Deux de poison saisiz nouveau venuz,
Dans la cuisine du grand Prince verser:
Par le soillard tous deux au faicts cogneuz
Prins que cuidoit de mort l’aisne vexer.
Two newly arrived have seized the poison,
to pour it in the kitchen of the great Prince.
By the scullion both are caught in the act,
taken he who thought to trouble the elder with death.
The Battle of the Bridge was the beginning of a three-month war that forced us to take to the forest, leaving even the tentative sanctuary of the fertilizer factory behind. Larry had shown us all too well just how fragile its protection was. By day, he held the town and much of the surrounding forest. Using Humvees and the remaining two tanks, his men constantly patrolled the perimeter and kept us in hiding. After dark though, we were able to sneak in and do our damage under night’s black cloak.
Night raids became the mainstay of our survival. Though Larry technically held the town, it was patently impossible for his men to guard every alley and side street in Rejas from the people who knew them best. We would sneak in at night using game trails and drainage ditches to scavenge the many stashes of supplies people had hidden in their homes before the USR amp;D takeover.
While we were in town, it just wouldn’t have been polite to leave without dropping off some type of thank you gift for the boys in uniform. Usually it was something simple; a nail-tipped arrow in the tire of a Humvee was a favorite or, when we were able to get close enough, rice in the fuel tanks. Some of the boys got more creative, though.
Mark Roesch got a group together and built a ten-foot slingshot out of surgical tubing. It took seven people to use it properly with two people bracing either end, two pulling back the pouch, and one loader. The giant slingshot could launch a Molotov cocktail into a group of vehicles or buildings from nearly half a mile away.
Not to be outdone, Fred Williams and Mike Tanner, who had built custom irrigation systems before the turn of the century, designed the craziest-looking contraption I had ever seen. About four feet long, it consisted of three pieces of PVC pipe strapped together like a triple-barrel shotgun. On the front, a six-inch metal scale, mounted vertically, served as a gun sight. The back end consisted of an intricate maze of valves, air nozzles, and pressure gauges connected by a hose to what appeared to be an old scuba tank.
When they first brought it out to demonstrate, I was sharing a meal with my family-garden snails boiled in lard, wild onions, and a few other local herbs. The food wasn’t appealing at first, but was actually pretty tasty when you got past the thought of what you were eating. Williams and Tanner approached the camp, heading for the mayor’s lean-to. A crowd of curious onlookers followed, as if they just couldn’t wait to see what the crazy contraption strapped to Williams’ back was.
Megan and Zachary raced to join the crowd, leaving Debra and me to catch up. We shouldered our way through the crowd in time to hear Jim put voice to what the rest of us were thinking. “What the hell is that thing?”
“Air cannon.” Williams was a man of few words and, rather than verbal elaboration, he simply pointed his chin at a tree across the creek, some hundred yards downstream. “Watch.”
He and Tanner conferred for a few seconds while the crowd milled about and speculated on what was about to happen. Debra and I took advantage of everyone’s restlessness to shoulder our way over to Jim’s side.
Tanner, much more outgoing than his partner, warned, “Better stand back. We’ve only tested this thing two or three times, and it might just blow.” This caused some quick shuffling as folks took him at his word and gave the two men more room.
Tanner pulled three round glass jars filled with water from a satchel and dropped one in each barrel. “Normally, we’ll be using Molotov cocktails or open cups of shrapnel instead of water. Right now, though, I don’t think we need to set the forest on fire.”
Jim appeared to be as much in the dark as the rest of us, but must have felt the need to make some kind of semi-intelligent response. “Um, yeah.”
Tanner stepped behind Williams and tapped him once on the head. Williams had already sighted his target and pushed the button mounted by his right hand.
Whoomp!
We all watched as the first jar tumbled through the air to land about twenty feet in front of the indicated target. It shattered on impact and sprayed water in about a ten-foot radius.
