Nathan Jones - First Winter

“Rogers will accuse us of taking the law into our own hands no matter how we do it,” Lewis warned. “He’ll probably get on our case just for the shootout we just had.”

For a moment Matt hesitated, looking around the group. He agreed with both sides of the argument. Their friends had been brutally murdered, they’d just been shot at, and their Mayor had almost been killed while extending the olive branch.

But again, there was a right way and a wrong way to do things.

“Middle ground,” he said. “I’ll return home with Lucas and we’ll gather enough defenders to surround the camp and force them to surrender. We’ll plan for the attack tomorrow morning, rest and prepare and try to get back here well before dawn so we can go then. Raul, post everyone else here as teams of sentries around the camp for the night to keep anyone from leaving until we get back. You’re right, we can’t risk letting them go out and attack more innocents.”

“Works for me,” Lucas said. “If we can’t get a response from the military overnight they have no one to blame but themselves for ignoring us.”

Gutierrez seemed satisfied with the decision, too. “We can probably contain them, as long as they don’t try leaving all at once. If you bring back a hundred or so defenders it should be enough to intimidate them into giving up.”

“All right then.” Matt nodded to Lucas. “Give me a hand up.”

While the former soldier gathered everyone around to plan how they’d watch the camp, Matt started back for home with Lucas close by ready to support him in case he needed it. Even with time to organize the defenders and rest up a bit before dawn, he had a feeling it was going to be a sleepless night for him and good chunk of his people.

And Sam was going to kill him when she found out he’d been shot.

They’d killed Brandon. They’d killed him. In cold blood, in a cowardly ambush, and mutilated his corpse. Him, and Greg, and Frank, and Olly, and they’d tried to take Deb alive to do unspeakable things to her. Raul couldn’t just forget that, because he’d set up that patrol himself and asked each person in it to go out there. He’d promised Trev that Deb would be safe, had leaned on Brandon to make sure his friend would look out for her.

And they’d killed him. In cold blood. Him and the others. And they’d tried to take Deb.

Raul ignored the cold. The damp of thick dew gathering on everything, including him, as the night progressed. The growing pressure in his bowels. Hunger. Thirst. Weariness. His eyes barely blinked as he watched the camp below, where almost a hundred of the bandits slept.

His friends in Aspen Hill understood desperation. No one could live in the world the way it was now without feeling that crushing emotion as a constant companion. They’d watched friends and loved ones die. They’d endured sickness, starvation, cold, and the terror of faceless men who wanted to kill them and take everything they had.

But there was a difference between understanding desperation, and understanding just how deep desperation could go. Even when things were at their worst, few of his friends had ever faced their troubles alone. Not only alone, but with the knowledge that there was no one out there who cared about them, who depended on them, who hoped and prayed for their safety and a swift return to loving arms.

Raul understood. He’d watched as the only thing he’d had left, his duty to his country, had been stripped from him by a constant string of choices with no-win outcomes forced on him by Riley Ferris. His discipline as a soldier, neat grooming, well tended gear, straight back, clear conscience, had all been eroded away. He’d seen it happen, trapped, too cowardly to even protest, as his FETF relief squad had gradually devolved into bandits and raiders, preying on the very people they’d sworn to protect.

Aspen Hill hadn’t been an escape from his desperation. He’d stolen from them, too, when Ferris first occupied the town. He’d failed to protect them, abandoned them to Razor’s gang. Sam and Alice had nearly been raped because of him, something he didn’t think Matt and Rick should ever forgive him for.

So when he later left the raiders and surrendered to Aspen Hill, he’d almost hoped they’d execute him for his crimes. He deserved it. And when he saw how even now they hesitated to fully accept him into their community, to bring him in as they’d brought in refugees, crippled veterans, and mentally scarred former prisoners of the blockheads, he knew he deserved that too.

He didn’t blame them. They trusted him, but even if they couldn’t understand true desperation they knew that he did. They realized he could help them, and by helping them he redeemed himself in some small part for his crimes.

Those men down in that camp, they understood true desperation too. No possessions, no useful skills, no impulse control. The refugee camp, bad as it was, had been their last chance. When Rogers kicked them out and the place they’d hoped to resettle had turned them away, that was it. No family, no home, no country, no loyalty. Everyone viewed them as criminals and troublemakers, and they had nowhere to go and no way to survive.

Raul could see why they’d chosen to turn to banditry. But whatever their reason, their actions were still their own. They’d been pushed into this situation by circumstance, as well as the pettiness of one man, but there’d still been one choice for them. A choice Raul had failed to make as well: to live honestly as best they could, even if they failed and it meant dying with clear consciences.

He’d been given a second chance, but he’d never gone as far as Ferris’s other raiders. He’d never gone beyond the point where he could forgive himself. He believed in second chances, because to believe otherwise would be selfish and hypocritical, but sometimes there were no second chances to be had.

These men had killed Brandon and the others. They’d tried to take Deb. That deprived them of a right to a second chance in Raul’s eyes. They’d crossed a line, and there was no justice system to force them back across.

It had been satisfying to shoot the ones who’d shot at Matt and the others. Since they’d been using the patrol’s weapons they were almost certainly some of the ones who’d killed them, and justice had been as swift as Raul could make it. But those that remained, thinking they had safety in numbers even though they only had a handful of firearms, had sealed their fate. He almost regretted that nobody had tried to leave and given him an opportunity to go after them.

Let them howl like animals in their ramshackle camp across the way, tearing into deer roasted whole over poorly maintained fires within a poorly guarded perimeter as they celebrated murder and whatever other crimes they’d committed. It would be easier to put down any who didn’t come willingly.

Raul understood. There was a reason Mary hummed nervously whenever he mustered the courage to talk to her. There was a reason his friends kept their distance, even as they did everything they could for him. They saw what he was because he didn’t try to hide it from them.

He was the shield, standing between Aspen Hill and the world so his town never had to feel the full depths of desperation like he had. The shield got tarnished. The shield got battered. The shield got covered with blood and gore. The shield held firm and kept the ugliness of war from its bearer.

The last of the men below had finally gone to sleep, the campfires slowly dying. Now would be the perfect time to attack, and in the confusion he could make sure none escaped. But he had his instructions.

So he waited in the cold and damp, as the stars crawled by overhead and the nearly full moon inched its way towards the horizon and approaching dawn. Matt would arrive with the others, they would think up a plan to properly intimidate the men below, and this camp would be dealt with.