by Robert Adams
Finishing the second cup of wine, Don Felipe took a deep, deep breath and plunged into the report.
"They have not just the one flying weapon, Capitàn, but at least three of them. There are about a dozen of whites now living at that village, and they are fortifying it extensively, making it more akin to a fortaleza than just another palisaded village of indios. Not only are they having the mound raised, the ditches deepened, and the palisades strengthened, they have laid at least one section of dressed stone about halfway between the front gate and the northern front corner."
"Both northern and southern front corners now are backed by earthen platforms, and on each of these is a fortress gun of about saker size—four to five pounds shot weight—plus two of the swivels they made me leave behind that dark day. They also seem to be doing some work on the flanking palisades and the rear, but I could not see them all that clearly. They are building a wooden tower beside the main gate and have already placed another swivel—a drake, I think—there, with a portingal and a murderer atop the mid-wall stone structure."
Abdullah hissed between his teeth. Clearly, these white men, these excommunicant interlopers, were knowledgeable soldiers; such astute placements of guns would tell anyone that much. He began to agree with his subordinate that it might be as well for their own purposes to write off their losses and not further stir this nest of wasps. After all, there were plenty of other nearby sources of enslavable indios.
The young Spanish knight went on with his report. "There is more and far worse, however. They have armed all of the indios with a new kind of arquebus—shorter, lighter, probably of a small bore, but much better suited to warfare in these forests, as it does not require a rest of any sort—and they regularly drill them in the clearing between the village and the river."
"They have provided the accursed, pagan indios with firearms and are drilling them in their proper use, Don Felipe?" Abdullah looked stunned, felt that way, as well. For a hundred, maybe two hundred years or more it had been an unspoken, unwritten compact between all the Europeans that, hard pressed as they might become in their wars here, none of them would ever give or sell the indios firearms or ever allow them to learn the use of them. Such few of the pagans as had ever acquired firearms had, by common white sentiment, been hunted down, dispossessed of the forbidden weapons, and summarily killed in such ways as to make a lasting impression upon their fellow pagans. Such a breach of faith as this local business entailed must require him to dispatch a letter and a strong escort for the messenger downriver on the morrow, for the royal governor must know as soon as was possible.
"It is as I have said, Capitàn," said Don Felipe. "But the truly unbelievable things I have not yet told, and . . ."
"Never mind, never mind, Don Felipe," said Abdullah hurriedly. "I am certain that you did all a knight could, and more, as is your habit. Look you, man, I must immediately set to drafting a letter to the governor detailing this nasty business of interlopers, illegal excommunicant trespassers on the lands of His Majesty, so flagrantly disregarding hoary agreements and teaching the use of firearms and, for all that any of us here know, even cannon to the savage, pagan indios. Such a despicable practice simply cannot be allowed to continue, it must be scotched here and now, else . . . well, who among us can know or even guess what calamities may ensue?"
"I'll take the rest of your report immediately the messenger and his guards and oarsmen are away downriver. Until then, compañero, take that skin of wine with you and get some rest—you look to be in need of such."
"Man, you're just as crazy as fucking shit, you know that?" yelped Mike Vranian when Arsen had outlined his plan. "You've heard those fucking Indians, the ones that came over to us from the other side. It's something like a hundred of them Spanish on that fucking island, Arsen, they're all carrying guns and a whole lots of them have armor and they've built a fort and it has cannons, big fuckers, and they got more Indians just as big and mean as these that left them, too. Buddy, it ain't but twelve of us, including the cun . . . ahh, the girls, and it's only less than thirty bucks in all we got to our name. And you want us to attack them on their fucking island? Hell, we'd stand to be fucking creamed if they attacked us here, despite those fucking flying coffins you and the Ayrab and Greg and Lisa take turns playing with. Man, you need your fucking head examined, is what you need! Either that or a fucking machine gun."
"We've got two of those," stated Arsen soberly.
"Where?" Mike Vranian, Greg Sinclair, and Mike Sikeena half-shouted almost together.
