Ray Gorham - Daunting Days of Winter

She reached the tree line at the same time an old, red pickup truck with four men inside appeared in her driveway. It approached her home at a crawl, taking two minutes to drive a quarter mile, then pulled to a stop a hundred feet from her front door. Rose held her breath as she waited and watched, her chest tight and her stomach churning. Max was on the front step of the house, watching the vehicle.

The driver’s door opened, and a man stepped out of the truck and bent down. The angle of the truck made it difficult for Rose to see what the man was doing until he stood back up again with a rifle, rested it on the door of the truck, and aimed it at Max. She gasped, wanting to shout at the man and call Max away, but she knew she shouldn’t draw attention to herself.

The passenger door of the truck opened, and a second man emerged. He was carrying a rifle as well and motioned to the first man, who lowered his weapon and straightened up. Relieved, Rose let out her breath and watched the second man approach the house, walking slowly and motioning to the dog. Max stood and approached the man, hesitant and slow, the pain from his hips making him limp as he walked.

Rose knew Max was protective and likely growling, but she also knew that he had slowed with age and was limited in what he was able to do. “Stop, Max,” she said under her breath. “Come here, boy. Please!” Max and the man were an arms length apart when the man stopped. Max hesitated as well, sniffed in the direction of the approaching man and barked, backing up a step.

Before she could react, the man took his gun by the barrel and swung it quickly overhead, striking Max across his head with a savage blow. Max tried to dodge but was too slow. The blow dropped him to the ground on his side, where he writhed in pain. The man lifted his rifle again and brought it down across Max’s head a second time.

Rose gasped and staggered backwards as the man swung a third time, shocked at the brutality of his attack. She laid one rifle on the ground, lowered herself to a knee and brought the other rifle into firing position. She found the man in the scope of the gun as he turned and motioned to the others. He was laughing as he looked back down at Max, lying immobile at his feet, then he stepped forward and kicked the dog viciously.

Rose brought the crosshairs to a point at the base of the man’s throat and pulled the trigger. With the rifle sighted in for one hundred yards, the bullet dropped over the longer distance and struck the man just below his ribcage, entering with a dime-sized hole and knocking him backwards onto the ground in front of the pickup.

Rose chambered another bullet as she turned her attention to the men at the truck. The other two had gotten out and began approaching the house while Max was being beaten. Now they scrambled back towards the truck, unsure of where the shots were coming from. Rose took aim at one of the running men and pulled the trigger, but only heard the distant thud of a bullet striking metal.

A gunshot rang out, and branches a few feet away from Rose cracked and fell as the bullet cut its way through the forest. She scrambled to the cover of a tree as she chambering another bullet, then peered out from behind her cover. The three men had retreated behind the vehicle, rifles visible and leveled in her direction. They appeared to be talking, the first man motioning to the far side of the house where barns and fences would provide cover almost to the tree line five hundred yards to her right. If any of the men were to make that far Rose knew she would be in a precarious situation.

Shielded by a tree, Rose trained her rifle on the man taking directions and followed him through her sight as he rushed towards the back of her home. Attached to the corner of the house was a six-foot chain link fence. When the man stopped to remove the chain on the gate, Rose fired twice, working the bolt like a professional, striking him in the hip with the second shot. The man clutched at his hip as he fell, twisting on the ground in pain. Rose could see that the wound wasn’t fatal, but knew it would take him out of the action for the foreseeable future.

In Rose’s mind, the men were not only responsible for Max’s death but also for her neighbor’s barn being burned and for the general sense of fear and hopelessness she’d encountered on her recent visits. These people, neighbors and friends, families that had been independent, self-sufficient, hard-working and decent, were being driven from their homes by these bandits, these rats, these putrid pieces of scum who felt justified in terrorizing good people simply because they were hungry, had weapons, and hadn’t found anyone able to stop them. Well Rose was going to stop them. And if it meant burying four bodies in her front yard, so be it.

The passenger door on the truck slammed shut and Rose heard the engine start. Through her scope she saw the driver’s hand on the steering wheel, but his head was out of sight. She stood for a better view of the driver, but he was still hidden, so she took aim at the truck instead and fired. The bullet left a hole in the lower half of the truck door but was too low to do damage. The pitch of the engine dropped, and the truck rolled forward, then stopped, blocking her view of the man on the ground.

Rose’s rifle was empty; she quickly grabbed her other gun and prepared to fire. This rifle, a Savage 223, didn’t have a scope or the dropping power of her Mossberg 30-06, but it was loaded and ready to shoot. She could see movement behind the truck, but only occasionally did a head pop up above the hood, and never long enough or still enough to justify taking a shot from this distance. Impatient, she fired a couple shots into the door of the truck, then set the gun down and hurried to reload her Mossberg.

She heard the truck moving and watched as it circle across her front yard, then take out the rail fence and head back towards the road. Rose fired the three shots she had loaded, striking the truck twice and noticing that it jerked to the side after her second shot before it could retreat towards the freeway. As the truck disappeared, she sank to the ground. A wave of nausea sweeping over her. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air, and the acrid stench burned her nostrils and made her angry that she had had to kill, angry that she was alone, and angry that people around her were giving up.

The image of Max’s crumpled body drove her to her feet. She ran back to her horse, which was skittish from the gunfire, and mounted, whipping him with the reins to hurry him home.

The body of the first man was still in the driveway, just a few feet from where Max lay. She approached him slowly, her rifle readied. The body lay in a circle of red, the rocks and sand now dark with the stain of spilt blood. His arms were spread out wide, his mouth and eyes both open, and one leg was cocked at an awkward angle. One hand still clutched the rifle he’d used to bludgeon Max.

Rose pushed the man’s head with the tip of her rifle, and it rolled limply to the side, releasing a thin stream of blood from the corner of the mouth. Rose kicked the gun from the man’s hand then moved slowly towards Max, her dear friend’s lifeless body bringing on a flood of emotion. His head was distorted and bloody, but she reached out and stroked his shoulder, treasuring the softness of his fur and the comfort of his presence, knowing those things would just be memories, yet another part of her life that had been ripped away by this disaster that never seemed to end. Rose buried her face in Max’s still warm side and wept.

When she was cried out, Rose removed the deer carcass and pack from Smokey, got back in the saddle, and spurred her horse towards her closest neighbors where the smoke was coming from. The mile and a half ride to Fanny and Lloyd’s home took longer than normal, as Rose had never felt so vulnerable or as much of a target. The fear of vengeful men willing and ready to shoot her, or worse, plagued her thoughts and made her jump at every unexpected movement or sound.