Her stomach convulsed, forcing precious air from her oxygen-starved lungs, but though her cheeks puffed out and tiny bubbles escaped from the corners of her mouth she managed to swallow most of it back down. She wouldn’t give up. She wasn’t the kind to go without a fight. Maybe Terrell would get free and think to take her up with him. Her consciousness faded. Her vision dimmed. The last thing she saw before she passed out and released the air from her lungs was a large, dark form nearing her.
*
Lady Di’s whip-thin body vaulted from the saddle and plunged beneath the water of the pond in a single fluid motion. Her deceptively powerful arms and legs propelled her like a fish toward the Huey ten feet below. A rising cloud of silt made seeing difficult. As she neared the chopper, she saw Gypsy dangling from the door nearest her. The gaping wound in his neck told Di he was dead.
She swam into the doorway. Terrell Johnson floated before her, his arms waving weakly. She thrust him out the door, where Dan Osaka grabbed him and started for the surface. Di lunged for the cloud of blond hair that waved in front of her, knowing it had to be Ellen. An explosion of bubbles startled her as she tugged Ellen toward her. Di pinched Ellen’s nose and clamped a hand over her mouth to keep her from sucking in water. Then, covering Ellen’s mouth with her own, she blew a light breath of life into Ellen’s convulsing lungs. She released Ellen’s nose long enough to slash the safety belt with her combat knife, then kicked both of them out of the chopper and headed topside.
As her head broke the surface, she saw Dan administering CPR to Terrell at the edge of the pond. Immediately she began mouth-to-mouth on Ellen as her lithe legs kicked toward shore.
*
Miles to the south, Michael Whitebear watched the helicopter fall with a sinking heart. If he knew his wife, she’d be on it. He’d heard from Mitch Stonehand that Ellen had been in on the end of the Bloody Lake Massacre and that the chopper had taken damage. He hadn’t figured they could get the thing running again in just two days, but Ellen was full of surprises. He didn’t know what the survival rate was for anyone riding a helicopter down, but from that altitude, it couldn’t be good. His mind shied away from that unbidden thought. And returned to it against his will. If she was dead... His eyes narrowed and went flat and hard. His jaws clenched. Somewhere down deep inside he realized if she died he’d lose many of the restraints that bound his behavior and...
Spaaang!
A bullet ricochetted off the dozer next to Michael’s head. Enemy! A ravening wolf was loose inside him and he charged among them like they were sheep, emptying his Uzi, then swinging it like a club. Slashing with his bowie--killing--killing. His eyes were golden flames and those facing him could see the demon within. They broke and ran, but the demon was faster.
A hand touched his shoulder and he spun, knife slicing toward--he froze--“Daniel?”
“It’s over, Yellow-Eyes. They are all dead.”
The tawny glow faded from his eyes as bloodlust died and his head cleared. He stood there, feral, crimson splattered and cried out her name, “Ellen!”
The sound opened a flood of memories.
He was wild with rage, grief and bitterness when he came home from the war and the strength of her love had opened his heart to joy. During The Dying Time, his talent for killing enabled the Freeholds to survive. Ellen’s wisdom made it grow and prosper. The knowledge that she was there for him helped him return from those forays into death dealing to the norms of more civilized behavior. Without her stabilizing influence, he feared he would become a rabid killer, unable to stop.
In all the years since the war, the only time he’d truly let the genie out of the bottle was when he killed No-Ears. He looked south toward the battle line, his face set in stone. If Ellen was dead...
“She could be all right, my friend,” Daniel said. “You Whitebears are hard to kill. Ask Ma-hay-oh.”
Michael closed his eyes, reached deep within himself and tried to ask his spirit whether his love lived or died. The pain was too raw! He shut out the roar and stench of the diesel-powered Cat, the clanking of its treads, the sounds of battle. He went to the center of his calm and beyond, where he took a breath and held it without knowing why. He felt...something...something he couldn’t explain. He gasped for air and smelled stagnant water. He opened his eyes and looked at Daniel, then at the death around him and chose to believe.
