Black Bear Blues

by Stephen Wishnevsky

  I took my frozen butt back to the Recon Train, just in time to be highjacked by Weeks and Alde, they had a truck and were all hot to test their new instrument of destruction. They had a flivver with four steel drums in the back. I pulled rank and invalid status, and rode up front, while Bob shivered in the bed. We went through the great gates in the Wall, and putted out to that same scrapyard we had shot up yesterday. Not being fools, we drove upwind a good way, then stopped, cussed the cold, and Bob Weeks lit the fuses.

  He had them set to go off sequentially, with a few seconds’ delay, but it was quite impressive, when they went. A few hundred pounds of skyrockets is really quite a lot, there were four eruptions in a row. Even with the wind blowing the skyrockets south, it was obvious that no pilot was going to willingly fly through that barrage, no matter how brave. The rockets all had different delays, being handmade, and with rockets streaking up, and pyrotechnics booming down, the air was really crowded for a minute or so, maybe more. I should have had my watch out, but screw it. It worked.

  I took the liberty of slapping Bob’s back and hugging Alde, we whooped and danced a little, then climbed back in, and rattled back home. We deserved a drink.

  Our display had attracted the attention of the Wall guards, they cheered up as we drove in, nothing more fun than fireworks not aimed at your personal ass.

  We had a celebratory dinner while Bob’s boxcars were switched around behind the next train north, as soon as that was all hooked up, off they went. The mass of the army was to leave at dawn, the switch yards were full of activity as trains made up for the big move north. Me for bed. I wondered if Alde was going to rattle Bob’s bones for him, and then I wondered if he liked women at all. Then I wondered if I cared, one way or another. All good questions. None with answers.

  >>>>>>>>

  I managed to sleep though most of the departures, the morphine helped. Noting I could do to help one way or the other. I could feel that I needed to stop taking that dope, I was fairly well healed, all the way down to merely uncomfortable. Time to be a grouchy bear for a week, until that shit got out of my system. I was going to need what few wits I had left for the coming battle.

  When I woke up, it was nightfall back in Quebec, and the Battle of Sherbrooke was fully engaged, as they say. German and US tanks were clawing through the drifts of a howling blizzard and the Canadien Libéré snow machines, skiers, and snowshoe irregulars were improving the shining hour by killing and looting ad lib. With malice aforethought. At least according to their radio hams. The Radio Freedom stations were full of threats and warnings about bandits, so that led me to believe that the CL people were being effective little pains in the ass. If the planes were grounded by a blizzard, there would be no way to track them back to their bases, they would be home free.

  The alleged good guys, us, were pushing along the south bank of the St. Lawrence, and up the Connecticut River Valley, but that could be a slog. Northern New England is generally snowed in from Halloween to Easter, and this was a bit early, but not unheard of. I wished I had an Old Farmer’s Almanac, but I wished I had a lot of other things too.

  One of them seemed to be Barbara. Odd. It just came to me that I missed her. Well, shit. I jotted off a letter, saying I did miss her, and wished she had talked to me before leaving. I wished her well, and then stared at the letter for a long time before finally licking the flap and addressing it to her, care of the Dalny Bulletin. People are weird. And I am a people, to the limits of definition. Fuck it. This life shit is just one desperate improvisation after another.

  I gave the letter to Peaches, to have her send it on, she gave me a long searching look, but didn’t ask any stupid questions. Good person, Peaches.

  We started getting copies of the Polar Bears’ unit orders and reports about then, all part of that reorganization, so that was more info to plot and file, keeping our maps up to date. Of course, HQ was doing the same thing, more and better, but we had to keep up with all the movements, just to make sure nobody pulled a fast one on us. I knew, without ever actually being told, that our job was more strategic than tactical. We could not trust our own government to deal fairly with us, to keep us informed of the Home Front situation. There was always the chance of some sort of rebellion back in the States, our whole position could change overnight, so it behooved us to watch all the boiling pots all the time. A futile task, but a necessary one.

