The Reapers

Angel and Louis heard the truck before they saw it. They were in a trough between two raised patches of open ground, one of the grazing cuts, and it took them a moment to determine from which direction the sound was coming. Louis scaled the small incline and looked to the east to see the Ranger moving fast in their direction, following a dirt trail out of the forest from the direction of the old man’s house. It was still too far away to identify the men inside, but Louis was pretty sure that they weren’t friendly. Neither would Bliss be among their number. It wasn’t his style. The rules had changed, it seemed. It was no longer a matter of containment. He wondered if Thomas had made a call, fearful of what the trespassers on his land might do even without guns. Perhaps the news that they were no longer armed had tilted the balance against them.

Louis sized up their options. The cover of the forest was lost to them. To the southwest, meanwhile, was what appeared to be an old barn, the raised, domed structure of an aged grain elevator beside it, with more forest behind. It was an unknown quantity.

Angel joined him.

“They’re coming for us,” said Louis.

“Which way do we go?”

Louis pointed at the barn.

“There. And fast.”

Benton came to the top of a slight hill. Almost directly opposite them, and on the same level, their prey was ru

“Goddamn,” said Benton, but he was laughing as he spoke. “Bet nobody in his family has moved that fast since someone waved a noose at them back in the old South.”

“How’d you know he was Southern?” asked Curtis. It seemed like a reasonable question.

“A feeling I got,” said Benton. “A Negro don’t get into his trade unless he has a beef against someone from way back. That boy’s looking for a way to strike back against the white man.”

That sounded like bullshit to Curtis, but he didn’t disagree. Maybe Benton was right, but even if he wasn’t, it was good sense simply to nod along with him. Mea

“Come on,” said Benton, and led them back to the truck at a trot.

“Looks steep,” said Curtis, as Benton drove down the slope at a sharp angle.

“Four-liter V6,” said Benton. “Baby could do it on two wheels.”

Curtis didn’t reply. The Ranger was twelve years old, the treads were at 60 percent, and four liters didn’t make it a monster. Curtis braced himself against the dashboard.

The Ranger might have made the climb on dry ground, but Benton hadn’t reckoned with the rain that had soaked into the dirt at the bottom of the depression. It had turned the earth to mud, and when the Ranger hit bottom the wheels struggled to grip, even as they began to climb up the opposite side. Benton gu

Qui

Benton slapped the dashboard in frustration and opened the door to inspect the damage. They were mired deep, the gloop almost touching the alloy.

“Shit,” he said. “Well, I guess we go after them on foot.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?” asked Curtis.

“They’re unarmed,” said Benton. “You scared of unarmed men?”

“No,” said Curtis, but he had the feeling that he had just lied to himself.

“Well, come on then. They ain’t going to kill themselves.”

Benton laughed at his own joke. Qui

With no other choice left to him, Curtis followed.

The barn loomed large against the dark sky, with the elevator on the left side of it. It was forty feet high, and not as modern as the one close to the cattle pens near Leehagen’s house. There would be no breather bags, no molten glass fused to the steel sheets to allow an easy slide for the grain and guard against acids from fermented feeds, no pressure venting. This was a simple storage bin, and nothing more.

Louis’s breath was coming in jagged rasps, and Angel was visibly struggling. They were both cold and wet, and they knew that they were ru

But Louis was anticipating that they would not call others. If what the old man at the farm had told him was true, then Bliss was coming, and Bliss worked alone. The ones who were now after them were acting on their own initiative. If they thought that he and Angel were still armed, the pursuers might have been more cautious once they reached the grain store, and caution would have given them pause, but Louis guessed that they had spoken to the old man before commencing the hunt. They knew now that they were dealing with unarmed men.

But one of the first lessons Louis had learned in his long apprenticeship as a bringer of death was that in every room there is a weapon, even if that weapon was only oneself. It was simply a question of identifying it and using it. He hadn’t been in a grain store in many years, but his mind was already anticipating what lay within: tools, sacking, fire-fighting equipment…

His mind began making leaps.

Fire-fighting equipment.

Fire.

Grain.

He had the first of his weapons.

Qui