A dozen or so photos sat atop the large wood fireplace mantel. In the middle was a much younger looking Cooper Wyse standing next to a tall and very attractive blonde haired woman. Even from a distance the photo showed her striking blue eyes looking out just above prominent cheekbones and full red lips. She would have seemed at home on the red carpet of Old Hollywood as much as next to the horse trainer she took for her husband.
Several more photos depicted the former Wyse family throughout the years. First a young son who closely resembled his mother, and a daughter who in turn took after her father Cooper. In each photo they appeared quite content, every bit the loving American family.
Dublin was paying particular attention to the photos, before finally turning back to Cooper.
“They’re all so beautiful, Mr. Wyse. I’m very sorry for your loss. It must have been difficult for you.”
Cooper Wyse looked away for a brief moment before responding to Dublin.
“Yeah.”
Silence hung between Cooper and his guests for nearly a minute until Mac changed the subject.
“So how about that meal you promised, Coop?”
Dublin took a step toward the kitchen while holding up her hands to the men.
“I’ll take care of that, you boys sit down and relax. Mr. Wyse, is it ok with you if I prepare dinner for us?”
Cooper’s mind still appeared to be drifting back to the memories of his wife and children.
“Mr. Wyse, is that ok?”
Dublin’s question hung in the air unanswered.
“Mr. Wyse?”
Finally Cooper replied.
“That would be great, Dublin, thank you. Haven’t had someone do the cooking around here for…for a long time now. Not much left in there as I knew I might be gone for a spell, but what’s left you’re welcome to make something of it.”
Dublin’s head disappeared inside the fridge momentarily before turning back around to ask Cooper another question.
“You have any vegetables, Mr. Wyse?”
Cooper gave a small smile and shrugged.
“Vegetables…sure, there’s some big steaks in there. Took ‘em out of the freezer just a couple days ago.”
Dublin looked confused.
“No, I said vegetables, Mr. Wyse. Not steaks. Do you have any vegetables?”
Cooper Wyse nodded.
“That’s right. The critters eat the vegetables. I eat the critters. So I figure that’s a two for one, right? Get your vegetables and your protein, all in one bite.”
Dublin’s face contorted into further confusion as Bear let out a booming laugh, his hand smacking down onto the top of his thigh. His reaction was soon accompanied by more laughter from Reese and Mac.
Bear pointed toward Cooper.
“I think I might get to like you, Coop. Two for one!”
Brando, who was seated next to Cooper, looked at the three other men laughing and then laid down on the floor and rested his head on his front paws, indicating he held little current interest in the jokes of humans.
Dublin rolled her eyes before taking the steaks from the fridge and placing them onto the countertop next to the stove.
“Sorry, Dublin, old cowboy humor. Look in the pantry at the far end of the kitchen there. Should find some potatoes, spices, whatever you can find, feel free to use. The stove is propane – self ignites. Turn it on and have at it.”
Cooper Wyse then motioned to the others to sit down.
“I have some home brew beer – you boys want to try it?”
Mac’s eyes widened at the mention of home brewed beer. For the former Dominatus tavern owner, the topic remained one of great interest to him.
“You brew?”
“Yeah, been doing it for about ten years. Have it set up in the old well house in the back.”
Like Mac, Bear’s enthusiasm revealed itself.
“Steak and beer – now we’re talking!”
Cooper, with Brando following close behind, went back out the front door of the house as the sound and smells of steak hitting a hot frying pan emanated from the kitchen. A few minutes later he returned with a box under his arm, the sound of tinkling bottles accompanying his steps.
The box was placed on the large coffee table and opened up to reveal a dozen plain dark glass bottles. Cooper used a small opener to open a bottle and then pass it to one of his guests until each of the men was seated and holding a sample of his beer.
Mac sniffed deeply from the top of his bottle’s neck and held his breath in for several seconds before exhaling slowly.
“Unfiltered?”
Cooper nodded.
Mac took a small sip and swirled the dark liquid in his mouth.
“Very little carbonation, I like that. Very rich flavors here, Coop. Do you pasteurize?”
Cooper shook his head.
“No, this is very Old World. What my grandparents called “real beer”.
Mac took a larger drink and smiled.
“Very smooth. Has that bitter bite toward the end, but it actually balances out the smoothness. Has a great malt-dominated flavor. This would of been a top seller back in Dominatus.”
For the next ten minutes both men discussed the merits and faults of various methods of brewing. It was clear a bond was being formed between the two oldest members of the group, and the more comfortable Cooper Wyse became, the more willing he was to talk.
Eventually the talk wore on the nerves of Bear, who cut the two men off.
“For the love of God, it’s beer. Don’t sit there analyzing it – drink it!”
With that, Bear finished his bottle and set it down before motioning toward the open box.
“Mind if I have another?”
