The Horse Soldier: Beginnings Series Book 10

by Jacqueline Druga

  Henry made a couple of final clicks. “Done.” He stood up. “All right.” Henry peered at the monitor and waited. Nothing happened. “I think problem solved.”

  “Looks that way.” Mark sat down. “Thank God.”

  Henry snickered. “No please, even though it’s an honor, Henry will work just fine.”

  “Huh?”

  Henry shook his head. “Never mind. I’m out of here.”

  “Hey Henry?” Mark called him. “What if these aren’t rabbits?”

  “What else could they be?”

  “Ever see the movie Tremors?” Mark’s tone picked up and grabbed some excitement. “What if like it’s the tentacles coming up out of the ground and snatching up its food. Whoa. And what if like it moves as fast as it did in the movie. We have that cliff. How awesome that would be if this huge creature thing came plowing out of that cliff, diving down into the under . . .”

  “Mark?”

  “Yeah.”

  Henry shook his head ‘no’, waved goodbye, and left.

  Mark shrugged. “Just a theory.”

  ^^^^

  Bowman, North Dakota

  Ellen’s nude body laid on Hal’s bed. A small section of the bed sheet draped over her backside exposing her bare back and bare legs. Hal, shirtless, stood at the side of the bed fixing the covers.

  “Hold it.” He told her then reached for her hair.

  “Like this?” Ellen asked raising her arms.

  “Wait, let me look.” Hal hurried from the bedroom and into the living room. He stood there, looked at Ellen, and hurried back in. “Let me fix this.” Hal lifted up her hair, letting it drop more across her face. “Perfect.”

  “Perfect?”

  “Yes, stay like that. Keep your eyes closed.” Hal looked at his watch. “Now any . . .” There was a knock at his door. “Like clockwork.” He waited for another knock, grabbed his shirt, and walked to his bedroom door. “Thanks for doing this.”

  “Oh you’re welcome. Anytime.”

  Hal grinned and with his shirt in his hand he walked to his door and opened it. Sgt. Ryder and four other men stood there, Hal’s staff for the everyday meeting.

  Sgt. Ryder watched Hal put his shirt on. “Are we early?”

  “No.” Hal tied to appear groggy. “I slept in. Come on in.”

  “You?” Sgt. Ryder questioned. “You never . . .” He stopped speaking when he saw into Hal’s bedroom.

  Hal noticed that not only St. Ryder, but the other men in his living room stared in shock into his bedroom. Hiding his grin, Hal made his way through them. “Excuse me.” He reached forward and brought the door to the bedroom closed. “Let’s go to the table, shall we gentlemen.” Hal held out his hand in a pointing motion. Then, without letting them see his ‘so pleased it worked’ look on his face, Hal led the way to their morning meeting.

  ^^^^

  Beginnings, Montana

  He looked as if he could have been disgusted, but he wasn’t. He just looked that way. That was just Joe. In the clothing stock house, he walked around with a clipboard, barking orders to those who helped count and talked to Henry as he did all that.

  “I don’t mind at all, Joe.” Henry took the sheet of paper Joe gave to him.

  “Good, because inventory and distribution are big, too big to show you on top of everything else. I’ll handle it from now on, especially with the new people we’re getting. Should something happen to me, you pass this responsibility off to Robbie, He knows it as well as I do.”

  “Got it.” Henry moved quickly to keep up with Joe.

  “All right. Rough wear is running low. Clothing right now we’ll not be able to stock up fast enough for winter with all the new people. We won’t be able to make the items.”

  “OK.” Henry took notes.

  “We have to schedule a run. That’ll get us through until we train new people to help in making clothes and spooling cloth. I’ll go through the maps see what we haven’t hit lately.”

  “O.K., just clothing. Anything else?”

  “Everything else,” Joe stated. “We’re increasing population by ninety percent. Where we are good on food, we have to stockpile everything else again to meet our upcoming needs. Hal said they have items in Bowman. That’s good. We need, sorry, you need to send an inventory team down there to count up before they start to pack up.”

  “O.K., when?”

  “As soon as possible. Winter wear, I’m gonna assume is good for Bowman’s men, but we can’t take a chance.” Joe moved to the door with Henry and stopped. “Hold on.” He whistled out in the warehouse. “Hey Tony, when you come down from the coats, do me a favor. Get a hold of clothing and fabrics for me. Give them the numbers of what we need and get back to me on how many they estimate they need to run a crew to make the shit. And tell Ben do not exaggerate. We still have to run it skeleton.”

