The Legend of Indian Stream

by Steven Landry

  “Now I want to make a deal with you,” Anna continued, “one that’ll benefit you and your daughter. I want to trade that big wagon of yours for this house, the barn and the land.”

  “What? It’s worth a hundred times that old wagon.”

  “Not right now, it isn’t. I really need the wagon, and the property will be staying in the family, so to speak.”

  Three hours later, the sewing machine, the boat, all the fresh supplies, Miriam’s trousseau, and whatever else from the house would fit, had been loaded into the wagon. After a tearful goodbye, the three of them climbed into the wagon and Paul snapped the reins. Miriam waved to her parents until they were lost from sight.

  While Miriam wasn’t looking, Anna pulled the fresh Uzi out from the bag she had hidden it in and tucked it under her apron. Paul had one Glock and she had the other. The old Uzi, now loaded with fresh ammo, remained in the bag. She didn’t know what kind of trouble would come their way, but she’d be ready when it did.

  22 - ANNA

  Omaha, Nebraska Territory, USA, Tuesday, August 8, 1854

  After an arduous six month journey, Anna, Paul, and Miriam reached Omaha, in the Nebraska Territory, in early August. Anna knew that the prosperous little town would soon boast a large ethnic German population, and she felt they could blend in as well there as anywhere else in the West.

  The early morning ferry that had carried them across the Missouri River had no sooner left the dock when Miriam turned and ran for the nearest bushes. It was the third day in a row she’d been sick before breakfast, and Anna suspected she herself was soon going to be a grandmother.

  “Are you okay?” she asked when Miriam returned.

  “I’m fine now. I don’t know why I’ve been getting so sick in the morning.”

  Anna glanced meaningfully at Miriam’s breasts, which were noticeably bigger.

  “That’s why,” she said. Miriam looked bewildered, then comprehension dawned.

  “Really? Do you really think so?” she asked, excitement in her voice.

  “What are you talking about?” Paul called down from his perch on the wagon.

  “I think you’re going to be a father,” Miriam said. After the initial shock, Paul jumped down and embraced his wife.

  Anna gave them their moment, and turned to look around their new hometown. It was larger than she’d expected for a frontier town. The main street led away to the west, and was lined with three and four story buildings. Even at this early hour, the street was crowded with horse-drawn wagons and carriages. Tree-lined avenues crossed the main street at regular intervals, spreading north and south.

  She’d once heard that the Big Muddy, as it was called, flooded often and in a big way, so she wanted to settle well away from the riverbank.

  “Well, Oma, where to now?” Paul had a huge smile on his face.

  “Don’t Oma me. I’ve a few months to enjoy my youth yet. Now climb up, the both of you. We need to find the land office.”

  After asking directions from passersby, they found it ten blocks down the busy road, which they’d learned was named Dodge Street. Anna and Paul climbed off the wagon, leaving Miriam to mind the horses.

  “Good morning ma’am, sir,” said the cheery clerk when they entered his cluttered office. “How can I help you?”

  “Good morning to you as well,” Anna replied. “I’m looking to buy a piece of land toward the west end of town, north of Dodge Street, if possible.”

  “How big a parcel you lookin’ for?” the man drawled.

  “Oh, no more than a few hundred acres.” Anna waved her hand like it was no big deal.

  “I see.” The clerk’s eyes fluttered. “Give me a moment.” He flipped through some ledgers, then brightened up. “I’ve just the thing, I think. Two hundred and fifty acres off California Street at the west end, about five blocks north of Dodge. I can take you out there right now, if you want.”

  They followed the clerk in his small buggy out to the property. Anna immediately decided that it was the right spot. Right now it was nothing but fallow cornfields, the previous owner having abandoned the property and headed west in search of easy riches in the gold fields. But in her mind’s eye, Anna could see the city expanding out and around the property.

  The clerk explained that since the property had been seized for nonpayment of taxes, they’d be able to buy it at a relative bargain. “It’ll take a lot of work to make the house livable again,” he offered, “but the price is right.”

  “We have a tent,” Paul replied. “We can live in it until winter hits.”

