by Trent Reedy
“Happened a long time ago.” My voice thudded heavy in the thick, still air.
JoBell didn’t answer. We moved on and found several rooms where everything had been stripped out and taken. Finally, we kicked in a door where things looked okay. A little cookstove, some pots, and a few cans of vegetables and soup were set up on a small counter next to the sink outside the bathroom. The bed was in mostly good shape. I felt the stove. Cold. “Whoever was living here isn’t here now. I wonder how long —”
I was slammed in the side so hard that I hit the wall, clocking my head on the hangers on the open closet bar. I tried to swing my rifle up, but someone grabbed it. Rough hands clamped my throat.
JoBell screamed. Something crashed. I tried to yell for help, but I couldn’t breathe.
“Hey.” A gun muzzle was pressed next to my eye. “Hey, hey. I’ll shoot your damn brains out. You feel?” He pressed the gun harder. “Huh? You done?”
Some guy with his huge gut hanging out the bottom of a wolf head T-shirt had a .38 to JoBell’s temple. Her blond hair stuck out from between his sausage fingers. On one of those fingers, he wore a big silver skull ring that seemed to smile at me. In the dim light, I caught a glimpse of my guy in the mirror. A skinny little bastard with a sorry excuse for a beard and a douchey braided ponytail. I could drop him in one punch if he wasn’t pointing a gun at my head. If his buddy didn’t have my JoBell.
Another guy about my age took JoBell’s rifle. Then he hurried to me and grabbed my M4, slinging it over his shoulder. While he took my nine mil from its holster, our eyes met, and I saw his nose, crooked from having been busted, his split lip, the bruise under his eye. He wasn’t like the other two. A current of fear ran through him, and I wonder if that silver skull had played a part in his jacked-up face.
“You two okay in there?” Major Leonard called.
The skinny guy shook me. “Answer him. Tell him you’re okay. Wrong word, and I’ll kill you.”
“We’re good, sir,” I shouted after a moment. “Just saw a rat.”
The fat man pulled JoBell’s head to the side and dragged his slimy tongue up her neck. “Mmm. This one’s fresh. Showered in the last week and everything, I bet.” JoBell squeezed her eyes closed as he kissed her cheek. “Welcome to the Lewiston Hilton, baby. You and me are gonna have some fun. Got the honeymoon suite reserved a few doors down.”
Every muscle in my body tensed to move and destroy this asshole. Why hadn’t I swept the room first? Rule number three. Always post a guard. If we’d checked the bathroom right away like we had with the other rooms, they’d never have jumped us.
“We got friends outside,” I said. “If you let us go right now, we’ll let you live.”
The skinny guy laughed. Fat Ass grinned, showing off the tobacco all over his teeth. “That so?” He laughed and then spoke close to JoBell’s ear. “I do believe he’s jealous of us, darling.” To me, he added, “Well, don’t you worry. We’re going to have fun with you too. When the dating pool is as piss-poor as we got here, we can’t be too picky. Ask the kid there.”
“We’re not with the United States,” JoBell said. “We’re Idaho Army.”
“That so?” Fat Ass shrugged. “Honey, Fed or Idaho, you’re all pink inside.” Him and the skinny bastard laughed like this was the best joke they’d ever heard. Then, like throwing a switch, Fat Ass turned serious. “I could give a shit which army you’re with. It’s your damned war what ruined my landscaping business, what got my family killed. Now, come on.” He pulled JoBell toward the door. Skinny Guy made me follow, and the bruised kid brought up the rear.
Outside in the parking lot, Specialist Valentine saw us first. He froze like he didn’t know what to do. When the major saw him freaking out behind the machine gun, he finally turned and noticed us.
“Evening!” Fat Ass yelled. “No. No. Lower your guns. That ain’t any way for guests to behave. ’Sides, check it out.” He jerked his head, and I risked a look. Four men with a mix of shotguns and rifles stepped up to the edge of the motel roof. Fat Ass laughed again. “Don’t look so worried. Nothing bad’s gonna happen ’cept if you do something stupid to piss me off. Now see, Captain —”
“Major,” said Major Leonard.