Tanner grinned. “Just remember, if that had been a cocktail, everywhere you saw water splash would be burning right now.” Then he closed one valve, opened another, sighted over Williams’ shoulder, tugged down on the back end of the air cannon, and tapped him on the head once more.
Whoomp!
Again, a scintillating jar tumbled through the air; this time, it landed within three feet of the target, saturating it with water.
Another valve adjusted, another tap, another whoomp, and another jar broke within feet of the one before it. The tree was soaking wet from the length of a football field away.
A cheer went up from the crowd, and they began to surge forward before Tanner raised his hand to stop them. “Wait a second! We have one more thing this bucket of bolts can do. Stay back for a minute more.” That started a round of muttering.
He reached back into the battered duffel and pulled out three handkerchief-wrapped bundles. Dropping one into each of the barrels, he pointed to a small group of trees just across the creek.
Tap. Whoomp!
Tap. Whoomp!
Tap. Whoomp!
Three handkerchiefs fluttered to the ground amidst mutters from the crowd. From where I stood, I couldn’t see that there had been any effect on the trees. Williams, evidently confident of success, had already set the air cannon on the ground and begun walking over to where we stood. Tanner just turned and smiled. “Anyone like to go check them?”
Several people waded across the creek to inspect the trees; the mutters quickly turned to excited exclamations. “They’re peppered!” someone yelled. “They’re full of nails and glass!”
Tanner just stood there as the people around him began clapping him on the back. Meanwhile, Williams came over to speak quietly with Jim and me.
“Got enough material to make three more. I need six men that have enough snap to know how to read pressure gauges and route high-pressure air systems. Gotta be willing to work hard and take orders, too.”
Jim waited for him to continue, but Williams just stood there looking at us. “Anything else?” Jim asked.
“Nope.”
Jim turned to the trees that had been filled with shrapnel. “What’s the range of those things?”
“Accurate for cocktails at about a hunnerd and twenty yards. Shrapnel at about a third that.”
The mayor nodded. “Take anyone you need. Tell ‘em it comes from me.”
And so we acquired a mortar brigade.
We put Larry’s boys through hell at night. We’d fire cocktails or arrows from the trees at random hours of the night, just to keep them awake, if nothing else. Sometimes we were even able to kill a guard or two if they were careless enough to get within bowshot of the trees.
On some occasions, the opportunity to do some real damage presented itself, like the night one of our raiding parties set an HTMD booby trap in a building the enemy used as a barracks. Watchers reported two dead and nine wounded.
Another time, Ken snuck in and planted a soup can of homemade thermite in the treads of one of the tanks, crippling it. Unfortunately, it was the tank that had already been damaged in the Battle of the Bridge. Larry’s final Abrams remained intact.
Other times, things went the other way. We lost three squads before word made it through our camp that if you were on a raid and saw the big Asian guy, the best thing you could do was to run as fast and as far as you could. The lone survivor of the third group to run afoul of Han summed it up simply. “The dude’s unstoppable.”
Worse though, was an incident a few nights later. An entire foraging group missed its rendezvous. The tracker we sent to find them said he’d found signs of a fight and two heads posted on poles. “They was th’ supervisors.”
“Just the supervisors?” I’d made it a point to be with Jim when the tracker made his report.
The man nodded at me. “Yup. Looks like they killed th’ supervisors an’ took th’ four slaves toward town. Ah follered their tracks as far as th’ treeline an’ high-tailed it on back here.”
That night, our attack groups came back early. They reported that the slaves who’d been taken had been mutilated and crucified on the outskirts of town.
Mark had led the team that found them. “I ain’t ever seen anything like what they did to those poor bastards. Looks like they tortured ‘em for a while before they died.” He shuddered.
