CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Who was that?” gasped Mike. “Who the hell were those men?”
“I don’t know,” said George. “I have no clue but everything is gone. Everything! We have to get back to the compound and get it all locked down.”
“George, maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s time we did what we’ve planned to do all these years.”
George made the call to his wife, who was standing next to Mike Miller’s wife.
He could hear her through the phone already screaming orders at her own children, as well as others.
By the time they’d made the laborious, nearly five-hour drive, they arrived at the trucks completely loaded with all their belongings.
“George, why are we leaving?” asked Maggie.
“Because they found us. They found out everything! The land in the Dakota’s has been seized, the animals taken. We’ve got nothing left up there. We have to move on.”
“George, how? How could they have found out?” asked Mrs. Miller. Her first name was Florence but she hated the name and demanded to always be called Mrs. Miller.
“I’m guessing our children,” he frowned.
“I’m going to bet that Zane told them about the land because Saylor didn’t know.
She had no clue. But she knows where we are right now and we have to leave at once.
It’s getting dark. We drive under darkness, take all the backroads. No towns with traffic cameras.”
Everyone nodded at him as they loaded into their vehicles. Each of the men walked to their homes and doused it with cans of gasoline, igniting the homes that they’d loved for almost twenty years.
“Where are the weapons?” asked George.
“We divided them up between all the vehicles in case we’re attacked,” said Mrs. Miller. He nodded then looked at their truck, seeing only four of her remaining five sons.
“Where is the other boy?” he frowned.
For the most part they let everyone handle their own children, their own way but George never cared for the way the Miller’s treated their children.
“He put up a fuss about leaving,” she said nodding toward the back of the house. He was draped over an old metal barrel, his hands tied beneath. His trousers were lowered just below his buttocks, his back bare to reveal the violent slashes of a belt.
“Are you taking him?” asked George biting his lip.
“I’ll come back for him in a day or two. Let him think on how he shouldn’t argue with his mother.”
“You know, Mrs. Miller, I don’t get into folks business but when it could compromise everything we’ve done here, I will. You ever touch one of your boys like that again, and I’ll kill you before the authorities ever get to you.”
“How dare you,” she sneered. “Maybe if you’d beaten that slut of yours more often she wouldn’t have run and gotten herself pregnant by some stranger.”
George fisted his hand, praying she’d suddenly turn into a man so he could strike her. Instead, he was shocked when Maggie stepped forward and slapped the big woman so hard, she stumbled back and fell on her behind.
“You ever speak of my daughter that way again, I’ll kill you myself. I’m not happy with what Saylor did but she wasn’t a slut. She left us, she left this and we have to live with that, just like you have to live with Zane being out there. But don’t ever speak her name again.”
Mike attempted to help his wife up but she shoved him away, lifting herself from the dirt. She was pissed at the Carvers but what really pissed her off, what she noticed more than anything was that not one of her neighbors defended her. Not one.
She would file that memory away and use it later.
George looked at Mike. He knew the man was embarrassed by his wife’s actions.
While she heaved herself off the ground, he walked to his bound son, whispering to him.
Although no one saw but George, he placed something below the boy’s chin and kissed his head.
“Let’s go,” said Mrs. Miller getting into her big vehicle. Mike walked up to George and stared at him.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know, Mike but that can’t keep up. You’re gonna run out of sons.” He nodded and started to walk away, but George grabbed his arm. “Did you leave something for him?”
“A knife and five-hundred dollars.”