by Jf Perkins
Arturo beamed as his new love stepped from the front porch into the sunlight, but his smile was made weak by the sheer radiance of the smile on his bride’s face. There was no music, but Jones marched to a beat in her own head, creating an aura of beauty and grace that outpaced anything we had seen for a long time. Kirk, Tommy and I sat on the edge of a garden bed, watching her walk. The sight was mystifying enough that I forgot to look at Aggie. She called me on it later. Aside from staring at the bride, my job was to hold onto Jimmy until he was called for his role as ring bearer. He was to deliver the rings that had come from somewhere deep in Sally’s old jewelry chest. I didn’t know the history of those rings, but I knew they meant something special just from the tears that flowed when Sally had offered them to the couple.
After what felt like long minutes, Jones arrived at Arturo’s side. He took her trembling hand and tucked it under his arm. The way she looked at him was completely different from any facial expression I had ever seen. It ignored the pain and the suffering, the risk and the struggles, and the specter of the unknown world. It was, near as I could tell, a pure thing. A pure expression of love.
Kirk and I had talked about whether Dad could pull off a marriage. It just wasn’t like him. When he began to speak, we knew that he could. “Dear friends and family. No, that’s wrong. We all remember when there was a difference between those words, but here today, I say dear family. We have gathered here to join two of our beloved family members into a new family, one that is theirs alone, but still part of ours at the same time. Today, this union is even more important than family. To me, it represents the hope that defies all that has happened, all that we see, and all that we don’t see. It represents the simple truth that the world can change, the world we knew can fall asleep, but love lives on in the hearts of Arturo and Jones, and it is for that reason we are here to take part in this blessed union.”
After that, the women began to cry in a cascade. Lucy was quiet and Jackie was the loudest. Even I was a little misty-eyed, but I wasn’t sure why. Dad waited for Jackie to regain some control over her wailing. Then, Dad took Arturo and Jones through the simplest version of vows he could recall. He called for the rings. I sent Jimmy up to his new family with a gentle shove. Arturo put the ring on Jones’s finger, and she returned the favor.
“With the exchange of vows as an affirmation of Arturo and Jones’s commitment to each other, and the exchange of rings a visible symbol of that commitment and love for each other, I pronounce Arturo and Jones, husband and wife.” Dad was smiling his biggest, dumbest smile. He gave Arturo a jerk of his head and Arturo failed to catch the hint. “You may now kiss the bride.” Yep. That solved the problem. Arturo was about the same height as Jones. It was a simple matter to lean in for a kiss, which triggered a round of applause from the entire family. In fact, my hands were beginning to hurt before the kiss ended.
The unspoken wedding gift was the car and the supplies, but we were able to give them one other surprise. That night, everyone except for the newlyweds spent the night in the barn. We had a barn party in the hayloft. I didn’t know what they were doing in the house. I did notice when Aggie fell asleep next to me with her hand nestled in mine.
Chapter 10 – 11
Seth interrupted the story before Bill got to the end. Terry found it more frustrating than he expected. Even with his close cropped hair, Seth had a mess tucked under his cap. He also had a look that any boy knows can only come from being rousted out of bed by his mother. He stepped up on Bill’s porch with an automatic ducking motion and straightened his spine when his head failed to connect with a low ceiling. “Hey, Boss. Hey, Terry.”
“Hello, Big Seth,” Bill answered.
Terry just slapped him on the thigh.
“What’s next?” Seth asked.
“Well, I figure you boys ought to head over to Hickerson Station. Pick up some food from Sam on the way out, and you can use the guns we collected from Cox if anybody needs one,” Bill said. “Make sure you both have plenty of personal weapons and ammo.”
“What do we do with them?” Terry asked “Bring them over here?”
“It’s your army. You raised it. You lead it.”
“Come on, Bill. You gotta have a plan,” Terry said, almost whining.
Bill laughed. “Ok, I’ll give you some hints. First, get them out of sight. I’d suggest you take a look at the old Carroll barn. If that’s not big enough, there’s a good slope behind it. I don’t want you to do anything until you see a good opportunity.”
