Eric had never given up on Megan, despite what he’d found since arriving at the campus in Boulder. His girl was a survivor, and she’d proven it, no doubt aided by some of the things he’d taught her long ago during what little time he’d had with her between overseas deployments. She’d also gotten a lot of help from her friends, including Vicky and her deceased grandparents, and the brave young man beside her who’d been willing to bring her here to his homeland despite the risks of the journey. Eric was looking forward to talking more with the young Apache man, who clearly knew his way around in the mountains and deserts of his ancestral homeland. He owed the boy his gratitude for what he’d done for Megan, and he looked forward to meeting more of his people now that he was no longer considered a trespasser, but rather a guest. Eric didn’t have hard feelings towards the men of the security patrol despite his treatment. He knew all too well how a lack of communication between different branches of an organization could lead to such circumstances. Fortunately, someone from the reservation had finally put two and two together and remembered the young white woman who had recently arrived seeking refuge and claiming to be a friend of Aaron Santos. The charges against him were dropped of course, as soon as Megan identified him when the jailor brought him to the council room. It was only after they arrived at the home of Aaron’s Uncle Ethan and Aunt Ava that Eric learned why the security detail had been so persistent in tracking and apprehending him once he entered Jicarilla land.
“Those people are taking control of as much land as they can, especially the remote areas that are uninhabited or only have a few isolated ranches here and there,” Ethan told Eric. “Our lands are directly along the corridor they are using between Mexico and the north, and so they have been crossing our borders as well. They think they can intimidate people and drive them out, but it will never work with us.”
“Who?” Eric asked. “Who is doing this?”
“The drug cartels from Mexico, and their hired soldiers on both sides of the border. They are more powerful than ever now, and they are using the breakdown of law and order as an opportunity to move north and take over the entire region.”
Eric remembered Keith mentioning rumors of this happening in the west, and he’d heard bits and pieces from others over the course of his journey here as well. If this was true, it would better explain the presence of the ‘militia’ groups he’d encountered in the mountains, but with the economy in shambles and most people in survival mode, Eric had to wonder what kind of market there would be for the illicit products of the cartels.
“It’s not just about money,” Ethan explained. “The biggest cartels have more money than some entire small countries. They are after power and control, because they know that eventually the market will be back. They are looking to expand their bases and eliminate their competition. The border has always been a problem, even though it never did much to stop their business. But now what is going on everywhere is making things so much easier for them. They are counting on the anarchy that’s happening across the country to result in its collapse. And since little has been done to stop them, they are taking what they want and killing anyone who gets in their way.”
Ethan couldn’t give him more details than that, and Eric still had to wonder how much of what the old man was telling him was truth and how much was rumor. He could see that it was plausible, and it made him curious for sure, because he definitely wanted to avoid crossing paths with these cartels when he headed back east with his family.
“You can get a lot more information from Nantan and some of the other fellows in the tribal security force. They have been watching not only our reservation borders, but the passes and other natural routes beyond them, and they have seen some of the activity I’m talking about. They will be glad to talk to you now that they know who you are, and that you are not working for those criminals. Your daughter tells me that you are a soldier yourself, and that you’ve seen plenty of action, probably worse than anything here.”
“I’ve seen a lot, but now that I’ve been back a while, I’m not sure it was any worse,” Eric said. “This is a crazy situation our country is in.”
“And it will probably get more so, from what we’ve heard. Our people don’t want any part of it unless they bring it to us. But we intend to keep our homelands and if anyone tries to take them from us, we will fight. It won’t be the first time the Apache fought for these lands, and we will honor the sacrifices of our ancestors with our own blood if necessary. This land is all we have left now, and here, we will stand our ground.”
Eric nodded. Aaron’s uncle was probably in his sixties, but he was hard and lean from a lifetime of working outdoors, and he reminded Eric of his own father, Bart. Eric had no doubt Ethan would indeed fight to defend his homeland. It wasn’t Eric’s fight, but the information the man had given him was something that he certainly wanted to follow up on. He would meet with those tribal security guys before he finalized his plans to go back north to the cabin. Any intel they could give him on the movements of these cartels would be useful in planning his route so as to avoid them.
“I’m sure Aaron won’t mind driving you back to town tomorrow,” Megan said when Eric told her what he had in mind that evening after dinner, while the two of them took a short walk near the ranch house.
“Aaron seems like a good guy, and a smart one too, I suppose, considering he talked you into coming here.”
“He is a good guy, Dad! I didn’t really get to know him until we all left the campus together to hike to that ranch. I was so wrapped up in Gareth at the time, I just didn’t notice. I was totally being stupid!”