“She is alive.” He wasn’t aware of the tears running down his cheeks.
Mitch Stonehand swung the dozer into an alleyway and stopped. “Okay you two,” he said cheerfully. “Do your stuff.”
Michael and Daniel jumped to the ground and headed off in different directions, hunting the enemy tank.
*
Didn’t take long to find it, Michael thought, as he jerked his head back around the corner.
Tatatatat!
Fifty-caliber slugs from the tank’s machine gun deflected off the wall, scattering stone chips. The turret began cranking around in his direction.
He poked his Uzi around the corner and loosed a burst in its direction. Susan Redfeather and a few other volunteers opened up, then everyone dashed to a new hiding place at the same time. The Patton turned and began grinding its way ponderously up the street toward their new positions.
Michael clicked the mike on his radio, the signal that the tank was on its way. He looked up at the buildings lining the street, so weakened by shellfire he wondered how they still stood. In fact, there were times he was more concerned about being crushed by falling buildings than being killed by the enemy.
Michael leaned out and fired before bolting for different cover. The place he’d just abandoned erupted under the impact of a high explosive tank round; a piece of concrete from the blast pinged off the helmet he’d lifted from a fallen soldier only moments before. He rolled behind the overturned hulk of a rusting Buick Skylark, cursing as his shirt caught and tore on a loose piece of tarnished chrome. He risked a quick peek and was rewarded by a barrage of fifty-caliber rounds. No doubt about it, he’d got the tanker’s attention.
“I need help down here!” The voice came from an open manhole in the middle of the street.
Michael yelled back, “On my way!”
Redfeather and a couple of others opened up from across the street and distracted the machine gunner. Michael took a running leap and dove through the manhole. Daniel Windwalker broke his fall.
“Phew!” Michael exclaimed, as he and Daniel picked themselves up out of the stagnant water that lay a foot deep in the sewer drain. He took in the bemused expression on Daniel’s face and added, “Nice catch.”
“Couldn’t risk you striking a spark,” Daniel said.
Michael sniffed the air. Overlaying eau de sewer was a familiar smell.
“Gas?”
“A little, probably not enough to do any real harm.”
“I’m glad you didn’t take the chance.” Michael rubbed his sleeve against the wall, scraping off a piece of...he didn’t want to know. The smell was bad enough.
“Did he see you?” Daniel gestured in the general direction of the Patton.
Michael shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
The thunderous report of a nearby explosion slammed into their ears.
“Bet that was the Buick I was hiding behind,” Michael said.
“What’d you do to piss him off?” Daniel asked as he set the timer on a homemade C-4 bomb.
“Tried to bowl a grenade into his tracks,” Michael answered, grinning. He boosted Daniel back up toward the manhole opening. The ladder rungs set into the walls of the sewer were so badly corroded one of them crumbled in Michael’s hand as he tried to brace himself with it. Several others were broken from where someone had tried to climb them, explaining Daniel’s call for help.
Daniel climbed onto Michael’s broad shoulders and peeked out. Gunfire from Susan Redfeather and the rest of the decoys was drawing the Patton farther down the street.
“How much longer?” Michael strained from below. Dan
iel wasn’t exactly light.
“Twenty seconds,” Daniel said. “Why? Didn’t you have your Wheaties this morning?”
“Two bowls,” Michael shot back. “But you feel like you had ten.”
Daniel chuckled as he jumped down from Michael’s shoulders. He bent over and tripped the timer on the bomb. “Last one out’s a crispy critter.”
The two men raced down a storm drain Daniel had scouted earlier, mentally counting down the seconds till the explosion. At three seconds till “Boom”, they scrambled up a collapsed portion of the street that formed a ramp up from the sewer and threw themselves flat.
Two seconds.
One.
BOOM!
The force of the blast and the small secondary explosion from the gas in the sewer lifted the street, broke it into chunks and dropped it into the hole where the sewer had been. Dust and debris rained down all around them.
Michael peered through the cloud of dust, expecting to see one wrecked Patton. Instead he saw an intact tank sitting where it had stopped, five yards from the hole.
