Free Renewal 10 - Blind Force by Jf Perkins Page B

across the road. Terry actually saw the friendly rounds plowing little furrows in the soil near the barn. He was pinned down.
    The Dragons ran away from the fence, and it was the perfect time to intercept them. If only Bill would stop firing. Then the rain of Teeny Town fire stuttered to a halt, and Terry knew. He scrambled down the ladder hollering, “Let’s go! Fire on my command!”
    Manchester men swarmed from the barn doors and out into the open. The men from behind the barn sprinted to catch up. Terry wasn’t the first out the door, but he managed to regain the lead quickly. Seth joined him within seconds. Who knew the big guy was so fast? The Dragon men were running directly towards Terry. Perhaps they had intended to use the barn as a place to regroup. As his men blocked the barn, the Dragons began to veer to Terry’s right, heading for the last safe place they could recall. The Dragons were too late. The Manchester men had angled around to cut off the retreat, and Terry was proud that not a single one of them fired on the trapped Dragon army. The intruders stumbled to a halt, and as if it were a single thought, dropped their weapons on the ground.
    Gary was in a literal hell. In a matter of two minutes, his God had hung him out to dry. It was an odd thought considering he was thoroughly sprayed with the blood of his men. At his last glance, he realized that he was almost alone. God had left him for last to see the error of his ways. He did the only thing he could do. He ran.
    In fact, it wasn’t God at all. It was Kirk who had given orders not to shoot Gary Tucker if it could be avoided. It was Kirk who sat through the short-lived battle in the shadows, and it was Kirk who chased Gary down. It wasn’t easy. Gary was running like the devil himself was on his tail. Kirk sprinted through his familiar woods, his feet knowing the way as well as he did. It was Gary’s fourth stumble over a protruding root that gave Kirk his opportunity. He leaped over the sprawling Junior Dragon and landed on the man’s hand with a distinct crunching of bones. The momentum tore skin from Gary’s hand and scrubbed the rifle away from Gary’s broken grip. Kirk swooped down in a blur and tossed the visible weapons from Junior’s prone form. With a knee between Gary’s shoulder blades, Kirk searched for hidden weapons and found a small revolver tucked into Gary’s waistband. Kirk used old fashioned stainless cuffs to bind the hands, and a forceful prod with his favorite handgun to get Gary to his feet. Gary was forsaken. He stood slowly with his head bowed low and blood from his hand dripping down the back of his pants.
    Daylight was dawning on the field as Bill’s second group emerged from cover and met Terry’s men in front of the barn. Terry had led the split Dragon army away from their abandoned weapons and had seated them in the bare dirt. Seth had gathered some volunteers to frisk the men for hidden weapons, and found surprisingly few. Terry made a count and found that only seventy-nine Dragons had survived. He had no idea what remained of the other group.
    Bill limped across the field. His leg was stiff from the long night, but still much better than a short week before. He extended his hand to Terry long before he arrived, and Terry was surprised when the handshake turned into a full strength bear hug.
    “Perfect timing, my boy. Perfect!” Bill thumped Terry’s back as he spoke.
    “Thanks, Bill. I thought we were going to miss the whole thing.”
    Bill stepped back and swept his eyes over Terry’s men from Manchester. “You missed the crappy parts, that’s all. But, if I had known you had the biggest army, I might have done things differently.” At that, Bill began to pick random men from the crowd to offer handshakes and profuse thanks to the smiling members of Terry’s army.
    In the midst of Bill’s personal celebration, a teenaged runner showed up and tapped him on the shoulder. The boy whispered in Bill’s