Five Raiders Killed at the Airport

Five Raiders Killed at the Airport is a turning point in the airport’s defense: five armed newcomers are killed before Hig can act, and the encounter forces him to confront the human cost of Bangley’s uncompromising rules.

Setting and Approach

The five men appear at night in the light of the porch bulb, gathered near a dumpster that Hig and Bangley had moved about a hundred feet from the house. The airport lies within a bend of the creek, whose steep bank and surrounding water make it difficult to approach; a trail leading from the creek bottom to the house is the only usable crossing and the only route they illuminate. The raiders cluster by the dumpster, out of sight of the house, apparently treating it as cover. Their position, however, places them within a measured ninety feet of Hig, who has climbed the berm and watches with his rifle ready.

The Attack and Its Outcome

The five newcomers are armed with a scoped rifle, what Hig takes to be an assault rifle, two shotguns, and a ranch rifle. They are crouched together, talking and gesturing, and appear about to move. Hig plans to fire a burst across the group. Before he does, he presses the button on his radio in a repeated signal for Bangley, then counts while preparing his rifle. At one hundred and thirty-one, he is still waiting.

Bangley fires from beside a truck. The burst interrupts Hig’s attempt to shoot, and he realizes he has not pulled the trigger. Afterward, Bangley crosses the open ground and fires three more shots; the cries from the group cease. He gathers the five weapons and brings them around the berm to Hig, who remains prone, stunned by what has happened and by his own failure to act. The encounter ends with all five raiders dead, and with Bangley—not Hig—having made the decisive use of force.

The Boy and the Aftermath

Once the shooting is over, Bangley identifies the shortest raider as a boy, perhaps nine years old. The boy’s age recalls the child Hig and Melissa lost: Melissa had been seven months pregnant nine years earlier. Hig imagines the boy growing up in the changed world, with its harsh rules already shaping what he could expect from life. Bangley’s response is to say that the boy should have been left behind, a remark that makes the difference between them plain: Bangley treats the encounter as a problem of survival, while Hig cannot separate the armed threat from the child within it. Hig leaves Jasper to attend to the dead and says they will bury them the next day. He distinguishes the boy from the animal meat he prepares and preserves to feed Jasper: the boy will be buried whole, with the hawk feather found in his hair. The choice gives the aftermath a second meaning beyond the defense of the airport. In a world where old prohibitions have lost their foundations but still exert force, Hig’s decision to bury the child marks a limit he will not abandon.

Moral Consequences

The raid leaves Hig measuring his response against Bangley’s survival code and against the violence he already accepts in other circumstances: he can kill animals for food, but the sight of the raiders does not make killing people feel ordinary. Bangley accuses him of living in the past and questions whether he appreciates being alive; Hig understands the challenge as a question of whether he deserves to live. He walks away rather than answer. The next day still requires him to fly, but the night offers no easy return to routine: he expects not to sleep, lays down his gun, and keeps walking. The scene’s consequence is therefore not only that the airport has been defended, but that Hig must carry forward a decision he did not make and a doubt about his place in the world that it sharpens.