Collective Retribution

by Edwards, D. S.

  He heard a helicopter fly low over the house. There was a knock on his door.

  “Come in!”

  The aide with the handprints on his face came back into the room and bowed low. “General Scheper landed. He wishes to speak with you.”

  Edzard Scheper was the U.C.’s top general, in charge of the U.C. Central Command. He’d replaced the former top general of the U.S. Central Command after Hartley had him executed, along with the vice president and several members of Hartley’s former cabinet, for insubordination.

  Hartley waved his hand as if swatting a fly. “Send him in.”

  His aide backed out. A short time later, General Scheper entered.

  “Do you mind telling me what is happening out there, general?” Hartley said. “It seems like everything is falling apart. We have people with the nerve to attack us in Boise, Idaho, and I’ve been hearing reports of communities actually holding elections for new mayors, town councils, and sheriffs. If you can’t handle your job, general, then I will have you removed and find someone who can.”

  General Scheper bowed low with a flourish. “I am sorry, Mr. President. We are trying to determine where the attack originated. I can assure you, when we find out who was responsible for orchestrating this act of rebellion, they will be dealt with. We have an entire battalion on their way to Boise now to regain control of the situation.”

  “What about the southern border?” Hartley said. “What’s happening there? Have you managed to negotiate a ceasefire with the Meta cartel?”

  “We are close to reaching a deal. Carlos Montoya is asking for Texas, if he fights for us.”

  “Texas? Texas? Why not throw in Arizona and New Mexico while we’re at it?”

  “Texas is a wasteland, sir. There is no one still living there. What should I counteroffer?”

  “Tell Mr. Montoya he can have south Texas, from Austin down, but if they cross into the panhandle again, our treaty is canceled, and we will throw everything we have at making sure he and his little army are nothing but a memory. We need to stop the fighting down south so we can redeploy those resources to the west. This rebellion needs to be stopped before it takes hold!”

  “Yes sir, Mr. President. I will leave immediately.” Scheper bowed and turned to leave.

  “Before you go, general, I have one more thing. I need you to find the two best English-speaking men you have, preferably ones who can talk like a redneck. Get them to the Northwest. Get them horses and hunting rifles. I want them to see what they can find out. Make sure they have radios and have them check in every few days. I want to know who is pushing this rebellion and I want to know soon.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  A few minutes later, Hartley heard Scheper’s chopper lift off and swing back toward the Rockies. Hartley rubbed his temples, swirled the wine in his glass, and took a deep sniff. He took a sip and yelled out the door.

  “Mandi! Oh Mandi, where are you, my little pet?”

  The chief serving girl, Becky, came in and bowed. “Mandi has gone to tend to a scratched face, sir. Would you like me to send someone to get her?”

  “No, Becky my dear, you will do.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Becky closed the door to Hartley’s sitting room, sat beside him on the couch, and unbuttoned her uniform as the palace fell silent. He reached for her roughly and grunted, “Yessireee Bob, it is good to be the president.”

  Mandi sulked in her shed behind the palace. Her quarters weren’t much, but they were hers. None of the servants was allowed to stay in the palace. Several crude sheds had been set up on the grounds inside the tree line behind the palace where President Hartley would not have to look at them.

  She washed her face, looked in the mirror, and with trembling fingertips touched the swollen red scratches on her soft skin. Her father had taught her to never hate anyone, but she couldn’t help herself. She hated Richard Hartley. She hated him with every fiber of her being. She lay down on her thin foam mat and pulled thick blankets over her. The shed didn’t have any heat, and the wind whistled through the thin plywood walls. She curled up in a ball and cried, thinking about her family.

  They’d been taken from their farm near Grand Junction in the early spring, just as the fields had been harrowed and the first blades of bright green grass were starting to break through the black rich Colorado soil. Soldiers came in without warning and tore their house apart, looking for guns. They found her father’s hunting rifles and shotguns, and beat him senseless while she and her mother were forced to watch. The troops then raped the women repeatedly. When it was all over, they were taken into custody and delivered to the palace. President Hartley himself came out to inspect his new slaves. He pointed to the ones he wanted to keep. The others were taken away. Hartley walked down the line, randomly pointing, until he got to Mandi. A wicked smile formed on his lips. “You,” he said, “will serve me alone.”

