Burning Nation

by Trent Reedy

  Now me and Sweeney were on the biggest mission yet. We were supposed to casually walk by the Fed headquarters at the old cop shop and make mental note of its defenses and security setup.

  “Hey,” I said to Sweeney. “I know we’re just supposed to scope out this one place, but do you think we should maybe take a really random route to throw off anyone who might be watching us? Like maybe instead of heading directly for the Fed HQ, we could loop around and go up Third Street.” Sweeney didn’t answer for a while, and the only sound was our boots crunching on the snow. “Hey, so how about it?”

  Sweeney laughed. “Wright, are you serious?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, we’re just going to casually stroll down JoBell’s street, just to throw off the Fed.” He laughed harder. “And TJ already told us that JoBell would just happen to be too, ahem, sick to go to school today. You’re so pathetically transparent, man. Why don’t you just ask me if you can visit her?”

  I smiled. “Well, I saw her at Christmas, but we didn’t really have a chance to talk, you know?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what you want to do. Talk.”

  “Well, can you blame a guy?” I said. “I swear I’m getting jealous down there, watching Sparrow and Luchen all cutesy on their side-by-side cots.”

  “Well, I was thinking of stopping to see Cassie Macer. She should be getting out of school in about an hour,” said Sweeney. “You know we were getting really close before the invasion.”

  “Yeah. I wonder if she’s moved on, though. Scored herself a real boyfriend since then.”

  Sweeney acted like a knife had been plunged into his heart, and he was trying to pull it out. “Women do not move on after a taste of Eric Sweeney’s fine Asian loving. If you had heard her when we were —”

  “Enough!”

  “You’re just jealous.”

  “You know I’m not.”

  “Hey!” someone whispered. I jumped and reached for my .45 hidden in the lining of my coat. “It’s okay,” said the voice. The woman who tended bar at the Bucking Bronc Bar and Grill was leaning out the back door, motioning for us to follow her inside. “Hurry!”

  Sweeney shrugged and we went inside. The place was cold and dark, the opposite of the way it had been before the war. We followed the woman into a storage room in back.

  “Can we help you, ma’am?” I asked.

  “I know who you are, Danny,” she said. She must have read the worried expression on my face because she hurried on. “I’m Sally. I own the place, for all the good it does me anymore.” She shook her head. “Can’t get any beer or anything with the Fed locking everything down. They put me out of business.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

  “We don’t have any beer,” said Sweeney.

  Sally laughed and ran her fingers back through her curly sandy-blond hair. She was pretty the way some women in their thirties or forties could be. “You’re fighting back against the occupation?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “That’s dangerous and against the law. We love the United States.”

  She laughed again, unconvinced. “Well, if you ever get in trouble … If you need a place to hide …” She opened a hatch in the floor and started down the stairs into the basement, picking up a flashlight that hung from a nail on the wall.

  Sweeney and me followed her again. It couldn’t hurt. If she tried anything, it was two against one, and we were both armed. Besides, she seemed nice.

  “This building’s real old,” she said. “Used to be heated by coal.” She led us around the side of a huge metal tank and opened a big square iron door. “This boiler doesn’t get used anymore. If you need a place to hide, pop in here. They’ll never find you.”

  “Well, thank you, ma’am,” I said.

  Back upstairs she pulled a small loaf of bread from a cabinet. “I don’t have much, but I want to help the resistance any way I can.”

  “You keep it,” I said. The bread looked great, but Sally had lost her entire livelihood, and she was already risking everything to offer us a safe place. “We have supplies.”

  “We appreciate your help,” Sweeney said. “Hope we never need it.”

  “We’re all behind you, boys. You hang in there.” She kind of rubbed us both on the back as she showed us out, and we said our goodbyes and hurried on our way.

  We turned onto Third Street, only two blocks from JoBell’s house. It had been a long shot, me getting on the duty rotation for a recon patrol the same day she was home from school. I wanted to run to her so bad, my legs almost shook.

