Gabriel's Stand

by Jay B. Gaskill

  ——

  Along the deep purple ocean, a gray cloud turned red and began to brighten. The wind stirred white caps all along the horizon, the storm gathering strength just the sun’s disk rose under the black clouds.

  “Damn!” Dornan exclaimed. “Look at that crowd shot. There! Look! Agents are running. There’s trouble in the seventh pew. DAMN IT! I should have been there! Where is High Tree?”

  “Who?” Ken asked.

  Ken turned around in alarm, just as the screen went blank. “Uh, oh,” he said.

  “Oh my God,” Elisabeth shouted.

  “What? What??” Josh asked, clinging to his mother’s legs.

  “The transmission stopped. Where’s that satellite phone?” Dornan barked.

  “Sorry, it’s in the den!” Ken said.

  “GO!”

  Ken Wang was already running.

  ——

  At the first sound of trouble, one agent, weapon out, blocked the space between President Smith and the commotion, while another pressed the President down in the pew. Dr. Owen slid away from the agent in his aisle, turned toward the noise, his eyes narrowing. Gabriel stood, also turning to look back, keeping one hand on his wife’s shoulder.

  “DOWN!” Gabriel shouted as several more guns were drawn.

  Snowfeather was still standing at the pulpit, her wide gray eyes scanning the scene below. A Secret Service agent ran to the top and tried to pull her down. She stood like a small, sturdy tree, her eyes locked on the drama below.

  Cahoon and Berker had toppled into the aisle; Berker’s right hand was still gripping a shiny object partly hidden in her large purse. Max was gripping her by the left arm as she fell. The first agent, who had launched himself across the seventh row, grabbed for her exposed wrist and missed. As Berker squirmed free from Cahoon, another agent, standing in the aisle, managed to pull the purse away from her. But Berker rolled away, still gripping the canister.

  “Get that damned can away from her!” Cahoon shouted. He could see Berker’s fingers closing on the nozzle.

  One nearby agent bent down and seized her wrist, squeezing and twisting. Cursing unintelligibly, Berker squirmed and sank her teeth into his forearm, drawing blood. She failed to break agent’s grip, but her free hand was struggling to reach the top of the canister.

  A new agent then kicked, his foot connecting neatly with the side of the canister. It snapped from Berker’s hand, spun in the air, then bounced into the aisle, rolling toward the rear under the pews, like a self-propelled toy. Berker’s wig slipped, exposing her shaved head. She was spitting and snarling like an animal.

  “Don’t touch the canister!” Cahoon shouted.

  The crowd scattered to the sides, leaving Berker, three Secret Service agents and Cahoon in the aisle a few feet away from the rolling canister.

  Gabriel’s Indian honor guard, four tall men dressed in subdued but conspicuous, tribal garb, had moved into separate positions in the side aisles, scanning the room, while Gabriel, Smith Senior, and Alice were huddling behind a cordon of Secret Service agents in the north transept. While As President Smith was being spirited out an emergency exit, all four members of Gabriel’s honor guard had drawn bows and stepped back in an attempt to get a sightline to Berker. Dr. Owen was standing in the aisle, staring at the scene, until a Secret Service agent pulled him toward the door.

  High Tree had taken up a position with the optimum sightline to the agent nearest the canister, and watched as the man crept up on the object. The man peered down under a pew. He stared at the can of hair spray nestled there as if it were a snake.

  “The nozzle at the top is intact!” he shouted. “No sign of gas.”

  At this, High Tree had redirected his attention to the first agent who was busy three aisles away, busy trying to cuff the squirming Berker. The agent was in an awkward position, knee pressed into her back, blood running down his forearm. “Got her!” he shouted. He stood, gun drawn, his foot pressed into her back. Blood was running down his forearm.

  Cahoon was still sitting in the aisle, panting. “It’s a bio-toxin!” he yelled, as three more agents arrived. Cahoon pointed in the direction of the can. “THAT CANISTER IS LOADED WITH A FUCKING BIOTOXIN! IT’S THEIR M-O! And that is Berker, herself,” he said pointing.

  “Who is this guy?” one agent asked, pointing down at Max who was squirming in the aisle with both arms pinned by a large agent.

