“No,” Ellen replied, knitting her brows. “But he’s only been gone for a little over three weeks and he said it could take him that long to get to Provo.” She tried to lighten her tone, but she was beginning to worry.
Even worse was the guilt. She wished her last words to him before he left had been, “I love you,” instead of the angry diatribe she’d launched at him. The hurt look he’d given her as he turned away had said louder than words ever could that he didn’t think she was being fair. That look had haunted her these past weeks. What if something had happened to him?
If only she’d had a decent night’s sleep the night before he left. If only he hadn’t sounded so damned cheerful when he announced he was going on scout. If only...
Ellen shook her head, determined to break the mood. So many worries, so little time. And somehow...somehow she knew she hadn’t seen the last of Jamal Rashid.
*
Hobbes smelled blood. Old blood, but enough to set him on the scent. Winter was a lean time and while he normally ignored man smell the last deer he’d killed was too long ago. Both he and his mate, for it was mating season, needed food. A whimsical and faint breeze teased him as he tracked his prey, first bringing a strong odor and then shifting and giving him nothing. He widened his nostrils and inhaled. This time it was so intense it brought a picture into his mind--horses and men and the nasty stench of that thing men carried that made loud sounds that hurt his ears.
One of the men left his horse and hobbled into the woods. Hobbes drifted along a rock ledge swept free of snow by wind until he was directly above the man. Bunching his haunches beneath him, Hobbes leapt.
Jamal heard a shriek, saw a flash of orange and black, and aside from fresh blood, messed up snow and the paw print of an enormous cat, his man was simply gone.
“Tiger,” he muttered under his breath, his beady eyes scanning the shadows. Did tiger’s hunt in packs? With his luck he was sure they did.
“We’re moving out,” he said and nobody even considered protesting.
Jamal and his men rode into Nephi almost a month after escaping from The Freeholds. Jamal’s missing finger throbbed the entire trip and his ear burned constantly. Mid-winter snows and a couple of avalanches forced delays and detours along the way. Keeping an eye out for tigers robbed them of sleep.
Jamal longed for a long, hot bath, clean clothes, some decent food and tea--tea so heavily sugared it would send a diabetic into a coma. But instead he reported to his Prince.
“You saw Sara Garcia?” Prince John asked. He paced his headquarters office like a caged tiger, giant strides pounding the floor and making small items dance along his desktop. A pen rolled off the edge of his white, marble-topped desk and bounced on the maple floor. “You’re sure?”
“I can’t be positive, your highness,” Jamal hedged. “I only had a quick glimpse through binoculars, but it looked like her.”
John snatched a dispatch from his desk, waved it in Jamal’s face and said, “Nicolo’s spies say she and her grandfather are both in the Freeholds, Jamal and I think your sighting confirms that.” He smiled, revealing his discolored teeth and said, “We need to hit them fast so I believe we’ll borrow a few of Anthony’s toys.”
“They’ve already had a month to flee, your highness.”
That brought John up short. “You think they will?”
“Don’t you?”
John nodded. “It’s been their M.O. As soon as we get close they disappear.”
John paced to the bullet-proof window of his office and looked out on the bustling port of Nephi. Deck cranes adorned cargo ships and offloaded their wares onto the teeming docks. Men moved in large groups, choreographed efficiency.
“We still have to try for them,” he said.
“Or we could decapitate the Freeholds,” Jamal suggested.
John turned to him, eyebrows raised.
“I know where Ellen Whitebear lives, sire,” Jamal said, grinning like a scarecrow.
Chapter 14: Breckenridge Outpost
Early March, 13 A.I.
Sergeant Linda Haley saw movement, brought up her field glasses and focused them in time to see a familiar form step from between two spruce trees and snowshoe towards her along the ruins of Highway 9. Jim Cantrell? What was he doing here? He and Michael Whitebear had stopped by more than a month ago on their way to Provo.
“Hey, Jim...er, Captain,” she said, as he came up to her. She’d called him Jim or Uncle Jim her whole life and now she was in the militia it was hard to remember to call him Captain. “What happened to your horse?”
