“You remember me,” he looked at Eric. “I was overweight. I have this damned thing on my face,” he pointed to the foot-shaped birthmark, which was actually much less visible now that his color was better and he was getting some sun.
“I got busted a couple of times for being a peeping tom,” Earl said, and blushed. “I was always looking at women as an object, or something to own, because; well, because I was never going to have one of my own.”
Eric sat back and folded his arms. “And,” he asked.
“It never went any farther than that,” Earl said, “honest. I still gave women the creeps, though, because of how I was looking at ‘em. Since then, I don’t know, things have just been different. And since the botched raid,” Earl shook his head.
“There’s actually someone I’m kind of seeing,” Earl said. “She seems to like me well enough and I’m not pushing it or anything. We’ll see how it goes and, I don’t know, maybe something will come of it. If not, I’m not going back to the old me. I haven’t actually been in charge of hardly anything for the last six months, but for some reason my name came up. I’m not gonna screw that up.”
“That’s what I was talking about,” Amanda said. “He’s just different since the raid.”
“Your people can take at least part of the credit,” Earl said to Eric and Kyle. “We were only there for a day and a half, and we’d just tried to raid your base, but we were treated with respect, and decency, and kindness. Even by the women. I knew that something had to change, and it wasn’t going to be the world around me.”
“Well then,” Eric said, “I think we can put the issue of abuse to bed. Raids need to stop though, like yesterday. You’ve started farming, and Amanda says that Clint was working with some local farmers and ranchers, so they shouldn’t be necessary anyway.”
Earl nodded. “Clint was doing it just to thumb his nose at your Major after the embarrassment of the raid and the meeting afterward,” Earl said. “He wanted to prove that he could still do whatever he wanted and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.”
“Well,” Eric sighed, “that ends now.”
“Agreed,” Earl said. “There’s something else though, I can tell.”
Kyle nodded and glanced at Amanda.
“If she wants to leave,” Earl says, “that’s totally up to her. I thought I made it clear that I don’t work that way.”
Kyle made a face. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
…
The air-raid siren went off shortly before lunch finished since everyone would still be close to camp. Ten minutes later, Earl, Eric, Kyle, and Amanda were standing on the picnic table.
Earl held up his hand, and the group quieted down almost right away. Clint was sitting off to the side, still tied up, and now with his legs tied up too, to keep him from running off. He was beyond mad about how easily the group had switched allegiances. He consoled himself with the knowledge that it would all fall apart around Earl, just like it had almost fallen apart around him, unless Earl started ruling with an iron fist.
“First of all,” Earl said, “thanks for getting back so quickly, I know it’s a pain. Second, there’s going to be a few more changes, and the first is going to affect everybody in one way or another.”
“I know things haven’t been perfect around here,” Earl said. “C’mon now, let me finish. Yeah, they’ve been far from ideal, but some of that is going to change immediately and some of that is going to take some time. The worst parts are changing right now but–and this is a big but–I know not everyone is going to want to stick around if they have a chance to leave.”
Clint was watching Earl take everything he’d built up and tear it right down in front of him, and he was just numb to it.
“I don’t want anybody making any decisions until tomorrow,” Earl said, “but the day after tomorrow, if you want to leave, Eric and Kyle are starting their own group. Amanda and William are leaving with Kyle, and she’s taking her stuff with her. I’m willing to let them take some of the R.V.’s as well—Clint, Tony, and Coop won’t need theirs anymore, after all. Now, it would be foolish for a dozen different groups to start out on their own because, well, we’ve seen what happens to small groups out there.”
“Which leads to my second point,” Earl continued. “The raiding stops now! We’ve got some crops growing, and I hope to find us at least a couple of farmers to trade with; we don’t need to raid.”
“If a large enough group decides to go with Eric and Kyle and Amanda,” Earl shrugged, “I’m not going to stop you. I’d like to keep a large enough group together here for protection and defense, and to continue with the farms, but I won’t stop you.”
“And it’s done,” Clint thought. “Why did I even bother? I might as well just die now.”
…
When the siren went off at 5:30 the next evening, there was a constant hum in the air, and you could almost reach out and touch the slight tension in camp.
“Everybody,” Earl said, “there’s really only one thing to do now and that’s declare your intentions. I’m going to head over here to my left and Eric and Kyle are over there to my right. Before I do, though, I want to make a couple of things clear; first, no hard feelings if anyone wants to leave. Second, I plan on having a relationship with the other group, and the Army base, and the other town for that matter. It’s not like anyone who leaves is dead to us.”
Earl hopped down off the picnic table, which is something he never would have done a year ago, and walked off to his left. To his amazement and joy, he was immediately joined by Teri, the woman he’d been seeing for the last couple of months.
…
Chapter Seventeen
“I had no idea that this many people would want to stay,” Amanda said.
“You said between a third and a half would want to leave,” Kyle said. “And that’s about what it looks like. Maybe a little less than a third want to come with us, but we’re still looking at about one-hundred and thirty people.”
Kyle looked at Eric, “You ready for this?”
