by Kirk Adams
After defensive arrangements were decided, a trial was held of Jason (now pulled from the trap). It was a quick trial and judgment by the rump of the General Will of the People was summary and unforgiving—with Jason accused of treason, war crimes, conspiracy to commit murder, assault with intent to kill, and illegal possession of a firearm. He was convicted within minutes and executed without further adieu, being indulged neither final meal nor last word. Only two citizens voted to commute his sentence to life imprisonment and even his appeal for one last joint was refused before he was hanged from the lowest branch of a tree at the edge of camp. As he slowly strangled a few inches above the bloodstained soil of Paradise, all of his judges turned away, except Olivia—who spit in Jason’s face as the condemned man defecated down his own leg.
Kit wept and prayed from a distance.
Hilltop defenses were completed before dinner: bunkers were fortified with cut timber and shoveled earth and bundles of spears placed strategically along the walls—along with slingshots and rocks and bows and arrows. Provisions were stored too. Including the food and medicine brought to camp, it was assessed the camp contained enough supplies to endure a siege of several days at half rations, not counting fruit trees close enough to pick under cover of darkness. Cords of firewood were stacked as a final redoubt and a hundred gallons of fresh water were stockpiled in plastic jugs. Tents were repositioned at the center of camp—several of them pitched in shallow depressions and partially protected by walls composed of whatever rock, wood, and dirt was available.
Everyone agreed the day’s work was productive, though no one looked forward to the dangers of the night.
Lisa was spotted by a day patrol and returned to camp by midafternoon. Now she ate a handful of uncooked oatmeal as she listened to Kit describe the battle for Mount Zion. The former actress cradled the dark-skinned baby forsaken by the natives and held the hand of the light-skinned girl abandoned by the northsmen as she led Lisa to a shallow grave shared by Ursula and Sean—where Lisa lay a few wildflowers on the fresh dirt before stepping away, tears streaming down her face as she embraced Kit.
“Ryan told me Sean died for her,” Lisa said.
“That’s what she told us,” Kit said as she wiped tears from her eyes. “No one saw for sure.”
Lisa wept.
“His last words,” Kit said after a time, “were to name the baby.”
“What name did he give?”
“Only heaven knows. He whispered the name to her before he died. She held him until she passed away a few minutes later. I prayed with both of them as they slipped away.”
“I’m so sorry for speaking poorly of him.”
“He was very brave in the end.”
“And as good as any man.”
“Anyone else?”
Kit shook her head.
“Not from our village,” Kit said, “except Steve was killed outright and two easterners wounded. One died a few hours ago and the other has a shattered arm. He’s out of the fight.”
“How many of them?”
“They say one dead and Jason was left on a pongee stick. Donovan and his gun escaped. Our defenses weren’t complete.”
“Jason fought us?” Lisa asked with a subdued voice.
Kit nodded.
“He’s a bastard,” Lisa said.
“He atoned his crime.”
“How could he ever atone for all the evil he’s done?”
“They hanged him outside camp.”
“This is all too much,” Lisa said as her shoulders sagged and tears formed in her eyes. “What have we done to Paradise?”
Kit looked into the forest for a long while.
“He gave us their plans,” Kit eventually said. “They intend to kill Ryan and John and anyone who fights for them. Apparently, they’re afraid of facing war crimes charges.”
“That makes perfect sense,” Lisa whispered, “kill lots of people to escape punishment for killing a few.”
“None of this makes sense to me,” Kit said with a shrug.
Lisa agreed.
“They hope,” Kit continued, “to portray themselves as good men and heroes.”
“They couldn’t.”
“They could if evidence is burned and witnesses buried.”
“They’d have to kill us all.”
“They will,” Kit swallowed hard as she spoke, “if we don’t swear loyalty.”
“Let’s swear it and stop the killing.”
“There’s a hitch.”
Lisa waited for the older woman to speak.
“They’ll require a blood oath,” Kit said. “Everyone who wishes to live must murder a prisoner: one of the natives. Every northsmen has—except a couple holdouts already sacrificed as victims.”
“You don’t mean,” Lisa said after a long pause, “those nice people who broke away?”
“Jason,” Kit said as she nodded her head, “told us the northsmen are bound by blood and will fight to the death.”
Lisa dropped to her knees short of breath and fell face first upon the fresh grave, wailing from grief. Her sobs were so loud that Kit left Lisa to grieve alone when the latter’s crying woke the cannibal’s son from his nap and made Brittany cling in distress to her foster mother.
Streaks of flame shot from the forest soon after dusk. Viet watched from his foxhole when he saw a flash of light to his left. Three additional arrows followed the first: the burning missiles striking the bermed wall within twenty feet of each other. The flames were dark-smoked and thick and showed the presence of petroleum. Now a flaming ball arched from the dark and landed within the fort; it was a fuel-filled coconut husk that split on impact and sprayed a southern woman with flaming gasoline. Her first scream was from surprise and her second from searing pain as her leg burned. Two men rolled her into the dirt to smother the flames, but were too late to prevent at least some third-degree burns. The woman cried and screamed until Doctor Graves sedated her with morphine.
