“I’m sure Ted has something in mind. I think he’s in love with that reactor. It was the latest technology before the fall.” Char squinted into the distance. An overgrown path followed the shoreline for as far as she could see.
“Who would have thought that we’d call Chicago a paradise?” Terry wondered.
“I’m not calling it that,” Char countered. “I’ll commit to calling it nicer than the last place we were, but paradise? That sounded like Cancun, according to the pack. Too bad it’s on the other side of hell.”
“Does the Mississippi still flow?” Terry asked rhetorically. They’d crossed it in Minnesota and it was as robust as ever. “Maybe the locks and dams are gooned up, but with a small boat, I expect we could make it to New Orleans, then across the Gulf of Mexico. It wouldn’t be any harder than moving a town from Colorado to here.”
“Then what?” Char prompted.
“Then we’d be stuck down there.” Terry fingered the communicator in his pocket. He imagined a conversation with Akio, begging him for a ride back to Chicago in the pod. Terry expected that it wouldn’t go well. He imagined a different conversation. I missed my flight while on vacation, can you come get me?
Terry chuckled about it. “No. We can’t go there, but Akio probably needs to know what we’re up to.” Char nodded.
Terry pulled the communication device and activated it. There was no static or buzz, which Terry found disconcerting. He had loved the old Marine Corps radios, which were tough to work with on the best of days. There was nothing like a PRC-77 to ruin your day, the radio which often served as a heavy and unfriendly paperweight.
“Good evening, Terry Henry. How are you today?” Akio asked pleasantly enough. It was eight in the morning by his reckoning.
“What time is it there?” Terry said without thinking.
“Eleven at night.”
“Oh crap! I’m sorry, Akio-sama. We’ve had a few developments here and I wanted to make sure that you knew. I can call back tomorrow morning if you’d like.” Terry gritted his teeth. He knew the time difference but hadn’t thought about it. He was in his own little world where only he mattered. Char brushed her finger, signaling that he’d been a bad boy.
The nomad was supreme, just until he wasn’t.
“I prefer the night, actually. It is in my nature, is it not?” Akio asked pleasantly.
“Of course, Akio-sama. We’ve had a couple additions to our Were family, a Were-tiger and a Were-bear, who oddly enough has taken a liking to the grizzly cub who came with us from New Boulder,” Terry started slowly, trying to shape the conversation in a non-threatening way.
“Interesting. Tigers and Bears don’t usually join wolf packs. I expect they joined you, Anjin-san, as you continue to steer this boat toward greener shores.” Akio’s voice was calming for Terry.
Anjin-san, a ship’s pilot. Terry knew the word because of reading James Clavell’s novel, Shogun.
“We’ve also encountered a Forsaken,” Terry added without further explanation.
“How did that encounter end?” Akio asked in a colder, measured voice. He hadn’t been satisfied with the explanation-free version of Terry’s report.
“We beat the holy crap out of him, and he submitted. He has committed to working for me,” Terry added quickly.
“I will warn you, Anjin-san. Forsaken are not to be trusted. They are self-serving. He will turn on you when you least expect it. Be very wary around him. Never turn your back on this Forsaken.” There was an edge to Akio’s voice that sent a chill down Terry’s spine.
“We can arrange something if you’d like to meet him yourself,” Terry offered. “He is coming tomorrow morning, our time, and that would be best because he’ll get into our minds and know that we’ve talked. Right now, he doesn’t expect you.”
“Until then, Anjin-san. I look forward to meeting the new additions to your family.” Akio made to sign off.
“Since you mentioned that, Akio-sama, Charumati and I are expecting our first child, a daughter, we believe.” Terry looked at Char and smiled.
“My congratulations to you both,” Akio said, his pleasant and uplifting voice had returned. “Until tomorrow.” There was no click, but Terry felt that the line had gone dead.
“He doesn’t like your pet Forsaken,” Char taunted Terry.