  Tony saluted from the rafter. “Got it, Chief.”

  “Let’s go, Henry.” Joe led him outside. “Now Bowman is sending us men. We know a lot are going in the fields, but we need them in other divisions as well. We can move them around as soon as the field areas get caught up but set up a meeting with Hal for some men for other divisions. Run it minimally. Tell him they can be temp workers. I’m not seeing him needing full force for the upcoming winter. But . . . who knows what his military strategy is gonna be.”

  Henry reviewed his lists. He didn’t realize how much he was writing down of Joe’s rambling. “Joe, if you’re running these divisions, why are you telling me all the stuff?”

  “You’re gonna be leader in this community.” Joe handed him another sheet. “It’s up to you to take the information I give you and schedule the runs.”

  “Can’t you do it, Joe?”

  “I could but it no longer will be part of my job. I’m doing most of the work here, Henry. This really isn’t all that difficult. I’m telling you what we need and where we are getting it from. You just need to schedule it out for me. And . . .” Joe handed him a final sheet. “That’s it for clothing, food distribution, and household.. All the needs. It’ll give you something to start on.” Joe gave him a pat to his back and moved on. “See you at my office in a little bit.”

  “Start on, Joe?”

  “Start on, Henry. I still have five other warehouses to look at . . .” Joe grinned. “Those sheets are only the beginning. I’ll see you later with the rest..”

  Henry blinked harshly as he watched Joe move on to the supply warehouse. He looked at the large stack of ‘run’ reqs in his hands. “The beginning? Shit.” Henry struggled so much as he walked, while clipping the stack of reqs under his own notes on the clipboard, that he just wanted to keep on walking and find a place to hide out from another one of his days of ‘leader in training’.

  ^^^^

  Binghamton, Alabama

  The part of the phone you speak into, the part of the phone you are supposed to place your mouth near, was the same part of the phone that Frank pressed his middle finger to while he smirked and spoke to George. “Yeah.” Frank lifted the phone, curled his lip in disgust, and returned to him again. “Yeah . . . Yeah.”

  “And then after they have settled in I need you to go to the mess hall and . . .”

  “George.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I speak?”

  George went silent for a second. “Um, sure Frank. What’s up?”

  “I have been trying to tell you. We had a slight problem this morning.”

  “Problem?”

  “Slight.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well I was out canvassing the outer area for training and I spotted two of those UWA soldiers camping out about three miles from here.”

  “What!” George’s voice raised up. “You got to be shitting me? Son of a bitch. What did you do?”

  “Brought them in and scared the hell out of them.”

  George let out a breath. “Good. Did you get anything from them?”

  “Like?”

/>   “Like information, Frank.”

  “Um yeah,” Frank said. “They got separated from their group about a month ago and were trying to make it back. I have them at interrogation.”

  “Well get rid of them before the ambassadors and scientists arrive. We don’t need any junk left around now. We’re pretty much settled.”

  “Get rid of them?”

  “Shoot them.”

  “O.K. Thanks,” Frank said. “Talk to you next check in.”

  Smiling and bobbing his head as if he sung a tune to himself, Frank hung up the phone and happily left his office.

  Ten minutes hadn’t passed since his phone call with George, and Frank was leading the two remaining officers off the base. The officers were dressed in UWA uniforms--left over from the soldiers he freed--and they were blindfolded with a wide cloth around their faces. Frank led them out and, per George’s instructions, shot them both.

  ^^^^

  Beginnings, Montana

  Even though she promised Danny she wouldn’t, Trish wore that black visor as she sat in History reviewing the articles with Jess that would be placed in the new paper of Beginnings.

  “Big first paper,” Trish commented to Jess. “Here you missed a error here. Please be more careful. People will read this you know.”

  “Whoops.” Jess snickered. “Sorry. I’m trying. You’re the one typing these up.”

  “Hey!” Trish tsked. “I’m very busy. I typed these up in between the competition forms, going to paper and requesting larger sheets of paper for this paper, amongst editing out bad writing in this paper and paper said . . .”