Reese finished his beer as well and was already reaching into the box to get himself and Bear a second bottle.
Cooper smiled with pride, pleased the men found his beer acceptable.
“I’d take offense if you didn’t, you big bastard.”
Cooper and Mac also opened another bottle.
Dublin called out from the kitchen.
“No hangovers, boys. Don’t forget we’re off to save the world first thing tomorrow morning.”
Cooper Wyse leaned back in his leather chair, his face falling into a melancholy smile.
“Hmmm…been a long time since I heard a woman tell me to watch my drinking. A lifetime ago. I do miss having a pretty lady try and tell me what to do.”
Cooper’s eyes wandered back to the photos on the fireplace mantel as his left hand placed itself gently on Brando’s head. He paused, his emotions tumbling into one another, before he returned his gaze to Reese.
“I listened to your program, Mr. Neeson. The one you gave up there in Dominatus a couple years back. In the cave. I have a little short wave set up in the back bedroom of the house. I sat in there and listened to you tell that story. Mac’s story. Dublin’s story. Her grandfather’s story. Thing is, the names were different. The place. The background. Still…I sat there and listened to you and realized you were telling my story too. My wife and my kids’ story…all the people who I had known and loved and had been so hurt by this global government bullshit. I was one of those ten thousand who made their way up to Dominatus to try and save you. Me and Franklin, the fella you met yesterday in Juneau. Thousands of us just decided enough was enough and we weren’t gonna let them kill all of you trapped up there in that cave.”
The sounds from the kitchen grew quiet as Dublin strained to hear Cooper Wyse tell his own story.
“Thing is, it worked now didn’t it? Once enough people woke up and said enough is enough – why all those New United Nations boys we had running things up here just turned and left. They don’t really believe in what they were part of any more than we did. Hell, half of them stayed behind and promised to fight if the New United Nations came back. I just have to think…if we had woken up sooner. Years before, how many people would have been saved? How many people would have had the chance to live their lives in fr
eedom? But we didn’t. We just kept giving up a little bit of freedom here and a little bit more there until finally, it was pretty much all gone.
“I can remember Grandfather Wyse – he was a mean old guy. Damn hard man. Had an accent so heavy it was hard to understand him sometimes. Now he had come over here, bought up these acres and built a home in Alaska because he knew things weren’t right in Ireland. Europe. The EU and the financial mess, he came here like so many did before him. He just wanted a chance at a better life and to be left alone to live it. The last few years of his life he started to warn us that what he saw back in Ireland was happening in the states. My dad brushed him off. They would argue about it all the time. Then my grandfather was gone, grandmother a couple years after him, and life went on.
“Dad got thrown from a horse he was breaking - thrown bad. His right hip was never the same. He couldn’t ride for more than an hour before the pain would get to be too much. His moods got ugly around here and I spent more and more time at the horse shows…met my wife at one of those shows in Spokane. Washington State. She was a Pullman student, studying to be a veterinarian. I was twenty four, she was a few years younger. Her folks raised horses, had a big ranch in Grant County about ninety minutes from Pullman. We dated a few times, I came back here. We called each other, emailed…I counted the days until I would be back in her neck of the woods so I could see her again.
“One of those trips to Pullman I got a call from my mom. Dad had…the pain was so bad. He had had two surgeries on that hip already and they had him on all kinds of pain medications, and some kind of anti-depressant, but…well it was the fact he couldn’t ride a horse. That was killing him. Literally killing him. His head wasn’t right, losing control of his emotions. Mom admitted a few months later, he had hit her a couple times. Hard. He had never come close to doing something like that before. Never. She blamed the pills. Doctors were giving him one thing and then another thing. It was tough to keep track of what he was on after a while.
“So I got that call, Mom was…she was actually quite calm. Said she had found my dad in the barn. Found him dead. He had written a short note and left it pinned on the inside of the door.
“I’m sorry. Just no good anymore. Used up. Please forgive me.
“He had taken a whole bottle of those pills and lay down to die, his head resting on his favorite saddle. And that was that – he never woke up. I came back home, back to help my mom and to bury Dad. Laid him in the ground here with my grandparents. Mom, like I said, she was calm the day she told me, but within a few weeks after we buried Dad, she was falling apart herself. I didn’t know how to fix that kind of broken. It was inside her. She blamed herself. Said she should have tried to get Dad to some better doctors, should have not let him be so stubborn about it. She thought she should have been more aware of just how much pain he was really in. How much the pills were getting him all mixed up in his head.”
Cooper paused in his story, looking toward the kitchen at Dublin.
