The Army Comes Calling (14 page)

Chapter 23

     “Now what, Frank?”

     Marty recognized that the older man had much more experience tactically than he’d ever have, and yielded the position of leader to him.

     “Well, if it were
my
operation, I’d take a step back and regroup. Let the rest of them see the writing on the wall and have a chance to skedaddle. I think there’s a good chance that now they know we’re after them they’ll just leave town.

     “If it was up to me, I’d give them maybe three days, then come back with a different plan to gather up some more of them.”

     “How will we know when all the bad guys are gone?”

     “Well, I reckon we’ll know that when we start seeing women and children on the streets again.”

     “Frank, do you want to go to San Angelo with us to drop these thugs off?”

     “That’s something I wanted to talk to you about, Marty. Willaker said they have Highway 87 to San Angelo blocked. Do you know anything about that?”

     “I’ve heard the same rumors. My friend Lenny, who works at the truck stop with me, knows an alternative route. Strictly Farm to Market roads. It’ll take a bit longer to get there, but we can bypass Highway 87 completely.”

    “Willaker didn’t seem too concerned about going to San Angelo. He claimed to know something we didn’t. And he seemed pretty confident, like a possum eating poop. Any idea what that might be about?”

     “Not a clue. Maybe they’ve got a contingency plan. Maybe their gang is gonna try to spring them before we get them that far.”

     “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. That’s why we should throw them a curve ball.”

     “What kind of curve ball, Frank?”

     “They’ll expect us to leave for San Angelo as quickly as possible. Either this afternoon or tomorrow at the latest. Let’s hold off and sit on these guys until we gather some more of their cronies.

     “If they’re laying in wait for an ambush, and if a couple of days go by without us coming up on them, they’ll likely assume we slipped past them and cancel the ambush.”

     “Where will we take them?”

     Frank looked at Mark, Bryan and Sarah.

     “Do you think the others in the compound would mind if Marty parked his rig in the woods close to the compound for a couple of days?”

     “I think that would be okay,” Mark said. “Under certain stipulations. They’d have to be well secured and guarded twenty four seven.”

     Marty said, “We can help with that, right fellas?”

     The volunteers Marty brought with him nodded their heads.

     Frank went on.

     “Okay. I’ll make sure that the prisoners, and the guards, get fed and watered on a regular basis. I’ll bring a bucket so that the prisoners can relieve themselves without ever leaving the truck. Tell them if they make a mess you’ll withhold their food and water for a day. Your guys can dump the bucket to keep it from stinking up the trailer.

     “By Saturday, those who are leaving town should be gone. Those who stay should start getting complacent again. Let’s change up our tactics and hit ‘em again then.”

     “Okay, Frank. What did you have in mind?”

     “Pardon me if I’m wrong, but don’t some trailers have a rail that goes around the inside of them, bolted to the trailer’s frame?”

     “A tie down rail, sure. Some trailers have them.”

     “And if you put pallets side by side at the back end of the trailer, would there be an aisle in the middle to walk through?”

     “Yes. The standard pallet of goods is forty inches wide. As long as the pallets are stacked correctly and up against the outside wall of the trailer, there’s a little bit of room to squeeze through. What did you have in mind?”

     “Can you get a trailer with the rails? Leave the front half of the trailer completely empty. Fill the back half with pallets. Maybe twelve pallets, six rows of two, should do it.

     “Load the pallets with everything you can find that these thugs might be interested in. Cigarettes and booze, wine, dirty magazines and movies, whatever.”

     “You can cruise up and down the streets, blasting your air horn and basically making a spectacle of yourself.

     “Anyone who comes out of the houses to see what the ruckus is all about will be told you have all kinds of goodies to trade. Leave the back door up, so they can get a glimpse of all the goodies you have. Then encourage them to climb inside the trailer to check out your wares.

     “Tell them you’ve got whatever it is they’ve been looking for. And that you’re trading for gold and silver. Tell them you don’t care whether it’s jewelry, coins, or silver spoons. You don’t care, as long as they have something good to trade.

     Mark and I will be on the back end of the trailer, helping you peddle the stuff.

