deliberately exaggerating the accented o, "you have a standing invitation to Casa Morgan the next time you find yourself in the vicinity of Schonefield, Montana. We have some of the General's papers, including a roster of his command. I'm sure we can find Trooper Modern listed among…"
"It was Captain, lieutenant, Captain Dupree; and your statement of 'next time' implies that there was a first time I found myself anywhere near Montana. I assure you I have not."
It was George's turn to be floored nevertheless he retained his smile. "Bodwin Dupree?"
"Y…yes," she stammered. "Captain Bodwin Dupree of the …"
"Thirty-second Kentucky Rifles," George interjected. "He's mentioned often and with great love and affection by the General for his courage and bravely."
And that was all it took. From that point on George Morgan and Beatrice Modern with the accented o were fated to be together. Marriage and life as an Army wife had its ups and downs but few regrets, the only one being their inability to start a family. Harrison was in part compensation for that. Children taught the values of a great country by the great man she had come to view her George as gave her lasting solace. He was her fount, and by extension the well- spring of each and every student that passed through the hall of the school. What the Rifles did after George's brilliant stand here was merely an extension of the training they had received at his hands. The world had to acknowledge that. With George as their gilding force they simply could do nothing else. He was certainly right there beside Braden, directing his every movement when it came time for the enemy to see the folly of invading a blessed country under the direction of a great man.
"Well that certainly answers one of my questions about that day," Lloyd said. Mrs. Morgan looked at him quizzically, lost still in the sweet memories of the past.
"He normally parked up front close to the building," Lloyd explained. "But that day he parked at the very back of the lot. My guess would be he remembered having them on his way here, but knew he would've run late returning home. So he parked where he figured it was a safe."
It was then Jim Moss appeared. "You all about ready? The crews waiting."
Lauren had already gone in now reappeared and gave Lloyd a quick nod.
"Yeah, I guess. Let's do this." Lloyd said and walked in behind Mrs. Morgan.
During the course of a normal school year, some grades, mainly the elementary, would have history or science fairs. Then the hallways would be transformed into displays ranging from an abbreviated version of a Civil War hospital complete with staff triaging wounded soldiers and piles of ersatz amputated limbs; or one might walk through the front door and begin a journey through the digestive tract, with small students dressed in strange costumes denoting them as enzymes, informing you that as a chewed morsel of food this is what your journey looked like once you were swallowed. In either case, easels would guide the visitor (many parents and the town newspaper never failed to show up, marking the fairs as an annual event almost everyone looked forward to.) through enlarged photographs and professionally typed explanations of what they were seeing. Sometimes whole classrooms would be converted into sidebar stages where one might behold a dying Lincoln, or a nuclear reaction.
Once inside, Lloyd's initial impression was that he had stepped into some weird architectural combination of both fairs. His attention was first drawn to the skylight that hadn't been there on the morning of May 9th. Encompassing the entire thirty- foot length of the entrance hallway, he had failed to notice the addition from the outside. The first display placard showing the ruined building in the immediate aftermath came as a surprise to him. Lauren was right about him being lucky not to have come back. The explosion that Braden and him had heard on their way back collapsed the entrance hall into the V-shaped rubble. They had been too concerned about keeping hid and the smoke was still to thick for them to notice. It was now, in Lloyd's estimation, a major miracle the building hadn't been blown in half!
At the end of the newly reconstructed hall, attached to the wall were two placards: The smiling face of Harvey Miles in his white lab coat contrasted with the stern countenance of Patrolman Lawrence Harper. The informational bios on both men ended with the same solemn pronouncement:
Teacher Harvey Miles – Patrolman Lawrence Harper fell here May 9th 2022.