  “Cahoon. Max Cahoon. The Times!” Cahoon shouted.

  “Quiet. I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “Just leave the can where it is!” another agent said.

  “CLEAR THE AREA!” It was the agent in charge shouting from the nearest doorway. A chaotic mass exodus followed. NO GUNFIRE IN THIS SPACE! The agent in charge shouted. We might have a flammable agent here. NO SPARKS”

  Sirens sounded in the distance. Cahoon started to get up. “Cuff him,” the nearest agent said. The large agent released his grip.

  “Thank you,” Cahoon muttered. “Just get me the hell away from here!”

  As Cahoon was being frog-walked from the cathedral, the agent in control of Berker was momentarily distracted. He had greatly underestimated his suspect’s strength. When he allowed his foot to slip from her back, Berker, still not cuffed, immediately seized the moment, spinning around. She kicked the agent in the groin. Then, with sudden demonic energy, she charged over the nearest seats and scrambled directly toward the agent who was standing near the canister, her arm snaking out within grasping distance of the nozzle.

  High Tree coolly deployed his military spec bow and arrow. He aimed and released the obsidian-bladed arrow in one preternaturally swift movement, just as Berker picked up the canister and was beginning to twist…

  The scalpel-sharp arrowhead pierced Berker’s cervical vertebrae below her skull, and breached her spinal cord. She immediately went limp, like a headshot rabbit.

  The canister slowly rolled away from Berker’s inert form.

  When it stopped, there was an eerie moment of silence. High Tree looked at the agent nearest his target, nodded, and slipped his bow back in its shoulder case.

  “Don’t move a muscle until the bomb squad gets here,” High Tree said. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going outside to get some fresh air.”

  Twenty minutes later, Fred Loud Owl was standing on the grass outside the cathedral holding the heavy Sat-Phone, cradling the receiver to one ear. “Everyone is fine,” he said. “I think everyone got out unhurt.” The limousines bearing the rest of guests and their Secret Service escorts were queued up to be driven away under guard. Police and EMT vehicles had turned the Cathedral lawn into a parking lot. Yellow tape blocked the main cathedral entrance.

  “Sir,” an FBI agent said, “I need you to move

  Loud Owl nodded, and started walking slowly away, still pressing the phone against his ear. Fred seemed to be studying the grass under his moccasins as he talked. “Elisabeth? It’s crazy here. Yes. John is safe with the Secret Service. He left with the President. Helen and Gabriel were in the very next car. I’ll have him call. Okay.” Loud Owl cleared the police cordon, still talking. “Yes. Yes. It was some kind of last ditch thing, using a poison aerosol… Yes, they say it was Berker, dressed up like some Swiss diplomat. Nope. None of that nasty stuff got out of the canister. Tell Dornan that High Tree stopped Berker with an arrow to the neck. Look—I’ve got to go. Who do I return this contraption to? Fine. No problem.” Fred ended the transmission and looked up. Four television cameras and a crowd of reporters closed in on him.

  “What happened in there?” a reporter asked.

  “Who were you just talking to?”

  “What is your name?”

  Loud Owl shrugged, and kept walking.

  Moments later all the media mavens and functionaries were herded behind a police tape line. A phalanx of police and agents emerged from the cathedral, carting a stretcher flanked by two EMTs with an oxygen bottle and plasma drip. The bizarre form of a bald woman was visible beneath a
blue sheet. She was almost face down, her head was wedged between two supports, her mouth covered by an oxygen mask.

  As the procession turned, there was a collective gasp from the spectators. The vane end of a hunting arrow could be clearly seen protruding from the back of Berker’s neck, just under her bald skull.

  Rumors that some terrorist archer had tried to kill a Swiss diplomatic attaché were quickly quelled later that day, when embassy staff found Hilda Traumen’s corpse, naked and crumpled in her office closet.

  ——

  Deputy White House Press Secretary Garner speaking at 11:50 P.M.: “Good evening. It has been a long day. There were no fatalities from today’s attack. The President, Vice President, the other public officials and guests are being medically examined as a precaution, but there were no serious injuries. President Smith expressed his profound gratitude for the heroic actions by all security personnel. Suspect Louise Berker has been transferred to a medical facility where she is being sustained on life support for the time being. She is non-responsive and appears to be in a ‘vegetative state.’ The Attorney General is reviewing the matter of her prosecution. No questions, please. President Smith will make a full statement at tomorrow at 4:00 P.M. Thank you.”

