One Man's War

by Thomas J. Wolfenden

  They’d departed the very next day after the ambush and his subsequent surrender and good to his word, the sergeant had complied with his terms, leaving Jimenez, Robyn, and Izzy back in Williams, not looting, taking only what they’d need, leaving the three survivors enough to get by at least one winter by themselves. Besides, there was only so much you could cram into one deuce and a half.

  With each mile covered, his depression grew darker, and his mind went over, time and time again, things he’d should have done differently. If he could turn back time, somehow he could make it all better for his now destroyed dreams.

  His mood and gloominess waned slightly when they had entered Nebraska, and every mile travelled eastward across the empty, deteriorating highway he looked out, hoping to get a glimpse of Dawn Redeagle, his huge teepee, and what now must be his vast herd of bison grazing lazily over the plains. With every day that passed, the scenery staying the same, never seeing his old friend or even a sign of his passing, Tim’s mood sunk lower and lower again, and now it was threatening to completely consume him.

  He’d not felt this low since the first weeks back in Philadelphia so many years ago, and the big Australian’s crowing over the campfire did nothing to alleviate the feelings. Tim sat alone in the darkness, his eyes burning holes into the bragging man’s back, who stood by the fire, casting shadows across the desolate rest area, and his audience sat rapt, eating up every word.

  Tim caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned to see the sergeant approaching, holding two canteen cups. The man came up to him, squatted down, and handed him one of the steaming cups. “Here’s some coffee, Sar’ Major.” Tim took the offered cup, brought it up to his lips and sipped the bitter black drink. They had no sugar, and he grimaced slightly. He nodded his thanks to the sergeant.

  The sergeant sat down next to Tim. “I want to thank you for not trying anything.”

  “What choice do I have?”

  “You could try to escape.”

  Tim chuckled morosely. “Where would I escape to?” he asked, waving his free hand out into the darkness. “There’s nothing and nowhere to escape to.”

  “You do have to eat something, you know. You haven’t eaten anything all day.”

  “Fattening the calf before the slaughter?” Tim replied ruefully.

  “No, not at all. You’re my prison—”

  “Don’t remind me,” Tim cut in.

  “And as my prisoner, you’re my responsibility.”

  “Your hospitality overwhelms me, Sergeant.”

  “Look, Flannery, I’m just following orders.”

  “I vas just followink orders, Mien Herr,” Tim muttered in a bad German accent.

  “That’s uncalled for. You of all people should know about following orders.”

  “Legal, moral orders, yes,” Tim said.

  “We have a real president, and the Constitution, and everything back in DC. Civilization is coming back, and so will the country.”

  “Ah, yes, the president. Wasn’t he the secretary for Urban Development before everyone died?” Tim asked, eyebrow raised.

  “That doesn’t matter. He was the legal successor. Now he’s in charge, and he’s issued me orders.”

  “The one who holds the conch,” Tim said, nodding slowly.

  “The what?”

  “The conch. Have you ever had a chance to read the novel Lord of the Flies?”

  “No, I never read it.”

  “It’s about a group of schoolboys who got marooned on an island, and started to govern themselves,” Tim said, staring out into the night.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “These boys find this conch shell. Whoever holds it has the say. They start out okay at first, but the whole thing deteriorates into chaos, and they turn into savages.”

  “Are you saying we’re like that?”

  “Not exactly, but I know all about your little dystopian paradise your president has got set up. Sounds like a real garden spot, I tell you.”

  “It hasn’t been easy,” the sergeant admitted, wondering where Flannery had gotten that information. “If you want to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs.”

  “Swell,” Tim snorted. “:You’re quoting Lenin now. His ideas of a Utopia kind of took a shit, too.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. All we wanted was to be left alone. We had everything we needed and weren’t bothering anyone. Every step of the way, around every fucking corner, was some asshole trying to take what we had away. You’re not the first.”

  “We all want it to be back the way it was before,” the sergeant replied.

  “Well, it’s not the way it was before. It’ll never get back to that,” Tim spat. “Now you’ve got your little pocket of what you call civilization, ruled by the one holding the conch, and you’re taking me back. You’ll hoist my body up on a petard as an offering to the beast. I know how it works, Sergeant.”

  “Where do you get the idea it’s so bad back there?”

  “Sergeant, I know all about the food shortages, the riots, the summary executions, the lack of electricity, running water, the sickness and disease, and frankly, I didn’t want any part of it. Yeah, a real dystopian paradise,” Tim said, setting down the canteen cup, and refilling his pipe. He struck a match, puffed a few times to get the bowl lit, and looked at the sergeant through the smoke with hot, burning eyes.

  “How do you know so much?”

  “A little bird told me.”

  “Look. I’ve got my orders, and my orders were to go out, arrest you, and bring you back.”

  “Arrest me? Is that what I am, under arrest?” Tim asked.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what you are.”

  “I’m not even going to ask what the charges are, Sergeant. You said you have a president and the Constitution, is that right?”

  The sergeant remained silent, but nodded his head.

  “Alright, so you have that. And the rule of law, correct?”

