Jim saluted and reported all present, followed by Blackbeard. Mark returned their salutes, acknowledging their reports.
“Who’s the best tracker we have?” Mark asked the formation, although he already knew the answer.
“Here, sir!” Blackie called out. No one questioned him. When Sawyer Brown found him he’d been half-feral. He was small from being malnourished for half his life.
But he was hard, could run for days without getting tired. He could carry his bodyweight without wearing down. The only thing he needed was a chance, the one thing that Terry Henry had given him, a chance and nothing else.
“Jim! On my command, you will fall out and carry out the plan of the day. Fall out!” Jim’s squad executed a right face and marched back toward the barracks, which was just the old house that the colonel had designated as the barracks a long time ago.
“Bring it in!” Mark called to Blackie and his six people, rough men all, sharp-eyed and hard, from having enough food and working out like fiends. They spent four to six hours every day in fitness training.
Every day. And then they worked in the fields, in the plant, with the horses, wherever they were needed most. And finally when they were near exhaustion, they trained in tactical maneuvers, squad operations, and individual combat skills.
When the colonel was in town, they studied as well. He’d taught them all how to read and write. He told them that a good education would put them one step ahead of any enemy. Their minds were the greatest weapon they possessed.
“Gentlemen, here’s the five paragraph order. The situation is that we have a missing hunter, somewhere in the mountains west of here. Our mission is to find him and recover him if he’s alive and his gear if he’s not. Execution is we’ll take one squad, Blackie will track the hunter and we’ll maintain a line abreast in trace of our tracker. Admin and logistics are that we’ll go silently on horse as far as possible, our tracker’s call. We will carry what we need for two days’ excursion, full ammo loadout, all hands carrying our standard rifle. Command and signal is that we’ll use standard hand and arm signals. Verbal communication will be used in emergencies only. Simple as that. Any questions?”
There were none.
“Load up,” Mark ordered.
***
Terry Henry didn’t want to let go of Char, but they had to butcher the pig and meet the convoy. She stood, pulling him to his feet where they embraced, nuzzling each other’s neck.
Terry took her face in both his hands, caressing her cheeks, then looking more closely. “Your scar is healing,” he said, surprised at what he was seeing.
“Maybe your nanocytes are doing what mine could not?” she asked, before pushing him away one arm cocked, hand on her hip. “Hey, ass-face! You let me walk around like this for two years when all it would have taken was a little chicky-bow-wow, wham bam and now you’re healed, ma’am?”
“How was I supposed to know?” Terry asked, smiling liking a high school boy after his first time.
“I forgive you. This time.” Char was smiling, too. “Would you look at that?” The road rash-looking injury on her forearm from where Terry’s silvered blade touched her was healing, too.
She took a step closer, “I wonder if round two will make it heal even faster?” She pressed her naked body against his.
Electricity sparked, and Terry’s head began to swim. He shook it to clear his vision. Char was blinking, too. She punched him in the chest, making him stagger backwards. “Don’t you ever waste two years like that again, Terry Henry Walton. I’ll have your hide hung outside Margie Rose’s house with your head on a pig pole! We have what—one hundred, two hundred years left is all?”
Terry chuckled as he reached for his clothes. The sound of horses nearby was unmistakable. He handed Char her clothes. “No matter what, let’s not waste the next two hundred years. Before you know it, it’ll be all behind us. We’ll be old and gray, sitting on rocking chairs watching the great-great-great-great-grandchildren playing in the yard.”
“I think that’s a few too many “greats” there, mister. Kids, huh? Moving kind of fast, aren’t you?”
“But,” Terry stammered as he buttoned his shirt and fastened his gear. “You just said not to waste your time.”
“In your sixty-five years, welcome to Medicare by the way, you never learned a thing about women, did you?” Char countered as she took out her skinning knife and prepared to work on the carcass.
“Yes!” Terry said defensively. He pulled his pant leg up to look where the wild boar had hit him with its tusks. Not a mark. His knees were fully healed, too. He was back in perfect health. “Thank you for the exchange of nanocytes.”
“Really?” Char said in a low voice, Terry joined her in working on the pig. Clyde brayed as he tracked them into the arroyo, stopping when he saw his humans, then his hackles went up and he barked viciously at the dead creature.
“I guess you’ll send me red roses in the morning, too?” she said coldly.
“What did I do? I love you, Char! There, for the whole world to hear,” Terry apologized in his manly way.
“Thank you for the exchange of nanocytes. Please pencil yourself in for next Wednesday, when after a rather vigorous workout, I would appreciate another nanocyte exchange so I can heal faster. You are such a nob!”
Terry stopped a moment, looking up and pursing his lips, “Now that you say it, it doesn’t quite sound like what I meant. Let me rephrase…”
“I can’t wait for this.” Char stopped what she was doing, purple eyes sparkling. The corners of her mouth twitching, ready to smile.
“I can’t do it with you watching me like that! Too much pressure.” Terry turned back to the boar and started slicing quickly. Clyde had a hold of one ear and was growling and tugging on it.
Terry tried his distraction technique. “I love that dog.”
