The Survivalist

by Arthur T. Bradley

  Jessie kissed Mason on the nose.

  “Don’t worry. As long as you’re good to me, Daddy would never raise a hand against you. Besides, we’re in your room.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that I came to you, not the other way around.”

  “And that matters?”

  “Of course it does. Daddy can be overly protective at times, but he also raised me to make my own decisions. If I want to give myself to a handsome cowboy, that’s my decision.”

  “Even so, we should tell him, announce our intentions, as it were.”

  “Tomorrow. I promise.”

  Mason relaxed and settled back against the pillow.

  “How about you, Jessie? Are you sure about this? About us? I’m quite a bit older than you. Not to mention the fact that I’ve got more baggage than a Saudi prince.”

  She cupped his face with both hands and kissed him on the mouth. It was not a kiss of second guesses.

  “You’re perfect.”

  “I just don’t want you to regret—”

  “You’re perfect,” she said again, this time shifting her loins to press against his.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You sure this isn’t just a sex thing?”

  Her breathing became shallow as she leaned in close, gently biting his lip.

  “Ask me that in an hour.”

  “An hour? Didn’t you hear what I said about my being older than—”

  Mason’s next words were smothered by Jessie’s mouth. Soon, nothing mattered but the heat of her body and the soft press of her flesh. If there was a better feeling in the entire world, he had yet to discover it.

  Mason slept better than he had in years. Perhaps it was a result of being free from the stress of the gunfighting competition at Grey’s Point, or maybe it was just due to sharing a bed with a woman more than ten years his junior. Whatever the reason, he awoke feeling like a man who could hike Mount Everest, wrestle a Siberian tiger, and participate in a good round of caber toss—all before breakfast.

  Jessie was gone, which was a relief, given that they had yet to make the big announcement to her father. How Jack would take it was anyone’s guess, but he seemed like a man who understood that matters of the heart trumped all else.

  Mason sat up and let the sunlight warm his face. It felt good. He closed his eyes and imagined Jessie’s smooth body, her lovely voice, the wetness of her lips against his. Those, too, felt good.

  Bowie’s feet scratched against the floor, and Mason looked up to find him sniffing the small gap along the bottom of the door.

  “Give me a second, boy,” he said, sitting up and donning a pair of pants and a black t-shirt.

  As Mason pulled open the bedroom door, he was met with the delicious sounds and smells of sizzling bacon. Country life had its own rewards.

  Bowie hurried ahead, and Mason padded along behind him to see who was doing the cooking. Jessie stood in front of the stove, her back to him. Jack sat at their small kitchen table with a cup of coffee in one hand and a copy of A Farewell to Arms in the other.

  Bowie nudged open the screen door and disappeared into the backyard. When the door slapped shut, Jessie turned to find Mason standing barefoot in the hallway.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” she said with a warm smile.

  Deciding that it was too late to make himself more presentable, Mason smoothed back his hair and continued into the kitchen to sit across the table from Jack.

  “You sleep all right?” Jack said, glancing up from his book.

  Mason wasn’t sure what to make of the question. Was he really asking about sleep, or was this about Jessie? Either way, Mason wasn’t a man to hide from much of anything.

  “Well enough,” he said, making eye contact.

  Jack nodded and went back to reading his book.

  Jessie came over with a pot of coffee.

  “Be just a couple of minutes on breakfast,” she said, pouring him a cup.

  Mason nodded his thanks and took a sip. It was strong, with an earthy flavor, much like the woman who poured it.

  Jessie returned to the stove to continue preparing breakfast. As she worked, Mason found himself studying the smooth shape of her shoulders, the slender curve of her waist. Jessie was someone special, and he was one lucky bastard to have her attention.

  That was what worried him.

  Ava had been special too. Even Brooke, in her own duplicitous way, had possessed a magic that couldn’t be denied. Unfortunately, both women had left him with a bellyful of regret. In one case, it was regret over not protecting her, and in the other, for having trusted her.

  Hoping to clear his mind, Mason stood and walked over to the back door. The family farm stretched off to the west, and beyond it, trees as far as the eye could see. The sight brought back a memory from a long time ago.

  He had been fifteen years old, halfway between a boy and a man. His father had taken him into the Blue Ridge Mountains for what he thought was going to be a hiking trip. Instead, they spent much of the morning scouting a parcel of land, thick with all manner of trees and wildlife.

  Turning to his father, Mason asked, “What exactly are we looking for?”

  Tanner tipped his nose into the air and took a deep sniff.

  “A place to call home.”

  “Don’t we already have a home?”

  “We need something away from the rat race.”

  Living in the outskirts of Sevierville, Tennessee hardly classified as a rat race, but Mason knew better than to argue the point. His father was a man who didn’t care a whole lot for people. Mankind was, as he put it, “a self-serving species that cared only about getting rich and fat.”

  “Are we really going to move out here? To live like frontiersmen?” While it sounded like an adventure, Mason wasn’t entirely sure that his father had thought it through. Living off the grid introduced all kinds of hardships.

