by Dirk Patton
“Are you here to kill me, Colonel?” He met Crawford’s eyes, his gaze steady.
“No, sir. I’m not. You and your wife are restricted to your quarters. My men will search the house and remove any weapons and means of communication, then you will not be troubled further unless you try to leave. You will not be allowed any visitors and my men will be outside and not intrude on your privacy. If you need anything, just ask, and if we can accommodate you we will.” Crawford said, noting the shadow at the door as the General’s wife listened in from the hallway.
Crawford had left, placing a Lieutenant in charge of guarding the General. The next several hours had been tense as word spread across the large Air Force base of the arrest and detention of their commanding officer by the Army. The Colonel had spent the remainder of the night speaking personally with every Air Force officer over the rank of Lieutenant, explaining the situation and even playing the recording of President Clark talking to the Russian President.
Three officers who were loyal to General Triplett refused to accept the circumstances and follow Colonel Crawford’s orders. They were also placed under house arrest. The rest were aghast when they heard their President negotiating for her new home in Russia in exchange for ordering the US Military to stand down, and pledged their support. A couple of them were too quick to agree to take orders from Crawford and the Colonel singled them out for Captain Blanchard to keep an eye on.
“Don’t suppose there’s any word from our wayward Major,” Crawford asked.
“No, sir.” Blanchard responded. “I had the satellite feed streaming to storage and am waiting for the techs to get me a working computer. The servers are heavily EMP shielded, so I should be able to access the files and see where he was when the pulse burned out our birds.”
“When will the drones be on target?” Crawford was referring to four Predator drones that had been launched to check on the movement of the massive herds that had been approaching Tinker. Without satellite coverage they were scrambling to get surveillance flights in the air to find out if the EMP had shut down the Russian transmission.
“Within the hour, sir. I’ll update you as soon as I have eyes on target. If you’d like to get some sleep I’ll wake you as soon as I know something.” Blanchard said.
Nodding, Crawford stubbed out his cigarette and headed for an adjoining office where a cot had been set up for him. He was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
10
My dizziness came and went as we ran. For a while I felt perfectly fine, then for no discernible reason the dark horizon would start to tilt and I’d have to slow down so I didn’t stumble and fall on my face. After this happened a few times, Joe pulled up to a stop and turned to look at me.
“How bad are you hurt?” He asked, not even breathing hard. I was slightly winded, nauseous and once again sweat was running off me in buckets.
“I’m fine,” I said, fumbling for some water. He stood watching me drink, saying nothing.
“You’re a stupid, fucking white man,” he said. “I don’t know why I’m helping you, but if you want my help you need to tell me what’s wrong with you. I might be able to do something about it.”
“I said I’m fine!” I snapped, starting to move past him.
He reached out, grabbing my arm as I passed him. I spun; fist coming up as I tried to jerk my arm from his grip, but when my body stopped spinning the world kept going. And accelerated. I wobbled and his restraining hand became all that was keeping me from falling to the ground. Taking my other arm he helped me to a seated position on the grass.
“Deep breaths and put your head between your knees,” he said, moving out of range in case I decided I still wanted to hit him. “The gash on your head. It’s bleeding worse.”
I reached up with a trembling hand and touched my face. It came away wet with blood that was running out of the wound. Wiping higher, I realized blood was still flowing, running into my right eye and blocking nearly all its vision. I took a few moments and used some water to rinse my eye out and felt a little better when I could see clearly, but a giant bass drum was going off inside my skull and the world around me was tilted at a forty-five degree angle.
“Stay here,” Joe said, standing up. “I’ll be back.”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Getting something to help your big, dumb ass.” He said, turned and trotted off.
The headache and vertigo got worse for a few minutes, then improved. I sat on my ass with my knees pulled up and my head down, taking slow deep breaths and occasional sips of water. Eventually I started feeling better, the dizziness passing and the headache retreating, but not leaving. Lifting my head I looked around, but didn’t see my companion. I carefully used the night vision scope to check in the direction he’d gone, but didn’t see anything.
Fuck him. Whatever he was doing, I didn’t have time. Katie was shot, so was Martinez. Rachel could have been hurt in the crash. They needed me and I wasn’t helping anyone sitting on my ass in the middle of a giant goddamn prairie. Taking another drink of water I got to my knees, still feeling better. Standing, I swayed like a sapling in a windstorm, but managed to keep my feet under me until the horizon slowed down.
Raising my rifle, I peered through the night vision scope and started to turn to scan the area. First, the horizon began to warp. The stars were whirling, phosphorescent trails tracking their path through the night sky. Then the soil under my feet rippled in giant waves and I was falling. I don’t remember hitting the ground.
When I opened my eyes I didn’t understand what the hell was happening. The last thing I remembered was a dark, night sky with spinning stars. Now there was bright sunshine. I peered through slit lids and noted the sun was just above the horizon, but I had no idea if that meant it had just come up or was about to go down.
“He lives,” Joe said from somewhere off to my left. “Here, drink this.”
