by Trent Reedy
JoBell Marie Linder.
If I could hear my JoBell’s sweet voice one more time …
She’d probably remind me about rule one. “I’m not alone,” I said quietly. “I feel like too many people are here with me tonight.”
The wind died down and the cold night fell absolutely still.
“That show you like. The Cliffhanger? It was on tonight,” I said. “He said kind of what you said once, about books, about how we should do things to make future books about us say the right things.” My eyes stung, and not only from the cold. “I thought you would have liked that.
“He said something else, though. He said we gotta stop thinking about justice, payback, and how much is owed, like it’s all on a scale. You know? Like the US killed some of ours, so we have to kill some of theirs back? But I think … it goes back farther than that. Democrats like President Rodriguez would pass a law, and maybe it was a good one, but that didn’t matter because Republicans like Montaine would have to oppose it, or the scale would tip too far in the Democrats’ favor. Democrats would do the same. Republicans and Democrats. All they did was push the scale for the sake of pushing. Then that summer in Boise.”
As I said the words, I could hear the screams from that night, and from a lot of bad nights that followed.
“It. Was. An. Accident. And that should have been the end of it. But it had tipped the scale, and others wanted to push it back. So they sent men to arrest us. So the pressure of the scale made Montaine block out all the Feds. Rodriguez himself said he didn’t want to launch the blockade in response, but that he had to. It’s all because one side or the other can’t stand for the balance to be off, no matter if what tipped it was good or bad. But it’s like each time they tip the balance, they push it farther and farther, until finally the only way to move it back is with guns.”
I shivered in the cold and wished for the millionth time that JoBell’s arms might be wrapped around me. “A long time ago, Sweeney asked me how we deal with having killed people in this war. Becca wondered the same thing. Cal was all tore up after what happened to Jackie’s folks. He blamed himself. I … I told him it wasn’t his fault. And I believed that.” I tapped the side of my head. “In here.” I tapped my chest. “And in here. I believed that because it’s true, and because I knew the weight of the guilt for those deaths would crush his soul.
“We had kind of a party tonight, JoBell. You would have loved it. Everybody together, safe, and joking around. Even Lieutenant Griffith and this guy Chris Stone that we freed from the camp joined in a little.” A tear rolled down my cheek. “But when we listened to the Cliffhanger talking about war, I felt guilty, you know? Because what right did I have to be safe, to have fun, when so many others are suffering so much in this war? But I was glad that my friends could have a good time.”
I shook my head. “Sorry. I know I’m not too good of a speaker. Maybe I’m still drunk. I can forgive Cal and I believe it when I tell him it’s not his fault. But I blame myself for everything else that’s gone wrong. And I’m happy that my friends are safe and having fun, but I feel bad for doing the same thing. And then when the Cliffhanger talked about what we want to put into the next chapter of the book about us, just like you had, I could almost imagine you with us, and I wondered what you’d say. And I think … JoBell, I know you’d tell me it’s okay if I have fun. You’d tell me this … oh God … that it isn’t all my fault.”
I dropped down to my knees in the snow before JoBell’s grave. “I can’t keep weighing the war and suffering against my life. I gotta get off the scale. And to do that —” My whole body twisted in sobs. “I gotta let you go, Jo. I can’t keep figuring the crime versus the cost and all the things I maybe coulda done so that you’d still be here. You argued for the mission. You wouldn’t listen when I said you should stay back. Who’s to blame? How much do they owe?” I shouted up to the trees, “I don’t even know anymore!”
I wiped away snot and tears. “But trying to figure it all out is killing me worse than any bullet. I gotta get off the scale. We all do.”
I turned around and sat down with my back leaning against JoBell’s headstone. “I told Jackie there’s nothing left for me in this world, and she said maybe I should see what I can offer to others instead. And that’s what I gotta do. Not because I owe it for the wrong I done, but because I care about my friends, and the people here.”
