Tribulation Page 4

  Eric estimated that the distance he would have to cover on his course to reach the bayou behind Keith’s house was some four or five miles. That would have been nothing in most terrain, but here it took him the majority of the afternoon. By the time he reached the old river channel of the Atchafalaya, it was a few minutes past 1600, and darkness was just a couple of hours away. The intensity of his anger at what this lying band of thieves had done increased with every hard-won mile, and now as he emerged on the river bank, Eric had made up his mind that if they were already gone when he got there, he would hunt them down without delay. Knowing that Keith and Jonathan had found help and were probably at the location of the schooner by now, Eric wasn’t as concerned about Bart and the rest of the crew. This gang of radicals needed to be stopped, and Eric was determined to be the one to do it. He waded into the river without hesitation and swam across.

  Four

  ERIC KNEW THE COURSE he’d set had been a good one when he reached the other side of the old river and didn’t find a road running parallel to it. That meant the angle he’d worked out had taken him south of the big bend in the river north of Keith’s. And it meant he could continue his cross-country course through the woods until he arrived at the bayou behind the house. That was a far better option for a stealthy approach than using the road. Knowing he was on the right track, Eric quickened his pace, anxious to close in and assess the situation while there was still plenty of daylight, and hopeful that he would get there before the bicycle-riding thieves left with their loot. Twenty minutes later, he came to the bayou. There wasn’t a house in sight, and he couldn’t see the road on the other side due to the heavy woods, but through a gap in the trees he spotted power lines. That meant the road was there, paralleling the bayou on the other side, and it meant he was still north of Keith’s house because his was at the end of that service line.

  Eric decided to stay on the opposite bank from the house while working his way down the bayou. This would allow him to move faster without being heard until he was close enough to determine if the gang was still there. As it turned out, it wasn’t as far as he thought, and when he rounded a small bend; he saw Keith’s dock and the stand of cattails in which he and Jonathan had hidden the dinghy. He could hear voices in that direction as well, and he smiled to himself when he realized he’d made it there in time. With no further hesitation, Eric quietly waded into the bayou and took a deep breath. Swimming underwater at a downstream angle, he made for the cattail patch, where he could resurface unseen and work his way into position to make a plan of attack.

  Feeling ahead with his hands in the muck of the shallow bayou, Eric stayed on the bottom until he found the first of the cattail stalks, and then he swam and crawled to the bank just upstream from the dinghy, which he was pleased to note was still secured just as he’d left it. The thieves were focused on the house, and wouldn’t have noticed the dinghy unless they were specifically looking for it. Eric could still hear voices, but until he crawled to the edge of the dense vegetation he couldn’t tell where they were.

  If he had his weapons, taking them out before they knew what hit them would be relatively easy. They’d gotten lucky and taken advantage of his misplaced trust, and yes, they’d probably killed others since all this mayhem started, but they weren’t trained soldiers, much less combat veterans. But since he had nothing with him but his wits and experience, while they were armed, Eric was going to have to be careful. He scanned the back of the house and the open space beneath it and determined no one was in view that could see him if he emerged from the weeds. There was little to hide behind under the house other than the motorcycles where he’d crouched before and the shadows beneath the steps leading up to the level of the house.

  Eric decided the latter was his best option, and when he was certain the way was clear, he rose and sprinted for it. He’d just reached the stairway when he heard someone slam the front door from above. Eric remained frozen and out of sight when the sound of footsteps told him someone was descending the steps to the ground. The rustic-style stairway led straight from the ground to the front deck in one flight. Since there were no riser panels under the treads, Eric could see the shoes and ankles of the person going down them once they were adjacent to his eye level. Then, he was able to watch him walk out to the front yard, carrying a bundle in what looked like a bed sheet tied up into a makeshift duffle bag. Just as he’d known they would do, the thieves were hauling out everything of use they could find in Keith’s house, and if Eric knew his brother, the place was a veritable gold mine of survival goods that would be useful in this new reality.

