Warrior (Freelancer Book 2)

by Irving, Terry

  She moved over and sat in the other recliner. "I said there wasn't anything wrong with you, that you were just stuck fighting some bad guys."

  "I don't know that I'd agree that 'nothing is wrong with me,' but I appreciate the effort." Rick watched as Sage became more excited about the game on the computer. "It's not bad enough that I have to go through this crap all the time. I really hate making everyone around me participate."

  "Well, don't feel like the Lone Ranger," Kristee said. "I don't know too many people who get through life without a scratch." She sighed. "That's why I had to get Sage away from the compound."

  Rick rolled his head over to look at her and waited for her to continue, but her thin lips were locked in a straight line, and she didn't take her eyes off her daughter.

  Eve popped her head out of the kitchen. "Hey, if any of you want corn, I need help with shucking. It's not local, but it's better than canned."

  Rick and Kristee levered themselves out of the broken cushions of their recliners and walked to the kitchen. The back door was open, and Eve's voice came from outside. "Come on out here so we don't make a mess."

  Eve had taken a seat on the low stone wall that marked the rear edge of the property and the outer wall of the tiny back porch. She said, "Pull up a step and make yourselves at home." A Safeway paper bag with at least two dozen ears of corn sat between her legs. She tossed an ear to each of them, and they settled down to ripping off the leaves and picking out the threads of silk.

  Eve looked up and peered through the kitchen window. "Good, I can see Sage, so I know she's not sneaking up on us. Ergo, Kristee, you've got no excuses. Give with the rest of the evil that lurks in Christian Cuckoo Land?"

  There was a pause filled with the sound of ripping husks and the "pop" when the ear came off the last bit of the stalk. Kristee began to talk, not like someone who was scared or unwilling, more like a witness in court trying to bring clarity to events that were confused, jumbled, and colored with intense emotion.

  "Well, I told you how the Crusaders hauled us back to the mansion. I guess that was in 1972 around Thanksgiving. I was furious but hey, I'm a woman, I'm not that big, and my biggest concern was keeping Sage from being hurt.

  "So we were back in the bunkhouse. The other women were told to keep an eye on us and make sure we didn't 'wander off.' I had to go to a special class they called 'Spiritual Service,' but it was really just a bunch of crap about obeying your husband—after Stephen, of course—and how a woman could only be happy if she was in a state of 'Spiritual Submission.'"

  Eve said angrily, "Sounds more like 'spiritual slavery.'"

  Kristee looked up and then concentrated on picking out the silk threads. "Yeah, you'd think I'd have realized that, but, hey, all the women's lib stuff wasn't around when I was growing up, and the Children's Crusade's pitch wasn't all that different from the crap I'd heard at Holy Word Baptist every Sunday."

  She finished the ear of corn, laid it in the neat pyramid growing on the step next to Rick, and snapped her fingers at Eve who threw her a new ear. "On the other hand, I didn't buy into it any more than I'd ever bought into all that Baptist bullshit about 'surrendering to your husband.' I waited, watched, and planned. I memorized all the shifts of Crusaders guarding the area, explored the woods in back of the bunkhouse when I could sneak away, and waited for a chance."

  Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "Then Sage was scheduled to begin her special training. They made her swear not to talk about it with anyone, especially her parents. When she told me, that alone almost had me grabbing her and taking off for the front gate, I tell you."

  Kristee shook her head. "Man, I'm glad I didn't. The place is about a mile from the nearest anything, Gary had the keys to the pickup, and it would have put them on alert. The thing I worried about most was that they would just take Sage and send me away. I don't know what I would have done then."

  Her voice cracked, and she pulled a bandanna out of her back pocket, held it out to find the little cloth label, and then swiped at her eyes with one edge and blew her nose on the other. Shaking her head as if to banish an unpleasant dream, she continued. "But they didn't, and I was the meekest, most obedient believer in the Children's Crusade you've ever seen. And then, in February, everything changed."

  Rick put a cleaned ear on the pile and asked, "Around the end of February?"

