Altered America

by Ingham, Martin T.

  Matthew reached over and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, dear. We know what we’re doing. Your information has been invaluable. You are a credit to the nation of Vermont. I’m sure your brothers would be proud of you.”

  “Thank you, Minister. Do be careful. You’re the last hope any of us have for a free Vermont.”

  Not the last, Matthew thought as Miss Doyle left the darkened area behind the cottage. If anything happens to me, young Seth will carry on the fight. He hated to think that so many of the civilians who still wanted Vermont to be independent were pinning all of their hopes on him. One man should never be the sole force behind a movement.

  The next day he gathered all the members of his guerrilla band together. Normally they would split into separate forces and attack different targets, but with the Redcoat numbers larger, they would need everyone together.

  “Are you sure this is wise?” Seth asked. “If we’re all in one place, it’s easier for them to return with a huge band to track us.”

  Matthew wanted to hit the Redcoats hard, but he knew Seth was right. They shouldn’t risk everything. “All right, I want you to take your men to the peak near Gillet Pond and keep an eye out. If any of the Redcoats make a break for the mountains, you can chase them down and take them captive. If you see anything go wrong for us, take your men and head south to Mt. Ellen. You’ll be able to get supplies from Waitsfield; the Redcoats haven’t got any men garrisoned there.”

  Seth nodded and left to take his men to the position while Matthew called out for the officers milling around to prepare for the attack.

  * * *

  Matthew and his men were waiting on the slopes, concealed in the low-lying bushes as the British came up the road past the Bolton Valley.

  There were more than twice as many Redcoats than the last band, and they looked more ready for a fight, though his guerrillas still had them outnumbered. That was the only way to fight a war like this—never fight the enemy on his terms, only yours.

  Matthew signalled his officers and they started quietly ordering their men forward. Once they were within shooting distance, Matthew gave the order. “Now!”

  The guerrillas of the Green Mountains yelled and whooped as they started firing, scaring the redcoats and their horses. A great many of the redcoats were hit and fell from their horses. Some of them had reacted quickly though, and were firing back hard. This group was certainly tougher than the lot they had ambushed the day before.

  It didn’t take much longer, though. The Green Mountain Boys soon had the British overwhelmed and surrendering, with half of them riding off in retreat.

  Matthew oversaw the seizing of supplies and weapons. The Redcoats had been carrying quite a lot of ammunition and some quality rifles. It was a good catch.

  As Matthew was cataloguing the supplies into separate piles and getting them into sacks for transport, he heard something, and turned his head. It had almost sounded like the rumble of horse hooves, but that couldn’t be right. The redcoats had fled more than twenty minutes ago. There was no way they could have brought back reinforcements so quickly.

  “Hurry up,” he said to Joseph Edwards, one of his lieutenants. “We don’t want to linger here any longer than is necessary.”

  The men had almost finished gathering up the supplies when the rumble of horse hooves echoed through the trees. Horsemen appeared out of nowhere, having surrounded the site of his ambush. Matthew and his men had their hands on their guns. He trained his aim, ready to fire at a moment’s notice, even if it was suicide. The redcoats had theirs out as well, but seemed to be waiting.

  He heard the sound of several more horses ride up and approach. Then he saw who was leading them. Colonel Benjamin Tucker a former Green Mountain Boy and turncoat to the British. Matthew’s face twisted into a vicious scowl when he saw him.

  “Don’t fire,” Benjamin shouted.

  Matthew wasn’t sure if the traitor was talking to his men or the guerrillas, but Matthew and his men kept their guns up and aimed at the Redcoats, ready to shoot at a moment’s notice.

  Benjamin dismounted his horse and started walking towards Matthew. He looked like he had something to say. Matthew hoped it was good. He had never felt so betrayed than when he had been told that Benjamin had gone over to the British. One failed expedition and the man had signed over to the Crown! He despised anyone who didn’t stand up for their own values, and friendship with Benjamin had only made the betrayal all the more bitter.