  He watched as the thief carried his load to the pickup and hefted it into the bed. Apparently they were planning to use the truck to haul their loot away, even if they couldn’t all fit in it with their bicycles. Realizing this and seeing only four bikes still in the yard where the rest of them had been when he’d left with the professor, Eric decided the others must have ridden on ahead. The four that remained were probably going to rendezvous with them later to divvy up the goods once they found a place to camp and ditch the truck. It was probably how they’d been operating all along in order to cover the distance they’d already made on the bikes. It was a stroke of luck for Eric that he got here when he did, because his task would be that much easier with the group divided as they were. He focused on the figure at the truck for now, waiting for him to return for another load, and when he turned around Eric could barely contain his anticipation. It was one of the two ‘students’ who had ridden with them in the back of the truck! Eric didn’t know which one had hit him with the two-by-four, but it didn’t matter. They had both held him down and tied him up, and they had both thrown him off of a bridge with every intention to drown him. Eric got ready as he watched the thief walking straight towards him; unaware of the danger lurking beneath the steps he was about to ascend.

  Eric waited as his target mounted the stairs without breaking stride. When he had reached the sixth step, far enough that his peripheral vision would be well above the base of the stairs, Eric slipped out from under them on one side in a low crouch, and then quickly and silently followed him up. Coming out in the open was a risk, but he’d heard the door to the house slam shut when the guy exited, and with any luck at all, his companions were still busy riffling through Keith’s possessions inside. Eric was upon his unsuspecting quarry in a few big steps, clasping one hand firmly over his mouth and chin as he grabbed a handful of hair with the other and snapped his head around 180 degrees while pivoting and flipping the man’s entire body over and down onto the steps below him. Retaining his vice-like grip on his head, Eric descended as well, dragging the limp body under the steps where he’d been hiding. There’d been no noise other than the sound of the guy falling on the wooden steps, and now that he was neutralized, Eric searched him and much to his delight, found his Glock 19 tucked under the man’s shirt in the same manner that Eric carried it in his inside-the-waistband appendix carry holster. He didn’t find his spare mags, but the one in the pistol was full and the chamber was still loaded, just as it had been before it was taken. His odds were considerably better now, but Eric knew it wouldn’t be long before the first guy was missed and his companions came out looking for him. There was no reason to move now though, so he waited where he was, and soon enough the door above him opened again:

  “Hey Steven! What are you doing? We’re not finished up here! Steven?”

  It was the voice of Dr. Russell! Eric was thrilled to know that the ringleader was among those who stayed behind. For a moment, he wondered if the professor would simply go back inside and resume what he was doing, but then he heard him walking across the deck to the steps; he was coming down to investigate!

  From his hurried pace and exasperated sign, Eric could tell the man was impatient and aggravated to have to come down at all. Eric saw that he had the AK slung over his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to be expecting immediate danger, since he wasn’t carrying it in hand. When he reached the g
round and started walking towards the truck, Eric stepped out from under the stairway. He could have shot him in the back of the head easy enough, but he wanted Dr. Russell to know that his latest attempt at cop killing had failed, as had his dreams of revolution or whatever it was that had motivated him. Eric stopped him in his tracks when he spoke:

  “Hey asshole! I warned you once about trespassing on this property!”

  The professor spun around and saw Eric standing there with the Glock in hand. Stepping back in shock as recognition registered on his face, he reached for the AK with fumbling hands. Eric raised his pistol and squeezed the trigger twice, sending one round into the man’s chest and the other into his face. Then he turned and charged up the steps to clear the house before the other intruders had time to react.