  “Be good for us. Help us to get back in touch with the planet.”

  There was a sparkle in his father’s eyes that Mason hadn’t seen in a long time.

  “Would we build a house?”

  “A cabin actually, with thick timber walls and doors that’ll bruise your knuckles.” Tanner walked over to a large oak tree. “Yes,” he said, patting its massive trunk. “I believe these will do nicely.”

  Mason stepped closer and placed his hand next to his father’s. While not quite sharing the same desire to escape civilization, he couldn’t deny that touching the tree brought a sense of connectedness to the world around him.

  “Have you ever built a cabin before?” The question was asked in earnest, as Tanner Raines had proven himself a man of many unusual talents.

  “Back when I used to live with the hippies.”

  “Is it hard?”

  “Back-breaking.”

  Mason nodded. He had learned to find a certain sense of satisfaction from hard work, one of the many things he had picked up from his father.

  “All right. When do we start?”

  “Already have.”

  Mason raised an eyebrow, confused.

  “Picking the site is the most important step.” Tanner walked out into a small clearing and used the heel of his boot to scrub an “X” into the dirt. “This is it. This is our spot.”

  “Why here?”

  “It’s got everything we need nearby—water and fish to keep us alive, timber and rock to build the cabin. Plus, the road’s a few hundred yards away, far enough for a little privacy, but close enough to get back to town for supplies without needing a 4 x 4.”

  “What about my school?”

  “What about it?”

  “I only have two more years. After that, I might go to college, or maybe even into the service.” It was the first time he had mentioned the military, and Mason watched his father for a reaction.

  There wasn’t one.

  “By the time the cabin’s built, you’ll be finished with school. After that, it’s up to you to decide what you want from lif
e. Either way, the cabin will be your family’s once your mother and I are gone.”

  Despite his father’s words, Mason knew that the cabin was not intended for him. It was Tanner’s last-ditch effort to escape the noisy, polluted world that he hated so dearly.

  Mason squatted down, scooped up a handful of soil, and brought it to his nose. There was a rich organic smell to it. “Water, timber, and rock,” he thought. Perhaps they would be enough to help his father find his place in a world that was at odds with his very soul.

  Then again, perhaps they wouldn’t.

  Jessie’s voice brought Mason back to the present.

  “You okay?” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  He hadn’t heard her approach.

  “I’m good,” he said, turning. “Just someplace else for a minute.”

  She tipped her head, waiting for more.

  “I was remembering another time when life was taking a turn. My family had decided to build a cabin up in the mountains.”

  “That sounds exciting.”

  He smiled. “If you call cold fingers, sore backs, and enough sweat to fill the Hoover Dam exciting, then yeah, it was downright thrilling.”

  “You wouldn’t be smiling if there weren’t good memories too.”

  Mason thought of the scent of the freshly cut logs, the enveloping warmth puffing from the boiler, and the nightly song of millions of insects lulling him to sleep.

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “There were good memories.”

  “Did you ever finish the cabin?”

  “Took the better part of two years.”

  “So it all worked out then.”

  Mason tried to resist, but one last memory pushed its way into his consciousness. A convoy of police cars barreling up the dirt driveway, the quick rush of men to the cabin door, and his father reluctantly allowing himself to be handcuffed and taken away. The memory haunted him partly because he knew that his parents’ marriage would never survive it, but even more so because he had seen it coming for a long time but had been unable to prevent it.

  “For a while, it did.”

  Jessie glanced back at her father. He had yet to look up from his book.

  She leaned closer to Mason and spoke in a whisper.

  “If I’ve learned anything from my mother’s passing, it’s that, sometimes, a while is all we get.”

  Chapter 4

  The UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter sat in a patch of tall weeds to one side of the airfield. It looked as if someone had simply gotten tired of looking for a suitable landing pad and had, instead, settled for putting it down someplace that wouldn’t require them to walk too far.

  The aircraft was long and low to the ground, with four huge rotor blades overhead and a smaller canted tail rotor to the rear. The only thing distinguishing it from its neighbors was a red and white cross marking the nose.

  To their surprise, Tanner and Samantha had been left standing alone by the Black Hawk while Musketeer went in search of Tillman and the pilot. They had even been given back their weapons, which made both feel a bit better about their current predicament.

  Samantha wrinkled her face as she studied the helicopter.

  “This thing looks older than you do.”

  “Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “You shouldn’t. It’s old, like really really old.” She ran a palm over its black metal skin. The paint felt cold and gritty, as if speckled with a fine layer of sand. Samantha rapped her knuckles against it. “Should it sound like that? I think it might have termites. My mom used to say that termites would eat a house to the ground if you let them. Who’s to say they don’t eat helicopters?”

  Tanner rolled his eyes. “You worry too much. These things have been flying for nearly fifty years.”

  “My point exactly. Just how long are they meant to last?” She looked around at the disjointed airfield dotted with helicopters. Some were equipped with weapon pods, and some were medical helivacs, like the one they were preparing to board. “Let’s face it. Mother’s team doesn’t look like they put maintenance at the top of their priority list. For all we know, this thing might not even have enough gas.”