  "Yeah." Kristee looked bewildered. "Why?"

  "Just wondering how it matches up with something else. Go ahead with your story."

  Eve threw new ears to the two on the steps and looked in the bag. "We're almost done."

  Kristee ripped the husk off with a particularly vicious twist. "Suddenly, everyone was running around, all the men anyway, and then most of them grabbed weapons, piled into the cars and pickups in the Common Pool, and took off. No one would say where they were going or why, but I heard some talk about a mission or a calling or something like that."

  She tossed the husk away and started on the silk. "I didn't think I was ever going to have a better chance to get the hell out of there, and, as far as I knew, they could all be coming back any time. I'd already filled a knapsack with whatever food I could put together and taken all the money from our family stash.

  She continued faster. "So, the first night, I woke Sage up at 3:00 a.m., dressed us both in just about every piece of clothes we owned. I had us wearing two socks on each hand. I mean it was cold, not as bad as a Montana winter but still . . ."

  Eve said, "Nothing is as cold as a Montana winter."

  Rick agreed. "Damn right, last winter almost made me feel like Vietnam wasn't that bad."

  He paused. "Almost."

  Kristee finished her last ear and dusted off her hands. "We went out through the back woods, and I used every hunting trick my Dad ever showed me. Walking on rocks, stepping in each other's footprints, climbing trees and moving from branch to branch. Everything. Lucky it was a full moon. After we were about a mile away, I saw the outside lights go on at the Big House, and I knew they were coming after us."

  Eve asked, “You ran?"

  Kristee shook her head. "That would have just gotten us caught. No, as soon as I knew they were hunting for us. I headed for a downed tree that I'd found weeks before. You see, in addition to exploring the woods, I'd been digging a hunter's hide between the base of the tree and the root ball it had torn when it fell. It wasn't much bigger than the two of us, but it was dry and warmed up pretty good if we snuggled together. They came by twice but never saw us. We stayed there for two days before we made a break for the fence."

  Eve nodded her head. "Smart girl."

  Kristee laughed bitterly. "Ya think? Would a smart girl ever have gotten herself in a fix like that? No, I've been making nothing but dumbass moves my whole life."

  She paused, and Rick could see the muscles clench as she set her jaw. "Well, that ended that night. Had to be ended. Sage is never going back there."

  "No, she isn't," promised Rick. "Then what happened?"

  "We walked north for several miles after we got over the fence. Then I noticed that this house had a sign on the lawn that said, 'No Crusaders Allowed.' I figured we had to take a chance and knocked on the back door. The woman who answered welcomed us, let me use the phone to call you, and put us up for a couple of days."

  Kristee smiled at a memory. "Man, you should have heard her when the guys from the mansion knocked at the door. She told them to get the hell off her property and backed it up with a 12 gauge. Mrs. Lewitinsky was one tough lady, and she had no time for the Children's Crusade. Turned out neighbor Peter had 'donated' about 40 acres of the back part of her farm to his property. She went to see one day, and there was a new fence. She said that no one would help, not the police or the county court clerk. They showed her a bunch of papers she swore she'd never seen before and said they couldn't do anything about it."

  Kristee stood. "So we made it to the city, stayed at the Evangeline Hotel for Women for a couple of days, and then looked up Steve after
you told me about this place."

  "And you can stay here as long as you want." Eve hopped down and hugged Kristee fiercely. "This is home for you and Sage."

  When she released the other woman, Eve brushed angrily at her cheeks, scooped up the husks, stems, and silk into the paper bag and handed it to Rick. He put it in the trashcan at the bottom of the stairs while the two women gathered up the corn and carried it into the kitchen.

  Rick strolled out to the sidewalk and spent a while just watching the street—men coming home from work, kids in the yards, and women sitting on their front porches. Finally satisfied that nothing was out of place, he headed up the stairs and into his home.

  CHAPTER 26

  May 22, 1973, Ingomar Street NW, Washington, DC

  "Are you listening?"

  Rick grunted and placed the bar in the supports of the weight bench. He picked up a small towel from the floor and wiped his face. "Yes. I am listening. It's responding that's hard when I've got the weights going."

