Chapter 43
“Make sure you don’t touch anything I don’t touch,” Vin called over his shoulders as his borrowed reservation horse clomped onto the site of the bunker where he had lived for over a year.
“This is where you lived?” Adriel asked, unable to hide the pity in his tone.
Vin paid it no mind. To someone who hadn’t lived knowing that all of this horror was on the horizon, Vin’s Spartan lifestyle might have seemed harsh and worthy of sympathy.
But Vin had lived this way by choice. He had come out here in solitude to be away from people, to prepare.
Or at least that was what he had always told himself.
His PTSD had led him to think about the coming storm, and that, in turn, had pushed him away from his family.
Come to think of it, maybe he was worthy of pity, though Vin would never accept that.
“Yeah,” he answered, looking back over his shoulder at the reservation’s doctor, who led the pack of more than twenty young people who had offered to help.
A few of them were driving a large, converted storage trailer that had been turned into a makeshift wagon pulled by two horses.
They were going to need it to transport the wealth of items needed for this operation to take place.
Vin held his breath as they drew closer to his bunker. He hadn’t expected to find the place disturbed. In fact, he was certain the countermeasures he had put in place would keep any intruders at bay.
But he wasn’t sure if he was going to find a sea of bodies laid out between his bunker and the large weapons shed he kept behind it. Thankfully, it seemed as though no one had stumbled onto this place. It made sense that Sean hadn’t attempted to invade these grounds, either.
While Sean knew Vin had a wealth of supplies and weapons in storage at this location, he also knew Vin would have deadly traps in place to make sure the tools don’t fall into the wrong hands. He was as glad to see that Sean’s faith in his abilities hadn’t wavered over the last six months.
“We’re gonna load up the wagon with the packages we discussed,” Vin said, pointing to his weapons shed. “If there’s any extra room after that, we take as many guns and ammo boxes as we can carry.”
“Sounds good,” one of the riders said, though Vin couldn’t see which one had spoken up.
“Just wait here while I disable the traps,” Vin said. He then looked back at them again to make sure that his point was understood. “Don’t touch anything.”
They all nodded in agreement, and Vin got to work disabling every trap set around the property. This was going to serve as a safe zone for the non-combatants from the tribe while they enacted this operation. He had to make sure it actually was safe.
Vin was certain the elders and children, along with their protectors, would be able to do fine here. It was close enough to the reservation that they could make the journey with relative ease. And while it was technically on Chain Gang land, clearly, no one was coming anywhere near this place.
After nearly twenty minutes of working from memory, the traps were disabled, and Vin signaled for the riders to join him. They moved past his bunker and slowly approached the shed as if they were still nervous, wondering if he had missed anything.
But Vin had a memory like a steel trap. He knew this land well and remembered every single trap laid in its defense.
He’d had to deftly maneuver around them every day for over a year.
There was nothing to fear, and his new friends seemed to grow more assured as they proceeded toward the shed unharmed.
Vin unlocked the large structure and tossed the heavy chain and padlock off to the side. Once within the structure, he quickly moved toward the back. There was a mountain of wooden boxes affixed against the wall, and Vin smiled at them as though they were old friends he hadn’t seen in a long time.
“Whoa,” Adriel said as he and some of the other Natives walked inside Vin’s armory. They were no doubt staring at the racks of weapons that lined the walls.
“Yeah,” Vin replied, picking up one of the wooden crates and setting it down on the floor in front of him. “I like to be prepared.”
While most of the others continued to gape and wander through the space, Adriel came up behind Vin, looking over his shoulder at the dust-covered box. “Is that them?” the doctor asked, and Vin looked back with a reassuring smile.
He was impressed by the young man’s strength.
He had just seen his father violently and senselessly gunned down.
The old man had died in his arms as he had worked to save his life.
Vin remembered the look on the doctor’s face after the entire ordeal had ended.
He had been so distraught, so horrified at what had transpired.
And, of course, he had been covered in the blood of his father, a man he clearly admired and loved deeply.
But now, here he was, doing what needed to be done for the safety and continued security of his people.
He was a leader in training, and Vin admired that.
It was something he wasn’t sure he had any talent for personally.
But when all was said and done and they managed to reclaim the ranch from Chainz, someone was going to have to establish the brave new world he saw in his mind.
That person was going to have to be him, whether he wanted it to be or not.
Vin reached down and brushed a layer of dust off of the box and smiled as he looked down at the tools that were going to help them kill two birds with one stone. There, marked on the crate, was a large red skull with two bold words scrawled above and below it.
DANGER! EXPLOSIVES!