The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time (18 page)

“Dan, take Terrell and Garrett and scout Boreas for us. I wouldn’t want to blunder into any surprises. Then I want Garrett and Terrell to take a couple of RPG’s and find that chopper. When the shooting starts...” she turned to Terrell, “I’m assuming you know the best place to hit it.” He answered with a smile, his teeth gleaming against his black face.

“I get a chance I’ll cripple her without turning her into scrap metal,” he said. “She might come in handy later on.”

“So long as it doesn’t get off the ground,” Ellen agreed. “Our best chance is to take them totally by surprise. So be quiet and careful. The last time we chased members of the King’s Army we lost them. That may work in our favor. They might think we quit easily, that we’ve given up the chase.” She paused for effect then added, “They don’t know us very well, do they?”

Her posse grinned like wolves.

*

Linda Garrett had been in a running gunfight, playing hide and seek, for too many hours now. Her hands were trembling, her vision a bit blurry and her judgment was worse than her vision. She was out of ammo for her AR-15 and almost out for her Glock. If she could isolate one of her pursuers she could kill him and take his weapons, then lead them on another merry chase. But finding one man alone was proving impossible. They worked in six man teams and it was obvious they’d hunted people before. She’d watched as they surrounded a house, made simultaneous entry from front, rear and side if needed, then move to the next one.

If she could make it back to Downstairs at Eric’s she could wait them out and resupply. She was pretty sure they wouldn’t find the well hidden rear entrance and from street level the whole thing looked like an complete wreck. Too bad reaching Eric’s was out of the question.

The Huey had limped in yesterday morning, smoking badly, landing in the dirt lot near the lodge. Godzilla and his thugs got out carrying a couple of kids. She was too far away to identify the children but their presence was what kept her from escaping into the hills.

Instead, she used her intimate knowledge of the town to snipe at her searchers and evade them, doing everything in her power to slow them all down. She even put a few rounds into the repair party working like demons on the helicopter, because it’s condition, the missing Cobra gunships and the presence of the children, meant her people were coming. And if she knew Ellen Whitebear they wouldn’t be far behind.

She dropped down low and edged one eye out past the trunk of the large spruce she was hidden in. Several search teams were in her area so she figured she was surrounded. She never considered giving up. If half of what Sara Garcia told the Freeholders was true these were not people you surrendered to, these were people you fought to the death against.

“We know you’re in there. Come out now and you won’t be harmed.” The voice was so loud, startled her so bad, she almost squeezed off a shot. She risked another peek and saw an officer standing in the starlit street with a megaphone dangling from one hand. He was facing away from her, the rest of his squad encircling a half-burned duplex she’d been in less than half an hour before. Her tracks in the snow were leading them to her and she was fresh out of ideas.

When she’d joined the militia her brother, Garrett, had told her, “Don’t be a hero, just do your job.” She’d tried, but now it looked like death was just around the corner. Her parents had died, guns in hand, shielding her little sisters with their own bodies. She hoped when her time came she’d measure up.

The enemy stormed the house, found nothing and regrouped, but now there were only four of them. Where had the other two gone? The four immediately returned to the house they’d just searched, two to the front and two to the rear. A couple of minutes passed. The two waiting out front fidgeted, glancing around. Finally the officer with the megaphone called out a name, but since he didn’t use the loudspeaker she couldn’t hear him. He raised a whistle to his lips--she’d heard those annoying blasts calling others onto her trail for what seemed like an eternity now.

But before he whistled, he collapsed. The soldier next to him spun around and flopped to the ground, dead.

Garrett Haley and Terrell Johnson walked around the side of the house holding silenced AR’s and her eyes suddenly watered as she realized she’d get to live a little longer.

*

Terrell Johnson nudged Garrett and pointed as Linda Haley stumbled toward them smiling brighter than a full moon. Garrett gathered her up in a big hug.

“Hey, Sis,” he said, choked up.

She pulled back, took a deep, shaky breath and said, “Took you long enough.”

Wiping tears from her eyes, she hugged Terrell and said, “Trying to get the kids back?”

“Actually, we were looking for you.” Terrell said. He slapped Garrett on the back. “Lughead here spotted all the activity over this way and figured you were involved.”

He led the Haleys back under cover and said, “Now we gotta stop that copter from taking off. Maybe you can show us where to set up--get a good, close shot?”

“Gimme some ammo and I’ll point the way,” she said, her fatigue gone. Nothing like finding out you’re not going to die in the next ten minutes to give a girl a lift.