“Lindy-girl, good to see you. Horse broke it’s leg in a rock slide over by Eagle a couple of days after Michael and I split up,” he said. “I’ll be needing another.”
He shook his head. “Make it two. I think I’ll take a packhorse as a spare.”
She grinned up at him, a plain girl with a sunny smile, and said, “Bet you could use a hot meal too.”
“Now there’s a bet you’d win.”
She tucked her binoculars in her pack, slung her AR across her back and said, “Want a ride?”
“You’re an angel. Wish I’d had you and that machine around when my horse went down.”
Linda mounted her Ski Doo Summit X snowmobile, fired it up, and said, “Well, hop on and I’ll have you there in a jiff.”
Jim snugged his navy blue watch cap over his ears, pressed his Ray Bans tight to his face and climbed aboard. He was tall enough the snow blasting over the windshield hit his face so he hunched over and shielded his head behind her back as she rocketed down Main Street to Water House.
With a pang he remembered renting one of the Water House condos with his wife Jill the summer before the Impact. They’d walked hand in hand along the burbling waters of Illinois Creek, tossed pebbles into Maggie Pond--until an irate local yelled at them to stop scaring the fish--and laughed as flatlander parents gasped for air while their children dashed along the busy sidewalks. That was the summer they’d decided to start trying for a child of their own.
He remembered Breckenridge as a colorful place full of gaily painted Victorian homes and businesses on the East side of the Blue River that clashed with the massive ski lodge hotel complexes on the West side. The mostly burned and quake damaged ruins of today stood in sad contrast to his happy memories.
His reverie was interrupted by a familiar sound, one he thought he’d never hear again. He shot a glance back over his shoulder. Shit! Helicopters. Two AH-1 Cobra gunships and a Huey troop transport.
“Linda, veer left!” He screamed as the gunships launched rockets and Water House exploded, showering surrounding structures and them with burning debris.
He knocked an ember off Linda’s shoulder before it could catch fire to her hair then held on for dear life as she gunned the Ski Doo between burning buildings, across a snowbound parking lot and into the cover of some pines near South French Street.
Scattered return fire was coming from other Freeholders--the few who hadn’t been in the Water House HQ.
“You got another radio?” Jim asked as he charged his AR-15.
Linda fired hers at a helicopter and shook her head.
“No, the only one we had was at HQ.” she said, firing again. This time her bullet spanged off the side of a gunship.
“They’re armored against small arms,” Jim said. “You’re wasting ammo. Aim for the Huey.”
He lined the door gunner up in his sights and fired as fast as he could pull the trigger. He heard Linda doing the same. The door gunner fell as holes appeared in the side of the helicopter and it banked hard away from them. One of the gunships must have spotted their muzzle flashes because it swooped down like a falcon firing its 20 mm M197 Gatling.
Jim grabbed Linda and pulled her behind a large Ponderosa pine as bullets sawed through smaller trees and shredded their Ski Doo. Vibrations from the rotors showered snow and dead pine needles onto them from upper branches as the chopper whipped past.
It spun and
hovered, looking like a malevolent grasshopper, then joined the other gunship and zoomed up and down the valley on both sides of the river raining death on anyone still shooting. A couple of Freeholders threw down their guns and came out from cover, hands in the air. They were mowed down.
Linda raised her rifle again but Jim laid a hand on it, forcing it down.
“This is a raid so they can’t take prisoners.”
“But--”
“Look, these guys are hitting Breckenridge to take out our early warning system, which means they’ll be going for The Freeholds soon. So we have two jobs. Warn The Freeholds and slow them down.”
“Goddammit, Jim, these are the same guys who killed my mom and dad and my baby sisters last summer.” Her pale brown eyes shot flames at him.
“I know, but getting yourself killed won’t help anyone. And this isn’t about revenge, Sergeant. It’s about doing our duty.”
Her face was a study, narrowed eyes, clamped jaw and thinned lips. Her shoulders were tensed and her grip on her AR was white-knuckled. She swallowed hard, a bitter pill Jim could tell, then said, “Yes, Sir.”