  He touched her face. Her father broke out of the line and rushed at Hartley. Her father wasn’t much of a threat. He could hardly stand after the beating, let alone be able to injure the president. Richard Hartley stepped aside as her father lunged for him. Her father fell to the ground. The president pulled a pistol out of one of his soldier’s holsters, walked up to her father, placed the barrel against his head, and pulled the trigger. Her father’s blood splashed onto the president’s face. He took a white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his silk Italian suit and unceremoniously wiped it away.

  Her mother screamed and ran for the body of her father. The president turned and shot her in the face as she passed by. He pointed at Mandi and shouted to his men, “Clean her up and bring her to me. No one lays a hand on her. She is mine and mine alone!”

  Mandi fell asleep with her tears drying on her scratched face. Forty-five minutes later, she awoke to someone knocking on the door of her shack. She opened the door to Becky smiling down at her.

  Becky reached out and stroked Mandi’s hair. “Oh, sweetie, I am so sorry. Did he do that to you?”

  “No, it was his wife.”

  “He has to be stopped. I want to kill him so bad I can taste it. Some of us have been talking. We all want this to end.”

  Mandi started to cry again. Becky put her arms around her and rocked her gently. All of the servants were abused. They had all entertained fantasies of poisoning his food, or stabbing him and hiding his body. They were all scared and unwilling to take action. He had them all controlled with fear. If they tried to poison his food, it wouldn’t work. He had servants whose only job was to sample his food and drinks to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. She remembered learning about people like that in Sunday school. Her teacher had called them “cupbearers.”

  Becky held Mandi for several minutes until Mandi fell back asleep. Becky covered her up well and quietly slipped out the door. She walked to her shed, the anger and hate burning in her like a torch.

  He has to be stopped. One day there would be a breach in his security, a small window of opportunity. She would watch, and she would wait until it happened, and then she would end his miserable life.

  36

  PIOCHE, NEVADA

  JUNE 5

  DEBBIE AND JAKE RODE INTO THE SMALL TOWN OF PIOCHE ASthe sun began to sink in front of them. They’d been riding hard since they left Arizona, only stopping a few hours a night to sleep. They hadn’t come across planes, helicopters, or soldiers since they left New Mexico. The only people they’d seen were on the rare occasions when someone ducked into a farmhouse as they rode by. The pair would have arrived in Nevada sooner, but they’d had to detour around Salt Lake City. The evidence of a nuclear explosion was impossible to miss. The vegetation was dying. There were no birds in the sky or animals of any kind. Debbie decided to avoid the whole area. They’d turned south and ridden fifty miles out of their way to bypass the destruction.

  Pioche was a nice change of pace. Debbie was fascinated by the abandoned ghost town and its old mining equipment. Her Uncle Levi used to tell h
er stories about Pioche. His great uncle was a hard rock miner who’d lived there. Levi often visited the thriving little community when he was very young. Debbie never tired of his stories about life in the Old West.

  “Fish so thick in the streams, you could walk across their backs,” he would say.

  Debbie smiled. It sure would be good to see him and Aunt Michelle again. Four or five weeks and they would be there, if nothing went wrong.

  They made camp in the shadow of an old ore dump and built a fire in a rusty rail car. The stars were beautiful. She and Jake lay on their backs, watching them for hours before falling asleep.

  They left Pioche just as the sun was coming up behind them and rode most of the day without stopping. They’d finally gotten used to the saddles—they weren’t as uncomfortable as they’d been in the beginning.

  Late in the afternoon, they started climbing into the Sierras. The air was warm and smelled sweet from blooming sagebrush. They rode up a rocky slope and followed the edge of a canyon for several miles. Debbie spotted a bighorn sheep sunning itself on the rocks.

  What a beautiful, peaceful day, she thought.