I was silent for a long time. The cold bit harder and harder through my clothes. “I’ll always love you, JoBell, and I’ll never forget you. But I gotta let you go. I gotta get off the scale and let it all go. In my heart, I don’t know how I’m going to do that, but in my head, I know I have to.”
I stood up and brushed the snow from my jeans, looking down on JoBell’s grave. “I think this is the kind of thing you’d tell me if you were here. But I’ll never truly know, and it’s up to me.” I leaned down and rested my hand on her stone, warmed a little where my back had pressed over her name. “I love you. Goodbye, JoBell.”
After explaining to the council that the Cliffhanger had revealed that it was us who took out that Brotherhood camp, it didn’t take long to convince them that we all might be in more danger. They had some questions: The Brotherhood haven’t found us in almost a year. Why would they be any more likely to find us now? Or: Maybe we can find somewhere else to hide? But most people accepted that the Brotherhood was expanding its territory, and now that they knew we were somewhere around north central Idaho, and we’d beaten them twice, they’d be more likely to step up their search for us. We had nowhere else to go. The Alice Marshall School was our last stand.
Even before the last of the snow had melted, we launched into an unending stretch of the hardest work I’d ever done. It made winter seem like a vacation. Sergeant Kemp directed the construction of our new defenses, with help from Mr. Cretis and Mrs. Pierce. Mr. Cretis was a whiz with our tools, and Mrs. Pierce had studied some of the kinds of traps that had wounded her patients way back in Vietnam. She had plenty of suggestions for setups that would work just as well against the Brotherhood.
We worried about the Brotherhood or some other dangerous group driving up the road to the school, so Mr. Cretis spent over a week designing and planning a system to launch a rockslide. He figured out a sort of giant basket-type thing that a bunch of us filled with big rocks, almost boulders. If our guard pulled a rope to release a certain pole, the basket would dump the rocks, letting them roll down the steep hillside to completely block the road.
Our other new defenses were built in two ringed perimeters. The first defense was mostly an early alert system. We built scout and sniper platforms high in the trees. We’d be able to see people coming from far away, and take them out from up high, where they might not be looking. Above all, our tree guards could spot the enemy and let everybody at Alice Marshall know of the danger early enough for the rest of us to get into place for the fight.
Those scouts and snipers could then fall back to our main protection, a series of ten fighting positions in a circle around the school. Each position was reinforced with huge logs and camouflaged. When the bunkers were finished, they were hard to spot and would be even harder to beat.
Mrs. Pierce had us dig a bunch of shallow pits in front of the circle of bunkers. These pits weren’t deep enough for the enemy to use as decent cover, and they were made deadly with sharpened sticks or even sharp pieces of metal from what was left of our scrapped bus. Each pit trap was covered with a mesh of thin, easily breakable sticks that were then covered in pine needles to blend in with the rest of the forest. If the enemy stepped on the sticks, he’d fall right through and be stabbed by the sharp spikes or metal bits. Our fighters would practice navigating the pits and learning the safe paths back toward the Alice Marshall School.
* * *
One day in the middle of April, me, Cal, Sweeney, TJ, and Jaclyn were way up on the north edge of the school’s land, digging traps beyond fighting position six.
“Damn it.” TJ threw h
is shovel handle to the ground. His shovel’s blade was still in the dirt. “That’s the third handle I’ve busted this week. Worthless things.”
I tried not to take his words personally. I’d built a lot of these shovels from bus steel and pine limbs. They were the best we could do, but they were kind of junk. “You gotta —”
“Scoop smaller and faster! Yeah, I know the drill. I’ve been digging for a month,” TJ said. He wiped the sweat from his brow, went to our open water bucket, and drank from the ladle.
“Cheer up. We’ll only be digging till the ground freezes again,” Jaclyn said.
Sweeney tossed another blade full of dirt and then leaned against his shovel like a cane, rubbing his bad leg. “You think this pit’s deep enough to spike?”