“Good. No more shooting unless we’re spotted. We need a base I can scout them from and you need to get to the radio in Como and warn The Freeholds. So let’s get out of here.”
They headed southeast, toward a meadow where the Breckenridge team pastured their horses, keeping to cover to avoid being spotted, hiking in silence so hard it could dull an axe.
Finally she cocked her head at him and said, “Permission to speak, Sir?”
He sighed. So this was how it was going to be. Her angry--and him demoted from Uncle Jim to Commanding Officer.
He nodded once and said, “Granted.”
She pointed out over the ruins of Breckenridge to where the Huey was setting down near the corpse of the Mountain Thunder Lodge, then swept her arm across the valley from north to south, encompassing everything from Cucumber Gulch to Goose Pasture Tarn.
“Who do you think knows this town better, me--or you?”
Jim fidgeted and looked away, knowing where she was going, then turned back to her. She deserved an honest answer.
“You do,” he said.
“Damned right,” she agreed. “And I know every burned out, smashed in hiding place, every back alley, every safe upper floor. I even know to slow them down. I also--”
“How,” Jim asked, interrupting. “How can you slow them down?” She had his attention now.
“I’ll contaminate the fuel in their helicopters.”
Jim stopped and stared at her.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “I can do this.”
“How will you get to the choppers?”
She stared up a his six foot four inch frame and said, “I haven’t figured that out yet, but I’m small and sneaky and it’ll be lots easier for them to overlook me than you.”
“Point taken, but do you even know what a helicopter gas cap looks like?”
Her eyes lit up and the look she gave him told him he’d stepped right into her trap.
“It’s called a fuel inlet, not a gas cap, and it’s located just above and in front of the stubby right wing. If I can’t get that open I’ll slide underneath and open the sump drain valve on the aft fuel tank. And if that doesn’t work, a pair of pliers and a pinched hydraulic line will mess them up big time.”
“How the hell do you know so much about AH-1 Cobra gunships? You been hanging out with Terrell Johnson?” Terrell was a former army helicopter mechanic and pilot.
“Well sure, but he was teaching us about the gyrocopter and the Pegasus before Michael totaled it, so don’t go blaming him. Don’t you remember how Garret and I drove those radio controlled cars under Viper’s tanks at Woodland Park?”
Jim nodded. She and her brother Garret had come up with the idea. Drive RC cars loaded with sticky bombs under the tanks and blow off their tracks. They were only fourteen at the time and the idea worked like a charm, converting deadly mobile tanks that threatened to overrun the Freeholder’s defensive positions to deadly immobile pillboxes--much easier to destroy.
“Well Garret was a fanatic about RC helicopters back then. We even had a couple of AH-64 Apaches that fired infra red beams at each other so we could dogfight.” She shook her head. Fond memories from a too short childhood.
“Anyhow, he and I built detailed plastic models, mostly from Revell, and we studied mechanical and hydraulic systems online.” She shrugged. “Kinda geeky but it was fun.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jim said. He’d known her since she was twelve years old and he didn’t know her at all. “What’ll you use to muck up the fuel?”
“Water,” she said, then shrugged. “Or maybe some wine from Ollie’s Pub and Grub.”
The snow was only a couple of inches deep under the trees but their trail was laid out plain for any enemy to follow through the woods. He’d been set to send Linda to Como to get her out of harm’s way but her superior knowledge of both the terrain and the enemy’s ‘copters ruled that out. As much as it pained him to admit it, she was best equipped to slow the enemy down, which meant he would have to get the warning out.
A horse nickered ahead and he held up his arm, hand open, in the universal signal to freeze. A light breeze brought the scent of horses to him through a screen of trees.
Linda tugged on his sleeve and pointed to a small gap in the tree line. Jim nodded and watched her move to it. Once there she held up two fingers, telling him there were two enemies with the horse herd. Jim pointed to himself and jerked his head to the right then moved off in that direction until he got eyes on the two men. He fingered his knife but they were out in the open with the herd. He needed a distraction.
