“He’s gonna pop,” whispered one of the soldiers.
“No he’s not…he’s gonna freak,” replied the second.
“Then you guys show up and scare the shit out of me, now we’re running from a bunch of North Koreans…and…and snipers, there’s a gun battle going on somewhere behind us and you expect me to get on a Goddamn helicopter—” he gasped for a cold breath, “—in the middle of a blizzard?”
As if in confirmation of his point, the whop-whop-whop of helicopter rotors started to register in the distance. Chad held his hands up again in a frustrated shrug. “I give up.”
The three soldiers looked at each other. “Yeah that’s about the long and short of it. But…” he held up a finger. “Correction, sir: We do not run from anyone.”
“Fuckin’ A, bubba,” grunted the taller man to Chad’s right.
“He ain’t lyin’,” said the shorter man with a shake of the head, hi-fiving the one on Chad’s right.
The soldier in charge looked up, listening to the helicopter in the distance over the wind of the storm. ”Satisfied?” he asked Chad. To the others, he said, “C’mon ladies, that’s our ride. Twenty yards.”
Chad crossed his arms and frowned. He still had no idea who these men were in their white camouflage, face masks, and helmets. The leader sighed and nodded to the man on his left who took a few steps toward Chad and lowered his weapon. He peeled back a Velcro tab of snowy camo and revealed a white and gray U.S. flag and below it a curved patch that read “SPECIAL FORCES”. Under that patch was a similar-shaped one that read “RANGER”.
“Does that answer any of your questions?” said the soldier, his breath a puff of vapor escaping through his facemask. Chad could hear the smile in the man’s voice.
Chad blinked. “Rangers? U.S. Army Rangers? Like, the Rangers?”
“We lead the way,” the masked, yeti-like figure said. He turned and started walking through the snow, rifle up again.
Chad let his arms fell to his sides in disbelief. “Well, okay then.” He took a few steps then stopped again. “But,” he said, pointing at the Ranger. “I want a real explanation when we…get wherever the hell you’re taking me.”
“I’ll let Captain Alston fill you in. That shit’s above my pay grade, sir,” was the reply. The other two laughed.
“Now come on, sir, we gotta get going. They’re gonna be setting up claymores along the road. You don’t want to be anywhere near here when the North Koreans find those.”
CHAPTER 10
Salmon Falls, Idaho.
DENNY LOOKED AROUND HIS house one last time. He stood in the living room dressed in his winter hunting gear and checked to see if he was forgetting anything. In the large aluminum frame pack by the front door, he had two weeks-worth of jerky and freeze-dried meals, his cold weather camping gear, first aid and ammo. His deer rifle, an old bolt action .308 he had picked up at one of the ubiquitous estate sales following the Blue Flu, leaned against the wall next to his pack. Strapped to the white and brown-mottled camouflaged pack was his wooden hunting bow and a quiver of homemade arrows fletched with feathers off a turkey he had taken last season.
He had been watching the news, preparing, cleaning his gear and getting ready to bug out if necessary. He couldn’t shake the overwhelming urge to leave—yet, now he was just looking for a reason to stay. Certainly nothing on the news had given him any hope. The flu was spreading and rioting was breaking out in the larger cities as emergency responders were getting sick and becoming incapacitated.
In fact, some in the media were prognosticating that it would only a matter of time before mass hysteria set in—much like what was experienced during The Great Pandemic. They were predicting that thousands would be dying and soon, whether the direct result of the mystery flu itself, or the widespread violence and unrest stemming from a general collapse of law and order.
On top of all the worry about the flu and rioting, satellite communications and television service had been increasingly spotty in the last 12 hours. It was hard to get a signal on TV or cell phone—and that made no sense. Satellites don’t get sick.
On a whim, he walked over to the mantel and took down the picture frames holding his wedding photo and the picture of Grandfather Red Eagle. He wanted to take the photos with him. After all, who knew what would happen in the coming days.
