“We did all we could, it just happened so damn fast. It would have been a lot worse if we hadn’t been down there.”
“Yes, indeed, it was fortuitous that you were there,” he said, tilting his head slightly, a small smile growing on his face.
“Sir, if you are insinuating that I had anything to do with this—”
The captain cut him off with a raised hand. “I’m doing nothing of the sort, Mr. Johnson.”
“Captain, if I may speak freely?” he asked, coffee completely forgotten in front of him. After a moment, the captain nodded, leaning back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Sir…” he caught himself, he almost said ‘you’, “we’ve been screaming all over the Pacific now for over eighteen months, and running her pretty hard.”
“Yes, I know that, Mr. Johnson.”
“Things are starting to break all over the ship, and it’s almost like we’re a bunch of one-armed paper hangers. One pump breaks, we get that one fixed, another one goes out. The patch we put on the hull in Sri Lanka is barely holding and rusting to hell. The desalinization plant broke again last week, and it took me and Mr. Nakamura three days to fix it.”
“Go on,” Cmd. Wright said, again leaning forward, playing with his ridiculous beard.
“I checked the PM and refit schedules. We’re a year overdue for a complete refit. The last time we were in dry-dock was well before you and I came on board, seven years to be exact. We’re slowing down because the bottom is covered with sea growth. It’s getting fouled by barnacles, and I’m surprised the water intake scuppers aren’t completely clogged. We need to make repairs, and definitely need to dry-dock soon if we want to keep her afloat.”
“You’ve had your say, Mr. Johnson. That will be all,” the captain said, dismissing him with a wave.
“But, sir, we need to get back to Pearl, or at least Midway. The USS Phillips was still tied up there last time we were there, and we can cannibalize her for parts at least.”
“That is out of the question! You are dismissed, Mr. Johnson!” the captain said, as the sari-clad women appeared again, bringing only two plates of food, he noticed. So this was all planned. It was staged. That motherfucker! he thought, rage boiling up inside of him.
When he turned to leave, Cmd. Wright called to him. “Mr. Johnson, try and get yourself some rest. I’ve made a few changes to the watch roster. You and Petty Officer Suplee will have the overnight watch on the bridge until further notice. Then both of you can talk football all night. That is what you talk about, isn’t it, Mr. Johnson?”
“Yes, sir,” Johnson said, trying hard to hide his rage.
The Cmd. Wright picked up his linen napkin and snapped it open, placing it on his lap. “That will be all, Mr. Johnson.”
Johnson walked out of the wardroom and was heading down the passageway to his cabin when he heard them both burst out into laughter. His head was pounding, and he wanted to scream. By the time he was back inside his cabin, his rage had reached the breaking point. He balled his fist and punched the closest locker to him, making a huge dent. He checked his watch, and realized he only had a few hours before he had the watch again. He lay down and tried to sleep, but sleep eluded him. He lay there thinking about Mary for a long time, but then brushed those thoughts out of his mind, they were too painful to contemplate.
Chapter 16: The Ancient Ones
Tim and Robyn stood, watching the man approach, and as he got closer, they could see his features more easily. Bare chested, he wore blue jeans and boots, and a headband of leather kept his long black hair from his eyes. He walked purposefully, and when he reached where the bison had knocked down the barbed wire fence, Tim started towards him.
“Stay here,” he said to Robyn, who sat on the hood of the Hum-Vee with her carbine on her lap. They approached one another, and Tim couldn’t see that the man was armed and found no indication of others with him, so relaxed a little. They met a few yards from the Hum-Vee, and the man held out his hand, Tim offered his also, and they shook ‘Indian’ fashion, grasping each other’s forearms, instead of shaking hands.
“Hebe!” the man said, and it sounded liked ‘heh-beh’.
“Hello, I’m Tim. Tim Flannery,” he said, releasing his grip.
“I am Dawn Redeagle. It’s a pleasure to meet you!” he said with a grin, showing perfect teeth.