Garrett handed her half a dozen clips and a screw on silencer for her AR.

She admired it as she attached it and said, “You’ve been busy.”

He shrugged and said, “The whole posse has them. We need to keep things quiet until the main attack.”

“We can hit the Huey from the Blue River wash if we can get out of this box they put me in,” Linda said.

“What box?” Garrett asked. “You think this is the first patrol we took out getting here?”

“In that case follow me,” she said and led off.

Thirty minutes later Terrell had the Huey in his sights.

*

“Fucking bitch!” John swore. He was in deep trouble. The Freeholders had taken out his forward observation posts and were hitting his troops from all sides, rolling them up faster than he could counter. Though it stuck in his craw like a chicken bone he had to run. Freaking disaster. How he’d explain this to his father...he’d cross that bridge later.

“Jamal, you and Sergeant Carter grab the kids. We’re making a break for it.”

“They’ll slow us down,” Jamal argued. Damned squirmy, biting brats.

“They may be the only thing that gets us out of here,” John yelled. His personal guard formed a cordon around him as Jamal and the Sergeant returned with the children.

As they neared the helicopter the tail rotor exploded and shrapnel cut down two of his guards and nicked his cheek.

“The horses,” he yelled, grabbing a belt fed M-60 and a can of 7.62 mm belts. He fired the weapon one-handed, like an over-sized pistol, handling the twenty four pound weight of the gun and the even heavier ammunition box like a toothpick.

He glimpsed a woman with long blonde hair, heard Jamal hiss, “Whitebear,” and swung his M-60 her direction as Jamal fired. She fell and he took advantage of the momentary confusion in the Freeholder’s line to break through. Five minutes later he and his people were on horseback fleeing into the night.

*

“Dammit, Jim, get off of me,” Ellen grunted. She’d had him, that giant, was squeezing the trigger when Jim tackled her. She’s actually felt the deadly breath of bullets cutting the air above her as she fell.

“Ellen? You okay?” Terrell Johnson knelt beside her and rolled Jim off.

“Ugh,” Jim groaned as they flopped him over. “Take it easy.”

Blood oozed from his left calf.

“You’re hit,” Terrell said and yelled, “Medic!”

“No shit,” Jim said, wincing.

Wayne Anderson ran over and threw himself down beside Jim. In less than a minute he’d cut Jim’s pant leg and peeled it back exposing the wound. “Through and through. Good.”

Wayne swabbed some honey on the wound to sterilize it, he’d been out of Betadine for years, pulled a tampon out of his med kit, snipped off two small pieces, wrapped some clean spider webs around them and applied them to the wound. A bit of gauze and tape and he was done.

“Stay off of it,” he said, fixing Jim with a look. “I mean it. It may not hurt much now but it’ll stiffen up and scream like a bitch in a couple of hours. So take it easy.”

“I’ve been shot before, Wayne.”

Wayne rolled his eyes. “And yet you’re still catching bullets. Not a quick learner.”

Terrell chuckled.

Gunshots still popped like firecrackers but the volume was dying down. In the distance someone yelled, “Medic,” and Wayne said, “Gotta run. Do as I say, Jim, or next time I’ll use my homemade blood clot on you instead of nice, clean spider webs.”

Jim shuddered. The homemade stuff worked but the cayenne pepper in it burned like hell.

Dan Osaka came running up and said, “Ellen, we’re about done mopping up here.”

“Great,” she said. “Let’s get after them.”

Jim Cantrell started to rise but Ellen laid her hands on his shoulders and held him down. “I need you to stay here and look after the wounded and prisoners,” she said. “And thank you for saving my butt.”

It took another two hours to round up stragglers and get reorganized but as Ellen and her posse thundered up the valley her mind drifted to Michael. He was long overdue. She was now certain he’d been hurt. She hoped he hadn’t run into this group while it was on its way to Breckenridge. That thought made her grit her teeth and her eyes grew hard. The same look could be found on every face in the posse, a look that said that no quarter would be offered nor mercy given to those they caught.

*

Leona Perry and Elizabeth Town, best friends at first sight, sat at Leona’s desk in the principal’s office at the Freeholds school and studied the crop rotation spreadsheet in front of them. Sunlight streamed in from a skylight, highlighting a few stray dust notes. Since most of the Freeholds leaders were off fighting the war the grunt work of figuring out what heirloom seeds to plant and how many children they could pull from school to help harvest the early spring crops in the greenhouse fell to them. Elizabeth was a lifelong gardener who taught intensive, vertical and companion planting techniques to more Freeholders than actually wanted to know them. She had originally gained membership in the Freeholds by bringing along an heirloom seed bank.