  “Maybe you and Miriam,” Anna said. “I’m going to find a boardinghouse in town. And you’ll need to finish fixing the house before Miriam gets too far along.”

  “Congratulations,” the clerk exclaimed after a moment’s thought. “I think you’ll all be very happy here.”

  “Danke. Can I catch a ride back into town with you?” Anna asked. “The happy couple can spend the night if they wish, but I’m for a bath just as soon as we can finish our transaction.”

  They got back to the clerk’s office and concluded the sale by lunchtime. Anna got directions to the nearest boardinghouse and set out on foot, lugging a single bag.

  “Well hello, little lady. Ain’t you pretty?” Unshaven, dirty and smelling of horseshit, the author of this remark was anything but pretty himself. But he was rather large. Anna attempted to ignore him, but it seemed he was unaccustomed to being ignored.

  “Now I’m just being friendly,” he said, and reached out to grab her arm. Anna was not large, but she had been trained by the Stasi. All the lout had was brute strength, which she used against him. Before he knew what had happened, he was face down in the dirt, a Glock at the back of his head. Anna heard someone laughing from across the street.

  “Don’t ever touch me again, Schweinehund,” she hissed in the lout’s ear. After checking to be sure that he was unarmed, she got up and continued on her way without a look back.

  * * *

  A short while later Anna slid into a copper tub full of hot water in the bathhouse, a separate building behind the East End boarding house. It was equipped with two large tubs, a roaring fire to heat the water, a rack to hang clothes on, tables for bags and such, and a chair next to each tub. It was windowless, the light coming from the fire and several candles. Anna was riding a Vicoprofen buzz, feeling both euphoric and mellow at the same time. It was the first real bath she’d had in months, and she planned to enjoy it. She closed her eyes and slid down in the tub until her nostrils were just above the waterline.

  “No. You no come in here now. Get out!” The voice of the young Chinese bath attendant Fu Ming cut through the haze and she snapped her eyes open. There was a whuff to her right, and she turned to see the girl crumpling to the ground clutching her stomach. The Schweinehund who’d accosted Anna on the street stood over the attendant. He strode further into the room, followed by two other men.

  Anna sat bolt upright in the tub and looked for the Glock. Along with the Uzi, it was well out of reach, in her bag on the table by the wall. Dummkopf. The portal generator was sitting on the chair next to the tub. She grabbed it, hoping it was waterproof.

  “Zowee, Clem. Look at those titties! You weren’t lying ‘bout how pretty she is.” Anna sank back into the water and purposely began to hyperventilate. She extended the generator’s aerial about six inches and waited to see what the men would do next.

  “She’s mine first,” Clem said. “You two can have at this one while you wait.” He kicked the bath attendant, who was beginning to stir from her place on the floor.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said the taller of the two would-be rapists.

  Clem strolled over to Anna, leaned down, and put his hands on either side of the tub.

  “You and me are gonna have some fun.” He leered down at her. “You’ll appreciate me stretching you out a bit before Archie sticks his monster in you.” The men all laughed at that.

  He reached down into th
e tub to grab her. She kicked him in the face, then sank completely below the water as she extended the tip of the aerial just above the surface. When she felt his hands grasp her right leg, she activated the portal.

  For a moment, she didn’t think it had worked. Then she heard the scream, distant and fading. She opened her eyes, then quickly shut them again, the harsh soap searing her eyeballs. But she’d seen the white oval above her, and Clem’s hands had released their grasp on her.

  Anna shot up and through the Type C portal and into the temporal artifact. The default setting on the generator opened a portal to an artifact of the present moment. Anna looked around carefully. There were three bodies in the room – the bath attendant, and Clem’s two companions, but no sign of Clem, other than two severed arms floating in the tub. She guessed that he’d fallen into the void on the back side of the portal when his arms had been cut off.

  Anna stepped out of the tub and ran the ten steps to where her bag sat on the table. She retrieved the Uzi, extended the stock, screwed on the silencer. She chambered a round as she ran back to the tub. Taking a deep breath, she stepped back into the tub and through the portal, then sank down into the bloody water, making sure she was completely clear of the portal before deactivating it. No more than thirty seconds had passed since she’d first activated the generator.