Several minutes later, a voice cried from the dark—the voice of Father Donovan. John told him to approach under truce and Donovan came near enough to be heard.
“We’ll bring a hundred more tomorrow,” Father Donovan shouted loud enough for the entire camp to hear. “We can burn your fort or we can burn you. Those who side with us will live; those who don’t will die. Choose tomorrow which side you’ll take.”
“We’ve,” Ryan shouted his reply, “already decided.”
“Then you’re going to die for the moralizing of Godson and Smith.”
“Our morality will kill you too,” Viet shouted.
“And what will that get you?”
“A good conscience, at least.”
“You may have principles, but we have fifty gallons of gasoline and thirty bullets.”
“Liar.”
“Send someone to look,” Donovan said. “I have the bullets with me and the fuel’s in our camp.”
“So,” View scowled, “you can kill our delegate under a flag of truce. Go to hell.”
“Send a woman or a child for all I care. You have to know you can’t win this fight.”
“We’ll take some of you down with us.”
“That’s why we’re giving you this chance,” Father Donovan shouted. “We’re realists. If we start this battle, it’ll be to the death. We’ll burn you out and shoot you down. But you’ll get a couple of us too. Give us your oath you’ll cooperate in our fact-finding investigation of recent events and we’ll spare you. No one gets hurt. Not even John or Ryan. Not even Steve.”
The northern chief was answered by the firing of two arrows that flew harmlessly over his head and Donovan responded by aiming his pistol and firing once. His bullet struck a bunker, splintering the wood.
An islander yelped.
“Damn,” the man shouted, “he hit me.”
The wounded man ducked behind the wall and wiped away blood from his face while two women tended his wounds.
“Just splinters,” Kit told him. “Not t
oo bad.”
“Well, they don’t feel all that good,” the man said with a wince. “Enough is enough. I’m changing my vote. I’d fight even up, but this is a massacre. As soon as he shows enough sense to climb into a tree to fire down, we won’t be able to hide. And that’s besides the threat of being burned up and burned out.”
“We’d be at their mercy,” Kit said.
“We’re at their mercy now,” the man snapped. “I always said better red than dead.”
“They’ll kill us all.”
“We can make a fair peace.”
“They’ll make us murder each other.”
“That’s what we’re doing now,” the wounded man said, “and maybe it will stop if we just cooperate. They need peace too. It’s in everyone’s self-interest.”
“They’ll break it.”
“We can ask for guarantees.”
Now John joined the conversation from several feet away. “How?”
The man shrugged.
“A truce,” John shouted toward the forest, “till morning—to decide how good your word is.”
Donovan’s voice sounded from a different location. “Fair enough, but no raids tonight from you either.”
Soon, the sound of the northsmen retreating downhill made it evident hostilities had ended for the day—though the islanders called a council only after patrols confirmed the enemy had departed. The perimeter was drawn tight so sentries could participate in the public assembly—with a single delegate from every village deployed into the woods for security (after passing voting rights to loved ones who shared the guard’s opinions). Then the General Will of the People was called into emergency session, though the oath of allegiance was skipped for the sake of brevity.
“We must choose,” John said as he began the meeting, “whether to defend ourselves or hope for mercy from the merciless. They’ve slaughtered non-combatants, murdered men who came to help us, and ignited a civil war. I won’t depend upon their good graces.”
“Then why,” a soft-voiced man interrupted, “did we accept a truce?”
“To buy time,” John answered, “to test their good will, but also to finish our defenses.”
“That’s dishonest.”
“Prudent is a better word.”
Now a middle-aged southerner with shoulder-length hair stepped into the center of the assembly.
“The choice,” the southern man declared, “is between war and peace. I believe in peace.”
Several neighbors clapped.
Others hooted.
“We don’t need to depend on mere promises,” the long-haired southerner continued, “we can verify the peace.”
“Let them give up that gun if they want peace.”
“Would you?”
“Not to those barbarians.”
“And,” the long-haired man said as he nodded, “neither will they, so we have to decide whether peace and coexistence are worth trying. If we don’t, every man will die on this hill and northsmen will take our women and children for their pleasure. That’s the ancient law of war; once walls are breached, no quarter is given.”
“At least we’d die like men,” John said, “and maybe, just maybe, we can drive them away. That’s the honorable path.”
“Honor?” the long-haired man sneered. “Just who do you suppose will raise a monument to wasted valor? It’s our lives we need to save, not our honor.”
“I’ve lost my husband,” a southern woman spoke up, “my home, and my friends, but I’m not going to lose my daughter. Not for some tribe of gods-forsaken heathen. Has anyone considered the cannibals are set loose—and by our own hand? They’ll roam this island like wild animals until we’re all gnawed to the bone. We have to settle this civil war because, unfortunately, the real war is still ahead.”
Half the neighborhood nodded and clapped as the woman sat down and a friend near her stood.
