Marching As to War: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (8 page)

Finally, we heard a different kind of shots in the woods
across the road. The soldiers stopped firing at us. There was a scream and a
few more shots. Then silence.

I reckoned it was over and began to stand up. But Jane
screamed, “No!” and waved me down. I took cover. Just then, another burst of
fire came out of the woods, slicing through the air just above my head.

When I stood up again, I saw a soldier running out of the
trees. He dropped his rifle, and ran straight down the middle of road, pumping
his arms and legs real wild.
Stupid panic.
Riley stood
up, took aim, and put a shot into the man’s back, a little right of center. The
soldier staggered a few steps, fell hard on his knees and hands, and crawled a
few feet before collapsing.

Some of our men ran to the ditch to help our wounded man.
But he was dead. It was really over now.

My knee hurt, and I felt confused, lightheaded and thirsty.
I just wanted to sit down and drink cool water until the spring went dry. Jane
stood on the road and watched as our man was carried into the woods to be
buried. She was covered in dirt and his blood, but she was unhurt. Then she
looked at me and smiled.

She had saved my life, but I was angry. She could’ve died. What
she had done was stupid, crazy. But it was useless to tell her that. Jane was
not some excited kid who had to be taught not to take foolish chances. She was
something else, something for which I didn’t have a name.

So I just said, “Why?”

“Nobody ought to die alone.”

I nodded.

So it happened that way. Maybe I should’ve told those men
what I’ve told you. But I suspect it wouldn’t have done any good. The story of
Jane saving that man was just too good. And in the telling and retelling, a
good story grows and grows into something bigger. The bigger story becomes
easier to believe. Then it is too late to go back.

We were searching the bodies of soldiers after an ambush and
Riley said, “This one’s alive.” He took a deep breath and pulled out his knife.

“Stop,” Jane said. We all looked at her, wondering what the
hell she was doing.

We didn’t take prisoners. We couldn’t. We didn’t have any
place keep them or spare men to guard them. We had to kill them or leave them
to die of their wounds.
But not this time.

A bullet had creased the soldier’s skull, knocking him cold.
Jane had us haul him away, bound and blindfolded, of course, to the cellar of
an old house. Somebody put some bandages on his head wound, but it wasn’t until
the next day that he woke up. Then he raised all kinds of hell, trying to get
loose, shouting and cursing. The only time he shut up was when somebody fed
him.

When Jane went down to talk to him, he was sitting slumped
forward in a chair, his hands bound behind him. His uniform was dirty and torn.
As we walked down the creaking stairs, he lifted his blindfolded head. His
mouth was set a hard thin line.

Jane sent the men who were guarding him upstairs and took
off the prisoner’s blindfold. He squinted and blinked getting used to even the
dim lamplight in the cellar. It took a few moments, but finally he got a good
look at Jane.

“Who the
fuck are
you?” His voice
sounded dry.

Jane asked Riley to get some water and a clean cloth. After
cleaning his face, she gave him a long drink of water. Then she sat down facing
him.

“Who the
fuck are
you?” he said.

I wanted to hit him, teach him some manners, and took a step
forward. Riley was doing the same. But Jane gave us a look that said,
No
.

“I have some questions,” she said.

“Marcus Hobbes, First Lieutenant,
U.S. Army, serial number
58932923.”

“My name is Jane Darcy. God has called me to save my people
from their enemy, the United States.”

Laughing, he said, “You Hillbillies are crazy.”

“Don’t you believe in God, Lieutenant Hobbes?”

“No,” he said and spat on the floor at her feet. There was
blood in his spittle.

“Why not?”

“What did your God do about the Plague?
Nothing.
What has God done since then?
Nothing.
God’s a story
for children. God’s a joke. There is no God. We’re on our own.”

I expected her to argue. Instead, she just said, “Why are
you doing this?”

“Doing what?” He sounded a little unsure.

“Taking our land.”

“We’re not taking your land. We’re the Government of the United
States of America. This is U.S.
territory. If you resist lawful authority, we have to use force.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“We’re the Government of--”

“That government died 26 years ago.”

“We’re rebuilding. The United
States of America was a great nation. And it
can be again.”

“And you’re going to get it all back, from ocean to ocean?”

“Yes, from ocean to ocean.
One nation.”

“What if we don’t want to be part of your nation?”

“They all say the same thing.” He spat again on the floor.

