Deep Shadows (31 page)

Fishing hooks

Brandy

Aspirin, ibuprofen, or acetaminophen

Wrap bandages

Quick-clot gauze

Disposable gloves

Burn creams

Antibiotic ointment

Matches and/or flint

Tire repair kit

Bleach

Heirloom seeds

Salt

Max reached the bottom of the list and started over at the top. He sat back, tapping his pen against the piece of paper. Everything on the list his parents already had, except maybe the brandy. It wasn't lost on him that the alcohol was listed at the beginning of the medical supplies. He'd always thought that brandy as a cure-all was an old wives' tale, but what did he know? He wasn't a doctor, and his knowledge of first aid was rudimentary at best.

He hoped the ammunition was for hunting.

The last five items on the list seemed a random assortment. Things they expected to need more of? Worst-case scenario provisions? Supplies for a neighbor?

At the bottom his pop had added the word
chocolate
, but someone had scratched it out—probably his mother. He would have added it for her, and she would have insisted it wasn't a necessity.

Max folded the list and stuck it in his pocket. He stared around the office and wondered what he was doing there. No one's divorce was going to be presented to a judge. Child custody agreements and wills would have to wait. The legal system had halted, and who knew when it would start again?

What he did know, what he could tell from the list, was that his parents were thinking long-term.

Max donned his own Stetson. Yes, he wore one similar to Dr. Lambert, but in Abney every male over twelve wore a cowboy hat. He taped the handmade sign on his door—“Closed Until Further Notice.” Max had spent the last seven years building a steady, solid, small-town business. Now he was walking away from it, not knowing or caring if it would still be there when he came back.

One thing he was sure of. His priorities had changed.

F
IFTY

M
ax stepped out into a day that had begun its descent, casting long shadows down a nearly deserted Main Street. Should he take a few minutes and walk over to speak with the mayor? Maybe check on the situation with Charles Striker? But there wasn't time for that. He didn't know why he felt things were moving along so quickly. Jerry had been adamant that he didn't need to hurry, as had his mom. Both assurances did little to mitigate his growing sense of alarm. Instead of heading to the mayor's office, Max turned toward home.

His plan was to spend the next few hours collecting, buying, or trading for what he could on his parents' list, and then he needed to talk to Shelby.

He walked home at a quick pace, deliberating the pros and cons of what he planned to do next. The ammunition store was on the northeast side of Abney, and based on what Charles Striker had said, he didn't relish the idea of being on foot in that part of town.

Driving wasn't a decision he arrived at easily. On the one hand, he could easily walk the distance, which was probably three miles. Even though his parents' message through Jerry Lambert had explicitly told him there was no emergency, Max could hear a clock ticking in his mind. He could take two, three more days at the most, and then he wanted to be on Highway 281 headed north.

He didn't need to look at his watch to know it was past four in the afternoon. The shadows stretching across the deserted roads told him that. If he hurried, he could walk to his truck, drive to Guns & More on the edge of town, and still pick up Shelby from her shift at Green Acres.

The drive to the edge of town was uneventful, but he came to an abrupt stop on the lane leading to the store. Guns & More sat at the top of a hill, little more than a rise off the flat highway heading east. Normally he would turn off the highway onto a caliche road, which led to the store and its gravel parking lot. Not today.

Someone had used a backhoe to the east of the caliche road and on the outside of the fence. Freshly overturned dirt covered a ten-by-twelve-foot area. There had always been a cattle guard leading onto the property—which had once been an old ranch—but he'd never seen the cattle gate closed, and certainly not during business hours. In addition, a wire fence had been stretched across the road, directly up against the cattle gate and extending off into the trees on the right and left. Behind the wire, a teenager sat inside a pickup truck, talking into a CB radio.

When the boy stepped out of the truck, Max saw he was carrying a rifle. He looked comfortable enough handling the weapon. Many kids who grew up in the country had been hunting since they were young, and this kid's grandfather owned the only ammo store in town.

“Howdy, Mr. Berkman. Gramps said you could go on up.” Resting the rifle against the fence post, he fetched a key out of his pocket and opened a sturdy padlock that was holding the gate closed.

“Thanks, son.” Max slowly drove forward. He wanted to ask the kid what was going on, but he'd have a better chance of getting information from his grandfather.

The name Guns & More sounded like a seedy place, but the store was actually a member of the Abney Chamber of Commerce and known for donating generously to local groups. It was owned by a longtime Abney resident who was a few years older than Max. Stanley Hamilton was a solid guy—retired military, community volunteer, and grandpa of four at last count. Now Stanley's grandson, a talented running back, was playing the role of armed guard.

Max parked his truck in front of the store. No one else appeared to be in the parking lot, and when Max tried the front door, he found it closed and shut up tight. Not a big problem, since Stanley lived in the old home positioned several hundred yards behind the store. Max walked back to the truck and locked it—which was probably ridiculous, since there was an armed patrol at the bottom of the hill. Regardless, he felt better with
the old truck locked. Next he hustled over to Stanley's home. He found the man on the east side of the house, in the shade of the building, planting a garden with two of his younger grandchildren.

Stanley was an average-sized guy—maybe five feet ten or eleven. He'd managed to stay in shape in spite of being on the north side of fifty. His look had definitely changed since he'd retired from the military. He sported long hair and a full beard. It now reached halfway down his chest and was more gray than black. A red do-rag held his shoulder-length hair back away from his face. He wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a pouch around his waist. He looked like an ad for Harley-Davidson motorcycles. The picture would have been complete if he'd sported tattoos down his arms, but he'd once confessed to Max that he had a strong aversion to needles.