There were still gunshots coming from back in town but resistance was fading fast so he knew he didn’t have much time.
“Where the hell are the others?” The words came from a stout man with a heavy dark beard who was picketing the horses.
“How the hell would I know?” the other man said. “Probably found themselves some ski bunnies to party with.” He was wearing an Oakland Raiders watch cap.
“Did someone say party?” Linda said, stepping into the open.
The men spun and raised their rifles and she calmly shot “Watch Cap” through the head, dove to her left in a tuck roll, came up in a crouch and double tapped “Beard” center mass.
Jim, who had already put a .556 round through “Beard’s” neck, was impressed. Their shots echoed off the surrounding hills but still blended with others from town.
Most horses would have panicked, but these were war horses and while a few withers quivered and some tossed their heads and stamped their hooves, none stampeded or tried to pull loose from the picket line.
“Let’s move,” Jim said, bending and grabbing “Beard” by his jacket collar and dragging him quickly under cover. Linda had “Watch Cap’s” body half way to the trees before Jim returned to help. Once both bodies were hidden under a large spruce they turned to the horses.
At one time or another Jim had ridden most of the horses in the remuda so he quickly slapped a saddle on a dappled mare--part quarter-horse and part appaloosa, fast and sure-footed. The other horse he saddled was a large, brown quarter horse gelding, not fast, but strong for forging through deep snow.
Linda saddled a dun gelding and a chestnut mare. They hazed the horses across the pasture--many hooves obscuring evidence they had been there--and darted beneath the trees when they heard a gunship approach.
They sat quietly in their saddles while the deadly machine circled the meadow and Goose Pasture Tarn, then returned to patrol the area around Mountain Thunder Lodge.
By the time Jim and Linda reached Boreas Pass Road both gunships had settled by the lodge and sundown was near. Jim spotted a long line of cavalry troops coming up from Frisco. He and Linda counted fifty which substantially lowered the odds of her success.
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Her head wa
s up, jaw firm, gaze intense.
“Be really careful, Lindy-girl,” he said.
She quirked a grin at him and said, “I can’t guarantee I’ll be careful, Uncle Jim, but I promise not to be rash.” She kneed her dun away, leading the chestnut mare into the darkness. Her “Uncle Jim” fell on Jim Cantrell’s ears like a blessing.
*
From behind some loose siding, high up in the clock tower of the Wetterhorn building, Linda watched the enemy camp at Thunder Mountain Lodge, half a mile away, looking for laxness and a way in. A pair of fifty gallon barrels had been set up on either side of the largely intact main entrance. Fires lit in them shed light on a monstrous man in a red beret addressing his troops.
She blinked and refocused her binoculars. Her Uncle Jim was a big man but this guy was gigantic, his chest the size of a side by side refrigerator, his arms as big as most men’s legs, and his legs...Godzilla. The men standing near him looked like dolls.
The helicopters were parked in a dirt lot across Highway 9--a lot that bordered the Blue River drainage. She blew out a soft sigh. She’d found her way in. And best of all the lot was only a couple of blocks from her hideout at Eric’s.
She smiled. Downstairs at Eric’s had survived because it’s over-engineered ceiling didn’t collapse when the building above it fell during the big quakes. Dying Time survivors had dug out the west entrance to loot the place and that entry was only a few feet from the river.
But right now, sitting in the clock tower, crosshairs of her AR scope centered on Godzilla as he spoke to his men, she wished he was in range.
*
Around ten o’clock, as near as she could tell from the position of the big dipper, the guards in the helicopter lot changed. Linda let another hour pass to let them settle down, then left her post in the clock tower and made her way down into the Blue River drainage. Downed trees, most of them charred from world changing fires, rusted hulks of cars and pickups that had been pushed off streets to clear them, overgrown willows and an occasional broken building, formed a twisted maze. But Linda had explored every inch of Breckenridge during her tour. She knew this place and her small size and nimble feet made quick work of a setting that would have stymied most men.
The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time Page 14