And that realization hit him now as well. When was Thanksgiving? Was it next week, or was it already past? Had they lost touch with that after but two and a half years?
As Ernie ladled out each bowl in turn and passed it on, John found he could not help but watch it hungrily. The meat did not strike him as fresh—it most likely came from a freeze-dried can of emergency rations—but it was still meat, mixed in with what appeared to be real potatoes and a sprinkling of greens. What truly set his mouth to watering was not just the stew but the scent of freshly baked bread as well. Part of the modern kitchen fixtures had been pulled out long ago, with an old-fashioned kitchen woodstove set in as a replacement, with Linda leaving the table for a moment to pull a large loaf of bread out of the oven and setting it down in front of Ernie to be cut into thick slices and then passed around as well.
Stew and bread set before him, he looked down at the feast and found it hard not to fill up with emotion, wishing that Makala was here as well. He felt guilty that such a meal was before him.
“John Matherson, don’t let that get cold!”
He looked up and saw Linda gazing at him not sternly but with a glint of affection, as if reading his thoughts. “There’s more than enough to go around, and I’ll have a bowl and a slice of fresh-baked bread for you to take home to your good wife.”
He could not find the voice to reply and simply nodded, not used to such maternal gestures, especially now that Jen was gone.
He ate in silence and barely listened to the family chatter, teasing of a brother to their daughter implying she might be expecting, the grandchildren announcing that they planned to go sledding down the driveway, Ernie admonishing that there was still the wood splitting and hauling detail to see to.
As for the students now living with them, Linda, without any overt show, just quietly walked behind them with a steaming ladle and put a bit of extra stew in each of their bowls. No one else at the table complained about this second helping, and John felt a flood of emotion as Samantha looked up at Linda, whispered a thank-you, and then struggled and failed to hold back tears of gratitude for a meal unlike any she had most likely seen in years. Linda leaned over to hug her, and the girl began to cry openly.
No one spoke, and then, to help cover the girl’s embarrassment with her emotional display, one of the grandchildren insisted she go sledding with them after the meal was done.
It was the most John could recall having eaten in weeks—or was it months? Perhaps the meal the evening after the battle that had taken out Fredericks when he and those who had fought that day were each handed to eat at one sitting, at John’s insistence, an entire MRE from the stockpile they had captured. Nearly four thousand calories of food all in one sitting.
As he looked around at those gathered with him, a favorite hymn came to mind that Aaron Copland had titled “Simple Gifts.” As if there were some sort of mental prompting, with the meal done, the daughter got up, went over to the piano in the living room, thumbed through a layer of sheet music, picked out a piece by Debussy that John recognized, and began to play.
There was a moment of silence from the others as they listened appreciatively. It flashed John to the day he was in Gaither Chapel with Makala and a student was singing the haunting song “Try to Remember,” a song that so symbolized to John the world they now lived in. The daughter just simply playing a song took John to the thought of a world that must have existed even before his own time, when a family would gather for Sunday dinner, and then afterward someone would play the piano and perhaps others might even sing.
We’ve lost so much, he realized, but then again, maybe we are learning again about the simple gifts of still being alive. The gifts of a warm, filling meal, family and friends together, and rather than the cluttering noise of some ridiculous game turned up too loudly on a television afterward, it was instead a family entertaining themselves while the cold wind of winter swept down from out of the mountains and across icicle-coated orchards and snow-drifted fields beyond.
He realized, that at this moment, whatever was about to come … it was good to be alive.
CHAPTER TEN
“John, wake up. Wake up! We’re under attack!”
It was the dream, the jumble of dreams that always ended with him bolt upright in bed, sweat soaked, shivering. Out on the desert, the Bradley up ahead burning, racing forward to find the medics already pulling out the charred bodies, two of them still alive, faces burned black, red mouths open, screaming, and he stood helpless, could do nothing other than stare in shock … Doc Kellor pulling back a blanket revealing Ben, the father of his grandson, features contorted in the agony of death … then Jennifer …
“John, wake up!”
He was sitting up, shaking, the room freezing cold, Makala’s arms around him, kissing him awake. He opened his eyes. This time, there was no soothing, kissing his forehead, wiping the sweat from his face, whispering it was okay; it was just “the dream” again.
“You’ve got to wake up now. Reverend Black’s on the phone. We’re being attacked!”
He nodded, standing up, bare feet hitting the freezing-cold floor, shocking him, Makala helping him to put on a heavy bathrobe, steadying him as consciousness returned.
“Who’s calling?”
“Reverend Black. John, there are helicopters circling.” She started to lead him to the sunroom where the phone was.
“Who? Where?”
She picked up the receiver of the phone, an old-fashioned black rotary unit, and handed it to him.
“Matherson here.”
“John, it’s Black. I’m at the campus office. We’ve got three Apaches overhead. Can’t you hear them?”
That finally startled him awake, and he realized the room was reverberating with a low, steady rumble. He walked to the sunroom window, which was half-covered with frost, looked out, and caught the glint of flashing rotors sweeping by overhead.
