Cincinnati Run

Chapter Seven

More damn dogs!

Blade could see the gunman racing in their direction, his legs flying, while on Hickok’s trail came a baying pack of mongrel hounds, five all told. The two in his hands were just members of a pack! Now the people in the farmhouse were bound to wake up! Infuriated, he rammed the heads of the large and small dogs together, stunning them, and cast them to the grass. He whipped out his Bowies and faced the onrushing pack. “No guns,” he instructed Geronimo, who promptly lowered the SAR and the Commando and drew his tomahawk.

A wide grin was plastered on Hickok’s countenance as he drew near.

“Company’s comin’,” he announced, then slowed and gripped the Colt AR-15 by the barrel.

The five farm dogs never slowed.

Hickok took down the first dog, a huge beast, with a terrific swing of the AR-15, the stock crashing into the dog’s cranium and checking its leap at his legs.

A pair of brutish canines swerved at Blade.

The giant Warrior was ready, his legs braced, a Bowie in each hand. He did the unexpected, moving to meet them, his arms sweeping up and in as they launched themselves simultaneously. The Bowies arced in low, taking each dog in the chest, imbedding to their hilts. The dog on his left slumped over, but the one on the right voiced a plaintive howl before collapsing, its blood spilling over his hand. He glanced at Geronimo.

A dog was dead on the grass at Geronimo’s feet, its head split open, and as Blade watched, a second dog was met in midair by the light axe used so extensively by Geronimo’s Blackfeet ancestors. The dog’s cranium was rent from forehead to nose, and the animal fell soundlessly.

“I bumped into these critters near the barn,” Hickok explained.

Blade swung his arms outwards, dislodging the dogs from his Bowies, and turned toward the house. Sure enough, a light had come on in a second-floor window. “I want these people alive if possible,” he advised, and nodded at the house.

Hickok circled to the right, Geronimo the left with the SAR.

Blade dashed up to the front porch, his socks making no noise on the grass, and bounded onto the steps.

He was a stride from the wooden door when lights went on downstairs.

With a leap he was to the right of the door, his back to the wall, the crimson-soaked Bowies ready.

The doorknob twisted, and a second later an elderly woman in an ankle-length nightgown emerged onto the porch. “Daffodil?” she called.

“Buttercup?”

Blade stepped into the doorway, blocking her retreat. “I’m afraid your dogs were too loud for their own good,” he said softly.

She spun, gazing in horror at his face, awed by his stature. Her right hand covered her mouth.

“Don’t make a peep,” Blade warned.

She didn’t.

She swooned instead.

Blade turned, finding a narrow hall and a series of doors. And two children ten feet away, in their cotton pajamas, gawking.

“It’s a monster!” cried a little girl of about seven.

“It’s a mutant!” stated her brother, who appeared to be two or three years older.

“I’m a friend,” Blade said.

They gaped at the dripping Bowies, screeched, and bolted, fleeing toward stairs at the far end of the hall.

“Mommy!” wailed the girl.

“It’s a mutant!” the boy reiterated in stark terror.

Blade raced after them, overtaking the children at the base of the stairs.

“Stop!” he commanded.

With a thin leg on the bottom step, each child froze, the girl trembling, the boy gasping for air.

“I won’t hurt you,” Blade assured them.

“Damn straight you won’t, mister!” snapped a harsh feminine voice above him.

Blade looked up.

A woman in her thirties was standing on the seventh step, her attractive features set in grim lines, her brown hair in a bun, and a cocked double-barreled shotgun in her hands, pointed at the Warrior’s chest. She was wearing a blue robe. “One twitch and you’re dead!”

“I mean you no harm,” Blade told her.

“Sure you don’t, you son of a bitch!” She glanced at his Bowies, at the blood, and glared into his eyes. “You killed my Momma!”

Blade threw himself to the right.

The blast of the twin barrels was deafening in the confined hallway. The buckshot narrowly missed the children and blew a jagged hole the size of a watermelon in the wall on the opposite side. Both children screamed.

Stepping into the open, Blade raised his right arm as if to throw the Bowie. “Freeze!” he barked.

The woman had snapped the shotgun open and was fumbling in the left pocket in her robe for more shells. She stood still, her brown eyes wide with tears in the corners.

“I didn’t kill your mother,” Blade said. “She fainted on the front porch.

She should be fine.”

“You’re lying!” the woman replied bitterly.

The children were pale, holding hands, like frightened fawns confronted by a snarling cougar.

“Why would I lie?” Blade retorted. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead. I mean you no harm.”

She straightened slowly, the shotgun sagging, clearly bewildered.

“You’re not going to kill us?”

“All we want is information,” Blade said.

“We?”

A door six feet behind Blade opened, and Hickok walked into the hallway, the AR-15 leveled. He took one look and grinned. “Howdy, folks.

Sorry my pard here didn’t knock, but his manners need workin’ on.” He strolled over to Blade. “I came in through a window,” he said, and glanced at the woman. “You folks really should lock your place up tight at night.