“We’re different. We’ll fight for our freedom. God is--”

He laughed and said, “Another freedom fighter. They all say
that too.”

Again, I expected her to argue, but she only said, “So when
everyone is forced to be in your nation, what then Lieutenant?”

“What do you mean?”

“Once you conquer everyone you call ‘Americans,’ you’ll be
very powerful. But will you have a great nation?”

“Before the Plague,” he said, “Three hundred million Americans
were the richest people on earth. Now there’s only thirty or forty million and
most wonder if they’ll survive the next winter. You know why?”

“Tell me.”

“There’s no law and order. Law and order make everything
possible. I’m from New York City.
Ever heard of it?”

Jane nodded.

“Before the Plague,” he said, “New
York was the biggest, richest city in America.
After, it was hell on earth. Worse than any hell your damn preachers can
invent. I’ve seen things you can’t imagine.”

Jane just sat, waiting for him to go on.

“All we had was hunger and fear,” he said. “For years, we
were nothing but animals. Then the Government came. It fed us. Soldiers gave me
my first decent meal, my first warm coat. The Government started schools. I
learned to read and write. Do you know how to do that girl?”

She shook her head.

“Of course, you don’t,” he said. “The government of the United
States did that for me, for millions of us.
It gave us a future.
And how?
Law
and order.
Law and order make it possible to walk down a street without
fear of being robbed or raped or murdered. Law and order make it possible to
grow crops and to build factories. Law and order will make America
a great nation again.”

“So that’s it,” she said, “law and order?”

“Yes. In Government territory, we have schools, roads,
hospitals, and even some electricity. You ignorant Hillbillies ought to beg us
to become citizens again. Instead, you fight us.” He spat on the floor.

“Why do you think we fight?”

“Too fucking stupid and backward to know
better.”

“No. We just want to be free.”

“Freedom is bullshit,” he said. “Right now, you’re free to
be hungry, free to be ignorant, and free to die young.”

“Our lives are hard, but there’s no one giving us orders,
telling us how to live.”

“Somebody’s always giving orders. Without those orders,
people will tear each other apart like starving rats. I know. I’ve seen it.
Your Charles Winslow gives orders and your preachers tell you how to live. If
you ask them why, they’ll say, ‘God says.’ But when we tell you how to live, we
don’t hide behind a lie.”

“God is not a lie.”

“Oh, that’s right,” he said, laughing. “You talk with God.”

She glared at him.

“Tell me this,” he said. “When this is over, won’t Winslow
and the preachers tell you, ‘Go home little girl, fuck your cousin, and make
babies?’”

I wanted to hit the bastard, smash his head.

“And they’ll say,”
he
continued,
“‘God wants it that way.’”

She didn’t say anything. It was the first time I had ever
seen someone shut her up.

“But is that what you want?” he said. “Do you really want to
be barefoot and pregnant in a cold, filthy shack for the rest of your life?”

“What I want is nothing. Only God’s will
matters
.”

“You just proved my point. The preachers have you fooled.
Completely fooled.”

“Lieutenant, you don’t know anything about God or my people.
And you don’t know anything about me, or about what I want. I know what God
requires of me.”

“Well, I do know you people always kill your prisoners. So
sooner or later, one of you will shoot me in the back of the head or cut my
throat. So fuck you and fuck God. Fuck all of you.”

Jane sat looking at him with a sad expression. Then she
looked away and sat up straight as though she were somewhere else, listening to
a voice only she could hear.

She stood up and told Riley to put the blindfold back on
Hobbes. Then she grabbed me by the arm and charged up the stairs.

“Come on,” she said. “We’ve got to write a letter.”

I wrote down what she said. I had to stop her often because
I couldn’t keep up. When she finished, I read it back to her. She changed
nothing.

This is what the letter said.

To the So-Called Restored USA:

My name is Jane. God sent me to protect my people and
to bring you a Message. Go home. Leave us alone. We have a God-given right to
be free. We have God’s law. We do not need your law and order. Do not die to
enslave us. Do not die in an unjust cause. If you do not believe God’s Message,
you will die. God is with us and against you. If you obey God, you will be
forgiven.

Go home. Leave us alone. Do not die and be damned for
eternity.

IN THE NAME OF GOD, WE WILL PREVAIL

When we were done, I copied it out as neat as I could. I
asked Jane how she planned to send it to the Government.