  In the afternoon, Rick had stopped by Sears and picked up a set of free weights, an essential part of his pre-sleep routine. As he took a breather between reps, he thought about how much more intense his exercise routine had been before he had a roommate.

  Then he looked over at Eve, sitting on the edge of the bed with a small table pulled close to hold the spread of papers and folders she was reading, occasionally highlighting a line with a thick yellow marker or making a tiny note in pencil. He thought of the comfort of her strong arms waking him out of the endless nightmares that ruled his nights and the sheer wonder of feeling that body almost buzzing with life as she slept in his arms. An interrupted routine was an exceedingly small price to pay.

  The rest of the house appeared to agree: he hadn't heard anything about Eve finding her own home since they'd gotten back. He figured part of it was the hassle of having to live with Kristee and Sage without Eve to act as mediator.

  "You were telling me about your boss. Tommy Finkle?"

  "Franklin." Without looking, she tossed her pencil in his direction. "I knew you weren't paying attention."

  Rick caught the pencil out of the air and gently lofted it back on the bed so it rolled slowly and bumped her side. "What I don't understand is exactly what he expects you to do."

  "That's the worst part." Eve picked up the pencil and went back to reading. "We're the first paralegals that Marsden Angle has hired. The woman who directs the program said that it depends on the lawyer we get assigned to."

  Rick lay back and began another set of slow presses. "And what does your guy, Franklin, want you to do?"

  "I don't know. The first day, I was told to meet him in the library." Eve shook her head. "It was the strangest thing. I walked in there and looked for him. My first thought was 'who left a pile of dirty shirts in here?'"

  "Dirty shirts?"

  "Yeah. It was Tommy Franklin, with his feet up on the table, glasses up on his forehead, and slouched all the way down in his chair. I swear the man is a walking wrinkle." She laughed, "I'd bet he thought I was a complete idiot staring at him with my mouth open, except I don't think he paid the slightest attention to me until I walked up and introduced myself."

  Rick smiled despite the pressure of the weights. "Anyone who doesn't notice you can't be all that smart."

  Eve grinned back. "Thank you, sir."

  She turned back to the pile of papers she was working on, "But all he said was 'Can you shepardize?' and, when I admitted I didn't even know what it was, he just tossed a case transcript to me, and told me to find out."

  "Isn't that some kind of dry cleaning?" Rick said as he racked the bar and wiped his face again.

  "That's Martinizing, you dope. No, it's going through these massive books called, oddly enough, Shepard's Citations and finding out if every case mentioned in the file has been overturned—which is bad—or cited—which is good."

  Rick raised one edge of the bench, locked it down, and began to do extremely slow sit-ups. "So, what's your case?"

  "I have no idea." With a laugh, Eve swept the papers off the table. "I'll figure it out tomorrow."

  After a short pause, Eve walked around the table and began to file the papers neatly into their folders. "The biggest problem I have is Tommy's clients."

  "Why?"

  "Well, he's representing tobacco companies. I spent half the afternoon measuring ads for the sides of buses to make sure that the Surgeon General's warning was no bigger than it absolutely had to be." She put the papers in her briefcase and pushed the table against the wall. "But tobacco companies aren't the real problem; they're bad but they're not evil."

  "The Shangri-Las." Rick interrupted.

  "Very good. No, the problem is that he's the point guy for the coal companies. You remember the guys who want to strip mine my home and built monster power plants on it?"

  "Didn't sound like a great way to preserve the place for future generations to me." Rick hit a hundred sit-ups, got off the bench and, putting his feet on the bed, began slow pushups. "But I thought that had all stopped when we made the run with the…uh, when we made the run to Lame Deer."

  Eve began to undress.

  Rick immediately stopped with his arms at full extension and watched.

  She laughed. "Aren't you going to end up with sore arms doing that?"

  "Worth it. Definitely worth it."

  Eve continued, enjoying the attention. When she was nude, she did a slow turn like a model. "So you approve?"