  “Trish.” Jess held up his hand. “With all the ‘paper’ references, you’re starting to confuse me.”

  “Well get unconfused, Jess. We have work to do. Danny wants to copy these when he gets back tomorrow. Plus . . . he’ll have the Bowman update to be typed and added in. I don’t know where he’s gonna put it all.” Trish looked at the newspaper layout that was all over her desk.

  “Danny is so into this, I’m surprised he hasn’t picked up a printing press somewhere.”

  “He wanted to but ink was the problem. Henry makes the ink cartridges for the printers around here and that ink works for the copy machine.”

  Jess wrote corrections as he talked. “Danny is so much like a business tycoon, starting a paper and delegating the work to others.”

  “Are you complaining?”

  Shocked, Jess snapped his head up. “Um . . . no. No. Not at all.”

  “Good. Because you are gonna have to do two things., work faster, harder, and neater especially since you’ll be handling more of the editing every day. I can’t do it all. I can’t work history and be Mr. Hoi’s secretary and serve on the Neville Committee, which I do.”

  “Wait a second.” Jess set his pencil down. “I’m working on the paper today.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not after.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Oh no. Where did you get that from?”

  “You volunteered,” Trish told him.

  “I did?”

  “Danny said you told him you were the smartest man in Beginnings and would love to help him out. You’re almost editor in chief.”

  Jess had to laugh. “How do I get myself roped into these things?” He grabbed his pencil again. “Of course, what else do I have to do with my spare time.”

  “I don’t know. What?” Trish asked.

  “Nothing. I was uh . . . being sarcastic.”

  “Why?”

  “Forget it.” Jess shook his head with a smile.

  “O.K.” Trish shrugged. “Don’t you ever hang out at the social hall?”

  “Once and a while I do, but it’s sort of like, how can I describe it, going to a dance alone.” Jess noticed the confused look on Trish’s face. “In the old world, I was never one to go out by myself, to bars or movies or anything. It doesn’t hold the same effect. You just don’t have as much fun as when you pair off with someone and go out. And in this world now, pairing off with someone is difficult.”

  “True. There are no women.”

  “Yes, all men know this.” Jess nodded. “But in the old world . . . it didn’t even have to be the opposite sex that you went out and had fun with. Do you . . . do you know what I mean?”

  “Oh yes.” Trish said. “A special friend.”

  “Exactly.” Jess smiled.

  “I was married to a man named Clyde in the old world. He died of the plague. Anyhow, Clyde he had a special friendship with this guy. They would go out, go on trips together, and sometimes them two would get so caught up in what they were doing, hell, I didn’t see them till the next day.” Trish snickered at the memory. “Clyde was cute.”

  “His friendship with this guy never bothered you?”

  “Oh no, why would it? I supposed some wives would be upset with sharing their husbands, but I wasn’t one. It gave me more time to do what I enjoyed, reading, movies, bowling, Tupperware parties. I was smart enough back then to know it’s a guy bonding thing. Some men really need that. You’re one of them huh?”

  Jess nodded. “Trish, you seem like a worldly woman around here.”

  “I am.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure. Wait. Do you need womanly advice or ‘scoop’ advice?”

  “Womanly.”

  “Well in that case . . .” Trish leaned to her side and bent down behind her desk. She emerged back up without the visor. “Ask away, I love to give advice.”

  “I like you, Trish.”

  “I like you too. And . . .” Trish winked. “You’re real cute. Ask away.”

  “O.K., well as you know, I’m fairly new here in Beginnings. I hang out but don’t know anyone. I’d like to get to know someone. You know, you can have a ton of friends, but I’m one of those men who needs that one on one buddy friendship more.”

  “Ahh,” Trish moaned in sadness. “You’re lonely aren’t you? No one really talks to you, do they?”

  “No, I’m a talker too. I’ll talk about anything. Anyone you can think of here that can use a friend, a close friend?”

  “I thought you were close friends with Robbie.”

  “I . . . I am, sort of, but I don’t bother him with it. I’m looking for that type of relationship that I heard Frank and Henry had.”

  “I see.”

  “Yeah and Robbie is like . . . he’s everybody’s buddy, but no one’s best friend. He’s not the type of guy that needs someone dumping their problems on him just to unload. And he certainly isn’t the type of guy that needs anyone close to him.”