Terry looked exasperated. “What opportunity?”
“Well, I can’t really say without knowing how many men you have. I have complete faith in your ability to pick your moment. Good luck, men.” With that, Bill got to his feet and walked inside. Terry and Seth spent the next thirty seconds staring at the front door.
Finally, Terry said, “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to figure it out.”
Seth grunted. “Sometimes, I hate that guy.” Then he threw back his head and laughed.
“Look on the bright side, Seth. At least you won’t spend the night manning a machine gun on the barn roof.”
“Yeah, instead I get to sleep in a barn and charge into battle with a bunch of ignorant townies,” Seth said, still smiling.
“Hey, those are my people,” Terry said with false offense. “Besides, it could be worse.”
“Yeah. It could be zombies.”
They were still laughing when they backed Big Bertha up to the cooking tents behind the tavern. Sam gave them enough food for half of Manchester, it seemed when the cargo bay was two thirds full. “You can bring back whatever you don’t need, boys.” Sam slapped the locking bolt on the steel truck doors and waved them away with a shooing motion.
Terry took his usual exit through the western gate, with Seth handing out mock salutes left and right. Five minutes later, they pulled into the parking lot of the old elementary school. Terry was shocked. There were at least fifty men shuffling through the charred ruins of the school just to alleviate the boredom. The playground looked to hold over two hundred more. The scattered men made a token move for cover when the truck come down the road, but recognized Terry as he pulled into the weedy schoolyard. Terry saw the large man in overalls from Jared’s house and pulled over to him. Rolling the window down as he spoke, Terry greeted the man over the idling truck. “You brought a lot.”
“Yeah, I’m kind of surprised too,” the man said.
“Any more coming?”
The man shrugged. “We got here early. There could be more behind us.”
“What’s your name, sir?”
“I’m Dale Ferrell.”
“Pleased to meet you Dale. Sorry I didn’t catch your name earlier.”
Dale held his hand flat at belly button height. “No problem, Terry. Last time I saw you, you were about this high.”
“You know my folks?”
“I know your mother mostly. Long story,” Dale said with a teasing grin.
“Uh... ok. Listen Dale. Which way did you take to get out here?”
“We came out Powers Bridge Road. It’s a straight shot.”
“Right. We’re going to take a quick run up the road to see if any more folks are coming. Would you mind taking charge until we get back?”
“Sure, I suppose. What should I do?”
“There should be a gap in the back corner of the fence. Just get everybody to hike out that way. Skirt to the north of the trees until you see an old barn. That’s where we’ll set up and work out a plan. We’ll bring food.”
“Will do. See you there.”
“Ok, Dale. Thanks.”
“No problem. Hey, go slow. The bridge is out.”
Terry smiled and said, “Will do.”
Forty minutes later, Terry and Seth had found two more groups of Manchester men walking to the school. He had given them directions to the barn and apologized for having no room to offer a ride. Like the first gathering of men, they seemed to be in good sp
irits. Terry understood. In Manchester, there were two aspects to life. Work and hunger. Anything new would be seen as entertainment, at least until the reality of battle set in.
“We may need more food,” Terry told Seth on the way back to the barn.
“Don’t think so. That’s a lot of food back there.”
“You’d know better, Big Guy.”
Terry drove the truck through the Carroll’s old gate, and swung around behind the barn. The sun was still blazing hot on the south side of the barn, but was beginning to soften to orange in the west. Terry was wondering what he would do during the night. More importantly, he didn’t know where Sally would be after dark, and he found that disturbed him a great deal. He hoped she would be on one of the Teeny Town barns, a long way from the fight. Of course, the fight could reach the town easily enough, but he wouldn’t let himself think about that.
Terry killed the engine and waited for Seth to exit before he locked the passenger side door and dropped to the ground. He used the key on his door. No one would steal Big Bertha, he hoped. Men were milling around with their motley collection of guns, knives, and few other odd excuses for weapons. Terry’s favorite was the man who had carried a scythe all the way from Manchester.
