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“I’ll find her,” Eddie says before Rachel can even stand up. “Rachel, you’re in charge of Sara until things calm down, understand?”
With her agreement, he goes running upstairs in the direction of Trisha’s room, but is soon thundering back down and rushing out toward the barn.
After removing the blankets that were wrapped around Steve, Elsbeth starts cutting away what’s left of his clothing and I pick up the discarded blankets; bringing them out back to soak before someone has time to wash them. Nothing goes to waste anymore and the next person to use those blankets won’t want the reminder of the blood stains.
The next twenty minutes feels like an eternity while I split my time between keeping an eye on what Trisha and Elsbeth need assistance with and also watching for Russ to get back with Julia and Dylan.
Finally, the sound of the ATV reaches my ears and I rush to the window, pleased to see that the three of them are all well. Circling the house, Russ aims straight for the smokehouse, and I smile at the size of the buck that’s sitting on the trailer.
“I’ll go help them with that,” Jace says from behind me. “I’ll prepare some venison steaks for dinner since it looks like we’ll be feeding an extra mouth, and hang the rest. It’ll last until we can deal with it and get a handle on what the fuck is happening. Then I guess I’ll send Russ out to back up Aiden at the gate.”
I nod in agreement and am surprised when he squeezes my shoulder, but instantly feel guilty, thinking he had to be worried about our children, also.
“Shelby,” Dad keeps his voice low, just to draw my attention to where he and Dale sit near the roaring fire. I cast a glance toward the table, but see that Trisha, Elsbeth, and Eddie seem to have the situation in hand.
“Do you need anything stronger?” I ask Dale as I approach them and notice that he’s only staring into his coffee.
He shakes his head and Dad indicates the seat across from them. “I didn’t want to him to have to tell the story twice.”
“Oh, of course,” I reply softly, nodding at Dale and noting the difference between the man who sits before me to the one I’ve known my whole life. “We may need some details later, but please, tell us.”
“Starting around mid-night, God, I think it’s been 3 days ago now. Well, we heard an explosion in the distance, followed by more gunfire than you ever want to hear anywhere outside of a gun range.” He stops long enough to take a sip from the coffee that’s no longer steaming hot. “That was enough to get us moving. We loaded the truck with supplies and bundled up the kids with my daughters-in-law, sending them down to this backroad so they could make an escape if the fighting came any closer. In retrospect, I don’t think it was as much a fight as it was a massacre.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know where your cabin is located?” I ask, wondering how far he had gone to get away from the town at the base of our mountain.
“It’s about ninety minutes southwest of Dayton,” my father answers for his friend. “Under normal circumstances, at least.”
I know better than he does how distorted travel times have become, so I press my lips together and Dale continues.
“There were three other families who had bugged out to their cabins near ours. We gathered with them on the main road closest to us and waited while the sound of gunfire gradually came closer to us over the next several hours. Some of the men wanted to hole up or retreat, but the others had already started creating a barricade with the abandoned vehicles on the road—honestly, I don’t think they had anywhere left to go, and making a stand was their only option.
“We were about to pull back and join our family when a truck came up the road. They acted like they were the military, here to save us and restore order. I don’t remember what they said the general’s name was, but they insisted that they were acting on orders from the president of the United States. The leader of the group who approached us swore they were attacked for their supplies up the road and that’s the only reason there was gunfire exchanged. The only option they gave us was to lay our weapons down and get in the back of their truck. They said they’d go to collect our families,” he tells us, barely pausing to take a breath.
“My younger son was already in the tree line when they approached us, so I waved him back, telling him to drive for an hour and then wait for two. If we could catch up to them we would, but he knew that the children and their moms were more important.”
Dale takes a moment, resting his head in his hands. “Steve and I stayed low, hoping to follow him unseen. As you can imagine, not one of the men at that half-assed barricade accepted the order to be separated from their families—let alone disarmed. Thediscussioncame to a standstill and the bullets started flying. The two of us were crawling to the tree line, but had to climb over a fallen tree and that’s when Steve was shot in the back.”
Voices from the kitchen area draw my attention, and I turn to focus on them for a moment.
“Are you serious?” Dylan moans and Rachel looks equally peeved.
“They’re very important to all of our well-being, so stop your complaining and get to it,” Elsbeth tells them, reaching her arms out for Sara.
After the two stomp off, resigned to their fate, I go to relieve her of the baby.
“What was that about?” I ask her. Elsbeth spares a smile for Sara before answering me.
“Some of the supplies I have won’t last the winter at the rate we’re going so I sent them to gather pine needles. We’ll steep them for tea as they’re high in antioxidants which will boost all of our immune systems. However, I think that with some added honey will be particularly good for our patient over the next few days.”
“One of these days, I really need to dig into Mom’s journals, don’t I?” Elsbeth’s reasonable solution is another reminder that I should take these winter months to prepare myself for the inevitability of alternative medicine becoming more commonplace.
*
Two days after their arrival, there’s a knock on the back door that sends all of us into a panic. Russ is manning the gate and hadn’t picked up the walkie talkie to notify us of anyone, besides the fact that any one coming up to the house should knock on the front door.
“Well, are you going to leave me out in the cold to freeze to death?” comes a voice I’ve never heard before. I freeze and shoot a look at Julia, who smiles in relief.
“It’s Lee,” she tells me, striding confidently forward to open it. Cracking the door open, she checks that he’s alone before she pulls it wide open. “What are you doing, sneaking around here?”
