The Forge of Darkness (Darkness After Series Book 3) Read online

  David Green promised Benny he would wait there beside Tommy until the girls returned or he got back, whichever was first. Benny didn’t want to leave his boy’s side, but he wasn’t going to let whoever shot him get away with it either. David would have gone with him, but he understood they couldn’t leave Tommy alone. Somebody needed to stay there with him and Benny told David it was best if he did. He had Tommy’s rifle to guard him with and he had to make sure Tommy’s bandages didn’t come loose so he wouldn’t bleed too much before they could move him.

  Benny said if they could just get him back to the house Tommy would be okay, but David wondered if he was really going to die anyway. Lisa and Stacy had been crying when they saw how bad he was shot and Benny looked really worried too. David kept whispering to him as he sat there beside him, telling him his daddy was going to find whoever did this to him. David didn’t understand why anyone would shoot a nice person like Tommy. Tommy never hurt anybody as far as he knew and all he was trying to do was run off that boy that had shot those cows. David wondered now if the person who shot Tommy would have shot him instead if he had been the first one to get there, and he figured they probably would have. That boy was walking towards Tommy while he was hurt and on the ground, and David just knew he was going to cut his friend open the same way he was doing those steers when they found him. That’s why he ran out from where Tommy had told him to wait and hide, to try and stop the boy with his spear. When he missed, he could tell the boy was going to try and kill him too, and the only reason he didn’t was because Benny shot him with his shotgun.

  It was just Tommy’s bad luck in the first place that he was the one in front and the first one to step out in the open. Tommy always led the way when they were on patrol together because he knew where they were going and David didn’t. David just followed along wherever he went because Tommy told him to, and he didn’t have much of anything else to do anyway. Without Tommy, David wouldn’t have known what to most of the time. Tommy said the reason they went out and walked the fences every day was to check and make sure they were okay and that the cattle were still inside them, and also to keep an eye out for strangers. They never saw any before today, but Tommy always carried his rifle in case they did. David didn’t have a rifle but he carried the long, sharpened stick that he called his spear and he often glanced back along the path behind them to make sure they weren’t followed. Tommy had told him there were bears and panthers in the woods and he told him all kinds of scary stories when they were walking. David believed every one of them because he didn’t have any reason to doubt what his friend said. Ever since he’d come here, following Mitch out of the woods, he’d liked Tommy and it wasn’t long before he considered him his best friend in the whole world. Now someone had shot him just because he was trying to save the cows. It made David sad to see him looking like he looked now, his jacket and shirt soaked in blood and his face contorted with pain as he lay there trying to breathe.

  David was glad Benny had shot the one with the knife, and he hoped he would get the other one too, before it got too dark to find him. Before he left, Benny said the strangers must have come there by way of the road from the west, because that was the way to get here from every place else. Benny said he was going to head that way, staying in the woods alongside the road, because he said he thought the other one would probably circle back to it and try to go that way to get away. But Benny wouldn’t let him get away if he could help it. He was going to make him pay for what he did to Tommy, and David didn’t feel sorry for whoever it was at all. Nobody had the right to shoot Tommy, and David wished he could shoot whoever did it himself.

  Nine

  THE SHOOTER ACROSS THE road wasn’t sure how many adversaries he was facing. He had seen the man with the rifle approaching his son initially, and had taken him out, but then the other one had charged out of nowhere like a madman, throwing a spear. Then, from the woods in the direction the rest of the cattle had run, another one had slipped up on Kenny and shot him with a shotgun. It was such a pity he didn’t see that one in time to save his son, but the visibility was poor in the woods in this rain, and even with the scope he’d not been able to pick him out from where he was hiding. The boy had been ambushed and didn’t have a chance. He’d figured all along something like this was going to happen to that one; it was just a matter of time. Kenny was overconfident and far too often, careless. He shouldn’t have left his rifle leaning there against a tree out of reach while working with his knife. If he’d been paying attention, he would have heard those two coming and could have shot them on sight and been done with them. But even if he had, there was the other one with the shotgun neither of them had seen.

  That was the problem with reacting to and focusing on one threat while assuming it was the only one. His son had paid for his mistake with his life, and now there were even more unknowns. All that .22 rifle fire had come as another surprise. It sounded like someone emptied an entire 25 or 30 round magazine in his general direction, not really knowing exactly where he was. His position behind a solid hardwood stump gave him both cover and concealment, so he just hunkered down until the shooting stopped. It wasn’t worth giving away his location to shoot back and he knew they would stop eventually. When they did and he was able to look again, he saw they had dragged the body of the one he’d hit to where they were hiding. It didn’t really matter, because after a hit like that he would die soon if he wasn’t already dead. Kenny was lying where he’d fallen, his rifle still propped against the tree where he’d left it.

  Nothing moved as he watched and waited to see what they would do next. Would they go back to wherever they came from with the wounded or dead one he’d shot? Or would they try and get across the road and outflank him? He figured that probably depended on how many of them there were. Little Jimmy had gone to get the others and it wouldn’t take them long to get here, so he figured his best bet was to sit tight unless he saw something that made him think otherwise. As soon as it was clear, he would cross the road to where Kenny had fallen, but after studying him through the riflescope, he didn’t have to get any closer to know his oldest son was already dead.