Fat Ass made a little bow but never relaxed his hold on JoBell. “Well, then I’m the damned admiral. See, Major, me and my boys will take that nice ride of yours. Turns out we have a spare can of diesel. We’ll have that machine gun, all your rifles, and any food you got. And we’ll take your uniforms — all your clothes, really.”
“Who are you?” Major Leonard asked.
“I’m the guy who’s going to kill you if you don’t do what I say, and start doing it right now. Now get your boy out from behind that machine gun. All y’all put your guns down and step back.” The major put his rifle on the ground. Martonick did the same, and the specialist climbed up onto the roof of the Humvee and got down to the ground. “That’s right.” Fat Ass kept his gun pointed at JoBell’s head with his right hand. He let go of her hair with his left and wrapped his arm around her, his hand slowly sliding up over her shirt closer and closer to her chest.
A dull thud came from behind us. A man had fallen off the roof, and we looked up to see a sword blade slip through the throat of another. Then Cal stepped into view, pulling the blade back and spinning to slash the hands clean off another man.
Skinny Guy was watching the action on the roof. I threw my head back to crunch his face, and my hand moved to knock his gun aside. I pulled away from him as Cal slashed the last roof man’s head off. Then he jumped from the roof, sliding down a pole fireman-style.
JoBell ducked and slammed her elbow into Fat Ass’s tiny junk. When he groaned and backed up, she spun out of his grip and shot up with her legs, back, shoulder, and arms, bashing her fist under his chin. A piece of his tongue fell away and he yelled as blood gushed from his mouth. “Oo fuhin beh!”
Cal screamed as he sprinted toward us. He slashed his cavalry saber down and to the left to take a chunk out of Skinny Guy’s face and neck. Then he took his sword in both hands and swung up and to the right, slicing through Fat Ass’s stomach. Cal gripped that sicko by the throat with one big, shaking hand, eyes wide and breathing heavy. “You messed with the wrong people, asshole!” He gritted his teeth. Spittle was on his chin. “Special place in hell for you.” He rammed his saber up into the guy’s crotch, his bicep flexing and cut forearm shaking as he pushed the blade up into our attacker’s body.
The whole thing had happened in seconds, and the younger, bruised guy who had taken our guns stood frozen. Sheriff Nathan Crow came out from behind the motel office, walking calmly with his hand out in front of him, pointing an eight-inch .44 Magnum revolver as he approached the guy.
The gun grabber held his hands up as he stepped backward. “No. Please. I ain’t really with them. They made me —”
Crow shot him in the face as casually as he might swat a fly. He holstered his gun as the guy’s body fell back and bounced a little when it hit the ground. Crow let out an earsplitting two-fingered whistle, and two big four-wheel-drive pickups rolled into the lot. A half-dozen Brotherhood men climbed down from them and set up a security perimeter.
“Danny, Miss Linder” — Sheriff Crow nodded to us — “we came as soon as Cal got your text message. Miss Linder, are you injured? I know you’re not okay, but did he cut you or anything?”
JoBell shook her head.
Cal handed me my nine mil and M4. “How about you?”
I looked at my friend, every part of me, inside and out, shaking scared. “Shit, Cal.”
He pulled a red-brown stained hanky from his pocket and wiped the blood off his sword. Then he put his arm around my shoulders. “It’s cool, dude. The Brotherhood has it covered.”
Crow’s eyes wrinkled with his big smile as he handed the major’s rifle back to him. “I’m Nathan Crow.”
“Major Leonard.”
Crow nodded. “Good to meet you, though I wish it had been
under better circumstances.”
“Likewise,” said the major.
JoBell stepped close to me. I was surprised she wasn’t crying. I about wanted to, and I hadn’t been felt up by that sicko. I noticed a black armband with the white eagle stretched around Cal’s big arm. He was an official member of the Brotherhood now. “When did this happen?” I said, nodding to the armband.
