Walking in the Rain (Book 4): Dark Sky Thunder (3 page)

“What happened that day was my fault,” Lori said without hesitation. “I acted like a little kid, a dumb one at that, and nearly got my sister, my new friends, and myself killed. If I’d just listened to Luke, we could have stayed in the truck and driven away. No one would have even been scratched.”

“Come on,” Amy protested, “you couldn’t have known those people were still in the area, or that they were preparing to attack your house again. If we had shown up any later, your brother and everybody else in the house might have been killed.”

“So instead,” Lori pressed on, “I got you and Summer shot, and set off Luke like one of those hand grenades. All I know is I acted like an idiot, and I hope you guys can forgive me.”

I could hear the tears in the young woman’s voice as she spoke. We’d had a discussion about this before, shortly after, but we could all tell Lori still carried a burden of guilt.

“Sis, if I would have just stayed in the car, none of this would have happened,” Summer insisted, leaning forward on her crutches to make her point. I knew she was still a little scared of me, of my temper, and things just weren’t the same between us after I woke up in the armory recovery room. I tried to reassure her that we were still cool, but she still had her doubts, I guess.

My father finally spoke, his voice carrying in the morning gloom. “After the shooting stops,” my dad intoned with quiet authority, “we can all point to something we could have done different, or some action that, in hindsight, might have saved a life. That’s all in the past, and if we are going to move forward, you have to leave it back there. I’ve lost men, Marines I considered as close as brothers, and I always had to fight the doubt that comes after the shooting stops. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Eats you alive if you let it. So you have to learn to set it down and somehow move on.

“Now, can one of you tell me how my son got shot? And no, that does not mean you, Lucas. You’ve proven to be an unreliable source.”

I sighed, knowing instinctively that this was going to get ugly. I was right. I never wanted my family to know what I had turned into out there. My dad, okay, he would understand. My grandfather probably would have as well. Uncle Billy? Couldn’t say, but I figure losing his father to the same kind of people who killed Lori and Summer’s folks would keep him from questioning my motives. Or sanity.

But Mom and Paige. Or the Elkins? Or Mr. Sheldon’s family. Isaac Sheldon was a big, scary-looking man to people who didn’t know him, but he was actually one of the kindest, gentlest people I knew. The horses could sense it about him, which was one of the reasons he made such a good trainer. How would Mr. Ike react if he ever overheard this story? So, I was terrified to hear what would be said next by my friends.

Then I heard the door creak one more time and my buddy Alex came ambling out onto the porch. Six feet, six inches tall at only fifteen years of age. Alex was a few shades lighter than his father and had his mother’s high cheekbones, but his father’s physical presence. We used to give him grief at school about getting a job as a male model if the basketball career didn’t pan out.

“What’s goin’ on, guys? I heard you all out here talking. Are we finally going to hear what really happened on the trip?”

Yep. I was doomed.

Suffering in silence, I let first Lori, and then Amy, and finally Scott, spin the tale of my anger-fueled rampage in the neighborhood around the Thompson home. The entire time, I was aware of my father’s eyes as he listened without comment. When Scott was finishing his part of the story, describing how they managed to manhandle the three of us into the SUV for a frantic trip back to the armory, I finally saw my father was ready to speak.

“How much of it do you remember, son?” he asked.

I nodded. Good question. “Pretty much all of it, until I fell out in the garage. I was in control the whole time, if that’s what you mean. I’ve had it happen before, but I don’t lose it every time I go into battle. I’ve fought plenty without going all Viking warrior, you know.”

“But when he goes, Mr. Messner, you don’t want to get in his way. We counted up fifteen bodies that day. He killed every one of them. Shot, stabbed, and just blew up. And at Saw Creek, well, Lori said she heard he killed six men with just a knife, and then shot another half dozen at close range.” Scott said this with conviction, and I knew in his mind, it was a good thing to have such a monster fighting on his side.

“No,” I said with a sigh, “that’s not right. I only killed three, maybe four with a knife there. That’s how all these tall tales get started.”

I heard a hiss behind me, and I turned my head to see my mother leaning against the doorframe. Her face was half hidden in shadow by the early morning light, but I could read the anguish there.