“As Robert Jordan said, ‘Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget,’” Char replied.
Terry searched his mind and replied, “You only need one man to love you. But him to love you free like a wildfire, crazy like the moon, always like tomorrow, sudden like an inhale and overcoming like the tides. Only one man and all of this.” He looked to Char, “I quote the immortal words of C. JoyBell C.”
“Touché, crazy man,” Char conceded. They were working quickly with the carcass when James rode around the nearest corner of the arroyo.
“Nice!” James exclaimed looking at the massive beast. “That’s a week’s worth of food right there, even for as many people as we have.”
Clyde, gnawing on the ear he had ripped off looked up to James for a second before going back to his hairy candy.
“Get some folks in here to finish butchering this and prepare it for the spit,” Terry ordered before finishing his command, “tonight, we feast!”
James turned and spurred his horse back to the main road that paralleled the river they followed.
They never ventured far from any of the water sources. The heat was brutal, the sun merciless, the dust all-consuming.
Terry and Char finished the cleaning, leaving the skin on to make transport easier to a place closer to the river where they would find something to burn. There was little to nothing in the Wastelands.
They had to drag Clyde away from some of the entrails, because they were going to use most of it, whether casings for sausage or meat for a stew. Nothing could go to waste—every morsel could be the difference between life and death.
The others came and tied the boar to a rope that they dragged behind two horses, back to the road, then to the river where they rolled the carcass into the river’s flow.
Terry and Char headed out separately to find their horses, but not before kissing goodbye.
As lovers do.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“It’s hotter this year than it has been in the past,” the engineer stated, wiping the swe
at from his head. “I think we’re going to have to shut the plant down to keep things from over-heating.”
Billy whistled his surprise. “What happens to everything that’s frozen if we lose power? Did you ever bring that backup generator online?”
“No. We couldn’t get the copper internals right, and it’s out of balance. We don’t have a way to lathe the shaft, make it stable. It bounces as it turns, so we can’t get enough RPMs to generate any power. All we have is Old Faithful, and I treat my baby nice.” He glanced over at the mayor, “That’s why I want to shut her down and check to see if we’re getting any excess wear due to the heat.” The engineer was insistent on taking the system offline.
“Without power, we’re just like any other ramshackle settlement, a bunch of survivors scraping by. That’s not us. Can you do it before anything in the freezers thaw out?” Billy asked.
“You can buy us more time if you insulate the freezers, shade, extra wrapping, and pack them as tightly with frozen stuff as you can get—fill all the empty space with pouches of water. That should do the trick. We also have an inverter. We could use your car to provide extra 110VAC, give twenty minutes of love to each freezer every few hours, at least the smaller ones. The big ones pull too heavy a load.”
The engineer had been thinking about how to do it. He didn’t expect he could complete what he needed to do quickly. He wanted a few days to let his baby cool down. If he needed to weld anything, he’d have to ask Billy to drive the car into the power plant to provide the power. He’d need people to wave fans to chase the exhaust away.
And everything would be hot. Inside would be almost unbearable.
The crops this year were suffering too, so they kept the ground as wet as possible, half-draining the lakes within New Boulder to dangerously low levels. Billy was being challenged. All of this and a new baby, too.
He had to make the decision.
“You will be able to start this thing back up, won’t you?” Billy asked pointedly.
“Absolutely,” the engineer said confidently. “But…”
“What the hell? Son of a bitch!” Billy blurted. Just when he was feeling good about making the decision, the “but” slapped him in the head.
“But it may take a few days. We have all of our spare parts and our shop ready to go. The key to make this work, Billy, is your car.” The mechanic had joined them and watched, wondering which way Billy would go. If he didn’t let them shut the plant down for maintenance, they risked losing it all. There was no backup. If they shut it down but tried to restart before they were ready, they risked catastrophic failure. And then they might come across something that they couldn’t fix. What if they couldn’t restart the plant?
“We’re fucked, aren’t we, boys?” Billy hung his head and mindlessly kicked at a rock. He watched it roll toward the door. The engineer and the mechanic didn’t say a word. “Give me two days to get the freezers ready. We’ll start when the sun sets tomorrow, unless something else comes up, buy us a little time when it’s not so damn hot out.”
“Sounds good, Billy. We won’t let you down.” The engineer offered his hand and they shook.
Billy didn’t feel any better about it. In fact, he felt pretty damned horrible.
***
Private Blackbeard led the small parade of horses west into the mountains. They had only a general idea where the hunter left New Boulder, and his path wasn’t clear. The way was well worn from many using it. Blackie called a halt and rode back and forth looking for any fresh signs. Then he waved them forward for half a mile and called another halt.
He rode in a huge arc, left to right in front of the group, checking and rechecking. Mark was starting to lose patience as the sun continued to climb into the sky. Finally, Blackie waved them forward, pointing northeast.
They rode single file along a narrow path as they climbed. They continued above ten thousand feet, then turned to follow one hill’s crest, staying away from the point where they’d be skylined.
The men remained alert, watching as if the colonel would ambush them at any second.
