by Darrell Bain
“I'll try. Do you think your other people will make it in time to join up with Wronsen?"
Wanda spread her free hand expressively. “I hope so. I've been trying to slow everyone down as much as I can. What happens if they don't?"
For that, Jason had no ready answer.
“Find out anything?” Burley asked as Jason passed him on the way back to the front of the column.
“No. You're right. She's a bitch."
Burley roared with mirth. “Told ya! You're too motherfucking easy, Jase. This is what runs the world now.” He stroked the barrel of his shotgun as if it were an erect organ.
“Maybe. You ready for a break?"
“Yeah, why not? Kind of looks like rain, don't it?"
Jason searched the sky. Clouds were building to the south, like encroaching amoeba. He remembered that earlier they had been moving rapidly across the sky in bands, like the fringes of an approaching hurricane. They were still moving, but now they were a solid mass. He wondered whether rain would help or hinder. Maybe both.
* * *
Chapter Eleven
Breedlove led his tired contingent into the Livingston displacement area where Brent Sampson met them and quietly urged them to hurry on to meet Michael at the planned ambush site.
“We're going to have to rest first,” Breedlove said. “Some of the old folk are exhausted.” He scanned the sky. “It's looking like rain too, and it's getting late besides."
Brent looked over the tired, dirty group, and then decided the deputy was right. They would have to rest for a while, and by that time, it would be getting toward evening.
While a meal was being prepared, he led Breedlove into the Wal-Mart and on back to the storage area. There were weapons aplenty and enough ammunition to last a long while. Breedlove toured some other aisles in the store with Brent. He made a rough calculation. This one store would supply what few people he knew to have been displaced for a long, long while. Even the food would last for a time, but not as long as many of the other items. He walked through the garden section, glad to see that it had come along with the rest of the store. In time, he thought, we'll have to start farming, and there's plenty of seeds and fertilizer here. Memories of his childhood spent in the fields of his father's small truck farm came to mind. But there's a war to fight first. Goddamn, always problems. Carla slipped an arm around his waist, coming up to him from behind. She had noticed him eyeing the seeds. “I grew up on a farm,” she said. “We'll have to do that before long, won't we?"
Breedlove slid an affectionate arm around the young smooth curve of her waist, wondering what he had ever done to deserve her. “We will,” he told her. “I grew up on a farm too."
“Good. We'll have to settle down soon. I wasn't carrying my pills when the change happened."
Breedlove drew her to him as Brent quietly withdrew, leaving them their privacy. Brent knew the feeling. Darla had not been carrying the next month's supply of her own pills when the displacement occurred either, though he noted that the Wal-Mart pharmacy was still largely intact. If it were not already too late, Darla could replenish her supply there, but he was already thinking of the future. The Wal-Mart supplies would only last so long, even if they managed to secure the area. Before long, such society as existed would inexorably begin changing to reflect that fact. He wondered what it would be like to have a son. Or daughter. Perhaps this New World wouldn't be so bad after all. If they won the war, that is. Outside, where the evening meal was being eaten, he eyed the odd congregation of would-be soldiers, and had his doubts. The people here sure didn't look like an army.
Michael spent the day ranging up and down the river, trying to pick out areas of concealment which also gave a good field of fire, then helping build them into possible firing pits. His knowledge of how to do that was vague, but he did the best he could. He wished Wanda were present to help him. Even though her army field was in medicine, she had taken the standard training required of all officers, including females. The last brushfire war had shown that women could function in combat just as well as men, although it shouldn't have needed demonstration. The Israeli army had proved that concept a long time ago, during their war for independence.
Politics, he thought. That's all it was. And if I come out of this alive, I guess that's what I'll be doing. There certainly won't be much need for physics teachers for a while! He reflected on this, and then reconsidered. If whoever survived didn't want to see their children go back to wearing skins and carrying clubs, there would always be a need for teachers. Otherwise, the risk was pointless.
That night, his small group huddled together behind a makeshift barrier they had constructed to guard against the animals and ate a cold meal. He wouldn't allow a fire, just in case the convicts had scouts out.
He thought of a conversation he and Wanda had had as they were traveling. Just how far back in the Pleistocene had they been displaced? Wanda's college courses in Zoology had prepared her for answers to that question much more than him. According to her, the period just before the last glaciations had been when most of the large mammals had become extinct, so they had been displaced at least that far back in time. Again, by her account, they couldn't have been thrown too far back. As best she could remember from her studies the large animals they had seen so far looked more or less like the last versions which lived before the great extinction. If that were truly the case, then they could expect to see mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses (perhaps), sloths and most of their predators.
Horses, now, that was a thought. Could they tame horses? And something more important: had their ancestors crossed the Bering Strait yet? Some scholars thought that man rather than climate had caused the extinctions. Others were certain that the North American continent had been inhabited much longer than the twelve to fourteen thousand years ago generally given as the first excursions from the Old World. Someday they would have to find out.
Michael shook his head, tossing those thoughts aside. First priority was defeating the convicts and freeing their prisoners. If that was successful, then they would have to work out a means of living in this new environment, and melding the disparate remnants of humanity into a working society. After that, the deeper questions could be considered.
