Chapter 13 #2
They walked to the campfire. Lizzy didn’t think she would be able to eat, and yet, when the bowl of stew was in front of her, she found she could.
Enough time had passed between the violence of the afternoon for her stomach to have settled.
She ate and also drank a cup of coffee. When Timothy was done with his food, she picked a tall pine and told him to climb up and find a comfortable perch.
“Just keep an eye out for a while, okay?” she asked.
He nodded. “Sure. I can do that.” He had his slingshot in his back pocket. “I’ll shoot a stone down if I find something to let you know.”
She nodded and he scampered away.
“He’s remarkably levelheaded,” Troy said as they watched the boy run off.
Lizzy nodded. “That he is. He gets it from our father.”
“Ah, and there I thought it was from you,” Troy said.
She shook her head, ignoring the compliment. “We have no weapons. Those brutes took the few guns we bought in San Antonio. What will we do if those men come here, Troy? I can’t watch more of our friends being beaten.”
Troy nodded. “Well, let’s get armed as best we can, and then we won’t have to.”
It took them some time to get everyone sorted out.
Those who could handle firearms were given the remaining guns.
Some of the folks had taken to hunting with bows and arrows.
There were ten or so men who could handle the weapons, and Lizzy was proud of her work making arrowheads.
Then, for the others, there were slingshots and sturdy walking sticks, branches, and, if it came down to it, a sturdy frying pan could cause a lot of damage to an unprotected head.
“We probably won’t have to fight,” Andrew said, speaking to everyone gathered at the campfire. “But it’s best to be prepared.”
Lizzy looked at Troy and smiled. He turned and kissed her gently on the lips.
“What was that for?” she asked.
“Oh, just in case it’s a while before I can do that again,” he said, grinning.
Just then a stone, painted red, landed with a crunch, bouncing off the stones around the campfire.
Lizzy’s heart rose into her throat. It was one of Tim’s. He’d seen something.
Before they could run over to the tree, the night air erupted with shouts and cries, wild and eerie, just as they had on the road.
Lizzy looked up at Troy, fear gripping her heart.
She held a shotgun in her hands and it suddenly felt alien and odd in spite of her skill with firearms. She wasn’t sure she could use it.
Then she remembered Kyle. She remembered months of walking, carrying the sick and wounded, a person with no home and no hope.
She couldn’t go through that again. She would never leave everything behind just to scrape by.
She would always fight, this time for her future with Troy and for Tim’s future.
“Here we go,” Troy said as riders came streaming into the camp from all sides. The campers, as Lizzy thought of her people now, sprang into action.
Perhaps they had all had enough. Perhaps it was time to purge the anger that had built up over those horrible months. She could never be sure. All she knew was that as the invaders came screaming into the camp, torches held high to burn the place down, everyone reacted.
Finally raising the shotgun and taking aim, she shot at one of the riders. The man fell backward off his horse, a gaping hole in his chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Someone came galloping at her from the side.
She didn’t have time to shoot, but reaching down to the campfire, she ducked the man’s swinging blow with what looked like a club and, picking up a burning brand, she threw it at his back as he passed her.
The man screamed, tried to grab his back, dropped the club, and fell off his horse.
A pickaxe knocked him out cold. Troy smiled, hefting the pickaxe on his shoulder.
Then he was beside Lizzy and pulling her to the side as another horse came galloping through the camp.
Lizzy picked up the shotgun again and fired, stopping a man as he came for Troy, while Troy fought off another.
There were so many. All around her, people were fighting tooth and nail.
She herself killed several bandits, and it scared her.
What was she becoming? Did it matter now when her whole world’s survival rested on fighting back as hard as possible?
The battle raged on and on. A tent caught fire; people screamed. Lizzy and Troy fought side by side, neither giving an inch. And then, suddenly, a single gunshot rang out, and a voice yelled loudly over the noise of battle.
It was Tim. He was standing in front of the man in the worn work clothes with the hair that needed to be cut. Tim crumpled to his knees, his hands clutching his belly. Lizzy went ice cold, the shotgun falling from her nerveless fingers.
What was Tim doing? Why was he there? She saw his slingshot lying in the dirt in front of him as she came running over. When had she started running?
“Timmy!” she yelled.
The man, seeing her coming for him, smiled and raised a finger, pretending to shoot her. Then he was on his horse, and a horn sounded loudly. A moment later the fighting ended, the invaders, what was left of them, seeming to disappear.
Andrew yelled for people to chase them, but Lizzy didn’t care.
She reached Tim as he fell, catching him in her arms. The front of his shirt was a mess of blood, and his eyes were closed.
He was hardly breathing. Her little brother, the reason she had tried so hard to survive, was dying in her arms and she could do nothing but scream for Troy and Julie.