“I’m losing control, aren’t I?” Terry knew the answer she’d give. She knew that he knew, but they still liked to dance.
“You never had control, TH,” she said, showing her teeth in a broad smile. Kae let go and ran ahead. They joined hands and walked after him. “Maybe you have this animal magnetism that attracts the creatures of the wild to you. Or maybe, they all believe that we can be a better humanity than we were before, or you’ll beat the crap out of them.”
Terry was humored.
“You started all this, you and that pack of yours,” Terry said mysteriously.
“Oh, really,” Char said in her best condescending tone.
“A few years ago, I was on my own in the mountains, hiding from mankind, until a pack of Werewolves chased me off a cliff and into a mountain stream. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“That might not have been me. Marcus was the one who decided it was fun to hunt humans. Have I mentioned lately how glad I am that he’s gone?”
“Not today, but the day is young, my love,” Terry told her. “I want my own boat.”
“Of course you do, dear. I have two kids, soon to be three, but at least the women won’t be outnumbered, not that we ever were,” Char replied.
“We better go see the FDG, get them ready for tomorrow and tell the pack, too. We’ll tell Ted whenever he gets back with my boat.” Terry smiled devilishly as he ran after Kaeden.
CHAPTER NINE
Clemson and EssCee were beside themselves. They’d lost five cattle in the dust storm that had blown through. The livestock had gotten out from behind the wind break, then staggered the wrong direction and gotten buried.
The herd was already hard enough to expand and they’d been making progress, up until they left New Boulder.
“Dad’s not going to be happy,” EssCee told his brother.
“He’ll be happy when we make it to our new home with whatever cattle we have left,” Clemson said, trying to believe his own argument.
Adams shook the dirt off his clothes as he joined them. “What’s the damage?”
“Five of ours, none of the longhorns,” Clemson reported. Everett, Hayden and the rest of Eli’s grandchildren were trying to brush the red dust from the backs of all the cows in the combined herd.
“We did the best we could.” Adams shrugged. He knew the importance of the herd as a food source, especially with the added mass of humanity that he was bringing with him.
“Get them ready to go, we leave as soon as we can find the road.” The boys nodded and got back to work, joining the others cleaning off the cows, wiping the crust from their faces.
Adams turned back and saw the young men trying to look manlier as they worked with the cattle. Three of Eli’s five grandchildren were girls and the competition was getting fierce.
The nightly chuck-the-rock contests were taking on a life of their own.
It allowed everyone to blow off steam and forget about the trials of the road, if only for a little while.
Adams looked down at his boots, which were about an inch too short to wade through the dust. The red powder cleared the top and wedged itself between the leather and his ankle. He continued to wade through it, cutting a path to the road. Once on it, the way east was clear, but the river ran to the northeast, away from the road.
Water was life. To the east stood an endless red plain without a single speck of green. “When the fires of Hell have passed, all that remains is death,” Adams philosophized to himself.
Adams returned to the group, and thanked the chief profusely for the warning that had saved lives. Then he outlined the rest of the day’s travel plans, as in, they we
re going to keep following the Missouri River. There was too much risk heading across the open country, especially with the recent dust storm.
Adams gathered the people and cupped his hands around his mouth so he could better project his voice.
“We’re going to add a week at least to our journey, but as long as we have water, we shouldn’t lose any more cattle. And I don’t want to lose any people, no matter what. An extra week is worth the price,” Adams shouted to the large group, hoping to be heard over the noise the cows were making.
The chief suggested they stay an extra day in order to process the cattle that died in the storm. “Mother Earth frowns on those who waste her precious resources,” Foxtail added.
“And there you have it! We’ll be staying here until we recover all that meat. We know where two of them ended up. Let’s spread out and find the other three!” The people shuffled away, FDG, farmers, natives, and the other members of the mob, as Adams had taken to calling it.