  Naturally, the sound of Eric’s gunfire attracted the attention of the others upstairs and inside. A figure appeared in the doorway and when Eric saw the rifle in his hands he dropped to one knee on the steps and fired three quick rounds with the Glock. A woman screamed from inside, but there was no return fire, so Eric sprang up and gained the top of the steps in two long strides, flattening himself against the cypress-planked wall to one side of the door frame. On the way up he caught a glimpse of the fallen gunman, and saw that the rifle on the floor beside him was his own M4. The woman inside was now wailing and calling the dead guy’s name, and that was when Eric knew for sure that he was Kirby, the other accomplice that had been in the back of the truck. With only four bicycles remaining in the yard, Eric felt sure the distraught woman was the last one remaining in the house. From the sound of her crying, she wasn’t an immediate threat.

  “I’m giving you five seconds to come out with your hands on top of your head!” Eric shouted. “If you don’t, you’ll die like your friends!”

  She didn’t move quite that fast, but the woman agreed to come out. Eric backed as far away from the door as he could along the wall, the Glock leveled on the entrance as she emerged.

  “Get down on the deck! Face down! Hands behind your head! DO IT NOW!”

  “I’m unarmed!” the woman said, as Eric quickly frisked her once she was prone on the deck, finding that to be true.

  “Your friends weren’t, and I’m sure they told you what they did to me after I drove them away from here earlier.” Eric stepped in the doorway to retrieve the M4. “So, how many law enforcement officers have you personally helped them kill? And where are the rest of your friends?”

  “I’ve never killed anyone! And Dr. Russell said you pulled a gun on him and Kirby and Steven. They fought back in self defense!”

  “Yeah, right. Come on. On your feet!”

  “Why? I’m not going anywhere with you!”

  “You’re going to do what I say, or I’ll have no choice but to shoot you too. It’s up to you.”

  The woman said nothing, but stood and looked down into the yard, where she couldn’t miss the body of the dead professor.

  “Let’s go! Downstairs.”

  Eric followed her down the steps and told her to keep walking to Keith’s pickup. When they got there, he made her put both hands on the hood while he looked in the glove box and center console for what he knew he would find there. When he found it, he returned to the woman and locked one handcuff to her right wrist, and the other to the steering wheel of the truck, putting the key in his pocket. With this done, he returned to the stairway and dragged the body of the one he’d stashed under there out into the yard. He already knew there were no other weapons on that one. When he searched the professor, he found nothing but the cheap Romanian semi-auto AK and the single 30-round magazine that was inserted in the well. Eric leaned it against the bottom steps and went back upstairs to search the third body, and there he found his hand-made Bowie in its sheath on Kirby’s belt. After putting it back where it belonged on his own belt, Eric walked inside, taking in the wreck the opportunistic raiders had made of his brother’s house. The contents of drawers and cabinets had been emptied out all over the floor. Furniture and mattresses were overturned, and the photos and candles of Keith’s makeshift shrine to Lynn were swept off the table onto the floor, many of the picture frames broken and trampled underfoot. Eric was disgusted but thankful he’d gotten here in time to make at least some of the culprits pay. He was torn about hunting down the remaining five right away, but there was little daylight left, and he knew Bart and the others would be wondering what became of him. They might still need his help, and besides, he’d taken care of the three that had tried to kill him, eliminating their leader in the process. The others might get away for good, but their loot was still there in the back of Keith’s truck. He planned to leave a grim warning for them if they did decide to come back, but first, there was the small problem of what to do with the woman. She probably deserved to be shot like the others, and Eric wouldn’t have hesitated to do so had she been armed and threatening. But now that she’d surrendered, she was a problem. He couldn’t take her with him, so he went back downstairs and looked around under the house, thinking. Then, he returned to the truck and unlocked the handcuff securing her to the steering wheel.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked, when Eric led her back towards the house. “Just let me go! Please? None of this was my idea. I didn’t have a choice when Dr. Russell said we were coming here to your house.”

  “You were in there helping them steal everything they could carry out. Considering that we no longer have the capability to maintain prisoners, I should shoot you right now, but I’m not going to. I’m going to leave that decision to my brother, who, by the way, is the real owner of this house. He’s the St. Martin Parish deputy, not me.”

