Dark Coup (36 page)

“No, honey,” Travis chuckled, “J.B. is a Quarter Horse.  When he’s grown up he’ll be a little bigger than his mother, most likely.”

“When is he going to be big enough to ride,” Jessie asked.  It was something she asked at least once a day when they visited the ranch.

Instead of giving the same pat answer he’d been using for the last several weeks, Travis told Jessie the truth.  “Jessie,” he said, getting her full attention, “J.B. probably won’t be old enough to ride until he’s three.”

Jessie’s jaw dropped and her face fell.  “Oh,” she said with a little sigh.  Then she stood up straight and squared her shoulders.

“Okay,” she said with a nod, “I can wait.”

Travis was impressed with her reaction and made a quick decision.

“I tell you what,” Travis said with a glance towards Dan and Marissa.  “If it’s okay with your parents, if you keep coming to the ranch and helping out with J.B., I’ll teach you to ride so you’ll be ready when your horse is old enough.  Deal?”

Jessie’s eyes got big and she turned to her parents.  “Please,” she said, “pleasepleaseplease?  I’ll help take care of him every day, and anything else they need me to do.  
Please
?”

Marissa and Dan both had small smiles when Marissa said, “We need to talk it over with Mr. Travis.  Now go play with Bekah.”

Jessie nodded and ran off, and Dan and Marissa turned to Travis.

“I mean it,” Travis said.  “Both about you having to agree and me teaching her to ride.  I know a lot of girls go through a phase where they’re horse crazy, but I really don’t think that’s the case with Jessie.  First of all, she’s still a bit too young for that and, well, she really does seem to have a way with the horses.  I think she’s got a future there.”

Marissa shook her head.  “If you’d told me two years ago that my oldest daughter had a potential career in hunting and marksmanship,” she said, “and that Jessie had a future in horses, I’d have laughed in your face.”

“I have a question about something you said, though,” Dan said.  “You referred to J.B. as ‘her’ horse.”

Travis smiled.  “That I did,” he said.  “I think he’s been her horse all along.  If it keeps her interest, and again if it’s okay with you, J.B. will be her horse when she’s old enough.”

“That’s,” Marissa started.  “That’s incredibly generous of you.”

Travis shrugged.  “Maybe,” he said, “but I’d much rather he go to someone that’ll truly appreciate him than sell him as part of a team.  That, and I guess I consider it an investment.  In the long run we’re going to need more people like her.”

…

Shortly after 2:00, the festival got a little bit of a scare.  The inbound Black Hawk had radioed ahead and gotten clearance to land, but almost nobody at the festival knew it was on the way.  Once it landed just outside of town and let off its passengers, an announcement was made to calm any fears that they were under attack.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to be able to get up here,” Mallory said to Sanford.  “Something about there being too much to do getting things pulled back together.”

Sanford just shrugged.  “These guys,” Sanford said with a nod towards Hodges and Tuttle, “weren’t going to let me hear the end of it if we didn’t at least try.”

“Well, let me introduce you to a few folks,” Mallory said, “and then you’re free to just…relax.”

Sanford stepped up beside Mallory as they began walking and asked under his breath, “Is Sparky around?”

Mallory smiled.  “He should be,” she said.  “He was actually still working on something until about a half-an-hour ago, when I had to all but order him to take a break.”

Sanford caught himself before he looked over his shoulder at Tuttle.  “I know what you mean,” he said.  “We would have been here a little earlier but Tuttle had her head buried in a couple of laptops.”

“And speak of the devil,” Ben said from Sanford’s other side.

“Sergeant Lake,” Mallory hollered to get Sparky’s attention, and he obediently trotted over to the group.

“Ma’am,” Sparky said, once he was close enough to salute, but didn’t because they were outside.  Old habits die hard.

“I believe you have at least heard mention of Major Sanford and Lieutenant Hodges,” Mallory said.

“Actually,” Sanford said, “at the risk of starting down the same path as Colonel Olsen, I’ve taken the liberty of promoting Hodges to Captain.  It was far past time.”

Mallory looked again and felt a little color rise on her cheeks.  She hadn’t noticed the double bars on his collar.

“Please don’t worry about it,” Hodges said.  “I’m still not used to it myself.”  To his credit, however, he kept from fingering the new pins like he’d been doing the entire way down in the helicopter.

