Chuckling, Duncan said, “And that would explain why he comes across as all hat and no cattle.”
“He’s solid as they come,” Haynes shot, bristling at the put-down.
“I’m just yanking his chain,” Duncan said, offering his hand to Skipper. “Pleased to meet you. I fully retract my ball breaking.”
Skipper reciprocated, saying, “Just figured it was the senility talking.”
“Touché,” Duncan drawled. “I think you and me are going to get along just fine.” He turned to Ari. “Now let’s talk about me getting into the left seat of that stealthy whirlybird of yours.”
“Over my dead body,” said Haynes. Though the tone had been serious, his wide grin suggested he was ribbing his fellow aviator.
Duncan said, “So I have a chance?”
Gloves in a pile on his lap, Ari made a show of inspecting his nails. Finally, lifting his gaze to meet Duncan’s, he said, “Who knows … stranger shit has happened.”
Inside 10A, Lopez and Cross stood on opposite sides of Cade’s bed.
Lopez had one gloved hand resting on his friend’s shoulder and, for the umpteenth time, was retelling the story of how he and the team, with the help of a couple of squads of Rangers and a smattering of volunteers from the 10th Special Forces group out of Fort Kit Carson, had conducted the quickly concocted mission against the PLA forces who had ambushed and taken Cade hostage.
Fearing the worst, the assaulters had held nothing back. They’d gone in with orders to take prisoners. Save for a couple of squirters who got away—they did not.
“I personally popped the pendejo who did that to your hands,” Lopez said. “Face shot him real good. Fucker still had bloody pliers in his pocket.” Grimacing, he looked to Glenda and Raven, both sitting quietly by the window, and offered an apology.
Raven waved a hand at him. “I’ve heard every bad word a dozen times.”
Glenda said, “I, however, would appreciate it if you watered down your language.”
Voice soft and inflected with nuance from his upbringing around California surf culture, Cross said, “I caught your guards flat-footed. Bastards were a few feet away and playing Call of Duty on a big screen. Gave them both a new eye in the back of their head, if you know what I mean.”
Feeling Glenda’s gaze on him, Cross patted Cade on the shoulder and told the fellow Pale Rider he would keep his seat on the Ghost Hawk warm for him.
Lopez edged around the bed and approached Raven. Slipping an iPhone and white earbuds from a pocket, he said, “I want you to give this to your dad when he wakes up.” He turned the smartphone over to show her the yellow sticky note affixed to the back. “Here are the instructions for its use.” From another pocket came a sealed envelope. Across the flap, the word Wyatt was written in black ink.
Taking the items, Raven said, “Who’s this from?”
“General Nash.”
Sharp edge to the words, Raven said, “Freda Nash? She’s a general now?”
“Has been for some time,” Lopez answered.
“What’s it say?”
Remembering Raven was much younger than she carried herself, Lopez swallowed the smart-ass remark lingering on his tongue. Instead, he said, “None of my business. But I think your dad would be pissed if anyone read it before he has a chance to.”
Raven set the items on the shelf by the Christmas tree. And though she had already thanked Lopez and Cross more than once for settling the score with the men who’d ambushed, shot, taken hostage and beaten and tortured her dad, she did so again. “If it wasn’t for you two and the rest of the team, I wouldn’t have my father back.” Tears welling in her eyes, she went on, saying, “Thank you so much for putting your lives on the line.”
Glenda looked on as the two rough men in camouflage and body armor stooped to receive long, crushing hugs from the girl.
A couple of minutes after Lopez and Cross had entered, Axe and Griff were in their places and telling war stories of their own.
“The PLA are sure to mount an offensive in the spring,” Griff said. “So we’re going to need you to rub some dirt on those nails and work on getting your stamina up.”
“Yeah, mate,” added Axe. “Sooner you slip on your gun belt and helmet, the better.”
Though Raven didn’t know these two like she knew Lopez and Cross, she treated them to the same thanks and hugs.
