Free Reapers by Edward W. Robertson Page A

that had just begun to shed their leaves. As the foliage shifted in the wind, beads of sunlight danced across the unkempt grass.
    Eight mounted men gathered in a loose circle. Each bore an assault rifle and a sidearm. A couple of them were smoking. The window was closed and she couldn't hear their words but one of the men pointed dead west and made a series of sweeping gestures.
    Lucy sank down until she could no longer see the riders, then crawled from the room, jogged outside, got on her bike, and pedaled straight to the piers.
    Just as Reese had promised, men worked in the thin morning light, offloading crates and barrels from a sailboat tethered to the broad docks. While stevedores wheeled hand carts through the open doors of a former seafood restaurant, a man in a pinstriped suit and mirrored shades reclined in a deck chair atop a dais, propping himself on one elbow to bark orders at his men.
    No one paid Lucy any mind. She swung out her kickstand and walked to the dais.
    "Hola," she said to the man in the suit. "I wonder if you might be interested in swapping information?"
    The man jerked, spilling a mug of brown liquid. He glanced from side to side, as if searching for someone to whip for this breach of security, then sighed and set down his cup.
    "Get off my dock. I got traffic to direct."
    "Surely your staff is competent enough to handle its own affairs for sixty seconds without burning down the pier."
    "Spoken like someone who's never been in management."
    She cast a baleful gaze at his high platform. "Unless you want to manage their funerals, you better get down and talk to me."
    "Is that a threat?" He twisted to face her, lowering his shades like that goofus from the cop show.
    "No sir. It's a warning." She smiled and ducked her chin. "Unless the caballeros with the machine guns are friends of yours."
    He glanced down the dock, then at her, then back to the men lugging sacks and boxes off the barge. He stuck his pronged fingers in his mouth and whistled.
    Too late. Hooves racketed into the street. Lucy made a face, spat, and ducked behind a barrel.

6
    She ran flat-out, shoes slipping in the pine needles and damp leaves. She was conditioned by farm labor but had to slow after the first mile. Hard autumn light sliced through the branches. Mist whirled from her mouth.
    She hadn't heard any more shots. It was possible she was winding herself for nothing. Locals hunted deer and rabbits. Took warning shots at bears and dogs. People were conservative with ammo these days, but gunfire wasn't that uncommon in the lakes and mountains.
    But this felt different.
    It was half an hour before she cleared the trees and caught sight of the house. The fields were empty. Yellow light played on the patchy wheat and weedy yard. She slowed to a jog, gasping for breath. Dee came out to the front stoop while Ellie was halfway across the field.
    "I heard shots," Ellie panted.
    Dee gazed to her left. "That would be me."
    "You?" She climbed the step and grabbed Dee's shoulder. "Did you hurt someone?"
    "I wish. I was just getting their attention."
    "Sit down. Tell me exactly what happened."
    "Did you run the whole way?" Dee smirked. "Want a glass of water, Mama Bear?"
    She ducked inside. Ellie paced across the stoop. When she'd mentioned the shots, her daughter had glanced leftward. Toward their neighbors. Dee came back with a cool glass of water and sat beside her on the steps.
    Ellie drank half in one go. "Did Sam Chase come by?"
    "You're spooky," Dee laughed without much humor. "He showed up hollering for Quinn. He was drunk."
    "How do you know that?"
    "When he tipped back his Jack, he got more on his chest than down his throat."
    "What was he saying?"
    "I don't know, I don't speak Shitfaced. He wanted Quinn to stay away." She pointed to a patch of grass ten yards from the stoop. It was as trampled and divoted as the day after Augusta. "Quinn went to tell him to go away. They just started fighting. Like a couple of bobcats."
    Ellie