The Territory A Novel - By Tricia Fields Page 0,104
right there, and put your hands in the air where I can see them!”
Kenny didn’t even turn to look at her. He ran half a dozen steps to the trailer and jumped through the open door. Fortunately, the door was held open with a chain and he couldn’t pull it shut, but he moved to the right of the door, inside the trailer and out of her line of sight.
“Kenny, this is Chief Gray. You need to give it up and come out of the trailer with your hands held in the air. You won’t get out of this one.” She stopped talking and heard nothing from inside the trailer. “I don’t want to see you get hurt. Step slowly outside the trailer.” Josie stood with both feet planted firmly, her arms extended, gun aimed on the trailer. The amount of ammunition in the campsite was staggering to consider, and it reminded her of the rattlesnakes roiling around under her feet at Dell’s place, waiting to strike if provoked.
A hand extended about twelve inches into the open doorframe, and Josie realized Winning was holding an explosive device.
“I want you out of here now!” he said, his voice loud and angry. “I want your gun and gun belt on the ground as well as your cell phone. Throw them down now or I’ll throw this and six others just like it! I will blow you to pieces!”
Josie moved just outside of the lantern’s light and opened her cell phone, noting that she’d missed several calls from Otto. She found Pegasus Winning’s cell phone number in her contacts and was surprised when Winning answered.
Josie whispered who she was and asked if Winning knew where her brother’s campsite was located.
“He has a trailer set up straight back from Red’s place. You need to get down here. He’s got a trailer full of guns and he’s talking crazy. Drive down here and talk sense into him before we all get blown up.” Josie hung up without waiting for a reply.
“Kenny, you know we aren’t going to do that. You’re outnumbered here.”
“Bullshit! You can’t come near me without getting blown to pieces, so don’t tell me I’m outnumbered!”
She tried to reason with him, trying to stall. “Kenny, you can’t do this to your sister. You’re all the family she’s got.”
“Don’t bring her into this! She has nothing to do with this!”
“Kenny, if you’re thrown in jail for killing a police officer, you’ll never see her again. Whatever has happened to this point, we can work through it. Just come out here so we can talk.”
Josie noticed the Eldorado driving through the grass toward the campsite.
Pegasus parked and jumped out of the car, shouting Kenny’s name. Josie put her hands up in the air to slow her down. She pointed toward the trailer.
Pegasus called her brother’s name, softer now, and approached the trailer. He said nothing. She stopped just outside the door.
“Kenny? What are you thinking?”
* * *
Pegasus tentatively looked inside and found him sitting on the floor, his legs stretched out in front of him, each hand holding a grenade. Kenny’s head was leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed.
She stepped inside quietly, not wanting to startle him, terrified by what she saw. The dim light from the lantern cast angular shadows across the guns piled three and four deep on the floor in the back of the trailer, most of them large, most likely automatic. A box of explosives lay to Kenny’s right side. She winced at the smell of gun oil and sweat.
“Kenny,” she whispered, and sat beside him, careful not to touch him yet. “What are you doing, buddy?”
He turned his head toward her and opened bloodshot eyes. “It’s all turned to shit.”
“Are these the missing guns from Red’s place?”
“I wanted to get us out of this wasteland. Just enough to get a start somewhere else. Vermont or Montana. Start a bait-and-tackle shop. Anything but this.” He threw his hands into the air as if this was what his life had become.
Pegasus wiped sweat off her forehead and tried to stall the feeling of desperation that was starting to take over. “Did you steal Red’s guns from his house?”
Kenny had always been in charge; now he looked at her as if she was supposed to come up with the solution. “I messed up, sis. I did it good this time.”
“Who were you going to sell them to?” she asked, still trying to make some sense of her brother surrounded by guns.