by Eric Flint
Loosening the armor and weighting the corpses with rocks stuffed inside took at least twenty minutes. They had to hunt around for suitable rocks. But, eventually, it was done-and into the creek they went. Fortunately, Geoffrey's estimate concerning the pool's depth was about right. They had to shove the bodies around a little bit with one of the spear things. What Morelli said was called a "halberd." But it didn't take long before all of them were submerged. Before they pitched them in, of course, everybody drank their fill and they topped off the leather pouches the Spaniards had possessed in the way of canteens. Nobody wanted to drink from that creek afterward, not even upstream. That night, again, James slept alongside Elaine. He insisted on keeping her wrapped up in the sheets. Between that and her wound, there wasn't going to be any sex involved, of course. Still, they could cuddle and kiss plenty well enough. It was frustrating, maybe. But James was just as glad that, willy-nilly, they'd have some time to get to know each other better. Mostly, they talked about their former lives. Elaine chuckled, at one point. "I think you're supposed to go out on at least one date first. You know, before you get engaged." When Morelli woke him up before sunrise, to take his turn standing guard, the tall convict was grinning. "Take a look," he said, pointing to one side of the clearing. James looked over, and couldn't help from laughing. The children had returned, some time during the night. All three of them were bundled up under one of the Spanish blankets with Geoffrey Kidd. "Guess they figure he's their magic protector," said Dino. "Yeah, some. But I think it's more the tattoos.
Black or not, he must seem like something a little familiar." Kidd's eyes opened. He stared at James and Dino, without moving a muscle otherwise. If he had, at least one of the kids would have been dislodged. They were pressed as close to him as puppies. "It's a strange world," he observed, and closed his eyes again.
Chapter 40 The weeping willow stood tall in the midst of weeping cherry and dwarf apple trees, its long tendrils stretching to the ground in a curtain of green. "How the hell…" Hulbert looked at Jeff Edelman. "Can you explainthis? We haven't seen anything since we left the town except ancient vegetation." Edelman shook his head. "I have no idea, Rod. But this isn't the first time I've seen something like this. Whatever the Quiver was, it seems to have moved some other pieces of land besides the one Alexander sat on and scattered them all over the place. Nothing very big, though, not even close to the size of the prison's area." He pointed a finger. "Look at the terrain. It's not just the trees that are out of place. That land doesn't really match the surrounding landscape either. It looks tilted a little, and you can see where that stream undercutting the bank is recently formed." "Will they bear fruit?" Andy asked. "The dwarf apples should.
I'm not sure about the weeping cherries. Some do, some don't. Whatever fruit they do bear won't be very big, though, and probably won't taste that good." "Who cares? That's what the word 'horticulture' is for."
Andy smiled wryly. "Not that I know much more than that about the subject. But what I do know is that if we have something to start with, we can eventually breed fruit trees that will bear good fruit."
"Take a few generations," Hulbert said doubtfully. "And what else have we got?" Andy was half-tempted to leave some people behind, to guard the small grove of precious fruit trees. But he didn't want to run the risk of weakening their forces before the upcoming battle with the Spaniards. He still didn't know exactly how many men were in de Soto's expedition. They might be outnumbered as badly as three to one. "Too bad they're not maples," said Rod. "I love maple syrup." "And what would you pour it over?" asked Jeff. "No wheat, remember? No pancakes." "Don't be silly. If that corn the Cherokees found survives, you can make pancakes using cornmeal. That's how the Mexicans do it, usually. Except they call them hotcakes instead of pancakes. I've had some. They're not bad. If you've got maple syrup." "So we'll make corn syrup instead," Andy said, a bit impatiently. "That's assuming we live past tomorrow. Speaking of which, let's get moving again." He almost said "let's get the column moving again," but refrained out of a lingering sense of embarrassment. He was hardly William Tecumseh Sherman leading the march to the sea. Andy had served a tour of duty in the Marines, but he'd never been in combat. He hadn't been old enough to join until the first Gulf war was over, and had left the service before the second one started. By one of those odd quirks of fate that seemed to be inseparable from military service, he'd wound up spending half his time in the Corps guarding the U.S. embassy in Paris. Boring as hell, while you were on duty, sure-but once you were off duty, you were a young man in gay Paree. "And you can have your maple syrup," he said. "Me, I wish I was back in Paris chowing down on a croque-monsieur. God, I loved Paris." "What's a croque-monsieur?" asked Jeff. "Grilled ham and cheese sandwich, basically. It's the French equivalent of a hamburger, except it's maybe eight times better." Hulbert looked sour. "I don't like the French." "Have you ever met a single Frenchman in your life, Rod? They're pretty thin on the ground, in southern Illinois." "No. So what? I know what and who I don't like." Even if they hadn't been on campaign, there would have been no point to pursuing the debate. Andy liked Rod, but like most survivalists Hulbert's political attitudes tended to be somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan, insofar as Hulbert was interested in politics at all, which he generally wasn't. Still, Rod knew the basics. Liberalism was the work of the debbil, the right to own guns was maybe second to godliness but a long way ahead of cleanliness, both coasts were dens of iniquity inhabited by wimps and fops-never mind that one of the men on the extraction team came from Oakland originally-and the French were the ultimate source of the world's wickedness. Well, the world's liberalism anyway, and the difference couldn't be pared with a razor. On the other hand-such are the quirks of human nature-Hulbert didn't have any problem with abortion, and had serious doubts about prayer in school. "Let's get going," Andy said.