“Shit!” he yelled, as he and Daniel belly-crawled through the rubble to safety. “Shit! Shit! SHIT!”
“I take it we’re going to Plan B,” Daniel said dryly.
“Course we are. What’s the matter? You don’t understand plain English?”
A sudden increase in the volume of rifle and machine gun fire drew their attention back to the battle.
Poking their heads around the corner, they saw Mitchell Stonehand on “Plan B” roar out of the alley. The D-9H slammed into the side of the Patton, jolting it sideways and snapping the track on the impact-side.
The force of the unexpected impact momentarily stunned the tank crew, but they recovered quickly. The tank’s cannon began to rotate toward the dozer, stopping with a clang when it hit the broad blade on the front of the Cat. Bullets from the tank’s infantry support spanged off the metal shielding that armored the enclosed cab of the bulldozer.
The command hatch popped open and the tank commander tried to shoot Mitch through the view-slits in the front of the cab. Mitch killed him with a single shot from his .44 magnum pistol.
Michael and Daniel had their guns in action, popping shots at the enemy infantry, as were Susan and the rest of her team.
The tank’s driver was applying full power to the undamaged track in an attempt to pivot away from the D-9H, so his gunner could bring the tank’s cannon to bear, but the steady pressure maintained by Mitchell’s Cat defeated the move. The tank’s loader was trying to pull the tank commander’s body back inside so he could close the hatch.
Mitchell swung outside the door of the cab and lobbed a grenade toward the opening, missing. A shot from a King’s man caught him high in the chest and knocked him off the Cat into the street.
As one, Michael and Daniel darted around the corner and bolted toward the tank and their fallen friend, but Susan Redfeather was closer. As bullets from the tank’s machine gun smacked into the street behind their racing feet, Susan vaulted onto the tank and shot the loader in the face just as the surprised man reached to close the hatch. In the blink of an eye, she unpinned a grenade, dropped it down the opening, slammed the hatch shut and jumped for cover behind the bulldozer.
Michael and Daniel reached the Cat a second later. A muffled boom announced the death of the tank’s remaining crew. Susan was closing Mitchell’s death-glazed eyes, tears running down her face.
“Aw, shit,” Daniel whispered. He would miss Mitch’s strength and his pranks. He vowed that, if he lived, Mitch’s son would become his own.
*
In spite of their heroics, in spite of the best that brave men and women could do, the enemy poured into Provo in a never-ending stream. Sheer numbers finished what superior technology began.
As darkness fell, the last of the Allied fighters retreated past the carnage of Carswell’s Charge into Provo Canyon. Adam Young mustered the exhausted soldiers at the first fortification near Bridal Veil Falls. There, they were able to stem the tide of the enemy’s pursuit. There, he mounted a pile of rocks and revealed to his officers and men the final details of the fallback plan he’d developed so many months ago. He finished with the admission that Jim Cantrell needed at least one more day to complete his preparations.
Everyone present knew there could be no surrender to Prince John. Past indications were that surrender led to slavery or death by torture and all of these fighters preferred a relatively clean death in battle. Of the twelve thousand men and women who had rallied to the cause of freedom, over half were dead, or wounded so badly they couldn’t continue to fight. Losses of this magnitude would have wilted the resistance of almost any pre-Impact army. But the survivors of The Dying Time were the toughest, strongest, smartest and most capable people left in America.
Looking around, Adam saw that strength of character in their faces, but also saw despair. They needed more of a boost than the hope his plan held out to them offered. They needed inspiration. From atop the small boulder he spoke and the words came from his soul. “Once, long ago, on a battlefield facing horrible odds, a British Colonel sent a message to his commanding officer. It read, ‘Situation desperate. Facing overwhelming numbers. Send me a regiment of tanks, or one piper.’ Bagpipers were known for inspiring desperate valor. Can anyone here play bagpipes?” He paused while a few chuckles floated up from below.
“I didn’t think so. Well, we have a piper. His name is Jim Cantrell and he’s waiting for us at the back of this canyon. I’ve already told you what he’s doing there. If you can buy him a day, he’ll play you a tune you’ll never forget.” Adam ran the back of his hand across his forehead.
