by Eric Walters
“Hey Sam, Garth—and is that you, Eleanor?” Jimmie asked.
“It’s me,” she said.
The two exchanged greetings with everybody.
“Well, this explains a lot, you three dressed up like Marines,” Johnny said. “I heard there were dozens of Marines stationed in the community and—”
“There are dozens of Marines,” my mother said, stepping forward. “As well as some others being trained to act as guards and security.”
“And you are?” Jimmie asked.
“Captain Williams, U.S. Marines.”
He laughed. “Sure you are. Do you think I believe your uniform any more than I believe theirs?”
He reached out to touch my mother’s uniform and in a flash she grabbed his wrist and flipped him to the ground, sending his rifle flying off his back. She sank her knee into his chest as she pulled out her pistol! Everybody gasped and seemed to be frozen in place, except Jimmie, who yelled out in pain. I was the first to react. I swung up my crossbow and aimed it dead center at Johnny’s chest.
“You two drop your weapons, now!” my mother ordered. She was aiming her pistol at them. Jimmie was no threat pinned beneath her knee.
They hesitated, but then took the rifles off their backs and placed them on the ground. She stood, and Jimmie scrambled to his feet and joined the other two.
“You think you can get away with this?” Jimmie demanded.
“I think we just did,” Sam said. He went over and picked up the three rifles. “You never were too smart.”
“I’m smart enough to have half a dozen armed men over there watching what you’re doing. Do you think they’re going to just stand by and do nothing?”
I looked over. The two guards at the gate had retreated inside the gate and were taking shelter behind a wooden barricade.
“They’re just getting ready to open fire,” Johnny said.
“You’d better hope they don’t, because those bullets come through you three before they come to us. It’s more likely they’re going to hit one of you than any of us.”
Their eyes got wide, and then Jimmie spun around and started yelling, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” He turned back around but still didn’t look anything other than scared.
“That voice,” the third man said to my mother. “I know you.” And then he pointed at me. “And you too. I thought you looked familiar. You’re the ones who made me toss my gun into the lake!”
“I see you got another one,” my mother said.
Both Johnny and Jimmie chuckled. I was surprised, and judging from his expression so was the man.
“So what happens now?” Jimmie asked.
“The choice is yours. You can be our friends or our enemies,” my mother said.
“You two could even come and live in the community,” another one of the women offered.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Sam said.
“Sammy, you’ve hated my guts ever since I stole your girlfriend in grade ten,” Jimmie said.
“You’ve stolen a lot of things, but never one of my girlfriends. But decisions about who comes to the community are made by a committee, and they only take people who can offer something of value,” Sam said.
“Nobody says we want to live there,” Johnny said.
“Yeah, we’re doing good out here,” Jimmie said. “And I’d much rather be in charge out here than getting ordered around over there.”
“So, do we get our guns back or are you planning on throwing them in the lake?” Johnny asked.
My mother made a gesture for him to be quiet. She took the walkie-talkie from her belt and held it up. “Hold fire, I repeat, hold fire. Do not, I repeat, do not fire on the marina.”
All three looked shocked and concerned. What was she talking about?
“I needed to call off the mortar attack,” she said.
“You have mortars?” the third man asked. He sounded completely astonished. I knew the feeling.
“Is that how you sank that boat?” Jimmie asked.
“How do you know about that?” Sam asked.
“We saw it go down,” he said. “We were on shore when it happened. It was hard to miss under those spotlights. Was it a mortar that sank it?”
“It had to be,” Johnny said. “Those guys who fired that shot, they’re good.”
“That’s what Marines do. They’re good enough to hit a moving target bobbing on the lake. They could take out any of the ships in the marina, or the men guarding the gate, at any time,” my mother said. “Nobody should ever think to mess with the Marines. Now, why don’t you pick up your guns and we’ll lower ours.”
She lowered her pistol to her side. She may have lowered it but I noticed her finger was still on the trigger. Everybody else on our side lowered their guns, and slowly the three men retrieved their weapons. They strapped the rifles onto their backs again.
“We can always use allies and trading partners,” my mother said.
“That might work,” Jimmie said. “How about if we come over later today and—”
“Nobody comes in,” my mother said. “If you’re interested, we’ll send a party over to discuss things further.”
“It sounds like you’re the one in charge over there,” Johnny said.
She laughed. “Why don’t you tell the colonel that he’s not in charge any longer? I’m just a captain. Do you want to hold talks or not?”
“We could do that,” Jimmie said. “Some things we have a lot of. Others, well we could use some greens, some veggies.”
“I’ll arrange for a party to come out over to discuss things,” my mother said. “Can you tell me what you’re hearing about what’s happening over in the city?”
“Bad things,” Johnny said. “Last time we were over there was about two weeks ago.”
“We almost got ourselves killed,” Jimmie added. “Everybody over there seems to have a weapon now, and they’re not afraid to use it.”
