“Then I’m going with you,” Mark declared. He yelled at Jim and Ivan to keep preparing the barracks and that he’d return soon.
Kiwi was anxious, refusing to talk as they walked. Gerry felt like he was being marched to his own funeral. His heart was in his throat and Kiwi felt no better.
But the sergeant knew where the colonel and the major were. He made a beeline for them and the eternal walk took only five minutes. They found them on the tracks outside the base with the rest of the Werewolves, their boy, the tall newcomer, Blackbeard, and Hank.
They stopped when they were a respectful distance away.
“Sergeant, Corporal, come on, we were just finishing up,” Terry called, waving them to him.
“Tomorrow morning, first light, meet us in front of the mayor’s building,” Char reminded them. Ted swung wide around Hank with the wolf pack loping close behind. Timmons tipped his chin and smiled as he walked past Gerry and Kiwi. He’d never forget that those two saved his life.
The others meandered away. Aaron remained standing on the platform. “Well?” Char asked him.
He held his hands out, palms up in a sign of confusion.
“If you would be so kind, take Kae for a walk around the base, introduce yourselves to the good people who are working their asses off to build us a city while you stand around picking your nose.” Char pointed toward the base.
Aaron climbed down slowly, hanging on to Kaeden with one hand.
“You need to show Aaron around, see what everyone is doing and help where you can, okay, sweetheart?” Char asked the little boy. He nodded and tapped Aaron’s head to signal that he was ready to go. Kae started talking to the tall man the second they walked away.
Terry and Char’s hands intertwined of their own accord as they watched the two walking away. The tall man seemed to have a new spring in his step. “It’s not that I don’t trust Hank, but he’s a wild animal. I prefer a Were-tiger as the guardian of our son, and they both seem happy with the arrangement,” Terry whispered.
Gerry waved at Blackie as they passed. “We need to catch up, wild man!” Gerry called with a laugh. They’d been chosen together as the second group to join the Force de Guerre. They were both small and seemed out of place, but they’d each made their mark in a significant way that belied their size.
Kiwi stopped to scratch the bear’s head, then ran to catch up. Blackie and Hank watched for a moment, then strolled the other way.
Mark and Gerry saluted as they approached.
Gerry made to speak, but Mark cut him off. “He says they want to see you and won’t tell me what it’s about,” he said abruptly.
“Well now, isn’t that a mouthful,” Char interjected, crossing her arms as she saw Mark’s position as interference.
“Corporal Geronimo, are you here to bitch about the sergeant?” Terry asked.
“No, sir, not at all,” Gerry replied.
“Good. Sergeant, you are dismissed,” Terry directed. Mark looked confused for a second. Terry narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw.
Obeying orders was something that Terry drilled constantly into the discipline of the Force. Mark was too slow. Terry grabbed the sergeant’s uniform collar and pulled him forward. “I think I gave you a fucking order,” Terry growled.
“Yes, sir!” Mark stepped back, saluted, and jogged away.
Terry turned to the young couple holding hands. “This is new,” he blurted out, earning him a slap across the arm from his wife.
“We don’t know what to do,” Gerry stumbled, then looked to Kiwi for help.
“What’s my position?” she asked.
Terry’s mind raced through a series of crude jokes, but this was serious and he respected them both too much to make jokes at their expense. He thought for a moment and decided it deserved a longer explanation.
“Back in the days of the Corps, many of my folks were married. Dependent wives, they called them. Isn’t that some crap, huh?” Terry shook his head. “Good people ripped from their homes and moved into some cracker box base housing where shortly thereafter, their husbands were deployed, leaving them alone without friends or family. Then every three years, we moved them, so they could go through it all over again.”
He had their focus. They leaned toward him so they wouldn’t miss a word.
“We have a chance to do better this time. We have the Force living side by side with the civilians we’ve sworn to protect. We’re all here together, but what about you, Miss Kiwidinok? Everyone needs to have a purpose, a chance to fulfill their own destiny. I have to ask, what is yours?”
