The first time he had come to this office to be interviewed for the job that Bob Scales had engineered for him, what caught his eye was three paintings on the far wall. The first was what was to be expected of a president of a Christ-centered college, a nicely framed section from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, the hand of God reaching out to touch Adam.
The other two, though. The second was sort of a transition between religion and the military, a painting of Washington, kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge, praying. The third was Howard Pyle's The Nation Makers, a stunning portrait of a line of Revolutionary War infantry going into battle, men tattered but defiant, the American flag little more than a rag but going forward relentlessly to what could only be ultimate victory.
The paintings were still there, as always, but as John turned to look back out the window at the students drilling, Pyle's work took on new meaning.
Dan was silent and then, to John's surprise, reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of scotch and a couple of coffee cups.
"If the board of trustees ever knew about this, they'd hang me," Dan said, and John wondered it he was being serious or just joking. It was, after all, a dry campus.
John took the offered cup and waited for Dan to pour an ounce. He held it up.
"For the Republic, may God preserve her," Dan said. The two drained the cups down in a single gulp, Dan exhaling noisily as he put his down.
"What's up, John?" Dan asked.
"Well, sir, I guess you knew I was out of the loop for a week or so."
"You had us scared there, John. At chapel every day for the last week Reverend Abel and the kids offered prayers for you."
"Well, it most certainly worked," John said, looking down at his hand. "What about classes. Are they still meeting?"
Dan shook his head.
"Remember, most of our faculty live miles from here; no, classes are canceled."
"But you still hold daily chapel."
"Now more than ever," Dan said quietly.
That was reassuring, darn reassuring, a link to the past somehow. And yes, as well, in any time of crisis churches would fill up again. The Sunday after 9/11 John remembered the small chapel he and Mary used to go to over in Swannanoa was packed to overflowing.
"I felt I should check in, see what was happening on campus. After all, this place is my job." He hesitated. "No, actually my life in so many ways. I was wondering if there was anything I should be doing here now."
"Appreciate that," Hunt replied softly, "but I think you have other responsibilities now." John said nothing.
"I heard about your role on what people are now calling the Council. I think it's darn good you're part of that. They need someone like you. Focus your efforts on that; don't worry about us."
"These are my kids, too, Dan. I worry about them."
Outside came the echo of Washington's voice, chewing someone out. He sounded like a Marine DI again, the right edge of sarcasm but, in respect to the traditions of the campus, at least no overtly sexual, scatological, or downright obscene phrases thrown in.
"To survive, to keep these kids alive, we're selling our services," Dan said quietly. "But there's a lot more behind this as well."
John stood up and walked to the window, empty cup in hand, and watched as Washington, finished with the inspection, now started to run the kids through some close-order drill.
"What is that out there?" John asked.
"First Platoon of Company A of the Black Mountain Militia," Dan said.
"What?"
"Just that. Charlie Fuller and I agreed on it a couple of days ago. A hundred and fifty kids so far. The other two platoons are out on a conditioning run up to Graybeard and back. We'd have more, but that's all the weapons we could find so far. Company B will start forming up once we get more weapons."
"Isn't this a little overboard?" John asked. "Hell, I know Washington's a good man, a great man actually, but come on, Dan. What is he doing out there, getting turned on with old memories, that it's Parris Island or Khe Sanh again?"
"In truth, John, yes. I guess you heard about the riot at the gap."
"Yes."
"It was then that Charlie realized something, and Washington had most likely put the bug in his ear already: we need an army." John sighed.
"Three weeks ago those kids were dozing in classes, trying to sneak up to Lookout Mountain with their boyfriend or girlfriend, or maybe, just maybe, studying for exams. Now we're making them into an army?"
"I was younger than them when I lost this," Dan said, and he slapped his left leg, a hollow thump resounding. "You were a lieutenant at twenty-two yourself."
"Yeah, but Dan, this is a college. A small Christian college up in the mountains of North Carolina. Somehow it just doesn't feel right to me."
"Where else in this entire valley are there four hundred young men and women, in fairly good shape to start with, intelligence pretty darn good, already imbued with a sense of identity for the school and those who lead it, like you, me, Washington?"
"I don't know," John sighed, watching as the column went to right flank march and two girls screwed up, Washington in their faces and reaming them out so that one was crying as she tried to march.
"We had six hundred kids here, on the day before things went down," Dan said, now at John's side and watching the kids drill.
"About a hundred and fifty have left, trying to strike out for home. That was hard; you were not here for that meeting in the chapel. A lot of praying, soul-searching. I advised them to stay. Told them that if anything, their parents would want them to stay here until this crisis was over, knowing that they would be safe. Most who left are local, a day's walk away, but a couple of them are from Florida, said they felt they should try and get home."
John shook his head. The ones trying to get to Florida were most likely now facing hundreds of thousands heading the other way.
"The rest agreed to stay. Remember how several years back we had all those discussions in faculty meetings about orienting the college more to service? A couple of other colleges in the area, our rivals, were touting that all the time, so we put into the curriculum community service. That's what we're doing now."
