Clyde appeared and rubbed his dog face on Billy’s leg. The mayor scratched his ears without thinking. Terry put his hand down and Clyde sniffed it, wagging his tail furiously. Terry reached inside a shirt pocket and pulled out a meat stick. Clyde wolfed it down and looked at the human, wondering where he was hiding the rest.
“About the bear, he might be a little sore for the next couple days. He pissed Akio off and got his ass beat. When we left, he was still on the ground. I wonder if he’s dead?” Terry wasn’t concerned either way, which he found disconcerting in its own right. He’d accepted Gene into the fold, but if he’d gotten himself killed, that was his own damn fault.
There was too much for Terry to do to babysit grown adults.
Terry watched Char and Boris head in the direction of the new barracks. They started jogging and soon disappeared around a corner.
“What’s this stuff?” Billy asked nodding toward the crates.
“Non-lethal weaponry. We’ve got a job to do for Akio in New York City. We’ll be flying out in three days, taking the platoon and the Char’s people,” Terry replied.
“That’s it, huh, motherfucker?” Billy said getting a little too close to Terry’s face. “You’re my security chief, and you’ll do as I tell you!”
Terry chuckled. “That ship sailed a long time ago, Billy. Don’t make me rip off your head and shit down your neck just to make a point. We need each other, but we’re on separate paths. You take care of the town and its people, and I will guarantee that you can do it peacefully. It’s a partnership, Billy,” Terry stated, enunciating clearly and speaking slowly.
“Partners my ass. You work for me, shrivel dick!” Billy’s face was turning red. Felicity shook her head, wondering why her husband had fits of rage where he felt it necessary to poke the bear.
Terry wrapped an arm over Billy’s small shoulders. The mayor tried to shrug it off, but Terry gripped his shoulder firmly. He turned Billy away from the others and with his free hand, he grabbed Billy’s hand, isolating the middle finger and putting pressure on it until the small man thought it was going to break.
“Listen up, Billy Spires, and this is the last time I’m going to say this. Every time you try to assert your authority over me, you end up face down in the mud. Each time you do it, I will have to teach you a lesson and they are going to get more and more painful. Eventually, I’ll just have to replace you with her.” Terry nodded toward Felicity. “Don’t overplay your hand and you won’t get the rest of your fingers broken.”
Terry tightened his grip and Billy howled as his middle finger was pulled out of its socket. Terry pushed the mayor toward his wife. Felicity sneered at her husband and stormed off. Billy held his hand, looking at the contorted middle finger. He bent over as the pain seized him.
Terry took pity on him. He walked up behind the mayor, grabbed the man’s hand, and wrenched the finger back into its socket.
“There you go, Billy Spires, good as new.” Terry grinned and slapped the mayor’s shoulder. Billy glared at him. “By the way, we just saw Chief Foxtail. He and his people are coming to North Chicago. They’re bringing the cattle and the rest of our people, so you might want to put out the word that we’ve got a couple hundred more people coming.”
“I ought to…” He drifted off as he thought better of it. “Partners. Remember that, TH. Don’t keep me in the dark, and I’ll run a damn fine city.”
“That was always the deal, Billy. You’ve worked wonders for these people, but if you try to control me or the FDG, it won’t turn out well for you. So, if you ever want to get laid again, you better go make peace with the missus,” Terry encouraged, nodding toward the open doorway leading to the mayor’s office.
Billy despised getting shown up, but he set himself up for failure every time. He knew it was wrong to go head to head with Terry Henry Walton, but his ego suffered. He’d always seen himself as King Arthur, but Terry kept showing him what it really meant to be a Knight of the Round Table.
It was Terry’s life of sacrifice and pain. Billy slept in his own bed every night. Terry often slept on the ground. Billy knew where his next meal was coming from. Terry often went without.
Billy was angry because Terry was the man he would never be.
Felicity had her arms crossed and tapped one foot while she waited.
