Luke continued his gallop in a wide loop down Kanawha Road, then left on Charleston Street, where he disappeared and reemerged from Fourth Street. As seconds passed, the shrill squeal of whistles billowed like a cloud of noise as residents reacted to Luke’s warnings. Another critical element of the emergency plan included the distribution of a recently-discovered cache of coaches’ whistles from the basement of Ortho Hardware, so that selected residents could spread the news of danger even farther. Whoever heard the whistle—the sound of which traveled many times farther than the sound of shouting—was instructed to blow their own whistle as they hurried toward either their designated rally stations or the town square.

Victoria felt embarrassed that her whistle remained dangling from its chain behind her flannel shirt. As she ran the last few yards to the square, she fished it out and gave it a sustained blow, adding her own noise to everyone else’s.

By the time Luke pulled his horse to a halt at the square, nearly thirty people had assembled, and more were rushing in.

Victoria stepped forward and raised her hands. In the distance from behind, she heard a familiar voice shouting, “Wait! We’re almost there!”

She turned to see her sixteen-year-old son, Caleb, sprinting toward them as best he could, his M4 carbine slapping against his unbuttoned coat. He’d taken a bullet through his butt cheek during the dustup with Jeffrey Grubbs and his gang and still moved with an awkward gait. Rory Stevenson, the town’s only doctor and Caleb’s nominal boss, kept up, step for step.

Victoria knew they’d be next to her by the time Luke got to the point. “What’s going on?”

Luke struggled to catch his breath as he leaned over his saddle horn. “People in boats,” he said. “Lots of them. All with guns. They’re coming this way.”

“What does a lot mean?” McCrea asked.

“I didn’t count,” Luke replied with an adolescent flash of duh. “Maybe fifty?”

“How many boats?” Victoria asked.

“I didn’t count those, either. Ten, maybe?”

George Simmons, once the owner of Simmons Gas and Goodies, stepped forward. “Were the boats under power?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t hear any motor noise. I think they were riding the current.”

“Why is this an emergency?” Victoria asked. She thought she probably knew, but she wanted to hear it from her son.

“All the guns,” he said. “And the way they looked at me.”

“They looked at you?” Caleb asked. He was incapable of speaking to his little brother without a silent you idiot attached to the end. “How close were you?”

“I was on the shore,” Luke replied. Victoria knew from his tone that he’d been doing something he shouldn’t have, but she didn’t want to press him on it now.

“I thought you were hunting,” Caleb said.

“Do you want to hear or not?”