“Any shooting?”
“Not yet.”
John continued to look out the window. The choppers were staying high, circling out along the crest line of Lookout Mountain. He watched them for a moment, catching glimpses. “Any come in low over the campus?”
“Not yet.” He could hear the nervousness in Black’s voice.
“Get on the phone to downtown Black Mountain, Asheville, any connections we have. Tell them not to shoot unless fired upon first and report anything they’re seeing. I’ll be right up.”
He hung up. Makala was already scrambling to fetch clothing and boots, helping John to get dressed.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Not sure, but if it’s a surprise attack with intent to kill, they’d already be hitting us.”
Pulling on his boots, he heard a vehicle outside, and opening the door, he saw that it was Maury in his jeep. John ran out to him, looking up, the distinct thump of a helicopter rising in pitch as the chopper raced by overhead, still keeping altitude.
“What the hell is going on?” Maury shouted as John climbed in, brushing snow off the passenger seat before sitting down.
“They’re military, desert camo pattern. They must be with General Scales. Get me to the office.”
Maury spun the jeep around through the deep snow and set off downhill to Montreat Road, the vehicle skidding as he hit the base of the road and went sideways onto the main street through the village without slowing. Maury edged off the road to get around a tree that had fallen in the last storm and had yet to be cleared and then turned to race up to Gaither Hall. As they skidded to a stop, John looked up again and saw that there were several Black Hawks as well, slowly circling at more than a thousand feet above the narrow valley.
Black was at the office door, motioning for John to come in. Out on the snow-covered front lawn, a dozen or more students were looking up, all of them with weapons. One of them was Grace.
“Do not point your weapons at them! Everyone get the hell inside!” John shouted.
“Someone on the ham radio, aski
ng for you.”
John went to the radio, the tinny-sounding speaker crackling.
“Matherson, this is Bob Scales; please respond.”
John picked up the old-fashioned handheld mike and clicked it several times before replying.
“Matherson here. Bob, are you overhead?”
A momentary pause.
“Affirmative, John. Assumed you were in that jeep.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nice vehicle. I’d like to see it up close.”
John hesitated for a moment. “You’re welcome to land, but flag off those Apaches and send them home.”
“Can’t do it, John. Please listen carefully. I’m asking for your immediate surrender.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“John, I’ve got assets over you that can take down your campus and all those kids in five minutes. We’re already landing in Asheville. You might have disabled the Asheville airport, but I have two C-130s touching down on the interstate next to it. I’ve also got a support column on the ground coming up from Greenville, and they have some Bradleys. It’s your call. I’ll give you five minutes to think it over.”
John put the mike down and looked at Reverend Black and Maury.
They were silent, staring at him.
The phone began to ring. Black picked it up, listened for a moment, simply said, “We already know,” and looked at John, still holding the receiver.
“That was Dunn in downtown Asheville. He said several Black Hawks have touched down near the county office complex. They’ll be in his office in another few minutes.”
“Any fighting?”
Black relayed the question, sighed, and looked back to John. “One of the security team there is shot, bad. Fired on them as they landed.”
John looked back out the window, helicopters still circling, and in spite of his orders, students were coming out of buildings, some already in winter camo, weapons up.
“John, what are you going to do?” Black whispered, still holding the phone.
He looked at his troops, his kids. Against the Posse, even against Fredericks, it was one thing, and those two fights had cost dearly. This time?
It would be a bloodbath, and for what?
“We don’t stand a chance against them.” John sighed. “I know Bob Scales. This is the A team, not those pathetic ANR kids they threw at us last spring.”
“John, I need your answer now.” It was Bob again on the radio. “I just got a report a couple of your people and mine were shot in Asheville. Stop it before it turns into a full-scale fight.”
He wanted to shout back that it was Bob who was starting it with this surprise assault coming in at dawn.
“John, they’ve got us,” Maury said softly, and John finally nodded.
“Reverend. Tell Dunn to stand down, disarm, and surrender. Get on the phone to all locations, tell them not to fire, to stand down, and await word from me later. Repeat, do not resist. You got it.”
Reverend Black sighed. “John, you’re making the right move.”
“Yeah, I know,” he replied bitterly. “Maury, get outside, tell those darn kids to get back inside. Find Kevin Malady, tell him everyone is to return to their rooms, stack weapons, and show no resistance. Got that?”
Maury could only nod and went back out the door as John picked up the mike and clicked it.
“Okay, Bob. We surrender on your word that my people are to be treated with respect, no reprisals or arrests. It’s got to be the code we once lived by, sir.”
“Agreed.”
“Wait fifteen minutes so I make sure the word is out. There’s a baseball field above the campus; you can set down there.”
“Fifteen minutes, then. Bring your jeep up to meet me, John. Make sure your people do not fire. If they do, you know what I have to do in reply.”
“Understood.”
He could hear Bob click off.
I should have expected this, he thought bitterly. But then again, what could I do differently? After two and a half years of successfully managing the defense of his community, to be caught like this was galling.