  “Yes, damn it!” the sergeant said a little too loudly, making some of his men glance over from the campfire. He called out that everything was alright, and returned his attention to Tim.

  “I guess the president threw out the Posse Comitatus rule then?” Tim said.

  “What do you mean?” the sergeant asked, knowing damn right well what Tim was talking about.

  “Oh come on now, Sergeant. You were a cop, and an MP. You should know good and well what the Posse Comitatus rule is. The Federal government cannot use the Army for police powers inside of the fifty United States. You, as an active duty NCO should know this, by rote. You have no arrest powers over me, and by doing so, have broken the law yourself.”

  The look on his captor’s face told the tale, and Tim knew he’d gotten control again. But how to put it to use?

  “Look, Flannery,” the sergeant said in exasperation, “I’ve got a wife back in DC. I have other things I have to think about too.”

  “You’re all equal back there, but some of you are far more equal than the others. I bet you even have a really nice house you and your woman call home, don’t you?” Tim said. “I had a wife and a child back in Arizona myself, but they’re both spread across a mountainside now, aren’t they? All because the one holding the conch wanted something I had. He was more worried about a set of codes than getting the lights on, or getting the water running, or setting up farms to grow food for you all.”

  “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “No, I guess it wasn’t. Same as billions of people dropping dead in one fell swoop wasn’t supposed to happen. But it did. Your president had the golden opportunity to make everything right, but he got a taste of power and it lured him in. Now everyone that survived has got to suffer because he wants to rule the world.”

  “It’ll happen. It’s just going to take time, is all,” the sergeant said, but his voice betrayed his feelings. He still wondered how Flannery knew about the riots and the food shortages, thoug
h he’d save those questions for later. “Look, Flannery, these decisions were made—”

  “Far above your pay-grade, I know. I’ve used it far too many times myself when I actually didn’t make the decisions. I stopped taking orders from those people the moment the world took a shit.”

  The sergeant looked away, not wanting to look into Tim’s eyes, for fear of him seeing into his soul. The handful of men sitting around the fire burst out into laughter, at one of Colin’s stories, no doubt. What was it this time, he wondered? How many women he’d fucked? How he scored the winning goal in a football game? Flannery was right on one account, that Colin asshole was full of shit.

  Tim changed the subject then, not wanting to push the sergeant over the edge. He’d said what he meant to say, getting exactly the reaction he had hoped for, to place some doubt into his mind about what he was actually doing. “So, Sergeant, how long exactly did it take you to get out to Arizona?”

  “It took a week short of two months.”

  Tim did a little mental arithmetic. “Hmm. I figure a little less time getting back, now that you’ve scouted a way. That’ll still put us back after winter hits.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he assented, taking another sip of his cooling coffee. “I was hoping we could get back sooner.”

  “I didn’t think the roads would be as bad so quickly myself,” Tim said.

  “Most of the bridges across the Mississippi are down or impassable. We had to go as far north as Minnesota to cross. The whole greater Mississippi Valley has been flooded several times from the looks of it. Not much left.”

  “Only seven years. The Earth has a way of taking back what’s hers, eh?” Tim asked, for the first time in a genuinely friendly tone.

  “Yeah, it has, hasn’t it?”

  “The nights are getting longer, and colder. I hope we can get to DC before the snows hit. I don’t look forward to riding out a winter with his sorry ass,” Tim said, pointing a thumb at Colin, who had the men around the campfire roaring with laughter again.

  “If that happens, you’ll have to fight me for the chance to kill him, Flannery,” the sergeant said, smiling wryly.

  “Don’t worry, I will,” Tim said.

  “Kill him or fight me?”

  “Both,” Tim said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get some sleep.”

  “Are you going to sleep out here?” the sergeant asked, standing up and tossing out the remainder of his coffee.

  “Yeah, I’ve got my fartsack right here. Don’t worry, I’ll still be here in the morning,” Tim said, pulling up his rucksack and taking out his sleeping bag.

  “Just remember, no funny shit, okay?”

  “I promise, Sergeant. You were good at your word back in Williams; I’ll be good at mine.”

  “I’ll leave you be then. See you in the morning, Sergeant Major.”

  “I’ll have a nine AM wakeup,” Tim called back to the man, who didn’t bother to answer him, just shrugged and walked away. Tim smiled, knowing he’d gotten under his captor’s skin this time. He’d probably lay awake all night thinking of what Tim had said to him.

  He shucked his boots, unrolled his sleeping back, and rolled up his field jacket for a pillow. Climbing in, he shut out the noise of the men still at the fire, curled up, and with new thoughts running through his mind he fell asleep right away, and slept soundly for the first time in over a week.

  The next morning, after everyone was roused from sleep, the sergeant made short work of rallying the men together and getting all their gear repacked and ready for travel.

  Tim was in the rear seat of the sergeant’s Hum-Vee, sitting behind the driver on the left hand side. The sergeant was in the ‘shotgun’ seat in the front. The rest of the men were dispersed in two other Hum-Vees and Tim’s deuce and a half, and the little convoy was now nearing the outskirts of Omaha.