I couldn’t blame him for being tired. We’d been out here digging since five a.m, and it had been like that for a month. Every muscle in my body ached, but we had to do the job right. “I think we have to go a little deeper. The farther they fall, the deeper the spikes will stab them.”
Sweeney sighed. “Even if we are attacked, the mathematical odds of anyone stepping in this trap are about a million to one. They’d have to send hundreds of guys up over the mountain to come down at us from this side anyway. And then, once the first guy hit a trap, they’d be more careful.”
“That’s what makes it great,” said Cal. “They’ll have to slow way down to be careful, and that will make it easy for shooters at bunker six to pick them off. If they do send enough guys to overtake the bunker, they’ll be shot down by our people back by the school.”
Jaclyn shoveled more. “At least the fighting positions are done. I’m glad we’re not working on that project today. This is easy work compared to carrying the logs into place for the bunkers.”
“Speaking of easy work.” Sweeney smiled and pointed. We turned to see Becca and Sergeant Kemp heading our way. Radios had to be saved for our scout teams or for emergencies, so messages had to be run the old-fashioned way. Becca had lucked out with that job for the day. I didn’t know what Sergeant Kemp was up to.
“Great,” said TJ. “Maybe she can go pick me up another shovel.”
Cal made a big show of being in pain, standing up from digging and groaning as he pressed his hand to his back. “Oh hey, Becca. Tough day running messages? Your back must be hurting. Maybe some of this cushy work shoveling would help. Your feet got lots of blisters from all that walking?” Becca smiled and flipped Cal off. Cal grinned. “How you doing, Sergeant Pirate?”
“Just missing a hook,” Sergeant Kemp said. “So I can shove it up your ass.” Everybody laughed.
“How’s Angeline?” Jaclyn asked with a big grin on her face.
Kemp shrugged, trying to hold back his own smile. “She’s … fine, I guess.”
“Especially after your long, romantic walk by the lake yesterday,” Jaclyn said.
“She works hard, raising little Josie and babysitting other kids,” said Kemp. “She needed a break.”
“Well, that’s very considerative of you,” Cal said. “So is she a good … you know … walker?”
“What are you, a seventh grader?” TJ said to Cal.
Cal laughed and nodded like he was so smooth. “He knows what I’m talking about.”
Sergeant Kemp stared at Cal with a confused look.
I’d served with Kemp for a long time. I could tell something was bothering him beyond the teasing. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Our long-range scouts ran into a Brotherhood patrol, a dozen well-armed men on horseback about four days’ hike from here.”
I started toward the tree against which we’d leaned our guns. “How many of our people made it back?”
“They’re all fine,” Kemp said quickly. “It was Lee Brooks’s team. It was all by the book. Radio check-in at all the right times. They went out in total camo with the ghillie suits we made and everything, staying hidden while the enemy rode by about twenty yards away.”
“They were heading south, away from us,” Becca said.
“Still, four days’ hike is pretty close,” TJ said.
“Really close on horseback,” Becca said.
“So what?” Cal said. “Let them come. We’ll kick their asses.”
I met Kemp’s eyes. Our defenses were a little better than they were before, but there were still problems. We had three .50-cal machine guns, but we were down to about 350 rounds. The guns would eat through those real quick. The M240B had only about 500 rounds. If the Brotherhood came for us in force and took out even one of our fighting positions, they’d be inside our perimeter no problem. Then there’d be chaos, and a lot of bodies on the ground.
Cal held up his shovel and pointed it out at the woods like a rifle. “The bunker walls are like four- or five-feet thick. We got these traps. Anyone who attacks this place don’t stand a chance.”
“That’s what the French said about the Maginot Line in World War II,” said Sergeant Kemp.
“Yeah, but that’s the French,” Cal said.
Kemp shifted his gaze out to the woods. “If the Brotherhood is being smart about their search, covering ground with any kind of system, there are good odds they’ll find us. The bunkers and these traps will help, but …
“So what are you saying, Sergeant?” Sweeney asked. “That we should be ready for war?”
“We are ready!” Cal said.