  “Oh that is so wrong,” Trish said. “Everyone needs someone close to them. Male, female. You do. My husband Jeff needs me and so does Hap, and . . . uh I’m a special friend to a man named Forrest.” Trish dropped her voice to a whisper. “But there’s no sex there. And well, Tinker in the field division is a special friend to me. And Robbie needs Ellen, just like Dean needs Ellen, and Frank needed Ellen. He doesn’t anymore. He’s dead.” Trish noticed she had amused Jess. “I guess what I’m trying to say is everybody needs someone. Don’t let Robbie fool you. He has that rough Slagel exterior but he has a heart. I know for a fact he would love to have someone he could let down his walls with. Robbie’s lonely, Ellen sees this but . . . what is she gonna do about it. She can’t devote one hundred percent of her time to him.” Suddenly, and frightening Jess, Trish perked up. “Oh! Would you like me to speak to Robbie for you?”

  “Really? I feel stupid asking him to be my friend. I mean we live together.”

  “He probably assumed you would be friends and is feeling the same way.”

  “You think.”

  “Oh yes.” Trish waved her hand. “Robbie doesn’t get close to people and he certainly doesn’t latch on to new people. He asked you to move into his house with him. That tells me something. I’ll talk to him. You guys should start hanging out together. Maybe he can stop annoying everyone in this community when he has not
hing to do.”

  “Thanks.” Jess grinned.

  “No problem.” Trish ducked beneath her desk again and came back up with the visor on. “Now . . . we’ve wasted enough time. Back to the press.”

  Jess gladly did. He paused before continuing his reading and correcting and looked at Trish. It dawned on him that it was the first time in a very long time he had a personal conversation about himself with anyone. It felt good to have someone listen, to be a friend, even if it was briefly. In the lonely world that it had become for Jess and many men, a little closeness, a little friendship could go a long way for a better day.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  Beginnings, Montana

  Robbie had radio control. Robbie had the attention of everyone in Beginnings and those in Bowman who listened to him. He stood in the training area, wearing his headset radio. He stood before a large group of security men, some field workers, and they all were seated and spread around him. The microphone of his radio was lowered so as not to blast out the diaphragm when he spoke to them.

  “Listen up,” Robbie spoke. “At noon, it commences, the start of the first annual Neville Competition. The grand prize for this ongoing event has yet to be determine, but since Danny Hoi is determining the prize, I’m positive it will be worth it. But hey, just the competition is worth it. And . . . Ben from fabrics is making the trophy which is the cool seventies style ruffle shirt that Charlton Heston wore in the movie.” Robbie waited for the silence of the cheers and he gave a thumbs up to Ben from fabrics. “Now, since Neville has become our post apocalyptic God, we all wanna be like him. For the rules . . .” Robbie pulled out the notepad. “The competition is open to anyone who registers. And it’s not just us, gentlemen. Our new brothers in Bowman are competing too. You must be registered to be a part of it. The earlier you register, the better, because from that second on what you do starts counting towards points. You will be scored on the following. Games. We will hold events, like the Olympics, to add to scores. These will be announced later. The following are areas that you can accumulate points on a daily basis . . .” Robbie began to read. “Making it from one are of the community to another in a record speed time. These times are determined by the Neville committee. For example, it’s been decided if you make it from the fields to the utility building in six minutes on foot, you get fifty points. And so forth. A chart will be provided for you. Another scoring factor . . . escaping from dangerous situations. Elimination of viable enemies near the home front and . . . acts of heroism. But . . . in order to get points for any of the daily scoring, you must fill out one of these.” Robbie pulled four sheets from the back of the clipboard. “These are Neville competition applications. Fill them out and turn them into one of the Neville committee. They will meet, determine the level of score, and hand it out accordingly. For example, if you nearly get shot in the head.” Robbie held up a paper. “This is the ‘escaping dangerous situations’ application. Fill it out. As you’ll see, they’ll review, get witness verification, and, at the bottom, they pick a level. A near miss of a bullet in a deadly range is a level three, second highest level. In order to hit a level four, you have to be injured in some way.” Robbie handed out the applications for the men to view. “Pass them around and take a look. History has all applications in stock there. That’s where you pick them up.” Robbie saw Dan’s hand raised. He pointed at him. “Yes, Dan?”