Needlessly Darmstedt commented, “That’s a lot of questions, sir.”
“That no one has answers to, Lieutenant! And on top of everything else, we’re soldiers, for crying out loud! We’re supposed to be fighting this—this invasion of our country. We’re not baby-sitters. We’re the first line of defense!” He stopped pacing, leaned toward Valdosta and Darmstedt, and nearly shouted, “Do you people understand that?”
“Yes, sir,” both men chimed in, and both straightened their posture considerably.
“Captain—” Ben-ammi tried to speak, but to no avail, for Slaughter was on a true rant.
“And do you know what else I see when I look east, every night in my nightmares? I see Fort Carson, and I see Cheyenne Mountain right by it. I see comrades-in-arms who aren’t with us anymore.” Slaughter’s lips tightened into a line, and he took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself.
In all the months that Vashti had spent with Fire Team Eclipse, she’d never seen the captain lose control as she’d just witnessed.
Not even the horror of the Fort Carson bombing had provoked such an outburst. But that had been war, something he could deal with. This “baby-sitting,” as he calls it, is much different.
Silence ruled the little group for a few moments, then Colonel Ben-ammi said quietly, “The sad truth is, Captain, that you’re in command. Such is the burden of command.”
Slaughter fixed Ben-ammi with an intense stare, then said tightly, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m in command.” His burly arm swept around the group. “I’m in command of my fire team. I can handle deciding the fate of each and every one of you. That’s my job. It’s deciding the fate of these other people, the civvies, that gives me grief.” His large frame seemed to slump a little bit. “They didn’t sign on for this . . . any of this.”
“But they are here,” Vashti stated evenly. “And it’s a soldier’s job to protect innocent civilians, is it not? You say you are the first line of defense, no?” She reached down and scooped up a handful of sand. “Defend this? I think not, Captain. This does not make a country.” She dropped the sand and wiped her hand on her thigh, nodding toward the cliff where the helpless people were huddled in their caves. “They make a country what it is.”
Slaughter watched her thoughtfully, not commenting.
Rio spoke up: “Yeah, Cap’n, I gotta admit I’ve always wanted to just go find the nearest Goths and start shootin’, you know? Die in a blaze of glory and all that. But now . . . these people . . . like old Benewah Two Color, ain’t he a kick in the pants? Not to mention Zoan. And your friends, Mrs. Thayer and that pretty little girl, Dancy—oh, and that old woman Lystra Palermo, now she’s a cutter! Bosses those wild Indians around like they’re little kids! Sure can tell she was a tough schoolteacher back in the Stone Age. She’s gotta be a hundred years old.”
“She’s sixty-eight,” Slaughter told them. “Her husband died forty years ago. Can you imagine being alone for forty years? Longer than I’ve been alive.”
“What about that teenage boy, Captain Slaughter?” Darmstedt asked. “What’s Dancy call him—Pip? Now there’s a sad case if I ever saw one. Kid can hardly even feed himself, and he looks terrified all the time. And what about that little Torridon Carlisle? Only eight years old and orphaned. He handles it pretty well, though. He’s got some guts for a little kid.”
“This is truth,” Ben-ammi agreed. “Eight years old and so grave and dignified. He is much like a midge.”
The team, including Vashti Nicanor, looked at him blankly. Then Darmstedt burst out laughing. “A midget! That’s right, Colonel, he’s just like a thirty-year-old man, only little!”
This broke up the worried tension a little, just as Ben-ammi knew it would. Even Slaughter had to smile. Ben-ammi said to himself, “Midget, midget . . . I must remember this word.”
“Yeah, you’re sure to use that one a lot, sir,” Rio snorted.
The sun was dropping behind the western tip of their world, and they all watched the majestic sight. A curtain of bone-white clouds ribbed along the horizon became tinged pale yellow, then the ultimate vermilion, and finally the tattletale gray of dusk.
As he watched, Con Slaughter knew he should be enjoying the daily spectacle, but his thoughts were turned to more pragmatic, disturbing things. Every evening he saw the sun setting, and he couldn’t help wondering endlessly about the West.
What must it be like in those congested co-ops of the Los Angeles and Bay areas? Violent crime had been reduced since the barbaric 1900s and with the coming of the commissars to usher in the Man and Biosphere Project. But that was before this. What kind of disorder and rioting would there be among those dark dwellings jammed with people without electricity? Would the commissars be able to keep order? Or was there only the raging chaos of finding that next meal or next sip of purified water?
And what about the military? There were ten thousand servicemen and-women at Twenty-Nine Palms alone. Was that enormous base still standing, or was it a pile of rubble and bones like Fort Carson?
The not knowing was like a splinter in Slaughter’s brain.
With the coming of darkness came the biting cold of the desert and its unique nocturnal sounds. Slaughter shook off the helpless feelings of dread and turned to his people. “Okay, Fire Team Eclipse, are we ready for dawn? Everybody know where and what and up to specs?”
All of the small population of Chaco Canyon knew what Fire Team Eclipse was going to do, even though they hadn’t said anything to anyone. It was a ceremony private to them, but that, by its nature, must be presented to the world. They didn’t want anyone to help them, and they didn’t want anyone to join them. They made their plans in private for the warrior who had left them.
