by Reed, N. C.
“Leanne, I need to get in there, sweetie,” Kaitlin said gently. “Give me a little room, okay? You don’t have to go anywhere, just…let me work. ‘Kay?”
“Okay,” the small teen nodded, stepping back and then moving to the head of the bed, behind Heath’s prone figure.
“Heath, can you hear me okay?” Kaitlin asked. Heath nodded, still looking at his arm.
“Look at me, sweetie,” Kaitlin gently took his cheek and turned him her way. “There you go. I need to look at your eyes. No, no, look at me,” she chided when he went to look at his arm again. Reluctantly he turned his gaze back to her.
“There you go,” she soothed. “I’m going to check your pupils, okay? Bright light coming.” She flashed her light in each eye, noting the pupil reaction.
“It’s good, right?” Leanne all but demanded even before Kaitlin was finished.
“Leanne, let me work, sweetheart,” Kaitlin said again, gently. “Be patient. You’ve been patient all this time, so just keep doing that. Heath, is your head hurting?” He took a deep breath and nodded slowly, eyes closing.
“No, Heath. No, keep your eyes open for me. You’ve slept long enough for a few minutes, and we need to talk to you, okay? I want you to focus on my-, Heath! Look at me!” she snapped. He opened his eyes again, his look telling both Leanne and Kaitlin what he thought about that situation.
“Now, I want you to focus on this light, Heath,” she held up her small penlight, the light from it making the top glow. “I want you to follow it as I move it around, okay? Heath, I know you hear me,” she chided a Heath appeared to be on the verge of becoming mulish.
“Dammit, Heath, help her help you!” Leanne suddenly exploded. “Stop being so childish and do what she says!”
Giving Leanne a near malignant glare, he then turned his sullen gaze to the nurse, who was waiting patiently with her light still in the air.
“Good deal,” she smiled at him brightly. “Just follow the light for me, Heath.” She slowly moved the light side-to-side before moving it slowly up and then down. Heath dutifully followed the light’s movement without pause or problem.
“Excellent,” Kaitlin beamed. “Now we just have to wait for Doctor Thatcher-,”
“-who is here,” Jaylyn’s voice cut in as she arrived at bedside, looking as if she had just been awakened, which she had. She stepped in and proceeded to check Heath’s pupil reactions herself, then looked at him for a moment in silence.
“Open your eyes, soldier!” she snapped as Heath’s eyes once more drifted shut. His eyes opened at once, focused on her.
“Better,” she nodded, her voice easing. “Can you talk to me, Heath?” she asked him. “You can talk about anything you want, so long as I can hear you talking.” He frowned at that, as if questioning why it was a big deal.
“Talk to me, Heath,” she ordered, returning his frown. “Say whatever you want to, but speak to me. Now,” her voice was suddenly firm and sharp.
“Doctor, don’t-,” Leanne started but fell silent as Jaylyn’s dark gaze flitted to her for a brief second. It took a great deal to cow Leanne Tillman into silence. A small grin appeared on Heath’s face at that. Jaylyn caught it and smiled at him.
“Found that amusing, did you?” she asked, and he nodded slowly. His eyes started to close again even as he nodded.
“Heath Kelly!” Jaylyn snapped, her voice ringing not only with medical authority but military authority as well. Once more Heath’s eyes popped wide open, locked on her.
“You can sleep after I hear you speak, soldier!” Jaylyn’s voice rang across the clinic. “Now talk to me!”
“Your hair looks a little rough, Doc,” Heath managed to croak out, after looking her over. Leanne had to cover her mouth to try and hide a giggle and Kailin laughed outright. Jaylyn frowned mightily at Heath for a few seconds before her face split into a broad smile.
“And whose fault is that, Heath Kelly?” she laughed. “You’ve had us worried sick, young man. Some more than others,” she nodded to where Leanne was looking at him.
“Corey?” Heath rasped out. “What happ-,”
“That’s a story for another time, Mister Kelly,” Jaylyn told him firmly. “You worry about your own condition before we talk about anyone else.”