  “If I do go see Cassie,” said Sweeney, “maybe I should grab a hot shower first. I can’t imagine she’ll want to … talk … if I’m sporting dungeon scent.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “JoBell said she thought the Fed had given up on watching her house, but I think we better go around the block and sneak in the back, just in case they —”

  Two Humvees rolled past us on the street. One gun turret sported a manned .50-cal, and the soldier in the other had an M307 grenade-launching machine gun. What kind of trouble did these jackwads expect to find in little Freedom Lake that they needed that kind of firepower? Hopefully, me and my guys would show them soon enough.

  “Be cool. Just walk normal,” I said.

  “As opposed to duck-walking or doing the cha-cha slide?” Sweeney said quietly. “How do you think I’m walking?”

  “At least they don’t seem to be after us.”

  But maybe I’d spoke too soon, ’cause the Humvees’ taillights flared when they were only a couple houses past us. Had they spotted me? How? I was wrapped up like a mummy with this scarf on. Were they on their way to JoBell’s? I reached inside my coat toward my .45.

  The Humvees pulled right into the Rourke family’s front yard, setting up in a sort of V formation with their heavy guns pointed at the front door. If those guns opened up, they’d probably kill everyone in the house. Jill Rourke had graduated a couple years ago, so I didn’t know her too well, but her father, Todd, had one or two little kids from a short second marriage. Mr. Rourke was a good guy, on the school board, and he’d coached little kids’ flag football for as long as I could remember. What did the Fed want with him?

  “Let’s get out of here,” Sweeney said.

  “Hang on, I want to see—”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “If we just turn around right here, we’ll really look suspicious,” I said.

  Todd Rourke came out onto his porch. “Can I help you?”

  Soldiers had climbed out of the Humvees and set up a perimeter around the vehicles. One officer approached the porch. “I’m Major Alsovar, commander of the Reconstruction Forces for Freedom Lake. Mr. Rourke, we understand you’ve been doing some unauthorized driving. A neighbor who is interested in reducing rebel movements reported seeing you returning to your home in your pickup.”

  Mr. Rourke ran his hands through his hair. “I’m not a rebel. I’m loyal to —”

  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to impound your vehicle and search your home,” said the major.

  Mr. Rourke came down off the porch. When the soldiers readied their guns, he put his hands up. “Please. Please, I only drove to Coeur d’Alene to see my kids. Please, I haven’t seen them for months. Comms don’t work. I can’t even call them. Search my house if you have to, but come on. I need my truck.”

  “You should have applied for a permit and filed a driving plan with my office.” Alsovar turned to one of his sergeants. “Get the tow bar out. We’ll haul his truck to the yard.”

  The sergeant nodded and opened the back hatch of the Humvee. Mr. Rourke ran up to him. “Please stop! Just hang on. We can work this out. Come on, guys!”

  “Captain Peterson, arrest this man!” said Major Alsovar.

  The captain looked from the major to Mr. Rourke. “Sir?”

  “He’s resisting federal instructions. Driving without authorization. He may be involved in insurgent activities.
We’ll take him to detention and find out.”

  “Sir, are you sure this is the right —”

  “No! Please. I just wanted to see my kids!” Mr. Rourke started backing away.

  Alsovar glared at the captain, then turned to another soldier. “Sergeant Dell, restrain that man now!”

  “Yes, sir!” said the sergeant. He motioned to two specialists, and then the three of them were on Mr. Rourke. The specialists grabbed his arms, spun him around, and pushed him up against the side of one of the Humvees. Sergeant Dell gripped the back of his neck and slammed his face down on the hood.

  “At ease, Sergeant!” Captain Peterson yelled as he took a zip tie from his pocket, pulled Mr. Rourke’s hands back, and bound his wrists. “Do not abuse the prisoner. Carefully load him in the back of my Humvee.”

  When the soldiers lifted Mr. Rourke off the hood, blood ran from his nose and mouth.

  “Let’s start our search,” said Major Alsovar as he marched up the stairs to the house.

  “What are you doing?” A different sergeant with an Air Assault and Combat Infantryman Badge on his uniform stepped up to us with his M4 at the ready. My heart pounded as I realized that me and Sweeney had nearly stopped, watching these monsters beat an innocent man. “Nothing to see here,” the sergeant said.