Not one to follow rules and regs, Ari came in with Haynes and Skipper. After exchanging pleasantries with Raven and Glenda, he bent over and whispered something into Cade’s ear. Finished, he hinged up and caught Raven trapping him with an expectant stare.
Raising his hands in mock surrender, Ari said, “Just telling Wyatt a joke. One that is not suitable for mixed company.”
Without missing a beat, Glenda stood and said, “OK then, gentlemen. Glad you stopped by. Visiting hours are now over.”
After the men filed out, Duncan entered, Stetson trapped under one arm and a hangdog look on his face. Regarding Glenda, he said, “Doc already filled us in out in the hall. Figured this young whippersnapper would already be up and doing calisthenics. Looks like I was mistaken.”
“It’s going to be a trudge for him to get back to where he was before …” Suddenly the tears were back, and Glenda couldn’t finish her thought.
Duncan placed one hand atop the covers at the foot of the bed. Giving Cade’s foot a soft squeeze, he said, “You’ll be back to whippin’ commie ass in no time,” and turned his attention to Raven. “We’ll leave you alone with your dad, Bird. Anything you need from us before we go?”
Raven shook her head.
Glenda said, “We’ll be in the hall if you need us.”
Raven said nothing. As the door clicked shut behind her new grandparents, she took her dad’s hand in hers, pulled a chair over from the wall, and settled into it.
Sleep had Raven in its full embrace moments later.
The cacophony the Black Hawk created as it launched and thundered off to the east didn’t register. However, a few seconds later, the muffled whoompf and shockwave that followed it had her wide awake and off searching for Duncan and Glenda.
Chapter 17
On the heels of the distant explosion, Raven burst from room 10A. Meeting the couple’s startled gazes, Raven led them down the hall to a south-facing window, where Duncan jerked the horizontal blinds out of their way and stepped aside.
Raven placed her palms on the window and, in direct response to seeing the nest of flames and roil of black smoke lifting into the sky, drew in a sharp breath.
Hands resting on Raven’s flagging shoulders, Glenda gasped, “Did the boys just crash?”
Duncan pushed his aviator glasses up on his nose. “Too far south,” he noted. “They flew off to the east, toward Peterson.” Squinting, he added, “That’s a mile or so out. Looks like something’s burning near the motor pool. Maybe someone’s negligence touched off the fuel dump.”
One hand over her mouth, Glenda said, “I thought for sure that helicopter had crashed.” She paused for a few seconds. Finally, hands clasped and shaking terribly, she went on, “I can’t take losing any more of my boys. I just can’t take any more loss.”
“There, there,” Duncan said, corralling her in his arms. “Let’s go down and get some coffee.” Regarding Raven, he said, “That’ll give you some alone time with your dad.”
Emergency lights strobing with great urgency, a fire engine roared down a sidestreet. As the siren wail diminished, Raven nodded. “That’ll be fine.”
Duncan said, “Come on down when you’re ready for a ride back to the Antlers.”
Fixated on the ever-growing smudge blackening the horizon, Raven said, “I need the exercise. I think I’ll hoof it home.” With that, she turned and started walking back to 10A.
“You have a change of heart,” Duncan called, “you come find me.”
Back in 10A, with the door closed and heavy curtains fending off the flat light of the rising sun, Raven pulled a chair near t
he head of her dad’s bed and sat down.
No sooner had she taken her dad’s hand in hers than his eyelids snapped open and he was fixing her with a questioning look.
Excited to see more than just a brief glimpse of the whites of his eyes, Raven accidentally increased pressure on his hand. Feeling some reciprocal input, the last vestiges of bitter doubt that had been building for weeks inside of her finally began to crumble.
Tears welled in her eyes. “I thought this day would never come.”
Cade seemed to smile, though the apparatus down his throat made it look more like a grimace.
“Your entire Pale Riders team was here. Lopez, Cross, Griff, and the British guy … Axe.” She rattled off the names of the air crew, too, then said, “They all just left in one of the noisy Black Hawks.”
Cade’s eyes widened. Then he glanced toward the window and added a subtle head roll that Raven took to be a nod.
