The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time (56 page)

Cast of Characters

After The Dying Time

The Freeholders

Michael Whitebear--Engineer, Legendary Warrior, Husband of Ellen Whitebear, 5’ 10” tall, 175 pounds, brown hair, eyes that change color from brown to green when aroused or gold when in combat. A ghost in the woods with a talent for killing and a conscience that hates it.

Ellen Whitebear--Leader of the Colorado Freeholds, Michael’s wife, very long blonde hair, hazel eyes and clear, pale skin. 5’3” tall, 103 pounds. As strong-willed, intelligent, courageous and capable as she is beautiful.

Steven Whitebear--Michael and Ellen’s son

Jim Cantrell--Musician, Founder of The Troubled Land Band. Tall, lean and courageous. A man whose curse is to often be too late to help and whose gift is to never stop trying.

Dikeme (Di) M’buto--Former Dancer from Zululand and Student at Julliard School. Unarmed combat instructor and fierce warrior of The Freeholds. Extremely tall and lean, yet moves like a panther.

Leona Perry--Principal, Freehold Charter School, amateur astronomer.

Elizabeth Town, master gardener and heirloom seeds expert for The Freeholds.

Aaron Goldstein--Mechanical engineer, Skilled Ultralight pilot, Aeriella’s brother. A featherweight Golden Globe boxer in his youth, former stunt pilot for several Hollywood movie studios.

Moira Goldstein--Teacher, Freehold’s Charter School, Aaron’s wife,

Randy McKinley--Freeholder, One of that rare breed who does everything that needs to be done, no matter how hard, with a sense of humor and without complaint.

Mariko McKinley--Artist, Randy’s wife. A tiny, delicate and beautiful Japanese/American who stands equal to any man with her fierce courage.

Terrell Johnson--Mechanical genius, former helicopter pilot US Army

Shirley Johnson--Potter, Terrell’s wife

Dr Taraq Fariq--Physician, OBGYN turned politician opposing Ellen’s policies, who becomes a good battlefield surgeon.

Wayne Anderson--Medic

Iskos Theodoratus--Machinist & Heavy Equipment Operator

Gypsy Cioba, Huey door gunner.

Don Haley--Refugee who became a Freeholder

Marcia Haley--Don’s wife

Garret Haley, a gunsmith, grown son of Don and Marcia Haley, the Freeholders murdered when the King’s troops first attacked the Freeholds.

Linda Haley--Don and Marcia’s adult daughter

Chad Bailey--Brit who used to work for MCI/computer programmer and communications engineer, cornflower blue eyes and chestnut brown hair, slightly crooked front teeth and a mild overbite.

Doctor Dale Lewis--physician, an old black country doctor with a good heart and white hair.

Nurse Hawkins--Dr Lewis’s nurse

Lieutenant Dan Osaka--Former USAF Academy Cadet, 6’1” tall, skinny at 140 pounds, black hair. Has become a sniper of note, in spite of having only one eye. He lost the other one at the Battle of Bluebird Hill fighting for The Freeholds in The Dying Time: Impact.

The Native Americans, Mountain Men and Others

Susan Redfeather, 5’6” tall, lithe and sexy. Long, dark brown hair and a button nose. Lethal warrior.

Daniel Windwalker, Cheyenne tribe war leader, tall and thin and looks rawhide-strong. His long black hair frames a face whose main features are two deep-set, steel-gray eyes, that can be deathly scary in combat, a large hooked nose and a wide mouth. Think Daniel Day Lewis in the movie “Last of the Mohicans.”

Raymond Stormcloud, Cheyenne warrior, tracker, 5’10” tall, 165 pounds of puma-like grace and fury.

Mitchell Stonehand, Cheyenne warrior, former owner of a large, successful, heavy equipment construction company, 6’1” tall, 230 pounds, stout and solid as a block of marble.

Minowayuh, war leader of the Utes, around 5’8” tall, lean and wiry, smile reveals a gold-capped incisor. Superb rifle shot.

Earl Baker, a white-haired mountain man who nomads around with his wife Bobbi, his daughter Marci and his sons, Lake and Zeb. A former mining engineer and demolitions expert, now part of the Cheyenne tribe.

Arnold Begay, a Navaho gunsmith in charge of armaments for the Provo Air Force.

Dr. Jason Merriman, physician who runs a travelling hospital and pharmacy. A fat man in lean times. Think sadistic Santa.

Citizens of Deseret

Bob Young--Former Mayor of Provo Utah and current President of Deseret, Bob was medium height, with a bit of middle-age spread. He wore his brown hair in a flat-top cut that had been out of style since roughly the decade he was born. He didn’t care. He got elected by virtue of strong integrity, decent morals, a sterling reputation and being a “Young” in Utah. He held onto that post and became leader of the Nation of Deseret by making good decisions and following through.

His wife, Betty, six years younger, has a sky blue eyes, sharp features, sharper insights and pained smiles. She wears her auburn hair in a pony tail. In addition to working in the hospital, she teaches others about canning and other forms of long term food storage.

Adam Young, Bob’s brother, Colonel, Nation of Deseret, leader of their armed forces, 5’7” tall, 145 pounds. A man with outsized courage and who, though small, has always stood tall on principle.

Walt Beeman, a tall, lanky, former lieutenant in the 101st Airborne, turned cowhand after The Dying Time. Speaks with a heavy Texas drawl. Wheat straw hair, pale blue eyes, large, knobby, callused and cracked hands, used to brutally hard work.

Cheryl Cummins, Captain and later Major, Deseret Defense Force, a tall woman with chestnut brown hair she wears short so it won’t get in the way of her helmet. Brown eyes, fair skin but with a spray of freckles across her nose. She lost her father, Ed, twelve years before on a scouting mission to California.

