“I asked you how you’re feeling?” Rainbow reiterated.
“Do you make it a practice of specializing in stupidity, or is a natural knack you have?” Geronimo said, goading her.
“Let me smash him!” the one in the passenger seat heatedly requested.
He was short in stature and had a ragged scar on his chin.
“Do you see what you’ve done?” Rainbow said to Geronimo. “Now you’ve got Lone Cougar all upset.”
“Pardon me all to hell,” Geronimo retorted.
“Be nice,” Rainbow warned, “or I’ll let Lone Cougar have you.” She paused and tapped the steering wheel. “What do you think of my driving?”
“I’m impressed,” Geronimo admitted. “I had no idea you could drive.”
“I couldn’t,” Rainbow stated. “But I’m a fast learner, and I had plenty of time to watch Blade on the trip to Kalispell. It’s a lot easier than I expected.”
“Mind if I ask where we’re heading?” Geronimo queried.
“Not at all,” Rainbow answered. “The Citadel.”
Geronimo sat erect, forgetting his wound, the motion aggravating the discomfort. “You can’t be serious!”
Rainbow laughed. “But I am.”
“Why are you going there?” Geronimo demanded. “It’s suicide.”
“Oh, we’ll take good care of your vehicle, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Rainbow said. “I need to find out what happened to my people, and this is the fastest way to get us there.”
“Is that the reason you shot me?” Geronimo needed to know.
“Of course.” Rainbow slowly negotiated a curve. The road was sandwiched between rolling hills of pine forest. “Nothing personal, you understand.” She grinned.
“I’m really sorry my mother shot you,” Star chimed in sorrowfully. “I didn’t want her to do it. I like you a lot, Geronimo.”
“Don’t get to liking him too much, little one,” Lone Cougar told her. “He won’t be with us much longer.”
“That’s enough!” Rainbow snapped. “I don’t want you upsetting my daughter!”
“Your wish is my command,” Lone Cougar stated, somewhat sarcastically.
“Be respectful when you talk to her!” the Flathead on the other side of Star barked.
Lone Cougar glanced at the speaker, amused. “Why, Tall Oak, you know I mean no disrespect. It is bad form to treat the wife of a chief with anything less than total sincerity.”
“The wife of a chief?” Geronimo repeated, surprised.
“She didn’t tell you?” Lone Cougar asked, feigning amazement. “She’s so proud of the fact, I thought she told everyone.”
Geronimo saw Rainbow glare at Lone Cougar. If looks could kill, Lone Cougar would be Skewered Pussycat.
“Rainbow is the wife of Golden Bull, the chief of all the Flatheads,” Lone Cougar was saying.
Golden Bull. Lone Cougar. Tall Oak. “I take it the Flatheads don’t use names like George and Fred anymore?” Geronimo asked.
“We have reverted to the practice of our illustrious ancestors,” Rainbow stated proudly. “Our parents name their children after natural things, or something they might see in a vision, or a special omen.”
“I understand,” Geronimo acknowledged. “So where is your husband now?”
Rainbow’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know.”
“He was with the others,” Lone Cougar detailed, “in Kalispell, surrounded by the Citadel army. We slipped through their lines in search of game, but we had to go far afield to find anything. When we returned to Kalispell, our entire tribe had vanished.”
“How many of you are left?” Geronimo inquired.
“There were five in our hunting party,” Lone Cougar replied, “but you killed two of us, you son of a bitch!”
“Did any others escape?” Geronimo asked, refusing to become riled by the insult.
“Not that we know of,” Tall Oak said, joining the discussion. “We saw your vehicle coming and thought you were some of the soldiers, so we hid in the hospital. When we saw you with Rainbow, we didn’t know what to think. Spotted Elk went down to investigate…”
“And you blew him away!” Lone Cougar snarled.
“It wasn’t me,” Geronimo corrected him. “Spotted Elk was still alive after I shot him. He sat up, and one of you got him with a shotgun.”
