Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [65]
“No, just me, same as I’ve always been. Why don’t you put that rifle down, Wendell?”
He looked at the weapon as if he had forgotten he was holding it. “Oh. Yeah, sure.” He laid it on the counter between them, the barrel pointing to the side. “It’s not true, is it? They can’t take our guns away just on that damn politician’s say-so, can they?”
“They’ve got the men and the firepower on their side,” Alex pointed out. “It may not be right, but if we try to put up a fight … well, I’m afraid some innocent people might be killed, and I don’t want that.”
“Neither do I. I always swore I’d never let ’em take my guns away, though. My daddy fought in the Big One when he was just a boy, and he always said that if they ever come to take away our guns, that’d be the end of the country he fought for.”
“They’re saying that it’s just temporary.”
Post shook his head. “Do you really believe that, Chief?”
Alex had asked herself the same question, and she had to answer honestly. “No, I don’t. I think once they get their hands on everybody’s guns, we’ll never see them again.”
“That’s right,” Post said. “Then they’ll go to some other little town and pull the same stunt there, and some place after that, and another and another until the only ones who got guns are the army … and them thugs who come up across the border, like the ones who killed poor Inez McNamara.”
There wasn’t a thing he had said that Alex could dispute. She believed he was right. And yet there were cold, hard facts to face.
“They didn’t come up with this idea overnight. They’re ready for anything we might do, Wendell. We’re going to have to cooperate with them and hope that somehow the courts will step in and put things right.”
Post snorted in disbelief. “That ain’t never gonna happen, Alex, and you know it.”
Alex sighed. “We have to hope.” She put a hand on the rifle that rested on the counter. “Can I take this and turn it over to them? If I don’t, they’ll come in here and arrest you. If you shoot at them, they’ll kill you.”
She didn’t doubt that for a second.
Post sighed and pushed the rifle toward her. “Take it. There’s gonna come a time, though, when you and me and ever’ body else in this town is gonna have to ask themselves what’s worth fightin’ for … and dyin’ over, if need be.”
Alex knew he was right about that, too.
Holding the rifle well away from her body, she stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Clear!” she called to the FPS troopers at the end of the block. More men had joined them. “I’ve got his gun. You can have it.”
They rushed down the sidewalk toward her. One of them snatched the rifle out of her hands, and several more charged into the store, broken glass crunching under their boots.
“Wait a minute!” Alex cried. “What are you doing? I got the gun!”
She heard angry shouting inside that was cut off abruptly. She moved to go in, but black-clad men blocked her. A moment later, the men who had gone inside reappeared, dragging a groggy Wendell Post between them. The storekeeper’s head was bleeding from a place where he had obviously been hit with a gun butt or something else.
“This man is under arrest for failing to comply with the executive order,” one of the FPS men said.
“But I got his gun,” Alex protested.
“Doesn’t matter, ma’am. He’s in our custody now.”
“You can’t—”
Alex stopped short. Of course, they could do it. They could do whatever they wanted. They were in charge now, them and their liberal masters back in Washington. They had waltzed right in and taken over as if it was their right to do so—and that was exactly what they believed.
And she had let them do it. God help her, Alex thought as sickness roiled her stomach, she had let them do it.
BOOK FOUR
CHAPTER 28
“How long are we going to stay here?”
“Relax, Earl. Nobody’s trying to kill you, are they?”
“Well … no.” A bitter tone entered Earl Trussell’s voice. “Not for the past couple of days, anyway.”
“Then you’re ahead of the game,” Ford said. “I’m grateful that nobody’s tried to kill me for more than forty-eight hours.”
“You would