by Chuck Dixon
A second dropped as Jimbo fired.
“So this is like what? Retro payback?”
“Like if you got to go back and be at the Little Big Horn.”
“Not sure which side I’d take on that one.” Jimbo narrowed his eyes.
“They’re still coming,” Bat hissed as she sighted on another. There were more than twenty in view.
“Let’s stop subtracting and start dividing,” Jimbo said. “Watch what I do.”
Bathsheba Jaffe glassed the hill and heard the crack of the Ranger’s rifle. A bowman fell to the ground near the base of the hill. He was clutching a leg. Bat could see that his mouth was open and howling in pantomime. Two archers stopped their descent to come to his aid and lift him between them.
Bat found her own target and put a round through the hip of one of the running men. She watched as he sprawled face first and began clawing at the ground, face pinched in agony. Again distance kept them from hearing the agonized screams. Through the scope, she saw three archers carrying the man into the shadows at the base of the hill.
Jimbo fired again and took a man outlined against the ruddy sky at the crest of the ridge. A headshot.
The man collapsed, lifeless. Those closest to him turned around and ran back to concealment on the other face of the hill. They now had one half of the pursuing force tending to two wounded men and the rest afraid to come into view over the hilltop. Two wounded men would take another four or more out of the fight as they saw to them. The bulk of the force was isolated and pinned down, terrorized by something they could not even see to strike back at.
“They’ll wait till full dark to try and move again,” Bat said.
“But we won’t be here,” Jimbo said, standing. “Let’s get a few miles between us and set up again. We give them a false sense of security, let them think the dark is hiding them, then nail a few more.”
They trotted to where they left their horses in the shade of an outcropping, slid the rifles home in their scabbards, and mounted up.
“Giddyup,” Jimbo said with a broad smile. They led the mounts with knees and reins to roughly follow the road snaking between the hummocks of rocky land.
“You’re enjoying yourself,” Bat said.
“Oh, hell, yeah,” Jimbo said. “Like playing cowboys and Indians back on the rez.”
“Who played the cowboys?”
“I was always on the cowboy side.” Jimbo laughed. “Clint Eastwood is my main man.”
“So, you really would be conflicted at Custer’s Last Stand.” Bat laughed.
“You think that’s weird?” he said.
“Not as weird as this little princess riding out to make Christianity possible,” she said.
They trotted into a dry wash and spurred the horses to a gallop toward their next hide.
“Clusterfuck,” Lee Hammond said under his breath. “Mother of all clusterfucks.”
He and Chaz Raleigh lay prone in a copse of junipers watching the construction of a watchtower and ring wall a thousand yards away. It was only the hour following full dawn, and already nearly-naked guys were stacking precut stones atop slathers of mortar mixed by others in a pit and passed forward in a bucket chain. Another crew was working on scaffolds to apply more mortar to seal the gaps. Still more were hauling stone forward on two-wheeled carts drawn by oxen.
They worked at a steady pace, and the ring wall was the height of two men already. The stout tower was growing as they watched. There was an encampment of nearly fifty tents laid out in neat rows within an earthwork constructed about the construction site. A deep ditch filled with sharpened stakes ran around the floor of the earth wall.
The fort sat at the foot of a steep slope that rose to a rocky summit. The summit was a kind of headland in a range of escarpments that stretched east. By the fort was a feeder road that led off the main highway and went into a gap in the escarpment toward something the Rangers could not see from their angle. Whatever was back there was the source for the building blocks the Romans were using to build the walls and tower. It had to be the quarry the Arab caravan driver had told them about.
“They’re like goddamn beavers,” Chaz said. He moved his binoculars to take in a knot of tile rooftops surrounded by a curtain wall a few hundred yards from where the fort was going up. It was a village they had no name for. It sat along the north/south road. It appeared to be the source of water for the fort.
All day long, camels led by boys made their way from the village carrying barrels of water that were drained into a stone-lined reservoir dug within the earthen wall. This water was used for mixing the mortar and for the legionnaires to use for drinking and bathing. Other villagers followed the camels hauling carts loaded with goods for sale to the Romans. Chaz couldn’t see what they were selling. Considering the orchards stretching south from the village, probably dates.
“See their banner?” Lee said. “They have it set up in front of the largest tent.”
Chaz swung his gaze back to the Roman camp. The sun gleamed off the polished brass aquilifer stuck in the ground before a bell-style tent. The figure of the trotting horse was visible atop it.
“That’s our unit. The Twenty-third,” Chaz said.
“I don’t see any slaves,” Lee said.
“They’re all wearing those sandals with socks like a bunch of German tourists in Miami. It’s all soldiers building that place.”
“They only want to use trained labor. These guys are engineer soldiers,” Chaz said.
“Remember what Dwayne told us about the guys rowing the galley he was on. All free men with mad rowing skills.”
“Still seems like they could use a carpenter, right?” Chaz laughed.
“Surprised you find that funny,” Lee said, lowering his binoculars and eyeing his friend.
“It’s funny. Nothing sacrilegious there, you atheist motherfucker.” Chaz grinned. “The man was a carpenter.”
“All the shit we’ve seen, and you still believe?”
