The Last President d-3

by John Barnes

  Very far away and faintly, she heard the distant boom of a Newberry Standard—you couldn’t mistake that sound for anything else. Another shot.

  Three more like a fast drumbeat.

  Screaming and shouting in the distance.

  Whatever it is, it’s starting.

  She tucked a soft cloth into her underwear, refastened her pants, patted her face once more with a cloth, poured her wash bucket into the toilet to flush it, and snuffed the candle.

  Patrols and sentries were running back and forth in the street, shouting to each other that they didn’t know what was going on. Hoping her blonde mane would serve as a pass, she sprinted for HQ, not sure—

  Shouts.

  Shots.

  Metal clashing on metal.

  Ahead of her, people were yelling and the words included “HQ!” and “The general!”

  A soldier blocked her way. “Mrs. Grayson, you’d better not go—”

  She dodged around him and sprinted into the office that still said 4H COMPETITION ADMINISTRATION on the door.

  Jeff Grayson lay sprawled, eyes and mouth wide open, across the desk. His throat was a gory mess, a hatchet still embedded there. One arm dangled toward the floor; the other lay by his side as if still reaching for his holster.

  Four other corpses: Oxford, Grayson’s XO, still clutched his pistol, but lay dead with a knife driven in through one eye. A messenger had had time to draw her pistol as well; her misshapen head was explained by the ax still in the hands of the one tribal, a young man in a black tunic and pants, whose forehead had been torn away; probably Oxford had shot him while he was chopping down the messenger.

  “We saw them, we chased them, they got in here before—” the soldier beside her was saying. When had he come in?

  “That’s all right.” Jenny reached out to Jeff’s face. In the movies you just press their eyelids down gently. Her fingers slipped over his lids and touched the drying surfaces of his eyes, so she pressed a little more firmly and pinched the lids shut; they stayed that way. It did help.

  “Get a messenger,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She gave Jeff one last long final look, then surprised herself by kissing his already-cooling cheek. “Bye, baby. Hope the next life brings you more peace than this one did. I’m sorry, I did promise we’d say goodbye, but I didn’t know you’d be going this soon.” It seemed terribly sad that now that he could never hurt her again, she was free to admit that she would miss him too.

  A messenger gasped in mid-salute.

  “Deputize two other messengers and let all the captains and Majors Pilkington and Selniss know that—”

  “Ma’am, Pilkington and Selniss have been assassinated and a bunch of captains and lieutenants as well.”

  Jenny became belatedly aware of how much shouting, screaming, and shooting, she had been hearing. She drew a deep breath. “Deputize all messengers. This message to every unit: Your highest surviving rank is now your commander, and if they haven’t assumed command yet, do it now. To the new commander, if you are on the line, back up slowly to the nearest position you’re sure you can defend. Coordinate with units on each side of you, remain in contact, do not allow a gap. All units not on the line right now, have them do”—she gestured—“I don’t know the word for it, a slow outward spiral, say clockwise on the map for consistency, from wherever they are till they reach the line. Kill any Daybreaker they find inside the lines, no prisoners, no time for it. Spiral outward, make sure they cover all the ground. When they get to the line, find the nearest… joint, connection, whatever, between two units on the line, and fill in behind to close it up.

  “Exceptions to that: nearest company to the hospital, secure the hospital; nearest two companies to the stables, secure those.

  “As soon as each unit is in position, have them send a runner back here to report where they are and what the situation is. At… nine o’clock, oh nine hundred, I guess, if we’re not still under attack, all officers above lieutenant will meet here to sort it out.”

  The messenger repeated it back—accurately, as near as Jenny could tell, since she wasn’t sure she remembered what she had said herself, and he’d translated some of it into military terms she wasn’t sure about. When he saluted, she reflexively returned it and then kicked herself mentally, but he didn’t seem to notice, already half-gone. A moment later she heard galloping hooves.

  At least some messengers are going somewhere, she thought, and there are some orders, and that is more than we had a few minutes ago.

