Darkness upon the Land

Reuben darted to the doorway of the shed, and continuing shots confirmed Darius hadn’t just shot himself in the foot.

The speed at which the fellow had clamored into the trench, however, would have impressed him if other circumstances weren’t more pressing. Blood covered Darius’s left arm and side, and as he scrambled to cover he unceremoniously banged the rifle against the earthworks. Reuben actually winced at both the man’s predicament and the rough handling of their only firearm.

But how did an assailant get the jump on Darius? As Reuben scanned what little of the roadway he could see from the shed, he figured their “guard” had decided to take a little snooze himself and had been completely unaware of anybody’s approach. And why wasn’t Henry around to alert them? Too many things were going wrong.

After very few seconds the assailant stopped trying to hit Darius and instead adjusted aim to the front of the house. The sound of splintering wood and shattering glass joined the sharp cracks of the firearm. From this angle Reuben couldn’t see any flashpoints, but he was pretty sure the “wanna-be” sniper was positioned directly behind the pickup truck.

Good. There was a special surprise for anybody who determined the truck would provide cover.

Keeping low, he sprinted toward the back porch. He grabbed a Molotov cocktail bottle from the batch hidden in a wooden box beneath a bench against the wall, and dropped it inside his shirt. Then he snatched an antique butane lighter from a rafter above the door and shoved that into his pocket. The shooting stopped, and quickly but quietly Reuben scaled up the timbers to the porch roof.

Darius had stopped yelling, but a different man’s voice hollered toward the house.

“See what you’re up against? Make it easy on yourselves and come out with your hands up!”

He realized that voice was familiar, but had more pressing thoughts on his mind as he carefully scrambled up the cypress wood shakes on the house’s main roof.

No response came from inside the home. Good – keep the invaders guessing. He stealthily approached the brick chimney on the end of the building.

“We know you got a man wounded out here!” The voice called again. “Surrender and we’ll let you patch him up!”

Darius yelped, “For God’s sake, do something!”

So the maxim was true there are no atheists in foxholes. Reuben pressed against the chimney and carefully peered around its corner. He still couldn’t see behind the pickup, but the view from up here did improve his surveillance of the front yard. Darius was sprawled in the pit with his right hand clamped over his left upper arm, eyes closed and teeth gritted.

How many were crouched behind the truck? Were there more of them hiding beyond the bend in the driveway? Regardless of the numbers, it was time to make approach to the house more difficult. He ducked back behind the chimney and dug out the cocktail and lighter.

With a flick of the lighter, he lit the oil-stained rag hanging from the bottle and then peeked around the chimney, grasping the top of the structure with his right hand to help maintain his footing. This cocktail had better work. If his throw wasn’t good enough, he doubted there would much opportunity to launch another one. He drew a deep breath and hurled the flaming bottle eighty-five feet toward the fuel-filled bed of the vehicle.

It just clipped the back corner of the cab and shattered. Fire immediately began writhing both in the truck and on the nearby ground.

He heard a couple of muffled voices and made out the words “on the roof.”

Reuben instinctively curled into as small and tight a ball as he could as he pressed his back into the chimney. Popping and whizzing joined the sound of gunfire as shards of bricks and splintered bullets rocketed around him. Despite the racket, he could hear his own heart pounding.

The barrage stopped after a few very long seconds, and that voice called out again.

“You’re outnumbered and outgunned! Give it up if you want to stay alive!”

Outnumbered – probably. Outgunned – definitely. But outsmarted? He wondered just what kind of plan these hoodlums had hatched when it began this brazenly with threats and wasted ammo. Unless they were impudent enough to believe they could saunter through the narrow path at the nose of the pickup, or wade through the waters they didn’t know were booby trapped, the perps were as pinned down as their quarry.

Reuben parted his hands which had been clamped over his head and shifted slightly sideways against the chimney. He didn’t dare peek around it, but at this vantage point could still see that a stream of black smoke was rising into the air. The rags soaked in oil were apparently burning admirably and catching fire to all the resin-impregnated pine and fatwood branches filling out the bed and cab of the pickup. It should be getting pretty hot in there.

“Don’t be idiots!” The shouter yelled again. “If you put up a fight you’re going to get yourselves killed!”

He would have liked to observe the spectacle of a can of paint thinner buried at the bottom of the brush pile perform its duty, but prudence dictated otherwise. He did reach for his slingshot and four pellets.

“Don’t you know what happens to dumb asses?” The voice bellowed.

The boom of the exploding can startled even Reuben, but he quickly looked over the top of the chimney. In a way the noise was more impressive than the eruption of flaming debris, seeded with ignited cans of soapy gasoline, showering over the sides of the truck. But he was still pleased with the results.

Shouts and cursing immediately began. One man practically rolled into the waters of the swamp and two more stumbled at sprinting speed back on to the open driveway.

At this range his slingshot was more likely to maim than kill, but he fired first at the thug on the left. His aim turned out to be a little low because the brute cursed again and clutched at his chest. Reuben adjusted his next shot, and this time the ruffian jerked and fell backwards.

The partner spun his head to watch his comrade’s descent when Reuben shot again. His target flailed and hit the ground, and then kicked around spasmodically.

His attention ripped to the fellow floundering from the tangle-foot wire strung along the murky swamp bottom. Although this man was a little closer, his erratic jerking made it more difficult to aim. The last pellet was also a bit off in its trajectory. The lout clapped his right hand to his ear and crashed back into the water. Reuben snatched a couple more pellets from their pouch, and as the man managed to splash back to the driveway and begin crawling up its embankment, shot again. A gurgling squawk erupted from the villain as he tumbled back into the water and disappeared beneath its surface.

A quick glance toward the driveway confirmed the other two miscreants were still down. No longer concerned about keeping silent, he scrambled down the roof and leaped from the timbers to the ground. Slingshot and pellets still at the ready, he dashed around the house and into the front yard.

Darius yelled something about where did he think he was going as he darted past. Reuben halted between the trench and the flaming pickup. The splashing in the swamp had subsided, but there was still a good amount of heat rolling off the truck since both the cab and bed were still ablaze. He was going to have to take the wide way around the submerged wire to get to anybody, but he wondered if any firearms had been left lying close enough to the pickup that ammunition could begin shooting off without warning.

As far as Reuben was concerned, the thug in the water was a goner. But he might be able to get information from at least one of the two goons on the road. He returned the slingshot to its pouch as he turned and strode toward Darius. The front door to the house burst open, and Larissa sidled out, followed not at all closely by Mitch.

“How bad is he?” Larissa’s voice was strained.

He reached down and snatched the rifle lying beside Darius. For all he knew the man might have knocked dirt into the barrel during his scramble to safety, but Reuben preferred to at least appear to be armed with more than a bean flipper when he approached their assailants.

“Take him in to Liana,” he replied. “She’ll fix him up.”

The air was suddenly pierced by a short, shrill scream that had to be from the barn.