselfa and ran into Flesh-Eaters, he’d die alone without doing jack shit. Although their chances of returning alive were right small, the man his sister fancied wasn’t going to die on him.

  Andrew shook his head. “No.” He looked away, terminating the argument.

  “All right.” Elijah rose. “I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  “No, you won’t,” James interrupted. He locked eyes with Elijah, using all the intimidation skills decades of teaching had imparted. Elijah knelt back behind the barricade.

  “Let’s hope they don’t send their fanatics our way,” Elijah grumbled.

  The mention of the fanatics enlarged the lump in Andrew’s throat. The Flesh-Eaters had drafted Jacob Burns two years before. He’d deserted and had run home. Before the Flesh-Eaters dragged him off again — along with two more young men for harboring him — he’d said there was another Flesh-Eater army. The regular forces would pin the enemy down and let the crazy ones tear into them. The fanatics believed the souls of everyone they killed hand-to-hand would serve them in the hereafter. Andrew reached again for his canteen, then shook his head. He might need it later.

  “Don’t you worry. They probably don’t think Carroll Town’s worth it.”

  Down the arroyo, a horse whinnied. Horseshoes clicked on stone. James’s gaze snapped toward the sound. “They’re here!” He ducked behind the barricade. “Get down!”

  The young men obeyed. Seconds later, three men wearing Flesh-Eater colors beneath their dusters skulked around the bend four hundred feet ahead. All carried short-barreled carbines. Andrew’s hands trembled on his rifle. He pressed lower to the ground.

  “Wait,” James whispered.

  Andrew didn’t need the encouragement. The trio drew closer.

  “At them!” James shouted. His rifle cracked. The older men fired, followed by the younger men. Bullets buzzed down the arroyo like a swarm of lead bees. White smoke gathered around the defenders. One Flesh-Eaters went down. The others fell back, firing as they moved.

  Andrew aimed for one Flesh-Eater’s chest. His hands trembled around his rifle. He ground his teeth. He’d already killed one man. What was one more?

  A bullet threw sparks inches from Andrew’s head. If the Flesh-Eaters weren’t killed, they’d hit one of the townsfolk sooner or later. The people whom Andrew had known his entire life…

  If only they’d brought their horses! A panicking, wounded horse could wreak havoc among the Flesh-Eaters. Then it would be the horse’s fault, not his. He sighted on a Flesh-Eater. His finger tightened on the trigger. But he couldn’t pull it.

  That Flesh-Eater fired his carbine. Elijah toppled. Hot gore spattered Andrew’s clothing and face. Andrew remembered the ripper, but this wasn’t a ripper. It was a man! The man Sarah fancied, the man Andrew wanted to protect! An echo of the pain his sister would feel stabbed him in the chest.

  Elijah’s corpse slumped beside Andrew. Bone and brain decorated the ground around his head.

  The Flesh-Eater laughed. The sound echoed in Andrew’s head over and over again. The man raised his gun, hunting for more targets.

  Andrew’s eyes bulged. Not again!

  He fired. Thunder cracked. A matchstick smell filled his nose. The bullet punched through the Flesh-Eater’s mouth. The man’s lower jaw hinged low, chin nearly touching his throat. Streaming blood framed shattered teeth. He screamed.

  The bread and ripper bacon Andrew ate that morning returned to his mouth. He swallowed, forcing it down. He aimed his rifle again. He’d silence that screaming forever.

  CRACK!

  His shot struck the man’s breastbone, slamming him into the arroyo wall. He slid down, tracking blood on the red-brown stone. The surviving Flesh-Eater ducked around the bend. One last shot buzzed past.

  Andrew repressed a triumphant snarl. They’d stopped the bastards! A small voice in the back of his mind reminded him they’d killed Elijah, but he forced it away.

  Maybe they’d come out of this alive. If the Flesh-Eater flanking move was so pathetic, their attack on the hilltop might fail too and…

  Then something else whined overhead, deeper and louder than bullets and lingering on the air.

  An explosion cracked above them. The bridge shook. Metal and asphalt rained down. Another explosion bloomed before the barricade. Andrew ducked behind his sheltering rock, but a piece of hot metal clipped across his cheek. Somebody screamed beside him.

  More whining. Something exploded behind the defenders. More heat and flying metal. More screams. Andrew pressed himself harder against the ground. Somehow he’d survived this one unscathed, but the next one would almost certainly kill him.

  “Mortars!” someone shouted.

  Andrew had heard of mortars, but he’d never seen them in action before. Now he wished he hadn’t. />
  Bugles rang. Andrew’s gaze leaped to the sound. His heart sank. New Flesh-Eaters poured out of the smoke.

  These men carried sabers and pistols instead of rifles. They wore uniforms brighter than the rest. As they got closer, Andrew could see scarred-over ritual cuts along their cheekbones from their noses to their ears. Among them was a man in black robes with a white collar looking just as mad as the rest.

  The fanatics!

  A hard, fecal stench from Andrew’s left stung his nose. Something large and wet stained the back of blond-haired Ken Daniels’s jeans. At least Ken was still alive. Others lay mangled behind the barricade. Blood pooled on the stone around them.

  “Son of a bitch!” James shouted. The older man, bloodied but still hale, fired into the oncoming swarm. Gunfire replied. As the bullets whined overhead, Andrew thumbed bullets from his cartridge box into his rifle before risking a momentary glimpse above the barricade.

  The fanatics were almost on top of them, their war-cries and pistol shots gouging Andrew’s ears. Andrew emptied his rifle. Amid the smoke, Flesh-Eaters fell. Good.

  All this was too much for Ken. He ran. “Damn it!” James screamed. “Get back here!” But Ken was gone.

  James dropped another fanatic. Something moved on the bridge overhead. Andrew’s gaze snapped upward. How could anyone be alive up there?

  Thomas tumbled from the bridge onto the arroyo floor. His rifle was gone. Gaping wounds stitched his entire left side. Blood soaked his red hair. A shard of metal emerged from his left eye. His appearance set Andrew’s stomach roiling. He landed hard on his hale side and groaned.

  Son of a bitch! Andrew rushed over to him. “Tommy!” he snarled. “Tommy, can you hear me?”

  All Andrew got was a weak moan. At least he still lived. For now.

  “Sutter, get him the hell out of here!” James screamed. “I’ll slow them down!”