The next night, we ambushed a squad of goons who thought they would teach the locals a lesson. Ammunition was so low at that point, much of our fighting was done with bows, machetes, clubs, and knives, meaning that our attack was silent. We hit them from behind, and most died without even knowing they had been attacked. Two got off a couple of wild shots, but that probably only served to make the incident that much spookier to any observers. We hung their bodies in the trees around town for the rest to see next morning.
Megan began leading a squad with Eric, Andrew’s father. Their group became well-known on both sides for their fearlessness. They took pride in sneaking past perimeter guards to zones that the USR amp;D troops thought were safe, getting into barracks, and slitting the throats of dozens of men before they slipped out again, completely undetected.
Larry had to know we were raiding the buildings on the outskirts of town. He may have even known why. He had no way of knowing where we had our various stashes, however. Still, he began setting random booby traps, so we never knew what to expect when we opened a door or stepped on a floor. Usually, we were able to take someone with us who knew the building and could help spot anything out of the ordinary, but that didn’t always help.
After two months, we had lost twenty-three men and women. We made it a point to get particularly nasty with the enemy whenever we lost any of our own, and we did our best to demoralize them while avenging our losses.
Still, we began to wear down. Our lives had become an endless cycle of scavenging for supplies and raiding the enemy. We were constantly on the move, and the pace was exhausting.
Ken and I talked about it one morning as we marched to our new camp. Dew lay heavy on the ground which, combined with the fact that we were wearing makeshift backpacks and threadbare shoes, made the footing, if not treacherous, at least inhospitable. Most of us had learned the trick of feeling with our feet before settling our entire weight into a step, though occasional stumbles and curses marked those who were still in the learning curve.
“We can’t keep this up,” I told him. “It’s draining us. Keep going, and it won’t be much longer before we start making stupid mistakes from sheer exhaustion.”
Ken was silent until I began to think he wasn’t going to answer. “We got no choice. Stop for two days in the same place, and that’ll be the day Larry’s all over us. We’re still outgunned, and he still has that last tank.”
“So why can’t we stay deep in the woods, where he can’t get to us with the tank? We can take a break for a couple of days, recuperate. He’ll never know where we are.”
Ken shook his head. “Can’t do it, Lee. First, we need to keep up the pressure on Larry’s troops. We have to make sure they never get a good night’s rest. Keep them scared that a cocktail is going to come out of nowhere and set their beds on fire, or that some crazy people with knives are going to slip in and slit their throats while they sleep. We have to keep the pressure on.
“Second, there’s the fact that we’re too damn big to stop. We’re just under six thousand strong. We stay in one place for even a few days, and we’ll be sending out so many people in so many directions to gather food that we might as well still be on the move. And each day, they’ll have to go farther and farther. By foraging as we go, we help save time on gathering for meals, and we keep hitting fresh territory, which means no food shortage. There’s enough area around Rejas for us to keep moving for months without running short on food.”
So we were forced to coast along, reacting to events as they were thrown at us.
After three more weeks of this nomadic lifestyle, the weather began to turn wet and miserable. A deep depression settled in and morale, which had been so high after our initial victory, began to rapidly deteriorate.
Added to that was the pressure of depleted supplies. Food was tight, but with foraging, we would be fine. What hurt us most were other shortages, ammunition, clothing, shoes, and common tools, such as cooking utensils. It was like being part of a tribe of Stone Age hunter-gatherers.
I began to hear people muttering among themselves that they might be better off leaving Rejas to Larry, moving on to another town. Starting over. About the only thing that stopped them was the observation that Larry’s men appeared to be in the same boat.
Ken brought up the subject one night as several of us huddled around a small, shielded campfire. “It doesn’t look like Larry was any more prepared for a drawn-out fight than we were. I would guess he’s used to walking in and taking whatever he needs without any significant resistance.”
Jim grinned. “Guess he ain’t run into nobody with th’ balls o’ Rejas.”
“Maybe not. But he’s still got a definite advantage in hardware and location.”