Not for the first time that day, his mind drifted to the Holocaust visited upon Atlanta the day before. The chaotic news reports had few facts and much speculation, but they all agreed on one thing. Atlanta was gone. All those souls, snuffed out in a brilliant flash, all those lives and hopes and dreams, erased in a heartbeat as if they never existed. The idea was almost too great to imagine. If he hadn’t lived through the Blue Flu and seen so many millions of people die around the world, he would have probably been paralyzed by shock. Atlanta. Nuked. It really was unbelievable. America was at war with no one at the moment, and no one claimed responsibility. He shook his head sadly.
All the news channels carried the same updates: Terrorist groups were quickly lining up to say that while they were happy it happened, it wasn’t them that launched the missile. No one wanted to bring down the inescapable wrath that was sure to land on the group that claimed responsibility. Countries around the world were sending condolences and asking what they could do to help.
Denny started to pull the pictures out. He stopped. If he took these big photos, they’d just get damaged in his pack or even worse, ruined. The pictures and people depicted in them would never look this good again. He had watched his wife wither and die once before.
“I will take you in my heart.” He gently placed a hand on the picture of Grandfather and said a prayer for Mishe Moneto to watch his trail. He gently kissed the picture of Emily, his wife, and put the 8x10 frames back on the mantel.
Denny found himself staring at the tomahawk that hung over the fireplace above the pictures. Grandfather had made it for him when he was just a kid on the res and he had kept it with him his entire life, always giving it a place of honor in his home. The eagle feathers that hung from the hickory shaft brought a smile to his face.
He took it down and tested the heft in his hands. Holding the ancient weapon of his people made him remember all the afternoons Grandfather had him practice wielding the wicked-looking blade. It had a flat top, making the slightly curved cutting edge look off-balance. Opposite the eye—the forged socket where hickory met steel—there was a wicked looking spike that had been covered by a cork sheath for decades.
Denny pulled the protective cork cover off and spun the tomahawk in his hands, shifting his weight back and forth from foot to foot, just like Grandfather had taught him.
“Always move, always stay on the balls of your feet, Little Spear. Never stop moving and swinging. Keep the tomahawk singing its war-song and no enemy will stand before you. Use momentum—yours and your opponent’s—to add strength to your strike and keep your foe off-balance. This is what was taught to me by my grandfather.” Grandfather’s words still echoed in his mind as the weapon sung through the air. It felt like it was a part of his arm, a part of him. It felt good.
Denny smiled and looked at the picture of his Grandfather. The weight of the tomahawk in his hand was comfort from his past. “Niyaawe,” he said. He held the weapon up in front of Red Eagle’s picture. “Thank you, Grandfather.”
Standing there holding his ancestral weapon, Denny noticed lights turn on in the Anderton house. “About time!” he said in relief. He ran out the front door and across the yard, squinting his eyes in the light blowing snow.
There was already an inch or so on the ground as he quickly jogged across the side yard. He saw John’s Cadillac parked askew in the driveway, the right front-end had been crushed. There was steam coming out the grill and liquid leaking onto the driveway, melting the snow. The windshield was smashed-in on the passenger side, a spider web of cracks emanating from a 3” diameter impact point in the upper-right corner. Something dark was smeared across
the window. It looked like blood.
Denny frantically raced up the front steps, three-at-time. He pounded on the front door. After a few tense moments, the door opened and John stood there before him, breathing hard.
“Denny! Thank God,” he said, hastily looking up the street over his neighbor’s shoulder. “Come in, come in.”
Unconsciously, Denny secured his tomahawk in the bar holster attached to his belt. He put both hands on John’s shoulders. The older man was pale and sweating. “John, are you okay? Where’s Ruth? I was getting worried these last few days!”
“I am so sorry, Denny,” John said, nodding his head in thanks and leading Denny into the kitchen. He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “We just got back from the hospital—we’re both fine. Really!”
“What happened? Where’s Ruth?”