Leona, who, if she could organize a mass of unruly children into an orderly school, could organize anything was well-suited to this work. Still, the task was anything but easy.

“I think the Detroit Red Beets and Boule D’Or turnips are ready for harvest,” Elizabeth said. “The Purple Top White Globe needs another week and so does the de Ciccio Broccoli and Copenhagen Early Market cabbage. I think two more weeks for the Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach and the Lacinado kale.”

Leona nodded and checked the chart. “We’re getting short on a few lettuce varieties, Liz. Red Salad Bowl, Iceberg and Calmar especially. I think we should allow half of the next rotation to bolt.”

Elizabeth cocked her head. “With this new milder climate...hmmm. Those varieties are slow bolters but we’ll be looking at mid-May so I think they’ll cooperate. We should do likewise with the Cherry Belle radishes and the Sugar Ann snap peas. Oh and the alfalfa.”

“That’s right, I forgot. Between using them as sprouts and growing them all winter long in the greenhouse we go through a lot of those seeds,” Leona said. “Melinda McKinley said...” She stopped as it sank in that the girl, one of her favorite students, was dead.

She cleared her throat and pushed the grief aside. There was work to be done. “Melinda said there were weeds showing in the main garden. She thought we should loose the chickens in there after we fix the fence and let them scratch before first-planting.”

Elizabeth nodded, her eyes glistening with tears. Mariko had been one of her closest friends and that hurt badly enough, but the loss of Melinda, Randy Junior and the two little ones drove an arrow through her heart.

“Melinda always was sharp as a razor.” She paused for a second as the vision of Mariko’s scalped head flashed in her memories. “I hope Ellen boils those bastards alive,” she said and at Leona’s sharp glance added, “Well, I do!”

Chapter 17: Dog Days

North of Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Early March 13 A.I.

Pain stabbed Michael awake, his hands instinctively groping toward the source--a broken right leg. He jerked upright, cursing as he banged his head on the downed trees of the windfall, his shelter from both the storm and the dogs. His small fire was almost dead so he threw on some kindling, blowing on the embers until they caught and flared. His eyes went to his leg then darted away. The swelling was worse--much worse.

The sweat dripping from his brow didn’t come from heat--not on a snowy night in March at 9,000 feet--but from a fever that was taking hold of his mind and body, draining him when he needed strength, fogging his brain when he needed to remain alert.

A shiver ran down his spine, goose bumps trailing after it. Fresh blood blotted the rocks where he’d been dozing. His sudden movements had torn open a few dog bites. He dipped his bandanna into a puddle of water that formed when the heat of the fire melted some snow and dabbed his forehead and the wounds he could reach. Scabs cracked as he eased himself around and he wondered if the cuts he couldn’t reach were festering.

Stay warm. Stay hydrated. Those are the keys to winter survival. He pulled out his paratrooper water filter, inserted one end in the puddle and drank until it was all gone, the cold water clearing his brain slightly, enough for him to take stock of his situation. Not good.

He was badly wounded, broken in fact, feverish, suffering from shock, loss of blood and lack of food and adequate water. What fuel he could reach to feed his small fire was almost gone. He was practically weaponless, alone--a low growl rumbling in from the darkness beyond his fire reminded him that he was most definitely not alone. The nearest help was probably 200 miles away, if he was mobile. And he was beginning to think he wouldn’t make it out of this mess. But more deadly than that was a bone-deep exhaustion that made it hard to care.

Anger and pain had fueled him for the past several days. He was no longer certain how many had passed since his own stupidity and carelessness had gotten him into this mess. He shook his head in disgust. Water under the bridge. What he needed now wasn’t more self-criticism, or more self-pity. He’d already wasted more than enough time on those. He needed a plan of action.

The key was mobility. If he could move he could get food, water and help. But to get mobile he had to set and re-splint his leg and so far he’d passed out from pain every time he’d tried, coming to just in time to keep the dogs from finishing him off.

He was weaker now, so before he tried again he needed to regain some strength. He could get strength from food, of which he had none, or from adrenaline, of which he had almost none left, having used it up staying awake, slowly feeding the fire, keeping the dogs at bay.

He gazed out into the night. Stygian darkness, broken only by the reddish glow of patiently waiting eyes. Still there.

Anger smoldered within him, battling fatigue. His mind searched for a solution, any solution. No! He got a grip on himself. Not just any solution. He’d tried a number of fever-inspired, half-baked ideas in days past and none of them worked. It was do or die time. He needed the solution.

