Montrose
The next morning, the moment dawn broke, our long column started moving again.
"HQ, this is Alpha. Lead vehicle entering downtown Delta."
On Matthews's call, a procession of more than a hundred vehicles punched through the streets of Delta. Even in the iron cold of the Great Winter, the town clung to a strange, stubborn vitality. This was fertile country where the Gunnison and Uncompahgre rivers met, and from every chimney rising between the frozen fields, white smoke was still climbing into the air. People on the street, bundled in heavy coats, watched our column pass with blank faces — no hostility, no welcome. Only indifference.
"Bravo, this is Charlie. Hold your intervals. This is a city stretch — you start eating tailgates and the whole column turns into a knot."
"Copy. Tail, ease off the speed a touch."
Under Bill's command, the column flowed through downtown Delta and slipped into Olathe as smoothly as water. Olathe, for all its old reputation as the corn capital, was a desolate wreck. The endless fields were nothing but yellowed stubble drowned in frost, and only the weathered signs along the roadside still testified that this country had once been rich.
"Delta Echelon, five minutes to Montrose."
As we drew near Montrose, the last city on this stretch, the view outside the windows began to change. Far to the east, the vast gorges of Gunnison National Park and the dark cliffs of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison revealed themselves in all their grandeur. Snow lay white along the rims of those sheer faces, and they stood across our path like fortress walls a giant had raised with his own hands.
"Chan, you seeing that? We're supposed to punch through there?"
"Yeah. And on the other side of those mountains, they'll be waiting."
Downtown Montrose was sizable enough, but there was no life in it. The display windows of shuttered shops were either smashed or boarded over with plywood, and the wreckage of burned-out vehicles and piles of trash lay abandoned in the streets. The wounds a city bears when it has been bled by bandits were written on every corner.
We pushed through downtown Montrose without lingering. It had only been a matter of some sixty miles from Grand Junction, but threading three city centers had eaten the day, and afternoon was already upon us. Then we arrived at a wide open lot on the eastern outskirts, along US Route 50.
"All units, halt. Deploy into Laager Formation."
The order dropped, and the radios went busy again.
"Alpha, Vehicle One, break left. Vehicle Two, close it up tight."
"Bravo, get the rear security team in position. Give Charlie some room — don't overlap."
The heavy trucks swung in with a deep roll of engine noise, folding into L-shapes and taking one another's tails. Dozens of trailers locked together, tight as interlocking teeth, and in a matter of minutes a steel wall had risen from the barren roadside. A peculiar satisfaction ran through me at the sight. More than a hundred vehicles, and every soul inside them carrying a different past and a different story — and yet, somewhere along the way, they had begun to move as one body, like a well-drilled elite force.
Inside the circular rampart the trucks had made, the family cars and pickups filed into their places in good order. At the center we set the command-and-control trailer and the mess truck.
"HQ, laager is up. Deploying outer watch."
When the last report came in and the engines fell silent, a hush settled over the camp once more. But inside that quiet lay the grim weight of the fight that was coming. Far off, the shadow of the Black Canyon lengthened by degrees, reaching toward us as if to swallow the camp whole.
It was in the middle of those preparations for tomorrow, in a landscape none of us knew, that Gunner found me with a familiar rifle in his hands.
"This the one?"
What he held out was the SIG MCX Rattler SBR I had been forced to abandon during decontamination. Short barrel, folding stock — the little rifle that did its best work in the cramped cab of a truck or in a close-quarters fight. It was as much a part of me as a limb.
"Hey! Where did you find this?"
I took it from him at once, the pleasure plain on my face, and Gunner shrugged.
"Hunted all over hell for the thing. Anyway, there's exactly one Rattler in this whole camp, and this is it."
"Thanks, Gunner."
"Couldn't find a spare VP9 anywhere, though. Weird. How about this instead?"
He drew a heavy-looking pistol from his belt and held it out.
"Took it off a gang boss in the last fight. It's a piece of work. Custom M1911 out of Wilson Combat. Absolute killer. This is the real article."
I knew the brand. It was exactly what it looked like — a craftsman's gun, tuned down to the last pin with top-shelf parts. The grip sat dense and sure in the hand, and the slide ran as smooth as oil, without a hint of play. I turned it over for a moment, then gave it back.
"It's a hell of a gun. Just not my taste."
"Why? Forty-five stopping power not doing it for you?"
"No, that's fine. It's just…"
"Just what?"
"A round in the head is a round in the head, whatever you shoot it with. More than that — I cannot stand a manual safety."
Gunner scratched his head, looking put out.
"Hell. So I guess the Army's M17s and M18s are off the table too? Those all come with a manual safety."
"They do. I'll just keep running the Glock 19X I've got. Simple is best."
Gunner shook his head as if I were a lost cause and tucked the Wilson Combat back into his coat.
"Pickiest son of a bitch I know. Turning down a piece like that."
"Then you use it."
"I'm not the type who swaps off what his hands already know. Besides, this thing's got a mafia-boss look to it."
"Come again?"
"You're the one in charge. Figured it suited you."