Patrolman Lawrence T. Harper
Larry Harper was hit. He didn't know how badly, but he was in better shape than his patrol car, which sounded like it was going to seize up or throw a rod at any moment. He had heard the distress call from Cally Foreman, the day dispatcher. She had stayed calm and described the scene from her little window at headquarters, but that was almost unnecessary. Cally had been smart enough to pipe in the video from the station's outside concealed monitoring cameras. Scores of armed men, "military men," were her exact words, dressed in some sort of dapple gray uniforms were storming the building. In the background, he heard the unmistakable reports of small arms and automatic weapons fire. Police Chief Gregg Stennes was screaming at Cally to get on the State Police band and tell them what the hell was happening. "All units, reports are they're using tractor trailers as transports," Cally had managed to pass on before the outside scene showing an soldier on one knee balancing what looked like a bazooka on his right shoulder showed up on a monitor. Larry key his steering wheel mic button and screamed for Cally to get the hell out of there. He could have almost swore that he heard her snort a suppressed laugh before quickly saying in a voice that now broke with the realization that her time was up, "And go where Larry? Montana State, this is Schonefield PD, we are under attack by mili…" The last thing Larry heard was an explosion, then silence.
Attempts to raise the two other patrols were met with the same dead air. He had been cruising the back road of Highway 127, complying with a request from the state Game Warden to keep an eye out for deer poachers. Slamming on the breaks, he pulled the cruiser over, jumped out and quickly donned his protective flak jacket, loaded his shotgun with 00 shot, chambered a round and did the same with his service 9mm, placing it in the seat beside him. 127 was also know locally as Bottoms road, since it snaked its way through a low lying series of hills cut by a series of washes. Back in the cruiser, Larry headed up to Prairie Point. There he would be in a position to use his binoculars and scan the town. He'd also be in a good position to establish some type of radio contact with the State boys, or somebody with a hell of a lot more firepower than he was currently packing.
The jacked-knifed trailer sitting atop Prairie Point was just positioning itself as a road block, otherwise Larry Harper would probably had died then and there and, in all probability, Harrison Traditional would have fallen, students and all, in an coup d'main. As it was, the trailer doors were facing away as the speeding cruiser rounded the last curve heading toward the hilltop. Larry 's reflexes acted before his mind remembered Cally's last warning "…Their using tractor trailers as transports!" Both feet slammed on the brakes. Larry's training in high speed driving, initially the subject of light-hearted ribbing at the station, saved him as he whipped the steering wheel hard right. The big cruiser desperately wanted to fishtail out of control, but instead issued a screaming protest of blue smoke as Larry fought to lock in the new direction, 180 degrees opposite. The rear window and trunk begin to take hits, as the surprised tractor driver fired blind through Larry's unexpected, but welcomed, smoke screen.
Approximately two hundred yards separated the two vehicles when the first troops scrambled out of the trailer. "Bite damn it, bite! Larry yelled, willing the cruiser to gain stable traction and rocket him to safety. It was then he realized that he still had the break pedal depressed by one foot while the gas was floored with the other. "Aarrgh," he cried aloud while releasing the brake. He had violated a cardinal rule his tactical driving instructor had warned against: He had allowed his adrenalin to override his thinking.
Several things then seemed to happen at once.
The cruiser surged forward like a savannah antelope on
ly to stagger under a pelting storm of lead. "Oh God, the tank gonna blow for sure," Larry's mind screamed. As if acknowledging that possibility, the cruiser suddenly lifted up causing Larry to scream aloud as he braced himself for the inevitable whoosh that would result in loss of control, and in all likelihood, a flaming, disintegrating tumble, that would finish near the bottom of the Point.
But instead the patrol car surged again. Freed from the conflicting operational orders of its driver, the wheels gained traction, freshening the smoke screen, and lunged around the curve to momentary safety.
Larry took a moment to calm down, easing off the accelerator. A quick glance revealed what he hoped was the extent of the damage. Minor hits if his initial assessment wasn't just wishful thinking. Tires seem to have survived (thank God). The gas gauge wasn't showing any radical drop in fuel. A quick glance in the outside mirror didn't show any tell-tell trail, but at this speed he knew that he could be hemorrhaging gas at a pretty steady clip and still not notice. The inside mirror was next to useless as the rear window was a collage of spider webbed hits. Couldn't worry about that now though, not with the dogleg coming up that would take him down
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