“’m okay,” his rough whisper was sounding more like him every minute.
“You are most certainly not okay!” Leanne huffed, tears streaming down her face.
“She’s quite right, Mister Kelly,” Jaylyn nodded. “You are in no sense of the word okay. You will be, however,” she promised him with a gentle smile. “You will be.”
-
News about Heath awakening had spread quickly. Good news was hard to come by at the moment, so the word that one of their more seriously wounded comrades would eventually be okay was excellent news and a great boost to morale.
Amanda Lowery, still recovering from a gunshot wound she had received before Thanksgiving, was being ferried to the clinic later that morning by none other than Xavier Adair himself. With so many being treated after the battle, Amanda had been removed from the clinic and carried home, her condition being cautiously evaluated as well enough to lie in bed at home. This morning she had to return, however, as she was still not healed. She had started a series of supervised exercises designed to help her get back her lost musculature and needed to continue those so that she didn’t lose any progress.
“Probably should have just stayed home, today,” Amanda noted sourly. “Lot of people worse off than I am right now.”
“While true, if you were to neglect your own recovery, you would soon join those who are worse off,” Xavier reminded her. “It would be in everyone’s best interest if your recovery is not inhibited. We lost a great many people yesterday, Miss Lowery. Getting some back will be a great help as well as a boost to everyone’s morale.”
“Even an idiot like me?” she demanded.
“Even someone as mentally deficient as you,” he assured her, then slowly counted to three.
“What?!” the explosion came right on time. “Are you calling me an idiot?!”
“Not at all, my dear Amanda,” Xavier replied with a straight face. “You called yourself an idiot. While I may or may not agree, it’s always best in my experience to humor the sick and the injured so as to encourage their recovery as much as is possible. I was, therefore, merely assisting you in your ongoing recovery. Nothing more.”
“Jackass,” Amanda growled softly.
“That is the rumor.”
-
Nate Caudell eased through the woods south of the farm, following the trail left by the assaulting force the day before. He already knew where they had started so what he was really doing was looking for anything that would help identify the group, as well as looking for anyone who had escaped the battle but remained behind.
He raised his fist into the air suddenly, stopping short. Behind him, Zach Willis and Kevin Bodee froze, each to one side of the trail.
Nate studied the ground before him carefully before reaching out and stirring the leaves around.
“Blood,” he said to the other two. “So at least some of their wounded made it out of the fields.” With that he was on his feet, and the search continued.
While they might or might not find anything of value, knowing that the woods were as empty as the drone pass made it look would be a great help. There were other projects in the planning stage that would proceed much easier if the coast was clear.
-
“We’ll take your three MPs for sure,” Jose said, looking at a list in his hands. “Maybe the supply bunny since they can obviously drive. I don’t want to risk the medicos, or the armorer either. The mechanic might be a good inclusion, however, in case something breaks down.”
“Okay,” Flores made a note of her own. “I suggest we take as few vehicles with us as possible to get there, though I imagine that goes without saying. It would be ideal to take one of those gun trucks you have out back, but we’
d probably have hypothermia by the time we got there.”
“We can take…hm,” Jose paused, comparing equipment lists. “We can move the canvas top from one of the other trucks to a gun truck,” he said finally. “Add to that a six-wheel Cougar and a Hummer, and that’s a pretty strong force with room for everyone. Hm,” he studied on that for a few more minutes, then leaned out of the office door. He spotted Mitchell Nolan right away.
“Mitch!”
“Yo!” the taller man turned to look at him.
“Get a crew together and get one of the five-ton canvas tops put on a gun truck, please,” Jose instructed. “We’ll be taking it with us to their HQ, so have Jake look it over and find out which one he recommends.”
“Will do,” Mitch waved and started for the door. Jose pulled his chair back inside the office where he began studying the map.
“You came this way, yes?” he traced a route along the map.
“We did,” Flores nodded.