You never know what kind of varmints are runnin’ loose.”

“There’s two of you!” she blurted.

“Three,” stated a voice to her rear.

The woman spun and nearly lost her balance.

Geronimo stood five steps above her, the SAR trained on the small of her back. He smiled pleasantly. “You should consider trimming the limbs on the tree behind your house. One of them comes within inches of your bedroom window.”

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded. “What the hell are you sons of bitches doing in our house?”

“If you don’t mind my sayin’ so, ma’am,” Hickok said indignantly, “that’s no way for a lady to be talkin’ in front of the young’uns.”

The woman’s face became beet red. “Why you…” she blurted.

“You…you…”

“The handle is Hickok, at your service,” the gunman stated, and bowed.

“What are you doing here?”

“First things first,” Blade declared, and looked at Hickok.

“I want you to go get my Commando, and check on the mother. See if you can bring her around.”

“On my way,” Hickok said, taking a stride and looking down at Blade’s feet. “I’ll also fetch your boots and laces. We don’t want to fluster these folks more than we already have.” He moved past the giant to the front door.

The little girl stared at Blade’s feet. “Golly. Those are the biggest feet in the whole world.”

“He must be part mutant,” her older brother speculated.

Geronimo started laughing.

The mother glanced from the Indian to the giant. “Lunatics! We’ve been invaded by lunatics!”

“Where can we talk?” Blade asked. “I want all of us in the same room.”

“There’s the living room,” she suggested.

“Okay. We’ll go to the living room. But first, hand the shotgun to my friend,” Blade directed.

She turned and extended the gun.

“Thank you,” Geronimo said, taking the weapon in his left hand.

“What’s your name?” Blade asked her.

“Eberle. Holly Eberle,” she said, stepping down the stairs and placing a hand on each of her children. “My daughter’s name is Claudia, and my son is Danny. Please don’t hurt us.”

“I’ve already told you that we’re not going to hurt you,” Blade reminded her.

Holly glanced at the Bowies. “Where’d the blood come from?”

Blade frowned and hefted the knives. “I’m afraid we had to kill some of your dogs.”

“Our dogs!” Danny exclaimed, and tried to move toward the front door.

“Stay put!” Holly snapped, gripping his right shoulder. “We don’t want to make these men angry, honey.”

Danny looked up at her. “But mom, they killed our dogs! They killed Buttercup!”

“We didn’t kill all of your dogs,” Blade said, guilt racking him as he beheld the boy’s horrified features. “There was a large brown dog and a small black and white one—”

“That’s Daffodil!” cried Danny. “And the brown one must be Buttercup!”

“Daffodil and Buttercup are okay,” Blade declared. “They don’t have a scratch on them.”

Danny’s accusing brown eyes bored into the Warrior’s. “You swear to God you didn’t hurt them?”

“They’re fine,” Blade reiterated. “You can see for yourself shortly.” He looked at Holly. “Lead the way to the living room.”

Holly and the children edged past the giant cautiously, Claudia gazing at Blade as if he was the worst monster on the face of the planet. “You meanie!” she declared.

Geronimo came down the stairs. “At least Tillers and Hunters don’t have people hating their guts.”

“Check the house,” Blade ordered testily. “Every room, from top to bottom.”

“What do I do about this?” Geronimo asked, wagging the shotgun.

Blade wiped the Bowies on his pants, slid the knives into their sheaths, and took the shotgun.

“I’ll start upstairs,” Geronimo said, and went back up.

“There’s no one else here,” Holly told Blade.

“We’ve got to check,” the giant said. “We won’t disturb any of your property. We’re not thieves.”

“What, exactly, are you?”

“We’ll ask the questions,” Blade said. “Now where’s the living room?”

Holly and the children led the way down the hall to a door on the right, and Holly pushed the door inward and flicked on a light. She escorted her children to a faded blue sofa and seated herself between them, hugging them close.

Blade walked to a rocking chair on the left and leaned the shotgun against an arm. “I’ll make this short and sweet. Answer me honestly and we’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

“What do you want to know?” Holly asked.

“Are we behind the Russian lines?”

Holly cocked her head to one side and peered at him quizzically. “You don’t know?”

“I believe we are, but the Russians haven’t strung barbed wire along their frontier or posted signs,” Blade mentioned. “We didn’t see any patrols, which doesn’t mean a thing because they tend to concentrate most of their troops in the cities. So are we in Soviet-controlled territory or not?”

“Unfortunately, you are,” Holly said bitterly.

“Where is the nearest Soviet garrison?”

“Cincinnati.”

“That far?”

“They’ve turned Cincinnati into a military-industrial complex,” Holly disclosed. “The city is an armed camp. They send out regular patrols in a fifty-mile radius.”

Blade scrutinized the modest furnishings in the living room, the peeling green paint on the walls, the cracks in the plaster coating the ceiling. “The Russians let you keep your own home? I’m surprised they haven’t turned your farm into a collective.”