Rio sighed. “It’s a sobbin’ shame we don’t have the proper weapons for the honor guard.” He was mourning the loss of Captain Slaughter’s 12-gauge shotgun as much as Deac had mourned his helicopter. David Mitchell had the only other shotgun, his grandfather’s 20-gauge single-barrel Remington, and he had it with him in Arkansas. The only weapons the team had left were their 9 mm personal side arms.
“Yeah, I’m gonna get that gun back before I die,” Slaughter growled. “Don’t know how. No telling where it is now . . . I wonder where they’re stashing everyone’s private arms . . .” He suddenly looked into space, startled. “Hey, I just thought of something—can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before! Los Alamos! Rio—Ric—you think the Goths would take that out?”
“Why, heck no!” Ric said eagerly. “With all that research stuff and no tellin’ what kind of biowarfare gadgets and—”
“Yeah . . . yeah!” Rio jumped up, very excited. “That place had security almost as good as NORAD! Lotsa firearms and stuff for us there, Captain!”
Slaughter sighed. “Another possible mission. We’ve only got about a million or so that we can try.”
Ben-ammi said kindly, “We’re all tired, Captain Slaughter, and you especially. You were injured, yes? In Florida?”
“Aw, just a couple of scratches.”
“That is not what Mrs. Thayer tells me,” Ben-ammi returned sagely. “And the food in the isolation camp was probably not too nutritious, eh? I think you need to rest down.”
“Rest up,” Slaughter corrected him wearily. “And I think you’re right. I know everyone makes better decisions when he’s well rested. Anyway, we all set for dawn?”
They began double-checking their plans with military precision.
Zoan appeared out of nowhere, as he seemed to have done from his birth. He materialized soundlessly out of the darkness by the fire.
“Captain Slaughter?”
“Yes, Zoan, what is it?”
“Can I come with you?”
“But, Zoan, this is . . .” Slaughter stopped. This was a team thing, a very private Fire Eclipse ceremony, and everyone else had understood this as the team prepared. But Zoan was not everyone else; he was in a class by himself. He had no perception of nuance—at least, not the usual human
kind—so Slaughter lost his impatience with him immediately. Now that he considered the quiet young man, he reflected that in some weird way, Zoan was a very comforting and peaceful person to be with. “Well, Zoan, we have a certain ceremony we do at times like this. It’s for soldiers, for us to . . . perform. But—if you would—maybe you’d like to— um—say a prayer?”
Zoan considered this. “You mean, out loud?”
“That’s what I had in mind. You’re not shy about it, are you?”
“No. I’ve just never done it before. Out loud. But, okay, I can do that. I’d like to do that. But what I really wanted to do was sing a song.”
“Sing—” Slaughter once again found himself at a loss for words while talking to this strange young man. Visions of Zoan singing “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush” or maybe some UR rock song came to him. But Zoan looked so hopeful, Slaughter couldn’t bear to disappoint him. “Sure, Zoan. You can sing if you want to.”
Zoan nodded. “Good. ’Cause that’s one reason why I’m here, you know. To sing.”
“You are?” As always, Slaughter was confused about whether Zoan’s conversation was very deep and meaningful or whether it was nonsense from Zoan’s odd mind. Zoan was opaque at times, but he was rarely nonsensical. You just had to listen to him.
Slaughter moved closer to him so that only he could hear Slaughter’s words. “Zoan? Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
Slaughter searched his face, his incredible eyes. “You say one reason you’re here is to sing. Well, I don’t really understand that, but I believe it. The thing is, do you—can you—see, uh, I’m wondering if somehow you can see—you know, kind of like you knew about Deac—about the rest of us . . . that is, what I’m trying to get at is—”
“Are you asking me if I know why you’re all here?”
“Uh, yeah. I guess so. I think so.”
Zoan frowned. “That’s a hard question.”
“Yeah, I suppose it is.”
Zoan thought for a long time, his dark eyes unfocused. “I see some—things. It’s hard for me to say it, Captain Slaughter. I can see it, but I can’t hardly say it right.”
Slaughter swallowed hard with tension. “I know, Zoan, but . . . could you try, please? Take your time.”
“All right.” Another long silence.
Slaughter was so breathless with anticipation that a popping twig in the fire made him start.
Finally, with difficulty, Zoan said, “I know why we’re all here. We were brought here by God, for His purpose.”
“That’s . . . not quite accurate, Zoan,” Slaughter said gently. “I brought my team here on orders from my commanding officer, on a mission that he set for us. God didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Yes, He did. But I know you can’t see that right now. And, Captain Slaughter, that’s why it’s so hard for me to tell you. You can’t see right now. You’re blind. Almost everyone here is. But that’s exactly why God brought us here, you know? So we’ll see, see real good, like I do.”
Slaughter mulled this over, then gave up. “Well, thanks, Zoan, but that’s not quite what I was trying to figure out. I need to know what to do, what to tell my team to do, what is—the right thing to do. I just thought maybe you’d—advise me, I guess.”