“And we know who it was, don’t we?” Tall Oak commented, deliberately looking at Lone Cougar.
Lone Cougar appeared embarrassed. “How the hell was I to know?” he countered defensively. “It was dark in that stairwell.”
“If some people knew how to use their mind as much as they do their mouth,” the Flathead in the rear section interjected, “Spotted Elk would still be with us now.”
“Get off my case, Running Hare,” Lone Cougar warned.
“You don’t scare me,” Running Hare rejoined, “as long as I don’t turn my back on you.”
Geronimo thought Lone Cougar was about to leap over the seats and assault Running Hare, but Rainbow intervened.
“That’s enough!” she ordered. “This is no time for fighting amongst ourselves! Our people have been taken, and you spend your time engaged in petty squabbles.”
Geronimo was pleased by the dissension in their ranks. Maybe he could use it to his advantage when he made his eventual bid for freedom. He studied the Flatheads, noting their buckskin clothing, long black hair, and in particular their lack of weapons. Where were their guns? In the rear section with Running Hare? Or was Lone Cougar’s shotgun on the floor in the front, out of sight. Tall Oak carried a large knife in a leather sheath high on his left hip.
For that matter, Geronimo wondered, where are my guns?
“Did you know you slept all night?” Star asked Geronimo, still trying to prove her friendliness. “I was the one who bandaged your shoulder.”
“I’m surprised your darling mother didn’t finish the job,” Geronimo remarked scornfully.
“If I’d wanted you dead,” Rainbow stated, “you’d be dead. I’m a crack shot. I just wanted you out of commission, unable to give us any problems on the way to the Citadel.”
“Did you know they were your people in the hospital?” Geronimo questioned her.
“No, I didn’t,” Rainbow replied.
“You took a big chance,” Geronimo said. “What if the ones after me weren’t Flatheads? What then? They could have killed you and your daughter and taken the SEAL.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Life is full of risks. You take what comes your way and do the best you can.”
“Really?” Lone Cougar innocently challenged her. “Then why didn’t you stay in Kalispell and take what the rest of us did?”
“You know why,” Rainbow snapped, angered by the insinuation.
“Golden Bull ordered us out. He wanted the Princess safe. As it was, we’re fortunate to be alive today.”
Lone Cougar stared at Star. “Ahhh, yes. Our sweet little Princess, destined to marry the heir apparent. We can’t let anything happen to you.”
“And don’t you ever forget that,” Rainbow said in a threatening tone.
Geronimo spotted a rusted road sign ahead, on his side of the roadway.
Highway 35, it read. He caught a glimpse of a large lake through the trees over Lone Cougar’s shoulder. Was it Flathead Lake, the big one on the map? He cleared his dry throat. “What do you hope to accomplish at the Citadel?”
“Like I told you,” Rainbow said, driving carefully, “we need to learn what happened to my people, find out where the soldiers have taken them.”
“You’re just going to drive up to the front gates and ask?”
“Don’t be stupid!” Rainbow replied. “We’ll hide the SEAL and reconnoiter on foot. Thousands of people don’t just vanish! The army must be holding them somewhere. We’ll find them,” she stated confidently.
Geronimo rested his head on the top of the seat and closed his weary eyes. This is certainly one terrific mess you’ve gotten y
ourself into, dimwit!
Blade is missing. The transport has been commandeered by hostile Indians. And now you’re shot…
Hostile Indians?
How could he ever have seriously considered leaving the Family to live with the Flatheads? They may be Indians, like himself, but there any resemblance ended. They viewed him as an outsider, and rightfully he was.
So what if he was the only Indian in the Family? The Family loved him, cherished him as one of their own, respected his personality, and honored his ability by appointing him to Warrior status. Strange, wasn’t it, how the grass did always look greener on the other side of the fence?
“Look!” Lone Cougar exclaimed, pointing directly ahead.
Someone was standing in the center of Highway 35, waving his brawny arms, attempting to stop the transport.