“We’re in Colorado Springs, again. They were going back to some place called Peterson.”
Again with the head movement.
Raven palmed her forehead. “You heard the explosion?”
He blinked once. Yes.
“You’re wondering if they crashed.”
Again he blinked one time. Yes.
She said, “Sorry, Dad. I thought I woke you up by rushing in here. That boom you heard came from the motor pool. At least that’s what Duncan said.”
Cade’s head sank back into the pillow. Straining to lift his free hand off the bed introduced him to the fact he was in restraints.
“Doctor Cole says those are on so you don’t rip out your IV lines. He also said you will need that intubator thingy to stay in your throat until you can breathe on your own. Do you understand?”
Cade nodded and blinked once. Yes.
“Want me to take them off?”
Again with a lone blink. Yes.
“Are you going to do what the doctor said? Rip out the medical stuff?”
Cade blinked twice. No.
“Promise?”
Cade simply stared at his daughter, who instantly viewed the question in an absurd a light as he must have. For if there was one thing binding them together beyond the love they shared for each other and the blood coursing their veins, it was the fact that, where matters of life and death were concerned, he always told her the truth.
As Raven worked the buckles on the left side restraints, she went on to describe how much Colorado Springs had changed since they were here last. Once she’d moved to the opposite side and started to repeat the process, she told him about Lev and Jamie staying behind at Eden. “We had to leave Black Beauty. You should have seen all the bullet holes in her.” With one buckle to go, she paused and pinched away tears. “Some of the bullets got by your armor and hit you, Dad.”
Finished loosening the final buckle, Raven slipped the restraint from his wrist. Before she could look up, his arms were encircling her neck and she was being drawn forward ever so slowly.
Raven lay her head on his chest, listening to the steady cadence of the heart beating inside the parent she thought was lost to her forever.
***
Ten minutes had passed when Raven felt her dad’s arms go limp around her neck. Certain the short time they’d spent communicating had worn him out, she positioned his hands at his sides and adjusted the pillow behind his head.
It took her a few seconds to find the rectangular box with the red button that she knew, if pressed, would bring a nurse or doctor running.
Raven thumbed the button and sat back in the chair.
A few seconds passed and Cade’s doctor and a nurse she didn’t recognize came barging into the room.
Marveling at how the response had been way faster than she’d anticipated, Raven waited for the unlikely duo to finish giving her dad the onceover before she related their conversation and told on herself for removing the four-point restraints.
“That’s reckless,” said the doctor. Shooting the petite brunette nurse a worried look, he ordered the restraints to be put back on.
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Raven said. “But you do what you have to do. I’m pretty sure my dad has already accomplished all that he set out to do today.”
Chapter 18
January 1, 2012
The new year slinked in the door with little fanfare and six inches of fresh snow. There really wasn’t anything happy about the forward march of time to justify banging pots and pans together, let alone setting off fireworks to mark it. With the Chinese PLA forces now enjoying established footholds on both coasts, and multiple credible reports of civilian survivors coming into contact with their foraging parties hundreds of miles inland, Colorado Springs was beginning to look like the unlucky kid picked to play monkey-in-the-middle with the two tallest kids in class.
Though the breathing tube had been removed forty-eight hours after Cade’s emergence from the coma, a week later the simple act of walking ten feet to the bathroom and sitting on the toilet had left him a little winded.
Finished doing his business, he stood before the mirror, hands gripping the edges of the granite sink, and scrutinized his clean-shaven face. Running along the orbital bone outside of his left eye was a half-moon trail of pink scars caused by bullet fragments and flying automotive glass. The day he’d crashed the Ford F-650 and received the wounds to the face, he'd also caught two bullets in the back. One, a through and through that had somehow missed nerves and bone and, most importantly, his spine, was healed entirely. Only thing pointing to the fact he’d been struck by that particular Chicom round was the pair of inchworm-looking wounds where it had entered and exited. The scars were separated by a hand’s width and still a little tender to the touch.