  * * *

  Leaving his boy lying there bleeding and in pain was the hardest thing Benny Evans had done since he buried his wife in their backyard over eight months ago. But Tommy was either going to survive this or he wouldn’t. It didn’t matter whether all of them were there or not, because there wasn’t much they could do for him until they moved him to the house. But Benny knew he was the only one among them who could go after that shooter and catch him, and he aimed to do jus that. It was far too dangerous for David or the girls and he knew that even with his experience he had to be careful or he would get himself shot too.

  They never saw any movement across the road and still didn’t know exactly where the rifleman was hiding, other than somewhere on the wooded hillside. The sniper had the advantage of the high ground and concealment, but now that the light was fading Benny knew it would be harder for him to pick out a target. As long as he stayed well within the trees on his side of the road, Benny figured it would be safe to try and circle around on him, crossing the road somewhere farther down, in the direction from which he was sure the strangers had come.

  Benny knew it was possible the shooter had already slipped away. It was doubtful that he would stick around and make an attempt to retrieve any of the stolen beef after coming under so much fire, and especially losing his partner too. The dead one was just a teen-aged boy, probably not much older than Lisa and Stacy. Benny wondered if the one who’d shot Tommy might be just a kid too, but it didn’t matter. Whoever it was had aimed to kill his boy and Benny was going to make sure he didn’t get away with it. It was going to be dark soon and Benny knew he had to hurry or finding him would be impossible.

  He crossed the fence when he came to the boundary of the Henley property and pushed on through the adjoining national forest lands that bordered the road on both sides there. Benny figured he needed to
parallel the road for a few hundred yards and then find a place to cross it, unless he happened to see the shooter before then. The woods beyond the farm property consisted of plantation pines set out by the forest service just a few years prior. They had not yet been thinned, so the thickly growing trees provided good cover, but because of the dense branches, he had to stay quite close to the road to keep within sight of it. He figured if the shooter were trying to get away, he would take to the road again as soon as he left the area of the confrontation.

  When Benny had gone far enough to be well beyond the first bend in the road from the place where the shooting had happened, he slipped up the edge of the gravel to look and listen. It was empty as far as he could see in either direction. To the west, where it led off to the outside world, it curved away out of sight within a quarter mile. When he heard nothing and saw no movement either on the road or in the woods on the other side, Benny stepped out of the trees and quickly made his way across. The gravel here was hard-packed, so unfortunately there would be no footprints, even if not for the rain washing them away as soon as they were made. There was no way to know if his quarry had already made it to the road and was even now beyond the bend, or if was still somewhere between here and the place from which he’d shot Tommy. But Benny was betting on the latter of the two possibilities, because he figured anyone concealed as carefully as he had been would also be careful about moving out. He would have to have been practically running to get beyond this point otherwise. If he was wrong, Benny knew he might get away for good, but he made his choice and decided he would carefully work his way back in that direction, slipping through the woods on that side of the road until he hopefully intercepted him. In the dim light and falling rain, he figured that when they did meet, it would be well inside of shotgun range.

  Benny was about to start moving that way when he happened to glance back down the road to the west one more time. What he saw at the point where the curve began stopped him in his tracks. Six shadowy figures, spaced well apart and moving slowly like they were expecting an encounter, were advancing along the road in his direction. All of were them carrying long guns at the ready, like they expected to use them any minute. Benny couldn’t make out the details of their faces since all were either wearing hats or had hoods of their jackets pulled over their heads because of the rain. The six men were eerily silent as they advanced, using hand signals to maintain stealth as they moved.

  It was clear to Benny that they were coming to investigate the source of the recent gunfire, but this was completely and utterly unexpected. He had to assume these strangers were with the other two, and if that were true, the one he sought might not try to escape after all. Instead, his friends had come to help, and now Benny was faced with a far bigger problem than he’d imagined. Six armed men were more than he could take on alone with his shotgun and he needed to somehow warn the others of the danger. But now he was on the wrong side of the road and couldn’t cross again until these men passed. And by the time they were safely out of sight from where he stood frozen now, they would be closing in on David, waiting alone and unsuspecting there with Tommy. Benny’s head was exploding with all these developments. Seeing his boy shot like that and knowing he would be lucky to survive it was already enough to deal with for one day. Now everyone else he cared about was in jeopardy too. If there was ever a day when he wished Mitch was not away hunting, this was it.

  Benny had only been standing a few yards from the edge of the road when he’d first seen the approaching six. As he processed what was happening, he barely had time to slowly sink to his belly in the low-growing ferns around him before they were near enough to see him. He watched with his finger on the trigger of the shotgun as they slowly slunk by, scanning not only the road ahead but also the ditches and surrounding woods. Benny was afraid to even blink and he was certain that if it hadn’t been raining and wasn’t nearly dark, they would have spotted him lying there.