  We were still getting exiles, seemingly more and more, mostly Hispanic these days, and part of their training was a debriefing as to conditions back home. I got those reports too, and they were not pleasant reading. Apparently, there had been a concerted effort to induct the European refugees, French and Italian and Irish mostly, some Dutch and Belgian, into Militia or Klan units to winnow out union members and people of Mexican heritage, and ship them over here. The immigrants got the exiles’ lands and properties, of course. Bob Oblenski had been one of the first to tell me of those exiles, what you might call the non-political exiles. The dissidents, the “unnaturals,” the Jews, Negroes, of course, and idiots like me who could not learn to keep their mouths shut were the first to go. People who got in the way of one of the new power groups, in other words.

  I found a box of affidavits that had never been sorted out, so I pawed through them, and came up with an awful picture. That Colonel Fortuna I had met in Karamay had spent some time interviewing soldiers in Remus’s division, the 33rd, and a whole footlocker of his interviews had been sitting around, waiting for somebody to do something with them. He had been a professor at Fisk University in Nashville, a folklorist, he called himself an “ethnomusicologist,” and kept on doing his job under very adverse conditions. I had not known it at the time, but the great Mississippi floods of three years ago, in the winter of ’27, had led to the forced migration of a couple of hundred thousand people, black people, from their homes along the river. At first, a lot of them had moved north, as best they could, to the big cities like Chicago, to work in factories and stockyards, but as the European war got worse and worse, immigrants took what few jobs the Negroes had managed to obtain, and off they were sent to China. The ones left in the levee camps in Mississippi and Arkansas had lasted as long as there was need for their brute labor, but once the flood control projects were finished, off they went to the West Coast to be shipped here.

  No wonder that General Remus had so many troops to choose from. The men had been sent to Vladivostok to work on the Trans-Siberian Line, and apparently died like flies. A lot of the survivors had made it back to Dalny by hook or crook or shank’s mare, and were now in Hodges’ army. I wondered what had happened to their women, but I really did not have to guess. The lucky ones might be whores someplace, the rest… For sure, there were very few colored females over here. Another enormous crime in a century of crimes against humanity. And not a third over yet.

  >>>>>>>>>

  Enough. Find something useful to do. I sent a telegram to Alde and Weeks to save a few of the cluster drums, bring them back for our train. We were a good way away from the battle, but it was getting closer every day. Had to figure that the mechanized enemy could make at least fifty miles a day, so they were no more than a couple weeks away from Karamay. I looked at the situation report, the enemy column was advancing slowly, spreading out to occupy what few places in Kazakhstan that were worth a garrison. The national capital, Akmolinsk was well under control, of course, it was only two hundred miles from Omsk and the Trans-Siberian.

  There was a strong push to some place called Pavlodar, located a couple hundred miles northeast of Akmolinsk. I could tell from the name alone that it was a mostly Russian city, a flip through the reference books told me that it had been founded to harvest salt from the salt lakes a few hundred years ago, and now had oil wells. A refinery had been under construction a few years ago. An obvious target.

  I could see reports from the Polar Bears Air Service that Pavlodar was under close observation, and was liable to be bombed soon, if it had not been already. Our reports were
a day or two behind; I could assume that Ray Reynolds would keep me up to date, as soon as they were all set up and wired in up in Urum-Chi. Another day for that, I guessed. I could not expect Alde and Bob back for another two days after that, even if everything worked right the first time, which it never does, as a rule. Maggie and Stan could be back tomorrow early, but at the moment, I had little to do. Or that’s what I thought, until the air raid sirens started wailing.

  Oh, fuck me? An air raid in broad daylight? I lumbered out of the car, following the stampede to the slit trenches. We were an armored train, but only proof against small arms and machineguns. Fifty pound aerial bombs are an entirely different matter. The ack-ack crews were unlimbering on the caboose and the tender, just as the first sticks of bombs started stomping across the yards. Fifty pounders or bigger. Peaches was hunkered down next to me in the trench, I could see Lupo and his crew next to her. I should have been counting heads, but I was more interested in seeing who was doing what to us. Peaches handed me a set of binoculars, just as the pom-poms all over the yards started pumping up the rounds. The sky had cleared, more or less, high wintery clouds not quite masking the silvery shapes of the zepps. Hate those beautiful bastards.