Hulbert nodded, and turned his head. "Form up the column!" he bellowed. "We're moving out!" Hedidn't have any qualms about playing soldier. Barbara Ray's name tag said she was an L.P.N., but for the last five days she had been doctor, nurse, councilor and mother to sixty-three worried, frightened prison guards, a downed lieutenant, one newborn baby and an overworked, ill R.N. And at this moment she was playing the role of pastor, praying with two C.O. s whose faith had been shaken by all that had happened. Frank Nickerson watched her and sent a short prayer of thanks of his own. Without the woman's calming effect things would be a lot tougher to handle. She had been the one who patched him together after that bastard Taylor got him with the toothbrush. As she sewed him up, she had done a good job calming his nerves with jokes about the scar's location and the stories he could tell. An occasional gentle pat had let him know that she was genuinely glad it wasn't any worse than it was. She was old-school, tough-a thing to be proud of. But everyone had their breaking point, and Frank was guessing she was getting pretty close to hers. Marie Keehn was another woman who was old-school tough. But a lot of the guards were newbies, including Frank himself. They were getting anxious from the wait. They had too many hours on their hands and too many worries on their minds. They needed something to do. The truth was, so did he. Nickerson crossed the clearing; it was time to check on the guards posted at the camp's perimeter. Judith Barnett would need to be relieved. She wasn't old-school. She was too busy grieving to be reliable for more than a short stretch, and that pissed him off to the point he hated to talk to her. And he sure as hell didn't want to look at her. She hadn't stopped crying since Marie Keehn left. It was like the plumbing in her eyes had let go and she had a leaky faucet. Drip. Drip. Drip. Frank wasn't natured up like the L.P.N. He was more like Lylah Caldwell. Barnett's wet face, bloodshot eyes, and snotty nose made the R.N. mad every time she saw the C.O. He had pretty much the same reaction. Barnett was driving him nuts. He was grieving too. He'd lost a wife who was barely more than a bride.
They were all grieving. There was no one here who hadn't lost someone.
There was no one here who hadn't been torn away from every
thing that meant something to them. But letting yourself collapse wasn't going to accomplish anything. And neither would being short with the C.O., he reminded himself, trying to restrain his temper. It was hard, though.
Especially when Frank thought about Joe Schuler. Now there was a man who was not only old-school tough, he was a real leader. Here the lieutenant was fighting to take every breath, and what was he worried about? Everyone else. He wanted to know how the food was holding out, if there were any signs of the prisoners, if there had been any signs of wild animals. He wanted to know how everyone was holding up to the pressure. If he had been told about Judith Barnett's steady stream of tears, he wouldn't be impatient. He would simply be concerned about her. Nickerson increased the length of his stride. A middle-aged guard with short hair and a wide face turned toward him as he approached the outer edge of the clearing. He watched as a tear rolled slow motion, from her right eye, slid down the side of her nose, dripped from her top lip to her bottom lip, and then down her chin. The drop of salty liquid fell to her shirt in what seemed to be the same slow pace it had used to travel the length of her face. He reached out and patted her shoulder. Gently, he said, "I'm your relief. Try to get some rest, Judith." But what he thought was: Marie, hurry up and get back with Captain Blacklock. I'm not cut out to be the boss-man. "Lylah,"
Lieutenant Joe Schuler whispered. The R.N. moved close enough to hear what the man had to say. "How is everyone doing?" Lylah Caldwell shrugged. "They're okay. A little antsy, but they'll get over that."