“We were surprised to see you out here,” Tim said, waving his hand in a sweeping gesture.
“I am travelling myself. Your caravan was a sight to behold also,” Dawn said, his smile broadening. “Come, let us sit by my fire and we will talk!”
“Eh…” Tim hesitated, turning to look at Robyn.
“Ah, the little one with the itchy trigger finger. She will be safe. I mean you no harm, Tim.”
“Can I drive my rig over to you?”
“Yes, the buffalo knocked down the fence. Just drive on up next to my tent and I will wait for you there.”
Tim returned to Robyn by the Hum-Vee. “He’s invited us to sit and talk. He seems okay,” he assured her.
“Are you sure, Dad?” she said nervously.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Just keep your rifle handy if you feel nervous. But I’m not getting any vibes off this guy.”
“If you say so,” she said, still feeling edgy. She silently got into the Hum-Vee and Tim started it back up, putting it in gear and driving it carefully over the fenced area through the high grass, where he parked it a few yards from the huge teepee. They got out, and walked over to where the man was already sitting crossed legged by the fire. It had a small iron triangle over it, with a blue spackle ware coffee pot hanging above the flames. Tim and Robyn sat down across from him, and Tim introduced Robyn.
“Hebe, Robyn. That’s a pretty name for a pretty girl.”
“I thought it was ‘how’,” she said, a perplexed look on her face, and Dawn laughed.
“That’s only in the movies. I am Arapaho, and we say hello as ‘Hebe’. Some other tribes say it differently, but that is the way the Arapaho greet people.”
“Dawn, you’ll have to forgive us for our nervousness, we haven’t had much luck when running into people.”
“Yes, I understand. No need to apologize. I have witnessed some terrible things myself in my travels.”
“Where did you come from?” Tim asked.
“I came from Chicago. I was a professor of Native American Studies at the university there.”
“You rode all the way from Chicago on horseback?”
“No, I walked some. Amazing really, finding these animals,” Redeagle said, motioning with an open hand towards the horses, “I found them in a huge fenced meadow, lots of grass to eat, and a big pond for water. They just walked up to me and I was able to get on their backs right away. Apparently they’d been there, just like that, since it happened.”
“Amazing is right. I thought they were all dead.”
“So did I, Tim. One is a mare, the other is a stallion. I will breed them, and someday there will be plenty of horses roaming around, just like the buffalo.” He poured a cup of coffee out of the battered metal pot. “Would you care for a cup?”
“Yes, please,” Tim said. “Robyn, go to the camper and get two cups, please,” he said. When she was gone, he reiterated in short what had happened to them in Iowa, leaving out most of the details. Then he came back to the horses and to something he’d just thought of.
“If one is a mare, and the other a stallion, wouldn’t they have bred by now?”
“Yes, they have on several occasions.”
“But no foal yet?”
“Not yet unfortunately,” Dawn said.
“What if, you know, The Event has left whoever had survived sterile?”
“That would be very unfortunate indeed, Tim.”
“Some sort of weird cosmic joke. ‘OK, I’m going to kill you all off, and leave whoever is left unable to reproduce.’ That would totally suck.”
“That it would, but I’d like
to think not. I’d like to think we still have a chance.”
“If that was really the case, it would make all our lives totally pointless,” he said with a sigh.
Dawn quickly changed the subject back to Tim’s travels, trying to avoid the thoughts that had kept him awake nights too. “Yes, it is wise to be cautious, returning to what you said earlier. It seems like when everyone died, it left only the bad, and the few of us who are not bad are left to fight tooth and nail.”
“So you have had the same happen to you?”
“No, I was able to avoid that by travelling overland mostly, staying away from the towns and cities. I had no choice though, when crossing the rivers, and witnessed a lady and a man getting kidnapped by a gang of men. I hid in the trees and watched, unable to do anything.”
“You have no guns?” Tim asked.
“No, I have my bow, that’s it.”
Robyn returned with the mugs. Dawn filled them up, Tim drinking it black like Robyn.