“Maybe we can go someplace else?” TJ said. “Higher up the mountain, maybe? Someplace safer?”
If TJ hadn’t turned out to be such a solid guy, if I didn’t owe him my life so many times over, I would have answered him with a real smart-ass comment. “There’s nowhere else to go,” I said.
Jaclyn jabbed her shovel in the dirt. “I wish the Idaho Army would do something about the Brotherhood! It’s crap that we’re stuck in a war against the United States, and the guys who are supposed to be helping us fight the United States.”
“Montaine would probably send the Idaho Army to take the Brotherhood out if he didn’t have the US military threatening him all the time,” Kemp said. “But for the foreseeable future, we’re stuck in the middle of a war, and it looks like our safe place is getting less and less safe all the time.”
* * *
That night me and Sweeney sat on tree stumps inside the position one bunker. Logs above, in front, and on both sides of us. We had nothing to do for the next six hours except stare out the windows to make sure it all stayed as boring as it was now.
“No offense, dude, but this is crap. I’ve been pulling guard with Becca for months. Why the reassignment?”
“Are you being serious right now?” I asked. “I think it has something to do with Sergeant Kemp catching you and Becca … doing whatever you two were doing while you were supposed to be covering your sector.”
“We had it covered,” Sweeney said. “It’s just that things with Becca have been really great. I honestly believe that she’s the one. My real one. And, well, it’s tough to find anywhere to be alone.”
“Yeah,” I said. I really wasn’t in the mood to talk about Sweeney’s love life. He held out a cigarette. “Where the hell did you get that?” I snatched the smoke and lighter he offered.
“Darren Hartling’s been holding out on us. Secret stash. Won a whole pack off him with my full house over his straight.”
I grunted, stood, and went to the window, looking out at the forest as shadows slowly thickened to dark.
“You okay?” Sweeney asked. “You’ve been kind of quiet all night.”
I blew out smoke, coughing. I hadn’t had a cigarette in ages. “Just, poker …” How could I explain this to him?
“You never complained about my gambling before.”
“It’s not that. Before we busted up that slave camp, we were safe up here. Nobody knew where we were. Nobody was hunting us.”
“As far as you know,” Sweeney said.
“Well, now I know we’re in greater danger of being attacked.”
Sweeney lit up
his own cigarette. “So, we’re doing the best we can.”
“No,” I said. “No, we’re not. We ain’t gonna win the fight if the Brotherhood does find us.”
“What more can we do?”
“I’m going to go to Montaine and get help.” I’d been thinking about it all afternoon.
“What?”
“If he won’t put a stop to the Brotherhood, maybe I could bring back help to protect the school. At least I could get more ammo to give everybody here a fighting chance.”
“He’s in Boise!” Sweeney said. “If he’s still alive. And how you gonna get there?”
“I’ll take Pale Horse.”
“What, are you going to sneak out again on some secret superhero cowboy mission? Take all the best weapons away to leave this place really unprotected?”
I took a drag on my cigarette. “No, I’ll let the council know what I’m doing. And I’ll leave the machine guns here.”
“Dude, this is crazy,” Sweeney said. “I know you feel responsible for the people we lost at the Brotherhood camp or on the way here. You’re probably still blaming yourself for the whole war, but —”
“It’s not that,” I said. “It’s just a tactical necessity. If the Brotherhood are coming, I have to make sure I do all I can to help keep people here safe.” I hesitated a moment, wondering if I should tell him the real crazy part of my plan. “And, who knows, but maybe I can convince Montaine to call for a cease-fire.” Sweeney’s jaw dropped, and I could see he was about to argue with me, so I went on. “Montaine’s said over and over that all he wants is for the US to give up, for the Northwest Alliance to be left alone.”
“The US isn’t about to give up,” Sweeney said.
“President Griffith might have a change of heart —”
“If she’s even really still in charge.”
“— if she finds out her son is still alive,” I said. “If Lieutenant Griffith calls for a cease-fire too.”