“More than ever, bro.”
“I respect that. I really do,” Lee said and rose to his feet. Chaz followed him back through the trees to a clearing where Boats waited with the mounts and pack animals. The SEAL was on watch, and looking the part in his body armor and kilt with his crazy ginger whiskers and long hair completing the picture. The only conflicting image was the stainless steel Mossberg Mariner in his fists. The pump shotgun was not standard issue for gladiators.
“Did you see Jesus?” Boats asked in all seriousness.
“Wouldn’t know him if I saw him.” Chaz shrugged.
“Man, I didn’t think of that.” Boats scratched his chin through the beard. “What do you think he looks like?”
“He won’t have a halo over his head,” Chaz said and took a seat on a rock. “He’ll look like any other Jewish teenager, I guess. You could pass him at the mall and not notice him.”
“Anyone interested in the plan?” Lee said. “We rest while we wait on Bat and Jimbo, then recon that quarry.”
“You jealous, Hammond?” Boats grinned.
“Of what?”
“The Indian and your girl sharing a kill together.”
“You have one fucked up idea about romance, Boats.” Lee smiled.
“So I have been told.” Boats shook his head ruefully.
They took turns keeping watch and catching catnaps in the shade of the trees. The country here reminded them all of parts of the Helmand in Afghanistan, a rocky place with clumps of pine forest dotted around. And like that other place, the space between villages was unpopulated. Even if there were bandits wandering around, they’d steer well clear of the Romans toiling away below. Like remora on a shark, proximity to the legion fort was giving the Rangers’ camp cover.
What troubled Lee and Chaz was, if bandits and rebels were no real threat to a large force, then what the hell were the Romans forting up for? Was it possible they were warned about the team’s arrival? It was the only explanation. If Harnesh’s influence could cause a
change in the local imperial wonk’s policy, then it stood to reason Sir Neal had agents on the ground in this time and place.
There was no movement in the trees except for some spotted deer plucking berries off the juniper branches with their lips. Chaz was awake and watched them moving along silent as ghosts. It always amazed him how animals that big could move so noiselessly even over a floor of needles. That was what it was like to be prey.
A big buck eyed Chaz while placidly munching the purple fruit. It raised its head at a crack of sudden thunder. A soft snort from its nostrils, and it moved off with its coterie of does following.
That thunder was a gunshot. Chaz went to rouse the other two, but Lee and Boats were already on their feet. They moved from the trees and spotted Jimbo and Bat walking their mounts along the floor of a gulch below them. They looked like something out of time, a mishmash of the Old West and a Hercules flick. Except it was Bat Jaffe cradling the rifle as she walked. No squaw she.
Chaz let out a low whistle, and the riders found him in the tree line. They turned their reins and followed a trail up the slope toward the camp.
“Find water?” Jimbo asked as he slid the saddle from his mount.
“Not yet,” Lee said. “You two slow down that other force?”
“We bought us some time,” Bat said as she ran a brush over her mount’s back. “But those are some tough monkeys. They’ll keep coming on.”
“You find the slave caravan?” Jimbo asked.
Lee filled them in on what they’d discovered at long range.
“We leave at sundown to recon in force to check out the quarry,” he told them. “Both of you get some rest until then.”
“Not until I find us water,” Jimbo said. “These horses aren’t going to be worth shit without it. And we might need them if we have to make a run for it.”
He pulled his rifle from its boot and picked up some empty CamelBaks and walked into the trees.
“Speaking of tough monkeys,” Bat said, watching the Pima recede into the gloom.
“You kept up with him,” Lee said, cupping her chin.
“But I can’t take one more step. I need sleep and badly,” she said, shaking her head slowly and regarding him through heavy lids.
Lee took the watch and sat with his M4 across his knees while the rest bedded down to recharge. Bat was as good as her word. Her head propped on her saddle at the head of a groundsheet, she was sound asleep in seconds.
Jimbo returned within an hour with the CamelBaks bloated with fresh water. He insisted on watering the horses before lying down. Soon, Lee Hammond was the only one awake. Even the horses dozed deeply where they stood on the running line strung between the trees.
29
Déjeuner Pour Un
Caroline Tauber grew restless after two days. After five, she thought she’d go mad.
Staying in the two rooms for days on end, with her only human contact the two maids, one to bring her meals and another to take her laundry.
The rooms seemed to be getting smaller with each moment. How could she have thought this place was quaint? Or cozy? It was rundown and cramped and reeked of wood smoke and kerosene. There were no distractions but the newspapers and a few books.
She could not even hold a conversation with the maids. She sensed it was her foreignness, her tortured French, and a touch of class distinction. Though these rooms were modest and her clothing of middling quality, they were beyond the means of the girls who served the rooms in this hotel. And thus there was a societal divide that prevented all but the most mannered and inconsequential small talk.
It wasn’t boredom driving her slowly mad. Who could be bored? The sounds of artillery rose louder every day as the Prussian batteries grew closer to the city. Shells were falling inside the outer defensive walls now. The papers, when there were papers, screamed of civilian casualties, hospitals and churches being bombarded and deeper shortages to come. There were more and more soldiers in the streets that she could see from her windows.