Adams pulled the chief aside so he could apologize for not getting his input first. Foxtail appreciated the effort, but confirmed that Adams was in charge of getting the group to their new home and that the chief was simply a passenger on this bus.
“Of course, Chief. Let’s butcher a few cows and celebrate life.”
“My thoughts, exactly, my friend,” the chief said softly.
***
“Form the platoon!” Terry bellowed as he approached the barracks, surprised by the lack of activity. He went inside and saw that it was empty. “Where’d they go?” he asked.
Char used her senses and explored the area, finding her fellow Weres, the farmers who were trying to prepare a field, a group fishing on the shore to the south, some people hunting and the rest inside various buildings. One across from the dining facility that Claire and Margie Rose were running seemed to have a number comparable to what they were expecting.
“I think they moved,” Char said.
“Indeed, oh grand master of the obvious. Do you know to where they may have gone?” Terry asked.
“I do,” she replied as she strolled away.
Terry followed, feeling even less in control than he usually did.
Akio wasn’t going to be pleased with the magnanimously arrogant Terry Henry Walton. He was convinced of that. The line between good and evil had been clear, but Terry had blurred it, like the chalk of a base line in a game that has gone on too long.
If Terry hadn’t blurred the lines, Char wouldn’t be in his life. Terry decided that he couldn’t be the final arbiter of what was good or evil, which confused him since that was exactly what the Force de Guerre was about, to protect the one from the other.
Or was it. He wanted sufficient firepower to force people to talk. His belief was that the good people in the world only needed the opportunity to put it on display. To do that, they had to feel safe.
The FDG was a force for good.
And if Akio kicked his ass for it, so be it. When Terry finished talking with himself, he discovered that Char was a hundred yards ahead with Kae, waiting patiently.
I bet you’re in my head right now, aren’t you? Terry thought, squinting his eyes as he attempted to mind-meld with his wife. She crossed her arms and twisted her mouth sideways as she looked at him.
Maybe not. He ran to catch up.
It was a short walk to where a number of barracks stood around a compound faced by a dining facility that the Force affectionately called the chow hall.
They ran into Mrs. Grimes as she shuffled her way toward it.
“I seem to have lost my platoon,” Terry said with a smile.
She stabbed a thumb over her shoulder toward the building behind her, harumphed, and kept walking.
“I think the boys may have been bad,” Char guessed.
Terry made a sharp right turn and headed straight for the building. He heard the shouting well before he opened the door. He held it for Char and Kae. They walked into a nice entryway, with hallways to the right and left. Char headed toward the noise, because she knew that was where TH would want to go.
She was indifferent to it all, but he loved his platoon and the control he wielded over it.
The veins stood out on Mark’s neck as he vibrated with fury. Jim and Ivan were arguing over one of the rooms.
“Report!” Terry bellowed down the hallway, making everyone wince from the volume.
Jim and Ivan jumped to attention. Mark’s mouth worked but no sound came out.
Char stepped out of the way and he smiled at her, tussling Kaeden’s hair before moving past and putting his nose an inch from Mark’s cheek.
He whispered, “I think I motherfucking said to report.”
“Yes, sir!” Mark was finally able to get out. “We’re establishing room assignments in the new barracks. Mrs. Grimes didn’t approve of the other one.”
“Mrs. Grimes didn’t approve of the other one,” Terry started slowly. “Since when does Mrs. Grimes run the show here?”
The sergeant broke the position of attention to look sideways at the colonel. “Since always when it comes to chow and the barracks,” he replied. Terry turned back to Char. She waved her fingers at him.
“The major is pretty upset that you didn’t clear it with her first,” Terry said.
“But we did, sir,” the sergeant said, nodding.
Terry closed his eyes and turned back toward Char. She mouthed the words “no control.”
Terry took a moment to compose himself. “What’s the argument about, Sergeant?”
“Tell him, you fucking morons!” Mark yelled at the two men still standing at attention. The colonel casually turned, not happy that Mark passed the buck.