“No obstacles in the way, or any troubles?” Jose asked, looking at her.
“No, actually,” Flores admitted. “And I honestly expected it. It’s possible that the Hummer and Cougar were enough to prevent it, but I really doubt it. Not this late into the game.”
“Agreed,” Jose nodded absently. “So, either you happened to choose a great route, or else everyone was bundled up somewhere trying to stay warm.”
“That does sound more likely,” she agreed.
“Okay, we need a minimum of six drivers for the military vehicles. We’ll be taking Beast along with a flatbed for that engineering vehicle.”
“About that,” Flores said before Jose could continue. “We have an M-9 armored bulldozer, with attachments. That’s a heavy load. There’s also an M88 heavy vehicle recovery unit. Honestly, I don’t see what help it would be to you, but if you think you need a heavy wrecker so to speak, it’s just sitting there. My point, though, was I don’t know if one truck can carry the dozer and all of the attachments.”
“We’ll ask our resident expert,” Jose nodded his understanding.
-
“Show me the route,” Ellen Kargay said quietly. Jose held up the map without a word, showing her the pencil marked route they planned to take.
“We came in this way,” she pointed to one spot. “That’s a fairly high incline, maybe four degrees. It’s short, though, and pretty much straight on the four-lane area. So long as I can start up at a go, I can make it. If I have to stop at the bottom, or worse on the way up, then maybe not. That’s a lot of weight.”
“So other than the risk of stopping, Beast can handle the weight?” Jose asked her.
“Sure,” she nodded. “It will be the bulk that would interfere. You say there are three attachments?” she asked Flores.
“Yes,” the young soldier was a bit intimidated by the hulking blonde and didn’t want to risk saying more than she needed to.
“May have to load one of the attachments somewhere else if we can’t find room on the trailer, but if we’re careful, and the dozer is almost empty of fuel, we should be okay, I think. Be thinking about which attachment you want to leave behind, just in case. I assume the blade is an attachment and is already connected?” she asked.
“It is, yes,” Flores nodded again.
“Yeah, we can do this,” Ellen told Jose. “I won’t say it’s no problems since it will be nothing but problems in all likelihood, but we can make it.”
“Great,” Jose nodded his thanks. “That’s all we needed. We’ll be heading out before light in the morning.”
“We’ll be ready,” the trucker promised.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
For once, things worked exactly as planned. The group headed to the former headquarters left before dawn, using NVGs to see the road and any obstructions. Roddy Thatcher had been pressed into service to drive a second semi behind Ellen and the Beast, just in case there was something there that the farm could benefit from.
While there were no munitions remaining at the former HQ facility, there were plenty of other needful things scattered about the facilities. Some of the group took the time to strip the area as clean as possible while the rest worked to ready the huge, armored bulldozer for transport. With the dozer loaded and ready, attention was turned to other equipment.
Jose had argued against worrying with the tank recovery vehicle, but for some reason Clay had wanted the damn thing. Jose couldn’t see the need, seeing as how the farm didn’t have even one tank, but Clay was adamant that they try. So, Jose and company worked to get the massive vehicle loaded onto a flatbed trailer that was far too narrow to carry it in Jose’s opinion. When they were finished, he went from one side of the trailer to the other, noting how precious little of the vehicle’s tracks were actually on the flatbed. When he had pointed that out to the two truckers, both had just shrugged.
“I’ve hauled worse,” the two had said almost in unison, then laughed as they returned to work. Jose didn’t think that was very funny but decided if the two drivers were okay with it, he would let it be. He was glad he wasn’t driving either truck, however.
The operation went off without a hitch, including the return trip. Despite Jose’s worries, the two trucks made it fine with their heavy loads, the other vehicles spread out around them. So well did things go that they were back on the farm well before dark, which no one had expected.
“That went well,” Clay noted as others worked to secure the loads and vehicles in their proper places.
“Too well,” Jose nodded, still eyeing the heavily loaded flatbed trailers with no small trepidation.
“Don’t jinx it, man,” Clay warned, concerned.