“You really think so?” I asked. “I’ve been thinking about that. Granted, he has the one tank left, but I don’t think I’ve seen any of his boys using night goggles in the last week. And they hardly ever return fire at night anymore. Looks to me like they’re conserving resources, at the least. Might even be completely out of a few things.”
“Like maybe the batteries for the goggles?” Ken rubbed his chin, appearing to think about it for a second. “Makes sense, ours didn’t last more than a few days. Why should we assume theirs would last any longer? You might be right.”
“And as for location,” I continued, “well, they might have the town, but all the people who know the best ways in and out are here with us. Seems to me that balances the scales in that department. On top of that, even though we’re having a hard time of it getting enough food to keep us going, think about how bad it must be for them. We know the land around town better than they do. We know where the best foraging areas are, and we’re using them. What are they doing for food?”
Jim grunted. “Maybe things ain’t as bad as we thought.”
Ken was still reserved. “Okay, I’ll grant you that. But you and I both know they’ve got some source of food, or they wouldn’t have made it this long. Either they brought in supplies in some of their vehicles, or they’re sending out foraging teams the same as we are.”
“So, why haven’t we seen any of them?”
He shrugged. “It’s a big forest, and we only cover a tiny bit of it each day. For all we know, they could be sending teams out the south side of town while we work the north. Who knows? The point is, we can’t sit here and hope to starve them out.”
The talk went on for another hour or so, and the only thing we finally concluded was that we couldn’t continue the way things were for much longer. In a war of attrition, the enemy still had the advantage.
Brad Stephenson was my second on a night raid, but it was ultimately my responsibility. We’d had a fairly useless night, discovering that Larry’s boys had already found the supply cache we’d gone after and had left a nest of young copperheads in its place. No one had been bitten, but only because the enemy had left so many booby traps that we had learned to take nothing for granted. At least that trap didn’t explode, as some of the others had.
We were slogging back along the bank of a drainage ditch when our point person, Rene, called for a stop. “Jefe,” she whispered, “I think we got some wild garlic here.” She pointed out a swath of plants growing near the water. “You want to take some back to camp?”
It was SOP for any raiding party to gather anything they thought might be useful, especially food. Wild onions, garlic, rice, and several other staples could often be found growing near the ditches and reservoirs around Rejas, so everyone had taken to wearing leather sacks on their belts to carry whatever loot they came across. That night, it looked as though it would be nothing more than seasoning for the stew pots, but there was plenty of it, and it was better than nothing.
I sighed. “Might as well. No reason for the night to be a total loss. Everyone fill your sacks.”
I had just yanked what seemed like my hundredth plant from the ground when Brad came up beside me. “Leeland?”
“Yeah?” I barely glanced up, concentrating on finding another plant in the darkness.
“I don’t think this is garlic.”
I found another plant and pulled it from the moist earth. “What is it, some kind of onion?”
I started to lift it to my face to sniff, but Brad grabbed my arm with a sudden force that stopped me cold. “What?”
“I don’t think they’re onions, either.”
I squinted at the plant I’d just pulled out of the earth. It certainly smelled like garlic, but I knew Brad well enough to listen. “You got my attention. Talk to me.”
“Look.” He held out the plant he had just pulled. The moon had not yet risen, and it was difficult to see what he held-difficult, but not impossible. Attached to the stem, grouped in with a few leaves and tiny berries, was a single, wilted flower, a pale, bell-shaped flower that started alarms in my head.
I had read about those, long ago, while studying in a library for a life I had never thought to lead. My herbal knowledge was sketchy at best, but I still recalled something about white, bell-shaped flowers. “What is it?”
“Lily of the Valley.”
I dropped the plant and wiped my hands on my pants. “Everybody stop!” I hissed. “Put the plants back down!”
But I was too late. Behind me, I heard the sounds of someone retching. A young girl about Megan’s age knelt on her hands and knees, shaking and vomiting. “Check her, Brad!”