“Cal joined us a couple weeks ago. We could hardly find a band long enough for him.” Crow slapped a hand on the big guy’s shoulder. “We were putting a stop to some horse thieves south of Pullman, Washington, when he got this strange text message. Then your location pinged with the word help. I’ve never seen anyone drive a big four-by-four so fast. We sneaked up behind the place at just about the time those four sorry assholes took aim at you from the roof.”
Sweeney had limped out to join us. “Thanks for coming, buddy.”
“How you feeling?” Cal asked.
Sweeney shrugged and then winced.
A dark-haired man in a black armband stepped up to Crow. “Nathan, scouts have radioed in. They’ve spotted some vehicle movement deeper in the ruins. We may have more of a problem.”
“Call the scouts back in. Fuel up their Humvee,” said Crow. “We’ll pull tight security, set up here for the night, and roll out at first light. If that’s okay with you, Major?”
The major nodded. “Yes.”
“No,” JoBell said. Everybody watched her. Her voice broke a little as she said, “It is not okay. We leave tonight. Burn this place down.”
Nobody answered her for a moment. Crow finally snapped to life. “You heard her, boys! Pack it up. Little gas on a couple of the beds in there.” He pointed to the bodies on the ground. “Then throw those miserable carcasses in too. Torch it all.”
The thing about a fight is that the experience doesn’t end after the last punch is thrown, or the last shot is fired. Whenever I was in a struggle against someone who wanted to hurt or even kill me, the world would change in the space of a few seconds. My heart rate, my breathing, and even my thoughts sped up, so it felt like everything around me was moving a bit slower. Even after the action cleared and the danger had passed, it took a long time to relax. My muscles stayed tense. Every small sound or movement felt amplified somehow.
I was about eleven years old the first time I got into a real fistfight. We were both little kids, and I could hardly remember why me and him had been fighting. I didn’t even know his name. But I remembered how after it was over, and he’d run away from the playground with a bloody lip, I’d walked my bike back home, and I couldn’t stop my body from shaking. I couldn’t cool down, and although I wasn’t hurt too bad, I found myself crying in the garage later on. There had been just too much energy and intensity to deal with.
I had that same leftover adrenaline, without the tears, later that night, as me, JoBell, and Sweeney rode in the backseat of a big four-wheel-drive pickup back to Freedom Lake. Cal drove. Nathan Crow rode shotgun. Two Brotherhood guys sat on a couch in the bed of the truck, facing backward and manning a captured US M240B machine gun. I’d had a rotten time trying to sleep since the war began, but now I’d been awake and running around for like nineteen or twenty hours. I should have been fried enough to catch a few hours on this ride, but I couldn’t calm down.
It wasn’t only the fight rush that kept me from relaxing, though. I could still feel that slimeball’s hands on me. I could still smell the greasy stench of that piece of shit who’d threatened my JoBell. One look at JoBell showed me she was thinking the same things. She kept herself balled up around her rifle, almost like she was cold, even though Cal had the heat on against the cool spring night. JoBell had done really good in the fight against the US occupation, but that had all been removed and distant. A fight with rifles was different than fighting up close and hand to hand. And those sickos had wanted more than to just kill us. I clenched my fists tight, all pissed off again when I thought about what they nearly did.
“Cal, Mr. Crow,” JoBell said after we’d been on the road for about a half hour. “Thank you for saving our lives.”
Cal shrugged. “It’s just what we do. Anyway, I promised you a long time ago that I wouldn’t let nothing bad happen to you.”
“I’m glad we got there in time,” said Crow. “We, um … Well, the Brotherhood of the White Eagle is doing the best it can, but I’m sorry to say that we haven’t always made it in time for everyone who’s needed our help.”
We rode in silence for a moment. “I’m sorry if I got carried away yelling at you all back at the Victory Day celebration,” JoBell said. “I mean, I still think we could have found a different way to handle the situation besides hanging those people, but maybe I was a little too harsh.”