Martin Dinelli, travelling tinker, electrical engineer. An average-sized man with dark, Italian good looks. A charmer, who fancies himself a bit of a James Bond with the ladies.

Malcolm and Charity Kirkwell, balloonists in the Provo Air Force.

Able Emery, a short, muscular aircraft mechanic with a bald spot and thinning sandy hair, faded blue eyes and sober, withdrawn personality.

Jason Banda, a medium height black man with short gray hair and pale brown eyes. A former F-18 pilot full of confidence, who knows he should be in command of the Provo Air Force instead of Michael.

Brian Adams, a scholarly looking “kid” in his early thirties whose ambition was to rebuild a paper mill--because, as he put it, “No paper, no civilization.”

Faith Gilcrest, a tall brunette who earned her pilot’s license when she was only twelve years old and who was the youngest person ever to fly solo around the world according to Guiness.

Roy Thomas, a former dealer from Las Vegas

Dennis White a journeyman plumber. Roy and Dennis could have been brothers. Both were six feet tall with thinning brown hair, brown eyes, prominent noses and bushy, graying beards. Both were of medium build and from any distance farther than ten feet, it was hard to tell them apart.

The Californians

Joseph (Joey the Giant) Scarlatti, King of California, lives up to his nickname at 7’4” tall, 360 pounds of rock solid muscle. Enormous, freakish strength and enough intelligence to hide it from his boss before The Dying Time. Long blonde hair, ice-blue eyes and a nose broken many times. Projects an unclean aura that makes those near him uneasy. Cannibal pedophile and enjoys it, but is actively rebuilding civilization inside his Empire. That, plus the strength of his army and network of informers keep his subjects from rebelling.

John and Anthony Scarlatti, identical twin sons of Joey, 7’ 2” tall, 320 pounds. Anthony, the eldest by two minutes, dresses casual but projects the airs of a Prince. John dresses military, but fears dentist drills so much he has bad teeth and breath. Both men are deadly opponents though Anthony is more impulsive. He is also his father’s favorite, which hurts John and causes him to try harder to win his father’s pleasure. John shares some of his father’s perversion in that he likes to maim women before raping them.

Nicolo Bonetti, 6’4” tall, 250 pounds, The epitome of tall, dark and handsome, with wavy black hair and dark brown eyes with lush eyelashes. Fit, with long, lean muscles rather than weightlifter bulges.

Jamal Rashid, Joey’s sometime assassin, sometime ambassador, hatchet-faced with a prominent nose and jug ears, tall and scarecrow thin, with long, stringy, well-oiled black hair and beady black eyes. The paranoid Jamal is always looking over his shoulder.

Richard Kazinsky, Minister of Energy, a one-armed former soldier in the King’s army.

Clarissa Benton, a large-boned, blonde woman, formerly overweight but now fit and strong. Herbalist and healer.

Will Benton, a make-up artist with the Ministry of Information, Will is a big, bald, man with a graying brown beard and mustache and a gap-toothed smile.

Patricia (Trish) Benton, Will and Clarissa’s daughter, blonde hair she dyes mousy brown to appear drab. Trish has alert, intelligent, deep blue eyes and a quick mind. She uses her father’s make-up skills to transform herself from beautiful to ugly and from trim to stout before leaving the relative safety of their home.

Sergeant Donovan, King’s army, former KKK cross-burner

Private George Greyson, King’s army, witnessed Jason Banda splatter Sergeant Donovan and became a preacher.

Allan Hoffman, Captain, King’s army, overweight and not too bright but smart enough to cooperate when captured by Michael.

Doctor (PhD) Raoul Garcia--Scientist, Genius, Inventor. A small, intense man of pure Castilian decent, whose family had settled California generations before the Gold Rush, Raoul betrayed his aristocratic bearing by routinely tripping or slipping and wounding himself.

Sara Garcia--Surgeon, Raoul’s granddaughter, short curly brown hair and warm gray eyes, not beautiful, but highly intelligent and tougher than cured concrete. Only she and Raoul know the control codes for the satellite laser weapon called The Sunflower that King Joseph so desperately wants.

Benjamin Quarles, Minister of Education. A medium height black man with frizzy white hair and upright posture, bushy white eyebrows. A pragmatic man who talks straight, even to Joseph Scarlatti.

The ISS Crew (24 total, 18 women, 6 men)

General Alice Anderson--USA--Project Genesis mission commander, brunette. tough as seasoned oak on the outside, more tender than she cares to admit on the inside.

Commander Clark Kent--Great Britain--Zero G Construction Engineer, carrot reddish hair, pale blue eyes. Bass guitar and vocals.

Colonel-General Pavel Yurimentov--Russia--Cosmonaut, Husband of Ludmilla

Colonel Ludmilla Gagarin--Pavel’s wife, mother of first baby born on the moon, a boy named Yuri (after her grandfather) A small attractive woman with gray eyes, curly brown hair a pert nose and slightly crooked teeth.

Christine Jorgensen--USA--Botanist (She prefers “farmer”), mother of first baby born in space, on the ISS, a girl named Angela Jorgensen Kent, a tall, blonde, Minnesota Swede with baby blue eyes.

Yuri Gargarin, the first baby born on the moon, has his father’s lean build, his mother’s gray eyes and his famous grandfather’s drive to be first. 12 years old. Adventurous and highly intelligent.

Angela Kent, daughter of Commander Clark Kent and Christine Jorgensen. The first child born in space. 12 years old.

Mia Torno--Italy--Cartographer/Geophysicist, smooth olive complexion, hair so dark brown it’s almost black, Keeps her hair in a single large braid, gentle brown eyes