“Please, just call me Luke, Colonel.”
“Fair enough, Luke. I appreciate you meeting with me this early but my schedule is pretty packed these days, as I am sure you can imagine.”
That was just Colonel Hotchkins being polite. When you are a civilian refugee and the brigade commander requests your presence at 0630, you made darned sure you arrived early. Or so I was told by the sergeant who appeared at my door and rousted me from a perfectly pleasant dream.
Of course, he wasn’t expecting the pistol I pressed to his head when he went to shake my arm. I was curled up in a bunk with Amy in the transient enlisted barracks. Those mattresses were lumpy and short and the beds were awfully narrow, but then so were we. Well, my feet tuck out over the end but I was accustomed to such things.
“Whoa, whoa,” he’d said, the cold metal barrel dimpling his forehead.
“What do you need?” I asked, my brain still fuzzy with sleep.
“The colonel needs to see you ASAP, sir. And you need to get that gun out of my face.”
“Sorry, sergeant. I’ve spent too long out there,” I said sheepishly. Of course, he’d been the fool who’d thought it was a good idea to invade my space.
The sergeant acted suitably chastised and I made a production of passing the Glock off to Amy as I got up to splash some water on my face and slipping into my boots. I’d slept in my pants and a tee shirt, so putting on a fresh long sleeved denim work shirt only took a second.
As I sat with the Colonel, I remembered the hassle of just getting here. Obtaining permission to get our weapons on base had proven to be a minor difficulty from the start, back at the armory in Fayetteville. I’d refused to travel without them, and Captain Devayne was sympathetic to say the least. So he’d figured out a loophole and hired us as civilian security contractors. We got to keep our sidearms and checked our rifles and shotguns at the base armory. Well, except for the crate of gear we were hauling. Those items just stayed padlocked and we kept them with one of us at all times.
Then, upon arrival at the Fort Chaffee in-processing center, we’d produced our temporary ID cards and a copy of the contract signed with the captain. The deal might have been a little shady, but by now the military was used to dealing with contractors of various sorts. Even contractors who looked too young to drink, or vote.
The contract simply identified us as “Luke and Amy Landon” which was hilarious when Amy claimed that made us officially together. She nearly cried when I told her it was our engagement announcement, but she managed to keep it together, barely. Honestly, inside I felt the same way. My identification card also read “Luke Landon” and I said nothing about it.
The thing about keeping my last name off the books was not me trying to be mysterious. It was the same reason only Amy knew our final destination. Whenever asked, I simply said Northeast Texas and left it at that. I had a family out there to protect, and no intention of bringing scrutiny to the ranch.
“Hey, Luke, can you get us some breakfast?”
That was from Lori in the first bunk over ours. Yes, Amy and I were not traveling alone for this leg of the journey. But that was a worry for later. Then I was off to see the colonel.
“I read all of Captain Devayne’s report, Luke,” Colonel Hotchkins said, jarring me back to the present. “I was particularly interested in what you had to say about our counterparts in other states. Are you certain it was Colonel Paul Abbott over the camp you observed outside Jefferson City? What was the source of that name, if I may ask?”
“Certainly. He identified himself as such every morning when he lined us up for inspection. I’m not sure what was being inspected, but he always had a little speech prepared for us while the guards tore apart our tents looking for contraband. This included him introducing himself to all the new guests.”
“Okay. Got it. And this bit about the ‘comfort girls’? Was this a rumor you heard or…”
Colonel Hotchkins let the question hang for a long moment.
“We saw it going on, colonel. The soldiers bunked in a separate, guarded section of the camp. The girls were allowed to use the showers and eat in the military mess hall after the soldiers finished. And no, these were not wives or other dependents. Most of them barely had any clothes, for one thing. They were treats the colonel rewarded his best soldiers with. The ones that brought in the most salvage and such.”
Hotchkins nodded, his face expressionless. I wondered if he was really that unaffected or if he was just that skilled at controlling his reactions.
“Well, this is most distressing news. But not completely unheard of. Reports have been circulated in certain circles about Guard units either disbanding or going their own way. We had our own problems, early on, making sure our dependents were provided for while trying to do our jobs.”
“And the federal government is doing what in all this, colonel?”
Hotchkins gave me a grim smile before he answered.
“That is the question, Luke. That is indeed the question.”
***
I hope you enjoyed this little sample of Book Three in the Walking in the Rain series. Look for Hard Rain Falling early this summer. Exclusively from Amazon.
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