Read Online Sunrise by Mike Mullin - Free Book Online Page B

Either way, both sides will open fire, and we’ll all die. That what you want?” I was surprised nobody had started shooting yet. Looking past the handgun leveled at me, I saw the stopped trucks—men peered past their edges, gripping their rifles, wide-eyed and tense.
    Red tried to say something, but when his throat tensed, my knife pushed deeper into his skin, and he abruptly shut up.
    “Put your gun down!” I yelled. “Now, goddamn it!”
    The new guy just stared at me. Then I realized: he was staring at Red.
    Red’s head twitched—a barely perceptible shake.
    “Can’t do that,” the new guy said.
    There was no reasoning with them. Whatever hold Red had on them was insanely scary. I had to negotiate directly with Red. “Lower the gun to your side. I’ll ease off on the knife enough so he can talk.” I slid the knife downward about half an inch. My fist was against his chest, the knife thrust upward, its point toward his throat.
    “Let me go now,” Red said, “and you can all leave here alive.”
    “We’re not going anywhere without our food,” I replied.
    “My food,” Red said emphatically. “Possession’s nine-tenths of the law, as they say, and I am the law. So I own ten-tenths of that food.”
    “If that’s the case, then I own you. And your town.” I briefly pushed the knife tighter against his throat to emphasize the point.
    “Temporarily, maybe.”
    I could hardly believe his sangfroid. My hands were shaking—the adrenaline was starting to wear off, and I was fighting an internal battle with my stomach. “You
    need a solution worse than I do. This goes south, my people at the gate will start shooting. We’ll all die out here. And my people will still have your town. They’ll—” “My people will have the food,” Red said.
    “Their families are in Stockton. They’ll be more willing to work out a deal than you seem to be.”
    “You haven’t proposed anything.”
    “Your people at the trucks lay down their weapons and move a few hundred yards off. We’ll leave Stockton, take the trucks, and go home.”
    “And we’ll starve for certain. I’d rather take my chances on a firefight.”
    “Without our food, we’ll starve.”
    “Not my concern,” Red said. “But I’ll allow you to take one truck. My choice of which one you keep.”
    “I’ve got the upper hand here,” I said. “I’ll allow you to keep one truckload of our food. And I’ll choose which truck you get.”
    “We split them, six and five. I choose which five you get.” We haggled for half an hour more. Finally we settled on an eight/three split. Red would choose which three of the semis or panel vans he’d keep. Neither side would disarm, but we’d keep Red captive until the last minute, as insurance for his side’s good behavior. In addition, we’d keep both the remaining pickups. Red also insisted that I return his knives, Julia and Claudia.
    It took most of the day to make the trade. Red’s people sorted the trucks out, getting eight of them in a line facing back toward Warren, and the other three facing Stockton. I thought Red would choose three semis to maximize the amount of food he could keep, but he picked two semis and a panel van. Later I found out that the van held all the weapons, ammo, alcohol, and seeds his people had looted from Warren.
    It was a miracle nobody got shot. Ed collected all our people from Stockton, and we moved past Red’s men— both groups eyeing each other warily across the sights of their rifles. Finally by late afternoon, we were all loaded in our idling trucks.
    I turned Red loose and gave him his knives. “Be seeing you,” he said with a smile that held more threat than mirth.
    “Jesus, I hope not.” I slammed the pickup’s door, and we pulled out—a motley column of seven semis and one panel van led by our captured pickup truck.
    As we turned from Highway 20 onto Highway 78, toward home, the tension and stress finally overwhelmed me. I’d been awake for nearly