He thrust a small gourd into my hand. Half of it had been cut away; leaving a crude cup, which held a liquid that was reddish-brown and stank worse than any slit trench I’ve had the displeasure of using.
“What’s this?” I croaked, levering myself up to a sitting position. It took me a moment to realize I was able to do this without my head splitting open or the world turning upside down.
“Ancient Indian remedy, with a little help from modern science,” he said. “I’ve been pouring it down your throat for the past few hours. Feel better?”
“A little,” I grudgingly acknowledged. “What’s in it?”
“The right roots, berries and bark,” he said, motioning for me to drink. “And some Tylenol I had in my pocket.”
It took a bit to get past the smell, but I raised the gourd and sipped some of the thick liquid. It tasted worse than I expected, and the small pieces of whatever was floating in it nearly sent me over the edge.
“Oh, and I pissed in it.” He said with a grin after I had swallowed.
“I don’t know whether to thank you or beat you to death,” I said, grimacing as I drank the rest.
My stomach flopped a couple of times, but the concoction stayed down. Unfortunately the incredibly foul taste had coated the inside of my mouth and didn’t seem to want to go away. But I did feel better. The headache was mostly gone and the dizziness had stopped.
Joe stood up and extended a hand. After a moment I reached up and took it and he pulled me to my feet. I was prepared for the headache and vertigo to come roaring back, but they didn’t. I turned my head to look around us, noting that the sun was climbing higher in the sky, happy that other than tired and weak I felt relatively ok.
“Thank you,” I finally said, looking at him.
“Let me get something to write on!” He cried. “For the first time in history a white man has thanked an Indian!”
“Oh, fuck off.” I said, unable to suppress a small grin. “How long was I out?”
“About four hours,” he said.
Remembering the wound on my
head I started to reach up but his hand darted out and grabbed mine, stopping me from touching it. “It’s been cleaned and sealed with a bark paste. Don’t disturb it. You were already starting to show signs of an infection.”
I wanted to touch it, wanted a mirror to be able to inspect my injuries, but decided to trust him and let it go.
“Drink some water and let’s go,” he said. “We lost a lot of time and there’s a long way to go.”
“How much farther?” I asked between gulps of water.
“At least twelve hours, probably more like fourteen or fifteen. And that’s if we run the whole way.” He said after thinking about it for a moment.
Putting my water away I nodded and scooped up my pack and rifle, which he had neatly stacked next to me. Getting everything on my body and adjusted, we set off. I let him set the pace with his fast loping run, content to stay on his shoulder.
“So why are you?” I asked after we’d covered the first mile.
“Why am I what?”
“Helping me. You said you didn’t know why you are, and neither do I. You seem to have a pretty deep seated dislike of white men.” I said.
“Grow up on the Res and you’re taught from birth to hate the white man.” He finally answered after most of another mile went past. “The older generation still blames you for everything, and doesn’t want to take any responsibility or do anything to make life better. It just gets passed on from generation to generation. Things are changing, but very slowly. Truth is, I don’t really know how I feel, just know how I was conditioned to feel every day of my life until I left.”
I didn’t have a good answer to that. He was describing human nature. I’d grown up around people whose generations old hatred of anyone with skin a different color than theirs had been preached to them since they could walk. And it wasn’t isolated to a small west Texas town. It’s just the way people are unless something happens to open their eyes.
Personally, I’ve never understood disliking someone simply because of skin pigmentation. There’s a whole lot more compelling reasons. For example, the world’s full of assholes. If there’s one human trait that transcends racial and cultural divides, it’s being an asshole. Doesn’t matter what color your skin is, which god you worship, where you fall in the political spectrum, who you like to get naked with or how educated you are or aren’t. Becoming an asshole is an equal opportunity for everyone. But… I digress.
“You didn’t answer the question,” I said, looking around at the sun-bleached prairie and wishing for a pair of sunglasses.
“Your wife,” he said after a couple more minutes of running. “They have your wife. I couldn’t save mine, but maybe I can help save yours.”
I’m not sure what I expected him to say, but that wasn’t it. I’d been prepared for a tirade about how bad the white man was, but that I wasn’t as bad as the infected. Something along those lines. I certainly wasn’t prepared for such a raw, basic human emotion, or the pain that was obvious in his voice when he said he couldn’t save his wife.
“Thank you,” I finally said. “Sorry I’ve been such a dick.”
“Wow. I bet that hurt to say.” He quipped.
“You have no idea,” I said and kept running.
11
The sun climbed as the morning wore on, the heat and humidity of the day intensifying. By mid-morning the grass in front of us shimmered under the baking sun and my pack felt like it weighed five hundred pounds. But, we maintained the pace. Joe had two canteens strapped to his belt, but one was empty and the other he finished quickly.
“We should have filled up at the river we crossed,” I said, sharing my dwindling supply with him.
“We probably should have done a lot of things we didn’t do,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “There’s another smaller river a few miles ahead. If it’s not dry this time of year we’ll be able to fill up.”
“And if it is dry? Where’s the next water?” I asked.
“About an hour’s run to the north,” he said after thinking for a moment. “Couple of windmills that keep a stock tank filled.”