  Popping back up out the water on her knees, she tucked the Uzi’s stock into her shoulder and found her targets. The smaller of Clem’s two companions was standing no more than five feet from the tub, with a look of bewilderment on his face. She well remembered that feeling from the time Mike had opened the portal on their farm and she’d wandered around to the back side of it. The Uzi pumped three rounds into his chest before he had a chance to recover.

  Anna swung the weapon towards her other target, who was just beginning to disengage himself from the Chinese girl, whom he had bent over a table on the far side of the bathhouse. Seeing the business end of the gun pointed at him, he raised his hands and backed away from the girl, his pants still around his knees, his impressive erection flagging.

  Anna rose and stepped out of the tub, still naked, with bloody water streaming off her body. Archie’s member began to rise again, despite the circumstances.

  “That thing will make a nice trophy for my wall,” Anna said as she reached for her robe. Archie’s erection headed south again.

  “You no kill him, they kill us if you do.” The bath attendant had retreated to a corner of the room. Anna didn’t know much about frontier justice, but she imagined the young Chinese girl might be justified in her fears.

  “I suppose I could just turn him into a girl.” Anna pointed the Uzi down at Archie’s rapidly shrinking penis. He dropped his hands to shield his privates.

  “Uh-uh, hands back up. Now!” Archie reluctantly put his hands back in the air. Anna got a brilliant idea. “Lie on the floor, hands behind your head. Schnell!”

  Once Archie had complied, she finished putting on her robe, then went to her bag and withdrew the medical kit. It was a smaller kit, one that she could carry around easily. The bigger kit was out at the new homestead with Paul and Miriam.

  There were two nano-vaccine auto-injectors in the kit, a blue one labeled ‘Male’ and the other pink, labeled ‘Female.’ She chose the pink one.

  “Ow, that hurt!” Archie exclaimed when she jammed the injector into his right buttock and the needle deployed. She had no sympathy.

  “Don’t worry sweetie. You’ll be looking pretty and feeling fine in no time. Now get the fuck out of here. If I ever see you again, I’ll cut off your dick and feed it to you.” Assuming you still have a dick. Mike had told her that one of the functions of the nano-vaccines was to repair DNA, and pink nanites tended to see Y chromosomes as being in need of repair. Archie’s career as a rapist was about to come to an abrupt halt.

  23 - DWIGHT

  MQ-9JEP Reaper: a remotely-piloted, propeller driven, JEPS-powered aircraft, equipped with a large variety of surveillance and target acquisition sensors, and armed with four AGM-114 Hellfire II radar-guided missiles and two 500-pound Paveway II laser-guided bombs. Glossary, An Illustrated History of the Republic, Helen O’Shea, Ed.

  Republic of Indian Stream, Monday, September 4, 1854

  Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which effectively nullified the Missouri Compromise, convinced the Supreme Council that the American Civil War was inevitable. If the Republic was to contribute more than just intelligence to the fight, the ISRM would need space to train on maneuver warfare.

  As the ISRM’s chief planning officer, Dwight ordered a thorough reconnaissance of the unoccupied northwestern territories using MQ-9JEP Reaper drones. He eventually identified a suitable location, deep in Crow Indian country along the Missouri River. At a secret meeting, the Supreme Council approved his plan and ordered him to the Nebraska Territory to implement it.

  When Dwight told Jennifer what he was about to do, she insisted on joining him in the venture. She had just gone through a bad breakup with a longtime boyfriend, and was eager to go someplace where she wouldn’t run into him on a daily basis. This seemed a perfect opportunity.

  Their first action was to learn the native languages of the area, which included the Crow, Blackfoot and Shoshone languages. The SPLMs made that easy, and they had all three languages down within a week.

  Accompanied by the Spec Ops platoon’s Pathfinders, they flew in an Osprey to the target area and conducted a survey of the prospective training grounds. Convinced they had the right place, Dwight sought a parley with the local tribal chief, and from there the chief of the Crow Nation, a tough old man by the name of Fox Jumping. By the end of September they had reached a deal, trading a ton of supplies for the land. Dwight provided the Indians a large assortment of useful 19th Century tools, but would not give them alcohol or firearms.