Frustrated, he threw the mike down and walked outside.
* * *
The rotor of the Black Hawk came to a stop, John at last able to lower his hands from his face as the swirling snow settled down. Three Black Hawks had landed, troops piling out of the first two, weapons raised, forming a defensive perimeter, while overhead the three Apaches continued to circle. Their nose guns were turned away, outward, and not in toward the campus—a smart gesture on Bob’s part—but their presence was menacing nevertheless, the sounds, the sights, and smells taking John back to the desert of Iraq so long ago.
John stood by the jeep, Maury at his side. The world felt cold, empty. Could he trust Bob? Or was this all a ruse? He’d grown used to winning, to always somehow pulling the chestnuts out of the fire. And now after two and a half years, the game was up. Whatever it was that Bluemont wanted, they now had it. How brilliantly it was done, to send in a man John once served under, had trusted, respected, and considered to be his friend.
It was all up to Bluemont now. He had defied them because of Fredericks, the type of man who across his years of military service he had learned to hold in contempt. The quintessential bureaucrat, the type where in the face of all logical argument, at times with the lives of men in the balance, would smile that disdainful smile, implying that an Ivy League degree in public administration trumped reality in the field.
Was that what Bob was serving? If so, regardless of the promises made minutes ago, John could see what would follow. Local community control was finished, the high talk back in the spring of a reaffirmation of the Constitution, of their expanding out across the Carolinas, bringing at least some semblance of a technological infrastructure back online to themselves and their neighbors … gone.
There would be no fight now. Perhaps the first gesture to smooth things over would be a bribe of reassurance, some truckloads of MREs brought up from the coast, perhaps even already packed along with the column invading up from Greenville, South Carolina. Then? A new administrator? Another Fredericks? And with him new rulings? The logic that a local militia was no longer needed for self-defense now that the regulars were here, but the young men and women of his community would be needed elsewhere and an order given?
He could see it all so clearly, even as he felt a surge of emotion as the side door of the third Black Hawk slid open and Bob Scales alighted, behind him a detail of eight well-armed men, some in desert camo, others in winter uniforms, who joined the defensive perimeter.
John did not make the gesture of going forward to meet Bob, waiting as he struggled alone through the knee-deep snow, moving slowly.
Bob stopped half a dozen feet away from John and gazed into his eyes, saying nothing.
“Sir, if you are expecting me to salute this time, I’m sorry, I can’t.”
A flicker of a smile creased his old friend’s features. “At least present your sword as a token of surrender, and I’ll return it graciously,” Bob replied.
John kept his features fixed. Memories flooded in of his year with Bob at the War College, participating in the traditional staff rides to Gettysburg, the hours spent together analyzing the battle while walking the fields with the rising young officers who were their students and getting a lesson not only about the battle itself but also the traditions of the military in which they served. That they would fight ferociously for the cause they believed was right and to which they had sworn their sacred honor, but could as well show compassion and share the last drop of a canteen with a foe who had tried to kill them but minutes before.
“Okay, forget the sword. But can we at least get out of the cold?” Bob suggested.
“Can I request that you call off those Apaches overhead? They’re making my people extremely nervous. Last time we had Apaches here, they shot up our chapel and hospital and killed dozens.”
Bob nodded. “You can assure me
that where they set down no action will be taken?”
“If they land back at the airport where we met, there is no one there, close enough to cover you if needed, far enough away to ease things here a bit.”
“Your word of honor on that, John?”
“Yes”—he hesitated for a few seconds—“on my word of honor … sir.”
“By the way, I already have a team there,” Bob announced.
“Why there?”
“Seemed like a good staging area, and besides, they’re looking for a lost Black Hawk. Figured it might be stashed in one of the hangars. All right, I’ll order them back to that airport.”
Bob turned and shouted an order. One of the troopers deployed on the security perimeter around the choppers nodded and went to the pilot’s window of the Black Hawk Bob had come in on. Seconds later, the three Apaches turned sharply to the southeast and began to climb out of the valley.
“Satisfied?” Bob asked.
“It helps.”
“Now can we get in out of the cold?”
John nodded and pointed to the jeep. Bob climbed into the passenger seat. The trooper who had passed his order to the pilot shouted a protest and started to come forward, weapon not pointed toward them directly but raised to the ready.
“It’s all right, Captain!” Bob shouted. “Wait here.”
“But, sir!”
“I’m with friends. Order the men to keep perimeter and wait. I’ll be back in one hour.”
The captain nodded reluctantly, saluted, and turned away.
“He gets a little too nervous about me at times,” Bob said.
“I hope he doesn’t get nervous while we’re gone. Not a threat, sir, but there are well over a hundred heavily armed people down there.” He nodded back toward the campus.
“I trust you. Just make sure they stay away from where the choppers are waiting.”
John did not reply.
“You do know that if I am not back in an hour, things can quickly grow ugly.”
“Are you doubting my word”—he paused—“General?”
The Final Day Page 18