The White Warrior

by Marilyn Donnellan

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The Family

  They had been away from their little girl, Emily, for the past six months, way too long. It was great to be home. Since the next council meeting was in Mazatlán, Brogan and Bryan decided to first swing by and see Stephen, Frank and Emily in Cosala. As they approached the hut, they heard giggles and Stephen’s and Frank’s laughter. The late June afternoon air, hot and humid, was starting to dissipate, so Emily had probably just gotten up from her afternoon nap.

  The door to the hut was open to let breezes through. Just then, a laughing toddler ran out the door, crashing into Bryan.

  “Whoa, Emily. Where are you going in such a hurry?”

  “Daddy!” Emily screeched, holding her arms up. Bryan scooped her up. It never ceased to amaze him no matter how long they were gone she always knew them. Smart kid. She must take after her mother.

  Emily gave her father’s neck a tight squeeze and then spotted her mother.

  “Mommy!” And hurled herself out of her father’s arms into Brogan’s. Brogan was prepared for the energetic greeting and managed to catch her.

  “My goodness, my little bug is getting so big!” Brogan said, as she twirled her around.

  Frank and Stephen stood at the door of the hut, smiling at the reunited family.

  “How are you two doing?” Frank asked.

  “We’re great, Dad,” Brogan said. “Just a bit tired. We can’t stay long. Council meeting in Mazatlán in two days. What’s going on here?”

  “Everything is good. No sign of the enemy. We’ve kept a low profile and the villagers let us know if they see anyone heading our way they don’t know. We have been learning Spanish, too. But not as quickly as Little Em. She plays with village children and speaks it like a native, right Little Em?”

  “Si, Pop-pop. Como estah, Mama?”

  “Very good, bug! Your Spanish is better than mine and Daddy’s.”

  “How are things with you, Dad?” Bryan asked his father.

  “I never believed it possible,” Stephen answered with a grin, “but I’m enjoying getting my hands dirty with the garden.”

  Brogan noticed Emily’s skin was very brown. If not for her bright green eyes, she could easily be mistaken for a native child with her black hair. Emily’s attention immediately swerved from her parents as soon as she saw Herman jumping around Brogan, wanting his share of the fun.

  “Muppy!” Emily hollered, squirming to get down. As soon as Brogan let her down, Herman and Emily began to tumble around in the dirt. The dog was the little girl’s best friend from the time she could grab a fistful of fur. Unable to say “Puppy” when she first started talking, “Muppy” became her name for the dog. Herman adored Emily and regarded her as his property. Extremely protective, Herman saved her from drowning the day she tumbled into the creek near the hut when she first started learning to walk. Since the scary incident, they made sure they taught her how to swim; she took to it like a duck to water.

  Although Brogan and Bryan hated to take Herman away from Emily, he proved repeatedly his value by warning them of potential trouble during their travels to BL members.

  During one particularly harrowing trip through Chicago province the previous year, Herman saved their lives. They went to the province to check on the condition of books in the underground subway system in Cincinnati, as well as to encourage BL members. Because records of the subway system were lost or destroyed during the war, law enforcement had no maps of the underground tunnels. BL members held meetings there and stored books in several of the off-shoot tunnels.

  However, a careless BL member talked about the tunnels and she was overheard by an undercover officer. The day Bryan and Brogan arrived in Cincinnati, the leader of a BL cell was scheduled to lead them on a tour of the subway system. They decided to go into the subway before dawn to prevent someone seeing them enter.

  The three of them were in the subway about an hour when suddenly Herman stopped, turned and looked back the way they had come and began to growl. Bryan and Brogan learned to always pay prompt attention to Herman’s warnings, so they whispered to their guide they needed to find a place to hide, and fast. He quickly moved them into a side tunnel. They quietly slid a bar across the door to lock it as they heard sounds of marching on the path running along the side of the old railway. From behind their door they heard muffled sounds of instructions to “find those books.”