“Absolutely not,” Eric said. “It was going to be you and me, and then I was probably going to die doing something stupid.”
“Yeah, how’s that workin’ out for ya’,” Kyle asked.
“I don’t know,” Eric said with a smile. “This looks pretty stupid to me.”
…
Shortly after lunch, almost fifty SUVs and their attached trailers pulled out of the encampment. Good-byes had taken a little while, but, logistically, it just took a long time to maneuver that many big vehicles around without breaking things.
Clint, Cooper, and Tony were in the back seat of Kyle’s SUV, with Amanda covering them. William was in the front seat between them. She had instructions to shoot any or all three of them if they looked like they were getting loose, or going to cause a problem. The likelihood of that was pretty slim though, since they were doped up on a triple dose of diphenhydramine.
Kyle was in the lead, with Eric pulling up the rear. They were going to drop off their prisoners at Promised Land because that was, in their eyes, the logical place–being the only real law in the area.
The twenty-mile drive took less than fifteen minutes, and Kyle used his radio to call ahead when he was about five-minutes out. The radio operator told him the Major would meet him at the I-40 entrance to the park since the quarantine was still in effect, which was fine with him. He didn’t want to have all these people in campers have to make U-turns in the middle of the park and then try to pass each other on the road to get back out.
…
“Sergeant Ramirez,” Mallory said, when he got out of the SUV and came around to check on Amanda.
“Major,” Kyle said, with a quick salute, but without coming to attention. Old habits die hard, but he wasn’t on the parade ground and, frankly, she wasn’t in his chain-of-command right now. Eric was pulling up to help with the prisoners.
“So, what have we here,” Mallor
y asked.
“Mr. Clint Baxter,” Kyle said, as he helped a slightly groggy Clint out of the back of his SUV, “Robert Cooper, and Anthony Roach. Also known as the unholy trinity or the three stooges of cell-block whatever you put them in.”
“Excuse me,” Mallory said.
“Clint has been behind the raids in our Area of Operations for at least the last eight months or so,” Kyle said. “Even after the meeting at the airport. The group he was ruling elected a new leader a couple of days ago, and we have reason to believe things are going to change–for the better.”
Eric was out of his truck at this point, but hadn’t said anything yet.
“Well,” Mallory said. “I guess that’s good to know. I suppose I should be happy to have the two of you back, but we honestly don’t have room for,” she paused and looked to be doing some mental math, “another hundred-plus people.”
Kyle was floored. What the hell? “Excuse me,” it was Kyle’s turn to say.
“That would be ‘Excuse me, Ma’am’,” Mallory said.
“No,” Kyle said. “I think I’ll pick and choose when I say Ma’am at this point. I didn’t ask if we could stay here, and frankly it’s quite an assumption you just made, thinking we were back to stay.”
Eric folded his arms and leaned against Kyle’s truck. This was completely between Mallory and Kyle, and he was going to let them have it out.
“Mr. Ramirez,” Mallory started.
“That’s Sergeant Ramirez,” Kyle interrupted, “unless I’ve been court-martialed in absentia, and since you’ve already called me Sergeant once I know that hasn’t happened. For your information, I’ve already done a far more extensive “meet and greet” with this group of people than anybody has done with any group you’ve brought in before, ever.”
Mallory glanced at Amanda and smirked. “I bet you have,” she said half under her breath.
Kyle took two steps towards Mallory and both she and the MPs who were there with her took a step back.
“Oh,” Eric thought but kept the grin off his face, “you have SO stepped in it now, girl.”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve to say something like that that,” Kyle said. “I would have expected that from some people but not from you; never from you.” He didn’t yell, he didn’t hiss, he didn’t whisper, but the edge to his voice was so raw, and the fury, hurt, and disgust was so obviously barely contained that one of the MPs took another step back. The look in Kyle’s eyes told Mallory that she hadn’t just pushed too far, she had crossed a line that she didn’t even know existed inside of Kyle.
It was then that Mallory saw the boy in the front seat of Kyle’s SUV, and it sunk in that he’d said you instead of we. “Kyle,” she started.
Kyle reached up and pulled off his Velcro nametape. “Save it,” Kyle said. “I resign.”
Kyle flicked the nametape at Mallory who caught it by reflex.
Kyle returned to his SUV as Eric reached in and pulled out Cooper. Kyle grabbed Tony and they delivered them both to Mallory without another word.
“Let’s GO!” Kyle hollered as he rounded the front of his SUV.
…
“And here we are,” Kyle said as he pulled onto the grounds of the abandoned Benton County Airport. This was one of the areas that had been scouted out a couple of weeks after they’d arrived at the park, and then checked on periodically thereafter. Remarkably, it had remained deserted…until now. Kyle was surprised that Mallory hadn’t moved at least some of the Black Hawks up here, but she hadn’t, and as far as he was concerned this was now home.
Kyle pulled around the runway and then stopped before driving out into the fields of grass surrounding the airport. The grass wasn’t quite knee-high at this point in the summer, but Kyle had visions of hot catalytic converters starting a hundred fires and burning everyone out of their new home, and their trailers, within minutes of parking.