Kiwi was still young and hadn’t figured out what she wanted to be when she grew up.
“I love the horses and the open range. I love my native traditions, too,” she said in a small voice. They waited, because she wasn’t finished.
“I know that my grandfather gave me to Gerry to be his wife. I’m not property, but my grandfather knows that. He saw the bond that we would develop. I hope that he is happy with the path that we follow.”
Terry and Char looked at each other in surprise.
“Have you had no time to talk with your grandmother since our arrival?” Terry asked. She shook her head.
“First order of business, you two go see your family. The major and I will find you quarters somewhere between the barracks and your family, because you deserve to have access to both worlds since they overlap. It’s not my place to tear you from one and throw you into the other,” Terry said softly, looking at them both with pride.
“We need a horse master who’s not in the FDG. Do you want the job, Kiwi?” Char asked. The young girl nodded, but never let go of Gerry’s hand.
“It’s settled then. Make sure you let Mark know what we’ve talked about. I need him comfortable with what everyone is doing, that there’s no subterfuge.” Terry nodded to them as Gerry saluted while still holding Kiwi’s hand. Terry had a hard time not correcting him.
“By the way, are you two going to get married?” Char asked innocently.
The youngsters looked at each other, smiling, and both nodded when they turned back to Char.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” Char said. Gerry looked at the colonel. “Don’t look at him, you need to look at me, he doesn’t know anything about romance.” Gerry turned back to Char. “You are going to ask Kiwi’s grandmother for her hand in marriage. If she approves, you’re both going to see Billy, get your names written in his book, and you’re going to ask him for the town’s blessing with a celebration. Antioch can do the formal thing like he did for us, if that’s what you’d like, or you can come up with a ceremony based on your personal beliefs.”
Char ran her hand up Terry’s back as she spoke and he could only think of their ceremony and what it had done for them.
“What you decide to do will be the standard for everyone who follows. Keep that in mind. You could be starting a new tradition that we’ll look back, centuries from now, and wonder why we’re doing things the way we do,” Terry said.
Without another word, the couple walked away, chatting excitedly.
“Well done, my husband,” Char started. “That dependent thing chapped my ass. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one.”
“Young Marines in love. Divorce rate was through the roof. Commitment to the Corps, just like the commitment to the Force de Guerre. I told Charlie that he didn’t get to stay in New Boulder when that’s what he wanted. I’m already that guy, the one who rules with an iron fist over other people’s lives. Am I doing the right thing, Char?” Terry asked.
She didn’t answer with words, but the warmth of her kiss told him that he had her approval, which he needed as much as his own. When they separated, he looked at her sparkling purple eyes. “I could get lost in there forever.”
“I won’t forget you said that, when our daughter has kept you awake for two weeks straight,” she replied slyly.
“Daughter?” he asked. She nodded indifferently. “Two weeks, what?”
“Oh, you didn’t know? Werewolf pups are notorious for sleeping fifteen minutes and then being up for three hours. Shall we?” she said as she walked toward the base.
***
“What do we do with the Mini Cooper now that we have it?” Timmons asked. Ted stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“It’ll take everything we have to haul it down here, or we take it up the tracks to the old power plant and we bring it up, with as much of the grid as we can manage. We use this plant to provide power to bring the other plant up,” Ted said conversationally.
“We don’t turn the lights on here until we can turn on all the lights?” Timmons asked.
“Unless we can move enough fuel to make it a non-issue,” Ted replied, which changed his original argument.
“Sometimes, I really hate you, Ted,” Timmons answered, leaving Ted standing on the shore.
They had been going to the plant every single day and puttering around, but everything they needed to keep it operational was outside the plant. Fuel and water. The one time they had it running, they had used the pump to fill the water tank outside the facility. The previous time, they had manually filled the boiler. That had taken a great deal of time and effort.
