“Let’s find him, then! Give me a couple of minutes out here. Don’t move till you see us. We’ll flush him out.”

“How many are you?”

“A lot!”

As soon as she asked the question, she knew it was a stupid one, and that McCrea had given the only answer he could. Why on earth would you tell your enemy how many people you had in your army?

Two minutes later, the noise started. Victoria didn’t know how many people McCrea had brought with him, but it sounded like dozens. Lots of rattling equipment and rustling leaves. Occasional war whoops.

“Hey, Grubbs!” McCrea shouted. “Show yourself or get killed! You can’t hide from us all!”

When Victoria finally got eyes on McCrea, she saw what he was doing. He and Caleb walked together in a line with five or six others, but separated by twenty feet each. As they walked, they dragged their feet through the leaves on the ground and physically smacked the sides of their weapons. The effect was to create the noise equivalent of a much larger force than they actually had.

As they passed, Victoria joined the line. In the distance, she saw Luke joining the other end.

“You can’t hide from all of us, Jeffrey Grubbs!” she shouted. “Make it easy on yourself. Just step out.”

“I’ve been shot!” a voice yelled from up ahead.

“Everybody freeze!” McCrea yelled.

“Who is that?” Victoria asked the woods.

“It’s Jeff Grubbs. I’ve been shot.”

“Where?”

“I’m over here! I’m not armed! You’ve killed everybody.”

“Show yourself!” Victoria ordered.

“There!” Caleb said, pointing. An arm was hailing them from behind a tree.

“Gotta see more than that,” McCrea said.

“Please don’t shoot me!”

“We’ll blow you apart if you don’t show yourself,” Victoria said.

“Give me a few seconds,” Grubbs said. “I’m hit in the leg. Hard to keep my balance.”

The line converged on the middle, everybody getting a better view of what was going on. Grubbs moved uneasily, more lurching than standing as he rose on his good leg, using the trunk of his tree to support his back.

“Ah, shit, this hurts!”

McCrea moved to stand next to Victoria. “Do you think he’s bluffing?”

“We’ll know soon enough,” she said.

“Okay, now,” Grubbs said. “I’m comin’ around. I don’t got no gun on me.”

“You had a rifle before,” Caleb shouted. “Where’s that?”

“Mr. Caleb Emerson!” Grubbs called. “You done me a lot of harm today, boy. I was hopin’ you was dead.”

Victoria looked to Caleb and was surprised to see a smile on his face.

“Nobody’s going to shoot if your hands are empty,” Victoria promised.

“Rather see you hang, anyway,” George Simmons said.