“We’ve fought long and hard and for the past three days we’ve been forced to retreat.” He saw the bitterness in their faces. “Yes, we’ll have to retreat again tomorrow, but you cannot let that get you down, because you are far from beaten.” He could see some life stirring in them now.
“I’d like to tell you about something I saw today.” His throat thickened and he had to pause to take a pull from his canteen. “I saw men and women, who when they ran out of bullets, fought with knives, spears and arrows; and when they ran out of those, grabbed clubs and threw rocks.
“Many of you know Faith Gilcrest. I saw an enemy soldier lunge at her with a bayonet and another man, whose name I wish I knew, pushed her out of the way and was impaled.” Tears filled Adam’s eyes and he bowed his head.
Down in the crowd, Faith whispered, “Able.”
Adam continued, “This man grabbed the enemy soldier’s rifle so he couldn’t pull it out. He occupied that enemy’s attention with his dying strength to give Faith a chance to act. She killed that enemy soldier while he was still trying to pull his bayonet free.” He raised his head and his eyes were blazing, even as tears coursed from them.
“That’s what we’re doing now. We’re occupying the enemy’s attention to give Jim Cantrell a chance to save our families, our way of life.” He pointed at them.
“You can do it, because you are the spirit of freedom in America and you can be killed, but you cannot be beaten.” His voice thundered at them. “And you will submit, not to men, but to the laws you yourselves have played a role in drafting.” The defiance in his voice touched a common nerve.
“I think the State motto of New Hampshire says it best. “Live Free or Die!” He paused to draw a breath. “LIVE FREE OR DIE!”
The crowd caught the spark and took up the words. “Live Free or Die! Live Free or Die!” They began almost softly, in two’s and three’s and let it build into an anthem.
Daniel Windwalker pulled off his Harley bandanna, which bore that same legend and tied it to his rifle barrel. As he waved it back and forth, the chant grew louder and louder.
“Live Free or Die! Live Free or Die! LIVE FREE OR DIE!”
Now the words rang off the canyon walls, startling enemy sentries at the mouth of the canyon into firing, believing the Allies were launching a counterattack. The
words reached Prince John as his APC rolled toward the front.
“Pull over and shut it off,” he ordered.
When his driver complied, John leaned out of the APC and listened. He shook his head slowly as he pulled it back in. His spine was chilled, as if a draft blew down his collar. These people would never make good subjects.
*
Ellen Whitebear opened her eyes as Michael’s rough, callused hand caressed her cheek.
“Hi, Sweet.” Michael’s voice was as rough as his hands, full of emotion.
“Hi, stranger,” she whispered back hoarsely.
Michael held a canteen of water to her lips so she could drink, taking it away when she nodded she’d had enough.
“I love you,” he said, his eyes shining.
“Love you too,” she sighed back.
Michael leaned forward and gave her a hug. With far more effort than it should have taken, she lifted her arms and returned it.
“I saw the Huey fall,” he said gently as he knelt beside her cot, stroking her hand. “Big part of me nearly died on the spot.”
“If it wasn’t for Lady Di...” she began with a far away look in her eyes.
“I know,” Michael stopped, swallowed hard and continued. “She’s the one who told me where I could find you.”
“I thought I was paralyzed for a while,” she said. “The doctor says I just have a bruised spine and I ought to be okay when the swelling goes down.” She looked away as she added, “But I still can’t feel my legs.”
“You’ll be okay,” he said, giving her a crooked grin.
Then he wiped the smile from his face and turned serious. “But even if...” he stammered. “No matter what, you’re still my sweetheart. Nothing will ever change that.”
Her eyes filled with tears as she clasped him to her. It was exactly what she needed to hear.
Half an hour later, a corpsman came by and told them Michael had to go because it was time to move the temporary hospital on up the canyon past Jim Cantrell’s position. As Michael left, the man caught up to him, tugging Michael’s arm and asking for a word in private.
The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time Page 48