"Well hidden, along with the ammo for them," replied Arsen. "Both ready to mount on the PCs when the time comes, but with ground mounts too, in case we need them to defend this place."
"What's thishere about PCs, Arsen?" demanded Vranian, "armored personnel carrier type PCs? Why didn't nobody fucking tell me, huh? I drove them fuckers in the Corps—ask Greg, he'll tell you."
Arsen nodded. "He did, and that's why we didn't tell you, Mikey. Unlike Uncle Sam, we don't have an unlimited supply of PCs available for drunken or hopped-up joyriding. You wreck or deadline one of these, buddy, and I will personally deadline you. You savvy?"
He continued to stare coldly into Vranian's eyes until the man dropped his gaze. Then Arsen went on detailing his plans for taking the island and freeing the captive Indians from out the Spanish slave pen.
"Soaring Eagle has made us a damned good freehand sketch of the layout of things on that island; he's got real artistic talent, that young fellow. So, to start off, after it's dark, whatever night we decide on to do it, Mike Sikeena and Lisa and me, we're going to fly down there in the carriers and blow up most of their gunpowder, set fire to the palisades of their fort and to the carriages of their bigger cannons. Then, while the fuckers are all—hopefully—running around like chickens with their heads cut off, I'm going to ground my carrier inside the slave pen and calibrate the Class Five and start explaining to the Indians how I'm going to free them all."
"If nothing else," commented Greek John, "you and that carrier glowing greenish in the dark ought to impress the living hell out of those savages. Hell, you'll be lucky if there're any of them who haven't run and hid to listen to you, Arsen."
Arsen shook his head. "I think you underestimate all of the Indians, John. Yes, they're primitive, but they're most of them far from stupid."
"But to get back to our plans here, there's a long, narrow bay just a little upstream from the island and the two PCs will have been in it from just before the attack of the carriers. Mikey, you and Al will be driving them. Greg will be your vehicle commander and machine gunner, Mikey; you'll also have Simon, Soaring Eagle, and seven of his braves aboard. Al will have Haigh, Swift Otter and five of his braves, plus two more of Soaring Eagle's boys."
"When everything is hopping on the island and while Lisa stays up over it and covers my ass with her carrier, Mike Sikeena will fly up to that bay, ground his carrier, put the helmet inside it, and use the Class Three projector to send it back here, to the village, then Kitty Hutchinson will get in it and fly back to the bay and give you guys air support to the island. Mike will've taken over as commander of the waterborne assault group, vehicle commander of the Number Two PC and machine gunner on it, like Greg."
"Even as slow as those fuckers are in the water, you'll both be moving with the current most of the way, so it shouldn't take you long to get there . . . it better fucking not, because those are pretty sharp troops there, and if they manage to get things in hand and get organized, our ass could wind up in a deep crack, despite all we got going for us."
"The PCs have been painted a dark, dull brown, so if anybody does see them in the river, maybe they'll think they're just big tree trunks floating down . . . I hope and pray they do, anyway."
"That fort is our biggest worry, so I want both of the PCs to hit it, first off. Soaring Eagle says the bottom shelves real easy along the riverside of the fort and is solid, too, no muck on it, so you ought to be able to roll right onto the bank and bu
ild up a good head of steam by the time you hit the palisade there. With any kind of luck, the logs will be at least weakened by the fires the carriers started, so you shouldn't have much trouble just busting through them."
Chewing thoughtfully on a thumbnail, Al asked, "What about the ditch and the mound these kind of forts have, Arsen? You know, these here one-thirteens can't go over anything higher than about two foot or cross a ditch wider than about five. It ain't like they was SPs or tanks, you know."
"How the hell would you know, babykins?" demanded Mike Vranian scornfully. "When Greg and me was in the Corps in Nam you still was asking the fucking teacher could you please go wee-wee."
Al bristled. "No, you dumbass ex-jarhead scab-sucker, I wasn't in Vietnam learning how to burn up little kids like you was. But 'fore we all came on this here fun-filled pleasure trip, I'd been driving self-propelled guns in the National Guard Field Artillery for going on two years."