"I'm cold." "It's the fever, Joe. My guess is you're at about a hundred and three." She wet his forehead with a damp rag she had made by ripping her undershirt. Using his good hand he reach for her hand and the water-soaked rag. "You said there was a stream. Does it have rocks in the bottom of it, or is it sand or mud?" She gently pushed his hand away and said, "A little of each. Some sand, some mud, and then a lot of rocks." "Are the rocks good sized?" The nurse nodded.
"Throwing size, like a baseball?" "Yes, I think so. A lot of them are bigger than that, and some smaller. But there would be quite a few that size." She waited a couple of minutes for him to continue; when he didn't say anything more she asked, "Why did you ask?" He closed his eyes and said, "It might be a good idea to stack some of them in piles around the camp… in case wild animals…" He gave a small cough and grabbed the nurse's hand. "Damn, this hurts." Five minutes later his grip on her hand relaxed, and his breathing slowed slightly and became a little deeper. She waited until she was sure the lieutenant was asleep and then crawled out of the cave. Marie had put Frank Nickerson in charge, so he was the one she would tell about the rocks. Marie Keehn spotted a tree the size she was looking for and jogged toward it. It was about eighteen inches in diameter; plenty big enough to hold her weight, and tall enough she could get fifteen to twenty feet off the ground. That was high enough the mosquitoes wouldn't follow her. Best of all, it was the first tree she'd spotted in the last two hours that had the right spread of branches, creating a sort of hollow cup in the fork that-she hoped-would be big enough and deep enough for her to sleep in without falling out of the tree.
She needed the rest. Badly. And as much as she didn't like the idea of sleeping in a tree, didn't think she had a choice any longer. The terrain she'd been passing through for the last two days was flat. She hadn't seen anything close to a cave and didn't expect to. She'd been traveling for five days and, except for that first night, had not slept much. The only "caves" she'd found hadn't been much more than rock overhangs. She'd only been able to sleep fitfully under them, waking up constantly at the sound of anything. She hadn't slept at all the night just past, since she hadn't even been able to find an overhang and was unwilling to sleep out in the open. As stupid as it might be, that nightmare image of being accidentally squashed in her sleep by a passing dinosaur had never gone away. She'd had little to drink for the last twenty-four hours, and nothing to eat in the last forty-eight. She couldn't afford the time to hunt and process the food while she traveled. Besides, she had nothing to hunt with but her walking stick. And so far she hadn't seen anything small enough to club to death with it that wasn't too fast to catch. She shuddered.
She'd seen somebig animals, though. Four times. They'd look to be the size of eighteen-wheelers, although she knew that was probably a trick of her imagination. They certainly couldn't be as heavy as a fully loaded tractor-trailer. Luckily, they were all herbivores. None of them seemed to mind her walking past them. In fact, only one of them had seem to notice her at all. That hadn't reassured her any. In fact, it made her nightmare scenario seem less irrational. If the dinosaurs she'd seen were oblivious to her presence in the daytime, while she was moving, they'd pay no attention to her at all at night while she was sleeping. She'd looked like a pancake. No, worse. A squished little bug on a windshield. Better to fall out of a tree. Using the branches like rungs on a ladder she made her way up the trunk of the tree. When people starved, they tended to sleep more. It was a way to charge their battery. She knew she was a long way from starvation, but the lack of food combined with the intense exercise she had endured over the last few days was enough to sap her energy. Even a couple of hours napping would help. And if she were lucky the wind would pick up a little and then when she climbed back down she wouldn't have to fight off the swarms of mosquitoes she'd encountered once she entered the lowlands. Who ordered mosquitoes in Jurassic Park, anyway? she thought sourly. You'd think dinosaurs would be enough. Mosquitoes could-and did-kill. She'd heard from her father about elks in Alaska being drained down to skin and bones by the bloodsuckers. That would have been enough to make her wary, all by itself. But once, while in Canada, she'd seen a young deer lying on its side, covered in mosquitoes, too weak to get on its feet. That memory was enough to scare her silly. According to what Hulbert had told her, and her own best guess, she was not much more than a day's walk from where the Cherokees were supposed to be. She was hoping like hell that Hulbert and Blacklock were there. If they weren't, she hoped whoever it was she found was friendly because she needed food, water and rest. The water was the most important thing. She'd managed all right, at first, when it came to finding water. But once she reached the lowlands, she hadn't done so well. Unarmed, she was unwilling to risk getting near any large bodies of water. Leaving aside the danger of predators, most of those bodies of water were surrounded by treacherous-looking soil.