She looks really mad, Billy thought, carefully massaging his hand. His finger throbbed, shooting pain up his arm.
***
Aaron took long strides and covered vast distances quickly. Kaeden rode on the tall man’s shoulders as often as possible, enjoying the wind blowing past his face.
Kae also refused to let the tall man go since the moment he’d jumped in the water after him and pulled him to the surface so he didn’t drown. He carried him to shore, even though the man was hurt.
Yet another person keeping the young man safe. A Were-tiger, a Were-bear, and a Werewolf for a mom. He wondered what fantasy land he’d been dropped into. He hadn’t known the other boys in the group all that well. A bunch of families had gotten together and headed south, to get away from the angry men seeking to take over their hometown in Canada. They traveled south. All the parents got sick and died. The survivors continued going, having no idea what they were looking for.
The children were set upon by men on horseback. They killed the oldest boy, a child of fifteen, and took the girls who were younger, maybe seven to twelve years old. The men had kicked the boys to the ground and told them to stay where they were as the kidnappers rode away.
And that was that. The boys continued south until they chanced upon the underground complex, something left over from a different age. There was food inside, but not much. They’d eaten through that and were hungry when they saw Terry ride up.
The older boys thought the kidnappers had returned. They wanted to kill two birds with one stone. Kill the man and eat the horse.
But then the boys kept shooting even after the man yelled out for them to stop, even after the man showed that he would kill them if they kept at it.
Only by chance was Kaeden the one who opened the trap door and then got knocked out by Terry and Char. They told him they carried him to safety while the tunnels caught fire. They hadn’t been clear about that, but the older boys had moved the weapons closer to the surface.
Kaeden had been conscious for the explosion. He knew what had happened. Even though they had weapons, the boys found out what it was like to face a far deadlier enemy. When they determined to keep fighting, that was when they lost.
The small boy hadn’t known anything about the adults who rescued him. He considered himself lucky. He’d watched them kill with reckless abandon when the situation called for it and then he watched them show mercy. Kaeden puffed out his small chest.
“Don’t fuck with my parents!” he yelled, much to Aaron’s dismay. He put the boy down.
“Where did that come from, Kaeden?” the tall man asked.
“I was thinking about how Mom and Dad fight. They aren’t afraid of anything and boy, do they kick ass!” Kae said proudly.
“I’m not sure they’ll be happy with your colorful language. For the record, you didn’t get that from me.” Aaron hurried toward the central area where Terry and Char had been. He could see the others in the pack descending on them, too.
Even Gene was ambling toward the area.
***
The platoon followed the major, not in formation but as a mob walking and surrounding Boris, bombarding him with questions.
They saw the others and the stacked crates. Terry assumed his best antagonized drill instructor pose and Sergeant James stopped everyone and formed the platoon. He marched them the rest of the way.
Char joined Terry and together they watched the platoon arrive, execute a left face, and then salute the officers. Terry waited for the rest of Boris’s squad to join the formation before he returned the salute.
“At ease!” Terry called. There were smiles and there were concerned looks. The pla
toon was together again, but the rest of the travelers hadn’t arrived. They knew something was up.
If they’d been given any time, the platoon would have filled the lack of information with every bit of wild imagination they could fabricate. Terry knew the best way to forestall that was to tell them what he knew.
“We have a mission that only the Force de Guerre can do. In three days’ time, two pods will land and we will board them. The whole platoon and some of our specialists will travel to New York City where we will liberate a human population from an evil Forsaken. He has assumed the role of warlord and enslaved a large population,” Terry projected his voice for all to hear, including the Were folk who were entering the area.
When Char saw Aaron and Kaeden, she walked toward them. Aaron put the boy down and he ran, yelling, “Mom!”
Terry welcomed the momentary distraction, before turning back to the platoon. “We will form into tactical teams where we’ll secure the humans while clearing the way for Akio to enter the home of the warlord and dispatch him. Our job is to minimize human casualties. Period. We will exfiltrate the operation using the pods once Akio has declared the mission objective achieved. We have two full days to train for this mission.”
