Indivisible (Overlooked by Liberty) (2 page)

      
Tater gnawed on the carcass at the boys' secret hideout for three days that summer until Butch finally buried the smelly remains.  Though they hadn't talked about the event since that day, they wouldn't consider killing another groundhog. 

      
Despite their introduction to death, today it didn't stop Butch from using a stick to scoop up the dried skin and bones of a squirrel carcass.  He tossed it onto his younger brother's back.

      
Charlie saw it and called from the back of the line.  "Get back here, you boys.  Butch, Thad, I want you boys back here, now!"  Barry was off with the other Webelos to continue up the trail without his cohorts.

      
Butch and Thad came to the back of the line like scolded puppies.  Charlie dropped back from the Pack to talk to the boys privately.  "You know, boys, I've had it with you two and your tomfoolery.  I bend over backwards for all my boys but you two are always into something.  I gave you guys time back at the falls to let loose and you're still pulling pranks on the trail.  There are ledges and loose stones around here; someone could get hurt.  Butch, I've never kicked anyone out of the Pack before but this can't go on."

      
Butch's eyes widened when he heard that, "Kicked out?  Am I kicked out?"  He stopped breathing for a moment, waiting for a response.

      
"You're not listening.  I said this foolery can't go on.  You're not kicked out, but you could be.  Now, you boys follow me for the rest of the hike."

      
Charlie's sermon got Butch's attention; he lived for Scouting.  Usually, he defiantly endured the lectures of his teachers, his mother, and Charlie.  It always passed, and things continued on as before.  But his life would not be the same without Scouting: the hikes, the camp-outs, the secret codes, the Pack.  Butch knew that.  He and Thad shut their mouths and didn't do anything unless told to.

      
The trail wound up the mountain, taking short detours around gullies and boulders, all through a thick pine forest with wide tree trunks.  Tall conifers canopied the open, sunless underworld.  Needles from those trees carpeted the ground with an aromatic layer that smothered other plant life on the forest floor.  Life seemed to cease in the undergrowth.  Small birds that usually fluttered brazenly about from branch to branch sat motionless in their nests.

      
Near the summit, Minsen emerged from the forest into daylight and led the Pack through a clearing.  A Scout leading the group noticed a red light flash among the dead branches of a brush pile.  "Hey, look at that."  He walked toward it and stopped.  "Come look at this.  There's two red lights.  Another one just popped on."

      
The whole Pack stood in the clearing, a few boys lingering near the trees at each end of the opening.  A fourth red light popped on.  An explosion of gunfire cut through the Pack, single bullets, often burst through several boys aligned with one another, the bullet continuing through trees deep in the wooded surrounding.  The auto-gun strafed the group through their midsections.  Multiple bullets passing through younger boys nearly cut them in half.  The machine whirled from the front of the Scout pack to the back, shooting boys at both ends first, spraying bullets through the pack in its sweep.  Minsen died instantly.  A bullet to the ribs brought Charlie down; as he fell he snatched Butch and Thad's clothes, yanking the Rousell brothers down with him behind a boulder.

      
Most of the pack bolted for cover but the shooting happened so suddenly that some boys froze in horror and watched.  The gun would rotate from one end of the clearing to the other, stopping at each end to sputter single bullets as though pausing to aim and fire at individuals.  Every bullet seemed to hit someone.  The few that froze in horror stood miraculously unscathed.  When they moved, the horror left them quickly and with little pain.  The entire pack lay bleeding, some boys with viscera strewn on the ground beside them.  Some tried to put their intestines back, but movement only drew the auto-gun's attention; those boys received another fatal round to the gut.  Boys who made it behind thick trees for protection were still detected by the gun; the bullets streaked through trees like tissue paper, splatting the Scouts behind them.

      
Charlie noticed the pattern of the auto-gun from his position behind the boulder.  Everyone was hit at least once except for the Rousell brothers. Charlie knew he couldn't stay conscious for long. 
I have to do something!