I ran through the squad to make sure that everyone knew what was happening. “This isn’t garlic. It’s poisonous! Don’t rub your eyes. Don’t put your fingers in your mouth. Don’t get it on any cuts or scratches. This stuff can kill you!” People dropped the plants like they had found another nest of snakes.
“Drop your sacks and wash your hands in the water.” It was too dark to see their expressions, but no one wasted time with questions. They dumped everything they had immediately. A young kid of about nineteen dropped to his knees and rinsed his mouth in the creek.
Seeing that, I groaned, knowing that he had probably tasted some of the plant as he picked it. That was common enough while foraging, but this time it could prove fatal. I only hoped he hadn’t eaten very much.
“How much would it take to kill someone?” Brad was the one who had realized what we were picking, so I assumed he knew something about the plant.
“Not much, I would guess.” The catch in his voice made me turn.
The girl he held was no longer retching or shaking. Nor was she breathing.
“Damn!” I turned to the squad. “Who else tasted this stuff?”
Only one other hand raised, and it belonged to the kid I’d seen rinsing his mouth.
“How do you feel?”
“O-okay.”
“You tell me if you start feeling anything, all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
I turned to the rest of the squad. “Who knows this girl?”
“I do.” Rene raised her hand. “Se llama…” She took a deep breath. “She… her name is Rosalyn. Rosalyn Johnson.” Johnson. I vaguely recalled her as a sometime friend of Megan’s who’d occasionally dropped by the house before Megan had begun spending all her free time with Andrew. Damn.
“Okay. You four,” I indicated four men, “gather up Rosalyn and carry her with us. We’re going back to camp as fast as we can. Anyone who feels the least bit sick, sing out!”
Unfortunately, the damage was done. Less than a mile into the forest, the young man I had spoken with began complaining of severe cramps and a headache. He fell, shivering and cramping, and died along the way. Richard Lister complained of his eyes burning and had to be guided by two others. That slowed us down considerably, and it was more than an hour before we made it back to the main camp. We caused quite a commotion coming in at a run, even more so when people found we were carrying two dead and one wounded.
Someone must have told Jim right away, because he was there almost immediately. “What happened, Lee? Booby trap?”
Panting from the long run, I took a minute to catch my breath. “Lily… of the… Valley.”
“What? Lily of the Valley?”
“Thought… it was… garlic. Two dead.” I hung my head. Two dead. My responsibility. My fault.
Jim must have known what I was thinking and knew better than to try to say anything. He just squeezed my shoulder and handed me an open canteen. I took a quick swig and nearly choked. Now not only was I out of breath, but my eyes were watering as well.
“Jeez! What the hell is that?”
He showed his teeth in a slight smile. “Moonshine. Tastes like mule piss, with the kick thrown in as an afterthought. Don’t drink too much.”
“No problem there.” I handed the canteen back and wiped my eyes. Looking at the tears on the back of my hand, I remembered Richard. I climbed back to my feet and went to see him.
Debra was examining him by the light of the small, shielded fire. As I walked over, I could see how red and puffy the area around his eyes was.
“Can you see my hand?” Debra waved three fingers in front of his face.
He blinked repeatedly and squinted. “Yeah, but my eyes burn like hell!” He blinked several more times, forcing tears from his eyes, and then asked what must have been on everyone’s mind. “Am I gonna go blind? Is this stuff gonna blind me?” He kept his tone controlled and matter-of-fact, but his Adam’s apple bobbed with apprehension.
Debra was silent for a moment, as if considering her answer. Finally, she answered calmly, “I’m not going to lie to you, Mr. Lister. There’s a chance that it will.”
Lister’s shoulders slumped, and she hastened to continue. “But I don’t think so. Your eyes are tearing so much because they’re fighting to flush out the sap you got in them. The fact that you can still see after this long, and that your tear ducts are still functioning, seems to indicate that you’re going to be just fine. I want you to keep a warm, wet compress on your eyes tonight and try to get some sleep. We’ll see how you feel in the morning.”