"Hahaha. Anyway — thanks for finding the Rattler."
And so, beneath the black cliffs of the Black Canyon, each of us spent the hours in our own kind of hurry.
The next morning.
I finished the day's opening routine and walked the perimeter of the laager with Wolf, trying to get my thoughts in order.
We take them down by force.
The decision was made, but a certain unease refused to lift. We had confirmed the location of Black Bear's forward outpost, yet the true headquarters — its position, its size — was still lost in fog. Throwing a punch without knowing where the enemy's heart sat could be a dangerous gamble.
Even so, the camp was full of life. Everyone was busy at their stations, getting ready for what tomorrow would bring. A little way off, Dave and a handful of truckers had gathered around a container trailer, talking over one another at a volume that carried. Curiosity pulled me that way, and on Dave's hand signal something heavy came lurching out of the container with a thick mechanical growl.
"All right, easy now, bring her down — ground's slick, I said slow, slow!"
What rolled down that heavy ramp door was, to my surprise, a compact piece of heavy equipment: a skid loader. And not one of them. Two.
"Dave? When did you pack these?"
He grinned and gave me a thumbs-up.
"Had a hell of a time loading these boys when we left Fallon. Jammed 'em into the corners of those tight containers, I tell you. Haha."
"Then why pull them out now?"
"Mike said he needed empty containers. We're spreading the ammo and the odds and ends that were inside across the other trailer roofs and whatever empty space we've got. These little guys are gonna earn their keep."
Dave started handing out instructions to the men on the machines as if he had been born in the seat. Small as they were, the loaders were workhorses — they could push like a bulldozer, lift like a forklift, and dig like an excavator. I didn't believe for a second that he had packed them just to shuffle cargo. He was thinking of the day we would settle somewhere. Of building houses. Of breaking ground.
"Hey, hey, careful! That's an ammo crate. Treat it gentle!"
He kept the crew moving, sweat standing on his face as he sorted the flood of matériel coming out of the container and packed it away again. Watching him, I felt both steadied and a little sorry for the man.
I left them to it and walked over to where Jed and Mike were working. Welding sparks were already jumping inside the container they had just emptied.
"Looks like you've got your hands full."
Mike pushed up his welding hood at the sound of my voice and wiped the sweat from his face.
"Oh, Chan. I've been going out of my mind with this, as it happens."
"I didn't just dump extra work on you, did I?"
"No. This was work we were going to have to do sooner or later. Pack it with insulation, throw in some cots and a stove, and it'll make a damn fine bunkhouse."
He pointed to another empty container sitting beside it and went on.
"And while we're at it, I'm turning that one into a medical bay."
"A medical bay?"
"Chloe says the meds and the gear are scattered across half the trucks in this convoy, and when things get ugly you can't find a thing. And there's nowhere decent to treat a casualty. So I figured we'd just build ourselves a field hospital that moves."
I nodded. With the fighting that might be coming, and the hard road still ahead, it was a facility we needed.
"That's a good thought. Do you have the materials?"
"No problem there. Dave and Frank bicker all day long, but those two never throw a damn thing away. Haha. We've got plenty of salvaged boards and tarps."
On one side, a few people were quietly cutting insulation to size. On the other, a compressor hammered away while someone in a respirator sprayed foam into the container walls. And so we went on, hardening the very shape of a life lived on the move.
"Mike — where's Frank? I haven't seen him all morning."
"Ah. That one said he was going to duck into Montrose and took off."
"Montrose? What for?"
Mike grinned.
"Probably spotted something on the way in. That man's eye is no joke. He's a bloodhound when it comes to a scent."
"Haha. That's true enough. All right."
Then, from the open ground outside the laager, the rotors of Jake's helicopter came up in a hard, rolling beat.
Whup. Whup. Whup. Whup-whup-whup.
The bird lifted clean, kicking dust, and I figured it for the last recon flight of the day — a look at the surrounding terrain and the enemy's movements before the sun went down. A moment later a handful of scout drones rose after it, their motors whining as they climbed. The busy day was burning down again.
The western sky went red. Jake brought the helicopter home without trouble, and the drones came back one by one. Frank did not. Worry started to set in. Darkness was already settling over the ground around us. I picked up the radio.
His voice had a peculiar lift to it. Curiosity and unease arrived together. I couldn't tell whether the man had gone and caused another mess, or whether he was actually dragging something worthwhile home.
A few minutes later the sentry post at the camp gate signaled an incoming vehicle. I headed for the entrance with Wolf. I was hoping, in spite of myself. If anyone could turn Montrose inside out and come back with radiation meds, or a few decent protective suits, it was Frank. Those were the things we needed most.
His truck rolled into the laager in a boil of dust. In the glare of the headlights he shoved the door open and dropped to the ground, wearing a smile like a man who had just been handed the world.
"All right, Frank. What did you bring this time?"
He shook his head and wagged a finger at me.
"Tsk tsk. This time it isn't cargo. It's something worth a hell of a lot more."
"Not cargo?"
He came straight up to me, then glanced around as if checking who might be listening.
"What is it, Frank?"
He spoke just above a whisper.