This Dark Earth (17 page)

He looked at his hands. It was a helpless gesture of confession, or a suitor proclaiming love. Tessa realized he was as uncomfortable with the conversation as she was.
But damn me if I’ll show it
.

“So, until we’re safe and sound, I expect you to
remain . . . chaste. If you want to mate with someone, I’ll perform the wedding ceremony for you. I can do that. I am a minister too.”

She stepped closer and patted his arm. “Thank you, Lieutenant. For a second, I thought you were about to propose to me.”

The blush darkened only the skin of his throat and jawline. But she could still see it.

He brushed his slacks and stood up straight. “Are we clear, Miss Tessa?”

She knew not to push him too far.

“Yes, sir. We’re clear.” She turned, put her hands on her hips. “Montfredi, go get the laundry taken care of. Tie it tight and strap it to the top of the mess Bradley. I’ll tend to the captain and his . . . accouterments. When you’re done with that, haul your ass back here. You hear?”

Montfredi nodded, brought his arm up as if to salute, caught himself, and then dashed out of the tent. Lieutenant Wallis shook his head in disgust.

Tessa laughed and turned to attend to the blubbering captain.

The land became
wooded, craggy, and uneven. The steady growl of the Bradleys grew as they labored up steep grades, and the men of the G Unit gave forced yawns to pop their ears. The Ozarks rose around them, and the zeds became fewer.

Tessa rode in the Bradley with Lieutenant Wallis, Montfredi, Keb, and Captain Mozark. Keb watched her with
lidded eyes and occasionally flicked his tongue at her in amusement.

Tessa swayed with the motion of the vehicle, nestled among boxes of MREs and ammunition, plastic jugs of water and medical supplies. The radio crackled in its casing as the ATV outriders reported.

Captain Mozark grew more ashen. He lay still, and even his moans were listless. Blood trickled from his nostrils and welled, like tears, in the corners of his eyes. The interior of the Bradley smelled of human bile and unwashed men. Lieutenant Wallis studied road maps they took from service stations, rustling the paper in his dark hands. When she closed her eyes, Tessa imagined the dull thrum of the diesel engines as lawnmowers and the rustling of the maps as leaves on an autumn day. Cass stood before Tessa, pinioned by the afternoon sun, a brilliant fallen star, smiling. Their shadows grew long and black and Cass’s face ceased to smile but began to grimace and then scream.

The radio squelched. Tessa jumped.

“Messy Bessie, this is OR2. OR2 on the ridge by Winslow. We got some live wires down here, moving across the interstate.”

The lieutenant snatched up the radio. “Live ones, OR2? Transport?”

“ATVs. They’ve got two twenty-gallon tanks strapped to each vehicle. They’re armed, but not heavily. Big man with a shotgun, a teen, and what looks like a young one, maybe eleven or twelve. They’re all wearing freaky masks.”

The radio squelched, then fell silent.

Wallis rubbed his jaw, then said, “OR1 and 2, move to intercept and acquire their gas reserves. Leave them their weapons and foodstuffs—”

Tessa exploded. “You can’t do that, Lieutenant. They’re alive! Just like us. You’d be leaving them to die! You can’t—”

Wallis snapped his fingers loudly and pointed at her, signaling Keb to silence her. Keb lifted himself, leaned forward, and placed his hand on her shoulder, and whispered, “Baby, don’t make me shut you up. I gots something for yo nasty mouth.”

The radio squelched again. “Messy Bessie, they’re carrying a sign. It reads ‘Don’t shoot! I’m a doctor. We can help!’”

Wallis expelled a lungful of air. He looked at the map, found what he was looking for, and spoke again into the microphone.

“OR1, OR2, and OR3 . . . escort the company north to the 540 junction. We’ll rendezvous there and set up camp.”

“Copy that, Messy, copy. Heading north on 540. Will radio with our position once we’re in place.”

Wallis set down the radio and squinted at Tessa. She realized he was furious.

“Miss Tessa, when I require your input regarding operations around here, I will ask you. Until then you are to remain silent like all the other men.”

Tessa found herself, in some ways, more scared now of the lieutenant than she’d ever been of Mozark, because she loved the lieutenant and hated that she couldn’t control her mouth. Now, in his eyes, she was a whore and a liability.

He continued. “But since you decided to speak out of
turn, I will address this once and once only, do you understand?”

She nodded.