I watched as Richard’s wife lead him away before I turned to Debra. “Is he really going to be all right?”
She sighed. “I have no earthly idea. I’ve never dealt with this before. Mom would have known what to do.” She stopped before following too far down that line of thought. “Anyway, I think he’ll be okay.”
She patted me on the back. “Go get some rest, Lee. I’ll tend your men.”
I nodded and headed for our lean-to. I was almost there when I realized that one person from my squad was missing. Brad Stephenson, the man who had first recognized the plant, had disappeared.
I thought back to the last time I remembered seeing him and realized that it hadn’t been since before our wild run back to camp. Brad was older, granted, but he had gone on raids in the past and never exhibited any tendency to lag behind. The more I thought about it, the more I feared he might have tasted the plant and not mentioned it. That would be just like him.
Now what?
For me, the answer was obvious. The squad leader was responsible for those under his command. I was squad leader and, though I felt I had already made a pretty big mess of things, it was up to me to see it through. If that meant carrying the body of a friend back by myself, then so be it. There was no need to risk anyone else.
Without saying anything to anyone, I slipped back out of camp.
Finding the right spot on the bank of the drainage ditch wasn’t difficult. We had left in a hurry and left plenty of signs that we had been there. But I still found no sign of Brad.
In fact, it wasn’t until I crossed the ditch that I picked up his trail. Footprints led out of the ditch and into the town in a direction we hadn’t traveled. Into town? What the hell is he up to?
I thought through all that had happened, searching my memories for clues. The clue was there, back at the ditch. It was a few moments before it hit me, but once I thought about it, I knew what he was doing.
Breaking into a run, I raced to catch him.
I was much too late. We had taken an hour to run through the woods to camp. It had taken forty-five minutes for me to get back to the ditch. That was nearly two hours for Stephenson to pull it off.
That I hadn’t already run into him coming back meant it had either gone bad, or he had gone back some other way. As much as I hoped for the latter, I couldn’t think of any good reason for him to do so.
As I reached the outskirts of USR amp;D territory, I slowed, taking more care to stick to the shadows. Something was going on, something that had stirred the enemy like a stick in a beehive. Everywhere I went, people were yelling. Some yelled orders, others cursed. Still others screamed in pain and misery. I peered out of the window of an old storefront and witnessed our greatest single victory over Larry’s troops.
Dozens of men lay in the streets around their stewpots. Some were retching and moaning; others were silent and still. Those who had been late to the evening meal had been the lucky ones. The first of their companions had probably begun to react to the poison by then and, when enough of them died, it would have become obvious that the food was the culprit.
I pulled back and whispered through the rest of the town. In all, it looked like Brad had gotten to five of the massive stew pots with an end result of well over three hundred dead. Apparently, the sixth pot was where someone had finally gotten suspicious of the old man bringing garlic to add to the meals. There were no dead there, only angry men ranting over having lost their quarry in the woods.
Some of them were colorful in their descriptions of what they would do to Brad when they caught him, but each word sent my hopes higher. He’d escaped! And from what they were saying, he had been forced to take to the trees on the opposite side of town. That was the reason I hadn’t seen him on my way in.
Brad Stephenson had managed what none of the rest of us would have dared. He had boldly strode into the enemy camp, sabotaged their cooking pots, disabled hundreds of the enemy, and still managed to escape.
It would never have worked if there hadn’t been so many of the enemy, but with nearly three thousand of them in town, there was no way they could all know each other.
“You son of a bitch, Brad.” I grinned. “How the hell can you walk with balls that big?”
It was with considerably higher spirits that I headed back to camp. For two hours, I had slipped through town, barely avoiding the enemy on several occasions, yet never truly worried. I was too excited. Brad had done the impossible! Up to now, we had hardly done more than hold our own against Larry’s men. But tonight, Brad had finally done more than simply sting Larry’s troops. He had given us a major victory.