Some of the people shifted uncomfortably. Terry looked closely and noticed the injuries. “What the fuck is wrong with you people?” he demanded.
Sergeant James stepped forward. “Training, sir, my fault. The pavement caused quite a few injuries this morning.”
“You’re shitting me, right? You did martial arts training on the pavement?” Terry looked shocked. He noticed Timmons walking gingerly.
“And what the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Joseph found his speed and strength. It appears that he can be provoked, and it wasn’t pretty,” Timmons replied.
Terry closed his eyes and breathed slowly. “Fine. Corporal James, take over third squad. Sergeant Mark, take charge of the platoon and move all this gear to our armory. Secure it and get caught up with your teammates. They have a lot to tell you about life on the road.”
James looked both upset and relieved. Mark looked determined, which was exactly what the colonel wanted to see.
Mark marched smartly to the front of the platoon, relieved James, and brought the platoon to attention for one final salute.
“Tomorrow morning, sir, dawn in front of the barracks?” Mark asked. Terry nodded.
Colonel Walton returned the new sergeant’s salute, and then gave his full attention to his family.
Char turned Kae loose, who ran to Terry to get picked up. “Ted wrecked his boat and Aaron saved my life!” the boy said excitedly.
“What?” Char exclaimed, looking at Aaron. He explained the incident, downplaying the danger, but Char knew that Kae couldn’t swim and falling overboard was a big issue.
“Ted wrecked the boat?” Terry asked, earning the stink-eye from his wife while he made a show of hugging the little boy.
“We were on our way to the dining facility, if you’d like to join us?” Aaron suggested.
“And you can tell us all about it,” Char told the little boy, putting the Were-tiger on alert.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Chief Foxtail listened as his scouts reported that the group needed to change direction to the south. The river became a lake and was surrounding them. They’d have to backtrack for miles if they didn’t turn now.
The chief issued the order, and the other riders spread the word. The villagers and the cattle would cut across the open as the scouts had directed, and then they’d stop when they hit water in order to fish and refresh.
They were on native lands, a reservation from what Foxtail saw on a sign the previous day. They were walking across Fort Berthold Reservation.
“The scouts reported seeing other natives, too,” Foxtail’s younger brother Leaping Deer said.
“How many of our fellows are out there?” the chief asked. The younger man shook his head.
I need to meet them, he thought, if for no other reason than to keep them from making war on the invaders. Foxtail was afraid that people would fall back into the old ways of territoriality and xenophobia. If he couldn’t get them to join him, he would leave them in peace and continue taking his people to their new home.
If they would let him leave in peace.
He didn’t want to be the chief who uprooted the settlement, only to have them die on the road. He refused to be the chief of a post-fall Wounded Knee. Foxtail didn’t want anyone burying his heart, not here, not while he was still young.
The chief hung his head. His younger brother, also a son of Black Feather and Autumn Dawn, had known something was wrong and that their people would travel a dangerous path before settling and becoming one with Mother Earth once again.
“We need to be ready to defend ourselves. We need to be ready to make war,” Foxtail intoned sadly.
“Are we not already in a position to make war? We have many braves on horseback. They are watching for any sign of an enemy. Our scouts will keep us from walking into a trap,” Leaping Deer recited confidently.
“All of that, yes, but are we ready to kill, brother?” Foxtail stood disquieted, unhappy with the decision that he’d already made. “Bring me our six best, most steady hunters. I will hand out the FDG’s rifles and ammunition.”
“You’ve made the right decision, Foxtail,” the younger man said, smiling, before he ran off.
The chief’s eyes misted and tears threatened to run freely. His younger brother’s excitement at carrying a modern weapon was exactly what he feared. He’d never be able to take the weapons back. The genie was out of the bottle, as he’d heard people say.