But he wasn’t there. This was a real life operation, and although no one expected to run into anything, they didn’t lessen their guard. Rifles faced outboard, toward the sides, away from their fellows. Terry beat more than one member of the FDG for haphazardly pointing his rifle. The colonel called it friendly fire, shooting one of your own. Mark didn’t understand, because it didn’t sound friendly at all.
None of them believed it possible to shoot one of their own, but the colonel and the major assured them that it was easy, and if they didn’t exercise trigger and fire discipline, it would be inevitable. So they carefully watched where their weapons were pointed, ready to get cuffed in the head if they were reckless.
Mark rode at the end of the formation, happy with what he saw. The men were hunched in their saddles, remaining silent, the only sounds were from the horses’ tack shifting and jingling.
The sun passed midday and they continued through valleys, across hills and deeper into the mountains. Occasionally, Blackie called for a halt and dismounted, tying his horse to a tree so he could walk about and search closer to the ground.
Eventually he’d give the thumbs up, remount his horse, and ride on.
As evening approached, Blackie waved the men into a tactical formation, line abreast. They spread out to Corporal Blackbeard’s flanks, four to one side and three to the other. The outermost members of the FDG angled away slightly. Their job was to protect the flanks, prevent an enemy from rolling up the formation from the sides. The others would bring the maximum firepower to the front.
Mark took a position next to Blackie. He pointed to his eyes and then forward at a slight angle ahead. He saw something in the brush. He made a walking motion with his fingers and Mark nodded, then signaled the others to dismount. They did, every other man tying off the horses to the brush with the rest looking ahead over the barrels of their rifles.
When the squad was ready, they moved forward, crouching, aiming, taking care with each step. Blackie held up a fist, then pointed a knife hand, fingers together and straight as if preparing a slap, and motioned thirty degrees to the left. He did the same for the men on the right flank.
Mark matched his steps as Blackie moved forward. The sergeant looked along the side of his barrel as he swept the ground before him using a figure eight pattern, low, then high, left, and right. He stopped when he saw the bodies—a man and horse.
Blackie signaled to establish a perimeter with the bodies at the center. Blackie and Mark slowly moved in, circling the bodies and checking the trees for overhead enemies. Once the perimeter was established and confirmed with a thumbs up from each squad member, Mark said in a voice intended not to carry too far, “Perimeter established and secure. Stay frosty, gents! We’re examining the bodies now.”
The two men slung their rifles and turned their full attention to the mess at their feet. The horse had been half eaten. The man had claw marks on him—five parallel gouges deep into the flesh of his neck and shoulder. The location and amount of dried blood told them the jugular had been severed. The man died quickly, probably having ridden his horse as it was getting attacked by a bear. Mark didn’t know how many rounds the man had brought with him and they didn’t find any shell casings in the vicinity.
“A bear, probably the damn grizzly, growing bolder and bolder by the day,” Mark whispered. Blackie went through the man’s pockets to recover his personal belongings and anything else of use to the people of New Boulder.
Mark held the man’s hunting rifle. The scope had been dented in the fall and the optics shattered. A shame. The scope was irreplaceable. The rifle didn’t have iron sights. As a hunting rifle, it was no longer of any use, but Mark slung it over his shoulder anyway. He’d give it to Billy as he promised.
“Three o’clock!” one of the men yelled. A shot rang out, then another. Four weapons opened up, firing quickly. Mark pulled his rifle around to his front and ran
toward the three o’clock position of the perimeter, Blackie right behind him.
A fat grizzly sow had charged, but stopped under the deadly fire. The grizzly staggered and tumbled.
“Cease fire!” Mark yelled. The men held up, the sound of the previous shots dying away with echoes into the distance. Mark waited as his hearing returned. He thought he heard something else. “Ready!”
A small cub appeared from the brush and bounced around, confused.
“Hold your fire!” Blackie yelled as he ran forward. The cub dashed a few steps away, then stopped and sat down. “He’s afraid.”
“Expand the perimeter! We’re taking that grizzly back with us,” Mark ordered.
“Of course we are,” Blackbeard replied. “We just killed his mother.”
“I think you misunderstand me, Corporal. We’ll cleaning the sow and taking her back with us. Her hide and her meat will go a long ways with the people,” Mark clarified.
“But, look at him?” Blackie cried, pointing to the cub.
“He’s a grizzly! Get a hold of yourself,” Mark countered as he pulled his skinning knife, found a log to roll next to the carcass, and started working.
“Get your ass over here and help me,” Mark growled. Blackie had gotten close enough to the cub to scratch his ears. Then the two started wrestling and playing. Mark started to laugh, shaking his head.
“God damn it.”
***
The convoy continued day after day, trudging alongside the river as they made their way toward the mountains that never seemed to get closer. Terry and Char walked nearly every step of it, as did the other members of the FDG. Those with small children rode, as well as some of the oldsters who were starting to fall back. At least the hunting and foraging had been good enough that no one died from starvation. They lost a young man to a rattlesnake bite, but surprisingly, he was the only one.
Nomad Omnibus 01: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (A Terry Henry Walton Chronicles Omnibus) Page 37