  The binoculars brought the Iron Crosses into clear focus, I could even see the gaping rectangles of the bomb bays open, convince myself I could see black bombs tumbling down. There might have been a dozen of the sons of bitches, all I could see before a stick of bombs marched right toward our trench, and Peaches dragged me down to the frost-rimmed safety of the sandbags. Two of those bombs straddled our trench, we cowered harder, frozen clumps of dirt pelted us, followed by hot shards of shrapnel from our AA shells. Too much shit to be a spectator sport. I huddled, cursed, and tried not to whimper too loudly.

  Not that anybody could hear me, but I do have a few traces of pride. The sticks of bombs were parallel to the line of the tracks, the Recon Train got off lucky. There was only the one pass, then the zepps droned off, and our pursuits roared off to try and play catch-up. Little more than a gesture, most of our fighting planes were off at the front, or on the way, we only had a few score ships here, and many of them were in repair.

  We had just enough time to get good and frozen before the all clear sounded, and we could stumble inside and try to warm up. Fuck it. All in a day’s work. There were a few dents and punctures in the cars, a lot of brass to clear away, and the cars were full of cordite smoke, but we got off easy. That time.

  >>>>>>>

  We got the radios back up and running, it was daylight in Quebec, the battle was still going strong, the snow still falling. We didn’t expect any objective news, and we were not disappointed. Three different radio networks, four if you counted the Germans, and not an honest word to be heard from any of them. The BBC had finally acknowledged that there was a battle, between the “Canadian Loyalists” and the Americans, but they ignored the CL forces as if they were the fabled sasquatch of the north woods. Fuck it. I was still shaking from the bombing, even though it had not even been close. Shell shock, they call that. It never goes away. And I had just decided to lay off the morphine. Smart guy.

  I took half a pill, one shot of Chinese moonshine, and laid down with Zane Gray. Amazingly enough, suddenly it was morning, and I had to get up and be the boss. Always something.

  One of the doughs from the Mail Car was tapping on my door with a telegram. I said a few intelligent things like “duh? what?” and so on. It was from the Dalny Bulletin, the newspaper I had helped start in the distant past, like this spring. More “What?”

  So, open the damn envelope, cabbage head. “PEACHES WROTE STOP SAID I WAS IDIOT STOP WAS I QUESTION MARK STOP BABS ENDS”

  Oh, shit. Whores were a lot simpler. I went back to the Mail Car, sent, “ITS COMPLICATED STOP I LIKE YOU STOP I WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY STOP WHAT CAN I DO QUESTION MARK STOP MILES ENDS” As soon as that was sent, I had second thoughts, and had them tap out; “LETTER ON WAY STOP PLEASE ADVISE STOP MILES ENDS”

  I thought about writing a better letter, but I still didn’t know what to say. And not forgetting this other woman, that was due back in my bed in a day or three. Burn that bridge when I get to it, I suppose. Alde was about three times the woman Barbara was, but…

  But is a word that has killed more people than landmines.

  Meanwhile, there was this tiny little war deal going on. And I was out of uniform. Still had my robe on. One thing at a time. Put your pants on, asshole, get a cuppa, find a few pieces of toast and start all over.

  The first order of business was that Hodges was just now wired in up in Urum-chi, the telegraphs clicking in full speed. We were just getting duplicates, of course, Stillwell was still in command here in Jiu-quan, but we had to keep our maps up to date. Maggie had a truck someplace with a darkroom built into it, I had to find that, get it set up on this train in yet another car. Maybe just a flatcar, just in case we had to roll out in a hurry. Maggie and Stan were due back today, with film to process, so that had to be ready. They needed distilled water, which I had neglected to provide, and the local water was crap, like most desert water.

  Sounded like a job for Peaches. She just waved a salute, smirked, and got on it. Next problem. I didn’t even give her shit for wiring Babs. All for the best, I hoped. At least somebody cared. I wondered if I did. Enough to send a letter, at the very least. Stet. Bigger fish to fry.

