Mike Mullin - Sunrise

About fifteen minutes after Johnson disappeared around the van, he came back, walking alongside another guy. Neither of them was carrying any obvious weapon, but they could have hidden an arsenal under their coats.

I cut free Red’s ankles, leaving his hands bound, and Red, Ed, Darla, and I headed for no-man’s land. Ed and I had to lift Red over the gate, but it was easy—he didn’t weigh much.

When we’d finally gathered in the approximate center of the kill zone, I gestured at Johnson and the new guy, telling Ed, “Check those two for weapons.”

“Yessir.” Ed stepped toward them, but they each took a step back.

“Why don’t we check you?” the new guy growled.

“Go right ahead,” I replied. I still had two knives on my belt—I hadn’t thought to leave them with my rifle— but I didn’t mind giving them up. I’d taken them from Red, after all. I put my hand on the gladius’s hilt.

The two guys took another step back, fumbling under their jackets for something. Ed and Darla moved toward them. Johnson pulled a pistol from under his coat, but Ed was on him before he could bring it to bear, twisting his arm so hard that the elbow audibly popped.

I was three steps away, Darla two. The other guy got his pistol from his back. I slipped behind Red, wrapping one arm around him in a confining embrace and raising my knife so the tip rested just under his chin. My hands shook with adrenaline, and the knife made a tiny cut in his skin, adding fresh blood to the scabs I’d left there earlier.

The new guy leveled his pistol at me. “Drop the knife. Now,” he said. “Or I’ll shoot.”

“Go ahead and shoot,” I replied, glad that the quaver in my hands wasn’t evident in my voice. “Maybe I’ll have enough strength left to jam this knife into his throat, maybe not. Either way, both sides will open fire, and we’ll all die. That what you want?” I was surprised nobody had started shooting yet. Looking past the handgun leveled at me, I saw the stopped trucks—men peered past their edges, gripping their rifles, wide-eyed and tense.

Red tried to say something, but when his throat tensed, my knife pushed deeper into his skin, and he abruptly shut up.

“Put your gun down!” I yelled. “Now, goddamn it!”

The new guy just stared at me. Then I realized: he was staring at Red.

Red’s head twitched—a barely perceptible shake.

“Can’t do that,” the new guy said.

There was no reasoning with them. Whatever hold Red had on them was insanely scary. I had to negotiate directly with Red. “Lower the gun to your side. I’ll ease off on the knife enough so he can talk.” I slid the knife downward about half an inch. My fist was against his chest, the knife thrust upward, its point toward his throat.

“Let me go now,” Red said, “and you can all leave here alive.”

“We’re not going anywhere without our food,” I replied.

“My food,” Red said emphatically. “Possession’s nine-tenths of the law, as they say, and I am the law. So I own ten-tenths of that food.”

“If that’s the case, then I own you. And your town.” I briefly pushed the knife tighter against his throat to emphasize the point.

“Temporarily, maybe.”

I could hardly believe his sangfroid. My hands were shaking—the adrenaline was starting to wear off, and I was fighting an internal battle with my stomach. “You

need a solution worse than I do. This goes south, my people at the gate will start shooting. We’ll all die out here. And my people will still have your town. They’ll—”

“My people will have the food,” Red said.

“Their families are in Stockton. They’ll be more willing to work out a deal than you seem to be.”

“You haven’t proposed anything.”

“Your people at the trucks lay down their weapons and move a few hundred yards off. We’ll leave Stockton, take the trucks, and go home.”

“And we’ll starve for certain. I’d rather take my chances on a firefight.”

“Without our food, we’ll starve.”

“Not my concern,” Red said. “But I’ll allow you to take one truck. My choice of which one you keep.”

“I’ve got the upper hand here,” I said. “I’ll allow you to keep one truckload of our food. And I’ll choose which truck you get.”

“We split them, six and five. I choose which five you get.” We haggled for half an hour more. Finally we settled on an eight/three split. Red would choose which three of the semis or panel vans he’d keep. Neither side would disarm, but we’d keep Red captive until the last minute, as insurance for his side’s good behavior. In addition, we’d keep both the remaining pickups. Red also insisted that I return his knives, Julia and Claudia.

It took most of the day to make the trade. Red’s people sorted the trucks out, getting eight of them in a line facing back toward Warren, and the other three facing Stockton. I thought Red would choose three semis to maximize the amount of food he could keep, but he picked two semis and a panel van. Later I found out that the van held all the weapons, ammo, alcohol, and seeds his people had looted from Warren.

It was a miracle nobody got shot. Ed collected all our people from Stockton, and we moved past Red’s men— both groups eyeing each other warily across the sights of their rifles. Finally by late afternoon, we were all loaded in our idling trucks.

I turned Red loose and gave him his knives. “Be seeing you,” he said with a smile that held more threat than mirth.

“Jesus, I hope not.” I slammed the pickup’s door, and we pulled out—a motley column of seven semis and one panel van led by our captured pickup truck.

As we turned from Highway 20 onto Highway 78, toward home, the tension and stress finally overwhelmed me. I’d been awake for nearly two days. My whole body shook. I rolled down the passenger window of the pickup and barely got my head out in time to spew stomach acid all over the side of the truck.

I returned to my uncle’s farm a hero. Not that there was a ticker-tape parade or anything. Nobody knew when we’d be back or whether we’d even make it back at all. But they knew what the line of trucks trailing behind us meant.

Folks dashed out to meet us even as I climbed out wearily from the pickup. My door was still smeared with streaks of vomit. I trudged to the rear door of the panel van now parked in the road. By the time I reached it, I was surrounded by a crowd. I twisted the handle and opened the door.

The crowd gasped as the contents came into view: a precarious jumble of frozen hog carcasses filled the truck from floor to ceiling.

Alyssa laughed and flung her arms around me. “That’s bringing home the bacon,” she said as she kissed my cheek.

Darla cleared her throat, glaring at me. What was up with that? I hadn’t done anything.

“We need to debrief, Lieutenant,” Ben said.

“Not now,” I said. “I’m dead on my feet.”

“Your recall will be clearer while the events are still—” Ben kept talking, but I quit listening. “Tomorrow,” I said firmly.

Uncle Paul clasped my arm. The skin around his eyes was nearly black: Emperor Palpatine in a younger body. “Alex… you did good. I’m sorry. I should have been there—”

“You were right where you needed to be. With Max and Anna. If things had gone bad in Stockton—”

“We should have a feast,” Uncle Paul said, “to mourn and celebrate. Roast some of this pork.”

“I’m dead on my feet. Would you take care of it?”

“Sure thing.” He started talking about the details, and my attention wandered.

I looked around for Mom but didn’t see her anywhere. Maybe she was still in the bedroom, sorting pictures. Instead, I saw Lynn’s wife at the edge of the crowd. She craned her neck, looking back and forth, bewilderment and fear writ plainly on her face.