THE GIFT

Chapter 14

Ever since Melanie’s death, Sharon was bouncing between melancholy and rage. Her only respite was riding Roy through the grasses and woods that surrounded the ranch. Somedays, it was a slow ride, even dismounting from time to time…other days she rode the muscled beast hard across the prairie, leaping over arroyos and fording the creek in a frenzied splash. Thankfully, today was a day of rage. They killed her friend, and they were after her man.

Hearing Matt’s call for help, she grabbed her holster and her rifle. She was done playing with these boys.

“Hon…I’m taking Roy out.” She declared emphatically, as she stomped toward the back door.

“What? Oh no, you’re not.” Curtis replied, moving to block her. “In case you haven’t guessed…there are men with guns out there…and they want to kill us.” He chided.

“Well then, I don’t feel bad about wantin’ to kill them.” She answered, just as sarcastically.

“Sharon, I won’t…” Curtis started, but was stopped by tender fingers on his lips.

“Curtis…I love you more than anybody or anything in this world.” She started. “Anybody who wants to hurt you, has to go through me, first. I can’t…no, I won’t…cower in some corner and let you bear all the fight.”

“Babybear…” she cooed, “You know I can ride, and you know I can shoot. We both know that Matt’s in trouble. You can’t spare anyone here. Think about it.” She challenged. “Besides, Roy and I can get to him faster than anyone else…and you know that, too.”

The big man’s shoulders slumped in capitulation. What woman does this kind of stuff? My woman…that’s who.

“Dammit, woman…” Curtis managed to croak after a long moment, from a heart filled with pride. “I suppose you’re right…but you get your fine ass back here as fast as you can.” He managed to say as tears filled his eyes. “I love y…” was all he could get out before a sob rocked his mighty chest.

“Oh…my love…you don’t worry about me.” Sharon replied, holding her own tears in check. “Hurtin’ me would hurt you, so I ain’t gonna let that happen, either. You do the same, okay?” She concluded. She reached up and kissed his cheek, then headed out the kitchen door toward the barn.

“Come on, big guy,” she said to Roy through flowing tears. “We got some mangy coyotes to get rid of…and I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout the fourlegged kind.”

In a matter of minutes, Roy was saddled, and she was mounting him. Her rifle was securely strapped to the saddle in its sleeve and her sixgun in its holster by her side. With a quick nudge of her heels, Roy launched forward through the open barn doors. The wild west was coming to the rescue.

Roy raced through the tall grass at a break-neck speed, across the familiar mesquite-strewn prairie on thundering hooves, instinctively aware of every arroyo, every boulder, every stump. He nearly trampled a large hare that crossed his path in panic. His breath became that of an unstoppable locomotive as every powerful lunge bore his rider ever nearer, ever faster. His long blonde mane brushed Sharon’s face, as she leaned into his speed. They flew across the ground as one.

Within minutes, she could clearly make out Matt’s house, beneath his beloved pecan trees and the low, silver, half-round roof of the shelter in his backyard. Getting closer, she could see two men pointing military-style rifles at the shelter. From her current distance, she couldn’t tell if they were firing, or not. Then, as she got closer, she heard an explosion.

“Come on, big boy.” She urged Roy to even greater speed, her fears for Matt growing. As she drew nearer, she saw the two men appear to enter the shelter. Oh, dear God, they have him cornered. She thought she heard automatic gunfire. Her mind raced with horrible scenarios. Then just seconds after descending into the shelter, the men emerged as fast as they could, stumbling as they crawled from the sunken stairwell. She was close enough to see rounds hitting the demolished door frame, coming from within the shelter.

Finally, she was within range. She slowed Roy down just a little, then like a professional equestrian, she stood in the stirrups. She drew the Henry from its sleeve and placed it against her shoulder. Using her legs to absorb Roy’s earth-rumbling lunges, she took careful aim at one man and squeezed the trigger.

BOOM!

A second explosion widened the opening enough to gain entry. The first merc motioned for the second merc to go inside. Getting a nasty look, he shoved the second merc aside and started in himself. Matt waited for both men to enter. But just as the second merc cleared the door, the first one spotted Matt and fired a few rounds, then rushed back through the opening, knocking the second merc to the ground, earning a long string of unfriendly expletives from him.