"Dan, there's a helluva difference between kids working at a homeless shelter or community day-care center and drilling like an army."
"I don't think so, John. The times, as the old song went, are a-changin'."
The column of students turned and marched back across the green, weapons at the shoulder, and the sight of it sent a chill down his spine. He looked back at Pyle's painting and then back to them.
My God, no difference, John realized. The tradition of close-order drill was a primal memory left over from the days when armies really did go into battle that way, shoulder to shoulder. Today it was supposedly about discipline and spirit and the fact that soldiers were at least expected to march. But no different, no different from what he used to talk about with such enthusiasm at the Civil War Roundtable and see at reenactments.
The difference was, though, this was for real. From close-order drill Washington would take them to elementary tactics: fire and movement, holding a fixed position, laying down fields of fire, assault of a fixed position, marksmanship, leadership in combat, emergency first aid, infiltration tactics, hand-to-hand combat, how to kill with a knife, how to kill with your bare hands.
The sight of them drilling such struck home, as forcefully as what John had been forced to do in the park.
"Washington thinks the world of you," Dan said. "By the way, he told me what happened in the park. Said you handled yourself well."
"Handled myself well? I puked my guts out."
"No, not that. First time you shoot someone, if you got any heart in you, any touch of the divine spark, you should be horrified." He looked off.
"I lost my leg during Tet. The day before that, though, I was on point, turned the corner of a trail, and there he was...." He sighed, shaking his head.
"The Thomas Hardy poem, remember it?"
John nodded. " 'I shot at him and he at me, And killed him in his place.
"Well, I got him first; he was walking point for his unit and we just ran into each other. Before I even quite realized it I emptied my Ml6 into him. Hell of a firefight exploded, and I was on the ground, lying by his side, and I could hear him gasping for air. Do you know what he said?"
John was silent, half-suspecting.
"He was crying for his mother. I understood enough of the language to know that...."
His voice trailed off and John could see tears in Dan's eyes.
"The kid I shot," John said, "certainly wasn't calling for his mother. He died filled with hate."
"Perhaps he sees things different now," Dan replied. "I know it's not orthodox with some, but I have a hard time not seeing God as forgiving, even after death."
John tried to smile. There were some on campus who were rather traditionally "hard-line" in their views of salvation. Dan had never voiced this view before and it was a comfort, for the memory of that twisted kid's final seconds lingered like a recurring nightmare.
"Washington told me how you reacted and the kids know that, too. Remember, this is a Christian school and the reaction could have been bad if it seemed you were cold-blooded about it. So a lesson was taught there, John, but it's what you said as well that resonated.
"Washington and later Charlie Fuller told me that at that moment we as a community were balanced on a razor. Charlie had made the right decision, but he did not know how to see it carried through correctly.
"You did. At that moment we could have sunk into a mob or, worse, a mob that would then follow a leader, even a leader of good heart like Charlie, but still follow him with bloodlust and thus would start the slide.
"You're the historian; you know that of all the revolutions in history, only a handful have truly succeeded, have kept their soul, their original intent."
Though it struck John as slightly melodramatic, Dan pointed to the portrait of Washington kneeling in the snow.
"I don't think we are in a revolution," John said. "We're trying to survive until such time as some order is restored. Communications up, enough vehicles put back on the road to link us together again as a nation."
"But suppose that never happens," Dan said quietly.
"What?"
"Just that, John. Suppose it never happens. Suppose the old America, so wonderful, the country we so loved, suppose at four fifty P.M. eighteen days ago, it died. It died from complacency, from blindness, from not being willing to face the harsh realities of the world. Died from complacent self-centeredness. Suppose America died that day."
"For heaven's sake, Dan, don't talk like that," John sighed.
"Well, I think it did die, John. I think our enemies caught us with total surprise. We should have seen it. I'm willing to bet there were a hundred reports floating around Congress warning of this, experts who truly did know their stuff screaming that we were wide open. It happens to all nations, all empires in history. Hell, you're the historian; you know that. And at the moment it does happen, no one believes it actually is happening. They can't comprehend how their own greatness can be humbled by another whom they view as being so beneath them, so meaningless, so backwards so as not to be a threat. You know that, John. Nine-eleven, Pearl Harbor, were like fleabites in comparison to this."
"The Mongols hitting Eastern Europe in 1241," John said softly. "The Teutonic Knights, when they first saw the Mongols at the Battle of Leignitz, supposedly laughed hysterically at the sight of their opponents on horses so small they were the size of ponies. Ponies that would be crushed under the first charge of lancers. They lowered their lances, charged, and at a hundred and fifty yards the Mongols decimated them with their compound bows, unheard of in Europe, each bolt hitting at fifty yards with the kinetic energy of a .38. Thirty thousand Mongols annihilated tens of thousands of Europe's finest that day."
Dan nodded.
"The French knights at Crecy mocking the English longbowmen. The British mocking us at Monmouth and Cowpens. The Germans disdainful of the Russians in 1941," John said.