“My grandfather told me the Russians tried to organize a collective system after the war,” Holly disclosed. “But their scheme didn’t work. The farmers wouldn’t cooperate, even though many of them were tortured and killed. The city folks didn’t know beans about growing crops and couldn’t do diddly without help from the farmers. And there weren’t enough Russians to enforce the edicts establishing the collectives.”

“So the Soviets let the farmers keep their land?”

“In most cases. They did succeed in setting up a few collectives here and there, but for the most part they simply take ninety percent of all the crops the farmers harvest,” Holly said.

“They visit you periodically?”

“At least once a week a patrol shows up to check on us,” Holly replied.

“They keep tabs on the crops, and they send trucks at harvest time to take their fair share.” She spoke the last two words with unconcealed rancor.

“You don’t sound too happy about the state of affairs,” Blade commented.

“Would you be?” Holly responded resentfully. “But there’s nothing I can do about it, not after they…” she said, and stopped, her eyelids lowering, her lips compressing.

“They what?” Blade prompted.

“They killed my husband,” Holly revealed softly.

“I’m sorry.”

Holly looked up at him, trying to gauge if he was sincere, and decided he was. “Thanks.”

“Care to tell me about it?”

“There are a lot of poor folks around,” Holly said. “The people in the cities and the towns receive just enough food to keep them alive. Even the farmers barely get by. My husband, Tim, was part of an underground movement.”

“Go on.”

Holly studied his rugged features. “I’ve told you too much already.”

“What about this underground movement?”

“How do I know I can trust you?” Holly queried suspiciously. “You might be with the KGB.”

“Do you really think I am?”

Before the woman could respond, Hickok sauntered into the living room carrying Blade’s combat boot and laces in his left hand. He scrunched up his nose. “Here, pard. Take these before my nose kicks the bucket.” The Commando was slung over his left shoulder.

Blade took the boots and sat down in the rocker to put them on.

Holly stared at the gunman. “There’s no way he could be with the KGB.”

“What the dickens is the KGB?” Hickok asked.

“The Committee for State Security,” Holly said, “the Soviet secret police.”

Hickok chuckled. “I’m not a Commie, ma’am.”

“That much is obvious,” Holly said. “But where are you from? Why are you here?”

“Shouldn’t you be more concerned about your ma?” Hickok rejoined.

Holly appeared shocked. “Damn! How is she?”

“She’s snoozin’ away on the front porch,” Hickok said.

“Bring her inside,” Blade instructed.

Hickok deposited the Commando on the floor next to the rocking chair, slung the AR-15 over his right shoulder, and strolled out.

“Tell me more about the underground,” Blade stated, sliding his right foot into a combat boot.

“Some of the farmers banded together to try and do something about the food situation,” Holly said. “They hide a small portion of the harvest, then smuggle the food into Cincinnati. Not much, mind you, but every little bit helps.”

“They put their lives on the line for a handful of grain,” Blade remarked.

“That’s about it.”

“What happened to your husband?”

Holly sighed. “Tim built an underground bin for grain and corn in the southwest corner of one of our fields to the east. There were trees all around, and no one could see the corner from the road. He never expected the Russians to find the bin.”

“They did?”

“I don’t know how, but they did,” Holly said. “It was like they knew where to look.” She paused, hugging her children, her countenance a mask of sorrow. “They took him to Cincinnati, tried him, and put him in front of a firing squad.”

“But they let you stay on the farm?”

“The Soviet commander of the Cincinnati garrison, General Kasantsev, told me that we could stay as long as our production quota is met. If we’re one bushel short, though, we’ll be booted off and sent to a relocation camp. I think he allowed us to stay because we know the land so well, and because we were in the middle of the growing season when Tim was executed.”

Their conversation was interrupted as Hickok ambled in with the elderly woman cradled gently in his arms.

She was awake, regarding the gunman angrily, her thin hands on his chest. “Put me down, young man! I’m perfectly capable of walking by myself.”

“Mom!” Holly exclaimed, rising and hastening to her mother. “Are you all right?”

“Of course,” her mother replied. “Tell this pervert to put me down. I don’t like having strangers paw me.”

“I’m not a pervert,” Hickok said.

“That’s a matter of opinion,” the mother retorted.

Hickok halted and lowered the woman to the floor. “And I don’t go in for pawin’ women. My missus would break my fingers if I tried.”

“You’re married?”

“Yep.”

“Your wife has my sympathy.”

Holly grabbed her mother’s left wrist. “Mom! Don’t talk like that.”

“I’m not scared of these scavengers,” the mother stated.

His combat boots snug on his feet, Blade rose and placed his hands on his hips. “We’re not scavengers.”

The mother swiveled toward him, her right hand covering her mouth.

“Good Lord! I didn’t imagine it. You are real!”

“What’s your name?” Blade inquired.

“Ethel,” she answered, gawking, astonished at his size.

“Have a seat,” Blade said, indicating the sofa with a jerk of his right thumb.

At that moment Geronimo materialized in the doorway. “You’d better come outside,” he informed Blade. “We might have an uninvited visitor.”