Matt returned fire for covering effect and moved forward to take cover behind the overturned workbench.

“What the fu…? That ain’t no AR. That sounded NATO, to me.” The first merc shouted excitedly.

“Who is this asshole?” the second asked. Just a quick glimpse had shown the defenses Matt had hastily thrown up, and the disciplined return fire spoke of training and experience. “This guy’s got skills. I thought these locals were overgrown Boy Scouts with rabbit guns. Fuckin’ Stephens didn’t do his intel.” He finished angrily.

“I have one more frag…cover me.” The first merc moved closer to the bunker to get a good angle, then threw the grenade through the door gap.

The grenade landed to the side of the work bench, eliminating much of the cover the bench offered. The second merc jumped through the opening and began to fire in Matt’s direction, but mostly hitting the heavy oak benchtop to no effect.

The explosion caused severe shrapnel wounds to his side. Matt raised to his knees enough to send a burst of gunfire into the second merc, flipping him backwards in a pink mist.

The first merc saw this and pulled back. Standing in the shallow stairwell, he was about to rush the entry in a spray of lead, and finish the job, but just then a movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. Looking across the open fields, he saw a site that froze him in place with fatal curiosity.

The surreal vision confused him and seemed to stretch time. It was like something out of a weird movie. Thundering straight towards him, less than the length of a football field away, was a very large beige-colored horse running at him at full speed, nostrils flaring. At first, it looked like fire coming from its blonde mane, its pounding hooves kicking up a small dust storm as it bore down on him.

Then, to his amazement, a woman rose from her saddle to stand in the stirrups. He realized that the fire was her long, flaming red hair, flashing in the Texas sun. The site was so off-putting that he never saw the rifle in her hands.

In the seconds that followed, he stood transfixed, as he saw a bright wink from the dark side of her face…then nothing more. His chest felt as if the horse had kicked him with both rear hooves.

The recoil from the .44 Magnum rifle sat Sharon back down in the saddle. But she had expected that. She drew Roy to a dramatic, Hollywood-style halt next to the shelter, her rifle trained on the dead man, watching for any movement from him. There was none.

Jumping from her saddle, “Matt, are you okay?” she called out. “MATT!” she yelled desperately. She stepped over the dead merc and wedged her way through the door. She was side-stepping the other merc’s corpse when she heard a faint moan from behind the workbench. She rushed around and found Matt crumpled in the corner, his left side a mangled mass of blood and his right hand still clutching his weapon. Gurgling sounds were coming from his wounds. She could see that he wasn’t going to make it.

“Oh my God...Matt.” She yelped, “Hang on. Please.” She pleaded as she knelt to his side. “Come on, Hun…hang in there.” She pulled her phone from her shirt pocket and hit Curtis’ speed dial.

“Curtis! Oh God…he’s hurt bad.” She blurted into the phone before he could answer. “Please help him.” She begged.

Curtis’ heart sank. One of his best friends was dying. His wife is there by herself. No telling if there are any more bad guys around.

“Sharon…listen to me, Babydoll. The best I can do is to call Avery. He can get an ambulance and his deputies to ya, okay? Tell Matt he’s not allowed to…” He couldn’t finish. Even thinking the unthinkable hurt.

“Okay. Please tell Avery to hurry.” She cast a wary eyeat the ruined door, then turned her attention to Matt. She lifted him into her arms and held him close. She was examining his wounds when her tear-filled eyes met his. She felt a wrenching pain in her heart. They both realized that had things been different…

He smiled and pointed to the multiple bars of data streaming on his computer screen, indicating that the bomb was launched…and couldn’t be stopped.

“I’m…checkin’ out,” he gasped. “I know it.” He coughed a bloody cough. “But I kept my promise.”

She tried to object, but he held his bloody hand up and she went silent.

“Thank…you for…” he struggled to speak through the pain ripping through his chest, “…being such a…good wife to…my friend.” His labored speech went on. “Just so you know…he knows…what he has 84 in you. He loves…you more than…life, itself.” He fell silent momentarily, then asked “Would it be alright…if I told you…a secret?”