“I am charged with the protection and survival of this unit, as you should know by now. This requires four major resources: gas, water, food, and ammunition. Of all of these, gas is the hardest to come by.” He spread the map on his knee, flattened it with fine, articulate fingers. He sighed.

“It is not my intention to harm anyone, Miss Tessa, other than those that intend harm to us. Revenants. But I have, in my command, over twenty men. And you now. They are only three. We have to have the gasoline to survive. They could survive without it, possibly. These are the things I have to consider when making decisions.”

He stopped for a moment, bowed his head, and passed his hand over his eyes, weary.

But when he raised his gaze, his eyes were fierce.

“This isn’t a democracy. That world is gone, the one where everybody gets their say.” He paused to let that sink in. “Above all, I value fairness and human life. But that does not mean I will be questioned in my decisions. Do you understand this?”

Tessa held her breath. She nodded again and then remembered the traditional soldier’s response.

“Sir, yes, sir.”

Wallis turned to the driver and said, “North, men. North.”

The doctor looked
nearly retarded, a big burly man with a half-charred head, eyes hidden behind goggles, and a
gigantic hammer stuck in his belt. But his arms were thick with muscle, and he was tall. Two bandoliers full of shotgun shells crisscrossed his barrel chest. The two boys, the teen and the lad, stayed close. They all looked dirty, wary as feral dogs. None of them removed their goggles. Their hands never ventured far from their weapons. Even the young boy, a red bandana over his mouth like a Mexican bandito, kept his hand near the pistol at his waist. He watched the soldiers with a blank, reflective stare.

Lieutenant Wallis, hopping from the Bradley, approached the trio with his hand out, smiling. Tessa followed.

“Doctor, I can’t tell you how glad I am our paths crossed—”

The big man laughed and looked at the teen. Tessa noticed the boy’s fair skin and hard lines. He had a long, girlish neck. He nodded, looking at the larger man, and then turned goggled eyes back to the soldiers of the G Unit.

“I’m Wallis, and these men—” He smiled, waving a hand to encompass the waiting soldiers. “They refer to themselves as the G Unit. We came from Oklahoma, trying to find a less populated area. Our captain is sick. Very sick. Do you think you can look at him?”

The big man took Wallis’s proffered hand and shook. He said, “I’m Jim Nickerson. Folks call me Knock-Out. And it doesn’t look like we have much choice, does it?”

Lieutenant Wallis allowed a puzzled look to cross his fine, dark features. “I don’t understand.”

“Your men. They rounded us up, just like cattle, and brought us here. Not so much as a please or thank you.”

“My apologies, Doctor. I asked them to escort you here because the captain requires medical attention.”

Nickerson remained unmoved. He said, “What if we told you that we put up that sign just to keep folks from killing us at first sight, huh? What would you do then?”

Lieutenant Wallis blinked. “Are you telling me you’re not a doctor?”

“No. I’m asking what you would do, that’s what I’m asking.”

The lieutenant stood at ease, placed his hands on his waist.

“We would inventory your gear and take what we needed.” The way Wallis said it, it was like he was saying,
We’d stop at the store and pick up some milk, flour, and eggs
. His face was blank, looking hard at the big man. Tessa felt her back go tight; the tension between the men spread.

“And if we fought back?”

“Each of my men is armed. We are short on fuel but not on food or ammunition. No, we have crates of ammunition.”

Nickerson raised his goggles and squinted at Wallis. The way he did it, the deliberate slowness, the utter fearlessness of the action, frightened Tessa. The man had a callous, animal quality to him.

He was smiling, though it didn’t reach his eyes. The two boys inched behind him.

“I just wanted to get this straight, so we all know where we stand.” He spat. “Because now you understand how valuable we are.”

Wallis remained still. The men around them began to rattle; they could feel the tension growing. Montfredi, his big ears standing out, looked between the lieutenant and the
doctor like a rabbit caught between a fox and a hawk. Keb grinned, excited.

The doctor laughed and stretched, cracking his back. He dusted off his sleeves and pants and shook his leg to get the blood moving.

“Shit, it’s been a long week.”

He turned to the boys and said, almost as an aside, “We gotta trust somebody, sometime. And he was honest.”

He turned back to the lieutenant. “We’ll be glad to take a look at the captain.” He stopped. “That is, of course, for a price. We require meals for all of us, protection from the revenants, and your promise that none of us will be . . .” Nickerson looked around at the hard faces of the soldiers who weren’t busy setting up the perimeter. He rested his hand on his hammer. “None of us will be molested in any way. Nor stopped from leaving when we want, with all our belongings and vehicles. On your word of honor.”