  * * *

  From the look on Matthew’s face, Benjamin could tell he wasn’t pleased to see him. Convincing him to surrender might prove more difficult than he’d first thought. He hadn’t even seen the man in twenty years and that had been in a tavern on the Canadian border.

  Benjamin still had a scar on his cheek from the smashed bottle that Matthew had tried to shove through his face. They’d both been stinking drunk at the time, but Benjamin had been lucky to come out of it with his face intact. He couldn’t let that incident affect his judgment now though—he had a job to do.

  “Matthew,” he said, “you and your men have done well out here, but it’s over. I have an entire regiment of the best New England cavalry with their guns trained on you, and I have more riflemen in the woods surrounding this whole area.”

  Matthew’s face didn’t change—he kept staring at him scornfully. He was as stubborn as Benjamin remembered. Maybe it was too much to hope that he could let things go.

  “The best choice for you and your men is to lay down your arms and surrender.” Benjamin spoke louder now, so all of the guerrillas could hear him. “None of you will be mistreated. I have in my hands a document which indicates that any guerrilla who surrenders here will face no more than two years imprisonment for any actions taken during this time against the British Army or the rightful government of Vermont.” He held up the piece of paper so the men could all see it.

  Some of the guerrillas were slowly dropping their aim.

  “And why should my men take the word of a turncoat like you, Colonel?” Matthew challenged. “You betrayed what you believed in, and for what? Thirty pieces of silver and a red coat to wear?” He was practically screaming, with his rifle aimed at Benjamin’s chest.

  Benjamin kept his cool and calmly said, “I made my choice a long time ago, and so did you. Things were very different back then. Britain doesn’t hold any overlordship on New England, only friendship. The other leaders of Vermont have recognized that. Why can’t you?”

  “I’ve fought for and served this country too long to just hand it over,” Matthew answered.

  Benjamin shook his head. “All you are doing is causing chaos. If you keep this up, one of the southern powers will try to take advantage. If you accept my offer, you and your men will serve a short imprisonment. After that, you’ll be free men of Vermont again.”

  Benjamin could see the conflict in Matthew’s eyes. He wasn’t sure whether it was the offer, his words, or simply the fact that Matthew had grown weary of war, but in the end the man surrendered. His shoulders slumped and all of the defiance that he had been holding onto left him. He let his rifle drop to the ground. The rest of his men did the same and Captains Rourke’s men moved in to secure them.

  “You did the right thing, Matthew,” Benjamin assured him.

  Matthew didn’t say anything in reply. He was staring toward the south as if there was something important there. Benjamin couldn’t see anything other than mountain peaks. Matthew gave Benjamin another look, holding a slight smirk on his face as he stepped in line with the rest of his men.

  Benjamin shrugged. The man had surrendered; it didn’t really matter what he found amusing.

  * * *

  Seth Warner had watched everything through his telescope. His heart had sunk as he watched the Redcoats and their New England allies surround Matthew and the other guerrillas. He had seethed and kicked the rocks at his feet in frustration as he watched them surrender, and fumed further as the Redcoats mov
ed in to secure them. Matthew had been like a father to him and now the enemy had him!

  The few men Seth had under his command now had no choice but to head for Mt. Ellen and make a new camp there. They would bide their time and let the Redcoats drop their guard. Then they would strike when and where the enemy least expected it. One way or another Seth would fight to ensure a free Vermont, even if it took years.

  “Let’s move off” he said to his men and they started marching south.

  The Shining Path

  by Jason Sharp

  Dateline: February 15, 1975, between Ottawa and Montreal, Occupied Canada

  "Pierre's out there," insists Corporal Miguel Hidalgo. "I can feel his eyes—those beady little eyes—watching us right now."

  I only see snow-covered pine trees flashing past us, but I'll take his word for it. He's been here in Canada, fighting the good fight, for close on eight months now. If anybody knows what Pierre is doing, it’ll be Hidalgo.

  Beside him, in the driver's seat, PFC Paul Watts nods grimly. "Pierre, Bro," he says, a reefer dangling from his chapped lips. "He's trouble." Watts, in-theatre for six months, knows the score.