  Tanner slid open the cargo door and placed his shotgun and backpack inside.

  “You know what they say, flying is safer than driving.”

  “They’re not talking about helicopters.”

  “And how would you know that?”

  “I’ve only flown in a helicopter once, and it crashed. That’s not a very good safety record.”

  Tanner cupped his hands to give her a boost up into the aircraft.

  “Think of it this way. By crashing, you’ve already beaten the odds. No way it could happen twice.”

  She thought about that for a moment and then stepped up into the aircraft.

  “It couldn’t, could it? I mean, it would be like winning the lottery twice.”

  “Exactly.”

  He climbed up beside her and turned to sit with his feet dangling out through the open door. Samantha wedged her rifle under one of the jump seats and sat down next to him.

  “My problem with helicopters is that they’re just not natural.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Think about it. Most things that fly look like birds or insects. How did they come up with something like this anyway?”

  “You can thank old Leonardo for that.”

  “The Ninja Turtle?”

  Tanner sighed. “The painter and all-around Renaissance man.”

  “Which is what exactly?”

  “A Renaissance man is a man of many talents, someone with insatiable curiosity and imagination, a great contributor to society.” Tanner crossed his massive arms and smiled. “Someone like me.”

  She snickered. “You?”

  “Sure. I’m always thinking up good stuff.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  He pursed his lips, thinking. “How about that time I invented a cannon down in the tunnels? That was pretty cool.”

  She shrugged. “I guess. But honestly, you’re more like a Ninja Turtle than you are a painter.”

  “Again, compliment accepted,” he said with a tip of his head.

  “It’s strange though, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “That someone would turn turtles into ninjas. They’re so slow. Now jackrabbits, that would make sense.”

  “No stranger than da Vinci’s The Last Supper. You can’t imagine all the symbolism in that painting.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “I mean, even if you picked turtles—which I wouldn’t—why cover their eyes with colored bandanas? Who’s going to pay attention to the face of a giant turtle when they’re carrying a pair of numchucks? Not me, that’s for sure.”

  “From the spilled salt representing betrayal, to Thomas pointing to the sky with the same finger he later uses to probe Christ’s wounds. Strange indeed.”

  “And why do they love pizza so much anyway? Don’t turtles eat seaweed and stuff like that?” She puckered her lips. “I guess they could like pizza. Everybody likes pizza, right?”

  “Some even claim that the person sitting beside Jesus isn’t John the Baptist but Mary Magdalene.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Possible, I suppose. Certainly looks like a woman.”

  Tanner and Samantha settled back and quietly reflected on their findings. After a time, he looked over at her.

  “Good talk.”

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “The best.”

  Musketeer, Tillman, and a man who was obviously the pilot appeared from around a hangar and hurried toward the helicopter. The pilot was dressed in a bloodstained green jumpsuit, and carried a flight helmet in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. It was clear from his stiff hobble that he, too, was infected.

  Samantha threw Tanner a worried look.

  “Don’t start,” he growled. “They wouldn’t let him fly us if he wasn’t qualified.”

  That seemed to help. “
Right. Because Mother knows how important this mission is.”

  “She’d better. We’re on our way to make her the richest woman in the world.”

  “Second richest,” corrected Samantha. “The Queen is the richest.”

  “What queen?”

  “The Queen of England, of course. She has a palace and a castle. You ever heard of the Crown Jewels?”

  “Fancy crowns and scepters?”

  Samantha nodded. “Those are hers too.”

  “Impressive.”

  “I spent a whole weekend at her castle once. I even had a chance to meet her.”

  “Yeah? How was she?”

  “Not really my cup of tea.” She grinned. “Get it? She’s English.”

  Tanner rolled his eyes. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a nut?”

  Before she could reply, the pilot hurried past them, flinging the rest of his coffee into the weeds and offering a quick “Buckle up.”

  As he disappeared around the right side of the aircraft, Tanner and Samantha hopped up into the jump seats facing the open cargo bay door and quickly buckled their harnesses.

  “Is he going to leave the door open?” she asked anxiously.

  “I sure hope so.”

  She thought about that for a moment. “Yeah. Me too.”

  He smiled. Samantha might be the queen of worrywarts, but she was also a twelve-year-old girl. If the thought of looking down at the trees racing by underfoot didn’t get her heart pounding, nothing would.

  Musketeer and Tillman stood in the open field thirty yards away, staring at them. Of the two, Tillman seemed particularly edgy, shifting from one foot to the other as if he had to pee.

  Samantha offered a friendly wave, but that only caused him to look down at his feet. She glanced at Turner.

  “What’s up with him?”

  “Probably just sorry to see us go. We are pretty great company.”

  “True.”

  The pilot climbed into the cockpit and began throwing switches. As the rotor spun up, the world around them suddenly turned deafening.

  “I don’t remember it being this loud!” shouted Samantha.

  Tanner ignored her, instead leaning back and closing his eyes.