Honor Road by Jason Ross (best non fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

The captain bumped into his pack. Sage held up his fist, but it was unlikely anyone could see the fist in the black of the cloud-covered moon.

Directly in his path stood a dog. Sage could barely make it out, silhouetted against the snow. It wasn’t the little lap dog that belonged to the commissioner. This skinny, mangy mutt let out a low growl and its back arched with menace. Sage’s rifle drifted into his hands, sliding on its sling, following the movement he’d practiced a thousand times. If he fired his rifle now, the mission would get hairy. The whole section of the valley would hear the gunshot. Sage felt the hand of the captain on his shoulder, steadying him.

The dog growled for a full minute. Sage kept the gun between them, more as a spear than a firearm.

“Coyote,” the captain whispered in his ear.

Sage had always thought of coyotes as being afraid of men, but maybe the wild dog couldn’t see them, or smell them in the snowfall.

The coyote finally went silent, then padded off across the plain. It vanished into the fringe of the storm. Sage sighed and the captain patted his shoulder, apparently eager to get moving again.

Ten minutes after the coyote, they arrived at a cluster of buildings: three barns, a large chicken coop, a smoke house, and the main ranch house. Sage knew from his recon there weren’t on-site quarters for the ranch hands. The arrest team didn’t stop to coordinate. They’d planned this and even practiced it back at Chamber’s ranch. Everyone knew their role.

Sage took ten of the boys and split off toward the motor pool barn. Their job would be to load up the packs and double-check the snow machines.

Captain Chambers headed toward the house with the two biggest boys. They dropped their packs on the trail, and two of Sage’s team snatched them up.

If Commissioner Pete didn’t come out to pee, they’d be forced to go inside and roust him out of bed. Sage prayed that it wouldn’t come to that.

Please, Lord, wake him up with a full bladder and a hankering to check on the snowstorm.

Sage was glad he hadn’t been asked to lay hands on the commissioner. All thin muscle and no fat, he wasn’t nearly as solid as the fifty-year-old rancher. Old man strength was not something to underestimate. That, and Sage had no desire to look him in the eyes.

Once inside the motor pool, Sage flicked on his red headlamp and hung it from the handlebars of one of the snow machines. The machines appeared to be exactly where he’d left them. In an abundance of caution, he checked every gas gauge. Only one of the snow machines was below half-tank, and it was one of the beat up old ones they weren’t taking. He hung the red light on the handlebars and left the boys to strap down the packs.

Every boy went to work, and none of them made the slightest sound. They were probably too scared to dick around for once. For his part, Sage had never been so terrified, not even when he’d been in a gunfight against a mob at the Holland farmhouse. Skulking around another man’s homestead made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

He sidled over to the sliding door and looked toward the ranch house porch, where he’d seen Commissioner Pete take a piss. In the snow-speckled pool of light given off by the solar floodlight on the livestock barn, he could make out the shadows of the captain and his football linemen standing to each side of the door.

Sage checked his watch. It was three a.m..

Time passed slowly, like watching a pond freeze over. The snow fell, heavy and weightless at the same time. The fat flakes soaked up all sound, rendering the night mute and dumb.

Sage checked his watch a hundred times between three a.m. and three-thirty. Almost to the minute at three-thirty, the screen door opened, and the commissioner stepped onto the porch. A scuffle ensued, muffled and dense. The little dog barked once, then squeaked as someone kicked it off the porch. Sage watched it tumble in the snow, then bolt for the motor pool, running for cover. As it flew past his feet, Sage scooped it up. The dog was both startled and comforted. In the red light, Sage could see only the wet eyes and nose, but it squirmed quietly—nothing likely broken.

There was no time to fret over the dog. The captain and his henchmen struggled across the yard and into the motor pool. The commissioner was wrapped up between them. Strangely, he was mostly-dressed. Perhaps he’d intended to check his livestock after his piss. Sage had carried a pair of over-boots in his pack in case the commissioner was taken shoeless.

Sage set the dog down. It bolted under a stack of boxes, alarmed by the scuffle.

One of the big boys had a hand and a wad of cloth clamped over the commissioner’s mouth. The captain whipped out duct tape and did a proper job of gagging him. They zip-tied his hands in front of him with three, heavy ties.

Sage averted his eyes from the struggling man, and watched the house for light. The yip of the dog might’ve woken the wife, daughter or son, and it was his job to deal with them if they came to investigate.

In the gloom, he couldn’t tell if the door had been left open or closed. The screen had closed by itself, but the front door couldn’t be left open. The icy draft would eventually awaken the farm dogs, at the very least.

Sage crossed the yard, his rifle at the low ready. He crept up the porch and his eyes adjusted. The door was indeed wide open.

He eased the screen door open, reached inside, and pulled the heavy, wood door closed. The final click sent a bolt of adrenaline up Sage’s spine. He waited and listened for movement inside. After a minute, when nothing