The Last Pilgrims (15 page)

Tim, seeing that she was still overwhelmed
with what she had seen, came over to her and pulled her aside.

“I can’t imagine how you must be feeling,
Ruth.”

“I’m doing fine. I was just so worried about
you and David… and all the men. I was so scared.” She looked at
him, checking him up and down for any signs of harm. “Are you
injured?”

“No. Just a few scrapes and bruises from
scrambling up and down the mesa. Shockingly, of the six men who had
held the pass, five of us are alive and unhurt.”

“Five?”

Timothy looked down, and then took her by
her shoulders. “Ruth… Jack Johnson was killed by a stray bullet… a
ricochet.”

“Oh, my,” she let out a sigh, feeling a
little weak in her knees. He guided her to a chair that was not
occupied by the wounded. She looked out of the window, and could
see that high in the air, the vultures had already begun to circle
for the feast.

“I know that you’ve known Jack for your
whole life, Ruth, and that he was very close with your family. I’m
sorry. Maybe I could have talked him out of coming… I don’t
know.”

“He came because he wanted to come, and
because he wanted to protect David. You couldn’t have stopped him.
Besides, my father said that any man who wanted to fight, could
fight.” She looked at him again, “No… you couldn’t have stopped
him. This is God’s will.”

“I don’t know about that, or if I even
understand what you mean by that, Ruth. I do know that I’ve been in
quite a few battles, and it is never easy to lose someone you care
about. This will affect your family and the entire Vallensian
community. I don’t know what else to say.”

“Then let’s just do what we can to help
these men,” she said, standing up and smoothing her dark
headcovering. She walked past Tim to see what she could do to help.
As she started to move away, Tim stopped her.

“Don’t think that I don’t know what you did
up there,” he said, smiling.

“What do you mean?” she replied.

“We saw that flanking force move out to the
east. David had already started moving with two other men to try to
meet them on the backside. Then we saw the men stop, turn around,
and flee. We couldn’t figure out why they retreated. Now I
know.”

“How could you know?” Ruth said, acting as
innocently as she could.

He pointed at the quiver on her back.
“You’re a little light there. I’d say, maybe five or six arrows
light, but who’s counting?”

She looked down, then back up at him, “I
must have dropped them on the ride down.”

“Sure you did,” he said, smiling warmly.

Ruth blushed, and as she walked by him, she
silently found his hand and placed into it the arrowhead he had
given her when he left the ranch.

There is a personal terror that surpasses
the carnal fear that every warrior feels when going into battle.
That ultimate terror is not the fear of death, but the knowledge
that he might live, while his loved ones die. Gareth did not know
this terror first-hand, but he could see it on the face of Phillip
as they inventoried the weapons and material gained in the battle
at Bethany.

The urgent message that San Angelo had been
burned by the retreating Vallenses, and that Bethany was soon to
fall, had come just as the Ghost militia was planning their attempt
to rescue Phillip’s wife Juliet and the girls. The Ghost had to
make a decision, and he had to make it fast. The militia leader
sent Rob Fosse and Sir Gerold the rebel Aztlani knight, along with
20 militia soldiers northward to attempt the rescue of his wife and
children.

Gareth, Phillip, The Mountain, and almost
200 Ghost militia warriors immediately rode south at full speed to
try to flank and overwhelm the Aztlani army attacking Bethany.

It would be days and maybe even
longer—depending on the outcome—before Phillip would find out
whether his wife and daughters were safe, but the Ghost leader
never said a word about his concerns. Gareth was impressed that
Phillip always maintained a professional demeanor, and that he
focused on keeping up the morale of his troops, especially after
the lightning victory at Bethany.

Arriving at the twin mesas, the militia
force almost instantly overwhelmed the struggling Aztlani
attackers, but most of the credit for the stunning victory went to
David and that handful of brave warriors standing in the gap at the
twin mesas.

As a Prince, he had learned the art of war
at the hands and feet of the greatest military minds of Aztlan; and
his father, the King, made sure that he received the best military
education that could be procured. Still, he had never seen acts of
heroism and bravery such as the defenders at Bethany had
displayed.

The hardest, and most important, work in a
battle of this sort is the warfare that takes place in the minds of
men. The Aztlani forces had been defeated in their minds long
before they died on the field. A handful of men with arrows had
made Bethany seem impregnable in the opinion of the average Aztlani
soldier, and this mental reality made Bethany impregnable to him in
real life. The invaders knew they were going to die… they just
chose to die moving forward, rather than retreating.

He could only assume that the Aztlani force
must have concluded that they were outmanned and outgunned. In
their minds, they had already resigned to a mental state that means
the death knell in any engagement… they had succumbed to panic and
fear.

Fear, in and of itself, can be a great
motivator in battle, but when that fear becomes irrational and is
coupled with the type of panic that silences the better voices of
wisdom and circumspection, the battle is all but over. There is
nothing left for that army to do but die.

For Gareth, this had been his first
engagement in war. He had practiced and drilled since he was a boy;
but, until Bethany, his steel had never been forged in battle. How
could he have ever known that his first real battle would be
against Aztlan?

Silently flanking the Aztlani army, the
militia force had double advantage—the elements of surprise and
position. Entering the fray, he felt the thrill and terror of
battle and, for the first time, had experienced a phenomenon about
which his mentors had taught him. When in battle, fear and terror,
as well as the resulting adrenaline surge, must be recognized, and
then controlled and channeled productively. He felt the fog of war
and the numbing dullness of uncertainty and confusion when he first
drew his sword in battle, but as the killing progressed, the fear
and panic had transformed into concentration and purpose.