  Brogan had her hands over Herman’s muzzle, which he knew was a sign to be quiet. They held their breaths as they waited for the soldiers to pass. Several minutes passed before they quietly opened the door and looked out. They heard a large explosion and sounds of running headed their way again. Quickly slamming the door, they waited.

  “Get ‘um!” they heard someone shouting. “Don’t let them escape! I want them alive.”

  They heard running and another explosion close by. They waited until things quieted again and opened the door. They cautiously looked down the tunnel in the direction they had been headed and saw wisps of smoke, fire and soldiers sprawled on rails; to the right, smoke and more soldiers, dead or severely injured.

  Their guide told them it was probably not a good idea to go back the way they had come into the subway, so he led them to a spur, up a ladder and out of a man-hole cover into an alleyway. They later heard the BL member who betrayed the group had her tongue cut out for her betrayal. Fortunately, a sentry saw the soldiers coming and triggered a booby-trap in the front area where hundreds of boxes of books lay hidden. When the soldiers tried to open the door, it exploded and killed several of the soldiers. BL members who placed the explosive, ran past the door where the trio was hiding, leading the remaining soldiers into another trap where they were killed, thus keeping the location secret for a while longer. If it hadn’t been for Herman, they might have been caught in the middle of the fight.

  Now they were home. For the next couple of hours, Brogan and Bryan caught up on village news from their fathers and got re-acquainted with their daughter. On the way home, they had stopped in Laredo to see Juan and his family. Juan would drop Mateo off for a visit with Emily on his way to council meeting.

  “Since Mateo and Emily are the only two children of council members, it is time they got acquainted,” Brogan stated. “Besides, things are getting dangerous in Laredo. Rebel troop build-up there is apt to draw the attention of General Priest any day. Juan thought it might be safer for Mateo here while he goes to the meeting. I think Lolita and her mother are going to visit family in Mexico City while he is gone, too. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course, not,” Frank replied. “It will be nice to have the company, won’t it, Stephen?”

  Stephen nodded in agreement.

  “Besides, Emily is already regarded as one of the village children. Since he is Hispanic I’m sure he will fit right in. How old is he now?” Stephen asked.

  “Mateo just had his eleventh birthday, I think,” Brogan said. “I know he is a bit old to play with Emily, but I’m sure they’ll get along fine. He’s a really nice boy and Juan and Lolita just want to make sure he’s safe while they are gone.”

  Brogan and Bryan’s hut was next to Frank’s, with Stephen’s a bit further down the hill. While the couple traveled, the men kept their hut clean and swept of snakes and bugs. They could easily and quickly move their limited travel belongings in and get settled whenever they came home.

  Located on the side of the mountain, the huts sat close to a hidden cave to provide easy escape if they needed it. The mountain was riddled with caves, part of an old, worn-out mining area. Most of the villagers lived further down the mountain, cultivating their crops in a terraced landscape on the side of the mountain.

  Frank and Stephen gradually expanded the garden Frank started the first year of his arrival until it now covered quite a large area. The year-round temperate climate allowed them to grow a variety of vegetables, trading them for fruits, milk and protein from villagers. Frank’s mechanical skills made him popular a
mong the farmers, since he had the ability to repair old equipment used for cultivating farmlands. In exchange, they showed him how to grow crops and often gave him gifts of rabbits or goats to eat. Crops had been difficult to grow in the dry climate of Van Horn. He appreciated the help in learning how and what to grow in this new environment.

  Stephen, in turn, was popular with the single ladies in the village, making bartering for other items they needed a much smoother process.

  The second year of their stay, Frank traded some work on an old tractor for a few chickens he kept in a coop he built behind the hut. Hens provided eggs and periodically one of them became a chicken dinner. The rooster, though sometimes a nuisance with his incessant crowing, followed Emily around like a pet after he learned she kept dried corn in a pocket of the loose tunic she always wore. She named the rooster Tres, Spanish for “three,” because he always crowed three times in the morning.

