The Ranger - Ace Atkins [61]
If there were trouble, Quinn knew Boom—one-armed or not—could drop half those bastards with that big .44.
They followed the fire road, walking a good hundred meters along a deer trail through brush and thickets. Most of the trees were newly planted pines, the blanket of rusted needles as soft and quiet under their feet as carpet. Quinn slowed as they spotted the beaten trailers and motioned Boom forward, Quinn pointing over to a low-hanging branch where Boom would balance his rifle and pick off any targets he saw fit.
Quinn, the .308 slung on his back, .45 in his belt, would make his way down the eroded slope and into the ravine running into old Hell Creek.
Boom winked at him and took position.
He was having a ball.
It was coming up on 0530.
“Just a look?” Boom said, whispering.
“Trust me,” Quinn said with a grin.
A soft dawn shone from the east across the still trailers, no lights or activity. He could hear the gentle hum of generators in a sorry old barn, leaning hard to the hills, the tin roof crudely painted with a Rebel flag. Quinn edged through the woods the way a deer would, keeping just out of reach of the clearing, watching everything.
A trailer door opened, and an old man stumbled out, took a leak, and then moved down toward another trailer, slamming the door. A girl, maybe fourteen, in a yellow oversized sweatshirt and panties, emerged from the crooked barn holding a laptop computer under her arm.
She smoked a cigarette in the cold and finished it off before heading up a long trail to another trailer and a crude parking lot filled with an old black Camaro, a blue GTO, and Daddy Gowrie’s cherry red El Camino. Assorted busted-up trucks and sleek muscle cars.
Quinn checked the time again, not needing it but reacting as he’d been trained.
Size, Activity, Location, Uniforms, Terrain, Equipment.
Four men headed out from another trailer. All of them had shaved heads. Two wore camo jackets, one wore a woolly pully, and the last was in a sleeveless T-shirt. The same boys who’d tried to steal his uncle’s cattle for Johnny Stagg. They weren’t armed, but Quinn knew there would be guns in the trailers or down in the barn.
The men headed down to a smoking trash barrel and added in some stray branches and scrap wood. One of the boys, the skinny shitbag who’d confronted Quinn at the farm, held a joint in his hand, smoking it down before passing it along. His eyes looked black and cheeks hollow.
Quinn stayed there a good hour until the sun came up, turning everything a slate gray and then a bright purple, more men and women coming out of trailers, most headed down to the barn to fetch food on paper plates and then returning to their heated shitholes.
He figured on about eighteen folks. Eleven men. Seven women. Quinn sighted the men down the rifle’s scope, a clear, clean shot of each of their heads, big as dinner plates. He missed his M4 carbine, maybe some flash bangs and grenades, but the hunting rifle would do just fine. The problem was on the reload, but if things got tight, he had four clips for the .45.
He shifted the scope from man to man, watching as Gowrie walked out from the trailer farthest up the hill and joined the men, Quinn taking aim like he’d just found the big prize buck.
Gowrie snatched the joint out of one boy’s fingers and headed off to a drainage ditch, where he unhitched his pants and started to piss, standing ankle-deep in rubber muck boots. He had thick black hair on his shoulders and a map of jailhouse tattoos on his bare back.
Gowrie was a massive target in Quinn’s scope. His shaved head, balding at the crown, was dead center for the .308, which could blow a hole the size of a baseball through his skull. Quinn could drop him before his boys even knew what happened, pick up the girl and Luke, and boogie on down the road, no one the wiser.
How many people would even miss the son of a bitch?
Quinn listened, looking for any sign of the girl or Luke, noting all the action and folks in the camp, the comings and goings, who carried a weapon,