If Vigilance was responding to reports of a fire out here, they wouldn’t be all stealth about it. Between the storm and the fact that it’s Christmas Eve, it’s highly doubtful anyone even drove close enough to the ranch to spot the shed fire anyway. Faster vehicles such as snowmobiles wouldn’t be able to clear three feet of accumulation, so that’s another dose of help from the blizzard. Whatever vehicles I’m hearing are lumbering along far more slowly. Impossible to tell how many. I’d say there’s maybe ten minutes tops before they get here.
With a curse, I double time my pace, which is not easy in snow that reaches mid-thigh. The trailer door is blocked by a snow drift and frozen shut. I give up on it quickly and keep my gun ready as the others make their way over here.
Another loud crack comes from the shed, accompanied by another flare from the blaze. Over in the stables, I can hear the horses going wild in their stalls. Getty and Tye immediately climb up on the roof of the trailer and lie on their bellies with their weapons ready. Without much time to think, I send Fort and Caleb to the stables to release the horses while keeping my eye fixed to the gun scope.
“They’re coming,” I say to Sonny as he huffs over here.
He glares in the direction of the road and catches his breath. “Hope they like the taste of metal.”
Omerta is the first horse to come charging out into the snow. He panics at the sight of the fire and tries to rear up on his hind legs in the deep snow. Fort risks getting trampled by running out after him but no one is better with the horses than Fort. There was no time to deal with reins so he’s stuck with shouts and hands gestures. Still, he successfully diverts Omerta, propelling him toward the trees.
One by one, the horses are freed and follow Omerta to the tree line. The sight of them all traipsing through the deep snow in silence would look beautiful under different circumstances.
But not now. Not when multiple dark shapes have just breached the ranch gates and head steadily in this direction, ending any speculation this is anything other than a full deadly assault.
“Don’t show them where you are until you have to,” I shout up to Getty and Tye.
There are four vehicles, all bulky snowcats that proceed slowly but steadily up the lane. They aren’t the smallest models but far from the largest. I’d estimate no more than six riders can squeeze into each one.
They still have a manpower advantage but this is our land. OUR HOME. As familiar to us as our own reflections. We’ll fight to the death. And the deaths will be all theirs.
They’ve made a mistake coming here. It will be their last one.
With the horses all safely released, Fort and Caleb run back over here. The shed fire still burns but so far nothing else has gone up in smoke.
No sooner has this thought crossed my mind when a blast comes from the sprawling single story residence where the cowboys live. Mercifully, the building is empty right now but this new development means nowhere is safe.
Yet it’s also true that we cannot all remain clustered here at the trailer. There’s no telling what kind of firepower these fuckers brought with them and it would be unwise to concentrate all our forces in one place.
With a fresh surge of dread, I look behind me at the hulking shape of the house. It’s too easy to imagine Cecilia trembling in fear as she listens to all the noise and thinks the worst. It’s a physical ache, this overwhelming need to be with her.
There’s too much I haven’t said to my wife.
There’s so much I need to give her.
This day can only end when I’m holding her safely in my arms again.
“I’m gonna take a walk,” I tell Sonny. “Let them think their plan worked and we’re sitting ducks.”
Yes, I’m offering myself as a decoy but I also value his opinion. Sonny has so many notches in his Mafia war belt, nothing that’s about to happen could possibly surprise him. He helped my father liquidate every rung of the Delfino family criminal ladder after they murdered my mother. He participated in the big war after the Grimaldi massacre.
Our best Capo mulls this over and decides the idea has merit. “I’ll be right there with you, boss.”
Fort, almost as sharp a shot as Getty, has climbed up to the trailer roof to play sniper while Tye has jumped down in time to hear our conversation.
“Can’t leave me behind,” he says cheerfully.
“Now what should I do?” Caleb asks, full of adrenaline and ready to point his gun somewhere.
“Stick with Johnny and Artie,” I tell him. “And cover us when they start shooting.”
The first snowcat is less than a quarter of a mile away now. They are staying close together instead of strategically branching out.
This is good. And bad.
Their bunched position makes them vulnerable. However, at first all their fire will be aimed at the targets they see. And that target will be me.
I motion to Sonny and Tye to separate to either side of me as we come around the far side of the stables and get closer to the burning clubhouse. This fire is still raging but the shed looks to be burning out. As long as the wind doesn’t act up again, the snow ought to help keep the flames confined.