“My wife, Arlene…she was a hell of a woman. Smart. Beautiful. Didn’t mind getting her hands dirty working outside, but could clean herself up and put on a dress and look like she belonged on one of those magazine covers. She came back with me to the ranch here and took to helping my mom. Just like that. No questions. Mom fell in love with her, would joke with me that Arlene was too good for me. Out of my league. Like I didn’t know that already. We were married in the Catholic Church in Juneau. I’m not particularly religious but my mom insisted. She was very old school that way…attending Mass, Confession, all of that. I think a lot of it was to help remind her of my dad in a way. His family was very Irish Catholic.
“We had some real good years here, Arlene and me and my mom. Then came the two kids and, well…life got even better. At least for a while. Stories about weird stuff going on in the Lower 48 were being told more and more though. The new agreements with the United Nations, all the chaos in Canada and Mexico, people getting thrown into those re-education centers if they said the wrong thing, or thought the wrong thing, ate the wrong foods, all the crap that kind of crept up on the country.
“Arlene was talking regularly with her folks back in Washington State, trying to get them to come up here where she thought it would be better for them. We had the room and I liked her folks well enough. That was part of the reason for her trip. She went and I stayed back home here to watch my mom. She had a bad cold at the time, needed a little help taking care of herself. Arlene said she’d just be gone a week or so. Drove down, met with her folks. She called me every night to say how things were going, let me say goodnight to the kids. By then the news was blacked out…nothing was being told about what was going on in Grant County, or that encampment where a bunch of people were trying to live away from all the new government mandates. The police state of the United States some were calling it. It was her third night at her parents’ house when Arlene mentioned it. Told me she saw a convoy of hundreds of military vehicles that had on a blue and white emblem that said New United Nations on it. Drove right down the road next to her parents’ place. Then she mentioned all the drones that were flying overhead every hour of the day, one after the other. They didn’t make any noise but you could see them creeping across the sky. People in the area were getting nervous and so was she.
“Well, I told her to head back home. She insisted she was going to stay just a day or two longer to convince her folks to come back with her. Before she left she had no idea how bad things had gotten down there – and now she was really worried about her mom and dad staying behind by themselves with all those drones and military vehicles in the area. She knew something wasn’t right.
“Her fourth night there, she called me again. I could tell her voice, she was really worried. Told me two men had come to her parents’ house that day. Came in and asked a bunch of questions. Asked if they knew any of the people who were at the encampment that was about five miles away from their house. Then they found Arlene’s dad’s gun. It was an old family hunting rifle handed down from his grandfather. They found that gun and a half empty box of ammo that went with it. Arlene said her dad told those soldiers, she called them soldiers, but they were compliance officers. Her dad told those compliance officers he hadn’t even moved that gun from the closet in about ten years and it hadn’t been fired for longer than that - just an old hunting rifle. The officers took down all their names, took the gun and the ammo, and then they left. Arlene promised she was leaving the next day and her parents were coming with her. Just like before, I was able to say goodnight to the kids.
“That was the last time I ever spoke to my wife or my kids. Two, three days go by and no word. Then I start to hear rumors about some kind of military action in Grant County, Washington - a couple Internet reports. Then those reports are taken down and there’s no information at all about what happened. I go into Juneau and ask around - nothing. Another day goes by and a county sheriff pays a visit to the house here. I know him. He was a friend of my dad’s. Name was Tillman. He tells me there’s word of some kind of rebellion in Grant County, and some locals in the area got caught in the middle. He says he’s got no information on Arlene or my kids’ whereabouts, but promises to let me know if he hears anything. He never comes back. Two more days and I try to look him up in Juneau. He’s been reassigned they tell me – and that’s all they tell me. Sheriff Tillman just disappeared. Gone. By then I’m figuring somebody didn’t like him going out of his way to talk to me.
“So by then, I’m a hell of a mess. I’m calling out to anyone and everyone I know in Washington State about where my wife and kids are. Nobody has any information. Or, they don’t want to talk to me. Then my phone service is cut off. My Internet access is shut down. It’s nearly two weeks since I last heard from Arlene. Two damn weeks. Then I get something in the mail. Plain white envelope with no return address. Inside are two aerial photos of a house. One shows the house with the address printed below it, and the other shows that house blown to bits. Almost nothi
ng left of it. There’s a truck in the driveway though. Damaged, but still enough of it there in the picture for me to recognize it. My truck. The one Arlene drove to see her parents. The house was their house.”
“Ah shit...”
Mac’s two words spoke for the other three who were listening intently to Cooper Wyse’s story.
“I show my mother the photos, tell her something bad might have happened. She just…she broke apart. Screaming. Sobbing. For days. I’m holding out hope though. Maybe Arlene got out of that house. Maybe her and the kids and her folks are holed up somewhere trying to make their way back to me. Then the other envelope arrives. Five copies of five little cards. Has their names on it. It’s some kind of death report. A very brief one. Simply says, Grant County, WA : Subjects terminated.
Military Fiction: THE MAC WALKER COLLECTION: A special ops military fiction collection... Page 99