What are they doing? McCrea wondered. Across the street, George and Eric were getting their asses kicked, while on this side, Joey and the Foster boys cowered in the bushes. This was exactly the scenario that McCrea had feared. Once a gunfight started, there was only one way to unstart it, and that was to poke holes in people.

Caleb had dropped to a knee next to him, right where he was supposed to be. If the rest of his team didn’t form up on him in a few seconds, he’d have to engage Grubbs’s shooters on his own. If he could relieve the pressure on George’s team, they could catch the bad guys in an effective crossfire.

That first shot fired at George had been a gift. It caught Grubbs’s own team as off-balance as it had McCrea’s. If they’d taken even a few seconds to form some kind of line, they could have concentrated their fire, and the fight with George and Eric would have been over by now.

As it was, Grubbs’s troops were stuck freelancing from behind all kinds of cover, spread out over an acre or more. There seemed to be no leadership. Totally undisciplined in their approach, they would duck out, take a shot and then duck back in.

“We’re here,” Joey said as he and the boys slid in next to McCrea. They all looked terrified.

“Here it is,” McCrea said. He spoke quickly and as quietly as the gunfight would allow. “They started this fight, we’re finishing it. They are one hundred percent concentrated at their front. They don’t know we’re here, so they won’t expect our first volley. Pick a target, shoot it, then move to cover. When I yell move, we do it again. We are always pressing forward, until they’re all dead or they surrender. It starts now. Caleb, on me.”

He didn’t ask for questions because he was here for a fight, not for a chat. They’d do their part or they wouldn’t. It was time to find out which.

McCrea rose to a high crouch, settled his red dot on the ear of a rifle-toting lady who had just rolled out from behind a stout tree to take aim and he pressed the trigger. Pink spray confirmed the kill and he darted forward to take cover behind a tree of his own.

To his right, he was gratified to hear gunshots from the rest of his team.

After a silent two-count, he yelled, “Move!” and he rolled out to his left. He was startled as hell to see a shooter running straight at him. McCrea drilled him with two rounds to his chest, then sealed the deal with one in the face.