“The prisoner,” she said.

“The prisoner?”

“Remember what David Winslow did with the man he didn’t hang?
He sent that man to spread the word. That’s what we’ll do with Lieutenant
Hobbes. We’ll send him back with the letter.”

“Jane, are you sure? He probably knows a lot. Shouldn’t we
make him tell us about what their army is doing? And, I don’t know, their weapons
and such.”

“Remember what Jesus was always saying to the disciples?”

“What?”

“O Ye of little faith.” She picked up the letter and went to
tell the officer in charge of the militia unit what she wanted.

Then Jane and I went back to the cellar. I removed Hobbes’s
blindfold.

“We’re letting you go,” she said. “Deliver this letter to
your leaders.”

“Letter?” he said, blinking in the light.

She held up the folded page and put it in his shirt pocket.
“Deliver my letter. Tell them about me. Tell them what I said. I want them to
know God has sent a Messenger.”

“What’s the trick?”

“No trick,” Jane said. “We let you go, and then you get back
to your army. Deliver the letter. Tell them about me. Do your duty.”

He narrowed his eyes as if trying to see what was wrong with
this.

Two men came. They put the blindfold back on Hobbes and took
him up the stairs.

I heard Hobbes shout, “Hey Jane! Jane Darcy!” He must’ve
wanted to say something else to her. But she gave no sign of hearing that, so I
let it pass. I wanted to talk to her.

“Are you sure about this?” I said. “Now they’ll know who you
are and what you look like. The Government will try to get you like it tried to
get Winslow with the airplanes.”

“That’s right,” she said.

About two weeks later, someone brought in one of the signs
being posted by the soldiers in the towns and villages. It offered a reward for
“information leading to the capture ‘Jane Darcy.’” The sign said what she
looked like and how she wore men’s clothing. It also warned she was “armed and
dangerous.” It had a drawing of her--a
squarish
face
with a mean scowl, framed by short scruffy hair.

When I read what it said to Riley and Jane, they had a good
laugh. “Do you think I look like that?” Jane said, pointing to the drawing, “I
mean, she’s so . . . unfriendly.”

“Well,” Riley said, “she is armed and dangerous.” And they
laughed some more.

I didn’t think it was funny. Now the Government was hunting
her. She was in more danger than ever.

Jane saw I wasn’t laughing. “Think what this means,” she
said. “All the people who see this sign will know I’m not scared of the
Government. And then they’ll all know they shouldn’t be scared either.”

I couldn’t think of what to say. I knew how to fight. I had
killed. Yet I was afraid to die. I could master that fear for a while, but I
was still afraid. I understood, at last, she was not.

“Hiding it can be a mite tricky,” said the man and he began
to lay twigs and leaves across the hole he had dug. “Make it look like solid
ground, so maybe they’ll step there.”

At the bottom of the hole was a board with big rusty nails
sticking straight up. When a soldier stepped in the hole, the nails would go
right through his boot, up into his foot. It hurt just to think about it.

The man looked up at us and smiled. His name was Cosgrove,
and he had a friendly face.

“Put some shit on the nails,” he said. “Just dip ‘
em
in a pile.
Betcha
that
soldier’s foot will swell up bad, maybe have to get cut off. Maybe get the
blood poisoning and die. Anyway, one less soldier boy we
gotta
shoot.” He grinned.

Jane had been squatting next to Cosgrove. Standing up, she
looked around at us and said, “What’s important is making the soldiers afraid,
afraid even to walk on our land.” Campbell
had told us this same thing.

Solemn as deacons, we all nodded our agreement. I wouldn’t
have been surprised if somebody had said, “Amen.” Then Jane squatted again and
told Cosgrove to go on. We all leaned in, trying to get a good look.

I turned to say something to Riley. But he wasn’t there. I
looked around and saw he was leaning up against a tree, away from the crowd. I
went over to him. He didn’t look happy.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“I wonder if this is such a good idea.”

“Why?”

Riley scratched his beard for a moment. “One time I was
hunting with Daddy and Uncle Dewey. You remember me talking about Uncle Dewey?”

“Sure.
The story about the skunk.
But what’s this got to do with--”

“Hang on. We
was
hunting, and our
dogs got after this bear.
Big old bastard.
Six maybe seven hundred pounds.
Dogs cornered him. While one
dog came from the front, a couple others would tear at the bear’s backside.
Bear would roar and turn around, but that dog would get out of reach. Then the
other dog would go at him from behind. So on.”