Fifty armed convicts, at least, he thought. And even if Breedlove gets here in time, all I have are three dozen, at the most, and most of them women. That brought another unwanted thought. The reputed teenage girls. If he managed to free them, that would throw the male-female ratio even more out of kilter. What would that entail? Physics theory sure didn't provide any answers, nor any other discipline he was familiar with.
Dusk was gathering. Michael would like to have posted guards right along the river, but already the forest was beginning to give off unfamiliar noises. Predators would be about, and the last thing he wanted was to lose anyone to some ungodly monstrosity out of the past, or to have their positions revealed by panicky shots in the dark. Better to tuck it in for the night.
“You're being awfully quiet,” one of the women said. Her bright red hair was tied in a ponytail with a scrap of rag. He remembered her name. Jill Tucker. She had been married, with a small child. Sadness hovered over her face like a doctor telling his best friend he had an incurable disease. It reminded Michael that there was still one issue to settle.
“I hate to bring it up, but we still haven't decided on who's to be the decoys, and I'm scared to wait for Breedlove's group. There may not be time to get them in place then."
Jill scanned the small group and smiled mirthlessly. “Not much choice here, is there? Hell, I guess I'll do it. If I'm not ever going to see my baby and husband again, I don't care much anyway."
Another woman spoke up. Michael couldn't remember her name. She was short, black and overweight. “I'll go. I lost my daughter. She got caught between two drug gangs fighting over turf. She wasn't doing nothing, just walking home from school, and she got shot in the neck. She died on the way to the hospital. They caught three
of them, and they went to prison. Maybe I'll see one of them motherfuckers.” She caressed her shotgun.
Michael questioned the two women for a little while, and then accepted their offer. He wished he could take the burden himself, but it wasn't in the plan. Women would make better bait.
He was a long time getting to sleep. Even if Breedlove didn't arrive with help before the convicts got to the river, he was still determined to fight, even with as little force as he had. If nothing else, they should be able to pick off some of the convicts, then make a withdrawal toward Livingston and hope for reinforcements and a more decisive fight later. In the meantime, he could only hope that Jason, Eli Whitney and Wanda were well prepared to back his play.
Even if Breedlove arrived in time with his few troops, it was going to be a dicey situation, and he worried half the night about all the things which might go wrong, and he agonized over what Wanda might be going through while he tried to rest. His thoughts were not conducive to sleep, but eventually he managed to relax by forcing himself to believe that whatever happened, he had managed as well as possible. It was a small comfort.
Michael had barely fallen into an uneasy slumber when Jill woke him for his turn at guard. Just before daylight, the wind picked up and it began to sprinkle rain.
The old horse staggered, stopped, then collapsed in slow motion, like a film being run at a reduced speed. McMasters rode the horse down and stepped away, gasping as his weight came down on his bad leg. He wavered and then held himself up with the butt of his rifle planted in the ground. He gritted his teeth until the pain passed, waiting until the others caught up. Judy hurried forward from where she had been walking to save the old horse's strength and helped ease him to the ground.
“What happened?"
McMasters shook his head. He limped over to the horse. Its neck was stretched forward on the turf. It tried once to raise its head, then was still. Once it was quiet, he could see congealed blood seeping from beneath the saddle. The thunky noise he had heard as the convicts fired the last shot at him must have hit it somewhere not immediately apparent, and it had gone unnoticed, the blood coagulating beneath the saddle. He petted its head while it drew a long final breath. “Sorry, old fella. I wish I could have done better by you,” he murmured.
“Is it dead?” Judy asked.
“Sorry, hon, but yes it is. And I don't know what to do now. I just can't walk like I am."
“I could maybe make you a crutch,” George, Sr. said. “I had to use one once. It's not so bad once you get the hang of it."
Well, a crutch would beat just sitting and waiting. “If you can, George, it would be a blessing. I don't want to just sit here like a wounded duck waiting on a dog."
George took out a huge folding knife and began searching for a suitable sapling. Within a couple of hours, he contrived an adequate crutch, padded with such scraps of clothing as they could spare. McMasters tested it gingerly, and decided it would work, but it was already getting late. He complimented George.
“This will do fine, but I think I need to wait until tomorrow before I try to walk much. Let's camp, and we'll move on then.” The women began preparing a meal with what food they had while McMasters arranged a rotating guard. He put George, Jr. last on the roster, thinking that predators or inimitable humans would be a more likely danger earlier in the night rather than later. Judy slept very close to him after she came in from her turn at guard duty. When he woke the next morning, she was curled against his back, an arm around his waist. He rolled over slowly. Judy's eyes blinked open. She kissed him then looked away, face flushing. McMasters didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say. Other parts of his body weren't nearly as old as his eyes, though. He couldn't fail to notice that.
Breedlove sent Gerald ranging out ahead of his little command. The young man wasn't woods wise, but the path toward the river was pretty well marked. The convicts and their prisoners had dropped scraps of cloth, left footprints, and even gouged trees here and there to mark their path, and Michael had seen that the blazes were added to. If it hadn't been for the rain, which began shortly after they started, the path would have been even easier to follow.