“You weren’t stupid, Megan, probably just infatuated. But you got your butt out of Boulder, and that’s what’s important. It wasn’t looking good there at all by the time I arrived. The campus has been converted into essentially a detention center. You’d be locked up there if you’d stayed and were lucky enough to survive.”
“What’s going to happen to all those people they’re keeping like that, Dad? They can’t hold them indefinitely, can they?”
“I honestly don’t know, Megan. The rules have changed, and whoever is in control can do whatever they want, I suppose. It’s a really bad situation, far worse than the rumors I’d heard, and I’d already heard enough to know that I had to come back here and get you and your mom out. And your grandpa and uncle. It’s too bad your Aunt Lynn didn’t make it, but nothing can be done about that now. The main thing is to get you and your mom back to Louisiana, so we can all get on the boat and leave this mess behind us.”
“That seems pretty extreme to me, Dad. Does it really make sense to leave the whole country? All we need to do is stay away from the main roads and towns, right? I mean, it seems safe enough right here to me. Aaron said so.”
“Aaron just got here too. He probably hasn’t heard everything his Uncle Ethan just told me. They aren’t immune to trouble here just because this is reservation land. The troublemakers aren’t respecting any boundaries, not even national ones. Remote doesn’t necessarily make you safe either. That ranch you and Aaron left was remote too, but now the house is burned to the ground and Vicky’s grandparents are buried there. Your mom and Vicky and my friend, Jonathan could be in danger too, even as remote as that cabin is, so I don’t plan to delay returning there to get them out.”
“What is Vicky going to do? She doesn’t have any place to go with her grandparents dead and her mom living so far away. I can’t just leave her here alone. I mean, I’m sure Aaron and his aunt and uncle wouldn’t mind, but I was hoping we could all stick together. Maybe we should wait here for a little while and see. Besides, how would we get to Louisiana anyway?”
“We’ll figure all that out when the time comes, Megan. Just try not to worry about it right now. The main thing I have to do is go to that cabin and get them. Let’s take this one step at a time. It always works best that way, right?”
“Yeah, you always say that. I’m sorry. I just can’t help thinking ahead to
o though.”
“You’ve done a great job so far, Megan. I knew you were a survivor, and I knew you wouldn’t just sit around that campus waiting to see what was going to happen. Now we’ve got to work together as a team again to get through what’s next.”
“That’s why I need to go with you. Me and Aaron both want to go. If we’re a team, then we should stick together. It doesn’t make sense for us to just sit here. If something happens and you don’t make it there, we’d never know. Just like Mom and Vicky and Jonathan don’t know that you’ve found me yet. If you hadn’t left them there, we’d all be together now.”
“I did what I thought was best, Megan. I couldn’t afford to wait, and I didn’t know what I’d run into out there. Sometimes you just have to make decisions and go with them.”
“Then let me make mine! My decision is to go back there with you, and with Aaron.”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, Megan. First, I plan to meet with those tribal security guys that arrested me, and now that we’re on better terms, see what intel I can get from them before I plan my route.”
Nine
“SO, WE MEET AGAIN; the mysterious white man caught sneaking onto Apache lands! I apologize for the rough treatment, but it didn’t look too good, the way you arrived.”
“My bad,” Eric said, after shaking hands with Nantan, the tribal council member who’d also been leading the security team that apprehended him for trespassing that first morning he’d arrived here. “I guess I’ve gotten used to using the back door and not knocking first. It’s been necessary in most of the places I’ve worked lately.”
“So I’ve heard. I understand that you were a special forces operator; a Navy SEAL, no less.”
“In another lifetime, or so it seems now.” Eric said.
“Marine Recon myself. I’ve played in some of the world’s hotspots too. As have several of my brothers here on the reservation.”
“Well, I can see that you’re keeping in good practice and running top-notch security. Thanks for taking me alive for questioning. I guess it could have gone differently, and you would have been within your rights.”
“You seemed a little too interesting to shoot on the spot. It took some balls to come in here alone, and we wanted to hear your story… who you were working for… and why they sent you... Some of the guys wanted to use the old methods of my people to make you sing, considering they caught you sneaking onto our land like an enemy, but I could tell you were a warrior, and I knew you were a worthy adversary, even if you didn’t really have a chance.”
“I’ve heard the Apache could be quite creative with their enemies back in the day, and with good reason, considering how many your ancestors had. This is a beautiful piece of land you have here. I don’t blame you for wanting to keep it that way.”
“It’s barely a fragment of what my people once had, but you know that story and that’s a topic for another time. We aren’t trying to take anything back though, and the purpose of our security is not to quarrel with the government. Like I said, most of us served that same government, fighting America’s enemies overseas. But you know how thin military resources are spread all over the world now. And with what’s happening here at home, they can barely contain the problems even in the populated areas of the cities and coasts. They’re not even in control of the border out here in the west. Maybe in some places down in Texas, but certainly not in Arizona and New Mexico. And they sure aren’t concerned with the mountains and deserts up here, far away from everything and barely populated to begin with. And that is the problem. It leaves huge areas free for the taking by whoever has the most guns.”
