Defiance: A House Divided (The Defending Home Series Book 2) Page 3

  “There must be at least ten bodies out there,” Zach said pointedly. “Many of the others who got away won’t be fighting anytime soon.”

  Dale crossed his arms over his chest. “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m telling you we have an advantage and we should not let it go to waste.”

  “What about the sheriff and his deputies?” Colton threw in, shrinking when he saw the look of displeasure in his father’s face.

  “Colton’s right,” Dale said, pacing back and forth and running his fingers through his hair. “We may be playing right into their hands. Running straight into a trap.”

  “I vote we do what they say,” Nicole moaned, struggling to get the words out.

  Even Ann was surprised by that. “But where will we go? What will we do for food and shelter?”

  “We can go back to our old place,” Nicole told her, rising to her feet. “I’ll start getting my things together.”

  “No one’s going anywhere,” Dale told her. “You left your house for a reason, Nicole.” Dale stopped and drew in a deep breath. “Listen, I get that our emotions are running high. I want Shane back just as much as the rest of you, but putting everyone at risk over one person’s safety isn’t a smart move. If your father were conscious, I’m sure he’d be the first to agree with me.”

  Nicole stood, frozen with disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re being so cold,” she hissed. “It’s fine for you to condemn my husband to death. Would you be sitting back if it was Brooke’s life on the line?”

  The sting of her words made Dale physically recoil. The emotional part of him wanted to tell her to keep quiet, that she was making a difficult situation even worse, but another part of him realized she did have a point. What if Brooke had been in Shane’s place? Would he be mulling over the most practical options? Or would he already be out the door, his Mossberg and Remington by his side with Duke riding shotgun? Frightening as it was to even contemplate such a scenario, Dale was thankful she hadn’t been the one taken.

  Then on the heels of that thought came something worse. What if she had been the real target? The one person who Sheriff Gaines knew possessed the power to short-circuit Dale’s ability to think straight and do what was best for the group. The possibility was far too frightening to contemplate and far too plausible to ignore.

  While the two most obvious choices would only place them in greater danger, there was a third option they hadn’t yet considered.

  Dale cleared his throat and began telling them what was on his mind. “Maybe it’s time we reach out and give them what they want.”

  Brooke’s eyes grew wide. “Hey, I’ve been preaching diplomacy since all of this began, but you said if we gave these guys a single drop they wouldn’t stop until they had it all.”

  “I did,” Dale admitted. “And trust me, this isn’t what I want. But we’re not in a position to choose between good and bad options. We’re at a fork in the road and every path leads somewhere bad. I’m just trying to figure out which one will keep the rest of us alive.”

  “So what do we do?” Sandy asked.

  “We draft a note and begin negotiations,” Dale said. “Like two punch-drunk heavyweights, both sides have been bruised and battered. If we’re going to ever get decent terms, it may be now.”

  “I’d like to write it,” Brooke offered, her eyes already staring off into empty space as she considered the words she would use.

  “Okay. I’ll go over it when you’re done,” Dale said. “But first we’ll need to make sure Shane’s still alive.” Nicole’s features crumpled at the very suggestion before Dale went on. “Only after will we offer a set amount of water each week.”

  “You’re making a mistake trying to negotiate with these animals,” Zach told him. “I know the way these cartel types think. I’ve done time with them. In their minds, diplomacy is no different than admitting weakness and if there’s one thing they hate, it’s weakness.”

  “That may be,” Dale replied. “But we won’t be negotiating with them. We’ll be talking with Sheriff Gaines and Mayor Reid. Ortega and his drug-dealing associates don’t belong in this country, let alone in this community, and I intend to send them packing the moment I get the chance.”

  Sandy checked her watch. “Then we better hurry. There isn’t much time.”

  Chapter 5

  While Brooke worked frantically on a draft of the letter for Sheriff Gaines and Mayor Reid, Dale and most of the others began clearing away the dead.

  Ann and Nicole stayed upstairs with Walter and Dannyboy. The old man was having a difficult time breathing. The women were doing everything they could to keep him alive. They’d stopped the bleeding, but they suspected he’d suffered a collapsed lung when the bullet had torn through the right side of his chest. He would have to be monitored and seen by a doctor if at all possible.

  Dale’s first order of business was to back the cartel’s pickup out from the house and park it over near the pumphouse.

  With weapons slung over their shoulders, Dale and Sandy then began carrying the dead from inside the house, laying them in piles. Zach and Colton worked around back doing the same. It was grim and depressing work and not the first time they’d been in a position to stack up the dead like so much cordwood. Dale was starting to feel like an undertaker. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit a few of them were still clinging to life, but that wasn’t anything a well-placed bullet couldn’t fix.

  In thirty minutes from now, they would be expected to vacate the property. And with every second that ticked away, the pressure to save his brother’s life was mounting. He could feel it churning his insides, working his gut in an uncomfortable, almost sickening way. Still, he felt it was best not to let on what an agonizing decision it had been. In spite of the differences between him and his brother, Shane was blood and deserved every reasonable action to ensure his safety. The real question was, how could any responsible person jeopardize the safety of those in his charge for a single life? It was a conundrum that had likely challenged folks throughout history.

