A Cold Night Betrayal

In the end, it was cigarettes that killed them.

It was after midnight, and my turn to sleep. I could’ve been with Wesley and Bailey in the drainage ditch. The wind cut at the skin, but the ditch kept the worst of it off. Still, I never liked lying there. It felt like an open grave. It was better to be somewhere higher where you could see and move.

I lay on a rise above the road, zipped in my sleeping bag. It had been a good find, something I could use for warmth. The air smelled of pine, and the night was cold. Cold enough to freeze your breath in the air, cold enough that if you weren’t careful, you’d freeze your mind out of your body.

We had come from Eagle Canyon. I remembered it well.

The rows of houses—white, perfect, people who worked in the nearby city believing they knew what life was about. But now, all the houses were empty, the lights were out, and the roads were in disrepair. Nature had started to take back what it had lost.

The only things left in the night were the stars and the sound of the wind through the pines. I heard Bailey first, his voice low. He’d seen something on the road. Wesley scrambled beside me, and I could hear his boots scraping gravel. I looked down the road and saw the shadows moving, three of them.

They weren’t hiding. They walked in the center of the road like they owned it. I could hear their boots on the cracked pavement. And then, one of them spoke. A man said he wasn’t looking for trouble. He was looking for a place to sleep.

Wesley cocked his pistol. I adjusted my rifle. The sound of Wesley’s voice was too loud in the wind.

“At ease,” the man called out to his companions.

They called themselves traders on their way up from the Old Dominion. A long way from there. Cold enough that the wind had cut their faces raw. But there was something in the way they moved, the way they talked. I didn’t like it.

They weren’t afraid of us. They were looking for something, but it wasn’t just shelter. It wasn’t just warmth. I could hear it in how they talked and said “brothers,” like it didn’t come from a place of warmth.

Wesley asked about their people. They said they weren’t with any of the racist sects, but I didn’t believe it. There was too much talk about “brethren” and “white brothers,” much like what I had heard before, from the men who used to sit on barstools and drink their whiskey in the old bars that didn’t exist anymore.

“Does your community trade with people like us?” the man asked. Sam, he said his name was. Harry and Rob were with him.

I could feel the air between us thicken.

Bailey spoke out, unbidden, like he always did. The kind of fool who thinks loud words are a shield. Sam laughed, a short snort that didn’t sound like laughter. He didn’t mind Bailey’s words. But I saw how Rob moved, the way his hand rested too close to his rifle.

“I can see you’re our white brothers,” Sam said.

The words tasted of something old, something gone wrong. I’d heard the term before from men who didn’t believe in anything except the skin on their backs and the idea that it was all that mattered.

“We’re just trying to survive,” Wesley said, his voice low.

Sam asked if he could smoke. The question wasn’t a question. It was a way to break the silence, to make himself comfortable. Wesley said it was fine. He didn’t care. But he didn’t realize he was playing into Sam’s game.

The cigarette pack came out, and it was like a prize. Sam handed Wesley one and then Bailey. I could see the look on their faces. The cigarettes, real ones, not the hand-rolled garbage we had to make. A luxury. A reminder of a time that had passed.

Wesley took the cigarette, looking at it like he had won a prize. It was the kind of thing that could make a man forget where he was. I thought about what came next, the next movement, the next sound.

Sam’s lighter clicked. The flame flared, lighting Wesley’s face, and the world grew quiet.

Two quick shots. I didn’t see it happen, but I heard it. Wesley and Bailey hit the ground before they could say a word.

I moved fast. I couldn’t think. The gun was in my hands, and I fired. I shot at Harry first, the farthest away. I didn’t know if I hit him, but I knew I couldn’t stop now. The next shot went wild, but I knew I hit Sam. Rob fired back, his shots wide, the automatic fire missing its mark.

But I kept moving. There was no stopping now. I fired again, aiming at Rob’s position, but the bullets had already told the story. The ambush was exposed. It was time to run.