      “Tell them you have a couple of live women in the front of the trailer who are anxious and willing, and that they can sample the merchandize if they like. Or tell them you have a bunch of prescription medicines in the front of the trailer. Whatever you have to do to get them in the aisle between the two rows of cargo.

     “Once they’re in the aisle with nowhere to run, we’ll whack them from behind with a nightstick and knock them cold. Then we’ll gag them and zip tie them to the rail at the front of the trailer.

     “I’ll bet we can fit twenty of them up there, if there’s that many left in town. Then we can drive both trailers up to San Angelo in tandem.”

     No one had a better plan, and on the face of it Frank’s idea seemed like it might work.

     If it went according to plan, it would also avoid confrontation, and perhaps prevent another gun battle.

     And that was a very good thing.

Chapter 24

     Frank’s plan for the second sweep worked pretty much flawlessly. So much so that toward the end of the operation, Marty remarked, “this is like taking candy from a baby.”

     They shouldn’t have been surprised, however. By now the evil men who had taken over Eden were addicted to a wide variety of things, from forced sex to alcohol to all manner of drugs. Such men will go to great lengths to feed their habits.

     And they’re known to be quite careless when pursuing their needs.

     The only serious glitch to the operation came close to the end, when a man named Castillo boarded the back of Marty’s trailer in search of something specific.

     “I’m looking for valium,” he told Marty. “It’s getting damn hard to find, and if you have some I’ve got gold coins to trade. If you can get it on a regular basis we’ll do some good business together.”

     “Well, then, my friend. Let’s see what we can find. I have a pallet at the front of the trailer that we took off a CVS Pharmacy truck. I think I saw a box that said it contained a thousand tablets of valium. Let’s go see if I was right.”

     Castillo’s eyes widened. A thousand tablets would feed his habit for months. He followed Marty down the narrow aisle between the pallets.

     Castillo didn’t notice Mark come up behind him in the confined passageway. It was simply too narrow to turn and look behind him.

     Mark whacked Castillo on the back of the head, just as he’d done to fourteen other men he’d recognized from Marty’s collection of photos.

     Only this time, he hit Castillo a little too hard.

     Or maybe Castillo was just a bleeder by nature.

     In any event, Mark’s blow opened up a nasty gash in the back of Castillo’s head and he started bleeding profusely.

     Still out cold, Castillo offered no resistance as the men bound and gagged him and tied his hands to the rail on the inside of the trailer.

     “Head wounds always bleed a lot,” Frank observed. “There are a lot of blood vessels above the neckline. Why don’t you go to the house he came out of and see if you can get a couple of towels or something we can use for bandages?”

     Bryan trotted off to the house and came back five minutes later.

     “I did you one better,” Bryan said. “Instead of towels I found a nurse that’ll patch the guy right up.”

     Bryan was followed by a petite woman of perhaps thirty, who had the worn look of someone who’d been abused for a very long time. Not a hint of a smile crossed her lips. Or any other emotion, for that matter.

     “You said Castillo was hurt, and is unconscious?”

     “Yes, ma’am.”

     “Where is he?”

     “Just follow the path between the cargo to the front of the trailer.”

     The woman did as instructed.

     The men knew all the prisoners were securely bound, and several were still unconscious.

     And they had no reason to expect trouble.

     So they could be forgiven in waiting a full twenty seconds before following the tiny nurse through the narrow passage to where Castillo lay.

     And by then, of course, it was too late. When Frank broke into the open area at the front of the trailer, he saw the woman, armed with a three inch pocket knife, thrusting it repeatedly into Castillo’s chest.

     With all the force her ninety pounds could muster.

     “No!” Frank yelled.

     But it was too late. Castillo was already dead and certainly on his way to hell. The other prisoners who were conscious were panicked and straining at their bonds, obviously thinking they were next.

     If their mouths hadn’t been gagged, they’d have been screaming bloody murder.

     As quickly as she’d turned into a brutal killer, the frail woman became passive again. She handed the bloody knife to Frank, handle out, without so much as a word. Then she turned and started to make her way back out of the trailer.

     “Stop that woman and hold her,” Frank yelled to the others as he walked through the cargo behind her. The men on the back end of the trailer, or standing on the ground behind it, were puzzled by the order. They had no clue what had just happened.