  Next, he had to secure property rights from the American government. For that, they would need gold, and lots of it. Fortunately, Dwight’s earlier expedition to Alder Gulch had replenished the Republic’s cache of bullion.

  In the dead of night, the Osprey landed several miles outside the town of St. Joseph, Missouri. Dwight, Jennifer, two horses, two supply-laden mules, one Jersey milking cow, and four dogs disembarked. The Pathfinders helped Dwight bury several bags full of gold coins, then they re-boarded the aircraft and flew off into the night sky. Dwight and Jennifer camped for the night, then mounted up the next morning and headed into town.

  24 - JAKE

  Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV): a pilotless aircraft, also called a drone. The ISRM operates hand-launched (e.g., the Wasp), catapult-launched (e.g., the Skyblade and Shadow), and runway takeoff (e.g., the Reaper) variants. UAV’s conduct surveillance and reconnaissance. MQ-9JEP Reaper drones may be armed. Glossary, An Illustrated History of the Republic, Helen O’Shea, Ed.

  Kansas City, Missouri, USA, Tuesday, October 3, 1854

  Twenty-one year old Jake Carlton watched as a strange procession made its way up Main Street toward the bank. There were two riders on excellent bay mounts, two heavily-laden mules, four of the largest dogs Jake had ever seen, and a cow. Not a steer, but a real Jersey milking cow. As they passed by his position on a bench outside one of the many saloons in town, he saw that the man appeared to be in his fifties and the woman in her late twenties. Both were capable riders.

  As they rode past, the man nodded crisply in Jake’s direction. There was something very military about the nod. Jake wondered if he knew the man from his days in the Army. Upon graduation from Bloomfield Military Academy, he was commissioned a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and assigned to the engineers, building forts in the West. After three years’ service, he left the Army to seek his fortune. At present, he was between adventures.

  Since no one had ever seen a Jersey cow in these parts, most everyone watched the small troupe make its way down Main Street. Jake thought they were headed for the town bank, and noted with some alarm that both riders were heavily armed. Each had two holstered h
andguns, and two rifle scabbards hung from each saddle. While he couldn’t see much of the rifles or the handguns, he noted that they were significantly shorter than his own musket and Colt revolver, respectively, and looked much more like the Glock and Uzi his father had once made. But no one would rob a bank with a cow in tow, would they?

  The procession stopped, not in front of the bank, but outside the Government Land Office located nearby. The riders dismounted quickly and tied both horses, both mules, and the cow to the hitching rail. The man removed a saddlebag from his horse and slung it over his shoulder. The four huge dogs settled around the larger beasts as their owners entered the land office.

  Two curious locals must have decided they had to have a closer look at that cow. They got within ten feet when all four dogs leapt to their feet. The closest began a low, rumbling growl, which brought both men to a halt, followed by a quick retreat. Jake would like to have taken a closer look at those rifles, but decided against it.

  After about an hour, the man and the local land office manager, Mr. Peters, exited the land office and headed for the bank. The woman followed them out the door and began tending to the animals. The fearsome canines, German Shepard Dogs he now recalled, were as gentle as lambs around her.

  After a few minutes, Bob Woodson, a clerk in the land office, came out through the door, tipped his hat to the lady, and headed in Jake’s direction, or more correctly, toward the saloon at Jake’s back. Jake could tell from the look on Bob’s face that he had a story to tell.

  “That crazy old bastard just bought two million acres of land in the Nebraska territory!” he exclaimed as he entered the saloon with Jake following close behind. “And he’s paying in gold!”

  Jake listened with interest as Bob spun the tale of how Mr. Dwight Carver and his daughter Jennifer had entered the land office and asked to speak directly to Mr. Peters instead of one of the clerks who usually handled the routine land transactions. Mr. Carver said he wished to buy all the land south of the Missouri River, west of the Musselshell River, north of Flatwillow Creek, and east of the Judith Mountains, which he had marked out on a very detailed map. He offered a half ton of 24-karat gold for the land.