"And us in Vietnam," Dan said quietly, "though that was not a war for our national survival, but it certainly was for them. I remember going over there filled with a bunch of crap about how we were going to walk all over the gooks. Well, I've not walked right since.
"Nation makers out there, John. Some of our profs might think I've sold this college to the community, but the hell with them. I know a college nearby, one that put out a lot of majors in peace studies, and if there was a protest anywhere against our military, they'd show; it was almost required. If an army recruiter ever showed up there, they'd get mobbed, all in the name of peace of course. Can you imagine you or me ever getting a job there? Diversity worked for them only as long as you toed the line with their views, and now the whirlwind is upon us." He sniffed derisively. "They'll never make it now. I bet on that campus, today, they're sitting around like the French nobles did at Versailles even as the mob swarmed over the gates. I bet they're singing 'Give Peace a Chance,' even as they starve to death."
"Well, that's not going to happen to my kids," Dan said coldly, "and in our doing so our community will survive as well."
"A hundred and fifty for Company A. Another hundred for Company B once we get the weapons in. You take a close look and a couple of those kids are carrying reenactor Springfields from the Civil War by the way. The others are doing community service work or working on other projects. Kids that helped stop the salmonella outbreak, volunteering up at the isolation ward. Already have a crew of kids starting to cut firewood for the winter. Professor Daniels with the outdoor ed department figures we can retrofit a couple of the old oil boilers to burn wood in this building and the library and have steam heat. We'll need over three hundred cords of wood, though. Professor Lassiter is talking about rigging up a water turbine in the dam at Lake Susan. He thinks we could have it up and running by autumn and have electricity." John could not help but smile.
Most of the towns in the area, back a hundred or more years ago, first got their electricity that way. Entrepreneurs would come in, sell the community a generator, show them how to hook it up to a mill dam, string some wire, and the miracle, what was then the miracle, of electricity arrived.
"Professor Sonnenberg tells me that in our school library are back issues of Scientific American all the way back to the 1850s. Also Popular Mechanics. In those golden pages are plans from eighty years ago, a hundred years ago, to build radios, telegraphs, steam engines, batteries, internal combustion engines, formulas for nearly every advance in chemistry.
"In our library we got darn near every issue of Mother Earth News, and the Foxfire books." Dan chuckled at that. "Most of the other profs had viewed such publications with disdain, but on the faculty was a beloved old professor from before your time, now dead, who was definitely, as the kids said, 'a granola eater.' That prof left us a gold mine. How to find food, how to preserve it, how to store it up. We got several groups out now, those books in hand, harvesting enough to keep us alive. Hard to believe, John, but rattlesnake shish kebab isn't all that bad.
"It's all at our fingertips if only we look down at our fingertips to see it there.
"But the kids out there must keep this place secure and, if need be, buy time."
"Buy time for what? We have the passes secured."
"You know about the fight there, don't you?" Dan asked. "Yes."
"Well, that was a disorganized mob. Word is starting to filter in that groups are starting to come together. Most are just scared people banding together for survival and mutual protection, exactly what we are doing here. But some, John, there's rumors about cults. A family that was allowed to pass through here yesterday, actually heading east, coming out of Tennessee, said that over by Knoxville there's a guy claiming this is the start of a holy war."
"And let me guess, it's his vision of holiness you s
ubscribe to or you die."
Dan nodded his head.
"Says that Jesus appeared to him just before the power went off and gave him his mission, that he is the new John the Baptist preparing the way for the final return. And good God, supposedly there are hundreds now following him and killing those who disagree."
"Several weeks, that's all it's taken," John sighed.
Dan rested a hand on his shoulder.
"Just remember Ecclesiastes, John: 'A time for war, a time for peace.
"So now it's back to this. And back to kids drilling on the town green. I want to think that across America, today, there's a thousand such groups drilling in order to keep civilization intact so that we don't become a mob where one eats only because he is stronger than others or we kill each other in an insane frenzy of crazed beliefs."
"That's why those kids out there are drilling and that's why I want you to be in command of them."
"Me?" he asked, incredulous at the suggestion. "Hell, you're the one with the vision."
"I'm a college president," Dan said with a smile. "A one-legged college president."
"A wounded war veteran," John replied sharply.
"Yeah, a dumb eighteen-year-old kid from Mocksville, North Carolina, so damn stupid I couldn't see I was in a mine field. But I got the GI Bill, disability checks, and, since I could no longer run or play ball, a realization that I had to be something else. So here I now sit.
"John, while we work here, I want you to lead in the town. Charlie is a good man, a damn good man, but his focus, it's on the moment, on survival for the community, and God bless him for it. But we need something more. We need someone with vision who can see beyond, like the song said, 'to patriots' dreams ...' You have the respect of everyone in this town now. The kids, the community, the police, Charlie, everyone."
"Why?" John said coldly. "Because I fumbled the job of blowing some junkie's brains out?"
"No, because of what you said before you blew his brains out, as you now so crudely put it. Maybe that poor devil-consumed kid really did have a purpose in life after all. Maybe it was to give you that moment.
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