Once everyone was stopped and out of their vehicles, he pulled them all together for a quick pow-wow.
“This was a bit of a lucky break,” Kyle started, “but we’re still going to have to do some work before we can drop the trailers. After we cut down this grass, we’re going to set up in the fields around the runway.” Kyle pointed to the overgrown areas to the northwest, north, and northeast of the runway.
…
“So, what’re the plans for tomorrow,” Amanda asked.
Kyle shrugged, more in resignation than because he didn’t know. “More of the same,” he said. “We have a pretty good head start because we have food and a warm, dry place to sleep. The one thing this location lacks is a really good water supply. There’s some, but not a lot. We need to work on a way to maximize what there is and minimize waste.”
“You keep saying we,” one of the members of the group that came out with them said. Kyle hadn’t even come close to learning who everyone was yet and was just now realizing how much he relied on someone’s name being front and center on their chest.
“Clint said we,” they continued, “sometimes. It sounds different when you say it, though.”
Kyle didn’t know where this was headed, but the comment had made him a little uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, I’m horrible with names. I’m used to everyone having their last name sewn on their shirt. What was your name,” Kyle asked, keeping his voice casual.
“James,” he said. “James Dalton, but everyone calls me Jim.”
“Well, Jim,” Kyle said, “I can’t speak for how things were run where Clint was involved, because I wasn’t there. I can tell you that when I say we, I mean we. I also really don’t mean to be in charge. Eric and I knew about this place and figured it was big enough to hold us all so we would head this direction and see if it was still free. We saw that some things needed to be done and…”
Kyle shrugged his shoulders again and this time he realized why he was uncomfortable. He really was in charge of this group, at least for the time being, and nobody was questioning it. Eric hadn’t pulled rank and nobody in the group had stepped up since there didn’t seem to be a need.
“And there isn’t someone else above me giving orders for me to carry out,” Kyle thought. He wasn’t just in charge of a squad or a platoon and reporting back up. He was well and truly in charge.
Kyle took a deep breath before he continued. “I guess I am also a little used to being in charge,” Kyle finally said, “If I see something that needs to get done, I try to take care of it. As a Sergeant in the Army, I also wouldn’t ask my men to do something I wasn’t capable of and willing to do right alongside them.”
Kyle shook his head slightly. “Not everyone is like that,” he said, “but that’s how I worked and, well, I’ve only been out of the Army for about five hours so, bear with me. Old habits die hard.”
That got a chuckle from the group and a smile from Amanda.
…
“Forty-one trailers,” Eric said. “I say we break it up into three groups of seventeen. Not so many in one spot that they’ll be crowded, but enough people that any one group should be able to protect itself for a short time or provide support for the others.”
“How do we break them up,” Amanda asked.
“Funny you should ask that,” Eric said. “You know everyone here–some better than others–but you know everyone that came with us. I think we need a fair mix in each group; don’t put all of the families together, or all the single people or couples in one group, that sort of thing.”
Amanda nodded and bit the corner of her lip–her thinking face. “Give me an hour or so,” she said, “and I think I can have a list for you of each group.”
“Sounds good,” Eric said, and turned to leave.
“Eric,” Amanda said, before he had gotten more than a couple of steps away. “I know it’s soon, really soon, but is there anyone I should…avoid, or, uhm, not avoid putting you in a group with?”
Eric was a bit surprised by the question but realized that Kyle must have talked to her about Karen.
“Than
k you,” Eric said. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m not looking for anyone right now. I’ll be fine wherever you put me.”
Chapter Eighteen
July 2, 2013 - Promised Land Army Base, Natchez Trace State Park, Tennessee
“Are you sure,” Joel asked, for what was probably the fiftieth time.
“No, Joel,” Ty said, “I’m not sure, but at this point I don’t see any harm. The quarantine has held, nobody else has gotten sick in two weeks, and you haven’t shown any signs of illness the entire time.”
Rachael had been virtually isolated with less than half-a-dozen people for almost five weeks, and though they had been able to talk to each other every day by radio, they hadn’t seen each other since the quarantine began. The kids seemed to be weathering the separation just fine, but he just didn’t do well when they were apart for long stretches. It was one of the reasons he used to hate going on business trips.
“Go,” Ty said.
As much as Joel wanted to drive to Redemption, he couldn’t justify the fuel and was forced to walk.
…
Rachael was in the middle of cleaning up from lunch when there was a knock on the door. For the last, almost six weeks now, hardly anyone had knocked. The isolation zone around the four cabins they were using had held, and everyone had taken to simply announcing their presence a few seconds before they opened the front door–Rachael included.
Millie looked up, but didn’t growl or head over to the door–so it was someone that she knew and didn’t have a problem with.
Rachael’s heart was in her throat as she slowly walked to the front door. There wasn’t a peephole, nor were there windows on either side of the door. She hadn’t talked to Joel or the kids since yesterday afternoon. What if something had happened?
Dark Grid (Book 3): Dark Coup Page 13