A thought came to him and he latched on to it, following it to its conclusion. Oh yeah. A plan born of desperation etched a slightly twisted grin across his face. He adjusted the lashings on his make-shift splint, grasped his bowie knife in one hand, his homemade fire-hardened spear in the other and settled down to wait.

He had to let the fire die out--pretend to be asleep or unconscious.

“Good doggy,” his hoarse whisper scratched the night. If Muhammad couldn’t go to the mountain...

Michael had been scouting for new, fast, unknown-to-the-King’s-army approaches to Provo when his personal plans went slightly awry. The weather had been closing in all afternoon as he climbed the pass, the temperature dropping rapidly, the wet spring snow getting so heavy it was hard to see more than ten feet.

The wind was swirling unpredictably so his horse didn’t scent them. Feeling chilled, he had just wrapped himself in a large buffalo robe to keep warm, grousing to himself about why he had to be out in this damn cold instead of home in front of a nice fire, for a moment forgetting what a dangerous world he lived in.

His horse was following a game trail that wound through blown down trees, stepping gingerly and had just skirted a large boulder when a tremendous blow knocked Michael from his horse’s back and all hell broke loose. He hit hard--a rolling tangled mass of buffalo robe, man and dogs. His horse screamed and as he thrashed clear of the heavy robe that had saved his life, he saw his horse pulled down by several large dogs. Dogs appeared from everywhere, leaping, whirling, slashing at him. He emptied his pistol into them, then used it as a club, filling his left hand with his bowie.

He cut, smashed and gashed them, fighting furiously and soon the clean white snow was stained pink with sprayed blood. He spied a small, cave-like opening in the windfall and fought his way toward it. A wolfhound bit his right arm; caused him to drop the pistol. He slit its throat as he stepped between two fallen trees, almost there.

Another blow to his back: a huge animal, part Great Dane and part St. Bernard, dog claws ripping Michael’s back, teeth tearing the flesh of his left shoulder and he was down. With a sound like a bat hitting a baseball his right leg snapped.

Berserker! The rage he’d spent his life fighting to control claimed him completely, thrusting him into a realm beyond pain. Agony vanished. Dog bites were irrelevant. All that mattered was killing them--killing them even as they swarmed over him. Adrenaline rushed to every muscle. His eyes blazed gold.

Roaring like a wounded lion, he exploded from under them, slashing and stabbing, whirling crazily on one leg, the right one flopping uselessly. Snatching a broken branch, he alternately used it as a cane to maintain his balance and as a club to bash in their heads. He spun like a dervish, so ferocious the dogs broke off their assault, confused and afraid.

The snow around Michael was littered with dead and dying dogs. He seized the opportunity and dove into the opening under the windfall, from which they could only come at him one or two at a time.

The sounds and smells of their pack mates feeding on his horse drove the dogs nearest him into a frenzy, but instead of turning on him, the starving animals tore into their own dead and wounded. By the time he had a small fire going and had tended his wounds as best he could, they were temporarily sated and content to wait him out.

Michael’s eyes popped open, for in pretending to sleep he had actually slept. The fire was out and the pale light of early dawn shone weakly through the clouds. His sixth sense had felt danger and reached down into his slumber to warn him. Almost too late. The Dane-Bernard rushed silently upon him, its gaping maw reaching for his throat.

At the last second, he raised the tip of his spear and braced the butt against the ground. The huge dog jolted onto the spear, impaling itself, sliding along the length of the shaft and breaking it. Michael slashed his bowie across the dog’s neck, dodging its snapping jaws as the beast made one final lunge for his neck. Warm, sticky blood gushed over Michael as the dog collapsed on top of him and rolled into the coals of the fire.

The stench of singed fur filled Michael’s tree-lined bunker. He wrestled the dog off the coals, then hacked through its spine above its hind legs, allowing the rest of the pack to drag them off and feed.

Michael drank a small amount of the dog’s blood, careful not to drink too much and make himself sick. Food! Things were looking up. For hours he skinned, butchered and roasted dog meat, resisting the temptation to gorge himself, knowing it had been too long since he had eaten a full meal, he took small bites and chewed them thoroughly.

That night, the weather turned bad. The wind howled and whipped snow through every open space in his shelter. Even with his fire going and his new dog-fur blanket he almost froze, but the snow took care of his water supply. A good two feet of it blanketed the ground the next morning. Drove the dogs off, too, at least as far as he could see.