  ——

  An hour later, the sun’s orange light was boiling just below the water line. Ken stood against the railing looking at the screen sideways while Dornan poured a mug of chocolate for Josh. A Sat-Phone was resting on an empty chair.

  “Are you sure it wasn’t the feds?” Ken asked.

  Dornan looked back from the sunrise. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that news report. Who really killed those Directorate people they just found? The Smith Administration?” he asked.

  “It was definitely not the new government. I heard that Longworthy turned against the Directorate at the end. And when they found about it, he was the unlucky recipient of Gaia’s Kiss. He was in Walter Reed, hanging by a thread, last I heard; he may have died. Evidently none of the Sisters was confident that Berker’s suicide mission could actually change the government. So the remaining members of Directorate decided to return to Mother Earth to avoid arrest. I guess it was quite a scene in that coven in Manhattan. Imagine the Sisters, huddled in a circle, all dead. The note said, ‘Back to Gaia’. Apparently they had recruited a ringer for Berker to make the number six just to throw off the FBI, in case she got away.”

  “Six?”

  “The would-be assassin who shot John was one of the seven.”

  “Right. So, is it finally over? Really over?” Wang asked,

  “You heard Dad,” Elisabeth said. “Bad ideas never die. They just go into remission.”

  “What’s remission, Mommy?”

  EPILOGUE

  The two galloping horses left a cloud of blowing snow in the sagebrush as they ascended the rutted road. The winter sun sparkled on the layer of frost covering the burned-out trailer ahead.

  “Whoa,” Gabriel said, pulling the reigns. His horse, Fool, snorted like a steam engine in the frozen air, kicking powder snow as it slowed to a walk.

  “Do you see it?” Snowfeather asked.

  “No,” Gabriel said as his daughter guided her horse to the yard behind the trailer.

  “Here,” she said, dismounting her horse, Wind 2, in a single easy movement. She looked down at a tiny grave.

  “Hah. He did it, after all,” Gabriel said grunting. His bulky form made a small spray of snow as he dismounted, matching only Snowfeather’s speed, without her grace.

  “It’s a fine grave, don’t you think?” she said, looking at the small, carved pole, and the tiny cross.

  “I don’t think he was much of a Christian,” Gabriel said, “but it is a fine grave. Cousin Steve did well.”

  Snowfeather wiped the frost from a tiny brass plaque with her gloved hand. “See the inscription?” she asked.

  Gabriel leaned down, wiped his prescription sunglasses on his vest, then squinted. “Here Lies Fat Fox. He Died Bravely in His Master’s Service.”

  “He sure did that,” Gabriel said, his eyes welling. He turned his face away.

  Snowfeather pretended not to notice her father’s tears and went over to the trailer. She tried the door and it responded with a groan of resistance. “Do you want to look inside? There isn’t much left.”

  “In a minute,” Gabriel said as he trudged through the tiny backyard. He could hear his daughter’s footsteps inside the trailer. “They want me to run for the Senate again,” he called out.

  “Will you?” Snowfeather asked, peering out the broken trailer window.

  “No.”

  “You’re finally retiring then?”

  “No. Find anything in there?”

  “Look for yourself.”

  Then Gabriel entered the trailer, his breath making a flickering white cloud in the shadow-streaked light. Only the steel table legs remained where he had once sat with his Fat Fox. The electronics had slagged into an unrecognizable mess. A silver coffee thermos lay in a corner, almost flat. A broken ceramic cup lay beside it, clean as new. “I’m amazed the trailer itself didn’t melt,” he said.

  “Me too,” Snowfeather said.

  “Steel. A lot of stainless steel. It was a good trailer.”

  “The modern Indian’s teepee.”

  “True. But all the aluminum stuff melted.” Gabriel bent over, moving a cracked bowl with the toe of his boot. “Fat Fox’s dish,” he said. “I think I’ll leave it.”