“Not that we aren’t well armed,” Johnny said. “We gave better than we got. We took care of them.”
“You killed them?” Sam asked.
“Don’t sound so surprised,” Johnny replied. “Didn’t you kill those men on the boat? Wouldn’t you have killed us if we’d tried to harm you?”
Sam smiled. “In a second.”
“Big talk,” Jimmie said.
“Big talk and big action. If you want, me and you, we can go right now,” Sam said.
I expected my mother to step in to settle things down, but to my surprise she didn’t.
“Well, just say the word, you and me walk away into the trees and we’ll see who comes back,” Sam said.
“Maybe another time,” Jimmie said. “So, what are you all doing out here to begin with?”
“The same thing you should be doing,” one of our party of scavengers said. “Gathering greens, things that we can eat to supplement the crops we’re growing.”
“It’s funny, I never really did like salads, but now I’d kill for one. Wait, I probably shouldn’t say that. People have been killing for a salad,” Jimmie said.
There was a chill that went through the conversation. Those words just hung out there and nobody seemed to know what to say next.
“We’ll let you get back and we’ll return to our mission,” my mother said. “Sorry for having to throw you to the ground.”
“I’ve had worse dates,” he said. “No worries.”
They hurried off back to the marina and we went back along our route. My mother and Sam both kept an eye looking back on them as we moved, until we rounded a small stand of trees and the marina was no longer visible.
“Back into formation,” my mother ordered.
Sam, Garth, and Eleanor spread out. I stayed by my mother’s side, glancing at her profile as we walked along. This Marine sternness was a side to my mother that was becoming more natural as the days went on.
“Can you show me how to do that, throw somebody to the ground?” I asked.
<
br /> “Yes, I can show you. But first things first. Sam!” she called out, and he trotted to our side.
“Do you trust those two?” she asked.
“About as far as I can throw them—and by the way, that was a nice toss.”
“Thank you.”
“Actually I’ve thrown both of them before, as well as popped one of them in the face.”
“You’ve had a fight with both of them?” I asked.
“I’ve fought them both at once. It was still a pretty fair fight. They’re a couple of weasels.”
“And now they’re weasels who are in charge of the marina community,” my mother said.
“Weasels are pretty smart animals,” Sam said. “Part of the reason I don’t trust them is because they’re a lot smarter than they sound.”
“So we shouldn’t underestimate them,” my mother said. “But can we count on them?”
“You can count on them to lie, steal, cheat, and try to screw us over. I can’t imagine that they’ve changed.”
“Neither can I. There’s safety and assurance in predictability, even if the prediction is that they’re going to—”
My mother stopped mid-sentence. We could all hear a dull roar. It sounded like an engine, and it was getting louder. We looked around for a car or a truck as the noise increased, and all at once a small plane shot over top of our heads, so low that I involuntarily ducked. I turned and tracked it. It was single-engine, moving fast, a big star on the wings and fuselage. Wait.
“That’s a military plane. It’s a U.S. military plane!” I yelled.
“It’s a P-51 Mustang,” my mother explained. “That’s the plane our military flew in World War Two.”
That made sense. If old cars could still drive, and old boats could still motor, then old planes could certainly still fly. We watched as it got lower and lower and was blocked by the trees in the distance.
“Why is it flying so low?” Eleanor questioned.
“I have to assume that it just landed at the island airport,” Sam said.
“Do you think there are military people there?” I asked.
“I only know they have a flying, functional war plane. That, and we need to find out more about them,” my mother said.
24
Our boat chugged along. We’d passed the marina and all of Main Island to get to the western island that was home to the airport. There were eight of us on board, including my mother, me, and the guys from our original group—Jim, Ian, Ken, and Julian—along with Sam and Chris. We were heading to the island airport, where we thought the plane had landed. Chris was along because she was most likely to know somebody at the airport, and Sam, well, he’d become the person my mother trusted the most—after me, at least. Sam was at the controls of the boat. He was a good captain, which was another advantage to having him along.
We’d borrowed the boat from the marina. Over the past two weeks the people there had become more or less our allies, but we weren’t entirely comfortable as partners. We’d given them some vegetables, and my mother had looked at and treated a couple of minor injuries they’d sustained. We were friendly, but we still weren’t letting any of them into the community. We had too many secrets we needed to keep, about who we were and what weapons we had available. We wanted them to believe our stories, false facts about our strength and weapons, and even spread them around.
As we’d cruised along the shore we had seen evidence of people everywhere on Main Island. There were glimpses of red and blue tents through trees, small chimneys of smoke rising into the air, and sightings of people on shore. We were far from alone, and our passing seemed to attract attention.
On the water there were sailboats and old motorboats, but none came close to us.
We had two flags fluttering from the back of our boat. One was the Stars and Stripes and the second was the Marine Corps flag. The U.S. flag was real, while the Marine Corps flag had been made by one of our costume designers. It wasn’t perfect but it had basically the right colors and the right parts in the right places. From a distance nobody could tell.