“Don’t think anything of it. I wish there’d been another way too,” Crow said. He turned around to look at us. “I’m supposed to be a sheriff, Miss Linder. You give me a working legal system, a place I can take dangerous criminals, a way to make sure that justice will be done, and I’ll be the first one on board. That’s why I’m glad your father is down in Boise, helping to set up a system.” Crow must have noticed the worry on JoBell’s face, because his expression softened. “Hey. Hey, don’t you worry. We’ve heard from Idaho CentCom. They’re still broadcasting on RIR. It was a tough fight, but we pushed ’em back. Your daddy’s okay. I’m sure of it.” JoBell nodded and let out a shaky breath. Crow went on, “Problem is, what do I do until the law enforcement, the courts, and the prisons are back up and running? I don’t have the facilities to lock up guys like the ones who assaulted you tonight, and even if I did, I don’t think we can rightly afford to take care of monsters like that, when good, honest, hardworking Idaho people can barely feed their families. Most of all, I have to make sure these dangerous people don’t run free to hurt others. So if the evidence is reasonably clear, as it was tonight outside that motel, I feel like it’s our duty to take action to remove the threat. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. I know it. I just hope you can understand why it’s that way for the time being. We’re doing the best we can, but right now it’s all we can do to keep people safe.”
“Is it really that bad out here?” I asked.
“We’ve mostly been up against theft and robbery,” Cal said. “It ain’t like you can just stop at the Gas & Sip real quick for a beef-and-bean burrito and a PowerSlam. There’s not a lot to go around, and plenty of greedy bastards out there who just don’t give a shit and will hurt anyone to get what they want. We were checking on this farmhouse about two weeks ago. This guy answered the door when we knocked. He had a shotgun, but so what, right? Everybody got a gun. Be stupid not to. Except he didn’t seem quite right. He was like too friendly.”
“So we asked if we could come inside,” Crow said. “I was noticing something a little fishy too.”
“The guy just went cold,” Cal said. “Tried to feed us some line about his house being too messy. Well, we had a dozen of our guys on the other side of the house. Nathan keyed the radio and yelled to storm the place. I dropped the guy at the door with one punch. Crow shot a man in the kitchen who was pulling a gun. The third guy we found upstairs, crying like a baby, begging us to let him go.”
Crow ran his fingers over his mustache. “The three men had broken into the house, killed the father, and tied the mother and two teenage daughters up. They hadn’t had the chance to do, you know, what they were going to do to them, before we got there.”
Cal continued the story. “So I dragged that crying son of a bitch out of the house by his hair. I took him out into the woods so the girls wouldn’t see. Then I slit that bastard’s throat with my sword.”
“Damn, Cal,” JoBell said.
“Saved a bullet,” Cal said.
“We’ve been helping people out a lot too,” said Crow. “The occupation left us in a pretty bad fix. We were out of, or running low on, almost everything. As soon as the Brotherhood took over eastern Washington, we started redistributing supplies. Food, fuel, har
dware, blankets, medical stuff. I mean, Idaho doctors were begging for antibiotics.”
“We busted up this one — I guess you’d call it a gang,” Cal said. “Tough fight. A couple of our guys got hurt, but we took them down. Found a whole barn packed full of basically everything those bastards had been stealing from people. Whatever you could possibly need, they’d taken it. For some of it, we could find the rightful owners. The rest we gave to people who didn’t really have nothing.” Cal smiled. “It gives you a good feeling, you know, to help people out. Especially after being stuck in the dungeon for so long during the occupation. Now we’re out in the open fixing things.”
I thought about Becca’s message about how things were getting bad up here. JoBell seemed to think Becca’d been talking about the Brotherhood, but now I wondered if maybe she’d been worried about crime and bandits and stuff. Or maybe she’d just been having a bad day, and things were all right. We wouldn’t know until we talked to her.
“How did everything fall apart so quickly?” JoBell asked. “I knew it was going to be rough — I mean, the best thing would have been to avoid all of this — but I can’t believe so many people are so without decency that they’d abandon their humanity and steal and kill and rape. I thought we were better than that.”
“We are better than that, Miss Linder,” Crow said. “You saw the worst of the situation tonight, but when we get up to Freedom Lake, you’ll see the best. We are standing on the threshold of a great new era. People are working together, and together we are making progress. In fact, I wanted to ask you both if you’d be willing to help with that progress.”