Duncan just shook his head as I got into the car and fired it up. “She must have circled back through the pines. These kids today,” was all he said.
I leaned out the window and shook his hand. “It’s the new math. It just messes with their heads.”
Duncan waved ruefully as I pulled away. Looking in the rearview mirror I saw Duncan dragging Pamela’s body over to the burn area, and Dane’s body still on the blacktop. I shook my head at the whole thing and thanked God once again for Charlie’s instincts. I drove down the road towards my new home.
When I got to the school, Sarah had a question in her eyes. I summed it up simply. “Duncan shot Blake, I shot Pamela.” Sarah just nodded. Gotta love a woman that understands.
2
The first week in Leport was an adjustment, as we went from comfortable condos to classrooms again, but it was necessary in order to finish the defenses for the town. Tommy and Charlie had tinkered with the backhoe and bulldozer for three days before they managed to get them running. Once they did, they dug a six foot wide, six foot deep trench around the perimeter of our town. That actually took a shorter amount of time than I expected. Tommy’s arm had healed pretty well, and Jason Coleman was nearly fully healed as well. John Reef, our plumber, spent several days figuring out how to turn off the water lines to the uninhabited part of town and focus it to the habitable. He informed me that if we could get a system working where we could get water up to the tower from the river, we could have running water in the homes. I pondered that one, but after a while had to admit I was stumped. I sent the question to Nate and he had nothing for me, either. Nate informed me they would be arriving in about a week, so we had better have some accommodations ready. Nate said sixty people were coming and that was twenty more than I thought. Oh well, we had the homes.