“So you made all this yourself?” Robyn asked.
“Yes. The teepee is made from limbs of a tree, and the hide is of buffalo. I transport it all with my horses,” he said.
“Wow! That is so cool!” she said, finally beginning to warm up to the stranger.
“I learned a long time ago how to live off the land, and that is how I choose to live now. One day I will meet a Native American woman, and we will make a new Arapaho tribe together,” he said with a laugh, not daring to have the thought of being sterile cross his mind again.
“So, is this all traditional Arapaho land?” Tim asked.
“No, Arapaho is further west, and into Colorado. Here it is Pawnee, but I am just travelling through.”
“Following the buffalo?” Robyn asked.
“Yes. I will go where the herd goes. It is they who will provide for me in the winter. You are very astute!”
“They sure have come back fast,” Tim said. “It was an amazing sight watching the herd cross the highway like that.”
“Yes, they have come back a lot faster than I would have thought. The Ancient Ones are smiling down on me I think.”
“Who are the Ancient Ones?” Robyn asked.
“My ancestors are the Ancient Ones. It is told that they spoke of this happening.” He went on and spoke of the signs, and when he got to the last one, Tim sat dumbfounded. “You will hear of a dwelling-place in the heavens, above the Earth, that shall fall with a great crash. It will appear as a blue star. Very soon after this, the ceremonies of my people will cease.”
“Blue star…” Tim said.
“Yes, I saw it too, right after the Great Dying. It was in the sky for weeks.”
“Me too, I saw that star!” Robyn said excitedly.
Tim told Dawn of Paul, how he thought it was a gamma ray burst, and that star, thousands of light years away, had exploded and died.
“Yes, that is what I believe also. And did you both have the burn? Like sunburn?”
“Yes, both of us, it baffled the hell out of me. I couldn’t explain how I’d gotten sunburn in November sleeping in my bed, and one hell of a hangover!”
“It is what The Ancient Ones spoke of.”
“But I thought that was a Hopi belief, not Arapaho,” Tim said.
“You are correct, but many native peoples have similar beliefs that go back farther than anyone can remember. It also goes on to say that a great destruction is coming. The world shall rock to and fro. A great white man will battle against other people in other lands, with those who possessed the first light of wisdom. There will be many columns of smoke and fire, such as White Feather has seen the white man make in the deserts, not far from here. Only those which come will cause disease and a great dying.”
“I think there has been enough dying,” Tim said. Thinking about what Dawn had just said, about the columns of smoke and fire that the white man has made, and of The Football hidden under his bed in the camper, he gave an involuntary shudder.
“But after that, there will be a great rebirth and the Earth will begin anew.”
“So you’re saying this has been foretold?”
“Yes. It has been passed down from generation to generation that this would happen. You see, the Earth is reborn over and over again. It has a cleansing once in a while to sort of straighten things out. Return the balance if you will.”
“Like when all the dinosaurs died off?” Robyn asked.
“I do believe that is true, Robyn.”
“That’s kind of scary.”
“That it is, but it is what happened. It has been left to us now, by the Ancient Ones, to do the right thing.”
“This battle?” she asked, sounding a lot older than what she was. “Who will make the fire?”
“The man who holds the key will. That will decide who will win. But there is great evil out there, and it has yet to be decided.”
“I don’t know about all that,” Tim said skeptically.
“It is what has been foretold, Tim.”
“Daddy, you have the key!” Robyn blurted out, and Tim gave her a look that said ‘shut up’!
“What does she mean, Tim?” Dawn asked.
“Daddy found The Football!”
“Robyn, please,” Tim said forcefully.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said in a very tiny voice.
Tim looked over to Dawn. He didn’t know what to say. Dawn nodded, and didn’t say anything for a moment, and Tim was so angry with Robyn at this point, he wanted to scream, and she could tell. She began to tear up, and got up and ran to the camper. Tim looked over at Dawn again and excused himself. Getting up, he walked to the camper and inside, where he found Robyn on the couch face down crying her eyes out. Tim knelt down beside her and rubbed her back.
