“I don’t think so.” Cole shifted his rifle ever so slightly, the muzzle not quite pointing at Brock, but the message was clear. “Now get the hell out of our way.”
Slowly, Brock lowered the butt of his rifle, making it clear that he had thought better of clubbing the prisoner. “All right, if that’s the way you’re gonna be about it.”
“I reckon it is.”
Brock and the other soldiers with him didn’t move. Neither did Cole and Vaccaro. They had reached a tense impasse.
That was when the British liaison officer showed up again, hastily pulling on a wool hat and mittens. “What’s going on here?” he asked.
“These boys don’t seem to agree that the German prisoner should be allowed to leave Bastogne,” Cole drawled, his eyes not straying from Brock’s face.
“Is that so?” Rupert said. “Well, we have our orders. Step aside, soldier.”
It was not a commanding voice, but an officer was an officer, British or American.
Besides, Cole backed him up. He said to Brock, “Best do what the lieutenant says and get the hell out of the way.”
Reluctantly, Brock and his men moved aside.
“This isn’t over,” Brock said. “When I get through with you, you’ll wish you’d done this the easy way.”
“Anytime you want to try me, you go right ahead,” Cole replied.
Cole kept an easy grip on his rifle, half expecting Brock and his group to try something. He didn’t think there would be any shooting, not on the streets of Bastogne, but the best way to avoid trouble would be to make it seem like he’d be willing to shoot first.
However, Brock and his men slowly faded into the background. Cole could feel their stares boring into him.
“One thing for sure, hillbilly. You make friends wherever you go,” Vaccaro said.
“You know me, city boy. Friendly as a porcupine.”
Vaccaro stifled a guffaw. “Maybe a porcupine with rabies.”
“I believe those men intended to cause us trouble,” Lieutenant Rupert said.
“You’d be right about that, sir,” Vaccaro said.
Cole glanced at the German officer. In the gray light, his face no longer wore its bemused expression. To his credit, the German did not appear frightened, but thoughtful. He seemed to know very well that he had just dodged a bullet. A literal one, in this case.
Looking back over his shoulder, Cole could see Brock and his crew still watching them in the distance. Cole had the sneaking suspicion that they might not have seen the last of Brock and his crew. As if the Germans weren’t enough, now they might have to worry about vigilantes from their own side.
In a way, Cole understood how they felt. Had the shoe been on the other foot, he might also have wanted revenge on the German officer and wouldn’t have cared who got in his way. But a job was a job, and orders were orders. More than that, he didn’t like being threatened.
He had met men like Brock before, men used to getting their own way, in and out of the military. Most were bullies and loudmouths that he had dealt with in his own way. Just ask the bully who had enjoyed picking on weaker men during boot camp. Cole had sent him to the infirmary for an extended stay. The man had been bigger, more like Brock’s size, but he had been no match for the can of beans that Cole had swung inside a sock.
Back home in the mountains, a man made his own justice. Cole certainly hadn’t shared it with anyone, but as a boy of fourteen, he had hunted down and shot the rival moonshiner who had killed his father. It had been a fair fight, a running duel through the woods and peaks and valleys against a dangerous opponent who was half-crazy and a crack shot. What Cole had done was prompted by more than revenge; with his pa gone, that moonshiner had reckoned that he could have his pick of Cole’s sisters or maybe even push the family off their land.
That moonshiner had reckoned wrong.
Dead wrong.
Cole doubted that Brock was half the man that wily old moonshiner had been. That moonshiner had underestimated Cole. If Brock thought that he could push Cole around, he would be making the same mistake.
The colonel ordered up a jeep for them. Transportation down the cold and snowy road would be welcome, but they would hardly be traveling in luxury.
A corporal from the motor pool delivered the jeep with some explanation. Well, it was really a disclaimer. He hopped out and approached them with a bowlegged swagger, wearing his grease-stained khakis like a badge of honor.
“If it was just you two and the prisoner, Colonel Roberts said he wouldn’t have bothered,” the corporal admitted. “But he had to make an effort to accommodate that British liaison. Heaven forbid that we should make a British officer walk anywhere. You’d almost think they were still sore about losing the Revolutionary War.”