Rainbow leaned over the steering wheel. “I know him!” she stated, disbelieving her eyes. “How’d he get here?”
Geronimo, roused from his reflection, gazed at the tall figure in front of them and tensed.
It couldn’t be!
“He isn’t going to interfere!” Rainbow vowed angrily, and floored the accelerator.
Thirty yards separated the SEAL from their target as the vehicle picked up speed.
Forty.
Fifty.
“No!” Geronimo lunged at Rainbow, but Tall Oak was quicker. The Flathead reached over Star and grabbed Geronimo’s good wrist, preventing him from obstructing Rainbow’s purpose.
Sixty miles an hour and climbing.
The man in front of them still stood in the middle of Highway 35, a puzzled expression on his face.
“The fool thinks Geronimo is driving!” Rainbow said, elated.
Geronimo, weakened by his wound, unsuccessfully attempted to wrest his wrist from Tall Oak’s grasp.
Sixty-five miles an hour.
Star drew her body forward, against the console, away from the struggling Geronimo and Tall Oak. She looked at the dark-haired man with his arms over his head, and dawning recognition caused panic to register on her countenance.
“Mom, no!” Star screamed. “It’s Blade!”
Rainbow laughed maliciously.
Chapter Nineteen
He was in the lotus position, hidden in a stand of trees only fifteen yards from Plato’s cabin. From his vantage point, he enjoyed a clear field of view to both the front and back cabin doors.
The long night, thankfully, had been uneventful.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi listened to the morning sounds: the cool morning wind stirring the leaves, various birds greeting the new day with songs of vitality and thanksgiving, gray smoke drifting from several of the cabin chimneys as individual families prepared their initial daily sustenance, voices raised as many Family members walked to the open space between the six concrete Blocks for a period of exercise and worship, and a woman in one of the nearer cabins singing the words to “Day by Day.”
Why would anyone in their right mind want to change the peaceful environment the Home afforded its residents? What was the alternative?
The barbarous cruelty permeating every aspect of life in the outside world? Who would favor savagery over tranquility? If you had a system that worked, why mess with it?
Rikki thoughtfully stared at the katana in his lap. His chosen profession, as a dedicated Warrior, sometimes entailed the use of violence in the performance of his duties, but that was different. Violence utilized constructively, to preserve the standards of truth, beauty, and goodness, was not a moral evil; violence used destructively was.
Did that make Napoleon evil?
Rikki fondly recalled his philosophy classes in the Family school. What was it Confucius wrote? “Clever talk and a domineering manner have little to do with being man-at-his-best.” And the Buddha was quoted as saying:
“A man should hasten toward the good, and should keep his thoughts from evil.” And didn’t one of the Proverbs say “the way of the wicked is as darkness”?
Napoleon, so it seemed, was intentionally courting a darkness of his own devising, and exalting his ego, his vanity, over the welfare of the Family and the safety of the Home.
Why?
What made Napoleon tick?
Did it really matter?
No.
As a Warrior, as a defender of the Family, he had a duty, and his duty eclipsed any and all other considerations. His was not to reason why; his was but to kill or die.
Rikki enjoyed the many books in the Family library dealing with Oriental subjects. They suited his temperament, his inner nature, like a glove over a hand. From earliest childhood, he’d spent countless hours in the library perusing volumes on Oriental reasoning and the martial arts.
Others in the Family evinced a decidedly Christian bent to their religious proclivities, and some preferred the Koran or The Circles, but he found his orientation centered on Zen.
To function as the perfected swordmaster was his only goal in life.
Ironic, wasn’t it? If he’d been born before the Big Blast, before the nuclear holocaust had torn the fabric of existence asunder, he would have found himself in a sterile society, devoid of spontaneity and originality, a world designed to shape every person into the same mindless mold of cultural conformity.
He despised the very concept.
It had taken a nuclear conflagration to return—or was it advance—humanity to a free level of expression, where a man, or woman, could openly nurture the realization of his or her own unique personality without government interference or social imposition by those who claimed to “run things.”