The deputy glanced uneasily at the sky. The scudding clouds of the day before, confined to the south, had moved northward, and turned to a high overcast with a blowing rain. The humidity was like an oppressive cloud, drawing breath from the body like a steam bath after a hard workout. He had to call for frequent halts to let the older ones rest. The only consolation was that the rain had dispersed the ubiquitous mosquitoes and deer flies to the point that they were a mere annoyance rather than a constant cloud.
That morning, Breedlove had hoped that they would be able to reach the Trinity River by evening, but as the oppressive day wore on, broken by frequent stops, he knew it was not to be. Even with a path already somewhat broken, the heat and humidity, combined with constant entanglement in vines and brush, and the slow pace dictated by the older members of his force kept progress to a crawl. Just before dark, he finally called a halt.
It took all the authority he could muster to get a guard set and weapons checked before the rain-laden night closed in, like a theatre being darkened before the first act. As he took his own turn on guard duty, he noticed that the wind was beginning to blow harder. By morning it was driving the rain sideways, coming steadily from the southeast. He hoped it wouldn't interfere with Michael's planned ambush, or the progress of his own group, which was supposed to play a part in it. That is, if they made it there in time. The way things were going, he was beginning to worry that they wouldn't.
* * * *
The rain was making Burly meaner and even surlier than usual. He shouted and cursed at anyone who came near him, as if vile words might make the rain go away. Jason tried to calm him with the mention of refuge at Livingston within enclosed stores where plenty of food was waiting, but it had little effect. He finally left him to rave, giving his attention to encouraging the other convicts, hoping to keep them going rather than turning back.
He had managed to get Wanda aside for another short talk during the day, and this time, when he returned her to the coffle, he left the key to her cuffs with her. The guards were so miserable that they had not objected to him simply transferring the cuff from his arm and locking it to the nylon rope binding the rest of the women.
Whitney and another of his followers had surreptitiously slipped another two pistols and several knives into the group after Wanda had gestured to the ones she thought they could trust. When the fight came, most of the women would still be bound, but at least the rope that held them together could be severed. It was the best he could do.
The blacks were still in chains, but there he was optimistic. During the course of preparations for the trek to Livingston, he had managed to slip into Burley's erstwhile office and secure a master key to the locks. While the blacks were being loaded with their burdens he slipped it to Preacher Johnson, telling him in a hurried whisper not to use it until a fight ensued. Like Michael, Jason was hoping for a decisive ambush where the blacks and women captives would suddenly throw their weight into the rear at the right moment. It was going to be all or nothing and he just hoped that the big black preacher would wait for the moment when he could make a difference. The rain began coming down harder.
By noon, the rain became a driving force, slashing in from the southeast along with rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightning. Jason was apprehensive. He wondered if he could convince Burley to cross the river under these conditions, but he need not have worried. Burley was anxious to get out of the weather, curses notwithstanding.
“Jason, you sonofabitch, soon as we get to that goddamn one horse town we're heading for, I'm making some changes. Fuck your society. I'm having some more ass then, and if this fucking rain don't stop, I may just kill me some niggers while I'm at it. Fuck this shit!” He waved his shotgun and brushed ineffectively at water streaming down his face.
“Let's get across the river,” Jason
told him, raising his voice to be heard above the wind driven spatter of raindrops. “We can camp there for the night and make the rest of the way tomorrow."
“Fucking right,” Burley said. “Did Whitney or that bitch say anything about a liquor store there?"
“No, but I've got something,” Jason said.
“Yeah? Like what, Jase?"
“Quaaludes. I found a stash while we were getting ready to leave."
“What the fuck. Give me one. Those stupid bastards carrying the dope from Livingston all got wasted."
“Let's get to the river. I'll pass them out there. OK?"
Burley brushed more water from his face. “Yeah. Let's hurry. Goddamn. Quaaludes? Maybe I'll slip one to that bitch. No, fuck it. I'll take hers.” He laughed uproariously then plodded on. A few minutes later, the exhausted, wet column halted at the river. The blacks, foodless that day, slumped wearily down by their heavy packs. Jason passed out the Quaaludes, hoping he had picked the right time and that Preacher Johnson wouldn't jump too soon in freeing the blacks. They looked to be just about at the end of their rope.
Shortly thereafter, the convicts began constructing rafts for the crossing. They were anxious to get across the river before it rose any higher, an idea Jason had planted with Burley as soon as it occurred to him. The rain increased in intensity, and the thunder became an almost constant roar.
* * * *
“We can't travel in this mess!” George, Jr. shouted over the driving rain. His thin blonde hair was plastered to his head and his clothes were as soaked as if he had just fallen off a boat.
McMasters brushed water from his eyes. Everyone was wet, but there was no shelter other than the trees, and he didn't want to stay under them if he could help it. Lightning was beginning to flash in the near distance. “We won't be any worse off than we would be staying here,” he said.
“Well fuck you, I'm not going!"
Lightning flickered off to the southeast. McMasters had been watching it all morning as it came closer. He had been slack once about not moving faster and didn't intend to make that mistake again, even in these circumstances.