Home>>read Ring of Fire free online

Ring of Fire(135)

By:Eric Flint






Dave made an overdramatic display of slapping his forehead. "I haven't used that thing in years!" He turned and ran into the garage, leaving Gerd outside, unloading the remaining .22 cartridges. After rummaging in the garage for a few minutes, he seemed to find what he was looking for.





"Got it!" Dave ran out with a crossbow. "Oh, crap, I'd better get the foam target for it, so we don't ruin all the bolts." After a few more minutes of rummaging, Dave came out and quickly had the crossbow ready and the target set up.





He handed Gerd the crossbow. "I hope you have a strong back, it's set pretty tight. It doesn't use sights like the rifle, but a bead and . . . damn dude!"





Gerd yanked the string back and locked it with little apparent effort. He slid a bolt into place and sighted on the target. Gerd fired and the bolt hit a few inches high, but horizontally centered. "Much better."





"Definitely," Dave added. "Again."





Gerd repeated the process and put the next one directly in the middle.





"You'd better stop before you Robin Hood my bolt and ruin it," Dave laughed.





"Can you tighten it? These little wheels make easy to pull back," Gerd said, pointing to the cams.





"Uh . . . sure. I think I have some Allen wrenches handy. However, I think the bolt might punch through a deer if we do that, and I don't want to lose any. Let's leave the setting where it is, gorilla boy." Dave took the crossbow back from Gerd.





"Mathias is coming over tonight. He is bringing some ladies from the camp, and some more real beer!" Gerd said as they walked back to the house. Mathias and the Sizemores lived fairly close to the camps. He was always meeting women there and trying to get them to meet his friends.





"What was wrong with my beer? I still don't understand why you're so happy it's gone."





Gerd smiled and didn't answer.





* * *



Hermann, Pieter and Jan had been moving for over an hour without being seen by anyone. They had heard some strange sirens on some vehicles heading back in the direction of the houses Jan had robbed, but nothing else. Hermann saw one of the vehicles, a red one. One of the many markings on it had the word "Fire" in English, raising Hermann's hopes that the American police were not involved. Jan, despite his typical brutality, was a remarkably hands-free thief. It was possible no one would know they were robbed for hours, even days.





* * *



"Ja. Ich verstehe," Gerd said into the phone.





"Did Mathias get stood up?" Dave asked, while Gerd was on the phone. He must have detected the obvious disappointment in Gerd's voice.





Gerd nodded. "Sorry."





"Damn!" Dave put the box of Twister back in the closet. "The beer and Twister combo would have worked, too, I know it!"





"Ja . . . Ja . . . tschüs," Gerd said into the phone, and hung up.





"So what happened?" Dave asked.





Gerd suppressed a smile. Dave was learning German, but much slower than Gerd was learning English. He could still safely rant in German without Dave picking up on too much.





"He say there was a fire several houses down, in someone's shed, this morning. He was helping rebuild it. Also, someone rob two houses, maybe more. They were checking all the houses."





"Well, let's head to T-Gardens. Maybe we'll meet some ladies there." Dave stood up and grabbed his jacket.





"I, uh . . ." Gerd hesitated. He didn't want to risk running into Hermann and his thugs there. "If these house robbed by someone, maybe we should stay?"





"It was probably just kids, stole some cigarettes and lit the barn up by accident. I'm not worried about it, Scooby has it covered." Scooby, hearing his name, ran to the kitchen full of hopes.





"All right, but . . ." Gerd sighed. He really didn't want to have anything to do with Hermann. "Bring your pistol. In case they not kids, I don't want to get robbed on the way. Also one less thing to steal."





Dave shrugged. "Well, I don't mix beer and guns, but I'm on a mission to find women tonight. I don't want beer goggles interfering with that anyway."





Gerd smiled. He inwardly hoped that Dave would meet Hermann tonight. More to the point, he hoped Dave's .357 would meet Hermann. "All right, let's go."





"What are you worried about, anyway? You pull that crossbow back like it's a slingshot! You could throw some young punk across the street."





* * *



Dave decided Gerd was right. They should have stayed home. He was sharing a table with Gerd, three lovely ladies, and Johann, one of the Germans newly inducted into the Army after Jena. It was all probably a perfect evening with friends new and old, except the only other person who spoke English was Gerd. He was too busy flirting and having fun to translate for Dave.