“Of course, you can.” She replied, doing her best to hold back the flood.

He choked, not from his injury, but from emotion. “I have…loved you…from the moment…I laid eyes on you…” he stammered. “But I have never…resented…my friend…for loving you, too. How could…I?” He paused, then finished “He just…beat me to it.” He smiled and coughed several times, then concluded with “Tell him an’…Avery that…I’ll…be standing post…for them with the…Big Guy.”

With that, he squeezed Sharon’s hand and closed his eyes for the last time.

Sharon convulsed with sobs for several minutes as she knelt rocking Matt in her arms. Gently, she whispered “I could have loved you, too. It would have been so easy. You were so precious. And those eyes. Oh…those eyes. You and Curtis were cut from the same cloth, and I love him dearly. But yes, my dearest friend, I could have loved you, too.”

Eventually, the sound of sirens and tires grinding to a halt outside pulled her from her reverie. Deputy Anders stepped through the bodystrewn doorway with his service revolver drawn. He saw Sharon behind the overturned workbench, her face wet with tears.

“Avery sent me. He can’t leave your place. Things are getting hot there. I brought the amb…” he stopped short when he saw Matt’s mangled body resting peacefully in her arms. “Oh God…” his shoulders slumped, and tears filled his eyes. Matt was his friend and his hero.

The mercs had split into their teams but were totally unaware that their movements had been under surveillance from the time they parked their SUVs. The brief gunfights that ensued were far from fair. The cream of the crop versus the rejects. The mercs were offered surrender, 85 but only four did so. The others underestimated the men they were up against and paid the price.

Stephens managed to get close enough to lead the two remaining mercs around the barn for an approach to the rear of the house. James was tasked with watching that side and happened to be looking in that direction when they appeared from behind the barn. He noticed that the one in front seemed to be giving orders to the other two. That must be their leader, he thought. The head of the snake.

His first thought was to place a semi-jacketed hollow-point into his skull. But Curtis wanted prisoners, so the bastard’s knee will do just fine.

When Stephens knee exploded into a million tiny bits, his scream could be heard for miles. It alerted Curtis and momentarily stunned the other mercs, giving him time to take them both out with successive head shots, prisoners be damned.

James rushed out the back door and trained his gun on Stephens. But he didn’t need to. Stephens was writhing on the ground like a worm on a hot plate, crying like a child about how much it hurts.

Avery came running around the house and stopped mere yards from Stephens. “That’s the bastard,” he growled. “That’s the sonuvabitch that’s responsible for all this shit.” he declared. “I told you I’d bury you.” He started but was interrupted by his phone.

“Yea.” He answered. “What? Oh God…no.” he exhaled. His countenance changed to sullen.

“Matt’s…dead. Sharon’s okay.” Was all he could say.

Upon hearing that, Curtis dropped to his knees in stunned silence. His head slowly panned to the still-writhing Stephens, who somehow seemed to grasp how deadly his predicament had become, because his crying had fallen off into whimpers and genuine fear painted his face a panicked pale white.

Curtis’ glare lay firmly on Stephens for a long moment. Nobody else moved. Then slowly, Curtis raised his Baretta, took aim at Stephens’ 86 face and pulled the trigger He continued to fire, following the slumping body with his shots until all fifteen bullets were in the riddled corpse.

Avery stepped forward, raised his .44 magnum and put two shots into Stephens’ head, destroying any resemblance to a human skull. “He was evadin’ arrest.” He offered glibly. “I’ll bet he woulda just lawyered up, anyway.”

“If I’d known you were going to do that…” James barked, “I would have…”

“…and you would have had to live with it.” Curtis offered morosely. “We’ve killed men before. We can handle it. You got enough on your shoulders.”

“Um…Matt did his job.” Avery added. “Anders said Sharon verified that the bomb had been launched.”

Half an hour later, Sharon and Roy slowly entered the corral. Her tearstained face was blank and downcast. Even Roy seemed depressed, reflecting his rider’s mood. She began to slowly take the saddle off when the faint sound of sirens made her look down the long driveway. She watched as one State Trooper vehicle after another swerved onto the long gravel drive, kicking up a furious cloud of dust that completely blinded the fourth car and all behind them. Several ambulances and even the county fire department joined the billowing parade.