They needed power to make power. Timmons was still amazed at the logic failure within the system. It didn’t have a manual backup, but they’d worked around it. With five people, he could bring the plant to life within an hour.
For the long-term goal, all he needed was a power line running from the small plant directly to the larger facility a mile up the coast. Power to make power.
“Ted!” Timmons yelled. “We have work to do!”
When Timmons went outside, he saw the sail as Ted maneuvered his boat out of the small harbor.
“Never mind, I’ll take care of it,” Timmons said to Ted’s retreating form. Ted waved one hand, while keeping the other on the tiller.
“We have a shit pot of people here, and here I am working on this bastard all by myself. Isn’t that a total bitch?” Timmons told no one as he rolled up his sleeves and headed for the enclosure containing the distribution transformers.
***
“You don’t have to ask me for her hand in marriage, my boy. Black Feather granted that before his death,” Autumn Dawn told him following his bold but stumbling request for Kiwi’s hand in marriage.
“What? Grandfather is dead?” Kiwi asked.
“Yes, dear, I’m sorry that we haven’t had a chance to talk,” the old lady said slowly, without any hint of sadness at her loss. “It was a couple months ago. Terry and Char were there. He suffered all that time waiting for them so he could say just four words.”
“I am sorry in that I didn’t come to visit sooner,” the young woman replied, kneeling at her grandmother’s feet.
“It is okay, but I wish you would visit more often.” The old woman patted Kiwi on the head. Gerry had never met the grandfather since he’d stayed with the horses when the others joined the chief.
Gerry was on the outside looking in then as he was now. “What four words?” he asked.
“One land, one people,” she replied in a soft voice.
Rapids and Winter Rain were nowhere to be seen. Geronimo felt like leaving. He thought that Kiwi wanted time alone with her grandmother, but he hadn’t asked and he didn’t know for sure. He moved one foot toward the door and Kiwi looked up. “Where are you going?” she asked.
Gerry tried to act casual as if he hadn’t been ready to run away screaming. He shrugged indifferently. Autumn Dawn started to laugh, making a dry raspy sound that ended in a cough. “Go see the mayor, do what you need to do, and then come back to me, and we’ll talk about the long road from there to here.”
Kiwi kissed her grandmother on the cheek and grabbed Gerry’s hand as she ran out the door, dragging him with her.
Autumn Dawn clapped her hands together and closed her eyes. “It’s everything you hoped for, my husband…”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Terry, Char, and Kae met the pack at sunrise. The platoon was there, too. Aaron stood nearly a head taller than everyone else, even though he tried to blend in with a wall in the back. Kae found him and was immediately picked up.
Hank ambled about, tearing up a bush that was growing out of control next to the mayor’s building.
Terry thought about calling it town hall, but wasn’t a fan of previous government titles. He would encourage them to call it something unique to the community they were building.
“Well?” Sue asked. Char glared at her for only a moment until they heard the rumble of approaching vehicles.
“No need to walk if we don’t have to,” Terry declared.
Sue relaxed. “I admit, that was worth the wait. I’m not in a hurry to strain this body.” She stretched and turned under the watchful gaze of every single man in the platoon.
“Kiwi, what are you doing here?” Terry asked when he saw the young woman peeking out from behind Gerry. “We’re not riding the horses.”
Timmons raised a hand and stepped forward. “I asked her to come. She senses things that we don’t. I think you should draft her. Put her out front with Sue to see all the evil demons before they jump out of the dark.” Timmons nodded vigorously. Sue took one step and punched him in the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger.
First Sergeant Blevin stopped the bus and popped the door open. “All aboard!” he yelled. A truck pulled up behind the bus and the dune buggy maneuvered from behind the truck. Corporal Heitz stopped it and hopped out.
It was the undamaged buggy with the fifty cal on top.
“I’d throw you the keys, sir, but it ain’t got none of those,” the corporal announced.