  Across X Corps, from the rocky Gaspé Peninsula to the flyover country of northwestern Ontario, legends abound of Pierre, the guerrilla fighter of French Canada. Pierre walks atop fresh snow without leaving tracks, and across the thinnest sheen of ice without cracking it. He cools his breath before he exhales, so it is invisible in the frigid winter air. He lives on a diet of maple syrup, venison, and wild berries collected in the forests of Quebec and eastern Ontario. He spends his days holed up in his cabane sucre, plotting the overthrow of the Occupation, and spends his nights carrying out his plans.

  And yes, I did mean to say eastern Ontario. Apparently, back when Canada was just another backwater British colony, some genius decided it would be easier to sub-divide the place based on the location of a river, rather than on the basis of where the different ethnic groups actually lived, because history's shown us all how well that works.

  Now, Pierre isn't just the collective name of every French-Canadian out here, though you could be forgiven for assuming so. Nor is it a clever Fleming-esque acronym for a secret terror organization, although to hear Corporal Hidalgo talk of them, it might as well be. Let's see: Patriots Intimidating Enemy aRmies Really Effectively. It could work, if you pronounce the ar in army. Does it translate well into French? A good question, which I'll put to the first French-Canadian I see today. They'll probably just tell me that we Americans actually coined the name ourselves, based on the name of Canada's final prime minister. Assuming they don't just beat me to death with hockey sticks first.

  Right about now, you're saying to yourself, "Hang on—why has America’s third-most-popular pop culture magazine dispatched this guy, of all people, to an active war zone? Especially when the competition’s already sent in that Thompson fellow?"

  And my answer to that, assuming I overhear you, is, "Because Thompson and his lawyer are still held up at the border. Because the Army doesn't want us to be here. They must be hiding something. We need to find out what it is, and reveal it to the American public so they can be suitably outraged."

  And you’re probably derisively replying, "Who's this we, stupid? It's freakin' cold in Canada."

  You're quite right. It is freakin' cold in Canada. It is particularly cold in February, in a fabric-topped jeep zooming down an unplowed back road at forty miles an hour. Corporal Hidalgo and PFC Watts are out here, risking their extremities, because Pierre thinks it’s not so much cold as just a pleasant break from the mosquitoes.

  I'm here not because the Army wants me to be, as I just told you, but because a bag of Acapulco Gold goes a long way in today's army. And because I knew some Mohawks who could get me across the St. Lawrence. And because I'm anxious to ask Pierre why he's out in the trees eyeballing us when he could be in a goose-down sleeping bag with his mademoiselle. And because my editor told me that the alternative was to cover a dog show in Minneapolis, which is just as cold as Canada and has more fresh dog shit.

  "You guys run into Pierre before?" I ask, since we're still kind of on that topic.

  “Never face to face," Hidalgo says. "Pierre don't fight that way—we'd napalm his sorry Frog ass in a heartbeat if he did." He plucks the joint from PFC Watts' mouth and takes a drag for himself before returning it to its original place of rest. "But I've heard him. Seen what he done. He's taken my buddies, and when he does, they don't come back."

  “Alive?”

  “At all, Bro. He got Marcus and Burke two weeks ago," PFC Watts notes flatly, his dilated eyes never leaving the road. "We found their jeep along Route 14, in the forest just like this. Just like this, bro. The jeep was still running and everything."

  "Maybe they'd gone off into the trees for a piss break?" I suggest.

  "There were no tracks, man," Watts says, "And only Pierre can do that."

  "Lack of tracks could also mean nobody was there, though, right?"

  "Somebody had to be there," he insists. "Otherwise, what the hell happened to Marcus and Burke? People don't just vanish, you know."

  "There was a rumor going around the base that maybe the Spetsnaz got them, rather than Pierre," Corporal Hidalgo observed. "The Commies got their special forces in here, you know, helping out their Canuckistani comrades. With helicopters—black helicopters, so they can't be seen in the night. Maybe they came for Marcus and Burke and took their sorry asses back to one of their camps up north."

