Men of Truth (The Wasteland Soldier #4)

FORTY THREE

Stone came out of the barracks, gun in hand.

The storm was overhead, miserable grey rain shimmering in the wind. A ribbon of white cracked the sky followed by an instant bang of thunder. He saw Rawles on the ground, crumpled in the road, head turned, arms splayed, half-submerged in a puddle of rainwater spotted with blood.

The four of them were shadows in the gloom, strung out across the road, waiting for him.

It would all come down to this, he realised, one barrel against four. Palmer could have made it two against four but there was more at stake than Reardon and his gang understood. Stone brought violent justice to an uncertain world, a world once stable and aligned, now off kilter by men far worse than him. There was a chance to push it back right. Thousands of lives were on the line. His was only one. Cali’s mission was everything now. She was resourceful, determined and had found something in her life to fight for. She would carry it far from here and she would need Palmer at her side, protecting her in the journey to come. It might have been crazy to dream that a length of rippled cloth might pull fractured communities together but Cali believed in it, and so had Jeremiah, and so did Palmer, and Stone reckoned it was worth a shot.

He looked through the pouring rain and clenched his jaw at the maniac that had slashed Jodie to pieces.

He marched into the road. The blue armband he wore meant nothing because he was about to dish out his own brand of law – straight from the wastelands.

Reardon whistled. A wide-brimmed hat was wedged over his long grey hair.

“Are you grand, Stone? Are you well, now?”

The truck was behind him, doors hanging open, bodies on the ground.

“Aye, what’d you think, Stone? You didn’t see that coming, so you didn’t. That was a canny way into the town, eh?”

Stone began to move slowly across the road, shaping his body, working out his angles.

“You murdered my cousins,” shouted Declan.

“Aye, son,” said Michelle. “And he’s going to pay, as the Lord is my witness, so he’ll pay.”

“Will you stop with that,” said Sullivan.

He raised his rifle.

“If the Lord wants part of this he can get off his fat arse and bring his own gun down here.”

“The Lord forgive you, Daniel Sullivan,” said Michelle, making the sign of the cross with her pistol.

“Careful, Danny,” said Reardon. “Just wing the bastard. I want a rope around his neck.”

Sullivan looked along the barrel and curled his finger around the trigger. Stone dropped, slamming his knee into the flooded road and bringing up his pistol with speed. He squeezed off two rounds and Sullivan groaned as the slugs punched into his chest. He fired a single shot and Stone swerved his body as the bullet whistled past him.

The rifleman hit the muddy road, blood pumping from twin holes.

Michelle roared and her pistols blazed. Bullets whipped around him. Stone threw himself against the shuttered door of a building, barely any cover. He glanced down at Rawles, convinced he’d seen the old sheriff twitching. He couldn’t worry about him right now.

Reardon shouted as he fired, spitting hate through clenched brown teeth, coming down the road – murderer, rapist, war veteran, father. The citizens of Silver Road huddled behind locked doors and closed windows, young children weeping as older ones grew desperate for a peek at a real-life shootout.

Stone put down fire on the three of them. Sullivan was still in the middle of the road, bleeding heavily, rifle in the mud, but the others had scattered, widening the target for him, making it harder for him to ping all three of them without getting taken down himself.

Ducking, weaving, leaning forward, jerking back, Stone fired until the magazine was empty.

He ejected it, rummaged in his pocket for an oblong-shaped spare, and slammed it home.

Bullets chewed into the wall above him.

He glanced down at Rawles, and this time he saw the old man shift. He was trying to turn his body and face Stone. He wasn’t trying to crawl away. He knew he’d be shot to pieces if he dared budge.

He twisted in the mud, his eyes flicked open. He panted, mouth moving slowly, the same shapes, the same words, over and over.

Stone couldn’t make out what he was saying.

Another volley of bullets ripped around him.

He drew back into the doorway and coiled his arm around, pistol barking off three more rounds.

Rawles was still twisted in his direction, mouth moving.

Reardon and the woman were getting closer. Stone was boxed in, no other guns to rely on. He thought of all the men in the watchtowers, snipers and spotters, listening to the gunfire and failing to respond. It suddenly dawned on him the message Rawles was trying to send him and why no help was coming … fire the flare … fire the flare …

He remembered what Rawles had told him earlier in the week. He thrust his pistol into his belt and the shotgun came off his shoulder.

He sprinted into the road, opening up the first barrel at Reardon.

There was a deafening boom and a window shattered. Reardon howled as he was sprayed with glass. Michelle squeezed ferociously at her triggers, bullets spearing the falling rain. Stone swerved, ready to hit her with the second barrel, when he heard a gunshot from behind and pain erupted in his left leg. His run stuttered, his left leg fell away and he dropped onto his right knee.

Declan had flanked him, gotten onto the roof. He leapt down out of the darkness, pistol in hand.

Stone rolled onto his back, grimacing in pain, and fired.

The boom tossed Declan off his feet.

She ran forward, screaming, arms raised, guns blazing. Stone crawled through the mud and rain, clasped his pistol with both hands and fired. She barely noticed the first bullet. He put another slug in her chest but hatred and the cross kept her moving. He let off four more rounds. She went down, one knee at a time, pistols rolling from her fists, shaking fingers reaching for the cross.

Breathing hard, he struggled onto his feet and limped toward the barracks, throwing himself against the door.

He could hear Reardon, yelling as he came after him. Stone dripped blood across the floor.

He rammed his elbow through the glass door of the weapon’s cabinet and snatched out the flare gun, cracked it open, picked up a round and slotted it home.

He limped to the doorway, pistol in his right hand, flare gun in his left, and turned his weapons on Reardon.

The bastard had his pistols on Rawles. “Give it up, big man. Or this old fucker gets it.”

“You’re bleeding,” said Stone.

“Aye, you fucking pegged me with that shotgun, you bastard. Now throw down your fucking guns.”

“Shoot him,” said a voice, out of the dark and the rain, and both men, barely able to stand, twisted around.

It was Jodie, clothes soaked through, a satchel over her shoulder. Reardon couldn’t breathe. He was looking at a ghost.

He swallowed, wiped his beard with the back of his left hand. There was a spear of lightning.

“Please,” she whispered.

Reardon nodded, still stunned by her appearance. “Aye, sweetheart, I will. Then we can …”

She shook her head. “Not you, Robert.”

Reardon turned and Stone fired.

His eye turned to mush as the bullet spiralled through his brain and tore open the back of his head.

His legs buckled, his body folded, he went down.

Jodie opened her mouth but before she could say a word an explosion rocked the town and thick plumes of smoke filled the air.

Stone fired the flare gun into the night sky and collapsed onto his knees.