Fragments of the second bullet were still lodged in his back. After punching through the F-650’s sheet metal, it had struck the edge of one of the ceramic plates protecting his back, broke apart, and the rest was history.
The surgeon said that had the bullet been tracking a fraction of an inch left, if it hadn’t killed him, he’d have spent the rest of his days in a wheelchair.
“Maybe you should get a floppy hat like Wilson’s,” he said to his own reflection. “It’d be better than having to answer to kids wondering how the Hubba Bubba bubblegum got stuck on your face.”
Someone knocked on the pocket door at the far end of the shared bathroom.
Cade paused the program playing on the iPhone, took the buds from his ears, and wrapped the cord around the device. Setting the phone on the shelf along with his toothbrush and straight razor, he said, “Come on in. I’m decent.”
The door slid open a foot or so and Raven poked her head through the gap. “Talking to yourself again, eh? Isn’t that what crazy people do?”
“Bú.”
Raven made a face. “Huh?”
Cade said, “Bú means ‘no’ in Mandarin Chinese.”
She pushed the door all the way open. Hands planted on her hips—a classic Brook pose—she said, “Why are you learning Chinese?”
“To increase my value to the teams. At least that’s what I gathered from Lopez leaving the iPhone for me at the hospital.”
“I’m guessing you’re using some kind of a learning app. Like Rosetta Stone, or something?”
“Shí de.”
Smiling, Raven said, “How long have you been studying?”
“I just listened to the app for the first few days. Started whispering the words as soon as the good doctor removed my breathing tube.”
“That’s less than a week. What else can you say?”
“There’s so many different ways to say many of the words. It’s pretty complicated. However, I think I have some of the colors dawn pat. I can introduce myself. Ask for directions.” He shrugged. “Just the basics so far.”
Brows lifting, Raven said, “What phrase do you really, really want to learn to say first?”
With no hesitation, Cade said, “Get the hell out of my country.”
“Th
at would be nice.”
“The day is coming,” Cade replied. “This is the first time an invader has set foot on American soil since the Japanese took Kiska Island in the Aleutians. I’m sure President Clay and her Joint Chiefs are planning a robust spring counteroffensive.”
“Will you be deploying again?”
“Let’s not get ahead of our skis now, Bird.”
Gesturing toward the iPhone, she said, “Then how do you explain that? I saw the sticky note that was attached to it. The one from your team leader.”
“You read it?”
Raven shook her head. “Nope. That’s your private business. Doesn’t mean I don’t have a gut feeling about it.”
“I’m glad you’re listening to your gut.”
“Is it telling me something I want to hear?”
Cade looked at himself in the mirror. As his gaze slipped back to her, he said, “For now, it’s just something to get my mind back up to speed. Mental pushups, if you will.”
“You did real well on all the mental acuity tests the doctors made you take.”
Grateful his daughter was the one to steer the conversation elsewhere, he said, “Scores weren’t as good as I’d hoped for.”
She folded her arms across her chest. Sounding every bit like her mother, she said, “Baby steps, Dad.” Again changing course, she asked, “How about the tingling in your right arm? The headaches? The back pain?”
Though Doctor Cole had assured Cade all of that should get better or disappear altogether with time, he said nothing.
Parroting something she’d heard both her mom and Glenda say, Raven asked, “On a scale of one to ten, if ten is the worst pain ever, and zero is nothing, what’s your pain level?”
“Ah, a junior nurse in training,” he said, chuckling. “Been hanging around Glenda, have we?”
Raven lowered her chin toward her chest. If she had been wearing glasses, she’d be looking over top of the lenses. Eyes narrowing, she repeated her question.
“A seven or eight for the back. The pain I can handle with aspirin and Ibuprofen. I just think of the pain as weakness leaving my body. But these”—he paused and raised both hands—“the way these nubs for fingernails itch as they’re coming in is a million times worse than dealing with my back. If I hadn’t been awake to feel the pain when that Chicom bastard started ripping them out, I’d do it all over again just to stop the damn itching.”
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 14): Home Page 10