  “Right.” Sweeney grabbed my arm. “Sorry.”

  We did our best to look casual as we walked away. Instead of going up to JoBell’s front door, we went to the end of the block, hooked a right, and came up the alley to the back of her place. We didn’t want to draw any attention to her house if we didn’t have to.

  A high wooden fence protected JoBell’s backyard, and since the gate was locked, we climbed up on a nearby garbage can before vaulting over. I slipped on the top of the fence and fell six feet to the snowy ground. When I sat up, a big white horse smile flashed in my face.

  “What the hell?” Sweeney had dropped down next to me. He scrambled back and hit his head on the fence.

  I laughed and patted the horse’s face as she nuzzled me. “Hey, Lightning. What are you doing here?”

  JoBell rushed out of the house toward us. She pushed Lightning aside and helped us both to our feet. “Never mind the horse,” she said. “Get inside already.” She pulled me through the back door into her kitchen. “They’re telling the public you guys are dead, but they’ve been checking out your old houses, even my house again a couple times. You’re one of the top people they’re looking for.”

  I slid my hands to her waist. “You’re looking pretty good for someone who’s too sick to go to school.”

  She smiled. “Did you come here to take care of me?”

  Becca came into the room. “You guys!” She ran and threw her arms around me. Then, keeping me close, she reached out for Sweeney and hugged him too. My eyes met JoBell’s over Becca’s head, and she gave me an apologetic look.

  “You’re sick too?” Sweeney asked Becca.

  “Heck yes!” Becca said. “I wasn’t going to miss this chance to see you two. But are we safe? Did you see what’s going on down the street?”

  Sweeney placed his M4 on the kitchen table and then jumped up to sit on the counter, until JoBell snapped her fingers and pointed down. He leaned against the counter instead. “When they drove past, we thought they were after us.”

  “What was going on?” JoBell asked.

  “Mr. Rourke got caught driving without Fed permission,” I said. “He only went to see his kids in Coeur d’Alene.”

  “And they’re, what? Arresting him for that?” JoBell asked.

  I took a glass from a cupboard and went to the sink to get some water. “Broke his nose first, but yeah. And they’re taking his truck. Searching his house.”

  “That’s illegal. Unconstitutional. This is all so wrong,” JoBell said. “None of this should be happening! It’s all getting way out of control.”

  “Yeah, war will do that sometimes,” Becca said. “Anyway, I’m so happy to see you guys.”

  I sat on a chair at the kitchen table. “Did you know your horse is out back?”

  “Becca is pretty much moving in,” JoBell said.

  “Becca and Lightning,” I said.

  Becca shrugged. “TJ finally brought word from my parents. They’re safe and waiting it out in Oregon. It was lonely out there on the farm with just Lightning and me, and I had nothing to do with the livestock all sold. So I packed up some hay bales and the rest of the frozen beef I had. I loaded it onto our little buggy, and Lightning and I brought it here.”

  “You could have stayed at my place,” Sweeney said. “The horse could have lived in my boathouse or something. Not like my parents will be using the house for a while.” The Fed wasn’t letting people return to Idaho until the crisis was over, so his parents were settling in down in Florida.

  “Here I can hang out with JoBell and Mr. Linder,” Becca said. “And Lightning does okay in the yard and the garage.”

  JoBell stepped up behind my chair, slipped my coat off, and began rubbing my shoulders. Her fingers melted warmth into me and I closed my eyes, pretending like the war never happened and everything was like it used to be.

  Sweeney said, “We’re supposed to be on a mission to walk past the old cop shop, see what the Fed has set up down there.”

  “That’s pretty suicidal, isn’t it?” Becca looked away from me. “You two hanging around Fed headquarters?”

  “We aren’t going to hang around,” Sweeney said. “We’re going to walk by and take a look. See how best to attack the place.”

  “I don’t know if hitting that target is such a great idea,” Becca said. “We heard on the news that Idaho and the Fed are talking again, that if they can get the ID card thing worked out, they might stop the war.”

  This was weird. Usually JoBell was the one telling us to be careful, telling us not to fight. Becca was so tough, me and her had kicked three guys’ asses at the rodeo last fall when they tried to attack me.