“And I’ll say something,” the woman’s friend said, “that came to me while I was lying with my face in the dirt. I’m glad we killed the natives. Otherwise there’d be even more of them to fight.”
“I fought them like anyone else,” John said, “but they aren’t the enemy at our gate.”
“They will be,” the woman said, “if we don’t make peace with the northerners so we can hunt them down.”
“We’ll deal,” John said with a shake of his head, “with the natives as we have to. For now, we’re safe in these walls and, hopefully, we’ll be delivered from this island before long. The task is to keep the northerners at a distance for a few days.”
The long-haired southerner raised his hand to speak. “I want a vote,” he said, “regarding whether we should fight or make peace.”
This motion was seconded and discussion was entertained.
“If we fight,” the long-haired man continued, “all of us could die. If we make peace, all of us could live.”
“If could were would,” John said, “I suppose we’d build wooden ships from wishes and sail to California.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t bet on pipe dreams.”
“Well,” the long-haired man said after a brief pause, “even a slim chance is better than none at all.”
“We can’t know who will live or die if we fight,” John said, “but we do know—for absolute certain—that we can’t trust the northsmen to be honest or merciful. They have to be disarmed. Only then can we make peace.”
“You mean that we can only make peace on our terms. After we’ve crushed our own people.”
“Not on our terms. On safe terms.”
“I see the logic of both arguments,” Ryan said as he joined the debate, “but what if we combine them? What if we can bring about a truce without throwing down our weapons?”
“How?” John asked.
“Diplomacy,” Ryan said. “We can open a dialogue. Over time, both armies can slowly demobilize and foster good relations. We can negotiate for camp inspections, offensive weapon reductions, and maybe the eventual elimination of that gun once we’ve settled the causes of the war. From armed conflict we can move to cold war, then to détente and peaceful coexistence. It’s been done before.”
“We don’t have forty years.”
“Then we’ll need to accelerate negotiations.”
“I don’t understand how that can be done,” John said, “since there’s nothing to negotiate. Donovan’s marauders murdered natives and we saw it. We can’t lie about the crime, can we?”
“We can’t lie,” Ryan replied, “but a legal fiction may prove useful for all of us. This assembly is the law of the land and it can legitimize what took place. Ex post facto, if necessary. Can’t we grant amnesty from prosecution to our own wrongdoers? And if we do, no power on earth can touch them.”
“Tell that to the International Tribunal at the Hague.”
“If it comes to that, Donovan will have to fend for himself.”
“That’s exactly why,” John cried out, “he can’t give up the fight till all the witnesses are dead.”
“Talk about a conspiracy theory,” the long-haired southerner sneered. “Sounds like Ken Star and his right-wing chorus.”
“Let’s not go there,” John said, “but let’s ask ourselves this: what if Jason told the truth and the northsmen are going to make us kill natives to prove ourselves? Can you kill one?”
“Jason was a liar.”
“What if he wasn’t lying?”
“He probably hallucinated that little nightmare.”
“He was straight sober and you know it.”
“I don’t know anything of the sort.”
“Let’s assume for a moment,” John said, “that he spoke the truth. Would you kill to save yourself?”
“Isn’t that war?”
“The slaughter of innocents?”
“They’re not innocent. They ate our neighbors. Every one of them with teeth took a bite.”
Several voices cried out in agreement as nei
ghbors claimed the cannibals were guilty of terrible sins.
“Yeah,” one man shouted, “let The Hague try them for cannibalism and war crimes. They started it.”
“They broke the law first,” a woman said.
“If the truth is known,” Ryan said, “the men we ... I mean, the men the northerners put to death broke international law and were punished rightly.”
“And what of Captain Strong and his family?” John asked. “By whose laws were they killed?”
The long-haired man from the south said nothing.
“Do you think American authorities,” John continued, “will let that murder stand? Do you think they’ll be bamboozled by sophistry?”
John looked around and saw that no one disagreed.
“We all know better,” John continued. “There will be a trial and every one of us will be called as a witness. Donovan knows it and he has to silence every voice. He’ll make every one of you prove yourself loyal to him through some terrible crime.”
“We can deal with that,” the long-haired southerner said, “when the time comes. For now, all we want is to stop the fighting. If we can just make a truce, we’ll be safe enough for a while. This fort will protect us and a truce will let us collect supplies.”
“Listen,” John replied, “if we lay down the sword, we won’t pick it up again. Right now, they’re trying to divide and conquer us. If we don’t hang together, we’ll hang separately for sure.”
“I call for a vote,” the long-haired southerner said.
After this man’s motion was seconded, John stood up and straightened his shoulders.
“Either we fight,” John declared, “or I leave. I won’t surrender myself to Donovan. Who’ll fight with me?”
Though thirteen hands were raised, John’s proposal fell short of a majority.
“Fight or die,” John said. “Who wants to live?”
Now, only twelve hands remained raised.
“One last time,” John said, his eyes red and shoulders stooped, “who will stand against the northsmen?”
Several hands dropped. Only a handful of westerners continued to favor armed resistance.