  Outside headquarters, she found Third Squad, Second Platoon, something or other Company, as a young woman with a single stripe on the arm of her heavy gray flannel shirt started to explain to her. “Never mind that,” Jenny said. “Whoever your company may be, are they close by?”

  “Yes, ma’am, Sergeant Patel’s in command, the officers are dead, Sergeant Patel, he sent us—”

  “Run and tell Sergeant Patel that he’s a captain now and have him bring the company here; I’m keeping the rest of your squad. You and you”—she pointed to the two biggest ones—“you’re my bodyguards till further notice. Stay with me and keep me alive. Don’t shoot any of our own people by mistake. Rest of you”—she was down to four—“I need you to go inside and move the bodies you find there out of that room, take them somewhere else and cover them with blankets or something. Part of the building used to be a dairy barn, maybe you can find a clean stall. Try to wipe the maps and charts clean enough to read. Be quick and let me know when you’re done.”

  She stood silently with her guards, hearing the drumming and singing of the tribals, the screams and shouts of fighting, single shots everywhere, companies and platoons hustling past them, and then reassuring volleys of gunfire and shouted orders.

  It was growing lighter, and she checked her watch. Twelve minutes had gone by since she’d burst out of the restroom. She would have thought it had been an hour. Jeff always said time in battle is different. Her eyes stung, from smoke or dust or something.

  ABOUT THE SAME TIME. JEWETTSPORT FORD, JUST UPSTREAM OF PROPHETSTOWN, ON THE WABASH RIVER. 6:55 AM EASTERN TIME. TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026.

  Freddie Pranger was intent on getting across quickly and quietly, and almost missed the leg sticking out of the brush on the little island in the middle of the bridge. Bodies were hardly a novelty anymore, but this one looked fresh. Very carefully, he wrapped an arm around one girder of the bridge truss, placed his feet on an outside strut, lowered himself around the railing, and then dropped the last three feet to the ground.

  The body groaned. Freddie drew his knife and, with his other hand, lifted the brushy branch. “Roger!”

  The young man lay with a leg folded under him; clearly he’d fallen, jammed a foot in a crack in the rocks, and come down twisting. His pack was pinned beneath him, and his rifle and water bottle lay out of reach.

  Roger must have been lying here for at least nine hours—more, if he’d fallen on his way out rather than on his way back. Pranger picked up the water first and said, “Anything hit you in the guts?”

  “Just the leg.” The voice was barely a croak, but at least he could answer a question. Freddie held the bottle steady so Roger could drink, and then set about figuring out how to get him free. The shores and stream were swarming with tribals, but shadows were still dark under the bridge. They were probably invisible to the tribals, but he dared not strike a light for a better look.

  More feeling around revealed that the foot was thoroughly wedged. There would be no pulling it out without moving the broken leg.

  “The RRC’s first aid kit’s got a few morphine sulfate tabs. I’m giving you two, ’scuse my pushing’em into your mouth but we can’t waste’em. Now wiggle’em around to get’em on your tongue, and have some more water, and, down the hatch.”

  Roger swallowed painfully. “They’re down.”

  “Have the rest of the water, it’ll do you good and that morphine’s gonna need something to dissolve it
. It’s more than enough to knock you out long enough for me to get your foot free and set and splint your leg. Ain’t gonna be any fun, so you’re skipping out till I’m done.”

  “’Preciate it, really do, I really am… I’m going to…”

  Freddie crept away; by the time he had found an old piece of driftwood one-by that seemed like suitable splint material, Roger was completely out.

  Freddie’s inexpert hands found breaks in both bones in the lower leg, and the knee was at an odd angle, wobbled side to side, and seemed to be wearing its kneecap too low.

  He tied Roger to one girder under the bridge by his hands, silently prayed that this didn’t dislocate his shoulders too, tied another loop around the unconscious man’s ankle (hope that’s not broken too or at least this doesn’t make it worse) and ran a double V of line to pull on it, a sort of caveman block and tackle. The ankle popped free on a hard tug; Freddie decided it felt like most other ankles he’d ever felt.

  He re-rigged to tie Roger down across the chest and apply most of the force to pulling the leg straight by the ankle. He tugged and retied over and over until the bones moved easily under his hands, then tied off with a tight timber hitch and slid it a notch tighter.