“Let’s hope the river is running,” I said, not wanting to even think about having to detour for water.
Part of me wanted to just ignore it and focus on staying on the trail. But I knew better. As hot as it was, it was hardly 10 in the morning. Both of us were sweating freely in the humidity and if we tried to run through the heat of the afternoon without water we’d be in serious trouble. It wouldn’t do Katie and the rest any good if I showed up to rescue them so dehydrated that I wasn’t able to fight.
We pushed on, rationing the small amount of water we had. I didn’t have a hat and my head was burning under the relentless sun. The downside to shaving one’s head. I envied Joe his heavily pigmented hide.
I guessed it was around 1100 when we crested a small rise, and started down into a shallow valley that was noticeably greener than the surrounding terrain. A ten yard wide channel of sand and rock wound along the floor of the valley, but so far I hadn’t seen any water flowing in it. Slowing as we approached, we stopped on a grassy bank, looking at several small puddles of muddy water. They were all that remained of the river.
“We can filter the water,” Joe said, starting to jump down into the dry riverbed.
I reached out and placed a hand on his arm to stop him, pointing a few yards upstream. “I don’t think we want to drink this.”
“Shit!”
Joe was looking at a corpse lying partially submerged in the largest puddle. There were six distinct puddles and they were all connected with thin tendrils of water. Whatever bacteria were leaking out of the body would have contaminated the entire supply.
“Is that way upstream?” I asked, pointing to our left.
Joe nodded, turning and following the bank to the north. We walked for five minutes, but all we saw was dry riverbed. Backtracking, we moved downstream, hoping to find some isolated puddles that would be free of contamination, but there was only more dry soil. Pausing in the shade of a small tree I drank half our remaining water then handed the drinking tube to Joe.
“How sure are you that stock tank will have water?” I asked as he sucked the bladder dry.
“I haven’t been there in several years, but before I left the Res it always had water. It would freeze in the winter and someone would have to ride out and break up the ice so the cattle could drink, but I’ve never known it to be dry.” He said, shading his eyes as he scanned the horizon. “We go there, or we go back to the river we waded across.”
Mimicking him, I raised a hand to my brow and turned a slow circle. Nothing but miles and miles of dry grass with an occasional stunted tree to break things up. He’d said an hour’s run. That meant roughly six miles. Twelve mile round trip, and we’d already run at least that far. We’d be approaching marathon distance by the time we made it back to where we stood and still had another ten to twelve hours of running ahead of us.
I cursed myself for not having had the foresight to refill at the river. Sure, I’d been hurting and dizzy and worrying about my new companion, but that’s still no excuse. My failure might very well cost my wife and friends their lives. There was nothing I could do about it other than keep running.
“Lead off,” I said. “And pray there’s water there or we’re in a world of shit.”
Joe didn’t respond, just jumped down off the bank, crossed the dry river and climbed up the other side. Back on grass he broke into a run and angled slightly to the east of due north. I fell in beside him, shutting my mind down. It didn’t help to be chastising myself over my mistakes, and could very well distract me to the point that I made another, even more serious, error.
“You may be in a world of shit if we run into the a-ki-da.”
“The what?” To my ears he had just spoken gibberish, though I suspected it was a word or words in his native tongue.
“A-ki-da,” he repeated, slowly. “Each Osage chief hand picks ten warriors
. Not so much now, but a few hundred years ago they weren’t all that different from the Japanese Samurai. They were the best fighters from different clans and families and it was a great honor to be chosen.
“The tradition has continued. It’s mostly ceremonial now, but there are some that take it very seriously. My father was an a-ki-da and my older brother was chosen too.”
Well, that explained a lot about Joe. He didn’t exactly come from a slacker family. I didn’t need to know the details to understand what he was telling me. Kings, chiefs and warlords have been doing the same thing since the dawn of history. Select the smartest and strongest fighters to surround you. Hell, we’re still doing it today, only now we call it Special Forces.
“So, if we run into one of these… ah, ah, ah… however you say it, I’ve got a fight on my hands?” I asked.
“A-ki-da, dumbass. Maybe. Probably. If we do, do what I say and keep your mouth shut.” He said, sidestepping a snake that our approach had flushed out of the shade of a bush.
I didn’t have a good feeling that if it came to a fight he would be on my side, so I settled for keeping my mouth shut and maintaining my pace. The heat continued to build, the sun approaching its zenith. Each of us was continually scanning the horizon to our front as well as frequently checking behind us. When we had covered what I estimated to be half the distance to our destination I was looking to my right and pulled to a stop with my hand on Joe’s arm when I detected movement.
Bringing my rifle up, I could just make out a form worming its way through the grass. It would move for a few moments, then go still before starting all over again. Joe didn’t have the benefit of a scope, having only iron sights on his rifle, and settled for peering under the shade of his hand. Motioning him to follow, I began moving slowly to my right.
As I walked I kept up a constant scan, looking for any other signs of life. But all I saw was dry grass waving in the breeze. I flashed back to my encounter with the razorbacks in Arkansas and asked Joe if there were any of the animals in this part of the country.
