Chapter 14
Cowboy scratched the beginnings of a beard as he took in their surroundings. “This looks just like my uncle Jake’s place. He lived in the mountains of West Virginia, hunted deer and made moonshine. Near as I can figure, he never did have a job.”
It had taken them nearly an hour to get here, leaving the staples of civilization in their dust long before.
“You don’t have to go far to end up in the middle of fucking nowhere,” said Jax.
Piles of dog excrement littered the property, the air ripe with the smell of shit baking in the sun. “Got a guard dog around here somewhere,” said Cowboy. He looked at Noah. He’d barely said two words since they left headquarters. “You ever seen the backwoods of Georgia?”
“No, but I saw Deliverance.”
“That counts,” said Jax.
Stewart Cole’s property was just over nine acres between a fundamentalist church and a one-truck volunteer fire station. Piles of junk were strewn about the property. A pile of radiators, another of metal lawn chairs.
“Must be a scrapper,” said Cowboy as he started toward the house. The one-story dwelling was made of a patchwork of materials, from a metal and wooden roof to a cinder block porch that seemed to have been an afterthought.
“I’m guessing he’s collecting the steel,” said Noah. “My money’s on prepper.”
“There going to be a great demand for rusted radiators and mid-century lawn chairs at the end of days?” asked Jax.
Noah grinned. “It’s the metal. Some of them use it to make their own weapons. Others think of it as currency. Owning steel means they’ll be able to produce their own goods.”
“How do you know this shit?” asked Cowboy.
Noah hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “It makes good sense to be prepared.”
“You telling me you’ve got a hundred radiators stashed someplace just in case you need to pound out your own quarters?”
“I’m ready for the day when our supply system can no longer meet the needs of American citizens, if that’s what you mean.”
Cowboy narrowed his eyes. “I knew this other guy who was obsessed with the end of the world. Events he couldn’t control, that kind of shit.
You want to talk about a prepper, this guy was off the hook.
Had himself completely convinced weather patterns were all fucked up because of people’s influence on the earth, and the world was going to become covered in water from all the rain. ”
Noah sighed heavily. “Let me guess, he built an ark, right?”
“You two know each other?”
Noah shook his head. “Asshole.”
Cowboy grinned. “What are there, like meetings or something where you guys socialize? Because I’d like to get in on that shit.”
“Shut up, Cowboy,” said Jax.
“I have some lawn chairs I could bring,” said Cowboy. “Extruded aluminum. I was thinking I could make my own tinfoil when all the Shop-Quiks close down.”
“Joke all you want,” said Noah. “But someday you’re going to come knocking on my door because you weren’t prepared for a disaster.”
“Maybe so.” The wind kicked up, blowing dust into Cowboys face. He stopped and squatted down, running his hand along the dirt in the driveway. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in a while. No tire tracks in the driveway since the rain.”
“It rained yesterday,” said Noah.
“Not here, it didn’t. They had several inches in a downpour before the heatwave, but nothing since. The dirt here is smooth. It hasn’t been driven on since the storms.”
Jax’s voice was low. “Keep your weapons handy, just in case. This guy isn’t exactly our best friend.”
The last hundred yards of the walk to the house was in the wide open, making Cowboy grateful for his bulletproof vest and gun. Stewart was suing them for killing his brother. He was unpredictable, at best.
“I’ll go in first,” said Jax. “Noah, you go around back in case he tries to leave.”
“I thought we just said he wasn’t home,” said Noah.
Cowboy shook his head. “We said nobody’s come or gone in a vehicle. I didn’t say squat about him not being home.”
They walked under the front porch eave and Cowboy exhaled loudly. If no one had taken a shot at them as they crossed to the door, he figured it was less likely they would do so now.
Jax knocked. “Mr. Cole?” He knocked again, yelling louder this time, “We’d like to talk to you.”
“You just trying to make sure he has enough time to grab his gun?” whispered Cowboy.
“Shut up.” Jax turned the knob on the door and opened it a crack. He eyed Cowboy. “Do you find it strange that a prepper would leave his door wide open?”
“Most of these guys have locks up one side and down the other,” said Noah.
Cowboy held his gun at the ready as Jax kicked open the door with his foot. The offending odor of decay hung on the air, slamming Cowboy in the face like a blow.
Jax went to the left and Cowboy went to the right, holding his gun at the ready as he checked for anyone inside. He rounded the last corner in the kitchen, he and Noah holding their firearms at each other. They both put them down. “Clear,” Cowboy yelled.
“Clear,” Jax yelled from the other side of the house.
“What the fuck is that smell?” asked Noah.
“That would be dinner.” Cowboy gestured to the stove, where a rotting carcass of a small animal sat in a pan. “Looks like a groundhog. You know, when the shit hits the fan you’re going to wish you had that. Want me to wrap it up for you to-go?”
Noah ignored him. “It was left as a present for any company that might wander inside.”
“Come here,” called Jax. “You’ve got to see this.”
They found him in tiny room that opened to a bed with filthy blankets and a stained pillow. But it was what Cowboy saw next that made his muscles twitch.
The walls were plastered with photographs and clippings, his eyes instantly drawn to a picture of himself and Charlotte. “Holy Christ.” He crossed to it, plucking it from the wall as he clenched his jaw.
There were pictures of Jax too, along with one of Jessa driving her car with the window down. But the worst was a snapshot of a baby lying in a crib.
Oh, fuck.
Cowboy looked at Jax. “Is that your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“We have to get this guy.” Every muscle in Cowboy’s body was pumped and ready to attack. Cole was after his family. That’s what these people were. His brothers in arms. His sisters. A child who might as well be his niece, and the woman he loved more than anyone. “This shit just got personal.”
Jax’s face registered no emotion. “Dead, Leo. He needs to be dead. Just like his brother.”
Cowboy’s eyes shot to Noah’s. If he’d heard Jax, he gave no indication. Noah simply turned and moved to a second wall, this one covered with clippings of a different sort. “Is this the brother?”
Cowboy turned around. “That’s him all right.”
NAVY SEAL KILLED IN FREAK ACCIDENT.
The paper was yellow with age.
LOCAL SOLDIER WITH PTSD DIES AT SHOOTING RANGE.
Noah took a step back. “I’m going to check out that footlocker.”
Cowboy moved closer to a framed picture, Garrison Cole stared back at him in his dress blues, the American flag in the background. The last time Cowboy had seen those eyes, they’d been staring at the sky, lifeless.
I didn’t mean to do it.
Call 9-1-1.
I thought she was older.
“Holy shit,” Noah’s voice brought Cowboy back from the past. “We have a problem.”
Cowboy turned around. Inside the military footlocker at the end of the bed was a red LED timer counting backwards.
Fourteen seconds.
“It’s a bomb!” he yelled. “We must have tripped something on our way in. Get the fuck out. Now!”
The men ran out the door, across the cinderblock porch and into the blinding sunshine. The explosion threw them through the air, everything in slow motion, and Cowboy wondered at that moment if Royce was somewhere inside that cabin. Had they killed him just by looking for him?
Cowboy landed hip-first, sliding from the force of his own momentum like he was stealing third base, his mouth full of dust. He spit on the ground and looked around at his teammates.“Well that was fucking close. I hate bombs.”
Jax groaned. “You’re an explosives expert.”
“Won’t keep my ass from getting blown to bits when my number’s up.” He got to his feet. “Trick is to kill this fucker, first. This shit just got personal.”