  Tim had the window rolled down, letting the breeze hit his face. It was a pleasant morning, not too hot, not too cold, a few puffy clouds in the deep blue sky. It would have been a perfect day had it not been for the circumstances in which he found himself. He had felt fine the previous evening, though now, in the harsh light of day, his depression returned with a vengeance. His mind drifted back to the US Army’s Code of Conduct, a list of six articles that he’d sworn to abide by. He’d never even thought of violating them before, now that he’d broken the second rule: Article II: I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist. His heart sank.

  He’d done what he had to do, not so much for his sake, but for the sake of Robyn, Izzy, and Jimenez. He thought about what he’d told the sergeant the previous night, that he’d not try to escape, and then though of Article III: If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy, and he knew in his heart of hearts that he’d have to try.

  He didn’t have long to wait. Just after they had passed the road sign stating they’d entered the city of Omaha, there was a loud thump, like they’d hit something in the road, and Tim felt it through his seat in the rear of the Hum-Vee.

  The engine chugged a few times, and then seized in a cloud of steam and white smoke, stopping it dead in its tracks.

  “What the fuck was that?” the sergeant demanded.

  “I dunno, Sarge,” the driver said.

  There was another thump, and this time the driver’s side windshield exploded, a neat round hole appearing, cracks spreading out in the tempered glass like a spider’s web. A millisecond later, the driver’s head disappeared in a crimson mist, spraying the inside of the vehicle with blood, brain matter, and bits of bone.

  Instinctively, Tim opened the door to the Hum-Vee, hitting the asphalt hard, and rolling away onto the shoulder of the road, seeking cover. He shimmied underneath the guardrail and into a drainage ditch, trying hard to get as low as possible.

  He heard other men in the vehicles shouting, and dared to lift his head high enough to see what was going on. There was a whoosh over his head, and he saw a man who had jumped out of the rear of the truck fall backwards onto the ground, a loud audible slap as if a hand had hit him in the chest. Seconds later, Tim heard the distant crack of a large caliber rifle. Someone was shooting at them, but who?

  The whoosh and then the crack followed several more times, and each round fired damaged another of the small convoy’s vehicles. Whoever was shooting at them was doing a damn good job of disabling all of the vehicles and spreading terror in the unit.

  With the exception of the driver of the Hum-Vee and the man who had rashly decided to stand out in the open, no other people had been hit, and now they were all taking cover on the opposite side of the road from where Tim had sought refuge.

  He could hear the sergeant yelling out to the men, trying to gain some sort of order in the chaos, Tim all but forgotten in the confusion. Tim chanced another look, and saw that all of the vehicles were now completely disabled from the gunfire. Whoever was shooting at them had to be using a big .50 caliber rifle to do this amount of damage and still not be seen, and the shots were being fired from quite a distance.

  He decided to use this opportunity to escape now, not caring who was shooting at them. He started to slowly back away from the top of the ditch, thinking of getting as much real estate as he could between him and the sergeant’s men, when he felt a weight on his back, and then a rough, strong hand pressed against his mouth, clamping tight.

  His thoughts of escape now dashed, he deflated and went limp. He felt the hot breath of whoever was laying on his back by his ear, and then heard a man whisper, “Don’t move, and don’t make a sound!”

  His mind raced, wondering if he should fight or just give in, then something in his head told him not to resist, that this voice was familiar and he should heed the words.

  “Gary Owen!” came another whisper, and the ha
nd slowly moved away from his mouth. Tim turned, and was face to face with his old friend, Dawn Redeagle, his long, dark hair tied back, a red headband tied around his brow. Tim’s eyes lit up.

  “I’ll explain later. Follow me!” Dawn said, and set off down the drainage ditch in a crouched run. Tim lay there for a moment, stunned, and then set out behind the man, crouching, hoping they hadn’t been seen.

  Tim needn’t have worried; the still unseen gunman had the rest of the party pinned down, and every few moments, another whoosh, then the following crack came, and somewhere, now behind the fleeing pair, softball-sized divots of asphalt were exploding in front of the cowering soldiers, effectively keeping their heads down.

  The two men ran along the length of the ditch for several yards before Redeagle took a left and headed through some tall grass going north, where there were several dilapidated houses standing.

  Redeagle rounded the side of the closest house, followed closely by Tim. When they got to the side of the house completely hidden from the highway, Tim saw the old Chevy Suburban parked, engine idling. Redeagle jumped in behind the steering wheel, tossing his M16 onto the dashboard.

  Tim got in on the passenger side, Redeagle put the vehicle in gear, and laying a goodly amount of rubber on the weed-overgrown suburban street, tore off away from the pinned down men on the highway.

  “Well that was rather exciting!” Redeagle said, a grin splitting his face.

  “I’ll say,” Tim replied, breathless from the sprint, looking back over the seat to see if anyone was following. “How did you know?”

  “I don’t think anyone will be following, Tim,” Redeagle replied, turning the wheel and coming to an abrupt stop in front of a six-story office building where he shut . off the engine. “Good intel, Tim. And it’s really good to see you!”

  “Shit, it’s good to see you too. It’s been a long time.”