“She’s taking some pillows and sheets down to the shelter,” John said. He looked out the window and sighed. “I don’t know how much time we have, son. You may want to join us tonight, or at least lock your place up good and tight.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we went out for dinner Wednesday night…”
“I knew it!” laughed Denny.
John looked at him oddly but shrugged, filling a glass with water from the tap. “Anyway, at dinner we heard the waitress talk to some other customers about the flu spreading out west. Then someone mentioned the school would be closed Thursday…well, one thing led to another and we decided to take some cash out—just in case, mind—on the way home. I don’t know where the other car came from, but suddenly he was right there in front of. I just couldn’t break in time. He was trying to get to the bank, too, I think.”
“Your car looks pretty bad, John.”
“I know, but it looks worse than it really is. It still runs—that Caddy is built like a tank! After we got the police to the scene, we were advised to take Ruth to the hospital. She had a nasty cut on her forehead. Turns out it was superficial, but she bled like a stuck pig,” he said with a chortle.
“Thank goodness she’s okay,” said Denny, relief in his voice. Ruth was like the grandmother he never knew.
John waved a hand, “Psh, my Ruthie is a tough ol’ bird. Little cut was nothing to her. She’s had 8 children—natural, mind you, no drugs,” he said proudly. “She told the nurses that and you should have seen the looks on their faces!” He took another drink of water and grew serious.
“When you didn’t come home I started to worry,” Denny said.
“Yeah, well, they wanted to keep her overnight for observation and then they had to x-ray my neck…whiplash or some such nonsense. I feel fine. And I told the doctor that, too. They had a bunch of kids from the school show up with the flu and I guess they just plain forgot about us. Don’t look at me like that. I said, I feel fine. But do they listen to me? No.”
“So you just walked out?” asked Denny.
“Oh, no, not really. I made an awful stink about letting us go and finally they did—after a crash course on flu prevention. It’s really starting to get bad on the coasts. Scary. Glad we live up here in the mountains.”
“Yes, I’ve been watching the news. It does not look good,” Denny said sadly. “I fear a lot of people are going to die…”
John was quiet for a moment. “Yes…we agree. It—this all seems very similar to…you know.” He took another sip. “Anyway, since the car wasn’t too banged up, we decided it’d be a good time to visit our son, Eldridge. He lives about half-way between here and the bank,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder. “Spent some time there with the grandkids, you know. Well, today we went back to the bank after watching things get worse out there and…” his hands started to shake as he reached for the faucet to refill his glass.
“What happened?” asked Denny. Salmon Falls was not exactly a hotspot for crime. Hell, if someone got a parking ticket, half the town knew by dinner.
“Some punks tried to rob us. Rob us, Denny! They had a knife and a bat…” he put a hand to his face. That’s when Denny noticed the tear in John’s shirt on his left arm, crusted brown material around the edges. The knuckles of his neighbor’s hand were red and bruised.
“John, you’re hurt!”
“What? Oh, this? Just a scratch. The punk with the knife got lucky. Thought he could take the old Mormon. Didn’t know I was in the boxing club back in college, did he?” John threw a couple punches over the table with such finesse for one his age that Denny had little trouble believing a teenager would not last long against his Mormon neighbor.
“Well,” he sighed. “His friend with the bat had an attitude, too. That’s why the windshield on my car got busted. He smashed it while I was teaching his friend to respect his elders. In the end, I decided discretion was the better part of valor and got back in the car—to get Ruth out of there, y’see.” The older man harrumphed. “Never did get our cash.”
“That’s crazy!” exclaimed Denny in disbelief. Things like that just did not happen in Salmon Falls. Flu crisis or not. “Did you recognize any of them?”
“Me? No. Ruthie though, she says that two of them had letter jackets, you know, from the football team? Yeah…I guess letting the kids out of school was a bad idea after all.”
Squealing tires in the distance made both men jerk up and look toward the front door. “I knew it!” said John as he got to his feet. “Little good-for-nothings were following us! I told Ruthie there was a car tailing us…”
Denny sprinted over to the front room windows and watched a car whip into the cul-de-sac, tires chirping on the asphalt and park along the curb at the end of the Anderton’s drive, blocking John’s car. Four teenagers got out, all wearing letter jackets with large football patches on the shoulders.