  After Brogan and Bryan settled into their hut, Frank showed them his latest crops in the garden, while Stephen started a fire for dinner. They helped him harvest some fresh vegetables for dinner, while Emily went into the coop to gather some eggs. Lacking any type of refrigeration or electricity, they frequently made fresh vegetable omelets over the open fire.

  “Stephen, these are fantastic!” Brogan groaned after her second helping of omelets. “You are a great cook. How did this happen?”

  “Well, I guess necessity really is the mother of invention,” he laughed. “Frank can hardly cook at all, so I guess it was up to me or we’d all starve. After you two started traveling, out of desperation I asked some village women to show me what I needed to know to survive. And, voila!”

  The family sat contentedly on the ground around the fire as they watched the sun gloriously set in the west. Emily slept with her head on her father’s shoulder, exhausted after another romp with Herman. Brogan snuggled next to him.

  “Oh, before I forget it,” Frank said, “A package came for you from Marco. It’s in your hut.”

  “It is probably the disguises our newest council member put together for us. I can’t wait to see what they are,” Brogan said with a smile. “But it will wait until tomorrow.”

  Frank stood up and transferred plates and utensils to a tub used for washing. “I’ll let this soak in the water for a minute. Stephen cooks, but I do dishes. Now is probably a good time to fill us in on how things are going with Book Liberators. You haven’t said anything about it since you returned.”

  The couple looked at each other. “Brogan, you talk. You can tell it so much better than I can. I intended to read a story to Emily and put her to bed, but apparently reading will be for another time.”

  He stood up and carefully walked toward the hut to lay her down in her bed, Herman padding along behind him.

  “It’s not good news,” Brogan said with a sigh. “General Priest’s soldiers are devastating our membership. Thousands have been killed or arrested in all four provinces. The only good news is millions of books are still safe and, so far, no council members arrested.

  “I am afraid what Juan and his dad are doing to develop a rebel army is the only way we are going to be able to fight back. General Priest seems determined to wipe all BL sympathizers and members off the face of the earth. And the only way we can stop him is with force. The council meeting will be where we discuss military plans.

  “I had no idea when we started five years ago, so many lives would be lost. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it. Did we do the right thing by starting BL? It is almost more than I can bare, if I allow myself to dwell on the death and destruction.” Brogan bowed her head in dejection.

  “Honey look at me,” Frank said gently.

  Brogan looked up at her father. By the look in his eyes, she knew his heart ached for the weight of responsibility she carried and wished he could somehow ease her load.

  “Every single person who signed up as a Book Liberator did so knowing the cost. It was their individual choice. You did not force anyone. That’s the difference between what you are doing and what the prime minister is doing. You give people a choice while the prime minister does not. He is trying to tell every citizen they cannot read or write anymore for fear they will overthrow his government. He is trying to control us, our creativity, our faith, and to destroy our freedoms. And the general is his lackey. They are the ones responsible for the deaths, not you. Remember that.”

  Frank moved over to sit beside his daughter and put his arm around her. Bryan stood close by, leaning against a tree, listening to his father-in-law’s wise council. He often held his partner at night as she screamed in her sleep from terrible nightmares. It was taking a toll on her, but she refused to give up. Even though she was only 25-years old, her hair had already started to turn white. No matter how much she ate weight slid off her already slender frame. He knew she felt guilty for leaving her young daughter with her father for BL business, but her passion for the mission continued to drive her. He was afraid it would kill her someday.

  Brogan took a deep breath, one coming from the very depths of her soul. Her body shuddered as she stood up. She looked at her father and Bryan. She said nothing but threw back her shoulders. Her chin high, she strode over to the hut. She picked up her sleeping daughter and lay down on the cot, cradling her in her arms, knowing sleep might not come for a while but needing the comfort of her child.

  Frank and Bryan looked at each other and without a word began cleaning up the meal’s dishes. Stephen sat by the fire, no doubt wondering if he should be doing something more to ease the burden for these passionate young people. Somehow learning how to cook just didn’t seem enough anymore.