Years ago, Plato had given a seminar on “Life Before the Final Folly,” an insightful examination of daily living before the Third World War. Rikki had never forgotten it. Why had the people let themselves be manipulated by those in “power”? Why had they allowed every aspect of their daily existence, from the food they consumed to the clothes they wore, to be dictated by others? And what about the ones in authority? Why had they sought to control everything? Whether it was by the passage of a convenient “law,” or by the terrible force of “peer pressure,” either you conformed or you were branded an outcast, a misfit with no redeeming social value.
A swordmaster would have been hard pressed to attain spiritual harmony in the times before the Big Blast.
Rikki placed his right hand on his katana. He wouldn’t have been “allowed” to carry his sword down the street before the war. Simply amazing! His katana was as much a part of him as his arm or his leg.
Maybe more so. The perfected swordmaster wasn’t a swaggering bully; he used his sword only when unavoidable in the performance of his duty. His path of Tightness, the code of Bushido, perceived the katana as the sword of justice, as an extension of his inner guide. Before he could engage an opponent, prior to combat, he must divest himself of all personal animosity and anger, strip his consciousness of any feelings of revenge or retaliation. He must become, in a sense, empty. An emptiness with a purpose.
So Napoleon’s motivation for desiring to usurp the Family leadership from Plato was completely irrelevant. To Rikki’s mind, to the mind of the professional Warrior, the mind of the perfecting swordmaster, the fact of Napoleon’s threat superseded any impulse toward compassionate understanding.
The threat must be eliminated.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi serenely gazed at the azure sky and cleared his mind of all thoughts.
Today was the day.
Either Napoleon would cease to threaten the Family, or by nightfall the Family would need a new head of Beta Triad.
Chapter Twenty
“…up!”
What the blazes was it? An earthquake?
“Hickok! You’ve got to wake up!”
Hadn’t he just been through this? But hold the fort! This wasn’t Sherry’s voice. It was familiar, though…
“What did they do to you?” the person anxiously asked.
Hickok opened his eyes and found Shane’s bushy brows and full cheeks hovering inches f
rom his face. The sixteen-year-old was wearing black pants and a black shirt, both filthy from his confinement in the dirty cell.
His brown hair was matted with grime.
“Thank the Spirit!” Shane exclaimed. “You’re okay!”
“That’s debatable,” Hickok groused, sitting up and pressing his left hand against the back of his head. “That’s another one I owe.”
Shane’s brown eyes sparkled with excitement. “I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am to see you!”
“Do tell, pard.” Hickok said, frowning in annoyance. “Need I point out I wouldn’t be in this fix if it wasn’t for you?”
Shane, shamed, averted the gunman’s gaze. “I didn’t think it would turn out like this,” he mumbled.
“Let me guess. You figured you’d impress me by finding the new Troll headquarters. Right?”
“How did you know?” Shane gawked, impressed.
“It was as easy as adding two and two,” Hickok informed the youth.
“Your letter told me you were going to find the Trolls, and it was pretty easy to figure out why. You jerk.”
“I take it you’re mad at me?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
There was a shuffling sound behind Hickok. “So this is the one you’ve been telling me about?” asked a new voice. “The one who killed fifty Trolls singlehanded?” he added doubtfully.
Hickok swiveled. The third and final occupant of the small earthern cell was a big man with short brown hair and green eyes, dressed in soiled clothes little better than tattered rags.
“Hickok,” Shane said, introducing them, “this is Wally. He’s from a small town south of here…” Shane paused a moment. “What was the name of it again?”
“Tenstrike,” Wally answered. “The Moles caught me about a year ago.
Wolfe put me on one of their digging crews, but I gave ’em such a hard time they threw me in here. I don’t imagine I’ll be in here much longer.”
“Why’s that?” Hickok inquired.
Wally nodded at the iron bars comprising the cell door. A guard with a rifle stood on the other side, leaning against the far wall, his eyes closed.
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