Zoan’s pupils grew noticeably, even in the face of the roaring fire. Desperately he said, “But, Captain Slaughter, that’s exactly what I was trying to tell you. I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t know whether you’re supposed to go kill Goths, like Mr. Rio says, or hunt for food, or stay here and protect us, or go back to Albuquerque and get some more people—that’s not for me to see. That’s for you to see. That’s the thing that God has set for you to do. And until you can see, and know Him, you won’t ever know. So that’s why you’re here, in this place, in this time. To decide your path. And the only advice I can give you is that you choose God’s path . . . because there’s only one other one . . . and that’s—that’s—” Zoan’s gaze focused somewhere over Slaughter’s shoulder, and his face slowly filled with pain. “If you take the other one, Captain Slaughter, you’ll never see. You’ll always be blind. Forever.”
In the early morning steel-blue light just before dawn, all the occupants of Chaco Canyon emerged from their caves.
Despite the murky light, as they made their way to the base of the two-hundred-foot pinnacle, they could clearly see the top.
Rio Valdosta, Ric Darmstedt, Darkon Ben-ammi, and Vashti Nicanor stood in a ruler-straight line at attention. Directly centered in front of them was Concord Slaughter. As they gathered, Slaughter stabbed a pole into the ground. Flying from it was an American flag and the pennant of the 101st Airborne, the rampant Screaming Eagle.
Victorine’s thoughts and sympathy went out to Captain Con Slaughter. She thought she knew the pain he was going through as he said good-bye to one of his own—not only a fellow Airborne comrade, but one of his own. A life for which he’d taken personal responsibility—undoubtedly, in his eyes, a huge responsibility. If she knew one thing about Con Slaughter, it was that he was a proud man. What could be going through his mind right now? That he was a failure? Victorine suspected this was so, for that was exactly how she’d felt after her mother had been killed. Con had never spoken of the details of Fong’s death, but Victorine suddenly sensed that even if Con had been a hundred miles away when it happened, he would still blame himself. She certainly had and still did.
“It’s cold,” muttered Lystra Palermo, an older woman dressed in black from head to toe, much like a Muslim woman. She and the mute, almost catatonic teenage boy that Dancy called Pip filed behind Dancy much like the soldiers behind Con Slaughter.
“You should have stayed by the fire, Mrs. Palermo,” Victorine said gently.
A sharp gaze fixed Victorine. “They’re honoring a fallen hero, Ms. Thayer. A little cold won’t stop me from being here at this place of honor. I was just commenting on the weather, that’s all.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Victorine had yet to figure out Mrs. Palermo.
A former schoolteacher, she seemed to be from the old school: full of sharp retorts that left one cringing, yet sometimes revealing incredible kindness.
Ten yards to their left, Niklas Kesteven stood stonily in the predawn, his large head raised toward the soldiers. With surprise he felt the hand of Gildan Ives slip into his. After a glance at her and a moment’s hesitation, he let it stay. Her head was bowed, so she didn’t meet his eyes, but she moved closer to him, obviously grateful. Gildan was a lonely woman.
The gathering could see the team bow their heads, and the slim, small figure of Zoan, standing a little away from the soldiers, led them in a prayer. His voice, though seemingly insipid, carried down to the crowd below. They couldn’t hear the words, but they could hear his tone, a mere whisper on the cold breeze.
As the first crescent of scarlet sun showed on the flat eastern horizon, Con Slaughter called out, “Present arms!”
The four soldiers behind him drew their 9 mm pistols, for they had no proper rifles to present the honor, and aimed at the rising sun.
Slaughter shouted, “Fire!”
It sounded like one single shot, then was repeated over and over as it echoed throughout the canyon. As one, the soldiers pulled the deadly arms close to the chest, pointing skyward.
“Fire!”
Another loud crack!
“Fire!”
Their fallen comrade, Deacon Fong, had had a hero’s salute, with honor guard.
Zoan began to sing, and it was miraculous, for his voice was a pure, strong tenor. The crowd below could hear him clearly as he sang this most difficult of songs perfectly. The soldiers stood at knifelike attention, saluting. Victorine and Dancy placed their hands over their hearts; Niklas and Gildan were slower, but they did the same. Cody Bent Knife, standing beside Benewah Two Color, saw the older man follow suit. Cody set his strong jaw, but then he, too, placed his hand over his heart and bowed his head with sorrow. After
all was said and done, it had been his America, too.
Oh! say, can you see,
By the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched,
Were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare,
The bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night
That our flag was still there!
Oh! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave—
O’er the land of the free
And the home of the brave?
PART II
COCKATRICE’S EGGS
AND SPIDER’S WEB
They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths:whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
—ISAIAH 59:5-8
Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles.
—DOCTOR OF PHYSIC, FROM MACBETH BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
TEN
IT WAS THE TUNNEL AGAIN, the tunnel that never ended, that smelled of mold and black water, and the flashlight was dead, and it was dark, and Alia was the only one who knew the way out. She struggled, silent, her eyes aching with the strain of trying to penetrate the cold darkness and stay close to Tor. Tor was leading them, but Alia kept trying to say, “You’re not going the right way . . . this isn’t the way out . . . we’re lost . . . we’re lost . . .”
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