We also had three more flags, not displayed but on board and ready for use. Two of them were simple pieces of material—a red triangular top over a yellow triangular bottom—mounted on short poles. These were semaphore flags, used in military situations to communicate in radio silence—or in this case when there was no radio communication possible. The third flag was a simple white flag. To most people this meant surrender. To military people, though, it meant a truce or ceasefire, or a request to negotiate or communicate. If the airport people were military, then they would not only be able to read the semaphores, they’d understand the meaning behind the white flag. If they weren’t, we would still be keeping enough distance to probably avoid any fire they might aim at us.
The airport grounds came into view and I was instantly struck by the changes to the shoreline. The fence we’d seen back in the early days when we’d come past in our canoe was now more like a wall topped by fencing and strands of barbed wire.
My mother was looking at it through our binoculars.
“What do you see?” I asked.
“They’ve built quite the fortification,” she said. “Barbed wire, slots for observation or to fire, higher walls.”
“Can you see anybody?” Chris asked.
“Negative, but there’s no doubt they see us.”
The airport was on a thin peninsula of land, surrounded on three sides by water and on the fourth by a narrow strip of land, a causeway that had been built to connect it to Main Island.
“How much closer do you want me to bring us?” Sam called down from the flying bridge.
“This might be close enough. Position the bow out and I’ll signal from the stern.”
She hadn’t said why, but I knew the reason. She wanted the ship to have a narrow profile and to be aimed away, ready to race off if necessary. My mother went to the back of the boat and picked up the two semaphore flags. She pulled the binoculars off her neck and handed them to me and gave Julian the white flag, which he draped from the aerial of the flying bridge.
“I want you to stay low and keep scanning the shore. If you see anything out of sorts you let me know right away.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Anything.”
“Are you sure this is such a good idea?”
“We need to know who’s sharing these islands with us,” she explained. “Especially if they have a working plane.”
I slouched down so I was mostly hidden by the gunwale of the boat. She began to signal a message. Each movement was a specific letter or number. I knew the basic message. She was asking for a meeting.
I used the gunwale of the boat to steady the binoculars as I scanned the shore. Beyond the wall I caught sight of the control tower. I assumed there were people behind the dark glass looking at us.
I went back to watching the wall. I stopped at a spot where there was a dock extending out. Behind it was a set of stairs leading up to the wall—was that a gate right there?
“Does anybody see anything?” my mother asked.
There was a chorus of “Nothing.”
“Do you want me to go in closer?” Sam asked.
“Negative. They can see us and the flags from here. I’ll run through the signals one more time.”
I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She was standing so strong, so straight, and she was so visible. It wasn’t just the flags that could be seen. I thought about how she could be targeted by a marksman with a sniper rifle.
“There!” I yelled. “There, there’s movement! Somebody is coming out to the dock!”
“I see him.”
He was carrying something. Was it a weapon or—no—it was semaphore flags! He walked to the end of the dock and started signaling.
He continued to signal, then stopped, and my mother began to signal back.
“What did he say? What are you saying?”
“He invited us to come to shore
and I’m agreeing. Sam, take us to the dock.”
Sam gunned the engine and we spun around.
“I want everybody to keep your weapons down and out of sight,” my mother called out. “Only two of us are getting off at the dock. As soon as you drop us off, head back out and wait off shore at a safe distance until you’re signaled that it’s safe to come in.”
“What’s the signal?” I asked.
My mother thought for a second. “I’ll go down to the dock. If I lift one arm, then come in. If I lift two, then you know I’m being forced to try to bring you in and it’s not safe. You have to leave.”
“We can’t just leave you,” Chris said.
“You might not have a choice. Have faith that we’ll figure it out.”
“How do we know that this isn’t just a trick and they’re not just trying to capture us all right now?” Julian asked.
“I guess we don’t.” She took her pistol out of the holster and handed it to him. “This is for you.”
“But shouldn’t you have it with you, just in case?” he asked.
“If there’s a problem my pistol isn’t going to be the solution.” She turned to me. “You should leave your crossbow on the boat as well.”
“Yeah, sure…am I the person going with you?”
“Of course.”
“Shouldn’t it be Sam, or at least one of us?” Jim asked.
“It’s better that we appear non-threatening, and taking Emma is the best way to accomplish that.”
As we got closer, two more men stepped onto the dock to join the man holding the flags. I didn’t see any weapons, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have them. Besides, I was sure there were dozens of weapons on the wall that could potentially all be trained on us.
“Sam, no stopping, and straight back out at full speed,” my mother ordered.
“You got it.”
She turned to me. “Are you okay with this?”
“We’re going into a strange place to meet people we don’t know, leaving our weapons behind, and hoping they won’t shoot us. Why shouldn’t I be fine?”
Her mouth curled into a quick smile. “When did you get so smart?”