“At ease, Corporal. You have delivered unto me mana from heaven.” Terry shook the old man’s hand, then man-hugged him, before climbing aboard and running the mod deuce through a function check. The platoon climbed aboard the bus. They were geared up in camouflaged uniforms, flak jackets, and helmets. Everyone was armed with an AK-47 rifle.
Ted stood there confused as the pack loaded into the back of the truck. Aaron and Kae climbed aboard the bus with Blackie and Hank. The wolf pack stood there, unsure of what to do.
“Leave them here,” Terry called. Ted looked at Terry as if he were insane, then pointed to the wolves.
Terry closed his eyes and wished that when he opened them back up, the problem would be solved. He slowly counted to five.
When he opened his eyes, he found that Char had climbed into the driver’s seat and Ted was still looking at him. Neither he nor his wolf pack had moved.
“Just put them in the back of the truck,” Terry snapped, climbing from the dune buggy to help. Ted and Terry each picked up a wolf and put them into the back. The vicious predators were shaking.
“They’ve never ridden before. What if they get car sick?” Terry didn’t dignify that with an answer. He heard a yip as he put the next wolf in. Sue was sitting up front, holding Clyde in her lap.
Incrementally, they piled the wolves into the back of the five-ton. Terry shut the gate after all were in and then assumed his rightful position in the passenger seat of the dune buggy. He looked at Char. She shrugged one shoulder.
“I’m not firing that thing, so that leaves you, Bwana the Great White Hunter. Man the mod deuce! Rounds down range!” Char yelled, waving her hands around.
“I don’t wave my hands around like that when I’m making man talk,” he said in his deepest voice. Then changed back. “Did you see Clyde’s up front? Where did he come from?”
“Probably his mother with a litter of other puppies,” Char answered, putting the dune buggy in gear and easing in front of the truck. She started slowly until she was sure the other vehicles were following. Then she picked up speed.
“Is anyone taking this shit seriously?” Terry complained.
“One Were-bear. One. And we have enough firepower to level a city. It’s hard to take that seriously.” Char shook her head as she drove.
“
You know that you would look perfect behind the wheel if we could find you some sunglasses,” Terry said, admiring his wife’s profile.
“I don’t look perfect now?” she parried.
Terry knew he was cornered. There was no way out. “There are shades of perfect…” But he couldn’t sound convincing.
“Uh-huh,” she said, mentally tallying one on her side of their endless board.
Char was keeping it at twenty-five miles an hour. The cool morning air made for a pleasant drive. The truck and bus were rolling along easily behind.
“Baby names?” he asked.
“Do you have anything in mind?” Char wondered.
“No. We could go classic, like Shakespeare or Ancient Greece, maybe Sanskrit akin to your name, whatever. The sky’s the limit.” Terry searched his mind for something he liked, but kept returning to Melissa. He couldn’t do that to Char or himself. There was only one Melissa.
“How about Bill?” Char asked.
“For a girl?”
“You said the sky was the limit, and now you’re saying there’s a limit. I swear, TH, just when I thought I had you figured out,” Char prodded him.
“Girl’s names, not just any baby’s name, but if you want to call her Bill, that’s your business. That’s not going to be her official name. So there.” Terry slapped the dash as if physically driving his point home.
“Official name. What does that mean in this day and age?” Char wondered.
“That’s a good question, lover. How about, what we call her when she’s in trouble?” Terry offered.
“Now that is something I can get behind. That’s a good limit, TH. You are momentarily redeemed. Hang on,” she said as she waved an arm out the top of the buggy and pointed to the right. She took the next turn and headed toward the lake.
They hadn’t driven this road before, but the sun was up and shining and the road wasn’t blocked. They maneuvered between numerous dead vehicles and had to stop once to let the five-ton bounce a rusted wreck out of the way.
Nomad Omnibus 02: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (A Terry Henry Walton Chronicles Omnibus) Page 26