Eric said that Ethan had told him as much, and then he told Nantan what he had seen in the mountains to the north, how he’d encountered the small militia camp first, then found the much larger one that had been wiped out.
“That was a military strike,” he said. “Aaron can attest to it, because he was being held there when it happened, along with others who’d been caught crossing the militia-held wilderness area there. My own daughter barely avoided capture, and then found her way to an Army checkpoint on the highway east of those mountains. I’m pretty sure it was her report that led to the execution of the strike.”
“Maybe,” Nantan said. “But there is heavy fighting going on between these groups that would surprise you. Some of them are far more organized than you would think, and they are well-funded. Many of the soldiers they have working for them are professional mercenaries from all over the world. The cartels are throwing everything they have at expanding their business while they have this window of opportunity. They are collaborating with and supplying weapons to the jihadists and anyone else who will help them create more chaos and kill more of their opposition. So, it is difficult to know who the enemy is and where they will strike next. But we are interested in everything you have seen, as we are trying to gather all the intel we can about the lands surrounding our reservation and beyond.”
“Understood,” Eric said, “and I’m trying to learn more likewise. As you already know by now, I have to go back there, through that same area to get my ex-wife and two friends. I was hoping you and some of your men who know the area could help me choose the best route to make the quickest trip. It seems that horses are the best option, and I have the two I came here with, but I want to take a couple more just in case. And I’ll need supplies. I can pay you well for any of this you can spare.”
“We won’t sell you horses, but your daughter is a friend of one of ours, and you are a brother in arms who has fought in the same wars we have. Like us, you are looking after your own people now, and like our people, your family is threatened by the same enemies that threaten us. You won’t have to go alone, because we will help you bring your friends and the mother of your daughter back. Those of us who go with you will do so not only to help you though, but because we want to see for ourselves the extent of these operations that threaten our lands.”
Eric wasn’t expecting this at all. These same men who’d beaten and interrogated him now regarded him as a friend and even a brother. “That’s a generous offer, Nantan, but aren’t you worried about dividing your forces, and leaving your lands more vulnerable to encroachment while you’re away?”
“That is something to consider, but no, I’m not worried. We won’t be gone all that long, and the men of our security forces have the advantage of knowing every detail of the land here and the nearby lands beyond our borders. It only takes a few scouts to keep tabs on the movements of anyone trespassing nearby. But if some of us go and learn more of where those people are basing their operations, then perhaps we can take the fight to them before they bring it here. Generations may have passed, but it’s not too late to learn from the tactics of our war chiefs, who were very good at defeating many, even when their numbers were few.”
Eric couldn’t argue with that. He knew enough history to know the difficulty the U.S. Army had in subduing the last defiant Apaches of the late 1800’s. Those hardy warriors were masters of guerrilla warfare and of using their knowledge of the harsh landscape they inhabited to their advantage against what would seem impossible odds. What the Army learned during the course of the Apache Wars eventually contributed to the training Eric and other special forces operatives like him had received. And using disloyal indigenous scouts to hunt down notorious and elusive warlords worked as well in Afghanistan as it eventually had with Geronimo.
It would be good to have the company of fellow warriors who knew the territory for his trip back to the cabin, but Eric knew too that it might come with a price. It sounded to him like Nantan and some of his buddies were ready to go on the warpath, and Eric didn’t really want to get involved in any fighting if he didn’t have to, but then again, everything was a tradeoff. It would likely take longer if he went alone, because he would be relying on the trails and main roads he’d used to get here, not knowing the shortcuts these guys could show him. And while he didn’t feel that he needed backup on the way o
ut, it would be nice to have some extra guns for the journey back, when he wouldn’t be looking out for himself alone. He knew Shauna could pull her weight, but he was unsure about Vicky, and with that broken leg still in the healing process, Jonathan wasn’t going to be a hundred percent for at least a few more weeks.
“Only a few of us will go, maybe four or five, if you agree to this.” Nantan said. “I will be one, and we will finalize the rest after a brief meeting and discussion.”
“I’m fine with it, if you’re sure you really want to go to all that trouble,” Eric said. “But how soon can you leave? I am anxious to get started because the weather in the mountains is only going to get worse, and I’ve already left them alone there in that cabin long enough. They are bound to be getting anxious by now, and knowing my ex-wife like I do, I’m not sure how long her patience is going to last before she decides to head this way on her own.”
Feral Nation Series Box Set 2 [Books 4-6] Page 42