“Seth, how about you see about the food distribution, and I’ll work on the weapons.”
“Sounds good.” Seth opened the back doors of the truck and called for a few helpers. He directed them to carry the food bags over to the lean-to shelter on the west side of the barn. Soon after, he had convinced the men to line up so that he could hand out the packaged meals wrapped in rough paper.
Terry knew that most of the men would be eating a better meal out here on an abandoned farm than they usually did in their own homes. He hoped it would help him keep control over the group. The line was still flowing as the last two groups trickled into the barnyard. Terry kept a count, and realized that he had over four hundred men under his command. Then he laughed to himself. He had no idea how to command anyone.
Terry closed the truck and took a walk into the barn. He was curious to see the place where Bill’s family had weathered that first hard winter. He saw the tobacco drying beams and the watch posts. He looked into the pits Bill and Kirk had dug. The dirt was still hard packed at the bottom, but it looked like no footsteps had touched that floor in many years. Terry stuck his head into the tack room where a few empty boxes were still stacked in front of the door. It was a powerful reminder of what the Carter’s had survived, and how everyone to this day lived so close to the edge of chaos and death.
When he walked outside, Terry snagged the closest man and told him to pass the word that anyone without a working gun should come to the truck. Terry circled around to the back. Seth was working on his eighth bag of food, but the end of the chow line was in sight. There would be enough for another meal. Terry opened the truck and climbed over the remaining food to reach the weapons stacked in the front. A new line was formed, led by scythe guy. Terry was glad the man knew it was a bad idea to fight a battle with a farm implement. He asked questions of each of the men and tried to give each man a suitable weapon. He couldn’t avoid the fact that most of these weapons were supplied with only a few rounds of ammo. He made sure to remind the men of that fact as he handed out the guns. He came up far short. At least thirty of his army would join the fight with only a knife or a machete. It took some fast talking to shuffle some of the better bladed weapons to the men without guns. In the end, he managed the feat by reminding those who did not want to loan their blades that the end of the battle would most likely yield a new batch of weapons. Plunder has always been a strong motivator.
After the field dinner was eaten, Terry rounded everyone into a group and gave the world’s shortest speech. “Thank you men for coming. Your help will turn the tide on the Dragon army. Our mission is to stay out of sight until the right moment. Odds are, we will miss most of the fight, but I don’t think we mind too much. When we do come out of hiding, I have two rules. First rule, nobody shoots until I say ‘shoot’. Second rule, no matter what we are doing, cover first, shoot second. Understand?”
Terry watched for the ripple of assent from his men. “Until then, get as many as we can into the barn. Leave the watch platforms up top free. Anyone who doesn’t fit in the barn hides on the slope behind the barn. Nestle into the grass and be invisible. If we are spotted early, I can guarantee that we’ll have to fight longer than the ammo will last. Ok? Now let’s work together and get the job done.”
There were a few arguments about space in the barn, but for the most part the men cooperated with each other. Soon, Terry had half an army packed into the barn like sardines, and the rest were lying in the tall grass behind the barn. From a distance, they were effectively hidden. Terry hoped that was the only way anyone would see them – from a distance. Terry finished his job of hiding the army by driving Bertha down the back slope and into the woods. He gathered up his stock of ammo from behind the driver’s seat, pulled his rifle from the rack, and locked the truck.
Before long, he and Seth were settled on the old watch platforms that Bill’s father had built. Terry could see a broad swath of land from the front watch. Seth was responsible for spotting anyone who decided to sneak in from the wooded side of the property. The men were restless below, undoubtedly too excited and nervous to sleep. Eventually, boredom would do the job.
