Stormer’s Pass: Aidos Trilogy: Book 1

by Benjamin Laskin

  “It’s amazing, though, isn’t it?” Katie wondered aloud.

  “What’s that?” Dawn asked.

  “All these other kids here,” she said. “There are so many. Most of them I’ve never even seen before. Why did they come? Who are we to them?”

  “And why do they stay?” Steve said. “Look at them. They’re as committed as we are. They know the consequences. They could save themselves. It’s not too late. But here they are.”

  “Doesn’t anyone know what’s happened to Aidos?” Katie asked.

  The youths shrugged in turn and shook their heads with regret.

  Randy said, “I dream about her sometimes.”

  “Don’t we all,” Cheek said with mock lechery.

  “I mean, really,” Randy said. “She’s in my dreams a lot.”

  “Mine too,” Dawn said. “Brandon, you told me you dreamt about Aidos once.”

  “More than once,” he confessed. “I didn’t want you to get jealous.”

  “I’m not jealous,” she said.

  “You would be if you saw my dreams,” he joked. He winked and clicked his gums.

  Regina and Steve turned to one another questioningly. Steve shrugged, defenseless. “I couldn’t help it.”

  “I dreamt of her too,” Katie said. “That’s why I came back. It was too vivid to ignore.”

  “Not again,” Regina moaned, nodding toward an approaching reporter. It was the young stringer with The Weekly Glitch. “Don’t they ever give up?”

  The reporter raised his hands in a gesture of peace and halted a few feet away from the circle of friends. His manner demonstrated that he was aware that he was trespassing, and that he had no intention to badger them.

  “Hi,” he said awkwardly. “I, ah…I just came from the other side there and I know they’re about to come with the tear gas. And, well…you already know that.” He cleared his throat. “Maybe it doesn’t matter to you, but there are a lot of people watching what’s happening here. You’d be surprised. Everybody’s surprised. Across the country kids are taking to the streets in your support. Social media is going berserk. A spontaneous explosion, you might say. It’s, well—weird.” He turned and pointed toward the mountain of rubbish. “Those things are popping up all over the place. No one here knows what you’re up to, but it seems there are a lot of other people who do. Anyway, I just wanted to…to wish you good luck. That’s all.” He turned and strolled off.

  “That’s a change,” Regina said.

  “Did you hear that?” Cheeks said. “All over the country.”

  “What do you think it is?” Brandon asked, addressing no one in particular.

  “Well,” Katie said, “why should we be the only ones who are angry?”

  “I figured no one else cared,” Regina said.

  Dawn said, “Everybody has a conscience.”

  “Still,” Steve said, “it surprises the hell out of me.”

  “Uh-oh, Katie,” Sid said. “Look who’s coming.”

  Jack Austin, his face fixed in no-nonsense resolve, strutted towards them. His sport coat ballooned in the wind and his tie was blown over his shoulder.

  “Oh, crap,” she said.

  “Katie!” he shouted, pulling up beside her. “Not a word. You’re coming with me right now.”

  “You’re wrong, Dad. I’m staying.”

  “No daughter of mine is going to humiliate herself like this. Now, come on—” He grabbed Katie’s arm and yanked her to her feet. Beowulf, who was lying on the ground beside her, leaped to all fours and growled menacingly up at Mr. Austin, teeth bared. Her father recoiled in horror, dropping Katie’s arm.

  “It’s okay, Beowulf,” Katie said. She stroked the big dog’s thick, furry neck.

  “Damn dog,” Mr. Austin muttered. “What a circus. Come on, Katie. In another minute, they’ll be lobbing tear gas at you. Be sensible.”

  “I’m not leaving. You’re wasting your time.”

  “I notice April and Patty aren’t here. They obviously know better. Why don’t you follow their example—not these miscreants.”

  The two names were still hanging in the air when April and Patty jogged up. They had been tending wounded elsewhere. The others greeted them with a salvo of cheers.

  Jack Austin shook his head in disgust. “What about college, Katie?” he asked, furious.

  “What about it?”