A part of him knew that he was traitorously
killing his own men—men who had sworn themselves to his father, the
King, and to himself as Crown Prince and heir to the throne. Still,
he had to rest on the knowledge that in order for his vision for a
greater and more peaceful Aztlan to prevail, for a time, Aztlan had
to be the enemy. The lowly soldier could not know what private
forces had driven him to abandon his father and side with his
father’s enemies.

Prince Gareth of Aztlan did not believe that
he had rebelled against, or abandoned, his country. He might be a
traitor to his father, but not to his country. All of the actions
he was engaged in were
for
his country. Sometimes, in order
to support and love your country, you must oppose and fight the
government of your country.

As a young prince, he spent many years with
Sir English at New Rome, and his father’s adjutant had taught him
that in order for there to be peace in any Kingdom, there must be
freedom—typically purchased at a heavy price.

It was the King’s job, English taught him,
to punish evildoers, while rewarding and defending the righteous.
Any Kingdom that has a tyrant as a sovereign will eventually fall;
and any nation built on endless consumption, the drive for empire,
and the oppression of its own people, would inevitably consume
itself and perish in a storm of violence and death.

History is the long tale of empires rising
to power founded on vision, hard work, and productive capability,
only to be eventually morally poisoned by the insatiable drive for
conquest and domination. If anything could be learned from the
collapse of America, it was that consumption as a creed, and
comfort as a maxim, would lead any nation to ruin.

Aztlan, under the reign of his father, had
followed the beaten path that leads to destruction, and would
certainly fall if something radical were not done to stop it.

Posing as an assassin and a spy, joining
forces with the rebel army, and actively supporting his father’s
greatest enemy would be considered an act of treason—that much he
knew. Yet, it would have been a greater treason to allow Aztlan to
continue on its way to destruction.

As a prince, he proposed to follow the path
of freedom and peace, but, if his father could not see his own
folly, the kingdom would not survive long enough for him to be
crowned.

There were good people in Aztlan—people who
wanted peace; yet, for it to be restored, first the better angels
of their nature would need to prevail by removing the foul and
wicked rulers who oppressed them. Although Aztlan had been born an
outlaw nation, there was no reason that she must remain so. Gareth
firmly believed that, if his father could be overthrown, there
would be hope for Aztlan and her people. If not, then he would
rather die having stood against the evil empire—even if it was
ruled over by his own father.

Here at Bethany, though the battle had
lasted only minutes, there were moments that, for him, seemed to
last an eternity. Plunging into the tumultuous and surging mass of
men, some on horseback and some on foot, all fighting to the death,
was one of those times.

The militia troops had long been at war with
Aztlan, and were adept at such skirmishes. Most of the Duke’s men,
to the contrary, had merely been involved in destroying peaceful
villages, riding down unarmed citizens, or fighting small groups of
relatively untrained men trying to defend their towns or lands.
Even with the numerical odds in favor of Aztlan, this was a
slaughter, rather than a battle.

In the assault, as he had engaged his first
enemy soldier on horseback, there was a moment when the man
recognized him. In the heat of battle, with death dancing on every
side, the man had looked up to see Gareth of Aztlan, the Crown
Prince of the realm and heir to the throne, advancing on him with
sword drawn. Their eyes met for what seemed like minutes, but could
only have been seconds.

The man was instantly overcome by a wave of
confusion, lowering his sword to his side he tried in vain to
process the reality of what was happening.

When Gareth swung his sword, the shocked man
was barely able to parry the strike. More instinctively than
willingly, he had raised his weapon just in time to intercept the
first blow, the reality of being attacked by his own Prince still
not completely understandable to him.

Just as Gareth raised his sword to strike
again, another militia fighter riding by plunged his sword into the
hapless man’s neck, instantly ending the Aztlani soldier’s battle
for clarity in his thoughts and worldview.

Looking down as the soldier bled out into
the Vallensian soil, Gareth faltered for just a moment, as he
realized that the man had died because he could not assimilate the
sometimes incomprehensible and contradictory winds of life,
politics, and battle.

Slowly, clarity returned. Some men had to
die in order for the dream of peace and stability to reign in this
world.

Spurring his horse, he returned to the
business of bringing that dream to fruition. These Aztlani men, at
the command of his father and the Duke of El Paso, had chosen to
wage a war against a peaceful people. In his mind, death was the
wages of that sin.

After the battle, he looked out over the
field of dead and dying men, his own sword stained with the blood
of his countrymen, and he shook his head at the irony of it all. In
order for life to come, there needed to be death. For peace to
reign between Aztlan and the Vallenses, the peaceful Vallenses
would need to be brought into the war against Aztlan. This was his
mission. Like war, irony is a fickle business.

He now stood with Phillip, David Wall, and
several of Phillip’s soldiers, and watched as the spoils of war
were loaded onto wagons.

“Over 250 pistols, 100 rifles, somewhere
north of 400 battle swords, not to mention ammunition, some armor,
boots, a ton of other standard issue soldiering goodies and
supplies,” reported Rollo, the man they called
The Mountain
.
“The men have also rounded up around 50 horses, all of which are
now expertly trained and experienced in not getting killed in a
battle.”

“We have dead on the field, Mountain, so
let’s keep the humor and japes to a minimum, shall we?” replied
Phillip.

“Of course, sir. My apologies. Apparently
Jonathan Wall is on his way here to retrieve the body of the
Vallensian man who was killed in the gap.”

David looked up at Phillip and nodded. “My
father will want to take Jack back to his parents as soon as
possible, but I assume he will also want to meet with you so he can
be apprised as to the situation here in Bethany. There are
thousands of refugees encamped within a mile of our ranch, and
thousands more who have fled north and east of Lake Penateka.
Father will want to know if it is safe for the people to return
here.”

Gareth helped Phillip latch the back of the
wagon, and then the men all stepped out of the road into the shade
of a towering pecan tree that loomed over the south side of Main
Street in front of Grayson’s smith shop.