“We ain’t done with you old man!” one of them shouted.
Denny frowned. He recognized them well enough. Two were troublemakers in his American History class and the other two were just followers. Jeb Townsen, the largest of the group, pulled a baseball bat out of the blue, four-door import and casually swaggered up to John’s car.
“This is for Billy, you old coot!” He reared back and smashed the rear window on the large Cadillac.
John grabbed Denny’s left shoulder. “It’s not worth it, son. Come with me—let’s get down in the shelter with Ruthie. We’ll lock up tight and they’ll eventually go away.”
Anger bubbled up from deep inside Denny. They were students—his students—and he was their teacher. He had to do something. He felt responsible for them, somehow.
“I’ll handle this, John.” He opened the front door and stepped out, the light snow swirling around the front porch.
“Denny, wait—”
“Mr. Tecumseh?” asked the smallest of the four, Johnny Parks. His eyes grew large. “What are you doing here?”
“Shut up, Johnny,” hissed Jeb. He glared at Denny, the anger on his face, barely controlled, gave Jeb a half-wild look—something he had never seen before. He certainly did not look like the Jeb Townsen that Denny was always asking to be quiet in class—that much was certain.
“Boys,” said Denny. “You know, you’re going to be paying Mr. Anderton for that car window. Now don’t make it worse and force me to call your parents and the police.”
He walked down the porch steps casually, but never took his eyes off the group. He was only a few strides away from Jeb when the young hot-head raised the bat as if to swing at him.
“I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you ain’t our problem right now. We’re here for the old fart. Send ‘im out. He beat up my brother and I’m gonna get my payback.”
Denny put his hands on his hips and put on his best stone-faced Indian look, narrowing his eyes and staring the four boys down. He was a good head taller than all but Jeb and wider through the shoulders. The wind kicked up a notch and sent his loose hair in a swirl around his head. His right hand slowly slid down his hip until it brushed the cold steel of the tomahawk on his belt. So far, th
e teenagers had not noticed his weapon.
Jeb took a step forward and looked ready to swing. “Don’t try to scare me with your Indian bullshit—I ain’t no freshman.”
“You’re not going to be getting an ‘A’ in English either, from the sound of it,” Denny replied. He got a couple grins from the others. Jeb’s face reddened and his hands tightened on the bat.
“Denny, I don’t want any trouble. You hear me? Just have them clear outta here and we’ll call it even,” called out John from behind him.
Damn.
“There you are you sonofabitch! I’m gonna beat your ass for what you did to Billy!” Jeb roared and took another step forward.
“Billy got what he deserved, Jeb,” Denny said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “Why were you guys trying to rob John, anyway? What’s gotten into you?”
“It’s the end of the world, dumbass!” spat Jeb. “My dad says so—it’s all over the news. The Blue Flu is back! Hell, even President Denton got it!”
“Yeah, they think he’s so bad they can’t even let him leave that hospital in California,” said Johnny, peering around the side of his bigger teammate.
“Shut up!” barked Jeb. He pointed the bat over Denny’s left shoulder at John. “Your ass is mine, old man.”
“Whatever is going on elsewhere in the country doesn’t give you the license to raise hell and go all Mad Max, Jeb. Look around you, the world is not ending. It’s not the Blue Flu. Now put the damned bat down.”
Jeb glared defiantly at his teacher. “Get out of my way or I’ll lay your ass out in the snow!”
Denny held his breath to calm his nerves. This was getting quickly out of hand. The stupid kid was about to force his hand. He had been hoping that it was all a bluff, just Jeb trying to earn macho points in front of his buddies, but when he took another step toward Denny, that hope had fizzled.
“If you want Mr. Anderton, you’ll have to go through me, Jeb. Think about this. Don’t make me call the police.”
Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga Page 12