"You're a shit-kicking pencil-pusher?" sneered Vranian. "Well, little boy, it ain't nobody here to change your diapers for you, and that's what you're gonna sure as hell need after one them fucking spies shoot at you and you hear a cannonball bounce off your fucking PC, so you better carry you all the extra pants you can find."
Al looked at his tormentor coldly. "Oh, you mean the Marines have personnel along to change their didies for them whenever somebody scares the shit out of them, Mikey?"
Abruptly, Vranian came to his feet, both fists clenched, his face fire-red and a tic jerking one side of it. "You little smartass motherfucker, you! It's time somebody fucking taught you some fucking respect for the fucking Marine Corps, you fucking asshole! Stand up! Stand up or I'll fucking kick your fucking face in where you sit!"
Rose Yacubian snickered. "You can sure dish it out, Mikey, but you sure can't take it yourself."
Turning his head, Vranian snarled, "Aw, shut your whorehole, you slimy, prick-teasing cunt!"
During the side exchange, Al had arisen, kicked off his shoes, and was standing calmly, relaxed, his arms folded on his chest. Greg took but one look at him, then knocked one of Mike Vranian's legs from under him, pinning the man down even as he fell.
Hissing in a near-whisper, his lips close to Vranian's ear, he said, "You dumb, fist-happy shit! Last time should've taught you better than to go picking fights with Al. Or are you looking to have him kick in some more ribs for you, huh? You one these crazy fucking fuckers is just into pain, Mikey?"
"Well, dammit to fucking hell, Greg," Vranian half-whined, "it ain't fair. Nobody should oughta be let to use that damn slope-head karatty shit, anyway. They oughta make 'em all stand up and take their fucking lumps like a fucking man."
Dryly, Arsen said, "If playtime is over, and I hope to hell it is, there still is this trifling little matter of an amphibious assault and battle to consider."
"Once inside the fort, it's going to be up to the machine gunners to first clear the corner platforms of gun crews, if any of the big cannon are still operable, that is. That done, shoot first at any groups you can see, then at anything that shoots back or moves. Not until you've killed or wounded or chased out most of the Spanish do I want our two squads to dismount. That way there'll be less chance of an accident in the dark."
"While all of this is going on, meanwhile, Rose and Helen will have been putting things in order here for the arrival of the slaves that I—hopefully—will have been projecting up here a couple of dozen at the batch. Squash Woman says that all of the small groups along this river speak slightly differing dialects of the same basic language, so communication with them should be no problem, once they're here."
"One thing, though. You all know what Indians of Soaring Eagle's kind look like by now, so try not to kill them if you can help it. We could use as many of them as we can get to come over to us. All of these we've got here now are smart boys, quick learners, and we better remember that we may have to fight again in daylight and, possibly, against more men than are on that island."
He did not then know just how prophetic were his words.
Lisa Peters lingered after the others had departed the squad tent for their wigwams. "Arsen, how much of this all have you thought out? Soaring Eagle and Sky-blue Bear give different estimates, but any way you cut it, there are at least seventy men and women in that slave pen. I think you mean to try to persuade them all to stay here, in this place, along with as many of the southern warriors as you can attract away from the slavers. If so, what in God's name are they all going to eat? This isn't really rich country hereabouts—that's why the slavers chose this stretch of river for their hellish operations, because the Indian groups are small, vulnerable, and spread out widely. Or do you mean to just keep stealing beef and frozen turkeys from wherever you've been stealing them and projecting them in?"
Looking a little hurt, he replied, "Honey, you got me wrong. I didn't steal the food for Squash Woman and her folks, or for us, either; I left pure gold in place of it, every scrap of it, the beer, too. Yes, I stole most of the weapons, but that was all. I left gold or silver to pay for everything else."
"This country, yeah, I know all about it, from Squash Woman and some of the others, too. Except for a narrow stretch right on the river, and not all of that, it's too fucking rocky to do even their kind of farming, and it's not all that much game around, either; most the meat they used to get was fish and frogs and snakes and muskrats. And it's even worse away from the river, they tell me, too, that's why don't no Indians live there, just go in to hunt and bring the game back to where they do live."