They had been pulled from the outer forts and defensive positions to be in place should the Prussians and their allies breach the walls and enter Paris itself. Gun carriages rumbled by at one point and wagon after wagon of wounded passed beneath her windows at all hours. There were rumors of riots in the streets over politics and rationing. The troops could be fighting a war within and without soon.
She felt trapped. She sensed that was the mood of the entire city. But her plight was special. She was alone in a strange city in a time not her own, truly and utterly alone. And she had no idea when her self-imprisonment would end or if it would ever end.
Only Stephen kept her together. The care of a helpless infant was her only focus. She fed him and changed him and cuddled him, and he helped her forget that the sounds outside the windows were not thunder but war.
His presence was also a source of worry. Stephen was healthy and thriving and not terribly demanding. If he got sick, she had no idea what she would do. She certainly could not trust the medicine of the day when even the basic concepts of cleanliness were in their earliest days. And with thousands of wounded crowded into every available hospital space, who would care for a single baby?
There were a few books in the room, novels mostly, and she tried to read them, hoping to improve her grasp of French, only she couldn’t seem to concentrate on the pages. She turned to using the sewing kit bought for her by Samuel. It occupied two days, but she took in a rather nice dress in burgundy with black brocade. It didn’t hang on her like a sack now. There was another bottle green dress that needed less work, and a voluminous wool coat that she felt comfortable leaving at a fuller fit. And a pinafore-type dress she could wear in the rooms over a starched blouse.
There were undergarments as well that needed figuring out. A corset, bustier, pantaloons, and a bewildering selection of skirts that she knew were worn under the dress, but their proper order eluded her. Also a tidy selection of gloves, scarves, and a carpetbag to keep it all in.
There were two hats, and she favored a broad-brimmed black one with a veil. A fine pair of leather boots that buckled up the sides. They turned out to be a half-size too big but would accommodate the sweat socks she kept as her only modern garment. The rest of her twenty-first-century clothes, she tore into strips and burned in the stove.
She wondered at Samuel’s knowledge of period dress. The wardrobe was reasonably complete. Caroline assumed he had help from an eager shopkeeper once that fat roll of francs came out of his pocket.
At the bottom of the carpetbag was an item she knew he had probably needed no help selecting—a fat, ugly revolver with a box of shells. It served to remind her of the seriousness of it all, as if the sounds of the barrage outside would let her forget how dire her situation was.
The pistol looked peculiar, sort of like a cowboy’s weapon, but less elegant somehow. Caroline had no interest in firearms but took the time to learn how to load it. It had a cylinder that held nine copper-jacketed rounds marked with .36 on the striking end. But it also had a larger barrel suspended below the first. After some jiggering, she determined that this barrel held the paper-wrapped shells that looked to her inexpert eyes like they belonged in a shotgun.
She was never political in school or after and really had no opinion for or against guns. It was an issue that she never troubled to think about. And, as most of her education was in England, the subject seldom came up in conversations.
The thought of having to use a firearm in her own defense never entered her mind. And she absolutely had never imagined she would be so often in the company of men to whom guns were a tool of their craft. But she’d been in a firefight now and even killed her share when the time came to choose between her own death and the death of another.
She’d also been in a fight without a firearm at hand and knew which scenario she preferred. The brutal looking pistol would be her constant companion from here on.
On the sixth day, she dressed in the bottle-green dress and all its
layers of underskirts. She balanced the veiled hat upon her head at what she thought was the proper angle, using girlhood memories of Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady as a guide. She then slipped the cash and coins into a beaded purse, bundled Stephen up, and went downstairs to take a meal in the hotel’s first-floor dining room. She left the revolver hidden beneath layers of clothes in the carpetbag lying on the floor of an armoire, which she locked. She did not anticipate a gunfight in the lobby of Le Hotel Exemplaire.
The dining room was a gloomy affair. The finely etched windows facing the street had been covered with boards to protect them from looters, vandals, and potential cannon shells. A layer of cigar smoke hung in the air, wafting from a table where three gentlemen sat in hushed conversation.
The only other diners were an older married couple who were just ordering as Caroline entered with the basket containing Stephen on her arm. An unescorted woman with a child was something to be remarked upon, and her fellow diners made no secret that she was a fresh topic of conversation.
Caroline just didn’t give a damn. She had to get out of the room or lose her mind. She sat demurely in a chair offered by a waiter and smiled as the same waiter filled a glass with some very doubtful looking water. He presented her with a hand-printed menu, issuing slurred apologies for the scant bill of fare. She read the top two items, consommé de cheval au millet and epaules et filets de chien braises, and lost her appetite entirely. Her choice was of either horse or dog.
“I will have a cheese plate with bread, please,” she said.
“We have only black bread today,” the waiter said gravely.
“That will do. And wine.”
The waiter plucked the menu from her fingers and vanished.
“Perhaps the lady would prefer a filet of Castor or Pollux,” one of the cigar smokers said to the amusement of the others.
“Pardon?” Caroline said, confused.
“They are elephants,” the married woman said with a disapproving glance at the table of guffawing men.