Tessa gaped at his use of the word
molested
. The way he used it didn’t make her think of perverts. It made her more uncomfortable in ways she couldn’t really come to grips with.

The burly doctor didn’t fuck around, that’s for sure.

No one flinched when a rifle fired. Shortly after, Montfredi squeaked, “Zed, Lieutenant! A onesy!”

Wallis turned to the men and barked, “Cudgels, boys. Axes and baseball bats, unless there’s a cluster. That means five men on standby for execution detail.” He sucked his teeth for a moment, then added, “If I catch one soldier on watch without a bludgeon to hand, there’ll be dire consequences. Trust me on this, boys.”

The men looked at one another.

“Now, Doctor, give me a moment and I’ll have the men erect a tent for you. If you’ll come this way.”

Wallis took them
to Messy Bessie, and Tessa followed. It was tight, close, and rank inside the mechanical beast with barely enough room for all of them. Tessa hung back by the door and peered into it. The captain lay on the metal floorboard, encrusted with vomit. His eyes were blank and he opened and closed his mouth like a carp suddenly pulled from a pool.

The teen pulled his goggles down around his neck, went to the captain, and felt for a pulse. He pulled back the captain’s eyelids, looked into his eyes, and then turned to the doctor and said, “This man’s been poisoned.”

“You—” Tessa looked
between the man named Knock-Out, the teen, and the little boy, who stared at her behind goggles, hand on his pistol. “You ain’t a boy.”

The woman straightened and pulled off her goggles and the cloth wrap from her head. Her long hair spilled around her shoulders in a mess, tangled and dirty from weeks on the road.

“I never said I was.” She held out her hand to Tessa as if they stood in an office building or medical park. Tessa looked at the outstretched hand, trying to figure out what the woman wanted. Finally, she took it and shook. It was firm and paper dry.

“I’m Dr. Lucy Ingersol. How long has he been like this?”

“A month. Maybe a little longer.”

“He seems to have ingested large amounts of an anticoagulant. I can’t be completely sure, though. This isn’t my specialty.”

The big man rolled his eyes. “Luce, you’re always saying that. There aren’t any specialties anymore. There’s just survival. Anyhoo, you’re the only medical game in town.” He looked at the captain, shook his head, and said to Tessa, “Go get Wallis.”

After Tessa retrieved the lieutenant, Wallis entered the Bradley, looked from the captain to Knock-Out to the woman, and paused only slightly when he realized the depth of his misunderstanding. Tessa noticed his jaw clench and release, clench and release. But he recovered quickly.

Knock-Out grinned when Wallis offered his hand to Lucy and said, “I see things are not as I thought. And you must be Dr.—”

“Lucy Ingersol. We didn’t mean to trick you.”

“Nevertheless, you didn’t correct my assumption.”

“We’ve been on the road for two months and have traveled, in that time, about a hundred miles. Between the revenants and our fellow man scrabbling for food or gas—” She pursed her lips and gave her head a little shake. “You can’t trust people, even now, when we should be helping one another.”

Wallis nodded. “I understand. Thank you for helping us. We won’t betray that trust.”

Lucy nodded at his words, but her body, to Tessa’s eyes, lost none of its wariness.

“Do you have any idea what’s wrong with the captain?” Wallis asked.

Lucy nodded. The boy stepped forward and stood by the woman, his hand still on his pistol. He didn’t remove his goggles.

“Your captain’s been poisoned. By what, I’m not sure, but I think it’s an anticoagulant. I can’t tell if it’s ingested or environmental.” She bent and lifted his eyelids, showing eyes unfocused and red. His mouth still opened and closed. “Has anyone else shown similar symptoms?”

“No,” Wallis said, glancing at Tessa for confirmation. “None have been reported.”

Lucy rubbed her chin and stared hard at the captain.

“Look at his gums. They’re bloody. He’s had a nosebleed. He’s starting to ooze blood from every pore. I didn’t check, but I imagine he’s bleeding rectally.”

“Can you help him?”

“Maybe. If this
is
what I suspect, a large dose of vitamin K, regularly, will repair things. But I need to observe him for some time to see how the poison is getting into his system. And if we can find vitamin K in a pharmacy or hospital . . . I’m sorry, but honestly, I don’t know if that particular vitamin loses potency—”