"That's one reason I don't mean to let the folks stay here, honey. The other reason is, of course, if we beat the slavers and drive them off that island, you can bet your a . . . you can bet they'll be back sooner or later with a lot more men and guns and all. I read them for being a stubborn bunch that don't spook easy."
"Where do you mean to go, assuming that you can talk the Indians into going anywhere with you?" asked Lisa dubiously. "Not toward the seacoast, surely. The Indians say that the farther east you go, the more whiteskins there are on the land."
"No, honey." Arsen shook his head. "I been scouting around in my carrier and I think I've found a perfect place to resettle all these folks and as many more as come in to join us. Those mountains in the west out there, well, beyond them and the foothills west of them is a really beautiful stretch of country, rolling country, lots of it open and full of game. Not many real rivers, but lots of small streams and springs."
"And just what do you think is going to be the reaction of the Indians already resident in this happy hunting ground to this invasion you mean to lead?" demanded Lisa.
"That's part of the reason I think this would be perfect, honey," he replied. "There aren't any Indians over there—I couldn't even find where any had been. In fact, the only trace of any kind of humans is up in the last of the western foothills, and I don't think they were Indians, not unless Indians have took to building in stone."
"Stone, Arsen? What do you mean?"
"Stone, honey, worked stone, but real old, too, with big trees grown right through some of them. I didn't realize what I was seeing the first couple times I flew over, but then I thought about it and figgered they were too regular to be natural, so I went over real low and real slow and finally landed. The most of them look like they're foundations of some kind, mostly round but some square or rectangular, too. It's thirty or forty of them spread out over maybe twenty-five acres, the bigger ones all on the tops of low hills with the smaller ones all around them. The very biggest one looks like it was built all or almost all of stone, seems to be in better shape than any of the others, and is at the top of the highest hill. It seems to be a round tower, but if it has a door or windows, I couldn't find them, and after I spotted a couple big rattlesnakes, I didn't really poke around too much, either."
"And that's not all, honey. From up in the sky, you can see the marks of old crop fields and old fence lines, too, out on the level ground west and north of the ruins."
"Well, if it's been farmed before, then it can be farmed again." Lisa nodded. "And you say there's a lot of game, too?"
"All kinds, honey, big 'uns and little 'uns," he assured her, "As I flew over, every time I flew over, it looked like deer everyplace I looked, and buffalo, too, honey, at least one herd of them. There're some really big deer—look just like them except a lot bigger—a few small herds of horses, and . . ."
"Then white men must have been there, Arsen, because the native American horses all became extinct long before even the Indians got on the scene," she informed him.
But he shook his head again. "I knew all about that before you told me, honey, ah ain't uneddicated. But those horses are just the beginning, over there. I saw elephants, honey, elephants with long, brownish-colored hair and unbelievable tusks, a rhinoceros, and some really humongous cats that looked a little bit like lions but too fucking big to be lions or tigers or any other kind of a cat I've ever seen anywhere."
She regarded him with sincere concern. "Arsen . . . ahh, Arsen, did you maybe pick up something stronger than beer the last time you sto . . . bought food?"
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
"It was long, long ago," said Squash Woman, "in the time of my grandmother's grandmother's great-great-grandmother, that the folk came over the mountains from that land, Arsen. I heard old tales of that land when I was very, very young. Yes, it is indeed a good, rich, bountiful land."
"Then, Mother, why did the folk leave it for this less rich land?" Lisa asked respectfully.
Squash Woman sighed. "It was the monsters, Ilsa Brighthair. The monsters in beast form and, worse, the monsters in man form, ancient and significantly evil spirits. After the Old Ones left that land, there were none of our folk who could control the monsters, so all had to either leave and live or stay and die."
"Who were these Old Ones, Mother? Were their skins white?" asked Lisa. "How did they control these monsters? When did they leave the land, and why?"