  Sandy grunted as they tossed one of the bodies onto the front lawn. Like the men, the grass was yellow and devoid of life. From around back they could hear Zach and Colton engaged in what sounded like a jovial conversation.

  “They seem to be making up for lost time,” Sandy observed, stopping long enough to fan herself with the straw cowboy hat she was wearing.

  Dale took in what she said. “I guess right about now I can’t find anything worth laughing about.”

  Sandy stopped, removed her gloves and touched his arm. The soft pads of her fingers felt nice against his skin.

  “Don’t take it to heart, Dale. Not everyone deals with trauma in the same way.”

  A cup of water was resting on the steps between them and Dale drank from it, offering some to Sandy, which she gladly accepted. “Believe me,” he told her, “it takes more than that to ruffle my feathers.”

  “You’re upset he called you out in front of the others.”

  “I won’t lie, it did sting,” he admitted. “I’d do anything for Shane.”

  “I know you would. But you also know the way Zach is.”

  Dale nodded, took the cup back and set it on the stairs. “Far as I see it, that’s the problem. He and I are like oil and water. Put us in a bottle and mix real well, you’d think we were simpatico, but before long both parts start pulling apart from one another.”

  “I see what you mean,” Sandy said, looking thoughtful. “Maybe you could talk to him.”

  Dale laughed. “This isn’t Dr. Phil, Sandy. Right or wrong, that’s not how men work. We don’t sit down and have a heart-to-heart and talk out our differences.”

  “Why not?”

  Dale started back for the house and stopped. “Beats me. Ask that short little guy who wrote Men are from Mars, Women are from Neptune.”

  Sandy couldn’t help but giggle. “Venus. Women are from Venus.”

  “You know what I mean.”


  “You know, my mother never once told me to my face that she loved me,” Sandy said and Dale furrowed his brow, wondering where she was going with this. “I knew it, I suppose in the way kids know lots of stuff adults neglect to tell them. I also knew she was lonely in the years after my father died. She’d always claim she was too old to start chasing after men and too tired to worry about whether they wanted to be chased in the first place. Became something of a mantra for her. But in spite of a child’s intuition, it wasn’t until after she passed and I had to sort through her things that I realized how little of her I really knew. She was a knockout when she was young, probably beating the boys back with a stick.”

  “I see where you get it from.”

  Sandy grinned. “That’s when I found a bunch of letters she’d written me, but never mailed. There was one for every major turning point in my life, when I graduated from high school and then college, and later when I was hired by the sheriff’s office.”

  “What were the letters about?”

  “She was telling me how proud she was and how much she loved me. I was too young to help her bridge that gap, to overcome whatever was keeping her from expressing how she felt. My point is that sometimes you gotta be the one to reach out, even if it’s not your responsibility. Sometimes you gotta be the adult.”

  Brooke appeared in the gaping hole by the front entrance. She was holding a handwritten piece of paper.

  “It’s done,” she said, proud and somewhat relieved.

  Dale went over and read it.

  To Sheriff Gaines and Mayor Reid,

  We received your ransom note and have considered your offer. Here is our response. To leave our property and the security it affords us would accomplish nothing apart from placing everyone here in grave danger.

  Too much blood has already been spilled. Can’t we set aside our differences and work together to stop this senseless carnage? The people of Encendido are thirsty and we’re willing to share some of our water with the town, but we have a few conditions. Before any of that, we need proof that Shane is still alive. Once that’s been established, then we can set up a time and place to discuss terms.

  When he was done, Dale folded the letter and placed it in the envelope. “Well done, Brooke.” His lips were curled into a smile, even though he couldn’t help but wonder whether he was starting down that slippery slope he’d feared from the very beginning. He turned to Sandy. “Get on the radio to the sheriff’s office and tell him if he wants our answer he’ll find it by the mesquite tree across the street.”

  She nodded and moved past them, disappearing into the house.

  “Do you think it’ll work?” Brooke asked, her large brown eyes lacking the innocence they’d once possessed.

  Dale pulled her in close. “Sheriff Gaines may not be a good man, but he isn’t unreasonable.” Even as the words passed his lips, Dale struggled to believe they were true.

  Chapter 6

  Everyone was inside when the pickup raced down the long dusty road. Dale watched from the front window while Colton, Zach and Brooke scanned the other avenues of approach to ensure they weren’t falling for some sort of distraction. Although the truck’s windows were tinted, Dale knew well enough the vehicle belonged to Ortega or one of his men. They’d searched for the cartel lieutenant’s body among the dead and had found no sign of him.

  The truck backed up until it was parallel with the tree. The passenger door swung open and closed just as quickly before the pickup sped off, a swirling cloud trailing behind it. Seemed the other side was equally worried about falling prey to an ambush. There were still fifteen minutes before the hour was up. With any luck, they might begin negotiations before the sun went down.

  Walter was lying on the bed next to Dale, his shirt peeled off, his chest wrapped with bloodstained bandages. Always attentive, Ann was by his side, holding his hand.

  “He still out?” Dale asked, standing near the window. The old man’s chest was rising and falling in a steady, albeit weak rhythm.