  "I didn't realize the Soviets were involved," I say.

  "Hell, yeah. Nobody’ll ever say it out loud, but they’ve got subs and planes sneaking over to drop off crates of small arms all the time. It's a huge country, man. Bigger than America. Lots of room to sneak around, and nowhere near enough of us to stop it."

  "But the Soviets don't like Canada, either," I note. "They're part of NATO and NORAD".

  "Oh no? What happened when Kosygin visited Canada? Handshakes and walks in the sunshine. What happened when Nixon visited Canada? Bang," Hidalgo says, using his gloved right hand to simulate a bulky green gun to his temple. This, of course, is an inaccurate dramatization of the assassination of Dick Nixon, whom Arthur Bremer shot with a black gun in the neck.

  But Hidalgo's got the essence of it, to the degree that you or I or anybody can understand it. An American president got shot on Canadian soil less than a month before a heated election, the Canadians bungled the arrest prompting President-Elect Wallace to send in some marshals to get the shooter—the Canadians didn't bungle arresting them, and once Wallace was officially sworn in he decided he didn't like Canada sheltering draft dodgers or talking about nationalizing their private sector, so he sent in the army.

  It was a brilliant plan, based on hard-won lessons from Vietnam, such as: It's easier to invade somebody if they think you're an ally. Those sap-sucking Canadians never knew what hit them. Most of their army was over in West Germany, watching the Red Menace rather than the Red, White, and Blue Machine. Their involvement in NORAD? That was just a clever plan to ensure we knew where all their planes and bunkers were.

  So we enjoyed a short, victorious war after the long, not-so-victorious war in 'Nam. Trudeau and other Canadian politicians were arrested and sent to a super-max prison in Colorado, and their military forces at home were squashed while those in Europe were left to glower and mutter ineffectively. It seemed that we'd have little difficulty reacquainting the Canadians with capitalism and sensible government and leave ol' George cruising towards an easy re-election in seventy-six. And to be sure, most Canadians aren’t complaining, though to be fair, maybe they’re just being polite and are quietly hoping we’ll figure out how rude we’ve been and go home.

  But that still leaves Pierre looking at us funny everywhere we go, the Soviets laughing their collectivized asses off, and NATO slowly gearing up to politely ask us to vacate Europe. Ol' George's electoral prospects are looking a little dim, and his present to America on its bicentenni
al looks like it'll be corpses in coffins rather than a fifty-first state.

  We drive in silence for a while. I note various animal tracks crossing the road, wave to a man on a snowmobile (who shows me his middle finger in return), and otherwise enjoy the scenery. The forest is sporadically interrupted by clearings with little houses and sheds in them. As we approach one such place, I see a couple of kids in front of a house, either building a snowman or camouflaging Pierre. "Hey, can we stop so I can talk to these kids?" I ask.

  "Yeah, I suppose," Hidalgo says.

  Watts steps on the brakes; the jeep skids to a halt just past the driveway. The kids stop to look at us, then back at the house. I step out of the jeep in a cloud of roiling smoke, turn on my tape recorder, and say, "Bon Jor! Say journalist! Parley view English?"

  "No," the taller kid says. It's a boy. The shorter kid, a girl, shakes her head. Either they speak English or my French is better than I appreciated.

  "How do you feel about America?" I ask.

  The boy succinctly summarizes his views of the long and complicated historical relationship between Canada and the United States of America with, "Merde." The girl sticks her tongue out.

  Before I can ask what they think of my acronym for P.I.E.R.R.E, the front door of their home is flung open and a short, sturdy woman storms out. Wearing a flowing, plaid housecoat and black winter boots, she marches up the driveway, barking a stream of harsh words that I do not know, yet definitely understand. “What do you want? Eh? Dey are just playing!" she adds in English.

  I introduce myself and tell her, "I’m a journalist visiting from America. I wanted to ask their opinion of a possible acronym for P.I.E.R.R.E".