“Honey, I am angry with you, but I’ll get over it.”
“I’m so sorry! It just came out!”
“I know, that’s why I really can’t be too angry with you. But from now on, please, please don’t tell anyone else we may meet that I have that. It’s that important.”
Through sobs she nodded. “I won’t, Daddy. I promise!”
“Are you going to be alright?”
“Yeah, I just heard his story, and he made it sound like you were the one that was going to be in the battle. You were going to be the one who would cleanse the world!”
Tim was dumbfounded. He didn’t get that impression at all from Dawn, but this kid was intuitive. How the hell did he fit into some ancient Indian prophecy? He didn’t see it at all.
“It’s all right. Are you going to come back outside?”
“No. I think I’ll stay here for a while.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, Daddy, I’m really sorry.”
“Just no more talking about the football. It’s our secret and it has to stay that way.”
“Okay,” she said, and sniffled. Tim stood and went to go back outside. “You sure you won’t come?”
“No, I’ll just stay here for a while. I’ll be out in a bit.”
“Alright, I’ll be right out there if you need me,” he said, walking back out and sitting back down with Dawn. “I’m sorry about that, Dawn. You know how kids are.”
“I understand. Tell, me…this football. Is it what I’m thinking it is?”
“Yes. I have the codes. Wish I didn’t, scares the hell out of me,” he said reluctantly, but he might as well, the cat was already out of the bag. He went on to tell him of the truck stop, the overgrown soybean field, the broken fuselage in Indiana, and how he stumbled across the case.
“That is quite a heavy burden to bear.”
“It is, Dawn. It is.”
“So tell me, Tim. I noticed your shirt. Sergeant Major?”
“Yeah, or at least I was. I was in the Pennsylvania National Guard. But I did some time in the active Army right out of high school.”
“So did I, it’s how I got the money for college.”
“You got to love the GI Bill!”
�
�True. I was Seventh Calvary. I love the irony,” Dawn said and Tim laughed.
“That is ironic!” Tim agreed, and then said, “Gary Owen!”
“Gary Owen!” Dawn replied. They sat and talked for a great while, both exchanging stories of their travels and what they had done to survive, Tim told of how he found Robyn, and how she’d come along so far, and how smart she was.
“Tim, you are no dummy yourself,” Dawn said. “From everything you’ve told me, it lets me know you are a very smart man, brave and resourceful. I am proud to have met you.”
“Ah, I’m not all that,” Tim said dismissively.
“Will you stay and have supper with me? I have made a buffalo stew, and there’s plenty for all of us.”
“Well, I think that would be okay,” Tim said with a wide smile.
“Good! And you can spend the night here and continue on your travels tomorrow.”
“Let me go get Robyn,” Tim said, getting up while Dawn fed the fire with more wood. When he returned, Dawn had replaced the coffee pot with a large Dutch oven, and had it sitting right on the coals. He lifted the lid and stirred what was inside, and already the aroma made both their mouths water. Robyn apologized to Dawn without having to be told, and he told her not to worry. When the stew was ready, Dawn ladled out three bowls full and they ate greedily.
“This is wonderful!” Tim said.
Robyn agreed and asked, “So this is buffalo?”
“Yes, quite delicious, isn’t it?” Dawn said.
“Oh, yes!” Robyn said, finishing off her bowl, and going for seconds. After she was done with that bowl, she sat back and belched loudly, making everyone laugh.
“I’ll take that as a compliment to the chef,” Dawn said, which made Robyn laugh more.
“That’s what Daddy says!”
They sat and made small talk, and Dawn told them of the Great Plains, and as the sun went down, Tim asked if Dawn would like a beer.
“I’d love one,” Dawn said.
Tim asked Robyn to go and fill the cooler up with a six-pack or two, and bring it out. “Can I have one?” she asked, and Tim laughed.
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