Donald Harstad - A Long December

“Where’s the house? “asked George.

1 pointed to the top edge of the stone foundation ahead on our right. “Used to be over there. When the original owner leaves, if another farmer who lives fairly close buys the place, they don’t have much use for the residence. They only spend the money and the time to maintain the useful buildings.”

George chuckled. “I’ve got to tell my little sister that I’ve found the fixer-upper she wants.”

We piled everything in the barn. It was built on a slope, with the big doors on the main floor facing the uphill side, away from the driveway. There was a door on the second story that faced the driveway, designed for loading the hayloft, but it didn’t permit much observation unless it was wide open. The basement, which grew out of the slope at main floor level, had windows and a walk-in door, as well as a large Dutch door for animals. The basement walls that extended out from the slope were limestone, which meant that the wind wasn’t going to be blowing through the basement. Better yet, the basement door faced the driveway.

“Well, we might as well do the lower barn level,” I said.

“Looks good to me,” said George.

“Fine,” said Sally. “I’m not about lug all this stuff up into the hayloft.”

That pretty much decided it.

After we got our gear comfortably set in the barn, we decided take a look around outside to get a good idea of the whole layout of the place. We’d already been inside long enough to notice how much colder it was when we went back outside.

As the four of us stood in the middle of the barnyard, Hester and I pointed out the features we were familiar with. Facing upslope, the barn was on our immediate left. About fifty yards upslope from us, and a little more to the right, was an old shed. Another shed was across the yard, and also about fifty yards upslope. A large, concrete-block silo was on the right, about twenty-five yards from the barn, and had a small shed adjacent to its base. Between the barn and the silo was the wooden telephone pole that mounted the yard light. There was some old wooden fencing that ran on three sides of the silo and butted into the rising hillside on the right.

The foundation of the old house was behind us and to our right.

“How far up this little valley does this lane go?” asked George. From our vantage point, it made a bend to the left and went out of sight around the hillside.

“About a hundred yards,” said Hester. “It ends at the gate to a field up there.”

“And that one?” asked Sally, pointing over toward the right, behind the silo.

“That goes up along the little creek bed,” I said. “I didn’t see anything up there, and it kind of stops being a lane and starts being a cow path.”

There were faint markings on that lane, two parallel lines, that looked like they could be tire tracks.

“Were those tracks there when we were here? “I asked Hester.

“I don’t remember,” she said, “but it was pretty dark.”

The problem with tracks in the winter, especially when there’s no snow on the ground, is that any grasses or other small vegetation don’t spring back up after a while. You can’t tell if it’s recent or not. I did look, but there weren’t any tire impressions at all, just the two parallel lines of depressed vegetation.

“Farm wagon?” asked George.

“Probably. Either that,” I said, “or the lab van backed in there, maybe to turn around?”

“Sure,” said Hester.

That was it.

“Well,” I said, “if somebody comes here to hide out, they’ll come up the drive. Maybe check it out as they go, so they might come up pretty slow. I’d think they’d want to park behind the barn, here. Wouldn’t be seen from the road.”

“So, what’s the plan if they do that? “asked Sally. “I mean, do we just step out and say hi or what?”

“I’d say,” said Hester, “that two of us go up the stairs to the main floor, and one of us goes on each side of the barn. At the word ‘go,’ we all confront them at once. No place to hide. No place to run.”

“Excellent,” said George.

“It’ll probably be after dark, so just remember not to concentrate on the headlights. Really screw up your night vision.” I looked back down toward the roadway. “As long as we can hear ‘em driving, we really don’t need to look out much at all. And headlights will light up faces through the slats,” I said.

“Yes, Mother,” said Hester.

“Yeah, yeah. The important thing,” I said, “is that, once they’re in, they don’t get out. No matter where they stop, we have to have somebody between them and the roadway just as fast as we can.”

“Well, then,” said Sally, “let’s get inside where it’s warmer.”

As we all started walking to our right, back to the barn, with our backs to the sheds, there was a yell, then another. I think we all turned at the same instant to see what was going on.

Three dark shapes emerged from behind the right-hand shed, near the path that wound up along the creek bed. All three were bobbing and weaving like crazy, and it took me about a second too long to figure out what they were doing. They were trying to confuse anybody who was shooting at them. Only nobody was. Then they opened fire.

I swear to God, there must have been fifty slugs smacking into the dirt, the barn, fence posts, and the limestone foundation all at the same time.

Hester, I think, reacted first. None of us did the proper move, which would have been to fall to the ground and crawl for cover. All four of us just took off for the barn as fast as we could go. And I mean fast. George, who was in front of me, spun around with his handgun drawn, and popped off three or four rounds as I passed him. I noticed him turning back toward the barn as I went by. That made me third through the door, as Sally and Hester were much faster than I was. George came thundering in right behind me.

“Fuck!” That was me. I didn’t have enough breath to say anything more.

“Who in the hell is that?” came from Hester.

“Jesus Christ!” said Sally. “They’re shooting at us!”

George said, “Three subjects. They all got down when I shot, but I don’t think I hit anybody.”

Hester was breathing hard. “Where in hell,” she gasped, “did they come from?”

I shook my head. “Those are automatic,” I said, referring to the rifles.

I grabbed my own rifle off Sally’s pile of blankets and headed to the right side of the barn. As I got there, I saw movement in the middle distance, going to my left.

“They’re going toward the biggest shed,” I said. “Heads up!”

We took up positions against the long limestone foundation on the upslope side of the barn. That foundation was the only bulletproof feature in the whole barn.

We were all able to find cracks or holes in the vertical boards of the siding, about four feet off the floor. We all looked out onto the long, brown grass of the slope that led to the big shed. We couldn’t see anything moving.

After about ten seconds, when the shock began to wear off a bit, Hester said, “Maybe we should watch all four sides?”

Hester went to the right, George to the left, and Sally took the side facing the roadway.

“Call the office,” I said to Sally. “Get backup coming.”

Sally picked up her walkie-talkie mike, and said “Comm, Three!” She used my number because she didn’t have one.

No answer.

She tried again, and again. Nothing. Before I could stop her, she was crouching near the top of the stair, holding the walkie-talkie up above the floor line with one hand, and talking into the mike at the end of the stretched pigtail cord.

“Comm, Three, ten-thirty-three. I repeat, ten-thirty-three.”