      
Barry stirred behind another boulder.  He looked down at his legs, both shot to a pulp and streaming out blood.  A numb realization swept over him that life was temporary, "Oh God, someone help me!"  His wasn't the only cry of dismay; screams and groans came from everywhere.

      
Butch recognized Barry's voice and got up to help.  Charlie grabbed the boy's belt and yanked him down before the gun began shooting at their movement.  Rock fragments jetted everywhere, eating away at the boulder the three hid behind.

      
"Don't move!" Charlie yelled to the pack.  "Nobody move!  You hear me."  Pleas and whimpers continued--occasional bursts popped the kids who moved.  But the cries from the boys . . . Charlie couldn't feel his own pain because of it.  He could see boys off to the side and wondered why they were still alive, so mangled and all--or how so much blood could come from such small bodies.

      
"We gotta get Barry," insisted Butch.  Thad looked at Barry with a frozen stare.  "Next time it shoots over there, I'm going."  Butch was crouched and ready to go.

      
"No you're
not
going!"  Charlie replied.

      
"Why?" asked Butch.

      
"Because, I'm the Akela," Charlie insisted to Butch.  "You
do
as I say!"   He put his hands on Thad's face and turned it away from Barry's direction.  "Do you hear me?"  Thad, wide-eyed and anxious, nodded yes.  "Now, when I get up and go, you two haul-ass over to that boulder," Mr. Ronolou pointed, "and then crawl on your stomachs to the roots of that uprooted tree end.  The boulder will block the gun's line-of-sight."  Charlie paused to get his breath.  "Dig a hole and stay there.  You hear me?  Stay there no matter what.  Whoever set up this thing will be back.  You boys have to keep yourselves alive if you're going to get help."

      
Charlie's face was fish-belly white; he drew a deep breath and struggled up to a squatting position and tossed a stone.

      
The auto-gun traced the movement but didn't fire.  He lit a pack of matches and tossed it out in front of them.  The gun blasted the flaming pack of matches.  A ball of dust exploded into the air where the burning pack had been. 
So, this cold-blooded machine detects heat and motion.
  Now, Charlie knew what he had to do.  He turned to Butch, "Get Thad turned the right direction and when I take off, you two go!"

      
Butch shook his head.  "But, Sir.  I'd like to say--"

      
"No don't.  Just get ready."  Charlie shook his head to try to stay conscious.  The Scout leader didn't want the boy to say something that would make him feel guilty.  Charlie couldn't return the admiration; he had never cared for the Rousell boys and didn't want a lie to be his last word.  "Ready?"  The man got up and ran out to latch onto a dead tree stump.  The gun turned and popped him with one shot to his chest.

      
At the same moment, the Rousell boys sprinted toward the boulder in the other direction.  Driven by fear, Thad's quick, lightweight frame darted yards ahead of his brother.  Butch dove to make it behind the boulder in time.  Thad bounded on like a deer, lightly jetting across the span toward the roots of the toppled tree.  The auto-gun pivoted from Charlie to Thad and began firing; Thad outran the bullets' dust plumes that followed him, diving into the hollow pocket of dirt at the wall of tree roots.  Bullets raked the edges of the uprooted tree end, throwing dust in all directions.  But part of the roots were blocked by the boulder in front.

      
Charlie waved an arm and the gun turned on him again, shooting twice to the chest in exactly the same spot it hit before.  Then, it pivoted back toward Thad's direction and waited. Charlie slumped from the tree stump and fell to the ground.  The gun turned and shot through the top of his head as he lay dead; it rotated 180 degrees to shoot a boy who moved on the other side of the clearing--and mystically turned its aim back to the roots again.

      
Butch watched it all from behind the boulder.  What was once a thick clod of dirt giving life to a fallen tree, now looked like a spiny-faced creature with a mouth that had gulped his brother.  He didn't see Thad in the cavity.  "Thad?  Thad? You there?"  Butch turned back to see Barry behind the edge of the rock.  "Barry, don't move a muscle!  Just don't move!" The gun detected Butch at the side of the boulder; bullets raked the rock's edge, tossing a chunk of stone into Butch's forehead and gashing it open.  He sat dazed behind the stone holding the sticky blood in.  The plaid Webelos neckerchief that seemed to be a part of his daily attire came off; Butch wrapped it around his head.  If the injury hurt, he didn't feel it.