“Just how many battles, Lucas? And please, tell me the truth this time.” Her voice was raw and tinged with painful emotion. My mother was a peaceful soul, a teacher and a nurturer, not like my dad. Or like me, apparently. Claire Messner wanted to see the good in people, the best they could be. The eternal optimist there to balance my father’s pessimism. She loved Shakespeare, while ignoring some of his more blood-bathed plays, and Dylan Thomas and the like.

She taught high school English and seemed to inhabit a more cerebral and calm universe than the rest of us. I think she developed that Zen state while waiting for “the visit” while dad was deployed. You know, the one where an unknown officer and a few enlisted drop in unexpected, all wearing dress uniforms. Where they regret to inform you of a loved one’s death while delivering platitudes about a dead Marine none of them ever met. Obviously, it didn’t happen in our household, but I knew a few where it did.

She was seeing me in a new light, and I worried about what she would feel toward me from this point forward. Heck, she was the reason I went so light the first time I recounted our journey. I wanted to spare her, and Paige, that trauma. And now they knew at least part of it. I thought back to my concerns of just a few minutes ago, not wanting Mr. Sheldon to know, but really, my true fear was coming to pass.

“As many as needed, Mom. I didn’t go looking for trouble, usually, but there’s plenty to go around out there. You know that,” I replied in a neutral tone, not wanting a scolding, of all things, from my mother right now. “You’ve seen it here. I know you’ve had to fight to survive. We all have, or we wouldn’t be here.”

“He saved my life, ma’am,” Amy said, looking at my mother with her blue eyes flashing. “He didn’t even know me, but he killed to protect me. I know they would have raped me, and probably killed me, when they were done.”

“Me too,” Lori volunteered. “After some men sold me off to be a…slave, he was one of the ones that freed me. He also saved my sister by going into that school in Arkansas to get her and the other girls out. Ma’am, you should be proud of Luke. He saved so many lives out there. You have to understand that.”

Lori did not bother to explain that I didn’t exactly perform this heroic deed alone.

My mother nodded, and as the unfiltered stories continued, I could see she was still trying to process all the news we brought with us. But I was her little boy, her son she carried inside her for nine months, and then tried to civilize ever since. As we moved around from one posting to the next, I noticed sometimes that I seemed a bit different than the other kids.

I felt things, had the same emotions everybody else did, but somehow I was able to control them better. Store up the hurts and disappointments that other kids my age bawled about. And I could focus, drawing all my attention to the matter at hand and tune out the other crap going on around me. That’s how I became such a good shooter and how I managed to hold my shit together out there when the lights went out, I guess.

No, my mom tried, but I don’t think she really understood me. Even before I left for Chicago on that flight from Dallas. I had too much of that damn Messner determination in me, or pig-headedness, as she often complained about when Dad got on her last nerve. She loved us, and I think at that moment she realized that her first born wasn’t her little boy anymore.

Of course, my mother also learned some other things that managed to horrify her to no end. That elements of the state and national governments were at odds was not what Mom was waiting to hear. Again, she wanted to think that those who were entrusted with power would work for the greater good. I thought about the governor in Arkansas, Watkins, and wanted to tell her that some public servants did seem to be rising to the occasion. Maybe mention it to her later, I decided.

I stopped before we got to the confrontation at the Red River Army Depot. No sense in speculating over such things now. And I’d left out the attack on the chemical weapons depot at Pine Bluff, too. That wasn’t directly part of our trip, and I wanted to get Dad alone or with Mike and maybe Uncle Billy to discuss what this might mean.

“All right,” I said, breaking the tension, “that’s enough for now. Dad, we can get together after breakfast and go over the supplies we brought. I know Amy has a list somewhere. And I want to hear who all else you’ve been in contact with around here.”

I could tell my father wanted to say something else, but he must have seen something in my look that changed his mind. Some of what I had left to share was just guesswork, but scary nonetheless in the implications. In fact, I debated seeing if Dad was up for a run into town. I figured Sheriff Henderson needed to be aware of what was going on out there before some bullies in a black SUV drove up and started hassling his deputies. Wait, I already did that.