“Max.” He pulled off a garden glove, and they shook hands. “How are you?”

“All right. Just closed up my place downtown.”

“Headed to High Fields?”

“I am. My folks…” Max pulled the list from his pocket. “They asked me to pick up a few things.”

Stanley studied the list, nodded once, and told his grandchildren to wait inside. “Tell grandma I'm going to the shop for a few minutes.”

When he turned toward the kids, Max noticed Stanley was wearing a paddle holster, and it held a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol. In addition, a mobile CB station was set up on a card table under the patio cover, which must have been how he'd answered his grandson at the gate.

The kids ran inside, and Stanley motioned toward his business. “I'm pretty sure I have what you need. Do you have cash?”

“I do.”

“Sorry I have to ask.”

“Not a problem.”

A mockingbird called out from a nearby tree, and the normalcy of that sound hit Max like a punch in the gut. Nothing about their life was normal now. It seemed that everything had changed, and their lives had begun to feel like a doomsday movie.

“I was afraid you might be sold out.”

“I've sold a good bit, but I still have about half my stock. Folks don't have much cash. What they do have they're spending on food or seed.”

“You're not taking trades?”

“Not yet, but I might—eventually.”

“When did you start wearing a paddle holster?”

“Two days ago, when a customer tried to rob me.”

“Is that why your grandson is standing guard?”

Instead of answering, Stanley unlocked the back door of the shop. The room was pitch-dark, but he reached for a battery-operated lantern and flipped it on. He handed the list back to Max and pointed toward the workbench, where another lantern waited. Max walked over and turned it on.

Stanley proceeded to walk through the supply room, gathering up shotgun shells, rifle cartridges, and several boxes of handgun ammunition.

“Things went south here pretty quickly.” He pulled a gun cleaning kit off a shelf and added it to the stack of supplies.

“We hadn't heard.”

“No time to notify the authorities, and I doubt they could or would have done anything if I had.”

Max didn't know how to answer that, so he kept quiet, trying to process what Stanley was describing.

“Your parents are doing okay?”

“They are. I received that note from them earlier today. I was a little surprised Pop wanted this stuff. You and I both know he keeps plenty at the ranch.”

“He's thinking long-term. Your pop, he isn't one to paint a rosy picture if there are storm clouds on the horizon.”

Max thought about that as Stanley walked to the front counter, where the last of the day's light pierced the front windows. Something had happened here. On the one hand, Max wanted to know the details. But on the other hand, he was still a lawyer. He'd dedicated his life to upholding the law.

What Stanley was about to tell him was probably outside the boundaries of the law. If so, Max would have to decide whether to choose the side of the law or support his friend.

F
IFTY
-O
NE

S
tanley tallied up his purchases by hand on an old-fashioned receipt book and then circled the total. Max pulled the requisite bills from his wallet. Stanley unzipped the pouch he wore and made change, and then he tucked the money Max had given him into the bag and zipped it shut.

“What's going on, Stanley? Your grandson is standing guard at the road, you've installed a perimeter fence, your shop is locked up, and you're carrying a pistol on your hip and your money in a bag around your waist.”

Stanley ran his fingers through his beard and studied Max. Finally he nodded toward the back room. “Let's talk back there. I don't like standing near the windows any longer than I have to.”

When they'd reached the back room, Stanley pulled an empty clip from a box and a tray of ammo from a shelf. As he talked he thumbed ammo into the clip.

“Two days ago a skinny, drugged-up kid from the east side tried to rob me. I clipped him on the side of the head and kicked him out of my store. Later that night, he came back—this time with three of his buddies.”

Max's mind immediately shifted into lawyer mode. He wanted to stop Stanley, ask questions, get the details, and somehow create a complete picture of what Stanley was describing. But he didn't.

“The store was locked up and darkness had fallen by the time they returned, but I was sitting in the bed of my truck. It was parked to the east side of the building. You know I have a floodlight on the top of that truck.”

“For when you go hog hunting. I remember.”

“When I spotlighted these fellas, one pulled a handgun and started shooting.”

“And you shot back?”

“I did, though I didn't aim to kill him—after all, he was just a kid.” Stanley shook his head and reached for another clip. “That was my first mistake. Thinking the old way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Max. We both realize no officer is going to arrive and arrest that kid or his buddies, plus I couldn't even call 9-1-1.”

“So you shot one of them. What happened then?”

“These punks had never thought through what they were doing. I guarantee you not a single one of them had envisioned bullets coming toward them. They scampered out of here the minute the first kid was hurt.” Stanley shook his head. “I know better than to make that kind of mistake. The last thing a person needs in this environment is enemies—especially young, stupid ones.”

Max pulled out a stool from under the counter and sank onto it. “So they came back?”

“The same four guys, and this time they were sporting rifles, shotguns, and a few handguns.” He glanced at Max and shook his head. “Rather ironic that they were willing to use so much ammo in order to steal ammo.”

“What did you do?”

“I knew they'd hit that same night. Cowards like those four avoid the light. They think the darkness is their friend.” He filled another clip and tossed it into a bin. “This time I was on the roof, wearing my infrareds. They didn't have a chance.”