  “Montaine and the Idaho Congress have already declared independence,” said Sweeney. “They’re not going to turn themselves in and go to jail after we’ve come this far.”

  “Then everything that happens will be Montaine’s fault, because if there’s any chance of stopping or getting out of this mess, we should take it.” JoBell’s warm fingers massaged my shoulders and neck again. “Anyway, isn’t this better than all that war junk?”

  “Well, we thought we’d drop in, you know,” Sweeney said. “I was actually going to kick it down the street to surprise Cassie Macer when she gets home from school. Think I could take a shower first? I haven’t had a chance to clean up since the invasion.”

  JoBell didn’t even look at him. “You know where the bathroom is. Towels in the closet. Maybe Becca can find you some clean clothes.”

  “Thanks,” said Sweeney. He and Becca both headed for the stairs.

  JoBell and I made out for the next ten minutes until the other two stomped down the steps really loud. JoBell got up off my lap but leaned over to whisper, “To be continued.”

  Sweeney had squeezed into one of JoBell’s T-shirts, which read:

  “What?” Sweeney said when I laughed.

  “So manly,” I said.

  Sweeney held his fists up and flexed. “My manliness isn’t threatened by being a volleyball supporter. We never make a big deal out of the girls wearing football shirts. What’s so wrong with me wearing this?”

  JoBell shook her head. “If the war wasn’t enough to tell me my world has gone totally crazy, now I’m agreeing with Eric Sweeney on feminist issues.”

  Sweeney smiled. “Thanks, kitten.”

  “I take it back.”

  “If we’re going at all, we better hurry,” Becca already had her coat off the peg by the door. “Nobody goes alone, remember?”

  Sweeney grabbed his M4 from the kitchen counter. “And nobody goes unarmed. But what are you going to do while Cassie and I are hanging out?”

  “Timmy and I will go for a walk or
something. I’m a big girl. I can figure it out.”

  They left a moment later. When the door closed behind them, it was quiet in the kitchen. “Where’s your dad?” I finally said.

  “He’s at work. Though what a lawyer does when the Fed is just making up our laws as they go, I have no idea. Still. We’re all alone. Want to go upstairs to my room?” I stood up. JoBell leaned close, put her hands flat on my chest, and smiled. “Right after you take a shower.”

  I’d been away from JoBell before. Basic training had been a whole nine weeks, and during that time we’d only been allowed comm calls twice. The rest of the time all we had were paper letters. She wrote me almost every day. Me? I was never too good at writing, so I wrote her once or twice a week. It had been agony missing her, especially alone at night in my rack in the barracks. Since the invasion, I’d been away from her for about half as long as basic, but it felt twice as bad. All that time in the dungeon worrying about her, missing her, and wondering what she was doing made that dingy prison even smaller.

  Now, after I’d showered and rejoined JoBell, it was as if we hadn’t seen each other in years. She yanked off my shirt, pushed me down onto her bed, and jumped on top of me. I pulled my .45 from under my belt and carefully placed it on her nightstand, next to her lamp and the framed photo of her and Becca. Then it was as if all the deadly dangers we’d been through lately, the whole damned world, fell away. I probably couldn’t have stopped her if I wanted to, and I absolutely did not want her to stop.

  She sat up, straddling me and moving her hips around as she slowly began to lift her shirt up and off. Her blond hair fell down past her shoulders and past her black lacy bra over her smooth white skin, and I had never seen anything more beautiful. Her eyes closed as I slowly slid my hands from her waist up toward her chest.

  “I love you so much,” I said to her. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. You’re my whole life. I’ve missed you.”

  “Shh.” JoBell ran her fingers back through my hair and leaned forward to kiss me. “Baby, I’m right here. With you. I’m not going anywhere.” She kissed me again. With her warm chest pressed against me, she spoke softly, her lips so close that they barely brushed mine. “I wanted to tell you something…. We’ve been dating for a long time, and at first I just felt lucky being the girl who got to ride around in that giant truck of yours. It was exciting. A lot of the girls talked about how hot you were, but you were all mine.”