Mallory nodded and continued.  “And of course you already know Sergeant Tuttle,” she said.

Sparky struggled to keep a straight face.  He’d had no idea that Tuttle was going to be coming and was equally unprepared for the fact that she was…
gorgeous
!

“Man, and I really hoped I might have a shot,”
Sparky thought. 
“Oh well.  But DAMN!” 
He’d always been partial to redheads and she was… 
“I’m not looking, I am
so
not looking.  Eyes up soldier!”

Sparky held his hand out for the three, Tuttle being the last.

“Might as well just go back to the base and work on the radios,”
Sparky mused.  He wasn’t so much depressed now as…disheartened.

“We’ve been working together on the civilian radios,” Sparky said with a nod towards Tuttle.  “We’ve been fine tuning the software, and Sergeant Tuttle has a couple of ideas on how we can make them even more user-friendly.”

…

“He’s
cute
,”
Tuttle thought to herself. 
“Thank goodness.”
  She’d been afraid that he would be what she envisioned as the typical computer nerd–glasses, shy, unwilling to make eye contact. 
“I think he’s checking me out,”
she thought with a small smile.

Little did she know he’d had laser eye surgery done about five years ago, otherwise he
would
have been wearing coke-bottle bottom glasses in the standard-issue Buddy Holly frames.  What armies the world over referred to as “birth-control goggles”.

“Sergeant Lake,” Sanford started.

“Please, call me Sparky,” he said.  “Only the Major calls me Sergeant Lake and usually only when I’m in trouble.  My mother doesn’t even…hadn’t called me Evan for a couple of years before the power went out.”

“Sparky then,” Sanford continued.  “I’m sure you and Sergeant Tuttle can talk shop, or not, for a couple of hours.

“Absolutely,” Sparky said. 
“Please don’t screw up,”
Sparky prayed,
“please.”

…

“Have you had lunch yet,” Sparky asked as he and Tuttle headed off, away from the Officers.

“A little before we left, but,” Tuttle blushed, “I hate flying, always have.”

“Well, if you’re up to it now,” Sparky said, “there’re a couple of folks that still have food at their stand.  Barbecue, fresh coleslaw, deviled eggs.”

“I love living in the South,” Tuttle said with a smile.  “Although, I’ll have to hit the gym to work it all off.”

“What are you talking about,” Sparky asked.  “You look great.”

Sparky felt the heat rising on cheeks and the back of his neck as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

“Fifteen seconds,”
he thought. 
“I didn’t make it fifteen seconds before I blew it.”
  He was surprised by Tuttle’s response.

“Thank you,” she said.  “You haven’t let yourself go, either.”

…

“I am so bad at this,”
Tuttle thought. 
“He probably thinks I’m the biggest dork now.”

“She’s just being nice,”
Sparky thought. 
“Nothing else to do while
They Who Must Be Obeyed
are busy.”

…

“I can’t believe the Colonel, or his handlers, thought their whole deception would work,” Sanford said.  “Obviously ARCLiTE wasn’t the miserable failure they claimed it was just to advance their agenda.”

Mallory nodded.  “For us,” she said, “the orders were validation for what we’d literally been doing since the second day.”  She looked at Ben for confirmation.

“Things didn’t go quite as smoothly up at Campbell right away,” Ben said, “but it wasn’t ever an utter failure there, either.  Hindsight is twenty-twenty, though.  Now that we know what they were up to, it’s easy to see how it was all about disinformation and, ultimately, pulling the strings in secret.”

“Not everyone is happy about Denver,” Sanford said.  “They’re definitely the minority, and in the long run I don’t think they’ll be a problem, but, well the Northeast is a good example.  It isn’t just the military that bought the story hook, line, and sinker.  The civilians are being willingly subjugated.”

“You can’t free someone who doesn’t see their own chains,” Ben said.

“As long as they keep to themselves,” Mallory said, “and don’t try to break the security around Denver, I really think they’ll burn themselves out in a couple of years; especially without any direction or reinforcements.”

“We’ve certainly got enough on our plates for the time being as it is,” Sanford said.

…

“As long as you’re still sure,” Dan said.