My creeping through the town had shown me just how severe a blow had been delivered. It looked like just over three hundred fifty dead, and at least another hundred incapacitated. I could just imagine the celebration that must be going on back at camp, and I couldn’t wait to join in. Or perhaps Stephenson didn’t know just how successful he had been, having been forced to make a run for it. I couldn’t wait. I grinned at the thought of being able to tell him what he had done. I grinned until my jaws ached.
I grinned until I found Brad with an arrow in his side.
He leaned against a tree to the side of the path with his head back, eyes closed. The arrow moved slightly as the old man breathed.
I knelt beside him and touched his shoulder. “Brad? Oh, my God.”
His eyes opened, and his head turned toward me. In the darkness of the woods, it was difficult to make out details, but I could see his chin coated with blood and, when he tried a feeble smile, his teeth were dark as well. I was no doctor, but it looked like the arrow had pierced his lung and, in our present circumstances, that was as good as dead.
“Leeland?” Frothy blood bubbled forth when he spoke. “Hey, boy. I got ’em.” The effort of speaking must have been exhausting because he dropped his head back against the tree and closed his eyes again. For a moment I feared I had arrived just in time to hear his last words, but then he spoke again. “I got ’em.”
I nodded. “You got ‘em good, old man. I counted over three hundred dead. More of them sick.”
His grin returned. “That many? Guess it was worth it, then. Least I’m not gonna die for nothing.”
There was a lump in my throat, and for an instant I was back in the old machine shop in Houston talking to my father once more. “Hey! Who said anything about dying?”
Brad locked his eyes to mine. Those eyes held so much, and even in the dim light I could see through them to the man’s soul. They were tired, and his pain shone through clearly, but mostly they were content. “Don’t kid a kidder, youngster. We both know I’ve had it.”
I shook my head. “I could get you back to camp. We could patch you up.”
He laid his head back once more. “Never give up, do you? Guess that’s why so many folks look up to you.” He took a deep, rattling breath. “But this isn’t the time for it. I need your help, Lee, if you think you can do it.”
Tears ran down my cheeks, and I sniffed. “Anything you want. Name it.”
Brad’s hand went to his belt, and he hissed with pain as the movement shifted the arrow. Then he relaxed and spoke softly. “There’s a knife on my belt. Take it off for me.”
I could see that it was a long blade, and the way he sat had shoved the tip into the soft ground beside him, the handle digging into his side. I struggled with his belt buckle for a moment, taking care not to jostle him as I pulled the long sheath free. “Got it.”
“Look at it. It’s my best one, and I’m real proud of it. Finished it a few days before those bastards hit us.”
I drew the blade free and held it out to examine by the light of the moon. It was a dagger, long and sleek. The blade was about a foot long, made of the fine Damascus steel with which Brad had become so proficient. The handle was a finely polished yellow with streaks of brown-Bois d’Arc, one of the hardest woods in North America, definitely the hardest that grew within several hundred miles. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks. It’s yours. But I need another favor from you first.”
I winced as I saw how much blood bubbled out of his mouth and chest. “Whatever you want, Brad.”
“I love that knife, Lee. I was an accountant before D-day. I ever tell you that?” I nodded, wondering if his thoughts were beginning to wander.
“All I ever did my whole life was punch keys on a computer. Try to make the right numbers show up for the right people. Not something to give a man much of a feeling of accomplishment.”
He coughed, then spasmed as the arrow tore more tissue deep within. “God, that hurts,” he gasped. “I gotta finish this. Wasn’t until you showed me how to work the forge that I ever actually made anything. Later still before I made anything I actually took pride in. You taught me that, Lee. Pride.” He nodded toward the knife I held. “That knife’s the best I’m ever going to get to make, so I want you to keep it. Think of me every now and then when you use it.”