“I don’t have to,” Jose shook his head. “Something this complicated goes this easy, you can bet your ass that something is going make us pay for it.”
“Maybe we paid in advance,” Clay shrugged. “We had a hot one day before yesterday.”
“True,” Jose mused, lips pursed in thought. “Maybe that’s it.”
-
Everyone had their own way of dealing with the death of those close to them. There were losses to every group on the farm, and each would deal with their comrade’s final arrangements with support from the rest of the farm.
Except for one group.
One group would mourn in private.
-
“Where you guys going?” Kim asked as she saw Clayton and Xavier, dressed identically, walking toward the vehicle park.
“We have something we need to take care of, my dear,” Xavier replied, Zach nodding in agreement. Neither stopped nor even slowed.
“Need any help?” she asked.
“No,” came the reply, in unison.
“Oh,” she was taken aback by the abrupt reply. “Uh, okay then,” she half-waved at their backs. “See you later!”
“Of course, dear girl,” Xavier said, not bothering to turn around. “Do be careful.”
Kim waited for perhaps fifteen seconds before deciding to follow the two. She had made only three steps when a voice stopped her.
“Where ya going?” Petra Shannon’s voice made Kim jump slightly.
“Uh, well, I was, ah, gonna follow those two and see what they were doing,” she admitted.
“You’re kidding, right?” Petra frowned. “It’s the funeral for Stacey Pryor and Corey Reynard, Kim.”
“Oh, jeez,” Kim felt like slapping herself. “But wait. Why aren’t the rest of us part of it?”
“Because we aren’t part of that little group, sister,” Petra replied. “They have their own ways of doing things.”
“How do you know?” Kim demanded.
“Beverly Jackson mentioned it earlier,” Petra informed her.
“What are they doing that we shouldn’t be there?” Kim asked.
“I think it’s just something private, and we aren’t meant to participate,” Petra shrugged. “Beverly didn’t elaborate.”
Kim thought about that for less than a minute before making her decisio
n.
“I’m going to see what they’re doing.”
“Really shouldn’t,” Petra warned, though she walked along with Kim.
“I want to know,” Kim shrugged. “You can go or stay. Up to you.”
-
“It won’t seem right without ole Corey,” Titus Terry observed mournfully. “Won’t seem right at all. Now him and Kade both gone, man,” he shook his head slowly.
“Heath laying in the clinic, too,” Zach nodded. “Six has become three all of a sudden.”
“Dude, this wasn’t your fault,” Kurtis said gently as Gordy stared rigidly at the figure of Corey Reynard.
“I’m the one that left you there,” Gordy replied, his eyes never leaving Corey’s body.
“And we were the ones who figured you were the guy for the job, man,” Kurtis reminded him. “All of us, including Corey. Hell, it was Corey’s idea.”
“I told him it was a stupid ass idea,” Gordy nodded slowly.
“It was a fine idea for the spot we were in, Gordy,” Kurtis objected. “And we gave the bastards hell for a long while, don’t forget. We did our job. You start saying all of this was because of you then you start detracting from what Corey and Heath sacrificed for the farm, man. That ain’t right. It ain’t right and what’s more, you know it ain’t right.”
“He’s telling you straight, bro,” Titus agreed. “Hell, it wasn’t none of our fault what happened to Kade, was it?”
“No,” Zach answered that one. “No, it wasn’t. And this wasn’t anyone’s fault outside the people who decided to attack this farm and the people on it. Kurtis is right on the money, Gordy. We did our jobs. Stacey did his job. So did the others.”
“True,” Gordy nodded. Reluctantly.
“So, ease up on that fault laying, man,” Titus ordered. “Ole Corey would be mad, hearing you say that crap, dude.”
“Especially if you were trying to blame him,” Zach laughed softly. “Remember when he broke Old Man Tilson’s window with a baseball? He got so mad when we ratted him out, even though he was guilty? I can still see his face all red and cheeks puffed out,” he laughed again.