  Brogan and Bryan purchased an old Harley-Davidson motorcycle shortly after arriving at Cosala almost three years earlier. With Frank’s help, Bryan cleaned it up and restored it to good working order. He rebuilt the engine to run on bio-fuel. For trips within Texas Province it was safer than using forged T-chips and risk getting caught on the rail line.

  Two days later, Frank looked the motorcycle over carefully, cleaning sparkplugs and making sure everything was ready for Brogan and Bryan’s trip to Mazatlán. Juan dropped Mateo off on his way to Mazatlán, wanting to arrive early to make sure everything was ready for the council meeting. Emily and Mateo were in the village, playing with other children. As he worked, he considered how quickly Mateo seemed to fit into the rhythm of daily routine he and Stephen established. He appointed himself Emily’s big brother and she, in turn, followed him around like a little puppy.

  It was time to send Brogan and Bryan on their way, again. He stood up and looked down at the motorcycle with a critical eye. Everything looked good. He heard a noise behind him and almost had a heart attack as he turned and saw two marine officers standing at attention in front of his hut. Trying to appear nonchalant, he reached for a monkey wrench he’d placed in the side car. Suddenly he heard familiar laughter.

  “It’s okay, Dad. It’s us.” Brogan said with a giggle. He looked more closely. Sure enough, the two soldiers were his daughter and her partner.

  “What the…!” Frank said in shock.

  “These are the disguises Marco sent us. Aren’t they terrific?” Brogan asked as she moved to an at-rest position.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack. So, yeah, I guess they are really good.”

  Stephen walked around the hut from the chicken coop where he collected eggs. He almost dropped the eggs at the sight of two soldiers. After a few seconds, he realized it had to be Brogan and Bryan. He looked at them more closely. The armored padding made Bryan look even bigger than normal, and lifts must be in his shoes since he looked several inches taller. He wore the eagles of a colonel on his collar. His hair buzz cut on the sides, he clutched a regulation cap under his arm. His shoes were polished to a glass shine. Medals covered his chest and he even had a laser gun on his weapons belt. The name-tag he wore said, “Colonel Sam Watson.”

  He looked over at the person who had to be Brogan. Only her green eyes an
d their sparkle gave her away. Dressed in a marine uniform, the gold leaf on her collar indicated she was a major. The padded armored uniform hid her breasts. Her thin build contributed to the masculine appearance. And, somehow, she darkened her face to give the appearance of a beard shadow on her chin and lip. Her hair was cut almost identical to Bryan’s. She also had a laser gun on her weapons belt. Her name tag said she, or he, was Major Joe Eisenhower.

  “Are you done looking?” Brogan asked the two men with a giggle.

  “I am amazed,” Frank said as he shook his head, walking around them for another look at a different angle. “I never would have guessed who you are.”

  “Me neither,” Stephen echoed.

  Herman ran up, wagging his tail and greeted them.

  “Well,” Bryan said with a laugh, “Guess we can’t fool you, huh, Herman?”

  Both Emily and Mateo looked a bit confused at first, but since Herman wasn’t concerned they weren’t either. They quickly figured out the couple were in disguises and enthusiastically decided it was a great game. The children ran into the huts looking for something to use for their own disguises. While the children searched for costumes, the adults talked seriously about the meeting. Bryan provided an overview of where they were meeting and their agenda.

  “All council members will arrive in disguises for safety reasons. We will meet in the basement of the old Immaculate Conception Basilica, located in the heart of Mazatlán. The BL cell leader in the area told us there is a little-known escape tunnel leading from the basement, in case we run into trouble. We figured it safer to meet in the middle of town, rather than in an isolated area where we could be easily surrounded. Although the basilica is banned from holding religious services, it is still quite a tourist attraction because of its stunning architecture. Built in 1875, it took 43 years to build. I’m looking forward to seeing it.”