“Why wouldn’t I be,” Ty asked.  “This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision for either of us.”

“What isn’t,” Joel asked as he walked by, “a spur-of-the-moment decision, that is?”

“Go ahead,” Ty said to Dan.

“Ty and I are going into practice together,” Dan said.  “Ty’s going to stay with the military for the time being, and he’s going to have his hands full trying to turn me into a doctor but, we’re going to give it a shot.”

Joel was grinning from ear to ear.  This is what he’d originally hoped for when Dan had first showed up.

“That is great news,” Joel said, shaking both men’s hands.  “How’s Marissa taking the decision?”

“Well,” Dan said, “it was
our
decision, Marissa’s and mine.  She’s good with it and thinks Ty and I can make a difference, setting up a regular practice and having both of us available…once I get up to speed.”

…

“So I’ve opened the satellite back up to everyone,” Sanford said, “except for Denver.  They’re permanently locked out.  I didn’t even know we had the ability to segregate communications like they’d been doing, although it makes sense that we could.”

“With the handlers locked out,” Mallory asked, “how is everyone taking the truth?”

Sanford shrugged.  “About like we figured,” he said.  “There’ve been some midnight disappearances of senior officers once things started getting out and communication was restored for everybody.  The change in command at a couple of
large
units was…violent to say the least.”

“Everyone that was in a position of ultimate authority was in on it,” Mallory said, “in one way or another.  How do we trust any of them now?”

“With only a few notable exceptions,” Hodges said, “they aren’t in charge anymore.  They’re the ones making themselves scarce in the middle of the night before someone else takes care of them permanently.”

“It’s left a bit of a leadership vacuum in a few places,” Sanford said, “but for the most part people are dealing with it.  They’re picking themselves up by the bootstraps and moving on.”

…

“Dan helped with Aurora’s delivery,” Rachael said to Ty and Dan.  “How about you, Ty?  How many babies have you delivered?”

“I’ve delivered a few,” Ty said.  “No Caesarian’s, though.”

“And to be fair,” Dan said, “I was there for Aurora’s birth more for moral support.  The midwife did most of the work.”

“We aren’t trying to run you off,” Ty said, “just trying to paint an honest picture.  Either way, I think you’d be in good hands, but I’m not going to dismiss the midwives either.”

“Well, I need to know for sure if I’m even pregnant,” Sheri said.

“Oh honey,” Rachael said and shook her head a little.  “What you need to do is come to grips with the fact that you are, although I think either Ty or Dan could confirm it for you fairly quickly.”

…

“Thank you again for coming,” Mallory said to Eric as the festival was winding down and people were starting to head home.

“We’re all still in this together,” Eric said.  “Have you talked to Kyle?”

Mallory nodded.  “I think we’ve buried the hatchet,” she said.

“I’m glad,” Eric said.  “And I know he’d never ask for it, but when the time comes, I know he’d appreciate your blessing.”

“For,” Mallory asked.

“He and Amanda are engaged,” Eric said.

…

After dinner, Joel got on the PA system and made a few announcements.

“The festival is almost over,” Joel said after a couple of minutes recapping some of the decisions made during the day, “and we still don’t have a name for it.  The plan is to do this every year, but we can’t just call it ‘the festival’.”

Someone from the crowd shouted something that Joel couldn’t hear, so he asked them to repeat themselves.

“The Phoenix Festival,” they shouted again.

Joel’s immediate thought was of the city in Arizona, although he was sure that wasn’t what they had meant.  It only took a second for him to make the right connection and look at the members of the committee that had set up the festival in the first place.

“Phoenix,” Joel said with the beginnings of a smile.  “Rebirth, rising from the ashes, renewal, recommitment, triumph …”

Joel paused to let the crowd consider the idea before continuing.

 “Unless we have any other suggestions,” Joel started, but was interrupted.

Chants of “Phoenix, Phoenix, Phoenix” from the crowd made it obvious that at least for now, people liked the suggestion.

“Then I declare today,” Joel said, “September 28, 2013, to be the first annual Phoenix Festival.”

Cheers erupted from the crowd again and Joel stepped down from the small stage that had been constructed at the end of the town center.

“Why didn’t we think of that,” Marissa asked to nobody in particular when Joel was back on the ground.