  “Do you still plan on attending?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you’d better get up. Because if you don’t, you’re going to have a hard time finding a way to pay for it.”

  “I’ll find a way,” she said confidently.

  “Yeah, right,” her father scoffed. “How? You’ve never worked a day in your life.”

  “My mistake,” she said. “But beginning right now, right here, I’m taking full responsibility for my life.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re going to throw away your whole life for…this?”

  “By ‘this’ I plan to save what I haven’t already squandered.”

  “People,” boomed the commander’s voice. “In exactly one minute, we are lobbing gas and coming in. There will be no more warnings.” He spoke the words with weary finality.

  “Katie,” her father said desperately.

  “You’d better leave, Dad. It sounds like they mean business.”

  “For Chrissakes, Katie, of course they mean business! This isn’t a game. Now come on!” He made another move to drag her off and again Beowulf scared him back.

  Katie shook her head no and sat back down. “Don’t worry,” she said, “ten years from now, you’ll think it was all just a bad dream.”

  “Don’t count on it,” he retorted. He turned and huffed off.

  Long, spindly whips of lightning lashed and shredded the sky. Thunder rumbled like herds of stampeding bison through the valley. Beowulf ran and bucked in excited circles, barking and howling at the heavens. An immense, electric web dropped abruptly from the sky and draped the town, as if fetching it up in a net. Another round of booming thunder rocked the mountains. The first drops of rain began to fall. The commander raised his arm to signal the attack.

  Steve stood and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Here we go again,” he shouted. “Everybody hit the dirt!”

  The army of youths flung themselves to the ground.

  As the commander was about to signal the attack, the sky heaved in a tremendous electromagnetic spasm. Out of the convulsion shot a lone bolt of lightning. It uncoiled like a harpoon and darted for the heart of town. The bolt slammed into the flagpole that crowned the jumbled mountain of refuse. For several long seconds, Pinecrest and the heavens were fused together by a single, wild, blinding arc of light. The mountain glowed with the pulsing phosphorescence of a thousand resurrected light-emitting diodes. Electronic speakers cackled in a cryptic fury of white noise, and died. Oily rivulets of fire trickled down the sides of the melting, shrinking mountain.

  The soldiers, who had pancaked to the ground, their hands laced over their heads, looked up from where they lay. The incandescent mountain had gone dark, but for the lambent, yellow tongues of flame that danced at the edges of a spreading pool of molten plastic. The air reeked with the pungency of petrochemical oxidation, and dense clouds of smoke rolled off the viscous lake like waves of black fog.

  Nobody got up. Nobody moved.

  The wind shifted, picked up the smoke, and fanned it out across the town.

  Then, from behind the burning ooze, smoke swirling around them, emerged Aidos and Max sitting high and knightly on the back of the shiny black Bucephalus, their hair streaming in the wind. Guardsmen, reporters, onlookers, and youths alike, rubbed their smoke-reddened eyes, and blinked in disbelief.

  69

  Song of the Pioneers

  Bucephalus sauntered to where the commander lay sprawled on the ground, his hands still laced over his head. Max slid down from the horse and picked up the commander’s megaphone. He turned his back
to the troopers and walked toward the legion of youths. The mayor, Jack Austin, and Gary Webber stared on from above, mouths agape. Katie, Regina, Steve, Dawn, and the other Olympians exchanged glances of teary-eyed wonder. Max nodded toward the mountain’s congealing remains. He grinned and gave the thumbs-up. The youths sprang to their feet, cheering and hooting.

  “They told us you were dead,” someone called out.

  Max smiled. “If I’m dead then I highly recommend it, because I have never felt more alive in my life.”

  Another shouted, “They said you went over a cliff and drowned.”

  Max raised the megaphone to his mouth. “I went over a cliff, but it was no higher nor more treacherous than the one you all leaped from to be here.”

  The commander rose and hollered, “Nothing has changed. Max Stormer is under arrest and if he resists, he will be shot.” The steely clatter of scores of cocking rifles echoed across the square. The youths jeered and swore and waved angry fists. “You are all under arrest!” the commander declared.

  Unfazed by the commander’s threats, Max stood calm and composed. He raised the megaphone and addressed his compatriots.