The food and water restored his strength and reduced his fever. But if he was ever going to get back to the Freeholds he had to get mobile. He wasn’t looking forward to the effort, but it was almost time to set his leg. For the remainder of the day he rested, doing only what was needed to keep the fire going and himself fed. He needed all the strength he could muster.

The next day he made careful preparations, arrangements that were much more thorough than any he had made previously, for he sensed that this would be the last time he would be strong enough to make the attempt. He gathered a couple of straight, stout limbs and trimmed them to length for use as a splint, then whittled a crutch out of a forked branch and set it aside for later use. He stockpiled firewood and built up his fire so he wouldn’t freeze to death if he passed out. He scooped a small hole, just big enough for his feet, under a large heavy log and laid out sinew lashings made from man’s best friend.

With a grunt, Michael pushed himself up to a sitting position, bent over and loosened his belt, which had been holding together the make-shift splint he’d applied the day he was injured. God, how he’d wished at the time he’d been wearing his paracord bracelet. Pain lashed his nerves and darkness swam at the edge of his vision, forcing him to wait for his eyes to clear before examining his leg: terribly bruised, swollen, puffy, inflamed and extremely tender. Perfect. At least it didn’t stink any worse than the rest of him. He could wait no longer.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he shoved his useless right foot as far as possible into a shallow depression under the fallen tree, hooking the top of that foot against the backside of the log and jamming it in place by bending his left leg and putting the arch of his left foot against his right heel. He laid the two halves of his new splint on either side of his broken right leg and placed the lashings and his belt where they’d be handy. Holding his crutch in both hands, he set the bottom end into a small hollow he’d carved into the log that now pinned his broken leg and rested the fork against his abdomen.

He paused a moment and took a deep breath. He looked around to see if the dogs had come back. They hadn’t--and he had just run out of excuses for putting this off any longer. He shoved a small stick between his teeth to keep from biting through his tongue.

Straightening his left leg, he simultaneously pushed against the crutch. The calf muscles of his lower right leg screamed in tortured protest as they stretched back into their normal position. Michael’s eyeballs bulged, his nostrils flared, veins popped out on his forehead, muscles quivered and his vision dimmed. Do or die! He bit through the stick.

Broken bones grated past each other, then snicked into place. Trembling, he maintained the tension, left leg shoving against right foot, abdomen braced against crutch as he reached forward, wheezing through gritted teeth, fighting the pain with all his will and probed to make sure that at least the tibia was properly set, before placing his splints and lashing them to his leg.

Done!

Gasping, he spit the remainder of the stick out of his mouth and flopped back, sweat-drenched and shaking. He twisted himself around so he could reach the puddle of water and took a long cool drink. The pain was receding, a bit, but he trembled, weak as a kitten. He needed rest, then he’d start planning how to get home. He gripped his bowie, glanced around for dogs and settled down to sleep.

The following morning bright sunlight glinted off rapidly melting snow. Now, how could he get help? No use building a signal fire. The “help” that showed up probably wouldn’t be friendly.

Michael knew Ellen would have missed him by now--he was overdue in Provo. But the Mormons didn’t know him. They’d probably just figure he’d had an accident and write him off.

And Ellen...that had been bothering him. Not just the fight they’d had before he left, but that deep down gut knowledge that something wasn’t right. Some inner sense told him she was missing him almost as much as he longed for her and that feeling of being needed kept coming back to him, haunting him, adding to his sense of urgency.

He’d just have to get out on his own, he decided. He sighed. When had it ever been any other way?

His horse was dead and gone to dog-shit and that got him to thinking about the gear in his saddle bags, the rifle in his scabbard and the pistol lying out there underneath the melting snow.

By the end of the day he had crafted a new spear, which he used as a walking staff, gathered up his gear and taken inventory. Walking through downed timber with a splinted leg and a crutch took a bit of getting used to, but he was so glad to be up and around, standing and moving in the fresh sweet air outside his tiny bunker, that the pain was unimportant.

Some dog had chewed on the wooden grips of his pistol, but he could clean it up, use a little dog fat for oil and make it serviceable. Michael’s rifle was in better condition, though the scabbard had been shredded. His saddle bags had been ripped to pieces, their contents scattered, but he found several key items: ammunition for both guns, his slingshot, a bag of marbles, the rain fly from his tent, a packet of waterproof matches to replenish the package he always carried in his pocket, some 36# tarred mariners line, an old Denver Broncos ball cap, a pair of plastic aviator-style sunglasses and half a sleeping bag.