     But like good soldiers, they followed orders even when they didn’t fully understand them. When Frank hopped down off the trailer, bloody knife still in hand, Mark and Marty stood on either side of the woman, each holding one of her forearms.

     But she wasn’t trying to get away.

     Frank stood in front of the woman, who was trembling and had tears rolling out of her eyes.

     He asked but one word:

     “Why?”

     “My name is Glenna. Glenna Ward. I lived here with my husband Steve and my two children. Until, that is, Castillo decided he wanted to move in here too.

     “He was friendly at first. He said he would protect us from Willaker and the others. He said he wasn’t like them.

     “Then, the first time he raped me, he insisted that my husband watch. He said he wanted no doubt in anyone’s mind that he owned us. That he could do whatever he wanted with us.

     “He held a gun to my head. And he made Steve watch as he raped me again and again. Steve cried. And Castillo laughed. He said if Steve moved one muscle toward us, he’d blow my brains out. And I believe he would have too.

     “As the weeks went by he made me do despicable things to him, and each time he made my husband and sometimes my children watch. He made me tie Steve up every night and lock him in a room for which only Castillo had the key. He checked my knots, and if they weren’t tight enough he beat me.

     “One night, about a year ago, he got dreadfully drunk. He called my daughter into the room and made her do the same despicable things to him that I had to do. I begged him not to, that I would do it myself. But he said no. He said he was tired of me. He wanted my twelve year old daughter to do it instead. He said if she didn’t finish she would shoot her father.

     “And she gagged. She couldn’t help it. She was only twelve, for God’s sake.

     “He grew angry. He leveled his gun at Steve’s chest and pulled the trigger five times. I can still hear those shots in my head.

     “He made Amy, my daughter, and her little brother Steve Junior, dig a hole in the back yard for Steve.

     “And then he dragged Steve’s body into the hole, like he was nothing but an animal. And he made the children cover him up.

     “He wouldn’t even let us say a prayer over his grave.

     “Since then, he abused not only me but also Steve Junior and Amy, in so many ways. He’s done things to them that no adult should ever do to a child. To keep us from escaping, he always kept one of the children shackled to a chair with a chain and a lock that only he knew the combination to. Locked in a room that only he had the key for.

     “He said that if either of us ever walked out of the house, he would kill the child locked in the room.

     “Now, I have the key to the room.”

     She held it out for Frank to see, a gold key on a piece of tattered brown string.

     “Will one of you help me break the chain that holds my daughter to that chair?”

     Not one, but all of the men save two, followed the woman into the house to help the girl.

     And they all came back out with tears in their eyes. There was nothing in their lifetime of experiences that could have prepared them for the sight of the joy the mother felt when she was finally able to hug her children again, knowing they were finally free.

     “Please understand,” the woman told Frank afterwards, “I did what I had to do, because I have no faith in the legal system anymore. I’m not even sure there is still a legal system.

     “Castillo always said that if he was ever arrested, that friends of his in the sheriff’s office would free him. And that he would come back and find us and kill us all.

     “I couldn’t take that risk. My only choice was to make sure he was dealt with myself.”

     She looked at Sarah, who was crying along with everyone else.

     “I know I don’t know you. But I have the sense that you’re a decent woman. I hate to burden you with this, but would you make sure my children are sent to someone who will love them and care for them, instead of abusing them?”

     She turned back to Frank and held her hands out in front of her.

     “I’m ready to go, marshal, or sheriff, or whoever you are. I’m ready to pay my due.”

     It wasn’t often Frank Woodard was at a loss for words. But this time, he just couldn’t find any that seemed to suffice. Finally, he stammered, “Ma’am, I’m not taking you anywhere. No one here will judge you, or find fault in what you did. You stay here and take care of your children. Your nightmare is finally over.”

     “No.”

     It was Sarah, and all heads turned to her.

     “I have a better idea. Glenna, we’re going to take you to a place where you and your children will be safe and free and have plenty to eat. And you’ll never have to worry about being abused again. Go pack your things. You’re going to a place where there’s enough love to go around. Not just for your children, but for you too.”

     Bryan whispered to Sarah, “You know you can’t invite people in without bringing it up to everybody for a vote.”