gently cleaned the small cuts there, wiped away the blood. The cuts were minor, and had already stopped bleeding.
“Will she be okay?” Olivia asked in a small voice, hovering anxiously nearby.
“She’s fine,” Ben said, hunkering down to put the first-aid tackle box in order and secure the latches. “Just some little cuts.” He glanced up at her. “How about you?”
“I’m good. Sela was between me and the window.” Olivia edged closer to them, her worried gaze skating over Sela’s features as if assuring herself once again that they were both, indeed, all in one piece. “Gran’s going to have a shit hemorrhage,” she informed them.
Ben’s mouth twitched. He didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile, but she saw the slight crinkling at the corners of his eyes. Sela opened her mouth to scold Olivia over her language, then shut it. After a fifteen-year-old girl stood side by side with her shooting at a group of men who were trying to kill them, she wasn’t going to fuss at the kid about her language. “I imagine so,” she said instead.
Now that Ben had taken care of first aid, the others moved closer and surrounded them.
“Did you get a look at any of the cars?” Trey asked her.
“I couldn’t tell you colors, or anything like that. There were two cars, three pickups. I might’ve missed someone, in the dark, but I counted six men. When they saw all of the headlights heading this way, they scattered. None of them had their own headlights on.”
“Do you think you hit anyone?” Ben’s voice had gone into that dark place again. “Or any of the vehicles?”
“It’s likely we hit a truck or two,” Sela replied. “As for people . . . I don’t know.”
“I think I did,” Olivia said. “I think I shot someone.” The last two words wavered, and she gulped back tears.
“Sometimes you gotta,” Ben said, so calmly accepting that Olivia straightened. He turned to the group surrounding them. “How about some of you get your flashlights and look for blood on the ground? Sela, about where were the vehicles positioned?”
“All around the parking lot,” she replied, indicating the area with a sweep of her hand.
Several men went to their trucks to get their flashlights, and in the case of a couple of them, handheld spotlights. Others got in their vehicles and moved them back, out of the designated area. Ben watched for a silent half minute, then turned back. “I didn’t pass anyone driving without lights.”
“They’d have taken the side roads, stayed off the highway,” Harley Johnson said. “And if they knew the side roads, that means they’re local.”
“Found some blood,” Trey sang out. He was standing at the edge of the parking lot directly in front of the store, looking down. Ben and the others strode over; Sela and Olivia stayed where they were. She took Olivia’s hand. Just an hour ago she’d have been deeply upset at the possibility she had shot and wounded someone, but she and Olivia had been on the receiving end of their shots, and she found it difficult to care. Considering how fast all of the attackers had been moving, she doubted any of their wounds were fatal. Pity.
Evidently she had a small wellspring of savage in her, after all.
Ben and the others returned. He stood in the center and looked around at all of them, effortlessly assuming the role of authority. They were tough men, men who were used to hard work, to hunting for food to feed their families, to putting themselves on the line, but they all looked to him without hesitation. He had been the one that from the beginning they’d all wanted involved, and now that he was here they’d have to be fools to not listen to him.
“We need to look at every vehicle. Like Sela said, the odds are more than one of them took a bullet. We also know at least one person was wounded. Talk to people, find out who got hurt tonight, supposedly while hunting or something like that.” Ben looked around at all the men, his gaze hard. “Pay attention to everything. There’ll be threats from the outside, but right now the biggest danger is from people right here in the valley.”
Chapter Eighteen
None of them went home. While everyone was there, Trey brought out his jerry-rigged suction pump to be tried out. It didn’t work.
“I’ve got some parts at home,” Ben said, looking at the contraption. “I’ll be right back.”