  A moment later they stopped to contemplate the front yard. “Just what are you going to do?” Snowfeather asked.

  “I think we’ll keep the ranch. Maybe build a house on this spot. Alice wants to do that.”

  “Good. I’ll have a place to visit.”

  “And bring the grandchildren, right?”

  Snowfeather smiled. “I meant—what are you going to do with your free time if you are not retiring?” she said, avoiding the question.

  “What are you smiling about, Princess? I know that look.”

  “Let’s just say that grandchildren are not out of the question. Now—no more questions, Dad. What are you going to do?”

  “I am still needed, I think. This is not over. This kind of lunacy never quite is. Berker is still alive on life support. Why? I’ll never quite understand white-eye’s justice. Keeping a mass murderer alive long enough to be executed? But Berker is no longer a threat, except as a symbol, I suppose. Think of it: She is a vegetable…a perfect example of her cult’s vision for humanity.”

  “But what can you do, Dad?”

  “Same question I tortured myself with—back when we were on that camp together, Princess. I hear that the G-A-N is still very active in Europe. And somebody’s got to keep this administration in line, before Smith Junior paves over the remaining wilderness in his post-environmentalist zeal.”

  “How do you propose to stay in the game?”

  “I have a plan. Wanna see my new toy?” Gabriel trudged toward the horses. He patted Fool.

  Snowfeather stroked Wind 2 while Gabriel pulled a heavy satchel from his saddlebag. “This is courtesy of NewsWeb and Edge Medical.” He set the bag in the snow. “It is my own, state-of-the art AutoCam kit. Three cameras and a real-time auto-editor. That reporter, Max Cahoon, recommended this one as the best for the price.”

  Snowfeather walked over for a closer look as Gabriel zipped open the largest compartment.

  “Dad, I’m not saying a word on-camera.”

  “Be that way,” he said.

  ——

  Half an hour later, they stood together with the fence at their backs, the horses just in view on the side.

  Gabriel glowed with pride in his new AutoCam unit. With its built-in satellite transmitter, it stood on four black legs in the middle of the roadway, flanked by two other cameras on tripods. The whole rig looked to Gabriel like a Martian invader from an H.G. Wells’ story.

  The camera lights went red, and Gabriel cleared his throat. Tiny servo mot
ors whirred. The air was still. Gabriel gripped the concealed remote in his ungloved right hand.

  5, 4, 3, 2, 1…Live.

  SatCom On: 12:00 Hours M.S.T.

  AutoCam: Pan. Frame scene.

  Viewers saw a large man in a blue parka standing next to a beautiful, younger woman with a crimson vest and scarf, sun lancing off frost on the lodgepole pine fence, two horses stamping their hooves and snorting in the icy air.

  “This is Gabriel Standing Bear Lindstrom. And this is Snowfeather, my daughter—of whom I am eternally proud.

  “There is good news…and a caution.

  “People against the environment…and environmentalists against the people: These are both forms of madness. The very worst madness was a cult that tried to extinguish the human race in order to save the world. That dangerous idea has been defeated… For now. Those who would extinguish nature have not been defeated… For now.

  The AutoCam zoomed out.

  “By our relationship with nature, we define ourselves and our future. Here on this Idaho desert, far from the edge of the last bit of tilled soil, hundreds of miles from the nearest skyscraper, nature is intact. In our relationship to it we still may become whole.

  “But look around you. What do you hear? The hum of machines? What do you feel? The pressure of too many people competing for too little room? Where is your peace? Where is your joy? Where does your spirit soar?”

  Gabriel opened the fence and walked toward their horses followed by Snowfeather.

  The AutoCam zoomed in on their figures approaching the horses.

  “We all rejoice in the recent victory of brave sane men and women over deranged evil minds and their chilling agenda,” Gabriel said. “We will never forget those who died to give us this second chance. But we must never forget that it is a second chance. As my friend, Dr. John Owen, says—the political order is just in remission. The disasters that drove some evil people to attempt genocide may be allowed to happen again.”

  Father and daughter mounted their horses.

  Gabriel faced the camera directly as it zoomed in on his face. “Do I speak for you? I think our spirits are only as open as our link to the openness of nature. When you confine one, you imprison the other. Do I speak for you?”