All the bodies and the four bound prisoners were gathered on the front lawn, under Avery’s watchful eye. All the other Phantoms, except Curtis and James, stood in front of the workshop. All their conversations stopped as patrol cars started skidding to a stop all around the horseshoe turn-around and into the bordering grass. Although all weapons had long since been secured in their cases, several of the Troopers exited their vehicles with guns drawn. An older trooper casually strolled between them and the Phantoms, waving his hand at the younger Troopers and saying “Put ‘em away, boys.” He drawled on, “Cain’t you see they ain’t armed? Geez-Louise!” The offending officers holstered their pistols with embarrassment.

Trooper Carlton rolled his eyes as he crunched through the gravel toward Avery. “Howdy, Av. How y’all are?” His Cajun calm dialing the intensity down, as he took command of the scene.

“Been better, T-roy (the Cajun pronunciation of Troy). We had us a little shitstorm. Just so you know…this has to do with that miracle cure the world is goin’ apeshit over.

“Oh?” T-roy replied. “How so?”

“You’ve heard about the so-called “Miracle Man”, right?”

“Uh-huh, who hadn’t?”

“Well…T-roy Carlton…meet The Miracle Man, himself…Mr. James Scott.” He waved toward James, standing next to him.

T-roy eyeballed James for a moment, as if he was expecting something to happen.

Picking up on that James added, “My cape is at the cleaners.”

“HAW…HAW...HAW!’ T-roy bellowed. “You awright, boy.” He appreciated James’ sense of humor in such a moment. He waved one of the younger Troopers over and issued orders to “get this cleaned up.”, motioning toward the covered bodies and zip-tied prisoners.

“Ya wanna talk to my boys?’ Curtis asked.

“Naw, I don’t. I figure they did what was needed. But the feds will be here shortly, and they’ll wanna talk to everyone…including the horse and the dog.”

“Ya know, I had a feelin’ somethin’ like this was gonna go down.” He mused.

“Why’s that?” Curtis asked.

“Well…we’ve been getting’ some strange calls about black SUV’s. Folks been askin’ if they were ours…or sayin’ that if they are ours…then, we’d better stop whatever it is we’re up to.” He explained.

“Buddy-bubba, I know the folks ‘round here. I assured them that I would never have anything to do with spyin’ on my own people. Wait’ll they hear about this.” He finished, doffing his hat to wipe beads of sweat from his hairless head.

“Well…they…and the whole world are about to find out what it was all about.” Curtis eluded.

“Oh? How so?” T-roy inquired in his abbreviated way.

“Matt…” he hesitated at the mention of his friend’s name. “Matt built what he called an Internet “bomb” that would send the secret formula all over the world, so nobody could claim ownership.” He choked back a sob, “He launched it an hour ago.”

“Holy s**t!” T-roy yelped. “I read about this miracle. Truth is, I doubted it was real. I figured it was bullshit propaganda for the dumbasses. ‘Course, I didn’t understand why, or what it would accomplish.”

“But it’s real, huh? Wow…you got any idea what’s gonna happen when the s**t hits the fan?”

“I’m afraid you’re going to be getting busy, soon.” Curtis apologized.

“I guar-on-tee dat.” He acknowledged. “People can be crazy. So, Matt did dat, eh? Good man. I like da boy. Thinkin’ ‘bout introducin’ him to my niece, Sandy.” He concluded.”

“Matt’s dead.” Curtis mumbled, barely audible.

“Wha…” T-roy stammered, shocked to silence. “How?”

“A couple mercs fragged him.”

“Sonuva… I’m so sorry, brutha. I know he was your boy…you, too, Av.” He said, looking gravely at grieving men who were his friends and neighbors. “I assume y’all took the maggots out?”

“Actually…” Curtis started, “Sharon did.” He painfully recounted her heroic ride to save their friend, and how she sent one of the bad guys to Hell…and how he died in her arms.

T-roy hung his head and turned toward the prisoners. James noted a frightening change in T-roy’s eyes. He wondered if the prisoners would make it to jail.