  Rick's arms were just beginning to tremble, but he kept his gaze on her and said, softly, "You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

  "Well, I think I had better cover up before you get all stiffened up."

  "Too late for that."

  She laughed and disappeared into an enormous T-shirt with a Daytona Bike Week logo on the front.

  Rick resumed his pushups.

  When her head popped out, she was obviously thinking about work again. "No, the leases haven't been canceled. They could still be overturned." She sat on the bed and bounced her way up to the pillows, pulled up the blanket, and tucked her feet in. "And, of course, the leases are technically controlled by our friends at the Bureau of Indian Affairs."

  "Friends?" Rick asked.

  "I was being ironic." Eve settled back against the pillows with her hands behind her head. "The BIA has been controlling Indian lands and selling off the natural resources ever since the Indian Wars. We're supposed to be getting the money, but somehow there never seems to be much left."

  "I wonder if we could prove that." Rick finished and stripped off his shorts and t-shirt as he headed for the shower.

  Eve whistled appreciatively. Rick said over his shoulder, "Stop that. You know you are not going to be happy until I get this sweat off. Give me two minutes."

  "I am not going anywhere, trooper," she promised.

  However, when Rick had showered, he came back to find her sound asleep. He slid into bed and wrapped an arm around her, drifting off almost immediately.

  About three hours later, he awoke, shouting warnings about snipers in the treetops. Eve pulled him close and hugged him fiercely until he quieted.

  CHAPTER 27

  May 22, 1973, Ingomar Street NW, Washington, DC

  The kitchen was a whirl of housemates. Steve was headed to a secret location in one of the least discreet cars in the world: a bright-red 240Z convertible. Rick whistled approvingly when he spotted Steve sliding into the car outside the house, Steve yelling back, "One of the perks of selling out to The Man."

  In contrast, Eps and Kristee were walking down to Connecticut Avenue to catch the bus. Kristee only fussed a little bit over Sage, who was going to spend the day with Scotty and was clearly delighted about it. She started pestering the laconic programmer before her mother was even out the door. "Can we try the Volcano today?"

  "Only after we make sure Gidget is OK."

  The little girl didn't pause for a second, flying down the basement stairs, and asking if s
he could load the DECTAPE. She was disappointed for a moment when Scotty told her she was headed for another day at the cardpunch but cheered up when he said he'd teach her some FORTRAN.

  Scotty paused at the door to the basement for a moment and said to Rick, "The cool thing is she has no preconceived idea that she can't program FORTRAN so she just does it. It's an interesting experiment."

  He might have said more, but a plaintive "Scott-eee" came from the basement. He hurried down the stairs but not before Rick could hear the extra locks snap into place.

  Rick was left alone with a cup of coffee and a fresh pack of Winstons. As he raised the coffee mug, he could see ripples. His hands were shaking, a remnant of the night's warfare. He put the cup down, extended both hands in front, and concentrated, willing the nerves to calm. It took almost 30 minutes before he could pick up the now cold coffee without a tremor.

  I need to get that bike today, he thought. I'm like a heroin addict quitting cold turkey.

  The Washington Post was blessedly free of Watergate coverage—at least on the front page—but there was an article on Wounded Knee entitled "Indians vs. Indians."

  Rick shook his head as he read the first paragraphs. Clearly, AIM had brought in the tribal elders, described as "…cultural remnants. Seven old men, worn and toothless, who still clung to the lost glory of the Sioux nation."

  Eve had described the elders as men of tremendous wisdom and integrity, but the government agents who had met with them had dismissed them out of hand. Their preferred leaders were modernized Indians like Dick Wilson, the elected tribal chairman of Pine Ridge, ready to assimilate, willing to work with the coal companies, and a giant fan of Richard Nixon.

  It was also clear that the reporter felt the same way.

  "Catching up on the news, trooper'?" Eve blew into the kitchen in a fury of controlled energy: getting coffee, checking her briefcase, kissing Rick on top of his head, checking the briefcase again, and finally, sitting down across the wooden drum table with her cup of coffee and a contented sigh.