  Ann turned, looking up at him, a dreadfully worried expression on her face. “I’ve been telling him to hold on.”

  Dale leaned over and rubbed her thin back. Her ribs were prominent, making it feel like he was running his hand over a washboard.

  “Mind if I have a word with him?”

  Ann stood and placed Walter’s hand by his side. “Of course.” She left the room, her delicate footfalls like those of a ghost.

  Dale settled into the seat, listening to the creak as it settled under his weight. He glanced down at his own hands. There was blood on his fingers and he wondered who it might have belonged to.

  “I heard you fought well today,” he told the old man. “I’m not sure you can even hear me. But I wanted to say I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done to keep us safe.” Dale laughed. “I can almost hear what you’d say, that you were only doing your part, but without you we probably wouldn’t have... Well, let’s just say the situation would have turned out different. Stay strong, my friend. We need you.”

  When he was done, Dale said a prayer, asking for Walter to be healed, but also asking for the wisdom and the strength to do what was right.

  An hour passed with still no word from the other side about their offer. They’d used the time to bring large pieces of plywood from the barn to the front of the house, where they nailed them in place to cover the hole left by the pickup. From the inside, they added additional two-by-fours to brace and strengthen the repair work. Strong as it might be, it would never stop another truck from crashing into the house. That project would come later, once the current business with Randy and Hugh Reid was over and done with.

  But with every second that passed, Dale grew more and more impatient, more and more nervous. He saw himself hopping into his pickup and racing into town, armed to the teeth, on a one-way mission to take down as many of them as he could before he was finally stopped. Somewhere his brother was being held and perhaps even tortured. There was nothing Dale could do about that and the knowledge was driving him nuts.

  Just then, Colton called from the second floor. The pickup was back. Dale sprinted up the stairs two at a time and raced into the front bedroom. The others were already there and Dale struggled to see what was happening. Would they leave a note of their own designed to open the negotiations or would they simply drop Shane off as a sign of goodwill?

  “Oh, my God,” Sandy said, the nails of her right hand digging into the window sill.

  The truck was about even with the property when Dale saw what looked like a department store mannequin set on fire and kicked out the back of the truck. It rolled several times, thudding against one of the barbed-wire posts, black and orange flames licking several feet into the air.

  Nicole’s hands were clasped over her open mouth, shuttering a horrific scream trapped deep inside. Colton rattled off a handful of futile shots at the fleeing vehicle from the AR. Almost hypnotically, Dale’s gaze swiveled back to the fence post, itself on fire, before he understood that what he was seeing. Horrifying as it was, this was no dream, nor was it a department store mannequin the cartel had tossed from the bed of that pickup.

  It was his brother Shane’s dead body.

  Chapter 7

  Dale raced from the house, fire extinguisher in hand, leaping instinctively over the remaining booby traps as he raced toward the flaming mass that was once Shane. He doused the fire, searching immediately for any semblance of life. His brother’s body was naked, every corner of flesh blackened. In many parts, the skin, sprinkled with copious amounts of fine white powder from the extinguisher, had melted into an amorphous mass.

  Nicole was running toward them when Dale held up a hand, telling her to stay away. When she didn’t comply, Zach and Colton grabbed her by the arms and held her back as she shrieked in frustration and anguish. This was no way to see your loved one, especially for the last time.

  “Get her out of here,” Dale shouted, scooping up his brother’s still-sizzling
body. When they’d managed to coax Nicole back to the house, Dale carried Shane to the garage. Sandy and Ann cleared a work bench where Dale could set his brother’s body down. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from the blackened flesh. The sleeves of Dale’s shirt were speckled with strips of his brother’s skin, but he didn’t care. There was no longer any doubt that his brother was dead.

  “Can you wash and prep him for burial?” he asked Ann, his voice quiet, toneless.

  Colton came up behind him, looking somber and still clearly in a state of shock. “I’ll start digging a hole, I guess.”

  “Thank you,” Dale said, almost robotically. Mercifully, the full weight of what had just happened hadn’t sunk in yet. That would come later. He entered the house, went up to his bedroom and grabbed his pistol and shotgun as well as his Remington. Somewhere nearby he could hear Nicole sobbing uncontrollably. In the span of a few hours she’d lost her husband and was at risk of losing her father too.

  Dale came back through the garage as Ann and Sandy were beginning the grim task of cleaning Shane’s body. He stopped briefly to glance down at what had once been his brother’s handsome face and was now little more than a melted wax dummy. Duke was by his master’s side, looking melancholy himself, perhaps sensing on some unknowable level the terrible loss they’d just suffered.

  Sandy noticed the weapons he was carrying. “Tell me you’re not about to do something stupid.”

  “Maybe Zach was right,” Dale said. “It was dumb to think these animals could be reasoned with. They aren’t human, Sandy. Someone needs to put them down.”

  “Dale,” she shouted. “You’re only going to get yourself killed. At least take Zach and Colton along.”

  Dale’s eyes fell to Duke, sitting obediently by his side. “This isn’t your fight either, buddy,” he told the German shepherd. “You stay here and protect the others.”

  Duke barked and it sounded to Dale almost like a protest.