  Pressing things into what seemed like place, comparing it with the good leg, Freddie kept pushing, pulling, and feeling until he couldn’t feel any difference. He slowly released the tension, playing the rope out gradually, feeling to make sure nothing popped back out of place, and then tied the splint on with some of the bandaging rags from the kit.

  Wish I thought old Hugh Glass couldn’t’ve done better, but I just bet when he did, it was better. And on his own leg, at that.

  While Roger slept on, Freddie munched a biscuit, a wedge of cheese, and a cold chop, and considered what he might do. Just after eight, there was a flurry of activity downstream across the river; another big swarm of rafts and boats full of tribals was launching from the Prophetstown area, the swampy stretch below the Tippecanoe battlefield. Lying still in the shadows under the bridge, between the two piers, Freddie didn’t think there was much risk of being seen; the enemy had no reason to look upstream for anything, and they were pretty intent on getting all those boats and rafts into the water. He stayed alert, ready to cover Roger’s mouth if he woke, but otherwise silent.

  Freddie’s best estimate was that during the whole launching, there seemed to be fifty boats, rafts, and canoes in sight downstream all the time. The average might have been fifteen tribals per boat or raft, since some of them seemed to be carrying supplies and gear more than people. Maybe half a mile of the river below their launching point was visible from where he was sitting, and they might be going at six miles an hour or so with all that rowing. Not long after nine, the last of them passed around the bend below.

  At a guess, that worked out to between seven and ten thousand of them.

  He’d heard no gunfire for hours; the army was beaten, or fleeing, or holed up.

  About ten, Roger woke slowly, and when Freddie was sure it wouldn’t choke him, he gave him another drink. He remembered faintly from somewhere that morphine was dehydrating, and made sure he kept pouring water into the younger man.

  Roger explained that he’d gone to take a look at the Daybreakers, per Larry Mensche’s orders, and been passed by the TexICs as they rode in. “Gorgeous sight that I’ll remember forever,” he said. “Like three hundred movie cowboys or Nashville stars, riding like maniacs.”

  “C’est magnifique mais ce n’est pas la guerre,” Freddie said.

  “Uh, my language in college was Lisperesque-2021,” Roger said.

  “What a French officer who saw the Charge of the Light Brigade said,” Freddie said. “French was the logical language for a frontier-history nut to study. Yeah, it would’ve been what, almost sunset? Must’ve been beautiful.”

  “I was sneaking along on this bank—they crossed on the old I-65 bridge—and I saw them a couple more times, far away, still riding like hell on a broomstick. Then there was a buttload of shots and yelling and everything, from over around the old battlefield, and I came to this bridge. It’s kind of perfect because it’s so small half the maps don’t show it, and without lights it’s pretty dark, lots of good shadows to hide in in the moonlight.

  “I made it across, went into that swampy area below the battlefield, and found so many Daybreaker patrols and scouts that I realized pretty fast I was gonna have to turn back. I’d heard screaming men and horses, gunshots, all that noise a battle makes, but it had died down to nothing by the time I crossed the bridge the first time; I figured the TexICs had probably ridden straight into a trap. Anyway, there was just too much traffic around in the dark, all Daybreakers, for me to stick around.

  “So I started back with my information, taking it real slow and careful because the enemy were everywhere. I stayed in one ditch it seemed like forever, then there was more fighting.”

  “President’s Own,” Freddie supplied. “They were supposed to take and hold it in the middle of the night.”

  “Well, they were hosed pretty bad, Freddie, I don’t mean by Grayson or by Goncalves, our guys just didn’t know what was happening. But, jesus, dude, the situation. I estimated two thousand Daybreakers outside, and more than that in the fort itself.

  “Anyway I snuck along my ditch to the northeast, ran up the embankment, and got onto the bridge. I was right about here when I saw boats coming, and since I was at this little island, I figured I’d just slip under the bridge and let them pass. Slip was the word; I fell and landed wrong, and that’s where you found me.”

  “I would say it could happen to anybody,” Freddie said, “except for how much it scares me that that is true.”