  “He’s wrong. Everything has changed. You know it. I know it. And if no one else knows it, we keep on knowing it.” He pointed to the coagulating bog of incinerated merchandise. Then, swinging the megaphone, once, twice, three times over his head, he lobbed it skyward in a high-flying arc. The bullhorn bounced off the hard-baked tar pit and tumbled onto the courthouse lawn, where it came to rest with an indignant squelch. Max faced his compatriots. Through the wind and rain, he addressed them loudly and clearly…

  “Here is what you must do, all of you—go home. Return to your towns and to your mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers. Embrace them. Walk through the streets and gates and doorways with your heads held high. Avert your eyes from no one. Reject any rejection. Scorn any scorn. Be better than proud; be courageous. Be better than angry; be determined. Be better than words; be an example. Be what no one else possibly can—be yourselves.

  “It is no shame to be young. Do not allow yourselves to be intimidated. Hold tight to your enthusiasms, they are the stuff that makes life worth living. They are the wellspring of a central truth. Dreams will always seem foolish to people who haven’t the conviction and courage to realize them. Camarados, dream on!

  “Go. Return to your well-meaning towns and families. You too mean well. You too share in this great country’s freedoms. You too are free to learn, to think and speak truthfully, and to exercise that truth in your daily lives. Encourage one another. You know who you are now. Live simple and independent lives. Ask questions you can never answer. Set off to accomplish impossible tasks. That is the prescription for a fabulous and interesting life.

  “Leave. It’s a long walk home. Walk on, camarados, and take this thought with you: let us not take our lives too seriously. Not that. Never that. Doing so only leads to envy and despair. Leave your signs and slogans and blame behind. Leave, too, each and every hate-filled critic and the bigotry he rode in on. Integrity needs no explanation. Be grateful for your good fortunes, and seek to be deserving of them. The burden of the world is ours. Let’s not be grave about it, no matter how daunting the challenge, no matter how enormous the chore.

  “Laugh! Sing! Rejoice! You rogues, you scholars, you mountaineers. You explorers, you scouts, you sailors. You pioneers! You Americans!” He threw a clenched fist in the air and exclaimed, “Live deep, live real!”

  An army of fists punched the sky, “Live deep, live real!”

  The troopers turned to one another in bewilderment. Slowly, one by one, they looked to their commander for orders. Dozens of youths started walking nonchalantly toward them. The kids were dispersing. Should they let them go? The commander himself looked uncertain.

  “What about you, Max?” someone shouted.

  “Go on,” he waved assuredly. “I’ll be right behind you.” He strolled toward the commander and halted a few feet in front of him. He nodded.

  The commander squinted at Max, his expression more curious than angry. The lad was not whom he had imagined him to be. The man perceived an inexplicable gentleness about the youth, a saintly quality. The boy’s eyes were of the strongest and brightest blue: limpid, deep, and unflinching eyes; shrewd but guileless eyes that were full of sunshine. They shone with a mystical glint: the eyes of a prophet or sage.

  “I see you found the girl,” the commander said. “That ought to count for something.” He was surprised by his lack of hard feelings. He knew the boy was doomed, and he felt a little sorry about it.

  “Actually,” Max said, presenting his wrists for cuffing, “she found me.”

  The commander glanced over at the girl on the horse. A flock of youths had congregated around her. They were talking with her as they petted and admired the beautiful steed. He saw a great deal of affection being poured upon her. In her carriage he sensed a kind of nobility: something regal and queenly.

  The troopers, rifles still trained on the youths, waited for instructions. “Sir,” the second in command said, “the men are—”

  “Let them go,” he said.

  The soldier passed the word and the troopers stood at ease and let the youths filter through their ranks unmolested.

  70

  Arrows in the Night

  “Whew,” Mayor Fitch said. He heaved a sigh of relief. He was sitting on the windowsill, squinting through a pair of binoculars. “I think we lucked out, boys.”

  “What’s Stormer doing down there?” Gary Webber asked.

  “Looks like he’s turning himself in,” Fitch answered.

