10 June 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2763: dig a trench

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“So Cousin Maggie, we're not letting you have breakfast by yourself just because Cousin Harry had to stay overnight in Big Loft – come on!”

Eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow literally dragged Mrs. Maggie M.T. Lee her big cousin-in-law over to have breakfast with the Ludlows.

“Edwina, there's a difference between asking and dragging,” Mrs. Thalia Ludlow said.

“Yeah, I know, and if you gotta make sure you gotta drag,” Edwina said while Capt. R.E. Ludlow just took a moment to both laugh and cry internally at this granddaughter miniature of the stormy side of him before saying, “Edwina! Unhand that adult!” – and even that backfired because Mrs. Lee was too close to laughing at the whole situation and cracked up. This was the beginning of a fun morning with the ten Ludlows and Mrs. Lee, because Capt. Ludlow did not explain something that he had told his wife.

“So Harry told Maggie he was staying overnight in Big Loft because things were getting just a bit tricky with procedural things so he was going to stay and just work late and start early – and if Harry Lee ever tells you that, just know that it is about to be a whole situation for a whole lot of other people whose day is not going to be as fun as ours.”

Col. H.F. Lee, technically a police captain for the Big Loft Police Department but moonlighting as acting chief in the emergency engendered by everyone waking up to just how badly politicians and corporations had mismanaged Lofton County, VA, had the charge of protecting all county officials living and working in Big Loft, VA, the county seat, and was coordinating with Acting Sheriff E.P. Alexander for matters across the county.

“We oughta get an Academy Award for all this acting we're doing,” Sheriff Alexander said.

“I would have no qualms for being best supporting actor,” Capt. Lee said demurely, and that laughed the acting sheriff out of his grumbling mood.

“Listen, Lee,” he said, “I'm probably the only person who had sense enough to look you up before working with you. Don't even try it. I hope BLPD actually messes up and makes you chief after this so we can get to effective policing in this county for the 21st century.”

“Well, the way things are messed up right now, anything is possible. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. You did get my brief, of course.”

“Yes, and that is some nasty work. With Big Loft's center being too hard a target to get at these people, all these little cushy communities are sitting ducks, and some of them don't even have security at night at their gates. I'm on it but may want you and a couple of your most ruthless lieutenants to roll out to Damson Vale tomorrow morning because … well, you see it.”

“I'll be there at 4:45 am.”

“Before reveille, eh?”

“Of course. The only reason that's not already too late is because the angry veterans involved with this won't get up before reveille is because they know the folks in Damson Vale are cushy civilians. They just don't know we know.”

Six of the richest people involved in Bayard Heights and some other questionable projects lived in Damson Vale, one of Lofton County's many unincorporated communities. The community had not taken the day before as an indication that they needed to hire some security, and this was a real problem because there was only one way in and out of the vale that was easily navigable. That little place could be overpowered and taken over easily, and the attempt was made at 5:45 with an advanced team, so when the main actors rolled up at 7:30, they still felt confident that Sheriff Alexander and his men who met them were not nearly sufficient.

However, the new sheriff surprised them.

“I'm gonna need y'all to throw your weapons into the road gutter there and disperse, and you can pick up your weaponry at the sheriff's main office later on today.”

“Oh, how nice of you, Sheriff – you and what army are going to make that happen.”

“Colonel Henry Fitzhugh Lee told me to say stand down, Sgt. Hinkle, before he gets here to stand you down.”

Sgt. Hinkle jumped, and then shook his head.

“It's over, folks,” he said. “Just drop the weapons and do as the sheriff says.”

This started some confusion, but the sergeant explained.

“Listen, I served with Lee. He's the type of guy who could walk into an enemy camp and rescue one guy and get out without a scratch and leave everybody else dead without them even knowing how they got to Hell. Forget it.”

“Listen, y'all,” Sheriff Alexander said with a smile, “I told you to put your guns in the gutter there, but if you're not going to do that in two minutes, spend your last three minutes and dig a trench to get in because that will save the county money on burying you. You're not getting in here, and if you try, you're not getting out.”

“We got snipers on all y'all!” somebody cried.

“Do you?” the sheriff said. “Tell you what. Who likes Swiss cheese?”

He threw his hat into the middle of the road, and watched those intending evil to Damson Vale jump and squirm as that hat was filled with bullets.

“They got all our snipers!” someone said.

“I'm telling y'all; this is a Lee job and if they fired on any civilian down in here early, they are in a trench and we will be too,” Sgt. Hinkle said as he carefully eased off his gun belt. “It's over. We're not going to be able to get to these people this way.”

“Nope,” the sheriff said, “but if you want to remain and do peaceful protest once you've dropped every weapon, have at it. I might even chant along with you. I get why you are so mad, but violence is not the way.”

So, the cushy civilians of Damson Vale, not knowing they were no longer in danger, had the morning of their lives as the people who likely would have hurt them took out their frustrations with some bloodcurdling protesting. But that was as far as anyone would get in making such an attempt, because everybody saw the early team, lying handcuffed face down in a freshly dug trench, as they walked back out of the vale.

“I told y'all,” Sgt. Hinkle said. “They may have gotten just past the gate … and then what happened was what always happens. If Lee is defending it, forget it. These no-good people aren't worth our dying today or any day – we'll beat them down in different ways.”

After the main team had gone, Lieutenants Horatio Lightfoot and Jonathan Jackson got the early team out of the trench and hustled them into the sheriff's waiting vans, very much alive, just too scared to move.

“Terrorizing terrorists since 1987,” Sheriff Alexander said to one of his deputies. “You know how the Tri-State kidnapper ended his run, right?”

“No.”

“The guy kidnapped one of Lee's cousins in the mountains, so the mountain people all mobilized to get him, but 13-year-old Harry Lee-of-the-Mountain was able to get through a chimney passage in the mountains because of his small size and close in faster on the kidnapper. A handful of dirt and a solid shove, and that was that.”

“Lee took out the Tri-State Bodysnatcher?”

“My cousin saw it, being a fast climber but just having to go around that particular gap – yep. Little Lee pushed that man off the ridge like that's just what you do of an afternoon and then got on to comforting his little cousin all the way home – he's just built different.”

“But he's so … so … polite and seems so soft!”

“Famous last words about a lot of Lees in Virginia,” Sheriff Alexander said. “A lot more bodies in trenches on that combination than any other thing in American history before World War I. Whole lot of people, not just you, need to do your homework, Deputy. That's the kind of test you fail and end up wherever you are going in eternity trying to figure out how you got there.”

“But we know it was just him and his two lieutenants up there shooting up your hat!”

“Do we, Deputy? The man had from 4:45 on to work out his idea to defend the vale, and he told me that 'If they do rush you, just get out of the way.'”

The deputy looked around, and the sheriff internally chuckled … the deputy, too, was having his mind adjusted by a man named Lee he had not even yet seen … just another day in Virginia since 1776, and 1862, and 2019.