The Front Porch Prophet by Raymond L. Atkins Page B

seeing. Without conscious thought, he shot. The M-16 was on full automatic, and the man was cut to pieces. When it was over, Eugene came to pry the rifle from A.J.’s hands. He still had the trigger depressed, although the magazine was empty.
    “Easy,” Eugene said. “Let me have the gun.” He removed the M-16 from A.J.’s hands and threw it down. He was not a man who was easily jarred, but there was no mistaking the fact that they had a mess on their hands.
    A.J. sank down next to the prone, inert woman. She was staring straight up with fear in her eyes. Her lips moved silently. He wiped spittle mixed with blood from her chin. Her mind seemed to have disengaged from harsh reality, and A.J. thought that this, at least, was a small mercy. He bent his head down between his knees and vomited.
    Eugene inspected the two who had succumbed to acute wood poisoning. There was no point at all in checking the third and not much left to examine anyway. He came and stood in front of A.J. and his mute associate. In a gesture of tenderness uncharacteristic of Eugene, he kneeled and gently fastened her jeans. Then he raised her to a sitting position and eased her onto the log beside A.J. He reached into the tent and brought out a blanket, which he draped over her exposed torso.
    “Those boys are dead,” he said to A.J. “You swing a mean piece of wood.” A.J. was silent. He was in danger of departing reality and joining his log mate. Eugene saw this and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. “Wake up, Babe Ruth. Don’t get weak in the knees on me now.”
    A.J. blinked slowly a couple of times, then met Eugene’s gaze.
    “Did you say the other two are dead?” he asked quietly.
    “You can’t get any deader,” Eugene replied. “What I don’t get is who these guys are. Excuse me, were. There are some survivalists living on the other side of the mountain. I know
them.
They seem okay, and they buy a lot of beer from me. But I’ve never seen these three.”
    A.J. viewed his handiwork. He had no idea what the next step was. He thought it odd that he felt very little remorse about killing the men. His only regret was that he had not arrived soon enough to save the young woman from suffering such trauma. He looked over at his trembling female companion.
    “I think she’s in shock,” A.J. said. “It could kill her. We need to get her into town.” He leaned close to her ear. “Can you hear me?” She made no sound and continued to stare at the horizon. He looked over at Eugene. “I don’t think she’s going to be walking out anytime soon.”
    “We’ll carry her,” Eugene said. “We don’t need any more bodies up here. They’re going to have to haul them out in a truck as it is.” He reached down and pulled the K-Bar knife from the sheath in one of the dead men’s boots and looked at the razor sharp blade. “These guys had all the toys,” he said. Then he chuckled softly. “Man, don’t you know they would be pissed if they knew they got wiped out by a guy with a baseball bat?” A.J. glared at him, and Eugene took the hint. “I’ll go cut some poles,” he said. “We’ll make a stretcher out of the tent.” He headed from the camp to find some suitable material. While Eugene was gone, A.J. dug around in the tent and came up with a shirt. The woman stiffened when he gently removed the remnants of her original.
    “Easy, now,” he said. “You’ve had a bad day, but I’m not going to hurt you. Those people won’t bother you anymore. We just need to get you covered up.” She remained stiff but did not otherwise resist. It was like dressing a large doll. When he finished, he wrapped her back up in the blanket. “That’s much better. Just hang in there a little while longer. We’re going to get you out of here and take you to town.” She continued to sit motionless.
    Eugene came back dragging two long saplings. He stripped them of branches and fashioned a workable conveyance using the tent plus the dead