  The peace was shattered by the sound of gunfire and men yelling.

  Debbie and Jake reined their horses in, tucked them back into the brush, and crept on foot to the edge of the canyon. At the bottom, on an old highway, about fifty U.C. troops were pinned down by several men on horseback in the cover of rocks above the road.

  The men attacking the troops weren’t Mexican like those she’d seen before. Their shouts were in English, and they fought in an organized manner. She wasn’t sure if this new force was friendly or hostile like the Mexican gangs she’d encountered. Yet the fact that they spoke English and were taking a toll on the brutal men who’d killed her friends gave her hope that these men could help her and Jake. If nothing else, maybe they could shed some light on what had happened to America. When this was over, she decided, she would try to make contact with them.

  The fight lasted for about twenty minutes. When almost all of the U.C. troops had been killed or wounded, two of them broke away and scrambled up the hill toward where Jake and Debbie were hiding. Debbie pushed Jake into the dirt. They lay flat against the hill, hoping the soldiers wouldn’t come close enough to see them.

  The gunfire ceased. Debbie could hear the men on horseback talking. A branch snapped. She looked up in time to see one of the U.C. soldiers crest the hill fifteen feet away. He saw her at the same instant.

  Debbie shoved Jake down the hill and dove into the brush behind her. A bullet ripped into the greenery beside her. She screamed out and ran toward their horses. How could she have been so stupid? She never should have left her weapons on the horses. The soldier ran after her, spraying the trees around her with bullets.

  She made it to the horses. Debbie dove over the top of the first one, grabbing her shotgun out of the scabbard in midair. She hit the ground and rolled, pain shooting through her back.

  She came to rest on her stomach, shotgun raised. The soldier was only five feet away, on the other side of the horse. She fired between the legs of her horse.

  The full load of double-aught buckshot caught him in the center of his chest, blowing his heart and other internal organs out of the two-foot hole now in his back. The impact knocked him back five feet. He crumpled to the ground.

  Jake screamed. Debbie ran toward where she’d thrown him. She crested the hill. The other U.C. soldier stood behind Jake, holding a pistol to his head, twenty feet below her.

  Some of the men on horseback reached the top of the hill. The soldier shouted at them: “Nyet!”

  He stood trembling, fear in his eyes, like a cornered bobcat. He shouted again and gestured, indicating he wanted everyone to drop their weapons or he’d shoot Jake. The men on horseback complied and threw their weapons on the ground in a pile.

  Debbie looked Jake in the eye and nodded slightly, wanting him to drop to the ground. He didn’t seem to understand. She set her shotgun on the ground and stood to her full height. “It’s okay,” she said to the soldier. “Let’s just take it easy, let the boy go, and you can walk out of here.”

  The soldier’s trigger finger twitched. He started backing up, shouted again: “Nyet!”

  Debbie couldn’t understand him, but she sensed his desperation. Maybe he couldn’t understand her either.

  “Your people are dumb,” she said in a soothing tone. “Your mom was a fat old goat.”

  The Russian didn’t react. He continued to back away, holding Jake.

  Debbie spoke again in the same reassuring manner. She held out her left hand, palm up. “It’s okay, Jake,” she said, her eyes on the soldier. “When I tell you, I need you to go limp and fall to the ground. Relax and lift your legs off the ground.”

  Her eyes flicked to Jake’s. His showed a fresh dose of terror—but not disobedience.

  “Now,” she said softly.

  Debbie, her left hand still out, suddenly reached behind her back with the right and snatched a throwing knife from her belt. At the same time, Jake went down. Her right hand flashed forward.

  The short blade turned over once and lodged in the man’s Adams apple before Jake hit the dirt. The Russian dropped his pistol and grabbed for his throat. His blood shot out of his throat in a hot red river, oozing between his fingers and staining the front of his uniform. His frightened eyes became vacant. He dropped on top of Jake in a lifeless heap, the blood continuing to drain from him.