He had to make the best of a bad situation and then it came to him.
He would make it conditional that by accepting the weapons, the men would have to join Terry Henry Walton’s FDG once they arrived in Chicago.
Terry would make sure they didn’t let the weaponry go to their heads, and the chief could keep the peace in the normal way without having to deal with inflated egos.
He bowed to Mother Earth, thanking her for the idea and the compromise where everyone involved could save face.
And keep the entire group safe.
Peace through superior firepower, they used to say. The chief hoped that was still true.
***
Gene was downright cordial to Mrs. Grimes when he came through the line, even going so far as to apologize for his earlier outburst.
She accepted his apology by giving him a double serving of everything. He sat with Terry, Char, Kae, and Aaron. The rest of Char’s pack showed up and joined them.
There was a brief scuffle after Clyde snuck into the chow hall, where Mrs. Grimes and Margie Rose both ended up chasing him, brandishing their wooden spoons, until he decided that being outside was a better idea.
The people eating at the long tables stopped what they were doing and watched, like they would have done in the days of television because good entertainment was always appreciated.
Sue ducked behind Gene so the two gray-haired enforcers wouldn’t see her. Timmons and Ted stared at their food, but Shonna and Merrit wanted to stay in the good graces of those who prepared and served the food.
Merrit yelled, “She’s right here!” Shonna pointed.
“Traitors!” Sue said, standing up to take her punishment, which wasn’t long in coming.
But she wasn’t the target of Margie Rose’s ire.
“Terry Henry Walton!” she yelled. Silence was immediate throughout the dining area. The people sensed there would be more entertainment. Terry had just stuffed his mouth full. He pointed at himself with a questioning look, as if his name could be mistaken for anyone else’s.
“What did I do?” he mumbled while trying to chew.
“What did you do? You thought it was funny while that creature was stealing my muffins. You encouraged his miscreant behavior. If he ever—” Margie Rose punctuated her points by hitting him in the knuckles with he
r wooden spoon. “—comes in here again, you will never eat another morsel of our cooking!”
One last knuckle rap for good measure and Margie Rose returned to the serving line, getting high-fived by Mrs. Grimes, who swaggered back into the kitchen.
Char and Kaeden enjoyed watching the beat-down. Sue snickered, happy not to be on the receiving end. Terry gave her his meanest look. She waved him away.
“Very funny. If you get me banned, Sue, I shall be very put out.” Terry enunciated each word.
“Forsaken,” Char said, dampening everyone’s mood.
“We can still take Joseph if we need to,” Timmons suggested.
“We have a different Forsaken to deal with and this one is so bad that Akio is going to take care of it himself. That’s what he wanted to talk to us about. We’re going home, boys and girls, home to New York City where we have to clear a path to a nice brownstone, in which this Forsaken has set himself up as a warlord. We need to do it and kill as few of the humans as we can. We have no idea if any are armed or loyal or slaves. So there you are,” Char said, ending by taking a mouthful of something green that looked like seaweed and tasted like cold, wet spinach.
Timmons wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “In three days, we’re going to go to New York City and fight a bunch of people without killing any of them?”
Terry looked at the ceiling for a moment before speaking. “Sounds about right,” he replied and went back to eating, watching Margie Rose as she kept one eye trained on him.
When they made eye contact, she shook her spoon at him. He looked away.
First Sergeant Blevin and Corporal Heitz stopped by the table. “We heard that you’re going on an op. Will you be taking any of the vehicles?” Blevin asked.
Terry shook his head.
Blevin looked disappointed. “Can we go?” he asked, hope tinging his voice.
Terry leaned back and looked at the two men, before turning to Char. She nodded almost imperceptibly. He liked the idea, too. Who better to deal with refugees than people who knew what it was like to be at the mercy of a Forsaken?
Nomad Omnibus 02: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (A Terry Henry Walton Chronicles Omnibus) Page 33