  He was way too close to them for comfort; certainly close enough to get a good look at what he was dealing with. All six were grown men, unlike the teenager he’d shot. They were heavily bearded to a man, all of them wild-eyed and looking like they had been living outdoors for months, as was to be expected these days. One of them carried a shotgun—a pump like Benny’s but with an extended magazine like the riot guns the police sometimes used. The rest were armed with military-style semiautomatics: AR-15s and AK-47 variants. They were moving in silence, communicating with hand signals like they were in a war zone expecting enemy contact at any minute, and Benny knew if he was spotted he was a dead man. But after several excruciating minutes during which he barely dared to breathe, they passed by his position. Benny remained motionless as he watched them go, until the one bringing up the rear was at least a hundred feet down the road. Stepping as carefully as he’d ever done in his life, Benny eased his way back to the road and quickly slipped across again. He had to follow these men, but he wanted to be on the same side of the road as Tommy. The girls would not have time to get back with the travois before these men got there and David had no idea they were coming. It looked grim for all of them, and Benny didn’t see a way out of what he knew was surely coming.

  Ten

  TIME DIDN’T USUALLY MEAN much to David Green because he had no memory of anything beyond the recent past and little concern for any future beyond the present day. The only life he knew revolved around the Henley farm and most days since he got there had been the same until this one, when everything suddenly changed. But sitting there waiting with his helpless friend, it seemed to David that the minutes were dragging by impossibly slow. He wanted the girls to hurry up and return with April or Samantha and the travois they were going to use to get Tommy home, and he wanted Benny to hurry back too. But it seemed like he’d been waiting there forever. It was still raining and the dim light was turning to twilight. David and Tommy were alone except for the dead boy Benny had shot and the two steers the strangers had killed. David didn’t want to be out there waiting when it got dark, but he didn’t think Benny would come back until he caught the other one that shot his boy. He kept whispering to Tommy, telling him he needed to try and get up on his own if he could. He said the others might not come back for him and that it would be dark soon. He also told Tommy he was sorry for what happened to him.

  “You didn’t deserve to get shot, Tommy. All you were doing was what you were supposed to—protecting the cows. They shouldn’t have shot you for that, but they did. I wish I could have stopped them from doing it, Tommy. I really do, but neither one of us knew there was another one hiding over there across the road.”

  Tommy’s eyes were open and he seemed to hear him but he didn’t respond. David could see that he was still breathing, but he was too weak or in too much pain or both to talk. Benny had slowed the worst of the bleeding by packing the entrance and exit wounds with strips of cloth ripped from a flannel shirt he’d been wearing under his jacket. The crude bandages were soaked through with blood, but they were effective in blocking most of the flow. Benny had warned David and Lisa that when they moved him onto the travois they would have to take care that the bandages did not come loose.

  David thought he heard something in the woods behind him and he looked anxiously in the direction Lisa and Stacy had gone to get back to the house. He hoped it was the two of them coming back, but he waited and waited and there was nothing. Then he looked back to the road and saw something move over on the other side. His heart pounded in his chest as he watched for it again, and then there it was: a man stepping slowly out of the woods and into the open by the edge of the road. Even in the poor light, he could tell by the man’s shape that it wasn’t Benny. He was much too tall and thin, for one thing, and he moved differently. David reached for Tommy’s rifle with shaking hands and twisted to get a better view through the trees behind which the two of them were hidden.

  The man stood there for what seemed a long time, waiting and listening no doubt, before he walked into the road. David’s
hands were shaking and he was having a terrible time trying to control them. He knew this man had to be the one that shot Tommy, and probably the steers too. Now he had emerged from hiding and was coming to see about his friend that Benny had shot. He probably thought they were all gone because it had been a while since the shooting stopped and nothing moved after Benny and the girls left. But David knew that once he got over here by the dead one, he would look around and he would find them. He had to stop him while he didn’t suspect anything and before he had a chance to shoot first. David steadied the rifle by resting the forearm stock against the side of a tree. That helped stop the shaking and he was able to line up the open sights on the man’s chest. David didn’t remember where he’d first learned to shoot, but it somehow felt familiar to him every time he did it and it came natural enough that he knew he wouldn’t miss at this range. He was just about to pull the trigger when he heard a voice that caused the man in the road to turn and face the other way.

  David hesitated and turned his attention to the direction the man was now staring. It was the same way Benny had gone and he wondered if it could be him, but the man called back to whoever it was in a friendly tone. Then David saw that there were several other men walking down the road. They were carrying guns and they seemed to know the one who’d shot Tommy. David didn’t know what to do now. If he fired the rifle at the one he was aiming at, these others would know he was there and he didn’t know how many of them there were. Even if he didn’t shoot he was afraid they’d quickly find him and Tommy if he just waited there. The first man was already pointing to his dead companion as he spoke to the others, no doubt telling them what happened. And the body was less than twenty yards from where he and Tommy were concealed. David knew he was about to run out of time if he didn’t do something fast.