21. The Chicken Offensive

Sarah stood at the top of the basement stairs. She grabbed Gregorie Peck out of the chicken cage she'd wrestled out of the back of the pickup truck and shoved her through the barely ajar door to the kitchen.

Like all Sarah's chickens, Gregorie was drawn to chaos and sprinted to the middle of it, squawking.

As she grabbed and shoved Mavis through the opening, the men's shouting escalated from confidence and anger to startled confusion and shock, yelling at each other in Russian to get the chickens out of the way and fighting over whose fault the chickens were.

Sarah kept feeding chickens through the cracked-open door, all of them standing over two feet high and running toward the fray with their wings spread like they thought they were condors.

The rooster, Foghorn, was last to go as he was cowering in the back of the cage, but Sarah caught him and threw him into the kitchen. When he saw his hens were threatened, Foghorn leaped eight feet straight into the air and slashed one goon's face with his spurs.

The guy screamed.

Behind her, a rectangle of light spread on the gray cement foundation from the open cellar-access door.

Sarah turned and clattered down the stairs, grabbing HowNow's halter. She stood placidly chewing her cud at the bottom of the stairs, with one limpid eye turning to the noise upstairs. "Come on. It's time to save Blaze."

She led HowNow up the stairs, the cow placing each hoof meticulously on each step. HowNow had been in the basement before, when a tornado had ventured unusually close or an Alberta Clipper brought brutally cold winter weather even for Iowa, but she'd never been in the house.

When the cow had crossed the threshold and trotted toward the fight, Sarah tried to catch Blaze's attention. She kneeled on the top step, waving through the quarter-open door as he punched and fought, his strong jaw set in a grim clench.

A dark red blotch in the tear-streak shape of Lake Michigan stained his khaki trousers.

Anguish welled in her chest and soured to anger.

Sarah pushed the door open a little farther, waving and bobbing her head, trying to get Blaze to see her in the maelstrom of fistfighting men and psychotic attacking chickens, plus an anxious cow pacing on the fringes of the fight, stepping on feet or hoof-kicking the men who were hurting the guy who fed her alfalfa hay.

Secondspassed.

Secondsof fists slamming and kicks smashing and blood flowing farther down Blaze's pants.

Even if he had seen her, horrible men surrounded him. He couldn't escape them.

Sarah picked up her cattle prod and the iron mallet beside her on the steps.

She crouched and watched for an instant of vulnerability, but the hired killers and Blaze fought hard and didn't pause. Chickens flapped around them and scrambled over the floor like a feather-filled tornado.

At least the attackers weren't expecting her.

Sarah pushed the door with the cattle prod, checking to make sure its green light was on, and then she sneaked toward the men, extending the prod and ready to swing the iron mallet.

The first guy was winding up at shoulder level to punch Blaze when she stuck the cattle prod in his back and zapped him. His soprano screams and back-arch told her that she'd installed new batteries recently, too.

His hand holding a gun spasmed, and a gunshot blasted into the ceiling.

HowNow spooked at the gunshot and kicked, catching one guy in the arm. His bones snapped like branches.

Sarah swung the iron mallet at the next guy. The one-handed sledgehammer slammed into his side, and he hollered and grabbed his ribs, wheezing.

A fist dug into the braid on the back of Sarah's head and yanked her around, straining her neck.

The sneering man with the skull-shaved hair glared into her eyes, grating through clenched teeth, "This is where you go. I got you now. Drop weapons."

He was so much stronger than she was, and even though she flailed with the hammer and cattle prod, he grabbed one and then the other, stripping them out of her hands, and then he shoved a gun against the side of her jaw and dragged her around, her heels scraping on the wooden floor, pinning her with her back against his chest.

"Blaze Robinson! I have your woman!" he roared, shaking Sarah from his grip on her hair like she was a cur. "On your knees, or I shoot her!"

The horror on Blaze's face cut Sarah's heart. "If you hurt her, I will fucking kill you. I swear on all my dead brothers-in-arms that I will slit your fucking throat."

One of the other guys tried to grab Blaze with an arm around his neck, but Blaze was too tall. The guy bobbled on his tiptoes in his combat boots, so he grabbed Blaze's elbow instead.

Another guy grabbed his other arm.

Blaze yelled, "Let her go! I'll surrender. It's me you want."

"I think it is both of you we want," the terrible guy said from behind Sarah's shoulder.