“I wanted this room,” Jim said calmly.
“I wanted it first,” Ivan replied.
“And there you have it, the complete text of the last twenty minutes of my life,” Mark whined.
“I am Groot, huh?” No one understood the reference. “Neither of you get it. It’s mine for when the Mrs. is mad at me since we don’t have a couch. Let’s see what we have here.”
Terry pulled the two men into the hallway and walked into the room. It was a barracks room, with a shared bathroom linking it to the next room over. Too bad the plumbing wasn’t operational. There was no furniture.
When Terry returned to the hallway, Jim had Ivan on the ground while Mark laid across Jim’s back, trying to get him into a headlock.
“Gentlemen?” he said softly. They continued to grunt and twist. Terry leaned closer. “Gentlemen?”
Jim arched his back trying to throw Mark, but when the back of Mark’s head slammed into Terry’s chin, he was through.
He drove a right cross into the back of Jim’s head, followed with a left roundhouse into the side of Mark’s face, then he picked Jim up by the back of his pants and threw him down the hallway. He didn’t fly very far before landing in a heap.
Ivan covered his face. Terry kicked him in the leg.
“Get up!” he ordered the three men. The empty hallway was suddenly filled on both sides with the remaining members of the platoon. The three men stood haphazardly after the swift but harsh punishment that had been meted out.
But the punishments weren’t finished.
“You! You’re busted back to corporal. You take over third squad. You, back to the end of the line. Do you get me, Private?” Terry tipped his chin at Jim. “And you, if I could bust you any lower, I would.” Terry snorted like a bull ready to charge, then composed himself to continue.
“Sergeant James, you are now the platoon sergeant and, Corporal Lacy, you’re now in charge of first squad. Sergeant, Corporal, congratulations. Get this barracks squared away by evening chow, and then formation tomorrow at dawn, full gear, be ready for individual combat training. It’s on the schedule for all day.”
Char nodded her approval.
Terry looked at the shocked faces in the hallway, no one was moving, people were barely breathing. As he turned, he brushed close to Mark.
“I expect you to work your way back up, do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir!” the man replied, not feeling as confident as he tried to sound.
***
Ted didn’t sail very far down the coast. He only wanted to keep the boat out of Terry’s hands, but he realized he had too much to do, and Gene could help him bring the Mini Cooper to life. Ted was unsure of the fuel within and if it wasn’t fueled, he had an idea where to get some, but once again needed help to get it ready for use.
In either case, having another nuclear engineer on hand was a huge benefit. Even if he was a monstrous brute.
Ted executed a quick turn and sailed back up the coast. He slid the boat into the harbor with a well-practiced hand.
A number of town’s people were fishing using various tools and were having reasonably good luck. Fish would probably be a staple for a while. What they needed was a commercial sized fishing trawler, then they wouldn’t have to hunt.
His wolves enjoyed fish and he found that it was good for their coats, keeping them nice and soft. He gave the fishermen a thumbs up to encourage them in their efforts as he tied his boat to the dock, furled the sail, and put the cover over it.
Ted walked back to the plant to find Timmons elbow deep in something innocuous.
“We need to talk with Gene,” Ted suggested. Timmons wasn’t amused.
“No, we don’t. If you want to, go right ahead.” Timmons shoved his arms back into his project.
“Fine.” Ted stomped away with no idea where Gene would be. He decided he’d ask Billy. He opened the door and almost ran into the Were-bear. Hank/Bogdan, standing by the giant’s side, started sniffing Ted.
“Nice kitty.” Ted reached out to pet the grizzly cub’s head, then thought better of it.
“My nuclear physicist best friend!” the man bellowed from two feet away.
“Nuclear engineering, actually,” Ted replied, wondering if the big man heard anything he was saying.
“No matter, tiny, we see plant now, okay?” Gene held the door open for Ted to return inside.
Nomad's Fury: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Terry Henry Walton Chronicles Book 5) Page 7