  “You’re not the sheriff?”

  “No, but I was going to help you people anyway, and look what that got me!”

  Eric led her to the workspace under the house and then cuffed her hands together in the front after putting them around the heavy logging chain with which Keith had secured his two motorcycles to a piling. She could move a short distance that way and use her hands to eat and drink, but she wasn’t going anywhere until he returned. He retrieved a one-gallon water jug from the house and left it within reach. Then he dragged the third body down the steps and out into the yard next to the other two. It delayed him another half hour, but Eric backed the truck up near the steps and quickly carried his brother’s stolen possessions back upstairs to lock them in the house. Then he loaded the three bodies in the pickup bed and drove a short distance up the road in front of the house before dumping them out on the shoulder. If the rest of the bicyclists did ride back down that road to look for their friends, they would be met with a gruesome warning before they reached Keith’s driveway.

  “My brother will be back to deal with you in a day or two, I’m sure,” Eric said, as he returned to pick up the outboard gas tank he’d just finished filling when the strangers showed up.

  “You can’t just leave me here like this! Please! Just let me go and I’ll get on my bike and never touch anything in Louisiana again!”

  Eric ignored her, having nothing else to say to her. Keith could let her go if he wanted to, but Eric was going to leave that decision to him. He was the lawman here and this was his jurisdiction, not to mention it was his house they’d targeted. Eric had no idea what the jail situation was like here in the parish, but he doubted that locking up everyone caught breaking the law in times like these was sustainable long-term. As the woman pleaded, cried, and then cursed him, Eric waded into the cattail marsh to the dinghy and reconnected the outboard’s fuel line to the portable tank. The engine started right up, and he motored away down the bayou, keeping his speed just above idle until he reached the relatively open waters of the Atchafalaya.

  As he headed downriver in the darkness, Eric contemplated the events of the day and realized it was a wonder that Keith was still alive. In less than twelve hours he himself had been involved in two deadly shootings despite the remote, rural nature of the area. He was looking forward to getting
the full story from his brother soon, but after hearing from Greg about the attack in which Lynn was killed, as well as the loss of the sheriff, Eric had little doubt there had been a lot going on here in this rural parish.

  Two hours later, as he motored steadily down the Atchafalaya in the dark, Eric spotted the silhouette of a large vessel against the starlit sky. It was steaming up the broad river in his direction, and upon seeing it, he quickly veered towards the far bank, keeping in the shadows of the tree-lined shore where he wouldn’t be spotted, Eric cut the outboard and drifted, and then pulled out his night-vision monocular to see if he could identify it. It was then that he saw that the vessel was a big shrimp trawler, and that it had another vessel in tow, a long, graceful sailing vessel with the masts lowered to the horizontal position. It was his own little ship: Dreamtime. Eric used his flashlight to signal his presence and then headed across the river to intercept the two vessels.

  Five

  DOZENS OF QUESTIONS RAN through Keith Branson’s mind as he drove his sheriff’s patrol boat upriver at nearly top speed. Shauna was huddled low on the seat across from the steering console, staying out of the wind as much as possible. They weren’t talking now, as both of them knew it wasn’t worth shouting back and forth over the roar of the wind and the twin Mercury 150s. There would be time to catch up once they made it to Vic’s place and switched to the truck for the drive to the hospital.

  It had been a long and exhausting day for Keith, a day full of surprises, but all of them good, and that was a rare thing these days. He had just seen his father for the first time in more than a year, and even more unexpected was the news that Eric was nearby as well. The two brothers had missed each other today, but Keith was sure he would see Eric soon. Since he had no idea where his brother went after leaving Jonathan at the house, Keith felt he might as well get his former sister-in-law to the hospital in the meantime. Eric had done the best he could for her under the circumstances after it happened, but the bullet that tore through Shauna’s hand had likely done damage that needed professional attention. Keith was certain she could get that at the hospital in Lafayette, and he wanted to go back there and check on Greg anyway.