  “Well, the next thing that happened, while I was lying there not quite believing how bad hurt I was, the boats just kept coming, and they were landing all over Prophetstown, and I realized they were closing the trap. The noise got a lot wilder up there and then there was nothing. Then another big force came down the Wabash, I think twice as many as came out of the Tippecanoe, and sometime after that it was sunrise and you were here.”

  “Yeah, and while you were out, the big force you saw came down the hill and launched; they’re all downstream, now, at least eighteen or twenty thousand of them. Grayson’s catching all hell—if he’s still alive to catch it.” Freddie sighed. “On the bright side, you look better.”

  “I’m even hungry.”

  “I’ve got some bread and cheese left, let’s try you on a little of that and see if you hang onto it.”

  Roger seemed to have no problem with food, other than getting enough of it; when he had eaten, he said, “Freddie, my leg hurts but not too bad. Why don’t you tighten up your splint, and see if I can maybe move with a crutch or something?”

  A little experimenting showed that Roger could hop with a driftwood board under his arm and his leg held mostly out in front of him, but climbing back to the bridge looked difficult even with Freddie’s help, and it didn’t seem likely he could travel either far or fast on his own.

  “Don’t want to start moving till I know where we’re going,” Freddie said, “and I don’t. No idea where the war is now, and it can’t be going well. That black smoke coming up from Lafayette seems more like something that would be happening if they were winning than if we were.”

  “Maybe you should leave me here for a while and take a look over toward Prophetstown, even see if you can get to the battlefield. There might be survivors we could link up with, and I’m fine with water and a rifle right in reach, and can move myself around a little if I need to change where I’m hiding or find another angle. You can leave me a couple hours.”

  Freddie nodded. “Guess you’re right.” He made sure Roger was as comfortable as possible, and said, “Hey, thanks for not telling me to just abandon you here and go on without you.”

  Roger snorted. “Thanks for not just deciding to, bro.”

  ABOUT THE SAME TIME. RUINS OF LAFAYETTE. 9:00 AM EASTERN TIME. TUESD
AY, MAY 5, 2026.

  Jenny thought, These people look sick and worried. Bet I do too. “All right,” she said, “my only authority for calling this meeting is that I was here and everyone else was dead. Anything I ordered you to do that was obviously wrong, I certainly hope you did something else instead. Who’s the senior officer here?”

  Everyone looked nervously at the two surviving captains. Harris, his face still powder-stained and his shirt blood-spattered, said, “Probably me. I don’t want the job.”

  “No one here does.” She remembered that back before, Harris had been a state legislator in Idaho, and had joined the National Guard so he could call himself a veteran if he ran for Congress. “But someone’s got to do it and your name’s at the top of the list.”

  He rubbed his face. “I can put myself on the sick list and declare I’m not fit to command.”

  “If you would do that,” she said, “I’m sure you’re not.” Wow, way to win him over Jenny, she thought, then decided, oh, what the hell, it’s true.

  Podlewski, the other captain, said, “Ma’am, back before I was a township constable; I’ve never been—”

  “I understand that. My previous job was political wife. But we are in the middle of a battle, and we owe it to the troops that trust us to—”

  Something roared outside. Metal screamed against bricks.

  “What the Jesus fucking hell was that?” Jenny said, shocked at how level her voice was. They all looked stunned, and she said, “Never mind. Back to your units, now. Hold the line or if it’s broken close it up and retake it. Send me a situation report as soon as you can. Now! Move!”

  They ran out of the office, leaving her alone with her father, who looked at her with an expression of polite, puzzled horror. “You said…”

  “If they are going to force me to be a soldier, Daddy, I am going to fucking talk like one. I’m just lucky I have the benefit of a modern college education so I already know how.” She took two steps toward her father, and looked around the room at the still blood-spattered maps and charts, where she had been marking known positions and recording that she was apparently out of contact with all the President’s Own Rangers, the TexICs, her scouts, and one whole battalion of the Missouri militia. “Daddy,” she said, “I am so far out of my place. But I haven’t given up, and those officers—”