“Yeah.”

“It was such a good show we let it go on.
Didn’t
shoot.
Just watched those dogs draw blood.”

“Yeah.
So?”

“Well, you corner
something,
make
it afraid, it’ll turn mean.
Crazy mean.
Has to.
That’s how it was with that bear. Just went wild
wanting to hit something, anything,
anybody
, to give back
some pain.”

“What happened?”

“He got one dog before we shot him. Hit that dog so hard, it
flew. I swear that dog was dead, all busted up inside, before it hit the
ground.”

I nodded. Riley wasn’t talking about bears and hunting dogs.
He was talking about the soldiers. Between the Government keeping them here and
us drawing blood at every turn, they were cornered. Cosgrove’s little traps
would just make it worse. I thought of a soldier camp we had shot up a couple
nights before. After the soldiers quit spraying the darkness with bullets, one
of them started screaming at us, calling us fucking cowards and every other
dirty name, daring us to come out and fight. The soldier sounded like he had
gone crazy. At the time, I thought it was funny. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

“So what you reckon they’ll do?” I said.

“Don’t know.” He looked down at the ground and shrugged.

“Why don’t you tell Jane about this?”

He looked up and smiled. “No. Jane
don’t
listen. Not when she’s got her mind set. You know how she is.”

I nodded. I knew.

It was maybe a week later that we found the boy. He was
terrified, and we had trouble understanding him at first. Then we didn’t want
to believe what he said.

He had hid in the woods when the soldiers came. The soldiers
had surrounded the village, driven everyone out of the houses. Then he ran as
fast as he could to find help.

The boy didn’t have to lead us there. The smoke from a
burning house showed us the way.

We moved in slow, worried about an ambush. There were bodies
at middle of the village, next to the well. Some had been shot in the head
once. Others had been damn near cut in half by the big machine guns.

We spread out, to see if the soldiers were still there, to
find survivors. All the buildings I checked were empty, except the last one.

A woman was on the table. Her shredded clothes lay under
her, already sodden with the blood from the wide deep cut across her throat.
Her eyes were wide open staring at the ceiling.
Flies buzzing
all around.

I stood there until I felt my stomach coming up. I got
outside and bent over but didn’t vomit. When I felt under control again, I
stood up and found myself facing Jane.

She looked at me for a moment and then began to move toward
the house. I stepped in front of her and put my arm across the doorway, blocking
her.

She looked at me.

“Don’t,” I managed to say. There was a terrible taste in my
mouth.

She kept looking at me and lightly put one hand on the arm I
had across the doorway. I dropped it and let her pass.

When I forced myself to go back in, Jane was covering the
woman with a blanket. I felt ashamed that I hadn’t done that.

Before she pulled the blanket over the woman’s face, Jane
stopped and closed the eyes. She started to move the blanket again and
hesitated. She took a crumpled piece of paper from the woman’s mouth. There was
blood was on it. Then Jane pulled the blanket all the way up and went outside.
I followed.

She opened the crumpled paper. It was a copy of the sign
with Jane’s picture. We looked at in silence before Jane folded the paper and put
it in a coat pocket.

We walked back toward the well. Now there were a few people
standing, looking at the bodies.
The survivors.
They
stood without moving, as still as if the world itself had come to a stop. I
could hear the buzzing cloud of flies feasting on the dead, the pop and crackle
of the burning house, and the thump of my heart.

Then we heard gunfire, coming from the other side of the
village. While the survivors scattered, scrambling for hiding places, Jane and
I ran toward the shots. For a few seconds, we heard the heavy rattle of
automatic rifles. The rattle stopped, replaced by single rifle shots. Then
silence.

Ahead, at the top of a rise, a big man named McGill was
dragging a soldier into the road. Riley and a couple of our men followed. When
Jane and I got closer, I saw the soldier looked bad.
Real
bad.
He was covered in dirt and blood, and was bleeding from his mouth
and cuts on his face. Finally, McGill threw the man on the ground in front of
Jane and kicked him in the ribs. Gasping and retching, he curled up in a ball
with his hands over his head. He was quivering.

McGill looked all set to keep beating the soldier.

“Stop!”
Jane shouted.