Her nightmare about being squashed by a dinosaur might be a new one, but she had other nightmares that went back a long ways. Even as a kid, the thought of getting caught in quicksand had been frightening.
Drowning, she could handle. Drowning in mud was a little much. She was dehydrated enough she had started to run a fever. And her reflexes had slowed considerably. And she was starting to get dizzy spells. She settled into the fork of the branches. As she'd hoped, the cup they formed was big enough to hold her. She leaned back against the trunk, and looked toward the sky. She ached all over. The day before, while working her way around an area of steaming, sulfur-laced geysers, she'd taken a tumble. She'd managed to crawl out of the hollow, easily enough, but she knew she'd been lucky. She was scraped and bruised, but not broken. She was so tired. She wasn't sure what she was running on now. She figured it was stubbornness or habit. It didn't matter which one, though. When a person got down that low, they either got help soon or they didn't make it. Where are ya, my fella? I need ya.
Ignoring strange sounds coming from somewhere in the distance and the occasional tear of exhaustion that dripped down her face, she tried to picture the way Hulbert looked when he left the prison. A moment later she was asleep.
Chapter 41 Jerry Bailey hissed between gritted teeth. A little over two weeks back. the soft-spoken guard hadn't so much as twitched when Hulbert, Carmichael and Keehn used him as bait when they were hunting. But today, looking across the open area toward the pre-Mound Indian village, his face was pale and he'd broken into a sweat. The village was less than a hundred yards from where he and Rod lay hidde
n. And even though things were quieter now, the screams of the children and the sobs of the women could be heard too well. The Spaniards had beaten them to the village. Hulbert didn't bother answering or use the binoculars tucked into a leather case attached to his belt. They were close enough he could see every gory detail of what was happening. The smell of burned flesh was heavy in the air, mixed with the stink of whatever the Indians had used to make their huts instead of grass. Two of the huts were burning fiercely. De Soto's men must have tossed the bodies into the huts and set them aflame, as a quick and simple way to get rid of them. Knowing the bastards, Rod was sure they hadn't bothered to make sure everyone they tossed in was dead already. Now, the same bastards were busy ensuring the people they had captured would remain docile slaves. They'd only kept alive the younger adults and the children, to begin with. Old slaves-even middle-aged ones-were of no interest to them. It looked as though they'd beaten all four of the males with whips, and at least one of the women. The six women had been separated out from the rest of the captives, who were all tied together with ropes around their necks. They'd be providing entertainment for the conquistadores that evening, presumably. "We need to move, Rod," Bailey said. "Now. Those people can't take any more." The lieutenant shook his head. "No. We wait for the signal. They've stopped whatever killings and atrocities they were carrying out because they're getting ready to leave. But it'll be at least twenty minutes before the Spaniards start moving out." Andy Blacklock had divided his forces in half and placed one group-they were calling them platoons for lack of a better term-under Rod's command. Hulbert and his platoon had been ordered to stay in place, just out of sight behind the screen of trees surrounding the clearing where the village was located. They were to hold their fire until the captain signaled. Privately, Rod thought Andy was being too cautious, but he hadn't put up an argument. Right or not, the man was the boss, and these were battlefield conditions. Still, he thought his own platoon could have handled the situation by themselves. They had modern repeating rifles and Rod knew from personal experience just how slow and clumsy matchlocks were. Besides, leaving aside the weaponry, the more Rod saw of these famous conquistadores, the lower became his opinion of them-militarily, not simply morally. They might be tough as nails individually, sure, but they seemed no more disciplined than a street gang. And even less well organized. The one group of Spaniards milling around closest to Rod numbered about sixty or seventy men.