I cleared my throat. “Sure, Brad. I’d be honored.” He peered at me strangely.
“What?”
The old man shook his head and laid it back against the tree again.
“What?” I asked again.
More blood bubbled from his lips as he gasped in pain. When the spasm passed, I could barely hear him. “It’s a lot to ask. More than anyone has a right to ask of another person, so I’ll understand if you can’t do it.” He paused. “I don’t want to die this way, bleedin’ inside, chokin’ on my own blood.”
Helpless, I cried in earnest now. “I’m sorry, Brad. I wish I could stop it. I wish I could.”
“You can.” His eyes were staring into me again. “This hurts like hell, Lee. I want to die clean. Help me. Please?”
I was shocked. I knew what he was asking, but it took his hand on mine to make me accept that I’d understood correctly. I stared down at the knife still clenched in my fist. Brad pulled my unresisting hand to his throat and placed the needle sharp point of the blade beneath his chin. Then he let go. “Please.”
I stared unbelievingly, but he turned away and closed his eyes. He began to talk. “I remember about thirty years ago, when Brenda and I went to the Grand Canyon. We drove from Houston through New Mexico, and on to Arizona. We must have stopped at every Indian reservation we came to. Brenda loved Indian jewelry.
“I remember we got caught in a sandstorm in the Painted Desert one day, and I was scared that we’d get lost and drive off the road, so we stopped right where we were and watched the sand blow across the windshield. It would change colors as it went, and Brenda joked about how it looked like Walt Disney had thrown up on our car.
“She died a few months before D-day, sort of a blessing in disguise, because she really wasn’t a strong woman. I don’t think she would have lasted long after it all fell apart.
“I miss that woman.” He sighed, and a tear rolled down his cheek. “I miss you so much, Brenda.”
Sobbing uncontrollably, I shoved upward with all my might, hoping I was swift enough that he didn’t feel anything.
Hoping he was reunited with Brenda.
I met Ken and several others on my way back to camp. Rene had finally realized that Brad was gone and had sent for me. When I turned up missing too, she told Ken. They had put two and two together and gathered another squad to come find us. I was drained by then, both emotionally and physically, and offered no resistance when they took Brad’s body from me.
“Lee? What happened, Lee?”
I turned to Ken, barely aware of what was going on at that point. “What happened?” The words rolled about in my mind for a few seconds, looking for some kind of purchase on reality. They finally registered, and I buried my face in Ken’s shirt and cried like a baby.
I eventually managed to tell them what had happened, and Ken sent spotters out to confirm my story. Word spread through the camps like wildfire.
Over three hundred dead! Just by one old man!
Ken and Jim must have immediately seen the effect of the story as they milked it for all it was worth. The people of Rejas acted like they had found a shiny new stone, a gem of determination they had forgotten even existed.
If that wasn’t enough, they reminded one another of some of the struggles through which they had all come, the fights that had made them strong.
We went against them to break our people out of the stadium. A hundred men against three thousand! Thirty to one! And they had tanks! Not as many when we got finished with them, of course.
And what happened at the fertilizer plant? Sure, we had to leave, but not until after we kicked their butts again!
Ironically, it was Billy who dragged me back into it, reminding everyone of the day that three of us went up against twenty looters in the early days after D-day, and further reminding them that he was the only living survivor of those looters.
Through it all, Rejas citizens wove their speculative thread into the tales. If so few of us could do this against so many, what would happen if we all quit our whining about how tough things were, and put our minds to beating Larry?
Larry didn’t know it yet, but the tide had turned against him. The number of night raids tripled and were no longer simple gathering missions. Status quo wasn’t enough. The townspeople had found their courage once more and, though I never mentioned it to anyone, I knew that the Damascus blade I carried at my side was not Brad’s finest work. His example had taken the hidden steel of his neighbors’ backbones, tempered it with determination, and forged a weapon against which our enemies had no defense.
Brad had given us back our hope.