  Jake screamed. Debbie rushed over and tore the man away from her son. She helped Jake up. He stood stiffly, staring at nothing. The only color on his face was the bright red blood that had splashed on it. Debbie took off her shirt and wiped the blood away from her little man’s face.

  One of the other men came up to her and started to speak. Debbie held up her hand, cutting him off. She realized she was standing in front of strange men in a bra that wasn’t doing a very good job of covering her upper half. She walked to her horse, retrieved a fresh shirt, and put it on. She returned to the men and held out her hand. “My name is Debbie Nirschell,” she said, “and this is my son, Jake.”

  The men all shook their hands. One said, “Did you say your last name is—”

  Debbie felt Jake tugging at her shirt. She held up her hand again and bent down to let Jake whisper in her ear. “I peed my pants, Mom,” he said.

  Debbie smiled at her son and whispered back. “I’m sure no one noticed. I’ll make up an excuse for you, and you can go back behind the horses and put on some clean clothes.”

  She winked at him and mussed his hair as he walked away, then smiled at the man who’d spoken. “I’m sorry, what was your question?”

  “I was asking if your last name is Nirschell.”

  Debbie thought this man was incredibly good looking. Six feet tall, thick black hair, broad shoulders, and a warm smile that lit his whole face and made his translucent eyes twinkle. She glanced at the ring finger on his left hand—empty, and no tan line from a wedding band. She mentally scolded herself. She hadn’t thought about any man romantically since her husband had died.

  “Yes, Debbie Nirschell from Austin, Texas, at your service.”

  The man smiled. “This may seem like a strange question, but there can’t be too many people with your last name. Are you by chance related to Levi Nirschell from Seneca, Oregon?”

  “He’s my uncle.”

  The man shook her hand again, his smile causing her to blush.

  “How do you know my uncle?” Debbie said. “That’s where my son and I are headed, to his ranch in Seneca.”

  “We’re here because of your uncle. He’s the reason anybody is fighting back.”

  Debbie raised her hands, palms up. “What are you fighting back from? I spent three months locked in a basement. I’m a little out of the loop here.”

  “When’s the last time you guys ate?”

  “We had some dried venison a few hours ago.”

  “If you and your boy will come b
ack to camp with us, we’ll feed you a decent meal and I’ll explain everything the best I can.”

  “Well, I don’t know where camp is, but a real meal sounds fantastic. We haven’t had anything but dried venison and water for a week.”

  They followed the man down to the road and climbed into an armored vehicle. “A couple of the boys will bring your horses along,” the man said.

  Jake spoke up from the backseat. “If they ride Blazer, tell them they should rub his fur in front of the saddle, he likes that. Don’t yell at him or he’ll get scared. He likes to run on flat spots, but it’s okay to walk on the hills. Tell them to tell him I’m still his boy, and I will see him later, otherwise he might get scared.”

  Debbie smiled at the man and thought, Jake’s doing it again. If I don’t jump in, he’ll talk this guy to death. Before she could say a word, however, the guy looked over his shoulder, smiled at Jake, and said, “I’ll make sure they take really good care of him. It sounds like you and Blazer have become good friends.”

  “Yeah, he’s the best,” Jake said. “I named him Blazer cause of my horse that Aunt Michelle got for me.”

  Jake reached into his pocket and held out the dirty, chipped toy for the man to see.

  “Say … that’s a fine lookin’ animal there. Hello Blazer, it’s nice to meet you.” The man reached out a hand and made a show of petting the plastic pony.

  Not only was this guy great looking, he was great with Jake. Debbie felt a strange tingle inside.

  Jake smiled a mile wide. “He says it’s nice to meet you to. He asked me to ask what your name is.”

  “My name’s Sam Carson.”

  Debbie silently rolled the name around on her tongue. Sam Carson, m-m-m. The name tasted sweet, like honey still in the comb.

  Twenty minutes later, their little convoy of newly acquired vehicles broke out of the canyon into a lush, narrow valley. Several hundred tents surrounded a host of cooking fires. As they pulled up to camp, the men and women nearby greeted them with a cheer.