“Okay,” my dad agreed. “Chores, then breakfast, then we go see Billy. We need to discuss the security situation with all these new recruits handy.”

He said it in a way that got a laugh, but I knew he was serious. He might only consider getting two additional fighters, us boys, but I knew Lori and (God forgive me) Amy could do the job as well. As for Helena and Connie, well, time would tell.

We quickly split up into teams, with my father making the assignments. The milk cows, chickens, horses, and even the goats needed attention this morning, just like every day. I took the horses stabled in the horse barn, since that was my old job, and Scott and Amy came along for a quick orientation.

Mom and the Thompson sisters went to the milking parlor where our two milk cows waited patiently to be let in, while Paige led Helena, Connie, and the little ones to the chicken coops to gather the morning’s egg production. Alex, over his protests, was sent back to bed. Dad, hero that he was, would see to the hogs. Hurray for him, I thought darkly. We kept the hog enclosures downwind for a reason, and still the smell was atrocious. Or, at least I used to think so. Now, I would probably barely notice.

As I led the way over to the stables, really a large barn with fenced-off paddocks for the horses to roam a bit, I gave my two companions a running commentary on the operation. I remembered Nick doing the same for me at the Keller farm and felt a sudden wave of nostalgia. Even though we’d only spent a short time there, I’d come to think of them as my second family, and I said a silent prayer that they were holding up under the challenges of the day.

“Why are some horses in here, and others out in the fields?” Scott asked.

“These are the stallions and the pregnant mares. We want to protect the prospective mothers and keep the stallions from fighting,” I replied. “The geldings and unbred mares are fine in the near fields, and frankly, the stallions we have here are pretty mellow for all that, but the idea is to keep the lines unmixed for now. Maybe later we will revisit that formula. Not much call for show horses or barrel racers, and more need for plow horses and general riding stock, really. I’m sure that’s why Grandpa insisted we buy that Percheron stallion and those three mares.”

As I spoke, I approached a familiar stall and saw my boy, Archer, waiting for me. I could tell he’d caught my scent by the way he shook his head, and I figured he was pissed at me for my long absence. I explained as much to Scott and Amy and told them how Archer had held a grudge for over a week the last time I’d been gone for the summer, working in Dallas.

Sticking his head over the half door of the stall, Archer snorted once and sneezed on me, flinging his saliva and mucus in my direction with practiced accuracy. The other two jumped back in horror, but I just laughed. That was my buddy, all right.

“Is he sick?” Amy asked with concern, stepping closer, but not too close.

“Hell, no, that’s just another way for him to get even with me. Better than him pretending I wasn’t here,” I replied with a chuckle as I scooped up a half can of feed and dumped it in his trough. The small fenced area for Archer had abundant grass, and I would be by later to let him out to do some grazing. The feed was more in the way of a peace offering, which the big palomino accepted as his due.

“What kind of horse is that?” Scott asked.

I explained, and then pointed out the different breeds presented in the various enclosures. We had four stallions right now, as well as an ample supply of frozen sperm for artificial insemination, and I counted fifteen pregnant or nursing horses in the large barn. I didn’t know the current number of colts and fillies, but surely, my father had a tally for them. At that thought, I remembered how handy Amy was with inventory and record keeping and realized, once again, how great an asset we had in her. She was more than a pretty face and an accurate, steady gun hand.

“Well, this doesn’t seem so bad,” Scott said, and I grinned as he shook me out of my idle thoughts. We were just distributing a few cans of grain to each stall at this point, which was something even little Rachel could probably do.

“Well, we haven’t gotten to the good part yet,” I replied, and then pointed at the waiting wheelbarrow and shovels. “Time to muck out the stalls.”

Despite mock sighs of dismay, the three of us made short work of the cleanup. Only Trigger, our newest quarter horse stud, was still skittish, and I handled the cleaning in that particular stall. Amy, I noticed, seemed to be particularly attracted to the pregnant mares, and I saw her ruffling their coats and rubbing delicate noses with a gentle but familiar hand.