Chapter 10 – 12
Gary Tucker was thinking in circles. No order had yet resolved in his mind. Garrett Cox had not returned with his men. Gary had faced the whole of his own army, and in the midst of spouting false theology about white superiority and God’s purpose, he had lied to his men. He had lied about information that had come from Garrett’s reconnaissance, when in fact no one had returned. Beyond that factual lie, Gary knew well that everything he said was a lie created by his dead father. Yet, he spoke the words, performed the ritual as if it were in accord with his own beliefs, and somewhere deep within him, it was true. That was why Gary sat in the dark near the ruins of the Jenkins mansion, trying to discern the will of his version of God.
If the evidence of his arrival with only a third of his army meant anything, then God wanted him to pack up and head home. On the other hand, if the fact that he had arrived with even this much force intact meant more, then he should attack and trust in his white God to carry him through on his act of vengeance. The only way to resolve the paradox was for Gary to pull from the non-religious teachings of his father. The Grand Dragon had spoken often of us or them, kill or be killed, take what you want, and destroy anyone who stood in your way. These ideas had been pounded into Gary’s head from birth, reinforced with everything he saw, everything he was given, and everything he was forced to endure to prove himself to his father. In the light of those teachings, Gary finally decided. He would fight. He would take. He would have vengeance.
Just down the hill, Wyatt Jenkins was having his own set of concerns. The three burning crosses still smoldered and glowed amidst the ruins of the bunkhouse where Bill Carter had destroyed his family. This should have appealed to his own sense of vengeance and family honor. It did not. Instead, Wyatt was left with sixty men of his own and a sick feeling in his stomach. It was not even enough to control the Dragons, much less lead the fight for his own place in the power structure of the county. It was a county that his father, Jerry Doan Jenkins, had conquered over the years through determined application of wealth, force, and political leverage. In the first few days after his father’s death, Wyatt had managed to lose it all. Like Gary, he had a father who instilled a hard version of power into his son. Unlike Gary, Wyatt had never really bought into it. He had a weakness from the Jenkins point of view, one that wanted to get along with people, to treat people with respect. Unfortunately, the gifts of his father’s method flowed steadily in his direction, and Wyatt did not want to lose them. The trappings of power were, as always, a powerful drug.
Now he was stuck. Wyatt’s own instincts screamed for him to approa
ch Bill Carter under a white flag and to work out a deal that might save him. He could not. If Gary Tucker caught the slightest whiff of Wyatt’s thinking, the Dragon army would roll over him on its way out the front gate. He began to dream up a hedge, a way out. Wyatt hoped, but he did not believe there was any escape.
Thanks to the unavoidable separation between the two groups, Wyatt could speak to his men without being overheard. He gathered them in close and outlined his plan.
From the top of the hill, Gary began his own preparations. Having settled the matter in his mind, the Junior Dragon turned to logistics and whatever vague idea of tactics he could muster without knowing anything about his target. Just after midnight, he had his men, trucks, weapons, and ammo in order. He had turned his ecstatic worshipers of the burning cross into a weapon, and once the weapon was aimed, it was very difficult not to fire. At one o’ clock, he walked over the hill to have a final talk with Wyatt.
“We’re ready to go, Wyatt. Are your men ready?”
“I thought we were going at three,” Wyatt said.
“My men are ready. They’re restless. We need to go now.”
“I think we need some daylight. We don’t know the ground.” Wyatt unconsciously looked over his shoulder to the northwest.
“We’ve got the maps. We’ll be set up when the sun comes up.”
“Ok then. We still planning on walking in from the highway?” Wyatt asked.
“Yeah, same plan as before. Just a bit earlier is all.”
“All right, Gary. We’ll be ready in five minutes.”
Wyatt took the lead, on the theory that he knew the county better, and he did - up to a point. Unfortunately, the part of the county they were planning to attack was beyond Wyatt’s usual stomping grounds, and he knew that he would be just as dependent on the old maps as anyone. Just the same, he had no choice. His trucks passed through the Jenkins gate, and turned towards Manchester. Wyatt’s vehicles were in good shape, and once committed to move, he was frustrated by the speed limits of the Dragon trucks. Staying in first gear was pure torture.