      
He crawled on his belly to the base of the roots as Charlie had told him.  Thad wasn't there.  "Thad!"  Butch dug around and found a foot and followed it up to the head: Thad had buried himself all right.  His face was completely mucked with black soil, his body rigid.  "Thad, you all right?  Say something!"

      
Thad's bulging eyes had seen it all: He could still hear his friends' pleas for help, he could still smell the bitter scent of gut; all this, Thad relived in his mind's eye.

      
"I'll get us out of this.  Don't worry, Thad."  Butch found a flat rock and began digging a tunnel out the opposite of the roots.  He figured if they kept the boulder between them and the gun, they could crawl out the back and down the hill.

      
Thad's look of terror only changed when a moan floated up from the pack.  The auto-gun shot occasionally if a body rolled from its original position or a corpse slumped.  But it always turned back to the roots--as though it knew they were still there.

      
Butch dug frantically.  He had no idea how much time had lapsed from when the shooting began to now.  He hadn't tired yet.  Instead of sitting still as Charlie had said, Butch felt compelled to get out and go for help; Barry was still alive.  The parking lot where parents would be waiting for them was just down the mountain.  He could send Thad, the fastest runner in Pack 220.

      
"What the hell's that?" Butch looked back.  A tandem helicopter hovered above the clearing and churned up leaves and dust; some of the Boy Scout hats went spinning through the air to the heavens.  The copter landed.

      
Both boys looked out the hole.  "Those are Federal soldiers," said Butch in amazement.  "We've got to do as Mr. Ronolou said."  Both boys feverishly pushed dirt up from the inside to fill the opening until only a peephole remained.

      
Troops jumped out both sides of the helicopter and flopped belly down with rifles readied.  A technician, who carried a remote controller, punched a few buttons.  He then darted to the auto-gun, threw off the cover, and flipped mechanical switches in the innards of the thing. 

      
The weapon, called an AutoMan, sensed motion, heat, and target mass.  The device was designed to target armored vehicles and soldiers over a particular weight who carried weapons.  An electronic program memorized and tracked victims for "neutralization."  It could strafe a crowd, then come back and neutralize individuals with single shots.

      
The technician waved all clear to the squad.  The soldiers scattered out to the tree line, securing their unit's position.  Additional Rangers jumped out of the copter and took positions with the troops.  They were ready but didn't expect any fighting.

      
Captain Edward Thomas, an African-American, jumped off the chopper as the props coasted to a stop.  A veteran of numerous campaigns in the Middle East, Haiti, Africa, and the Carolinas, he had become conditioned to the gore of battle.  This was different.  He looked at the child faces, the hats, the Scout uniforms.  "Oh God."  He had expected to find the bodies of men, part of a smuggling syndicate.

      
"I don't understand it.  They're all gut shots, Captain.  Gut shots."  The technician came up behind Captain Thomas and spoke rapidly, not really looking at any of the faces for fear of losing his composure.  "I think it must have something to do with our disarming the metals sensor.  I don't know why but it's the only thing I can think of."

      
"The targets were children." the Captain whispered in horror.

      
The technician looked around more closely.  "This is terrible!"  He started walking through the carnage.  Vapors rose from opened abdomens and hovered aimlessly above the corpses.  The technician found an open spot and vomited on the ground.  He stumbled back to the gun turret to help with its disassembly.

      
"Get three soldiers to check for any survivors," Captain Thomas told a private.  The Captain started toward the tree line where it seemed the Scout troop had entered the clearing; he tried to look at bodies, not faces.  He found Barry behind a rock; the boy's legs were shot up.  Massive hemorrhaging still oozed from both legs.  "Medic, here!"  The boy was breathing, his face scrunched into distorted shapes to hold back pain.  "You hear me, boy?  Can you speak?"