  Hodges’ people were relaying scouting reports from Hodak’s Iron Wolves, excuse me, the 37th Mechanized Division. I was losing track, I drew up a chart, stuck it on the wall. Remus had the 33rd, mostly Southern Negroes, they were here in Jiu-quan, guarding the Wall, and training all these assorted motleys that were coming through here. Ruby Wilson had the 34th, she and the Spanish Division, the 35th were in Urum-chi, General Delany’s 36th was in Karamay, and the 37th Mechanized was any damn place they wanted to be. None of these were real four-square divisions, of course, but they had to be called something. And raving cluster-fucks was a little too crude, if not inaccurate. Whatever they were, they were moving and following orders. Close enough for government work.

  It all depended on how good the Germans were. When I had been in France, in 1920, they had been the best troops in the world. I had been at Second Amiens, what the French called the Fourth Battle of Picardy. Not that there were many French left at that point. We were fresh, had new equipment, had not been battered by six years of pure hell, and still we could not beat them. We could stop them, they were out of almost everything, their uniforms were rags, their rifles had worn the lands and grooves away, but we could not penetrate their lines, even with Patton’s celebrated tanks. They fought us right into the ground, with pure raw nerve and iron discipline.

  Ten years later on, there was no telling who or what they might be. The Afghans and Baluchis we had destroyed outside of the Great Wall a few months ago had been tough enough, but they had not been disciplined, not like the real German Army. But, who knew? The Germans had been decimated time after time, fathers had left infant sons to grow up and get slaughtered in their turn, White Russians, Ukrainians, Spanish, all sorts of Balkan rabble had been sucked into fill the ranks, there was just no telling. And it was my job to know things like that. Lots of luck, chump.

  I sent a telegram up the line, to Hodak, telling him I wanted prisoners, or at least ID cards, dog tags, whatever they could get for me. He was one smart and brutal son of a bitch; I knew he would deliver. Then I remembered the mysterious Miss Aneko. She had been with, perhaps controlling, Hodak, it was all orientally obscure. Aneko was some sort of Siberian of Japanese ancestry. None of that was the least bit clear. She had some sort of relationship with my very temporary lover and partner, Nadia Yelena Akhtiorskaya, also known as Isis. Yelena had been a colonel under Stillwell, right here in Jiu-quan, before that she had worked for me at the Dalny Bulletin as a translator. She had supposedly grown up with another of my ex-lovers, Cookie, Aja Janova, in the Siberian city of Tsaritsyn. Isis was supposed to be up in Harbin, working counter-inte
lligence. Fuck her. Too much monkey business for me to be involved in, and she reveled in shit like that. If the situation was not confused enough, she would improve it beyond all comprehension. It’s a gift. Or a living.

  All very deep and murky, at least to a stranger like myself. But Aneko. I needed her. She would know. And she had worked for Stillwell. I loaded my fat ass in a flivver, and went to Jiu-quan HQ. I didn’t want to generate any official paperwork until I had some idea of what was what.

  She was still there, still a colonel, she even remembered me. Her uniform was tailored, probably silk, and I would bet the buttons were pure gold. She had a side office in HQ, almost Spartan in its bareness; a map, three phones, a desk of some antiquity. Not even a chair for a visitor. She looked up from the paper she was writing with a brush, in the Japanese style, said, “Miles. What do you need from me?”

  “Not much. I need a way to contact Hodak, have him send me information on the state of the enemy troops. Fitness, nationality, arms, and so on. He is the only one I can think of that could judge matters like that. Basic intelligence and scouting.”

  “He is doing this already. He reports such matters to me, via telegraph. It would be the simplest matter to have copies sent to you.”

  Something in that phrasing made me ask; “In exchange for what?”

  “I would like to know more about the wars in the United States. Mexico and Canada. More than you send to Hodges.”

  “There is not much. All the radio stations are clamped down, almost everything is under government control, except for the Canadien Libéré hams, and some pretty chaotic stuff from South America.”

  “What means this ‘hams’?”