  Jack Austin said, “Let me see.”

  The mayor handed him the binoculars and retreated from the window. He felt satisfied, even victorious.

  “Damn dark,” Jack Austin said, sweeping the glasses up and down the square.

  “Mr. Mayor…?”

  Mayor Fitch turned and saw Sid, Mike, Alex, Randy and Jake. They had walked in unannounced.

  “Mr. Mayor,” Sid said, “we want you to know that we’re all going to pitch in and help clean up the town. It’s a mess.”

  “Damn right you are,” Fitch said. He was struck by what he thought was a brilliant idea, a face-saving compromise. “We let you kids off easy,” he said. “The deal is you have to make this place spotless.”

  “Don’t push it,” Jake said.

  “Listen here, sonny—”

  “No, you listen,” Jake said. “We’re not doing it for you or anyone in this room. We’re doing it for ourselves. It’s our town too. Pinecrest will never be cleaned up as long as you’re in office.” Without another word, the boys turned and walked out.

  “Little pricks,” Fitch muttered. He smirked. At least he knew what he was going to say. After all, they had Stormer now. The lost girl was back. The situation had been diffused without anyone getting killed, and the kids were going to clean up the mess. Perfect…

  “The hell!” Jack Austin blurted, frantically focusing the binoculars.

  “What is it?” Gary Webber said.

  “Come here, quick!”

  Webber rushed to the window and Austin handed him the binoculars. He pointed to the roof of the church across the town square. “It’s dark and my eyes aren’t so good, but there’s someone up there and I think he’s got a rifle.”

  “What?” Fitch said.

  Webber scanned and focused. “Holy crap, you’re right.”

  “What’s going on?” Fitch asked. “Who is it?”

  “Can’t tell… My God, I think he’s drawing a bead on Stormer!”

  “Just a minute, Sir,” Jason Brodie said, stepping up to the commander. He put a big, callused hand over Max Stormer’s wrists.

  The commander looked up at the tall, gray-bearded man in the greasy cowboy hat. With Brodie’s narrow, dark eyes, hawk nose, and large protruding Adam’s apple, the image of a vulture sprang to the commander’s mind.

  “Who are you?”

/>   “Jason Brodie.”

  “Well, Mr. Brodie, kindly remove your hand. You’re obstructing justice. That’s against the law, you know.”

  “I know what justice is,” he said. “Leave this boy be. He didn’t do nothin’.”

  “He did plenty.”

  “Jason—” Max protested.

  “Quiet, son,” Brodie said. “It’s okay.” He turned again to the commander. “This boy had nothing to do with that sabotage over at Moonridge. That was me. I did it.”

  “The hell you did,” the commander said. “Now move.”

  Jason Brodie fixed his eyes sternly on the commander. “I said I did it.”

  “Listen, old man, the court will decide that. He’s coming with me.”

  Brodie snatched the open cuffs from the commander and snapped one over his own wrist. The commander looked at the old cowboy as if Brodie were insane.

  “Fine, I’ll take you both in. Christ, this whole damn town is nuts.”

  Katie Austin ran up to Max and threw her arms around him. “Max!” she cried. She kissed him feverishly on the mouth. “I was so scared. Everything is going to be okay. You’ll see.”

  “I’ve missed you, Katie.”

  “Oh Max—” She squeezed him in her arms, her cheek pressed against his. She whispered into his ear, “Ricki and Samantha are safe. We got them out of town. They’re fine.”

  Max pulled away and looked into Katie’s moist eyes. A joyous smile lit his face. Katie nodded, confirming her words. He embraced her again.

  “Enough already,” the commander said. A clap of thunder burst overhead, followed by a gush of rain. “Aw, man. Cuff these two guys and let’s get the hell out of—”

  A sharp, powerful—bang!—cut off the commander. The sound was not thunder; it was the blast of a rifle.

  Max yelped and stumbled.

  “Everybody down!” the commander shouted.

  Katie screamed and reached for Max.

  “No, Katie!” he yelled. He shoved her to the ground. Another gunshot rang out. Max groaned again. His legs wobbled beneath him.