McGill’s eyes were crazy looking. Had he cut loose again, I
don’t think anything would’ve stopped him. But Jane held him.

“Stop,” she said. Calm and even. Something in McGill seemed
to turn, and he took a step back.

“We found this one, and two others, draining a bottle.”
Riley said. “He gave up. Other two are dead.”

She nodded and looked down at the soldier, still curled up
at her feet.

“Sit up,” she said. “Sit up. I want to talk with you.”

He just lay there shaking, waiting for the next blow.

“We ain’t gonna hit you,” she said.

It wasn’t until Jane got us to step back some that the
soldier tried to sit up. He could barely move and had to support himself with
trembling arms to keep from falling on his face.

Jane squatted in front of him so he could see her face and
she could see his. When he seemed able to focus on her, she took the folded
piece of paper out of her pocket and held it up for him to see. His eyes worked
back and forth between the drawing and her face. He stiffened, recognizing her.

Folding the paper again, she put it away. Then she turned
and looked back in the direction of the heaped bodies. The soldier looked there
too.

She turned back to him and said, “Why?”

At first, he didn’t react. He just slumped forward, leaning
on his arms, swaying a little. Then he glanced around as if calculating his
chances of escape. At last, he looked at the ground and said, his voice
cracking, “The officer told us. It was him. He made us to do it.”

I felt like shouting at him, asking him if the officer made
him rape and murder that woman. But I didn’t. It wouldn’t do any good. I felt
sick again, like my stomach would come up.

Jane just looked at him, steady.

“But I didn’t do anything,” the soldier went on. He was
pleading now, desperate, looking around for a trace of pity in our faces. “I
didn’t do anything!”

Jane said nothing.

“Let’s shoot the lying bastard and be done with it,” McGill
said. “Who wants to do it? I’ll be glad to.”

The soldier hunched forward, whimpering. All hope gone.

“No,” Jane said, her voice almost a whisper. “I’ll do it.”

I looked at her, unable believe what I had heard.

“I’ll do it,” she repeated and stood up. Her voice was now
firm and even.
Almost normal.

All of us, except the soldier, gaped at her. God forgive me.
The first thing I felt was relief. I didn’t want to pull the trigger. But I
couldn’t let her do this.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the soldier and
the silent men standing around him. After a few steps, she wrenched her arm
away, but kept walking with me.

“You crazy?”
I said. “Why did you
say that?”

“It’s my burden.”

“No. You don’t want to do this.”

“If I don’t, will you?”

I should have said yes. But I hesitated.

She looked at me.
Reading me.

“Let McGill.
He wants to.”

“No.”

“Then we’ll draw straws. Cast lots. Let God decide.”

“God has decided. I’ve said it. I have to do it.”

“No one should expect this of you.”

“They do now.”

Then she turned from me and walked back toward the men who
were still watching her in silence. I followed.

Jane worked the bolt of her rifle, loading a new cartridge.
Her hands were trembling a little. She looked down at the soldier and told him
this was his chance to make peace with God, to ask forgiveness for his sins.

The soldier seemed not to hear her. He just rocked back and
forth, crying and wailing like an abandoned child.

We all looked at her. She didn’t look at us, only at the
soldier. Then she lifted her rifle, David Winslow’s rifle, and aimed.
A long moment.
Then she screamed and did it.

Somehow, all the fine details of that instant have been
scratched on my memory. I can still see how the men were standing. I can still
see the look on Jane’s face.
And the soldier’s.

I know, of course, that I could not have seen all those
things at once. But that’s how I remember it.

The shot hit the soldier in the forehead. The back of his
head blew out, and he snapped backward, one arm flew up with the force of the
impact. Then the limp body fell over, blood gushing and spurting out of the
head.

We all stood still, waiting until Jane moved again. She
worked the bolt of her rifle, ejecting the spent shell and loading a new one.
That released us, and we started moving again.

We spent the rest of that long day helping with the dead,
digging graves and such. I had long since gotten used to seeing the dead. But
burying children . . . that was something else. Maybe there’s a way a man can
get used to seeing that, but I pray to God I never do.

It was almost dark when we had done what we could and got
ready to leave. McGill came over to Jane. He had a face like an old boot, lined
and hard. There was just enough light to see he was crying.

“What do we do now?” he said.

Jane stepped closer to him and put a hand on his arm. She
looked at him and said nothing. She was not crying.